The Blockade

by Jean Johnson

  “I will do so, Eternity,” Li’eth pledged, guessing she didn’t want him broadcasting the news of his temporary heirship in a system all too recently under enemy attack.

  “Let the Grand High Ambassador know I look forward to her safe return.” Her image vanished from the screen, replaced by the white, gold, and crimson mark of the Empire.

  Li’eth cleared his throat. “. . . I apologize, Ambassador. As you can see, I didn’t have time to inform her of your—our—plans to go elsewhere, first. I trust you will not be offended by that, mistaking her assumption for an arrogant command?”

  “She didn’t put a time limit on it, so how could it be? I do eventually plan to return to V’Dan with you at my side,” Jackie reminded him. “Eventually.”

  “Of course. And she did state for the record that I was to stay at your side,” he allowed. Taking a moment, he contemplated his mother’s . . . his sovereign’s displeasure at not coming straight home, and stood to inch his way out from behind the console. “Here, have your seat back. You’ll need to send that recording to the Tier Advocates for me—and I do appreciate your willingness to play comm tech for all of this,” he added earnestly. “I’m not taking our interactions for granted.”

  “I know,” she promised, and reinforced it telepathically. (I do know, Li’eth; I could feel you pause and remind yourself not to do so.)

  (As natural as it does feel to communicate with you in so many ways, on so many levels . . . I still keep forgetting you’re more skilled than I am.) He sighed, leaning against her workstation console. (How long will it take for me to catch up in skill? Five, maybe six years?)

  (Half a year, maybe a year at most. Your telepathic skills in dealing with other people will take more than six years, at your current rate of interaction with those who aren’t me,) she replied. (Sonam said you do have all the right instincts when it comes to interfacing telepathically with me; you just lack practice at sorting out your thoughts from mine and reading the subtle variations. Honestly, you are getting better at a remarkable rate. It’s just that each mind is a little bit different from every other mind out there. You’re learning my quirks far faster than anyone else’s, but you’re not interacting with other people’s minds on a daily and near-hourly basis like you are with mine. It’s literally just a matter of practice at this stage.)

  (Well, I can’t exactly practice with anyone else on a regular, hourly basis,) he returned. Reaching up, he plucked at one of her curls. The reddish-black wayward strands had escaped from her braid. He tugged on it for a moment, then attempted to smooth it back into her braid with fingers and mind. (Nor do I want to, to be honest. Master Sonam said most telepaths dislike sharing thoughts. He also said the dislike would grow stronger for a Gestalt pair confronted with a nonpartner’s mind.)

  (He is an expert . . . Are you trying to rebraid my hair?) she asked

  (Yes, without plucking you bald.) He sent her an image of the lock that had partially escaped.

  (Then ride your mental fingers on top of mine while I fix that. Practicing telekinesis is just as important as practicing telepathy, after all.) She hesitated, then sent carefully, (I suspect she spoke in Terranglo about your heir status to keep the Salik from eavesdropping, and not because she expected it to be important to my fellow Terrans. Do you think I should keep it silent from the others?)

  (I think for security reasons, we should tell at least a few. Leftenant Buraq, for one, if al-Fulan will be remaining at the embassy,) he allowed, somewhat distracted by trying to follow the movements of her mind in wielding her psychic gifts.

  (I’d want to tell her at the very least so she can ensure heightened security,) Jackie agreed, before focusing on guiding their shared gifts.

  Rebraiding her hair only took a few more moments. Tidying up the video of his mother’s announcement for the Advocates took several more, since Li’eth wanted to excise some of the more personal bits, and Jackie wanted to include an unedited version marked for the highest-ranked eyes only to peruse. That required dredging up the security protocol programs in the Embassy 14’s computer banks.

  Shortly after they sent off the carefully edited dual packets, the Terrans called. Specifically, Secondaire Jorong Que Pong contacted them. Jackie opened the connection, squaring her shoulders in front of the workstation screens to put herself back into a more formal, civil-servant mind-set.

