The V'Dan (37 page)

“Apparently, you
did
have another inappropriate observation to make,” Hana’ka stated wryly. “I find it disturbing that these Terrans merely
look
like children. Yet even more disturbing is how those of my highest-ranking officers who are here, and presumably have been listening to everything they have had to say . . . are
not
acting like adults.”

“Eternity, I would—” the purple-striped woman tried to protest. A swiftly raised hand cut off her words.

Hana’ka stared at each of her officers in turn, ending with her son. Very few of them—Li’eth included—met her gaze steadily. “You are soldiers of the Empire, sworn to defend our people and our planets to your very last breaths. I should not need to remind you of these things, but it seems I must. At
any
moment, the Salik fleet could come
here
. They have the exact same ships, weapons, and capabilities that we have, with the added advantage that
they
know exactly when and where they plan to strike.

“
We
do not have the Terrans’ interstellar communications capability, which at the very least could alert us of enemy ships headed along a particular path and thus triangulate on their next probable system full of victims. We also do not have their ability to transit light-years in mere seconds,” the Empress added sternly. “So
we
cannot follow them on their vector, leap ahead, and coordinate with the locals to set up swift ambushes along possible flight vectors.

“We can do that with their communication devices, but
only if those devices are already in a system . . . and they won’t be placing the first one outside this system until later today. They are here to offer us these things, yes, but we will not have their loyalty if we do not give them our respect. I trust I am making myself clear in this matter.”

(
Definitely on your side. For the moment,
) Li’eth cautioned his Gestalt partner while the other officers tried not to look too uncomfortable at the dressing-down they were receiving. (
In truth, the Empress is always on the side of the Empire. If you ever pose a hazard to the Empire, she will act accordingly.
)

(
Duly noted, and already understood.
) Out loud, Jackie said, “Thank you for defending our right to be respected, Eternity. And thank you again for your willingness to see us as the adults we already are, in spite of the cultural differences between us. Now, if everyone understands these things, may we please return the subject to something a bit more time-sensitive and useful, such as establishing some field-test demonstrations of Terran starship capability? Everyone has a copy of the first printout, yes? I believe Commander Graves and Lieutenant Colvers were about to suggest looking into that. With your permission, Empress, shall we get to it?”

“Yes. We shall. U’Veh, our farthest moon, has salvage-processing yards for the remnants of starships too badly damaged to be repaired in this system,” Hana’ka stated. “It also is home to an Imperial Fleet gunnery academy, which uses some of those spare parts for target practice. It shouldn’t be any trouble to give your people some chunks to test.”

“Commander?” Jackie said, looking at Robert. He nodded and picked up that subject.

“We’ve brought some spare munitions for just that chance, and some scraps of our own hull plating for testing with your weapons, too, if we can borrow some of your better academy students to test it. Plus cameras and other sensor arrays to start crunching numbers.”

“Crunching . . . ?” an admiral asked.

Li’eth replied even as Jackie dredged up an answer. “It’s an archaic term for computing or calculating. I believe it came from the sound of manual computational devices having their barrels cranked, which is similar to our own version, cranking the numbers.”

“Then I don’t see why it can’t be called cranking,” the general muttered. “No offense is meant, but that word makes more sense to us.”

“None taken. Vocabulary differences are the least of our concerns right now,” Jackie smoothed over.

“Right . . . well, we do want to
crank
the numbers,” Robert allowed, altering his vocabulary slightly. He lifted up the sheet in front of him. “Now, we ran some passive scans of your hulls. The underlying tensile strength of your bulkheads is impressive, but the actual skins are made of more of the same metal. We haven’t seen any signs yet of the actual thermal coefficiency of our
ceristeel
exterior ablation plating . . .”

—

“Negative,
Embassy 11
,” Jackie asserted via the commlink between her location on V’Dan and the system, nine light-years away, where
Embassy 11
had found itself gliding toward a starfight between the local defense fleet and far too many Salik ships. That system contained the world of Hom-Do, or Second Home in the local tongue, the first outsystem world colonized by the Empire. “Do
not
engage. You do
not
have permission to engage. Is that understood,
Embassy 11
?”

