The sun sank towards the horizon as Nika stood beside Alyona in Vera’s control car, a telescope to her eye, watching a distant light tower. They were on their way to an underground reservoir on Cape Zyender so Yeger and Klara could go collect some extract ingredients. The Alchemist had taken stock of their extract supply and come up with a list of ingredients they’d need to make enough extracts for them to have a chance of surviving the coming assault. Trubnikov had ordered they fly close enough to the light towers so Alyona could train Nika on how to read the messages.

  It would have been nice if they at least asked her how much she knew first…

  “Light towers have a thirty-five symbol system,” Alyona said, somehow also saying that she had no time to teach dumb Sentinels the fine art light tower systems. “They have all twenty-six letters and nine numbers. They don’t have a symbol for nine, you have to write that as a word.

  “The reason they only have thirty-five symbols is of their grid of nine lights, the red centre light is always visible—unless entering a space in the message—serving as a reference point for the eight white lights surrounding it. At most, two white lights are lit at a time. Simple reason, operators only have two hands. Any more lights would slow communication down by an order of magnitude…”

  Nika nodded absently. The system had flaws. Another row of lights all around would mean they could add common words and speed up communication yet again. She’d broached the idea to her cousin, but he explained the cost of running nine gaslamps was already prohibitive enough. Running twenty-five would be insane. Plus, each operator would need far more training and practice.

  The way Nika figured it, if she could memorise dozens of combat manoeuvres against anything from a dragon to a kregnova and no less than a hundred katas, than light tower operators could memorise a few patterns.

  “… And that’s why they can hire the Service Guild.”

  “Hmm?” Nika glanced at Alyona in time to see the older woman’s mouth sink into a scowl.

  “The messages are in code,” Alyona snapped. “That’s why Alchemists are happy to have people outside their Guild run the towers.”

  “Right.”

  Alyona walked to the table at the rear of the control car and rummaged through the papers scattered over it. She found the sheet she was after and also grabbed a case from a shelf below the bench. “Come over here.”

  Nika wandered to the table as Alyona popped the clips for the case and opened it, revealing a strange brass device with a sheet of paper protruding from the top of it. On the angled front was a three-by-three grid, like the grid of a light tower. Alyona handed over the sheet she’d taken from the table. Three by three grids covered it. A letter under each grid identified the patterns.

  You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

  “I want you to take this and copy a new sheet of the patterns,” Alyona said. “Copying them will help you remember each, and you’ll have your own sheet. For now, though, we’ll get you started on reading the towers. This”—she pointed to the brass device—“is a code reader. It’s based on a new machine they’re constructing in Machtvoll called a… typewriter, I think. Captain had a contact modify one to type light tower codes so we don’t have to have the mild dose of permanently triggered reflex and speed to handle the rate of incoming messages. This thing will let you focus on the lights and punch the code out with your free hand so you can finish the message later.”

  “That’s a superb idea,” Nika said, impressed.

  “Of course it is. Now, there’s your tower, I can see a message incoming down the line. Get to it.”

  Nika lifted the telescope and trained it on the tower, holding it steady with her left hand. With her right, she placed her fingers on the nine keys. The centre key had a raised bump on it, giving an excellent reference.

  The message hit the tower she was focused on and the eight white lights flashed, displaying a new pattern several times a second. As fast as she could, Nika punched the keys, copying the pattern. She squinted, her vision blurring as she focused hard on the flashing lights, scared to blink lest she miss a pattern.

  The codewriter clacked and clanked with every pattern Nika entered. A bead of sweat trickled down her forehead as she continued slamming the keys, racing to keep up with the patterns. Curses those operators were fast.

  After a few minutes the message ended and Nika lowered the telescope, blowing out a long breath. She caught Alyona staring at her, an amused glimmer in her eyes.

  Nika scowled at her then snatched the paper from the machine, grabbed a pen from the table and without glancing at the sheet of patterns Alyona gave her, lettered the entire message in under a minute. She straightened and handed the message to Alyona, who took it, head cocked and lips pursed.

  Alyona studied the code and her eyebrows crept up her forehead. “You’re already familiar with light towers?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why didn’t you say something!”

  “Why didn’t you ask what I knew?”

  “I assumed you’d speak up,” Alyona said.

  “That always goes so well when the person talking is treating you like an uneducated halfwit.”

  “Bah.” Alyona waved the argument to a close. “It doesn’t matter now. What else do you know about light towers?”

  “I don’t know the actual code they use. However, the first seven patterns of each message is the tower code.”

  Alyona chuckled, the hard edge to her expression softening. “That messed me up for weeks when trying to learn to decode the messages.”

  “I can well imagine. Did you decipher the code yourself?”

  “Oh goodness no. Captain… acquired… the key to the code. Of course, he didn’t get anything to do with each tower’s identification code.”

  “Well,” Nika said, “show me the key?”

  Alyona nodded and slid onto the bench, leaving space for Nika beside her. Nika sat as Alyona began explaining the key.

  Five minutes later, they had the message decoded and Nika stared at it, unease stirring in her chest. She looked up at Alyona, who met her gaze, her jaw tight and lips pressed in a thin line.

  “We need to get this to Trubnikov. Now,” Nika said.