The Blockade

by Jean Johnson

  “Mother, we have already discussed those things,” Li’eth interjected firmly. “And we have agreed that we will make the time to discuss them after we have won the war. Or at least are completely certain we are winning. Now, is there anything else we actually need to discuss since I will not be coming back home directly? Aside from needing various authorization documents to be shipped out to me, secured in Leftenant V’kol Kos’q’s hands.”

  His mother rubbed at the bridge of her nose for a moment. “. . . I’m going to have to think about all of that. Especially as I will have to decree you the Interim Heir until Ah’nan can get back, and figure out who to stand in proxy for you during the ceremony. Most of the cousins are either deployed, or in hiding,” she muttered under her breath. “The cowards.”

  Jackie leaned down into view, arm on the back of Li’eth’s seat. “Why not ask V’kol?”

  Both V’Dan stared at her. Li’eth answered first. “It would have to be someone with a direct blood relation or an exceptional ceremonial tie,” he asserted. “V’kol is merely an attaché in the eyes of Tier custom.”

  That made her roll her eyes. “You both have a very strong bond of having survived nearly dying at the hands of your mutual mortal enemies. He loves you as a brother. You have shed blood together metaphorically as soldiers. You are best friends. Declare him your spiritual brother—or do you not have any such customs among any of your peoples?”

  Li’eth blinked, looked at his mother, and they both at the same moment said, “Valley of the Artisans!”

  “We are related to their customs within . . . fourteen generations,” Hana’ka agreed, continuing. “Which is within the twenty generations needed to claim a cultural observance as legally legitimate.”

  “Double-check on the generations for that, and if they pass, then ship him out as my proxy, Eternity,” Li’eth informed his Empress.

  “And then you’ll come home,” his mother pressed. He rolled his eyes, and she flicked up a hand. “—I am free to hope, Kah’raman . . . Li’eth. Especially if we invoke Valley customs. But I do expect you—both of you—to come straight back to V’Dan as soon as possible. Preferably the moment Imperial Princess Ah’nan returns, so that we can formally acknowledge her as our next fully invested Heir.”

  “We will do what we can, Your Eternity,” Jackie promised. “But we cannot guarantee the results of actions that are also dependent upon the actions of others, including those of our mutual enemy.”

  “I could almost wish you were marrying a Valley girl, Kah’raman . . . Li’eth,” Hana’ka muttered, rubbing at her temple under the edge of the today far-less-ornate bandaging still covering part of her scalp. “Their needs and territorial scopes would be so much smaller . . . and yes, I am trying to get your preferred name-choice right.”

  “I can only promise you, Eternity, that my own mother has warned me that I shall one day have children who will cause as much trouble for me as I have caused for everyone else,” Jackie replied with dry-voiced equanimity. “And I shall grant you the right to hurl the same curse at me yourself. That will have to suffice as a punishment, for now.”

  The Eternal Empress gave a soft huff of a laugh and let her mouth twist into a wry smile. “May the Saints ensure we do get to watch those speculative children of yours tormenting you. And I shall spoil them horridly as a greatmother should. Great . . . ah . . . grandmother?”

  “Grandmother,” Jackie confirmed. “Great-grandmother is the next generation up.”

  “Thank you for the clarification; I will eventually have the time to learn the subtle nuances in our linguistic differences. My Secretary is signaling to me that I still have more business on this end to handle. Especially as you will not yet be returning to our side, Imperial Prince,” Hana’ka stated, returning to speaking in V’Dan. “Since this is all we needed to discuss, I shall get back to you with all the paperwork handled by Assistant Ambassador M’crari. The physical copies will be sent with Leftenant V’kol as soon as he can be tracked down.”

  “I do regret not being able to return, Eternity,” Li’eth replied, returning to the same formality she had resumed using. “But I shall do my best to represent the Imperial Tier and the Empire in all ways that will bring only glory, honor, and victory to our nation.”