  “Greetings, Jackie. The Premiere asked me to make this call on his behalf; Hurricane Taxaca is pounding its way across the Yucatán Peninsula as we speak, and that’s taking up all of his attention right now,” Pong stated in Terranglo, giving both names the local pronunciation.

  “That would make him very busy with all the posthurricane-relief preparations, yes,” Jackie agreed, catching on at once.

  “Indeed. It’s good to see you awake,” Pong added. “You missed a bit of excitement as we all scrambled to figure out where you’d gone and what to do with you.”

  “It’s good to be awake, Jorong,” she agreed. “I can state for the record that separating Gestalt partners by several light-years is not a healthy idea. It can be survived, but it isn’t healthy to subject anyone to that much psychic stress.”

  “Duly noted. Have you had a chance to review all the requests and order changes that have been made?” Pong asked, lifting his brows. “I realized they formed a bit of a mess.”

  “I realized that, too, reading them,” she said. “Please thank whoever it was who asked Augustus to tack on that final order to, ‘Come up with a good solution to this mess.’”

  He smiled. “That would be me. I spoke literally because it is a big mess.”

  She chuckled, then shrugged, flipping a hand in wordless acknowledgment. “You’re good at that, Jorong. You were good when you first represented Taiwan. But now to the meat of the matter,” she continued, switching to V’Dan. She knew Secondaire Pong spoke V’Dan as well as Premiere Callan because she had given both men the language transfers herself. “What the Council needs—which is for me to return to V’Dan to continue being Grand High Ambassador in the Empress’ court—is not what the situations out here, plural, actually need.”

  “Oh? How so?” he asked. Then added in Mandarin, “Do we need to switch languages for any of this?”

  She shook her head and replied in V’Dan. “Beyond the information in the classified packet I just sent, no. I reviewed the mess of conflicting orders with His Highness, discussed some of my ideas for a solution, he offered some more of his own, and we have agreed that one of my ideas is the most solid one.”

  “And what did you come up with?” the Secondaire asked, raising his brows.

  “What we have are a bunch of V’Dan transport ships—six, at the moment—crammed with Terran soldiers and Terran supplies, headed toward the six M-class V’Dan colonies. Including this one. Those colonies need more ground troops than the Empire can provide, given they also need troops sent up into space to man a lot more of their ships and space stations, to help fight off Salik boarding parties.”

  “Yes, we’ve already discussed this several times over,” Pong agreed. “And as you know, we’ve authorized the continuation of those transported troops and their missions.”

  “Yes. But while the military is providing officers to manage those troops and who can interface and interact with the local branches of the Imperial Army, none of those troops have any civilian authority . . . and all six insertion sites are going to require telepathic oversight in case any of the local V’Dan authorities object to having a bunch of ‘children’ running around with loaded weapons in their backyards,” Jackie stated, lifting her fingers briefly into view of the commscreen pickups for making the air quotes. “We’ve already seen how damaging that can be to good relations between us.”

  “True,” he allowed. “I’d rather you not have to shut down the embassy again.”

  “We do now have the Empress’ permission to enforce te
lepathic mind-blocks,” Jackie stated. “And enough trained telepaths on staff to help block anyone who willfully protests our unmarked status to the point that it interferes with our autonomy and our objectives as their allies. But most of those are on V’Dan, with only one additional being sent out with each of the six troopships—and those are actually telepathic translators, not necessarily telepaths skilled in mind-block applications. Such a task requires a powerful telepath on hand. Since we have a limited supply of civilians in positions of authority, and a limited supply of telepaths strong enough and trained enough to place mind-blocks . . . and since I qualify on both counts . . . well, I have made the decision to set up a mobile command.”

  The Secondaire quirked a brow but slowly nodded. “I take it you’ll be having McCrary stay on V’Dan to act as Ambassador to the Imperial Court? Rosa offered to take up the Advisor’s post on V’Dan since you’ve lost Amatrine Castrellas, but Callan put his foot down, vetoing that—he said she looked relieved, in their vidcall on it,” Pong added. “I don’t blame her for offering; you still need someone to cushion you from special-interest-group lobbying and the bribery attempts that have been made by various V’Dan interests. But don’t worry, we’re sending a career Advisor to V’Dan. Augustus was thinking one of the two Advisors from Argentina, or possibly the Advisor for the Emirates. We’ll have a decision in the next few days and ship them out as soon as possible.”

