The Blockade

by Jean Johnson

  (Yes,) he agreed. (Let’s get my mother back on the line, inform her of the facts, tell her to take a day or so to decide, tell the Advocates they’ll hear back in roughly a day or so . . . and then we can sleep for a week. And make both of them wait a week, not a day, just for putting me through this mess.)

  She chuckled in his mind, agreeing silently with him.

  CHAPTER 5

  AUGUST 14, 2287 C.E.

  AVRA 7, 9508 V.D.S.

  “You weren’t kidding about sleeping the clock around,” Sharon murmured when Jackie emerged from the lab compartment of the Embassy 14. The other woman checked her wristwatch. “It’s been . . . twenty-three hours and fourteen minutes since you two lay down for your naps.”

  Jackie managed a grunt, still groggy and exhausted. She had slept with Li’eth spooned at her side, on an air mattress that had filled the floor space in the small compartment. The cramped closet wasn’t in use as a lab at the moment, but it had all manner of equipment tucked behind doors on the walls, ceiling, and floor, designed for access in zero gravity. Small, cramped, but blissfully dark and quiet, save for the faint hiss of cycling air.

  Thankfully, Captain Mamani interpreted her version of a reply as something polite and continued with the morning news, following Jackie on her way toward the crew cabin. “Let’s see . . . five messages from the Empress, three from the Tier Advocates—they’re getting a little bit impatient—seven from Captain al-Fulan, twenty-three from the Command Staff, twelve bearing the stamp of various Council members, eight from your Assistant Ambassador, and six from the Premiere himself.”

  “Uh?” Jackie grunted, pausing and straightening her stiff, sore back so she could squint at the other woman. Sleeping without moving for twenty-three hours straight had not been kind to her body.

  “The V’Dan ships that were en route with masses of Terran soldiers while all the froufraw was happening over the V’Dan attitude problem are about to start arriving on various colonyworlds. The Command Staff and the Council have been issuing new orders—some of them contradictory to each other—every few hours,” Sharon told her, not unsympathetically. “When I pointed this out, Premiere Callan said he wants you to look all of them over, figure out which ones will work best, then get back to him. Including the ones from the V’Dan government. Which ration packet will you want for breakfast?”

  “Ugh.” She rubbed at her eyes, trying to knuckle away the sleep sand crusted in the corners.

  “The Hawai’ian por—?”

  “Uh-uh!” The thought of that overseasoned yet tasteless blob made her shudder and find the strength to actually speak. “No. I’d rather eat the peppernoodle hash . . . I’ll take the, uh . . . Thing. Cheesemac. Something.”

  “. . . Right, anything but the Hawai’ian pork, got it.”

  Jackie managed a thumbs-up and started shuffling again toward the crew quarters and the commode therein. It was designed to be accessible while in a gravitied environment, thankfully, even if far too many of the other amenities on board this class of ship were dependent on a lack of gravity to easily access. As she moved, the hatch to the lab hissed open a second time, disgorging an equally zombie-esque Imperial Prince in a now-rumpled uniform.

  “Buh . . . Bright morning,” he managed in greeting, hastily smothering a yawn behind his hand.

  “. . . Make that two packets of anything but the Hawai’ian pork, and two packs of coffee,” Sharon murmured, eyeing him. She headed toward the galley.

  Li’eth made a face but didn’t protest. Out loud, at least. (I think I actually need Terran coffee to wake up, today.)

  (A bathtub’s worth.) A moment later, her brain caught up with what he had said. (Poor baby, you must have it bad. I know how you hate our version.)

  (Don’t take too long in the toilet,) he warned her. (I have a full day’s worth backed up. Also, something small and fuzzy died in my mouth.)

  (You, at least, have a toothbrush in the kit bag you brought,) she reminded him, waking up a little more. (Mine is sixteen or so light-years away.)

  He managed a mental grunt, slumping against the door while she was busy in the small closet-like space. (You can borrow mine. Saints . . . We slept so hard, my whole body is stiff from not moving much . . . but I do remember waking up at some point. A couple of points. Something about a bunch of messages . . . ?)