  His mother nodded, then shifted an annoyed look off to the side. Her image vanished from the screen in the next moment, leaving the sigil of the Eternal Empire in her place. Li’eth sighed and sat back, taking comfort in feeling Jackie’s arm near his nape. (Well, that could’ve gone a lot worse. She’s not happy, but she’s accepting it. I think. I couldn’t see any of her auras through the link.)

  (She seemed to be, yes. And I am aware that the Terran nation will owe the V’Dan a political debt of honor for allowing us to haul you off wherever I go, despite your being your mother’s current heir,) Jackie said. (We try not to forget what we owe to others, as well as what we are owed.)

  (I’m sure she’ll get over it. So long as we survive,) he sent back. (Time for another nap, yes?)

  (Ordinarily, I’d say no, but you just wrestled emotionally as well as mentally and verbally with your mother and your sovereign,) Jackie allowed, shifting back so he could stand up. (We’ll both take a nap. And set an alarm clock, so we don’t oversleep the arrival of Major Slovaskoff and his people, though I’m sure someone will call and wake us up anyway with yet another half-booted piece of minutiae to be handled.)

  CHAPTER 6

  TON-BEI LESSER ACADEMY OF THE THIRD TIER

  CHA KASKA, V’TON-BEI

  The V’Dan equivalent of a community college no longer had access to its many parks and athletics fields, thanks to the incoming Terran presence. Instead of long, flat expanses covered in some sort of local, tough, turquoise stuff that reminded her of tiny, densely packed strawberry leaves, the lawns of the academic facilities now sported row after row of closely packed tents, supply sheds, washroom facilities, and other sturdy yet temporary structures.

  It amused Jackie that the V’Dan version of a row of portable commodes looked little different from the ones her fellow Terrans used back home. About the same size, about the same shape, plus even the soothing blue shade of the outer casing looked similar. The chemical smells were a little different, but that was to be expected; the functionality remained the same.

  The tents were also similar, again constructed along familiar lines of functionality. Flexible exterior surfaces erected on a thin but sturdy framework, all of it designed to shed rain, provide shelter from hot sunlight, cut off cold winds at night, and bearing sewn-in panels that from their brief tour and explanations would collect solar energy and transfer it to lighting and other internal systems. Inside some of those tents, bunks and lockers awaited occupants, while others contained tables, chairs, workstations, and more. A few had clear purposes, kitchens and eating spaces, makeshift medical facilities with V’Dan medical personnel on loan from the Imperial Army, that sort of thing. Others stood empty in different sizes, “. . . for whatever needs you Terrans might have for a sheltered space.”

  A rumble of thunder overhead caught her attention. Squinting upward through the early-morning sunlight, she watched a tiny string of five shuttles soar down out of the sky. Their outlines were very different from Terran atmospheric craft; thanks to the Councilor One disaster, when hundreds of high-ranked government officials died while traveling in a sabotaged transport, Terran ships were required to have at least some functional aerodynamic flight capacity. By comparison, V’Dan orbital transports looked like blunt bricks. Like they shouldn’t be able to fly at all, to the aesthetic eye of a Terran. Aerodynamic bricks, but utterly lacking anything resembling an airfoil or a wing.

  An amalgamation of metallic-gray, white striping, and red-and-gold symbols on the side, the shuttlecraft almost made her think of ambulances. White with red or blue markings—usually a cross, a crescent and star, or the Staff of Asclepius with its w
ings and entwined snakes, that sort of thing—Terran ambulances all had a similar look to them. Of course, officially the Asclepius symbol for emergency medical services is actually white on a blue six-limbed star. Which makes me wonder what they’ll think of our symbols as the V’Dan encounter more and more of them, and if they’ll have any unforeseen cultural associations with entirely different subjects.

  I suppose we’re just lucky the almost Shinto-shrine-like symbol they use for their government doesn’t have any unfortunate association in any Terran language I know. At least, not one openly known in any diplomatic circles back home. That might not be the same for how people would view such symbols away from the political venues, where politeness is expected even when one is offended.

