Battle Station by B. V. Larson Read Free Book Online Page B

or cheating.
    “I speak the truth,” I said. “I’ve investigated primitive cultures such as yours before. You have much to learn from me. I offer you a helping hand—in the spirit of friendship.”
    “Insults!” came the response. “It is as we suspected. Insults often follow errors.”
    “I’ll prove my point,” I said. “Your investigator failed because he did not alter the programming script of his ship. He allowed it to continue picking up new pilots to test against him. This function can be turned off.” I continued, explaining how to stop a Nano ship from picking up new pilots and killing people whenever it felt like it. I didn’t stop there, however. I lectured them on the niceties of the nanite injections, which would allow the pilots to pick up passengers without chaining them to walls. I even explained how individuals could be picked up and dumped at low altitude, harmlessly. That would mark them as failures and trick the ships into ignoring them. Lastly, I told them how to script visual systems into the ship’s walls so they could perceive their environment using the ships sensors.
    There was a pause when I was finished. Marvin squirmed his metal body closer to the forward wall. He rasped on the hull, making a grating sound that set my teeth on edge. He studied the display of metallic beads with a number of cameras. “I believe they are decelerating, Colonel Riggs,” he said.
    I smiled and nodded. “They know another professor when they hear one.”
    What came next was a barrage of questions. I fielded them all, and told them everything I could—with certain reservations. I didn’t reveal our numbers, or our strength. I didn’t tell them about the minefield that lay beyond the ring, either. I simply indicated we had nothing to fear from their paltry three hundred-odd ships. My arrogance was complete, and before they were within laser range, they’d come to a complete halt. Their fleet faced my single ship, and we sat there in space, eyeing one another suspiciously.
    “Colonel Riggs,” Marvin said, interrupting me during one of my lengthy speeches. This one was on the topic of defeating Macros with ground forces.
    I paused the transmission and turned to him. “What is it, Marvin?”
    “I’ve calculated a significant probability these biotics are simply learning all they can from you before executing their original plan.”
    I nodded. “I’ve thought of that, too. But I’m hoping to instill enough doubt in them to keep them on their side of the ring. If we know so much, and are willing to give it up freely, we might be worthy of their fear. No matter how self-confident they are, they know I waltzed in here and took out one of their people without a problem. I’ve fed them a lot of information, which should impress them despite their natural arrogance. If they are academics, as I feel they are, there really isn’t any way to impress them other than to demonstrate you are smarter than they are. They’ll still hate me, but they may also respect me.”
    After another hour of mostly one-way lecturing, they had had enough at last.
    “We feel it is now our duty to respond in kind,” they said while I was taking a break. My throat was dry. “There are a number of misstatements in your statements, which we have carefully cataloged.”
    Prissy in the extreme, they proceeded to go over statements I’d made that were in any slight fashion contradictory, or unclear in meaning. I listened, murmured appreciative responses now and then, and never became annoyed. Again, this was part of the academic process I was thoroughly familiar with. Faced with superior knowledge, many nerds turned to nit-picking to save face. This was an important shift in demeanor, however. They’d moved from the role of fellow professors to worst-case students.
    I let them have their fun. I acknowledged every tiny flaw in wording and other inconsistencies they’d found, and thanked them for the input. I felt in them a