Young Miles - Lois McMaster Bujold [72]
"What would you give to be out there, Shorty?"
Miles hadn't realized his anguish was so transparent. He did not even bother to be offended by the nickname. "About fifteen centimeters of height, Captain Auson," he replied, wistfully frank.
The breath of a genuine laugh escaped the mercenary officer, as if against his will. "Yeah." His mouth twisted in agreement. "Oh, yeah . . ."
Miles watched, fascinated, as the communications officer began pulling in telemetry from the assault group's battle armor. The holovid screen, split to display sixteen individuals' readouts at once, was a confetti-like confusion. He framed a cautious remark, hoping to get more information without revealing his own ignorance.
"Very nice. You can see and hear what each of your men are seeing and hearing." Miles wondered which information bits were the key ones. A trained person could tell at a glance, he was sure. "Where was it built? I've, ah—never seen this particular model."
"Illyrica," said Auson proudly. "The system came with the ship. One of the best you can buy."
"Ah . . . Which one is Commander Bothari?"
"What was her suit number?"
"Six."
"She's at the upper right of the screen. See, there's the suit number, keys for visual, audio, their suit-to-suit battle channels, our ship-to-suit battle channels—we can actually control the servos on any suit right from here."
Both Miles and Bothari studied the display intently. "Wouldn't that be a bit confusing for the individual, to be suddenly overridden?" Miles asked.
"Well, you don't do that too often. It's supposed to be for things like operating the suit medkits, pulling back the injured. . . . To tell the truth, I'm not completely sold on that function. The one time I was on this end and tried to pull out a wounded man, his armor was so damaged by the blast that got him, it barely worked at all. I lost most of the telemetry—found out why, when we mopped up. His head had been blown off. I'd spent twenty frigging minutes walking a corpse back through the air locks."
"How often have you used the system?" Miles asked.
Auson cleared his throat. "Well, twice, actually." Bothari snorted; Miles raised an eyebrow. "We were on that damned blockade duty so long," Auson hastened to explain. "Everybody likes a bit of easy work, sure, but . . . Maybe we were on it too long."
"That was my impression, too," Miles agreed blandly. Auson shifted uncomfortably, and returned his attention to his tactics displays.
They were on the verge of docking. The assault groups were poised, ready. The RG 132 was maneuvering into a parallel bay, lagging behind; the Pelians had cannily instructed the warship to dock first, no doubt planning to pick off the unarmed freighter at their leisure. Miles wished desperately that he'd had some prearranged code by which to warn Mayhew, still manning the freighter alone, what was up. But without scrambled communications channels he risked tipping their hand to the listening Pelians. Hopefully, Thorne's surprise attack would pull whatever troops were waiting away from the RG 132.
The moment's silence seemed to stretch unbearably. Miles finally managed to pick out the medical readouts from the battle armor. Elena's pulse rate was an easy 80 beats a minute. Jesek's, beside her, was running about 110. Miles wondered what his own was. Something astronomical, by the feel of it.
"Does the opposition have anything like this?" asked Miles suddenly, an idea beginning to boil up in his mind. Perhaps he could be more than an impotent observer. . . .
"The Pelians don't. Some of the more advanced ships in our—in the Oseran fleet do. That pocket dreadnought of Captain Tung's,