  (I don’t know. Not clearly; I was out of it, too. Sharon said something just now about the Terran troops getting close to arrival on each appointed colonyworld, and contradictory orders? We have a bunch of messages backed up and waiting to be waded through, at any rate.)

  (. . . I definitely need your coffee v’shakk to deal with all that.)

  She laughed at that, the sound barely audible through the compartment door.

  A short time later, seated at the communications station on the bridge with a mouth scrubbed minty-free of small dead fuzzy things thanks to sharing his toothbrush, Jackie didn’t feel like laughing. The mashup of orders was a mess. In fact, it was more of a headache inducer than a giggle inducer, and a full pack of coffee hadn’t helped her yet to figure out what to do. Elbows braced on the console edge, hands manipulating food pack and spork to shovel overseasoned fiesta eggs into her mouth, she shook her head slowly between bites.

  Li’eth, leaning against the console while he dug into his own packet of shepherd’s pie, shrugged. (It could be worse.)

  (How could it be worse?) she asked, flipping her spork-wielding hand at the screen, with its plethora of opened missives. Many of them indeed contradicted each other, including at least three arguing as to who should be in charge to give orders to her so that they wouldn’t be contradictory anymore. Nearly every message had a different priority, a different “fire” for her to try to put out, many of them not what she’d call a top priority at this moment when viewed from three different angles, even if she could admit that it was a priority when viewed from a fourth. (What could possibly make this mess worse?)

  (They could have actually expected you to carry through on all of them?) Li’eth offered. Sticking his spork in his food pouch, he picked up the thermal pack of coffee and sipped cautiously at the straw. He grimaced in the next second and sucked in cool air. (Saints! That’s still a bit too hot . . . but at least with a burned tongue, I can’t taste it as much anymore . . . On the bright side, that last message from Callan looks like he has decided to dump the mess in your basket and let you figure it out.)

  (That was the bliss of sleeping for a day straight,) she agreed, along with an undercurrent of apology for the excessive heat. (I’m glad I opened the most recent one first. But still . . . Callan’s orders put me in charge as “the only Councilor-General on the front lines” . . . and I’m worried he thinks I am a general. I’m only a colonel!)

  (Didn’t Kurtz order you to assess and assign strategic objectives?) Li’eth asked. He leaned over and swiped his finger over the control pad, awkwardly manipulating the interface. Jackie, reading his subthoughts, took over and found the right message. (. . . Yes, that’s the one. The officers sent with the troops are to determine the tactical methods, and you are to determine the strategic objectives, by liaising with the local governments, planet by planet.)

  She caught on to what he wasn’t saying in the caffeine-stirred undercurrents of his thoughts. (You think I should go to each location, assess and liaise on the spot?)

  (It makes tactical sense, and political sense,) he pointed out. (You’re the Grand Ambassador of the Terrans to V’Dan. You’d be backing up the authority of the Terran troops . . . and if any of the local First Tier officers balk at working with “children,” you can rewrite their brains. With me at your side, you’d palpably have the backing of the Crown. And that of the Tier Advocates. Which we’ll know better how to handle once you have an idea of what you’ll need to do, whether I have to be their advocate, or if I can convince them to be their liaison.)

  (Tha
t . . . is rather brilliant, actually,) she mused, spork poking out from her lips while she poked at the console with her finger, shifting messages around. (And if I combine it with this request here, by making Rosa my de facto representative on the V’Dan homeworld . . . I can fob off most of the administrative stuff on her. Unfortunately, this means zooming from planet to planet as fast as possible because all these ships are bound to arrive all too soon. Some of them within hours of each other, and that means days before I myself can get there. I’ll have to be on the comms as much or more as I am on the ground, and I can’t do that from here.)

  (You don’t think Captain Mamani and her crew are . . . ? Oh, you don’t think this ship is capable of handling those kinds of performance issues,) he corrected himself, following her subthoughts.

  (Unfortunately. But that’s why we built the Embassy 1, to be bigger and more useful, with sections of floor and ceiling and bulkhead that could accommodate V’Dan gravity weaves. If you’ll remember, they were working on getting that stuff fitted before everything got kicked out an airlock by your sister.)