  “Argentina’s been quiet on the Advisory front over the last two years, so I can see that, yes,” she agreed. “And I’m not surprised Rosa offered, since it is an important role,” Jackie added, “but these V’Dan don’t understand what it means, and they certainly don’t understand what taking it up would do to her career. I agree wholeheartedly: Keep Rosa pristine so she can become Grand Ambassador to the Alliance at large. Anything else is a waste of her sheer experience. In the meantime, I think Clees should remain at her side as the chief telepath to the world of V’Dan, along with Aixa, to continue to do language transfers, mind-blocks, plus holding classes to continue training the V’Dan psychics, so on and so forth.”

  “Good choice,” Pong said, making a note on his tablet. “You say those two are staying on the V’Dan homeworld. What about the others?”

  “Most of the newest ones are dedicated entirely to making language transfers. Of the ones who came out with the initial embassy forces, I was thinking of taking either Lieutenant Johnston or Lieutenant Wang-Kurakawa with me in my mobile command and leaving the other to Rosa to reassign as she sees fit,” she added. “I figure I’ll only be able to take one of them because I’ll have limited space for extra personnel since His Highness has a couple extra bodies of his own he’ll need to bring with him. Frankly, Jorong, it makes far more sense for me to be mobile at this stage since I have both military and civilian experience, and matching authority.”

  “I hadn’t considered the need for a civilian authority to be on hand for each of the landing sites,” Pong admitted, frowning softly while he mulled it over. He was good at thinking on the fly, and came to a decision fairly quickly. “But . . . it has merit. And a great deal of foresight, invoking both reassurances and absolutes, even if your presence is just part-time.

  “Also, given what I’ve reviewed of each of their files, I’d take Darian Johnston in your position,” Jorong added. “I’ve gone over his personnel file a few times. He has a lot more actual combat training than that junior-grade psi does—if you are going wherever the troops are going, you are going into combat zones. I don’t think Captain al-Fulan is going to be too happy about that, but your ambassadorial purview is an entire, ongoing war zone right now.”

  Jackie nodded, accepting the grim reminder. “His Highness and I are both aware of that, yes. We will be taking steps to try to stay out of the actual combat zones. Of course, war knows no boundaries, so we won’t hold our breath, but for many reasons, we will be taking several extra steps to ensure our safety wherever we go.”

  Li’eth pulsed a query to her. When she responded in the affirmative, he leaned against her, putting his head into view for the pickups. “Greetings, Secondaire Pong.”

  “Your Highness,” he replied when the few seconds of lag ended. “I hope you are doing well, right now?”

  “Reasonably well, now that our Gestalt is no longer parted. I wanted to reassure you from a V’Dan perspective that having the Grand High Ambassador herself visiting each colonyworld should impress upon my people just how seriously you Terrans are taking our difficulties in the war. It will also underscore just how much we need your people’s help and how seriously we must in turn take you.

  “Honorable Assistant Ambassador McCrary visited the various capital worlds, but this will be visiting the majority of the actual worlds undergoing the brunt of the Salik attacks. To aid you in this, the Empress has appointed me her liaison as the War Queen to the Ambassador’s efforts, among other things. I should also have the full backing of each of the Tiers as well, which means a great deal of widespread political clout, as well as official military clout.”

  That was the diplomatic way of saying the Tier Advocates would not likely let him go back fully to his mother’s control even in the face of her rights as the War Sovereign; there was little more to do at this point than resign himself to playing the role of a guanjiball for the foreseeable future.

  Secondaire Pong, ignorant of that development, merely nodded. “Your aid as our liaison will definitely grease the wheels of the various bits of machinery we’re still scrambling to put into place, yes. Do you have an initial list of priorities? Anything requiring our coordinated help?”

