by Jean Johnson
“YES!” Legs thumping in the footwell of her seat, Anjel Ramirez thrust her fists up and out. She bobbled a bit in her seat. Jackie couldn’t blame her; she saw the same image that had excited the pilot, a walking cannon vehicle toppling in the aftermath of explosions.
Li’eth frowned, but the copilot fell quiet again, watching the footage from the battle on Ton-Bei. Then he asked his next question. (What are clay-more mines?)
(Directional explosives; if you’re behind them, you’re relatively safe. If you’re in front or ahead to either side, not really.)
(Nice understatement,) he quipped, explaining aloud in Imperial High V’Dan what had just happened.
Seeing blood on her screens, Jackie tapped another image, cutting it off from the feed. She had a question of her own for him. (Salik have iron-based blood?)
(Something close enough to bleed as red as me,) he agreed. Then added darkly, (They’ll never bleed enough, though.)
Jackie flinched away from that thought. She knew why; Li’eth had the memories of his captivity, the memory of watching one of the aliens eating the severed limb of a former bridge officer, a former friend. It was understandable that he would want to eradicate his enemy. It was not, however, a comfortable position for her.
She was not sure if she could ever explain it to him. Raised multiculturally, to understand the societies in which her parents moved as well as the languages encountered, Jacaranda could not look at anything from just one perspective, one angle, one viewpoint. She did not agree with what the Salik were doing—not by any means—but in her mind-set, they still had a right to exist. The trick would be finding the way to get them to stop attacking, stop harming, and stop eating people alive.
The trick to diplomacy, to governing wisely and well across disparate cultures and beliefs, lay in finding the commonalities, the needs that could be simultaneously met. Substitutions and compromises that could further common goals. To deliberately eat another sentient being, to derive deliberately invoked pleasure from it . . .
Her mind shied away from the idea that there was a sentient race out there that was psychopathic. Not just sociopathic, possessing a weak conscience and very little empathy for others, but utterly lacking in a conscience and any empathy for other beings in life.
On an individual level, being instinctively manipulative as a survival trait, the successful sociopaths and psychopaths could climb quite high on the social ladder, to the point where they might even have a chance to set official policy in a moderately corrupt or lackadaisical system. In a vigilant system, however, that chance was lessened. Jackie lived and breathed on the front lines of stopping that from happening. So she was aware of sociopathic individuals, yes, and for the good of cooperative survival, knew they had to be stopped.
But at the same time, she could not—would not—believe it of an entire race. It went against common belief on how societies could develop under the auspices of intelligence, self-awareness, and comprehension of subjects like species survival and group success. Such things required basic species-wide levels of cooperation well above what such individuals would ever bother to give if they didn’t have to do it. Cooperation required understanding the other person’s viewpoint and needs as well as one’s own. It was one of the tenets of even nonpsychic empathy, to put oneself in someone else’s shoes metaphorically.
So she had seen Li’eth’s nightmares in their shared dreams, but they were not her nightmares. They would never be her nightmares. Of course, neither would she try to invalidate them . . . and ugh, that combat camera feed on the upper right was a little too graphic on bloodied body parts. She tapped that one off and turned another one back on, when it looked like the owner was back on their feet and back in combat, wounded but still capable of fighting.
Her headset chirped to life in her left ear, dragging some of her attention away from the combat broadcasts. Paea and Buraq had suited up with Ayinda to maneuver feeding hoses into the Embassy 1’s tanks. Those hoses came from the free-floating tank of hopefully purified water left by the V’Dan in a station-tethered orbit since they didn’t have any docking facilities large enough for the Embassy 1, just the smaller Embassy 14.
“Primary lock engaged. Seal looks green. Cockpit, confirm the green seal,” Ayinda reported.
Anjel broke off from her enthused viewing and touched her headset. “Main filter pump seal is . . . green, Mbani. I repeat, you are green for go.”
