Shadowkill

##

“Look, getting Rohant and the others out, that comes first. Then you can do what you want with Mimishay.”

If I’m a Primal Force, I might as well make it mean something. Ginny, you worm, I won’t let you fool with me. Sar! you want to see primal force, just keep this up.

“You cannot even know that any of them are alive.”

“If they aren’t, then there’s no problem, is there? If you go on with this the way you’ve planned it, you better call off the truce and shove me out a lock, because I’m going to use everything I’ve got to stop you.”

He stared at her a long moment, as if he considered that option, then, abruptly, he gave in. “Very well. How close must you be to control large beasts?”

“It depends on the beast and the circumstances, but say a circle of radius… um… twenty kilometers.”

“Then you can’t work from a synchronous orbit.”

“No. Certainly not.”

Tsipor stood up, came across the bridge with the short-legged sinuous walk that was like no other. “She lies.”

Ginny opened his eyes wider. “Really?”

“Linked to me her range is extended a hundredfold.”

“Well, Singer?”

Shadith scowled at Tsipor. “All right, she’s right, it’s certainly extended, I don’t know how far. Hundredfold? I doubt it. And in any case I don’t intend to try the limits. I mean to be on the ground when I work.”

“Very well.” He recalled the image of Haed Nunn. “Most of the… aah… pirate swarms are in the south, but there are several that make forays into northern waters. Mimishay has set up a rather primitive defense against attacks from these infested flotillas. It is primitive but effective since the ships are wood hulls and the weapons on them pitiful. Mimishay has strung a cable net across the mouth of the bay. There.” A red line leaped across the open section of the circle of water. “It can be charged with enough current to electrolyze the seawater and char any hull that slams against it. It usually is not. However, Mimishay does keep a certain number of sensors alert for intrusion.”

He shifted the POV down the curve of the world until Haed Nunn vanished and a string of rocky islets occupied the center of the cell. “Haedsa… that’s island chain… Chavada. Barren, not much fresh water, a few fishing families. I will take the ship down, land her there.” Yellow light flashing on one of the midsized rocks. “This is a free-trader world, ships come in all the time, many use the Field at Tos Tous, but others land wherever they take a notion. Mimishay notes but ignores them.

“It is my intention to approach Haed Nunn on miniskips and come through the mountains rather than take the easier approach on the bay side. Mimishay has been undisturbed on that Haed for at least two centuries, so the Brothers and the Powers are careless about security; they depend on those kephalos-driven defenses. Because these neither sleep nor lose their edge, they forget that such things have their limits and if focused in one direction will ignore a small, nonthreatening intrusion coming at their backs, as it were. We will need a distraction. If you are able to locate and mind-ride a number of large sea beasts, drive them against the net at the mouth of the bay, that should be sufficient to cover us. Can you do this? Remember, you will be straddling a miniskip while you work.”

“Can you put my emskip on a lead? I can’t boot whales and navigate at the same time.”

“Yes. We can do that.”

“Then you’ve got your distraction.”