Not the reassurance Kira was looking for. She resolved to look up the specifics once she got access to the net again. “How bad is it overall?” she asked, her voice low.

“Bad,” said Akawe. “We’re losing. They won’t break us tomorrow. And they won’t break us the day after. But at this rate, it’s inevitable. We’re bleeding ships and troops faster than we can replace them. And there’s no real protection against the sort of suicide runs the nightmares seem fond of.” Again the glowing crater appeared on the screen. “That’s not even the worst of it.”

Kira braced herself. “Oh?”

Akawe leaned forward, a strange, hard gleam in his eyes. “Our sister vessel, the Surfeit of Gravitas, blew up the last of the nightmares in this system exactly twenty-five minutes ago. Just before the nightmares got blasted to kingdom come, do you know what those pestilent, dick-skinned aliens did?”

“No.”

“Well I’ll tell you. They sent out a broadcast. And not just any broadcast.” An evil, humorless smile split his face. “Let me play it for you.”

Across the speakers came a hiss of static, and then a voice sounded—a horrible, crackling voice full of sickness and madness—and with a shock, Kira realized it was speaking in English: “… die. You will all die! Flesh for the maw!” And the voice began to laugh before the recording abruptly ended.

“Captain,” Kira said, choosing her words with care, “does the League have some sort of bioengineering program they haven’t told us about?”

Akawe grunted. “Dozens of them. But nothing that could have created creatures like that. You should know; you’re a biologist yourself.”

“At this point,” said Kira, “I’m not sure what I know anymore. Okay, so these … nightmares can use our language. Maybe that’s why the Jellies think we’re responsible for this war. Either way, these things must have been watching us, studying us.”

“Must have, and that makes me real uncomfortable.”

Kira eyed him for a moment, evaluating. “You didn’t come here just to tell me the news, now did you, Captain?”

“No.” Akawe smoothed a wrinkle from his slacks.

“What did Command say?”

He looked down at his hands. “Command … Command is headed up by a woman named Shar Dabo. Rear Admiral Shar Dabo. She’s in charge of Ruslan operations. Good officer, but we don’t always see eye to eye.… I had a talk with her, a long talk, and…”

“And?” Kira said, trying to be patient.

Akawe noticed. His lips twitched, and he continued more briskly, “The admiral agreed with the seriousness of the situation, which is why she forwarded all your intel to Sol in order to get guidance from Earth Central.”

“Earth Central!” Kira hissed and threw up her hands. “That’s going to take, what—”

“About nine days to get a response,” said Akawe. “Assuming the stiffs back home turn out a reply without delay, which would be a miracle. An actual, honest-to-god miracle.” A frown puckered his brow. “It won’t do any good, even if they’re expeditious. Jellies have been jumping into this system every few days for the past month. As soon as the next batch shows up, they’ll jam us again, fuck up our comms from here to Alpha Centauri. Which means we’ll have to wait for a packet ship to get here from Sol before we receive our orders. And that’ll take at least eighteen, nineteen days.”