“Confirm that, we are green for go. Beginning fuel processing now.”
Jackie’s right earpiece chirped, and a notification popped up. Jackie quickly verified the channel codes. “Anjel, can you take over monitoring the combat feed? I have a priority two message coming through.”
“I can do it,” Li’eth told her. “I’ve been watching what you cut and reinstate, and I already have the matrix feeds running.”
“Do it, thank you,” she said, and linked their consoles. Clearing one of her screens, she opened the channel, answering verbally first as she waited for the lines to connect. “This is Grand High Ambassador Jacaranda MacKenzie. What is your priority two?”
She waited a few seconds, and got a visual pingback. It unfolded in an image of Rosa McCrary. “Hello, Jackie. This isn’t a pleasant call, but they insist upon having an official reaction from you, as well as one from Premiere Callan.”
“Okay, you have my attention,” Jackie said. That was not the sort of request that boded well for whatever had happened. “I presume something went wrong?”
“Yes. A Tlassian military-sciences team apparently attempted to open one of the two hyperrelay satellites left in their capital system . . . with the inevitable end results,” McCrary finished dryly as soon as she finished listening to her end of Jackie’s words over the lag between their positions. “I can have you patched through to their government, or send you their contact number. I think you’re closer by now, though, so a direct call would have less lag time to it than a rerouted one.”
“Contact number,” Jackie decided quickly, calling up the star charts the V’Dan had given her people. “We’re indeed closer to Tlassian space, and that’ll cut down on the lag time by at least a few seconds.”
“You know what the Premiere’s stance is, right?” Rosa asked dryly, working on her end of the connection. “And . . . there, it’s been sent.”
“. . . Received, and of course I do. We discussed this exact sort of thing in full before leaving Earth. I know what to say to them—I’ll chat with you later, Rosa; I’ve several other things to do as well, but I’ll give this a priority call right away. Embassy 1 out,” Jackie finished, ending that call. Double-checking the information, she queued up the correct frequencies, system satellites, and calling code, and sent the call through.
And waited, not only for the lag time involved over the hundreds of light-years, but for the system to work.
For non-V’Dan systems, the V’Dan had cobbled together programming-code-translation units for the Terrans to use; the method was a bit jury-rigged, but the call, sent out under Terran code, would go from relay to relay, feed itself into the externally attached Terran-to-V’Dan code box, and from there, feed into a translator for V’Dan-to-Tlassian, then broadcast itself through a third unit in Tlassian digital broadcasting codes.
Thankfully, the whole process only added a fraction of a second. That meant the response on the other end was reasonably prompt. The smooth-skulled Tlassian who appeared on the far end had greenish scales; V’Dan lettering along the bottom of the image gave a name and gender, MEIOA-E T’SSARGESS, SECRETARY OF ALLIANCE AFFAIRS. The alien bowed her head slightly. “Grannd High Ambassador Ma-Ken-Zee. It isss amazing to tallk with you so sswiftly.”
“Secretary T’ssargess,” Jackie replied, dipping her own head.
Nodding heads was a trait Humans and Tlassians and Choya all shared, which according to her history lectures had led the Gatsugi and even the Chinsoiy to
use it in greeting rituals and confer-agreement gestures. Solaricans preferred to flick their ears or lift their chins. The Salik didn’t exactly have a neck, and the K’Katta didn’t exactly have a head, so they didn’t bother. She leveled her gaze on the alien on the other side of the five seconds of lag and continued.
“I understand you wish to discuss the destruction of a Terran hyperrelay satellite by Tlassian personnel? If I may speak bluntly . . . I am not certain what there is to be discussed in this matter.”
“. . . That iss blunnt,” the Secretary stated in return after several seconds of lag. “But, yess. The losss of lives iss most tragic. The losss of an alllied ship iss wasteful in war.”
Jackie realized where this was headed and waited patiently for the Secretary to finish, keeping her expression neutrally polite.