  (Call the Palace and ask them about that,) he urged her. (Commandeer the 14 here and go from planet to planet until your flagship is retrofitted and ready to serve as your mobile command post. Even if this one ship is inadequate, it’s better to be on location to see what the problems are than trying to fix them from hundreds of li-yet away.)

  Jackie admitted silently that his idea did have merit; the Space Force trained its soldiers and its officers to be able to think on their feet. To adapt to the current situation, not the far-distant version of the situation that the Command Staff knew. How could they know? Earth was hundreds of light-years away, and despite the willingness of the V’Dan to share plenty of information about their colonyworlds, there simply had not been enough time to transmit all of that data, let alone absorb and assimilate it. Doing so now required having a mobile command post, one with civilian authority on the spot to back up the military.

  Earth barely had a handful of non-Earth outposts, never mind any real colonies, but even her people could grasp that trying to get the locals to cooperate with a foreign military structure would cause more problems than if they had a solid civilian presence to smooth things over. Militaries, after all, were for fighting. Civilian governments were for all the nonfighting, peace-minded stuff that most civilizations respected and wanted from their neighbors. Particularly as a reassurance that any military force was not going to be fighting them, just fighting for them in exchange for the right to form a civilian settlement on their colonyworld afterward.

  Of course, the trick lay in making her position of civilian and military authority truly mobile, so she could go and assess things in person. Every colonyworld would be different, some by a little, and some by quite a lot. That required being on hand to assess everything from both viewpoints, civilian and military.

  (With Colvers shipped back home to serve his time in prison, we’ll need a backup pilot and gunner for the 1,) she mused, thinking it over. (Nayak was going to arrange to have one come out. But if we’re going to take the flagship out, we’ll need a spare pilot now, not whenever one can be brought out. At least it’s down to a six-day trip for the OTL ships, now that we have the fuel depots set up with V’Dan merchant reserves processing the local ice chunks in each system, using your much bigger ice-capturing systems . . .

  (Actually, I’m still surprised they agreed so readily to do all the grunt work for us. And grateful, since your people have the gravity weaves to live normal lives on board your ships. We still don’t,) she muttered, thinking about the Embassy 14’s needs once it took off from this planet.

  (Building up value in a foreign currency is worth more to spacefaring businesses than to planet-bound ones,) Li’eth told her. (It builds up the potential for future trade contracts in foreign territories. It’s also literally worth quite a lot money-wise to any business. The Alliance waits about twenty-three years—that is, twenty-three in V’Dan terms; it’s only twenty in K’Kattan Standard—to ensure the incoming government and its economic system are stable, before arranging for the newcomer to undergo a full conversion to the Alliance credit-chit system.)

  (I remember the lecture on having to wait, but I can’t remember any doubled value being mentioned,) she replied, opening the dessert packet accompanying her meal, a brownie bar that was almost more fudge-like in its solidity.

  (The margins jump around a bit, but early investors can make a fortune in the long term when the conversion hits, because early investors get double their money—they get a payout value for value from the incoming government, and a payout value for value from their home government,) he explained, opening his own dessert pack, also a brownie bar. (The K’Katta realized that a strong encouragement of early interstellar commerce brings with it a commensurate level of interstellar stability, and thus interstellar peace. They much prefer peace.)

  (Yes, it’s very hard to successfully trade when you’re more likely to be shot at than shopped at,) she joked lightly. The console beeped, drawing her attention. (Looks like we’re getting a signal from the Winter Palace. Li’eth . . . what are we going to do about you?) Jackie asked, instead of answering the signal. (My situation is becoming clear, if we are to not only stay allied, but actively help. Yours, however . . .)

  (Answer the call. Maybe Her Eternity has come up with a solution,) he offered. His subthoughts were a mix of yearning hope and a level of realism that had already braced for possible awkward disappointment.

  Tapping the controls, Jackie opened the commlink. Empress Hana’ka appeared on the screen, once again lying in her red-draped hospital bed. She waited a few seconds, then spoke. “Greetings, Grand High Ambassador. I presume you have a means to record this message?”

