The Empire of Glass - Andy Lane [69]
and I have them scattered around the entire solar system - will be destroyed if it isn't expected or recognized."
"Very reassuring," Vicki said quietly. "I presume it recognizes us?"
"I hope so," Braxiatel said, smiling quietly. "I'll be annoyed if it doesn't."
As they grew closer to the satellite, Vicki could make out more of its shape, and the more she saw the more she was reminded of a fish. The satellite was long and sleek, optimized for pursuit in space or in an atmosphere, with a viciously pointed front end and a tail that fanned out into a broad, flat warp blade. Fins along its length held a variety of missiles and gun turrets.
"Nasty," she murmured.
"Very," Braxiatel agreed. "I couldn't use sentry satellites manufactured by any races at the conference or with a vested interest in seeing it disrupted, just in case they had been programmed with other instructions. Trojan horses, if you like. So I went back in time and obtained these from a race known as the Aaev. They were glad to sell the satellites to me - apparently the things had been sitting around for ages and never been used."
"And the Aaev aren't around any longer?" Vicki asked.
"No," Braxiatel replied, and coughed slightly. "I later found out that they were invaded and destroyed shortly after I left. No defences, you see."
Vicki glanced at his face, which was studiously directed towards the controls. "You're very much like the Doctor, you know?" she said.
"I should hope so," Braxiatel said, affronted, "after all, we are -" He suddenly pointed toward the screen. "Ah, here we are - close enough to make out the landing field now."
Vicki gazed towards the crater that Braxiatel was indicating. What initially looked like a collection of large rocks suddenly resolved itself into a group of spacecraft of wildly different design parked haphazardly together in a crater. Some were rectangles, some cubes, some spheres, some tetrahedrons, some just collections of geometric shapes stuck together. All of them bristled with short-range weapons, and none of them looked as if they were designed to enter an atmosphere. Scattered around the perimeter of the crater were a number of small skiffs like the one that Vicki and Braxiatel were travelling in. As Vicki watched, one of the skiffs rose from the ground, sending great clouds of lunar dust puffing out in slow-motion around it.
"Aren't you worried that these ships might be seen from the Earth?" Vicki asked.
"Not particularly," Braxiatel replied. "One of the reasons that I wanted to hold the Armageddon Convention here on Earth at this precise moment in its history was that the human race is on the brink of great scientific discoveries which can be, or will be, perverted to military ends. The telescope is one of them. Galileo will persuade the Doge of its worth by stressing the advantage it will give Venice over its Turkish enemies - any invasion fleet can be seen much further away than before. That gave me a problem of course - anybody with a telescope was a potential threat because the ships on the moon are too far away to be seen by the naked eye. Fortunately there are only a handful of people on Earth with a telescope, and only one of those is interested in what's happening on the moon rather than the Earth."
"Galileo, of course," Vicki exclaimed. "So it was you that broke his lenses!"
Braxiatel nodded. "That's right - or rather, it was one of the Jamarians that work for me. I had to ensure that, for the duration of the conference, he posed no threat either to our security or to the blithe disregard that humans have for the existence of other races."
The edges of the crater had expanded beyond the confines of the viewscreen now, and Vicki could make out markings on the sides