(
What . . . ?
)

“Understood, sir. We will follow that order . . . but we don’t have to like it, sir,” the comm tech on board the
11
replied.

(
Dammit, can’t a man use the washing room without . . . !
)

“I don’t like it either, Lieutenant Commander, but your cargo is more important than the impact one tiny ship could have—wait, someone get me a system chart!” Jackie ordered, looking up from the commscreen. The aides around her were mostly civilians, but the abrupt discovery of a Salik attack in the next inhabited system had sent some of those aides running for military personnel. “Where are there other colonies in that system, right now, right at this moment in space-time?”

One of the aides had already turned to her workstation and was punching up the data. “. . . I have it,” she asserted after just handful of seconds. “It’s twelve minutes away, but that’s in V’Dan measurements.”

“We installed converters on our ships. Stream the exact coordinates on the same channel,” Jackie directed. “Give them
physical marks to calibrate—planets, moons, asteroids.
Embassy 11
, I know twelve minutes is a little close, but if you can, short-jump to nearspace of . . . uhh . . .”

A second aide came over with a datapad in his hands. Jackie quickly studied the system schematic while the screen she had been using filled with coordinates and distance measurements, and nodded.

“The planet Chan-Do, it’s marked here as a refueling station, so it’s bound to have ships on hand. Put yourself on a parabolic course around it, aim for the processing station at the gas giant Lyzir-Do. At Chan-Do, broadcast in lightwave V’Dan that Hom-Do is under attack, and at Lyzir, tell them to stand guard against anything headed their way—can one of you officers get me an authorization code?” she asked the trio of uniformed officers who hurried into the room. “Some sort of call sign so my people can tell yours in the ships around Chan-Do that this warning is legitimate?”

There was a solid-steel triangle like Li’eth had originally worn, a brass-square outline, and a silver four-point star outline. The one with the star outline led the way, fixing on Jackie as the center of everyone’s focus. “What’s the situation?”

Jackie swept her hand over the system display. “We were about to drop off the first communications array at Hom-Do.
Embassy 11
is still about seven minutes away in transit, less than half a minute lightspeed lag, when they saw Hom-Do coming under attack less than two minutes ago; our ship is not at liberty to engage, but they can get to Cham-Do in . . .”

“Two minutes thirty-five seconds to jump, sir,” the lieutenant commander on the other end stated, hearing her words. “We’re feeding the coordinates and changing vector now. We might overshoot a little; ten minutes is the shortest the hyperarray can safely transit, but we’ll be within thirty seconds lightspeed lag at the farthest.”

(
Done and on my way,
) Li’eth told her.

(
Washed your hands?
) she teased dryly while the general—she double-checked the knotwork, yes, general—gave the crew of the
Embassy 11
a set of code words to use.

(
Of course. Almost there.
)

The fueling stations of Chan-Do and the processing station at Lyzir-Do had low population numbers but heavy clusters of
ships. That meant they were heavily defended for a low-yield prize. Hom-Do, however, was a borderline M-class world with a temperate-zone-style climate at the equator, rather large ice caps, and a lot of geothermal springs. She and the others in the Terran delegation had learned about it and other V’Dan colonyworlds during their time in quarantine. It had a very bad ratio of ships per capita.

All the Salik had to do was get enough ships past the blockade to land and start doing damage on the planet. Like taking captives. Or rather, food. She and the others had been warned that Salik warriors would fight all the fiercer to take live sentient prey because if enough were taken, then everyone could get a bite before their victims bled to death. Not just the officers.

“. . . And if you take a parabolic toward Treskan-Do and ‘jump’ to it,” the nameless general was saying, “you can warn them as well. They won’t be able to get any ships there in time to help with the battle, unlike Chan-Do, but even if they just send three, that’ll be three more than Hom-Do will have for patrolling its skies and picking up debris while the colonists are unpacking the sweeper ships.”