  “Of course, Eternity,” Jackie replied. She tapped a few commands and nodded within moments. “This comm call is now being recorded. It will be archived in both Terran and V’Dan programming languages.”

  “Good. I will now speak with Imperial Prince Kah’raman.”

  Guessing this was a formal call, Jackie nodded and slipped out of her seat.

  Li’eth traded places with her. Settling into the seat, he bowed his head. “Greetings, Eternal Empress.”

  “Imperial Prince Kah’raman V’Daania, you are instructed to inform the Tier Advocates that the Eternal Throne will not relinquish your service to the Empire to be their advocate to the Terran Embassy. Inform them that you are to be the joint liaison between the Empire and the Terran Grand High Ambassador, and the liaison between the Tier Advocates and the Terran Grand High Ambassador, so long as that Grand High Ambassador is Ja’ki Maq’en-zi.”

  Li’eth drew in a breath, but before he could ask any questions, his mother added dryly, “This means you will be reporting to both factions for every step you take, and considering carefully all suggestions made to you to help facilitate our alliance with the Terrans.”

  “I understand, Eternity,” he allowed, bowing his head again.

  “Your compliance is more necessary than your understanding, but I will enlighten both you and the Tier Advocates who currently hold jurisdiction over you. The Eternal Throne will not allow one of the Imperial Blood to be used as a pawn by anyone.” Hana’ka paused again, then switched to Terranglo, of all languages. “Particularly one who is a potential heir. Until Imperial Princess Ah’nan can be replaced as Grand High Ambassador to the Terrans and come home to serve us as our Imperial Heir . . . you are our Heir Imperial. We are willing to share the uniqueness of your position, perspective, and expertise, Heir Imperial Prince Kah’raman, with those who advocate for the true needs of the vast majority of the Empire.”

  “Eternity . . . I am not suitable as an Imperial Heir,” Li’eth protested, switching languages as well.

  Her Eternity held up her hand, fingers just barely appearing at the edge of the screen. “We are aware of your long-term unsuitability. It is rare t
o invoke the temporary rank of an Heir Imperial, but such is a necessity until we can formally confirm Imperial Princess Ah’nan in the role of Imperial Heir. This process is estimated to take at least one month, possibly longer . . . and you will be expected to remain her backup.

  “Imperial Princess Vi’alla has been removed from the succession for as long as the Terrans have the potential to be our allies. She retains the rights of a member of the Imperial Blood, and her children shall be included in the pool of future candidates for the Eternal Throne, but her personal place in the succession has been suspended indefinitely.”

  (Wow,) Jackie breathed mentally, blinking. (I honestly didn’t expect her to go that far.)

  Empress Hana’ka switched back to V’Dan before Li’eth could do more than blink twice. “As I was saying, the Empire does not need a divided front when dealing with our new allies. What is needed is the understanding that only a true liaison can bring, someone who can be the diplomatic grease to ease the workings of the cogs and wheels powering the machinery of interstellar cooperation. To that end, we will allow you to liaise between the Tier Advocates and the Terrans . . . with the understanding that you are not to be parted from Ambassador Ja’ki’s company. Not even by Tier Advocate order.”

  “Such an allowance is generous, Empress. Thank you,” Li’eth told her.

  He knew that their people didn’t have quite the same strict rules as the Terrans did about preserving such pairings. Indeed, it couldn’t even be formally acknowledged that they were a holy pairing until the Sh’nai priesthood did so . . . and the priests were still reluctant, as far as he knew. Having the backing of the Eternal Throne in this matter would help preserve the good health of their Gestalt. The other matter . . . Li’eth hoped his secondborn sister would be recalled smoothly and safely from Earth. (I am not suitable to be the true Heir, and I am glad Mother knows it.)

  “Inform the Tier Advocates of your position as liaison. If they object, they may study Imperial Tier Jurisdiction Ruling 5. During an official, Tier-Advocate-authorized war, one which is a threat to all six Tiers, both the War Sovereign and the designated Heir outrank everyone in all situations. Even so, we can afford to be generous in this case. Instruct the Tier Advocates to deliver their confirmation of your appointment as a dual liaison to the Terrans within the day. They may query the Imperial Secretary for the full details in this matter.”