“A devicsse of the Terran governnment has caused the losss of severall Tlassian livess, and Tlassian equipment and transportation. Cossstly thingss,” T’ssargess continued. “Our government wisshes to know what your government will do to make recompenssse. The inquiries we gave to your sssecond-ranked Ambassssador were not ssatisfactorily replied.”
“If you are dissatisfied, meioa, then I suspect it is because you did not like her answer,” Jackie returned honestly. Or rather, bluntly. “The families of those who died have our condolences and our sorrow for their loss, but the Terran government does not owe the Tlassian government or its people anything. In fact, it could be successfully argued that the Tlassian people owe my people the cost of replacing that rather expensive satellite.”
As the seconds ticked away between her opening words and the recording of his reactions being returned, she watched the alien’s eyes widen, those slit pupils narrowing a bit in what she guessed was probably shock or affront, but that was to her opening statement. She kept talking as she watched, however, because Jackie needed to make it clear the alien was not going to get very far with her, either.
“That satellite, meioa, was delivered to your people with the warning not to attempt to open it or move it in any way once it was placed in orbit. You were instructed to leave it alone, and that it was designed to detonate in a powerful explosion if tampered with in any way. That is the extent of Terran responsibility in this matter, to warn you of the dangers inherent in those actions. Your people made the choice to tamper anyway.
“I’m sorry if you don’t like my answer, but it is not the responsibility of the Terran government to monitor and police any actions undertaken by other governments. And if your people continue to destroy our rather expensive equipment through additional attempts at accessing and tampering, we will have to withdraw the remaining communications equipment and send you a bill for replacing the units you destroyed.
“That is a step I am certain neither side wishes to take,” Jackie stated dryly. “Now . . . is there anything else you wished to discuss?”
“. . . No,” the Tlassian Secretary for Alliance Affairs replied. “You have ssaid more than enough.”
“Then please pass along my condolences to the families of those who died, Secretary T’ssargess, and I hope you can have a good day.” Closing the connection on her end, Jackie slumped in her seat, sighing heavily.
(That’s not exactly what the V’Dan would do,) Li’eth observed in the back of her mind. (We’d pay a recompense fee—we call it “spring money,” but you would call it “blood money,” I think.)
(We are not going to be fined for someone else’s arrogant and/or very poorly thought-out choices,) Jackie countered, sitting up again after two deep breaths. She started the program that would beam the recording of that call back to Earth for archiving and analysis. (I’m sure we’ll have enough problems dealing with the aftermaths of our own mistakes. We don’t need to compound them with others’ idiocies.)
(You’re getting cranky,) he observed mildly. (Are you feeling okay?)
(I think I need to go get a snack from the galley.) Out loud, she asked, “Do either of you want anything to eat or drink?”
Anjel shook her head, her brunette braid bobbing in the lack of gravity. “I might be enjoying watching us kick frogtopus buttocks, but I couldn’t eat while doing so. It’s just a little too graphic. Thank you, though.”
“A drink packet would be okay, thank you, but I’d rather have gravity for eating actual food,” Li’eth stated politely. He tapped his screen, altering the flow of video feeds. “And one of us has to keep monitoring these broadcasts, so I shall have to stay here for now.”
“One drink packet for you, and a snack pack for me, then,” Jackie murmured, unstrapping herself from her workstation. “Got it.”
Pulling herself free, she floated to the door. Someone had printed out labels and slapped them on the cockpit door in Terranglo and V’Dan in bright yellow on red—the caution-label style of the Empire—that stated, CAUTION! GRAVITY SHELF! MOVE CAREFULLY! The sign included arrows pointing at a line placed below them, and beneath it, the subtext of THIS SIDE IS DOWN!