  “My plan is to get several authorization papers lined up for various contingencies for each influx of Terran soldiers on each world,” Li’eth continued. “This is actually standard operating procedure for whenever a trusted representative is sent out, to have contingencies preplanned and preauthorized already physically on hand. It’s beyond useful to have access to your hyperrelay technology, but having the actual, tangibly printed contingency orders in hand will be an even greater reassurance.”

  “Anything we can reasonably do to reassure our allies in all of this will be of good use,” Pong agreed. He glanced down at something below the edge of the screen, probably one of the data tablets Li’eth had often seen him using, then nodded after a few moments. “. . . It looks like the Embassy 1 will be retrofitted for gravity within another two days. In the meantime, if everything stays on schedule, the first shipment of soldiers will be arriving on Ton-Bei—sorry, V’Ton-Bei, your current location—in about fourteen Terran hours. That’s roughly thirteen V’Dan Standard,” he allowed, nodding at Li’eth. “After that, the next lot will be arriving on V’Zon A’Gar, followed by the Selkies attempting to take out the Salik colonies on V’Ba-kan-tuu.”

  “You can call it just Ba-kan-tuu if you like, since that’s a Choya place-name. Ba-kan-tuu is a world covered mostly in water,” Li’eth added, adjusting his leaning stance to be a little more comfortable while he spoke with the Secondaire. “It’s been extremely difficult for anyone but the Choya to fight them there. We can hold the few islands well enough, but not the seas, because the enemy has been systematically taking out all support ships and submarines used by the nonamphibious Alliance colonists. You’re the same species as us, and we are not amphibious in the least, let alone aquatic. When we get dumped into the oceans, if we aren’t rescued quickly or have life rafts on hand, we drown. So why fight them there?”

  “Yes, I’m confused as well,” Jackie added, frowning softly. “I thought Ba-kan-tuu was going to be declared nonviable for troop insertions because it would be too difficult for the Selkie teams to transport all the necessary equipment for repairs and replacement. From what I recall of the process, the manufactories for making new suits are too huge, and transporting giant nutrient tanks for the existing ones would be even more impractical.”

  The Secondaire smiled just a little bit, the curve
of his tan face somewhere between shy and smug. “The Dalphskin Project had a major breakthrough in portable manufacturing six months ago. The information got lost in the excitement of the Aloha project. The Selkies—that’s our nickname for the Special Forces Underwater Reconnaissance and Response Specialists,” he explained in an aside for Li’eth, “—have since managed to practice enough in long-term water ops with the new Dalphskin manufacturing system that Admiral-General Kurtz decided to greenlight the teams for transport. We need you at Ba-kan-tuu to liaise with the Choya and the V’Dan on deploying our troops.”

  “Yes, but why a Terran counterattack on Ba-kan-tuu?” Li’eth pressed. “The Choya are holding their own in the water, and we’re backing them up on the few landmasses.”

  “Holding, yes, but the information you passed to us as military liaison indicated to us that the situation is in a stalemate at best.” Pong lifted his hands into view, tapping one finger against the others to count off the advantages. “It’s not as wasteful as you might think. There is already a strong Alliance military presence in place, so we wouldn’t be fighting an uphill battle against uneven odds.

  “Stalemates are also only acceptable if you can afford to tie up your forces in a particular location,” Jorong continued. “The addition of our unfamiliar troops should give your Alliance forces an edge in combat. If nothing else, it should give us just enough leverage from surprise and confusion among the enemy so that the more experienced Choya can counterattack effectively.

  “Everything you’ve told us about the Salik ability to move underwater suggests that our Dalphskin biotech may be able to counter many of the amphibious species’ maneuverability there,” Pong continued. “We can test it in live simulations with the Choya, then run combat with the Salik if those simulations and our impending allies suggest our tech is viable for such situations. If it is viable . . . then it will hopefully be a major psychological blow against the Salik, and can be put to use in the oceans of other colonyworlds as well, particularly near shorelines that have come under siege by Salik forces. By the time we get the Selkies over there, they’ll be properly experienced.”