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.And now I can’t undo what I’ve done.Even if Downing never notices this file is missing, even if I return it first, I still stole it.Stole it to quiet my fears—but at the expense of what little privacy Caine has left.She looked up without seeing the dusk-darkening streets, tried to will away the two tears—one from each eye—that struggled free of her lower eyelids and streaked swiftly down each cheek.Damn me.Damn me.This time, when the taxi’s robot voice announced her arrival, she heard it.“Now at Bethesda Hospital, Maternity Annex.Eleven dollars, please.”Chapter SeventeenOver West Java, EarthSitting beside Darzhee Kut, Yaargraukh peered out rear of the extended cockpit canopy.The waves scudding beneath them were now occasionally distressed by small rocks, diminutive islands.“We are approaching the landing zone.”Darzhee Kut clasped to his seat more tightly.This was a part of his calling that he had never envisioned.“How soon until we arrive?”“Ten minutes,” answered the Arat Kur at the controls.“Assuming—”The pilot abruptly stopped speaking, pulled the spaceplane into a steep left-handed dive.The plume of a rocket—the thick white exhaust clumped and bloated like a kilometer-long length of intestines—shot up and past them, not more than ten meters away from Darzhee’s recoiling antenna.“Counterfire!” Yaargraukh’s order was snarled into his commo clip.Their two Hkh’Rkh escort craft banked, seeking the active sensors the humans had used in acquiring a lock on the spaceplane.An eyeblink later, a dense cluster of down-shooting, white-hot lines streaked dirtside, a ripple of supersonic cracklings trailing a second behind them: rail-launched kinetic-kill cluster warheads, heading planetside at six or seven times the speed of sound.Darzhee Kut looked over at the Hkh’Rkh Advocate.“Do they have a target already?”“No, but the orbital interdiction batteries will have backtracked the missile’s plume.They are simply firing at its point of origin.”Darzhee looked out the window sheepishly, as if someone on the ground would see him and try to fire again.“The humans will not be so foolish as to loiter at the launch point.”“Of course not.I doubt they were ever near it, but rather controlled the launch from a remote location.They probably have their active sensors dispersed, as well.That means we have nothing to shoot at, no efficacious response.So we do something pointless.And we feel better.”Darzhee turned as swiftly as his carapace would allow.Yaargraukh was looking straight at him.Darzhee stole a glance at the rear of the craft.Graagkhruud was deep in a growling exchange with First Voice.“If First Voice heard you—”“Then it would be among the few times he ever did.” Yaargraukh unstrapped, tried to take a step backward, found the afterdeck of the Arat Kur spaceplane too cramped.He was unable to do more than crouch.“I grow weary of this.”“Of what? The constrictions of our craft?”“No, of being brought along as an Advocate that is uniformly ignored.” He turned to Darzhee.“I was a tactical advisor before this.Had I been allowed to remain such, at least my efforts and input would be sought and recognized.And perhaps then we might not have quite so many problems as we do now.”“Why? Are the strategies recommended by Graagkhruud ill-advised?”“They are wrong.The humans do not fight as we do, but nor are they the cowards he believes.He does not understand them and he cannot win against them if he does not.The humans know this.Well, some of them do.”“They do?”“One, Sun Tzu, wrote, ‘if you would be victorious, know thy enemy.’ I can only hope the humans have forgotten their own axiom.But I think not.”Darzhee felt the shuttle pull into another, but more gradual, turn.The pilot announced, “Apologies for my interruption.We are holding here until the landing zone at Soekarno airfield is available.”“There is unexpected traffic?”Yaargraukh placed a finger on his earpiece and grunted.“There is unexpected insurgency.”Darzhee felt the wiggling-snake feeling in his upper digestive tract that was the Arat Kur fear reflex.“What?”Yaargraukh, listening, offered quick updates.“Fifteen, maybe twenty insurgents.Half were killed.Almost all got inside the perimeter.”“But how?”“Delivery of comestibles.Explosive devices were apparently already buried someplace within the defense perimeter.An external attack—a feint—on the opposite side of the compound.Our troops rushed there, so security was reduced at the logistical ingress point.Several of the disguised insurgents managed to slip away from the food trucks.They deployed the final, triggering bombs.Casualties—” He paused and removed the earpiece, looked out the canopy into the clear blue sky overhead.“Casualties are high.”“How high?”“Dozens.Including some of my clan.I knew them.Personally.We shared knives at feast
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