Zoe's Tale (Old Man's War, #4)(66)

All of this happened in the space of less than two minutes, because the battle happened at incredibly close range. Unlike space battles in entertainment shows, real battles between spaceships take place over huge distances. In this battle, however, all the ships were in orbit around the station. Some of the ships involved were just a few klicks away from each other. That's pretty much the starship equivalent of going after each other with knives.

Or so I'm told. I'm going by what others tell me of the battle, because at the time what I was doing was being dragged out of General Gau's advisor chamber by Hickory and Dickory. The last thing I saw was Gau pinning down Lernin Il while at the same time trying to keep his other advisors from beating the living crap out of him. There was too much noise for my translation device to work anymore, but I suspected that Gau was trying to tell the rest of them that he needed Il alive. What can you say. No one likes a traitor.

I'm also told that the battle outside of the space station would have gone on longer than it did except that shortly after the first salvo of missiles a funny thing happened: An Obin cruiser skipped into existence unsettlingly close to the Conclave space station, setting off a series of proximity alarms to go with the attack alarms already in progress. That was unusual, but what really got everyone's attention was the other ships that appeared about thirty seconds afterward. It took the station a few minutes to identify these.

And at that point everyone who had been fighting each other realized they now had something bigger to worry about.

I didn't know about any of this right away. Hickory and Dickory had dragged me to the conference room some distance away from the advisor chamber and were keeping it secure when the alarms suddenly stopped.

"Well, I finally used that training," I said, to Hickory. I was amped up on leftover adrenaline from the assassination attempt and paced up and down in the room. Hickory said nothing to this and continued to scan the corridor for threats. I sighed and waited until it signaled that it was safe to move.

Ten minutes later, Hickory clicked something to Dickory, who went to the door. Hickory went into the corridor and out of sight. Shortly after that I heard what sounded like Hickory arguing with someone. Hickory returned, followed by six very serious-looking guards and General Gau.

"What happened?" I asked. "Are you okay?"

"What do you have to do with the Consu?" General Gau asked me, ignoring my question.

"The Consu?" I said. "Nothing. I had asked the Obin to try to contact them on my behalf, to see if they could help me save Roanoke. That was a few days ago. I haven't heard from the Obin about it since."

"I think you have an answer," Gau said. "They're here. And they're asking to see you."

"There's a Consu ship here now?" I said.

"Actually, the Consu asking for you is on an Obin ship," Gau said. "Which doesn't make any sense to me at all, but never mind that. There were Consu ships following the Obin ship."

"Ships," I said. "How many?"

"So far?" Gau said. "About six hundred."

"Excuse me?" I said. My adrenaline spiked again.

"There are still more coming in," Gau said. "Please don't take this the wrong way, Zoe, but if you've done something to anger the Consu, I hope they choose to take it out on you, not us."

I turned and looked at Hickory, disbelieving.

"You said you required help," Hickory said.

[page]
  
I entered the storage deck of the other Obin ship.

"So this is the human who has an entire race to do her bidding," said the Consu waiting there for me. It was the only place on the Obin ship where he would fit, I guessed.

I smiled in spite of myself.

"You laugh at me," the Consu said. It spoke perfect English, and in a light, gentle voice, which was weird considering how much it looked like a large and savagely angry insect.

"I'm sorry," I said. "It's just that it's the second time in a day that someone's said that to me."

"Well," the Consu said. It unfolded itself in a way that made me want to run screaming in the other direction, and from somewhere inside its body a creepily humanlike arm and hand beckoned to me. "Come and let me get a look at you."

I took one step forward and then had a very difficult time with the next step.

"You asked for me, human," the Consu said.

I developed a spine and walked over to the Consu. It touched and prodded me with its smaller arms, while its giant slashing arms, the ones the Consu used to decapitate enemies in combat, hovered on either side of me, at just about head level. I managed not to completely lose it.

"Yes, well," the Consu said, and I heard something like disappointment in its voice. "There's nothing particularly special about you, is there? Physically. Is there something special about you mentally?"

"No," I said. "I'm just me."

"We're all just ourselves," the Consu said, and folded itself back into its self, much to my relief. "That is axiomatic. What is it about you that makes hundreds of Obin allow themselves to die to get to me, is what I am asking."

I felt sick again. "You said that hundreds of Obin died to bring you to me?"

"Oh, yes," the Consu said. "Your pets surrounded my ship with their own and tried to board it. The ship killed everyone that tried. They remained persistent and finally I became curious. I allowed one to board the ship and it told me that you had demanded the Obin convince the Consu to help you. I wanted to see for myself what sort of creature could so casually demand this, and could cause the Obin to fulfill it at such a cost to themselves."