  Being stuck in the Winter Palace handling politics hadn’t exactly given her a chance to see many daily-life reactions to the mixing of Terran and V’Dan Humans. Her few shopping trips had been focused on deliberately experiencing the negative side of those reactions, so Jackie wasn’t certain if that should count. Even in the town of Ri’oko, she hadn’t really interacted with the locals; Leftenant Superior Ka’atieth had done that for them.

  As it was, capitals on Earth tended to be places where people were much more cosmopolitan and thus much more aware in their daily lives of the need for tact and diplomacy. The Winter City of V’Dan seemed to be the same way. V’Ton-Bei would be the first world to experience it outside of the capital of V’Dan, thanks to the massive influx of soldiers now descending from the skies.

  She had no idea if this colonyworld’s capital would follow along similar lines, being cosmopolitan and open-minded, or if they would be more insular, more easily offended, or even if they carried particular cultural quirks that were simply unique to this particular area on this particular world.

  One of the commode doors opened, and Imperial Prince Kah’raman Li’eth V’Daania stepped into view. Like her, he wore a fresh, formal military uniform. Both had been express-shipped from V’Dan with the help of the Embassy 3, which had brought Lieutenants First Class Baraq and Johnston, and Lieutenant Second Class Paea. At the moment, Baraq slept on the Embassy 14, which sat in solitary splendor on a small sports field on a rise a few hundred meters away. In Baraq’s place, Lieutenants Johnston and Paea stood off to one side, chatting idly, waiting for the moment when they would be needed to play military aides-de-camp to both Jackie and the incoming Terrans.

  Off to Jackie’s other side, the local head of the Imperial Army, Grand General Ta-mal I’osha, stood in her own red-and-gold finery. She did so in the V’Dan version of Parade Rest, feet a little closer together than shoulder-width apart, but not actually touching like the Terran pose for Attention. Her hands rested together in front of her belt, not behind it. In all, I’osha looked like a serene, composed statue with her gray-and-blue hair braided and pinned up in twin buns on her tanned and blue-striped head. Panda buns, had she been a Terran.

  Behind her, a full two hundred soldiers stood in similar poses. Their uniforms were not nearly as ornate since they wore the local camouflage, shades of turquoise and teal for the foliage mixed with beige and brown for the soil, but their positioning was perfect, and their heads were mostly turned up to watch the incoming shuttles. Their expressions were a mix of curiosity, interest, boredom, and speculation.

  (I’osha seems to be doing well for someone with a brand-new language in her head,) Li’eth observed, joining Jackie.

  (She’s also freshly rested. We’re the ones who’ve been up for thirteen hours. Ri’oko’s a third of the way around the world from here,) Jackie added. She didn’t know much about Ton-Bei’s topography, but she did know that much. She’d seen only that much since they had gone into orbital flightspace to make the parabolic trip in as short a time as possible. Most of what she’d seen had been covered in clouds and night-shadow, dotted with a few lights from city clusters. Certainly, local area had been covered in clouds during their landing.

  (True. Then again, she wouldn’t be a Grand General of an entire colony’s defenses if she couldn’t adapt with some flexibility. V’Ton-Bei is the oldest outsystem colony we have, but it still has its share of problems.) The mental image he sent her, of some sort of teal-and-gold-striped, elephant-sized lobster thing, showed it wasn’t just the threat of a Salik invasion the local colonists and soldiers had to worry about.

  (I’m still amazed there are so many M-class—Human inhabitable—worlds out there,) she sent, looking around her again. Jackie squinted as she did so, for the shuttles were now close enough to kick up dust and bits of turquoise leaves as they circled, homing in on their assigned landing spaces on what looked like a racing track of some sort. Not the guanjiball field; that had been taken over by personnel tents erected among the curved walls and root posts. (Thousands of stars, tens of thousands of gas giants and ice planets and lumps of scorched or frozen rock, yet we can find worlds we actually can inhabit, as Humans.)

  (Not as many as would be nice, but there are some. And plenty of places for space stations and dome colonies.) His underthoughts included a reassuring pulse that—if they won the war—V’Dan would help the Terrans survey their nearest star systems for suitability and help build those dome colonies. (We might argue over who gets the next few inhabitable worlds, however,) he teased her. The roaring of those incoming shuttles was no longer so distant, making even telepathically sent thoughts a little difficult to hear.