“Understood. Ambassador, permission to follow the outlined flight plan?” the lieutenant commander on the other end of the screen asked. Beyond the workstation, Li’eth entered the room, a little flushed in the face from hurrying, but only a little.

Jackie looked over the amended drawing on the aide’s tablet and nodded. “Permission granted. Take your time coming back to Hom-Do and park yourselves five light-minutes out. Do
not
approach until the enemy has completely left the system
and
the locals are aware of who you are. At the very least, wait until after the ships from Chan-Do have had time to explain how they got there so fast.”

“Understood. Sirs, one thing,” the lieutenant stated. “This many jumps, no matter how short . . . we’re going to be around 45 percent fuel by the time we get back. We will not be able to continue to the next system without refueling.”

“Li’eth, do you know if the ships with the vaccines have made it to that system yet?” she asked him.

“I . . . don’t think they have. We’ve only just finished distribution in this system,” he told her. “Inoculations
are
being
given to all outbound V’Dan crews. I know that for a fact. But I don’t think we’ve shipped anything to the other colonies for direct distribution just yet. I can check, but it’s better to be cautious than pandemic.”

“You heard the man, Lieutenant Commander. As soon as you have safely deployed the hyperrelay, report back to V’Dan for refueling.”

“Aye, sir . . . and our two minutes are up. We’ll speak with you after we’ve jumped to Lyzir-Do, when we have a long parabolic to get us to the next location.
Embassy 11
out.”

“V’Dan base out,” Jackie agreed. She straightened and nodded at the aide. “Thank you, meioa, for that system chart.”

He smiled. “Thank
you
, meioa. I have cousins living on Hom-Do. They might come to the party late, but the ships at Cham-Do will get there before that fight is over, and they’ll do it a full eight minutes faster than the Salik will expect.” He winced a little, but still smiled. “I don’t know if my cousins will be in any of the areas that are being attacked . . . but I have more hope that they’ll survive.”

“We’ll do what we can, but the fleet’s primary mission is to give
your
people communications abilities,” Jackie told him. “We’re still not yet ready to engage directly in this war if we don’t have to . . . and we don’t have to, just yet. For myself, I’ll wait to hear how the battle goes, then count my successes. But at least we won’t have to wait hours and hours,” she acknowledged.

“A wise outlook, Ambassador,” Li’eth agreed. “It will be a few minutes before they can contact us again, yes? Would you like something to drink while we wait?”

“I’ll try that
caffen
stuff. It’s not very stimulating like
coffee
, but it tastes a lot better,” Jackie admitted. “Actually, if we could blend the caffeine of the Terran version with the gentler taste of the V’Dan, horticulturalists and plantation owners would make millions.”

(Anything
that would make your coffee taste better is a bonus, in my mind,
) Li’eth muttered. (
No offense, my love, but that drink is
disgustingly
bitter. Even if it does wake me up slightly within the first four sips, it’s not worth a fifth.
)

(
Whereas I could have five cups of yours and barely feel an energy buzz. No offense taken, and none given,
) she agreed. (
I think I’ll sink some personal money into hybrid research.
)

(
Oh? Are you wealthy?
) he asked, moving toward the
caffen
dispenser in the nook just off the main communications rooms here in the government wing.

(
Not by as much as you’d think. I could retire for a good ten years, and be able to travel, or retire for fifteen if I were frugal, but I’d eventually have to go back to work either way. A livable wage was mandated by law back at the foundation of the United Planets, and I make good money as a translator, but I only received my highest salary while I was an actual Counselor. That ended when I stepped down. My Ambassador’s salary is a little bit less, but it was explained to me that part of my funding was tied up in the embassy—food, housing, that sort of thing. Like being in the military, only said food and housing are a lot better in quality.
)

(
I cannot imagine you’d get to keep a trio of surfboards mounted on your walls as an officer of the Space Force,
) he admitted.

(
You have a vividly accurate imagination. If I were just an officer again, I’d be on system patrols. I am deeply grateful your people are located far from the region the Grey Ones occupy. No room for a ’board on board,
) she concluded—in Terranglo, so he’d get the pun.