Scattered Suns - Kevin J. Anderson [215]
Ignoring her, the military compies began to move about, operating their stations and activating communications signals. She heard them send buzzing messages. Tasia turned to the Listener compy. “EA, what are they sending? Tell me what’s going on!”
The little compy paused to eavesdrop on the message. “They are transmitting directly to the hydrogues.” She paused to consider her own words. “That is most unexpected.”
Soldier compies talking to hydrogues? What the hell? “You’ve got to be kidding me! Using my comm systems? We could never communicate with the drogues before.”
“I don’t think that’s true, Master Tasia. If the new memory files you gave me are accurate, the hydrogues simply never responded before. That does not mean they couldn’t communicate.”
“Then what the hell are they saying?” She held out a desperate, but ridiculous, hope that the Soldier compies might be negotiating some sort of cease-fire, an end to hostilities. “Tell me it’s good news, EA.”
“I’m afraid it is not, Master Tasia.”
One of the other dunsel humans—it sounded like Darby Vinh—shouted over the comm system, “These damned compies have taken over! They’re—” His words cut off with a squawk and a wet-sounding noise.
Ignoring the man’s alarmed transmission, EA continued reporting, “They are using a Klikiss robot language. The message states that our Soldier compies are in the process of taking control of all sixty EDF ships.” EA paused again to listen. “I am afraid to say that two of the human commanders have resisted and are now dead.”
Tasia leaped out of her command chair, bristling. If the turncoat Soldier compies controlled all systems aboard every one of the rammers, she could never fight them. This was bigger, much bigger, than her mission here.
Seeing no other way out, Tasia lunged for the evac pod, her only chance to get away. Two of the stocky Soldier compies immediately moved to block the escape hatch. Three more military-model robots stepped toward her, their footfalls heavy on the deck.
Tasia heard a crackle of static on the comm, another brief scream, another panicked human voice, female this time. Then just a quiet hiss.
EA stared from Tasia to the Soldier compies, seemingly as confused as she.
The evac pod seemed impossibly far away, and Tasia’s shoulders sagged as she realized it would have done her no good anyway. “Shizz, if you bastards can take over my bridge in the middle of a battle, you could just as easily blast the pod out of space.” She froze. The ominous Soldier compies did not come closer.
Outside, the massed warglobes hovered above Qronha 3, but didn’t fire a shot, fearing nothing from the rammers. The hydrogues stayed in position, waiting.
Tasia caught her breath as the enormity of the trap became clear. Damn, the drogues had expected this turnabout! The destruction of the Hansa and Ildiran cloud harvesters, and this carefully planned EDF response, must have been a setup. The hydrogues, through the Soldier compies, now controlled all sixty of the special rammers.
“Lost the battle before I fired a single shot.” She clenched her jaw. The kamikaze ships hadn’t hit even one warglobe.
And why had all those Ildiran battleships simply turned around and departed as soon as the EDF rammers arrived? “Something here really, really smells. Is there a triple cross going on here?”
Another set of strange vessels—angular metallic constructions that looked like poisonous bugs—rose through the clouds of Qronha 3 and joined smaller hydrogue teardrop scout ships, all of which approached the hostage rammers. As the angular craft prepared to dock with Tasia’s ship, the Soldier compies moved to receive their new masters.
Helpless and trapped on her bridge, Tasia wished she had a sidearm, some way to blow off a few compy heads in a last futile, but satisfying, gesture. Given a little luck, she could have destroyed several