  (Or we can learn how to share. Looks like they’re coming in for the final stages of landing,) Jackie returned, squinting against the bits of dust and debris kicked up by V’Dan-style thrusters.

  One, two, three, four, five, each craft landed with very tight precision, barely a couple meters from the next. Impressed, Jackie started to move forward. Li’eth touched her arm, lifting his chin at the air. Squinting upward, she saw five more coming in, unnoticed in the distraction of her thoughts and their conversation. They, too, landed with equal precision, forming a second row. All ten now sat tucked just within the oval of the running track, while their thrusters whined and slowed, reducing the noise with each engine shutting down. A good thing, too; the ramp-like hatchways cracked open, lowered with pneumatic hisses, and touched down on the gravel-like surface of the track encircling their position.

  (Impressive,) Jackie murmured. (Very well done. Remind me to let those pilots know how much that impresses me.)

  (Now we can move forward,) Li’eth told her, and moved with her toward the settled ships. (I checked the specs; the Tarast V’Tak holds ten dropships. It makes sense to run all of them at once, to minimize air loss each time the shuttle bays are opened in getting everyone and their gear down to the planet. Since this isn’t a combat zone, they can let the autopilot programs do the fancy precision during a landing . . . but they’ll still be pleased to know you admire our engineering and programming skills, if not their actual piloting skills.)

  That confession made her grin and nod. (Doesn’t matter. Even if it’s programmed, that still doesn’t mitigate the awe of such a well-placed landing.)

  Coming up on their right, Grand General I’osha approached, along with a dozen soldiers. Jackie eyed their insignia. Ten were officers of the Second Tier she hadn’t seen before; the other two were the pair she had also given Terranglo to earlier: Leftenants Shava and Na’akarra, officially appointed liaisons between the Imperial Army and the Space Force.

  Shava had those follow-the-hairline tiny spots like those of Doctor Mi’en Qua, the geneticist who had helped modify the jungen virus enough to allow Terran Humans to survive on V’Dan and eat V’Dan-grown foods. Where the doctor’s skin had been peach with lavender spots, however, his hide bore golden spots on a rich chocolate brown.

  Na’akarra looked even more exotic, with a lovely golden tan of the sort that, back on Earth, came from Southeast Asia; thick, Prussian-blue stripes colored her skin in the usual jungen way. A raccoon-like band framed her Prussian-blue eyes, while two more taper
ed streaks decorated each cheek. Her appearance reminded Jackie of some of the Amazonian tribes back home, how they painted their skin with charcoal and ochre. Compared to her and the other leftenant, the Grand General’s light blue spiraling stripes on golden-peach skin looked a bit boring.

  (Careful, you may be growing accustomed to V’Dan versions of beauty,) Li’eth teased.

  (I’ll try not to fetishize the exoticness of it,) she returned mock-soberly. Semiseriously. (You do know I like you for your mind, first and foremost?)

  (Sweet speaker.) He switched to speaking aloud, greeting the Grand General, and the leftenants and so forth accompanying her.

  Jackie turned to check on Darian and Jasmine. “Everything in order on our end?” she asked them. Both nodded. Turning her attention to the shuttles, Jackie lifted her chin. “Do you know which shuttle is the one holding Major Slovaskoff?”

  “That will be the center one on this side,” Grand General I’osha interjected, joining them in closing the last dozen meters to the running-track area. “That is, if the pilots on that ship are following standard procedure for loading as well as disembarking troops. Which they should be. Their commanding officer would hear from me if they didn’t.”

  Squinting at that ship, Jackie made out a figure in a dark green uniform, sleeves and pant legs striped in black. He descended the ramp to the very edge of the composite materials banding its edge. Halting just a few ceremonial centimeters from the local soil, he held himself at Attention, arms straight at his sides and heels together. Jackie recognized his features from the profile she had perused, and nodded. “I see him now.”