When the Devil Dances

The young God King had been born on Earth in the heat of battle and since leaving the slaughter of the pens had heard nothing but the stories of defeat at human hands. Not for him the riches of the initial landing when vast stretches of land fell before the onslaught of the Race. Not for him the easy way to pay his edas debts, the crushing weight of the cost of outfitting his oolt. Until that was paid there was no way he could do anything but be a servant to more capable or lucky Kessentai. Thus, his first battle had been like all the others, a blindsided slaughter in these hills, shredded by artillery that they could never reach and he and his fellow Kessentai pecked at by snipers that were impossible to distinguish through the mass of fire. There was no glory, and certainly no loot, to be gained from those pitiful assaults. Not even by picking over their own dead.

He had seen the weakness of the Path, the Path of War that called for berserk assaults no matter what the target, and he knew there must be a better way. It was because of this that he had responded to the messages filtering through the Net. There was a new Way, a new Path, and a new messiah that would lead them beyond these trackless wastes into the promised land of the interior. It was a new Way and it was a hard Way, but he had never expected how hard.

“I… will obey, estanaar,” the scoutmaster said. “I do not understand but I will obey.” He paused and thought back. “The sky-fire… the artillery… fell without warning. Rather our tenaral told us it was coming, but only when it was on top of us. Then Ramsardal fell and when I saw the damage I began weaving; I knew it was the human ‘snipers’ but with the sky… artillery fire the tenaral were unable to find them. I bonded as many of the oolt’os as I could on the way past and moved as quickly out of the fire as I could.”

“Can you read a map?” asked Staraquon.

“I…” The young Kessentai fluffed his crest nervously but finally laid it flat. “I do not know what a map is…”

“Call me ‘Esstu,’ ” Staraquon said calmly. “I gather information about the humans. You will be given a lesson in maps later by the Kessentai of Essthree, but a map is basically a picture of the ground from in the air. I would like to know where the encounter was. Since there was sniper fire, it was from a reconnaissance team, one of the human ‘lurp’ teams, rather than fire directed from their sensors. If there is a reconnaissance team out there, it is probably coming to see what we are doing. We don’t want that; we don’t want the humans seeing what we are doing. Therefore we want to know where the encounter was and when.”

The God King fluffed his crest again and clacked his teeth. “It was last night and it was closer to the human lines. I… knew a way to this area but it passed close to the human lines. It was the only way I knew so I took it. I could show you where it is, but I cannot tell you.”

“All right,” Staraquon said with a flap of his crest. “It would have been good but not necessary.” He turned to Tulo’stenaloor. “I wish to send out more patrols and I want some of my esstu Kessentai included. There are detectors we have been working on that might help us find these pesky lurps.”

“Was there a transmission from the area?” Tulo’stenaloor asked. He admitted that he did not have the expertise in figuring out how to gather information that Staraquon did. But that was why he had recruited him as his ‘esstu.’

“No,” the intelligence officer said. “It would appear that they are using some nontransmissive form of communication. Probably these laser retransmitters that they have scattered around the hills.”

“Is there some way to gather the information from them?” the older Kessentai mused. “Or some way to feed it in?”

“Both,” Staraquon said with a bark of humor. “But shouldn’t we wait on that for when the attack takes place? I want these humans to suspect nothing until then.”

“Agreed,” Tulo’stenaloor said. “Very well, do what you need to, you may even draw on the Kessentai force if you think it can be kept secret. But find this recon team and kill it.”

* * *