"Be careful what you say, then, please. But you can answer her if you'd like - you'll have an easier time staying, afterward, if she knows at least a little of what's going on."

(Shreya has already made herself scarce.)

Veda's projection appears in the cockpit. Its ouline is shaky, even with the ion cloud disrupted the signal fidelity out here isn't great.

Squiggle squiggle.

Devika starts twitching her fingers, as though tapping away at an invisible keyboard.

She says to Veda: "We lost most of our non-biological systems in that blast. It's just lucky the proximity sensors and comms still work."

Scribble squiggle scribble.

"Right. Course deviation. I deployed a flash plate to try to avoid the worst of the ion damage."

She finishes with the invisible keyboard.

Incredulous scribble.

"Before that? Oh, no, just had an unexpected rebound and lost my bearings for a bit. I guess this past orbital cycle has really taken a lot out of me?"

She now starts swiping her fingers back and forth in a new way. As though painting in the air in front of of her. Or, rather, scribbling.

Veda goes quiet.

(That is to say, she stops transmitting meaning-scribbles and watches Devika intently.)

"Right, that's just it. I don't know if my SLAYER can make it to the rendezvous in present condition..."

Devika keeps air-scribbling.

"So we might end up needing a tow. Has your DEUS got reaction-mass to spare for that, or will we need to call in a support unit?"

Veda responds with a series of scribbles much too fancy to just be a Yes or No response to Devika's query.

"Okay. Well. I'll look for someplace safe to wait this out, then."

She takes a few more theatrical swipes at the space between herself and Veda's hologram, then returns her hands to her sides.

Veda nods, and then cuts the transmission.

Deskyl nods approvingly. (DZ helps Shreya back out.)

"What happened?"

"Too far away to rely on a tightbeam signal, had to assume transmission would be intercepted. Given our enemy's subversion of the colonial military, had to assume they could hear every word I said."

"Veda Kaur was part of a military research project called Oswan. The project integrated cybernetic enhancements into linguistically diminished humans, allowing communication between combat units at speeds too fast to accommodate mental processing of words. I don't have the Oswan neural architecture myself, so I'm not anyway near as fast as her, but after a decacycle with Veda I can speak it comprehensibly if I'm very careful with my movements."

"Project Oswan has only had five successful candidates so far, of whom Veda is the oldest. That means only about a dozen people in the entire debris disk can speak the wordless language with even my diminished level of fluency. Ergo, could assume that even if enemy viewed transmission data of me signing to Veda in Oswan, they would not have anyone on hand to translate."

"That's so cool."

Yeah, it is.

    "And it seemed like she took it well," DZ contributes.

"Yeah she did. I think we've got the ECAS for this one."

"ECAS?"

Devika's eyes twinkle.

"Expectation of Close Artillery Support."

Nice.

    "Deskyl would like to know what her ship is like."

"The DEUS you mean? It's a big armored brick with about the same internal volume as a SLAYER. No organic parts, minimal mobility. It can anchor itself to dysofrags--or to SLAYERs--to acquire a stable firing platform."

"Its primary weapon is a railgun, with a barrel about as long as this SLAYER is tall. It also has a limited payload of explosive ordinance. For point defense, it can divert power from  the railgun to an internal laser whose output can be redirected to pretty much any external angle by mirrored apertures."

What a cute nerd.

    "Deskyl should be able to stabilize her, too, if need be, and shield her, if she stays close."