John Adams - Federations

“If you do half as well with that program as you have with mine, it’ll work, honey.”

That remark startled Helva and she activated a magnification of his holographic image. But it was the hologram… one could see just the faintest hint of the light source. How could Niall know that he was a holo? Then she remembered the one they had done together at Astrada III when he had had to replay an historical event to prove a point to a skeptical audience. Surely that was his reference.

“I can’t find any indication of how large the population is,” she added, having replayed the entry on Ravel several times.

“Might be they don’t keep an accurate census. Do they even have a space facility?”

“No, but they do have a satellite with a proximity alarm!” she cried in triumph.

“And how far away is the nearest inhabited system that’d hear it, much less act?” Niall wanted to know. “Probably contains no more than the usual silly warning…” And he chanted in the lifeless tones of an automated messager, “…This… Is… An… Interdicted Planet. You… Will Not… Proceed Further.” He abandoned that tone and, in a pious falsetto, added, “Or you’ll get a spanking when the Fleet comes.”

Helva gave him the brief chuckle he would have expected. “Our message will prompt action. No one ignores a B&B ship message.”

“And rightly so,” Niall said, loyally fierce, pounding one fist for emphasis on the desk.

There was no sound attached to that action. She’d have to work on that facet… when she’d managed to preserve the Chloists, or Chloe-ites or Inner Marian Circle Ravellians from the imminent arrival of the Kolnari. She’d have to be sure they knew just how dangerous and bloody-minded the Kolnari were so they’d make themselves as scarce as possible.

Helva was now speeding along the ion trail, its dirty elements all the more pronounced as she reduced the distance separating them. She’d overtake the flotilla within twenty hours. And arrive at Ravel four or five days ahead of them. She’d have to start decelerating once she passed the heliopause, but so would the Kolnari.

“Don’t forget to cloak,” Niall said, rising from his chair. He stretched until she was sure she could hear the sinews popping: which, she reminded herself, is why she hadn’t added more than vocal sound to the holo. Stretching he was allowed, but not the awful noise he’d make popping his knucklebones. “I’d better get some shut-eye before the party begins.”

“Good idea. I’ll work on the hologram while you’re resting and call you for a critique.”

Niall the holo walked across the main compartment and to the aisle and down to Niall’s quarters. Did it never realize that it melded with Niall’s stasis-held body on the bunk?

She’d almost forgotten the cloaking mechanism that bent light and sensory equipment around the ship itself. She’d only used that device once and had held that up to Niall as a really unnecessary piece of technology for a B&B ship to waste credit on. So, it was coming in handy again. B&B ships had no weaponry with which to defend themselves and vanishing provided a much more effective evasion than the tightest, most impervious shielding.

As she judiciously edited the tapes from the Kolnari occupation of Space Station 900, she mulled over the first encounter with the Chloe-ites. At least this time her brawn couldn’t be killed, however unintentional Jennan’s death had been. She also had more tricks in her arsenal than she had had as that raw young brain ship.

She sped along and, well before any sensors the Kolnari might have could track her approach, she went into cloak. Of course, they became spots on her sensors, rather than three-dimensional ships. Still, by the size of the signals as she passed them, she learned a good deal about them. To begin with, there were more than she had anticipated, even taking into consideration all the dirty emissions. None of this lot matched the signatures of any of those that had attacked her friend, Simeon: not that that provided her with any consolation.

The Kolnari fleet was an incredible mixture of yachts, large and small, prizes of other Kolnari attacks—a round dozen of them, stuffed far above the optimum capacity with bodies: some evidently stashed in escape pods as last-resort accommodation. The conditions on board those ships would have been desperate even if the life-support systems managed to cope with such overloading. Three medium-sized freighters, equally jam-packed with little and large Kolnaris. Two destroyer types, quite elderly, but these were loaded with missiles and other armaments. Two of the freighters were hauling drones, five apiece, which cut down on the speed at which the entire convoy could travel. Four drones contained nothing but ammunition, missiles and spare parts: the fifth probably food as she got no metallic signals from it. Nineteen ships. A veritable armada and certainly able to overwhelm the inhabitants of Ravel. Which was undoubtedly why that luckless planet had been picked.

She pulsed an update of her earlier message with these details to the nearest Fleet facility—a good ten days away even by the speed of a pulse. The Admiralty had sworn blind that they intended to wipe Kolnari pirates out of space forever. So here was a chance for an ambitious picket commander to make that clean sweep and get a promotion. A small, modern force could easily overwhelm this shag-bag-rag-bag of barely spaceworthy vehicles. On the other hand, the Kolnari would fight to the last male child able to wield a weapon or fire a missile… and they had rather a few of those. Even Kolnari females were vicious fighters. Reviewing what was known of their lifestyle, it was likely a great many of the women were slaves, captured and forced to breed up more Kolnari offspring.

She sped on, wishing she had more information on the Chloes. Living close to nature on another planet was fine in theory, but practice was another thing altogether. As the original religious group had found out the hard way on Daphnis and Chloe a hundred years ago.

She had completed a holographic account of the less palatable habits of the Kolnari, including the modus operandi of their invasion of the peaceful planet, Bethel. The Tri-D coverage had been found in the space wreckage and used in the trial against those that had been captured at SS900. She was delighted to have found the one that showed vividly how the Kolnari dealt with anyone who defied them. That was the short sharp lesson she needed to project. She edited it, added some voice-over, and then programmed the exterior vid systems to play it.

That ought to cut down the waste of time spent arguing. She wanted every single female resident of Ravel safely hidden away when the Kolnari arrived.

She didn’t rouse Niall—why bother him when he was sleeping like the dead—or rather the holo of him. He had always been hard to wake, though once roused, he altered from sleepy to alert in seconds. She had the time, so she did a leisurely spin-in, quartering the globe from darkside to daylight and identifying congregates of life signs… all too many. She’d never make it to every settlement. How could these piously celibate folk have increased almost fourfold from the numbers of the registered settlers? “Multiply and be fruitful” might be a Biblical injunction but, if the last bunch had come four decades before, there were a great many more than there ought to be. Rabbits might multiply so. But virgin rabbits? Well, she’d get to as many… what had they called themselves—ah, cloisters—as she could. Maybe they had some form of communication between the settlements, widespread as they were on the sprawling main continent. She’d simply have to ignore the island groups and concentrate on the larger, juicier targets that the Kolnari would be likely to attack first.