An excessive use of exclamation marks in her opinion, but remembering to be cautious would always be wiser than forgetting and falling flat on one’s face. Opening the door, she oriented and pulled herself carefully forward, using the newly installed handrails. Her feet encountered the gravity well first, swinging downward, then her legs. Jackie wobbled a little, her body adjusting to the strange sensations of going from null gravity to roughly one-quarter Earth’s gravity over the space of just a few inches. Pulling herself fully into the floor weave’s effects, she steadied herself for a moment, then moved to her left.
The gravity increased to half strength within just a few steps, but no more than half. The V’Dan engineers who had helped install it were fairly sure that the Terran-designed ship could withstand the stresses of full monodirectional gravity during the sorts of maneuvers that came when a ship was wrapped in a thruster field. But both groups of engineers agreed not to stress these ships’ designs any more than half strength until they had solid performance numbers. Which meant the Embassy 1 was their official low-key test vehicle, as well as her home away from home embassy for the time being. Earth’s science technicians had done their best to work with the V’Dan and K’Katta scientists to get everything accurately translated, at least, but they still preferred being cautious.
The moment Jackie opened the cupboard drawer that contained the drink packs, a claxon blared through the ship, startling her into jumping and banging her knuckles on the cabinet edge. She hissed, hastily shutting the door again with her free hand while she kissed the throbbing skin, worrying over what had gone wrong in the few moments since departing the cockpit. She didn’t have to wait long to find out.
“All hands, we have inbound Salik warships! All hands on deck!” Anjel snapped over the ship-wide intercom.
Jackie, knowing that Robert and the others sleeping on air mattresses in the crew cabin would be stirring and scrambling to get into combat positions, hurried carefully back to the cockpit. Just turning around to do so was enough to remind her of how wobbly half gravity felt. Palming open the door, with its own list of exclamation-peppered warnings about the lack of gravity on the other side, she used a touch of telekinesis to swoop carefully back into her seat. As soon as she was in place and reaching for the straps, Li’eth pushed out of the right-hand bank of rear consoles to join her.
(I’ve forwarded control of the matrix streams to the Embassy 22 and told them to start checking it for gore censoring,) he told her. (If these weren’t headed toward a couple of K’Katta colonies, we wouldn’t have to do that. They’re very sensitive toward violence.)
(Well, we Terrans have a few social taboos about that, too. We’re doing it for our sake, not just theirs.) Out loud, she asked, “Anjel, what defenses does this station have?”
“Not very many. Gun turrets and shields, of course, but they’re a stationary target,” the copilot stated. “Mobile resources . . . Three ships left orbit about an
hour ago, and according to the system logs, two more left two hours before that. Plenty of time for the enemy to sit quiet an hour or so out, pick up the lightwaves, and decide to risk an attack.
“Four V’Dan ships are either parked and coupled to the station or at a relative dead stop to it. One more is out there patrolling but off path by about two hundred klicks. And like I said, the station has some point defenses, which they’re bringing online and orienting, mostly lasers, a few projectiles . . . This is odd,” the Brazilian added. “The navicomp says the incoming ships are slowing down. If I got the numbers right, they’re decelerating a lot slower than they should be for an attack . . .
“No, wait, Colonel,” she corrected herself. “One of the ships isn’t slowing down as much, but the others will come into an orbital synchronization if they stay on this heading, widely spaced in about a hundred-degree arc from the station as center point, sir.”
“Analysis?” Jackie asked. Behind and to her and Li’eth’s right, the cockpit hatch opened and the bridge-crew members who had been asleep started hauling themselves inside. None of the three of them bothered to look back; keeping their eyes on the building situation was more important than counting noses right now.
“If what the station is sending me is true . . .” Anjel murmured, evaluating silently for a moment. “. . . They’ll be in range in fifteen minutes V’Dan Standard. Seven of those ships will be in a classic dish formation to target everyone at a dead stop, six on the rim and the advancing one in the center, no other cross fires on their own positions.”
“Shakk,” Li’eth swore, aura stinging with the swirling reds of agitated realization before threading through with yellowish tones. “They’re here for the fuel! It’s a fueling raid!”