The Blockade

by Jean Johnson

  “My government expresses our grief, regrets, and condolences, War Leader, and I carry to you the personal assurance of the Council that the Terran Space Force will retake that world at your side, to rescue those who may yet survive and avenge those who did not.”

  “We werrre apprised quickly enough,” Warlord Tennssach stated. His neck-hood twitched a little, but only by a tiny bit. “It wasss our descisionn not to pursue a ffight immediately after they lllannded. It is our shame that our choicess for strrategy enndangerred our people. Sometimes, prrey must falll, to put the predator off their guarrd. The guilt is sshared.”

  Admiral Daksha Nayak, next to her, activated his V’Dan datapad. The information appeared on the monitors embedded in every table, and along each of the walls, a map in the Alliance style, showing colored blobs in a slowly rotating two-dimensional image that conveyed three dimensions without straining the eyesight of some of the member species. “All along, the Salik have been waging a war of attrition. They have been whittling away at every system with random strikes designed to take out as many of your ships as possible, in order to leave your worlds pared down to the minimal defenses against certain sizes of fleets.

  “Our analyses indicate that each world is now exceptionally vulnerable to a hard, heavy push. Before we Terrans came along, it was a brilliant setup,” Nayak continued, his face pale under its natural tan, his expression grim. “And even with our help, only the motherworld systems will be able to hold off an armada the size of the force we faced at Au’aurrran at this point. In order to defend each system slated for attack, we will have to strip away the ships in orbit, leaving other worlds defenseless.”

  World names started flaring on the images, along with Alliance Standard dates on when each indicated colonyworld would be captured.

  “Chronologically,” Jackie pointed out, “even if we do start moving around fleets like that, they are going to be able to hit two, maybe three more worlds, taking them over before we can assemble a large enough task force to take out their main fleets. And I do mean fleets, plural. Even with the invasion of Au’aurrran thwarted, they still have six more major groups.

  “Without our communications technology—and I do not say this as a threat,” she quickly cautioned, “just a statement of how things stood before we came into the war—the Salik will be picking off your planets one at a time.”

  “The expression you want is ‘gathering up,’” Li’eth corrected, automatically sliding into the habit of being her cultural liaison. “Not ‘picking off.’”

  “Thank you, Your Highness,” she replied smoothly. “They will gather up your worlds one at a time. But those six fleets are not the only concern.”

  “They arrre not?” Warlord Tennssach asked, chin lifting up a little in surprise.

  “What new problems await us, in your estimation?” the K’Katta Commander-of-Millions asked.

  “Right now, this very moment, we have an advantage of knowledge,” Admiral Nayak stated, gesturing at the screens. “But this opportunity only works for a few weeks, maybe a V’Dan month at most. As soon as word gets back to the Salik that their schedule has been compromised, they will change how they operate. We do still have that communications lag on our side, but eventually, they will change everything.

  “We must take advantage of this gap in their communications ability,” he emphasized, thumping the white tabletop with a tanned finger. “I can imagine that most of you are looking at that schedule and thinking defensively, reactively, about how to stop that incoming fleet. But we must also take the fight to the Salik. To act offensively, actively engaging them where they least expect it.”

  “Do you have a plannn?” the white-furred Solarican, War Princess Pallan, asked. She blinked her golden eyes, tilting her head, earrings and chains swinging a little. “If you have a plann, sharrre, please.”

  Jackie exchanged a brief look with Nayak, who tipped his head slightly, silently deferring the responsibility to her. Drawing in a breath, she let it out. “. . . As we Terrans are a sovereign and separate nation, we have chosen to act independently in advance of this meeting. The timing of everything demanded it. Every ship we can spare has been recalled to Earth. Those who get there first will load their cargo bays with hydrobombs and communications satellites, and deliver them to supply depots.

  “Every ship that can get to those depots will load those bombs to maximum capacity as soon as they can. This part of the plan is already in motion,” she explained. “We have two more days before where we take those bombs becomes critical. We have two possibilities in mind on where they could go.”

  Li’eth spoke on the heels of her words, adding smoothly, “By my right as War Prince of the Empire, I have commandeered several vessels, both civilian and of the Imperial Fleet, for similar transporting needs. We will be able to transport thousands of these bombs within the week, either directly or in relays of ships. But again, we need to know where to take them.”

  “The question, meioas,” Admiral Nayak stated bluntly, “is do we seed the orbits of the worlds that are going to be invaded in the next few weeks, and take the fleets that we can to those worlds that are entirely Salik? Or do we send our fleets after their ships . . . and seed the Salik colonies with our hydrobomb technology?

  “As an Admiral of the Space Force, my preference would be to send fleets after fleets for the sheer mobility permitted. Those bombs, once placed, will not be able to give chase as a ship could, and can be detonated and destroyed at a distance. I would rather drop our bombs onto Salik colonyworlds in a series of increasingly destructive but swift attacks that will destroy their infrastructure, their ability to support their current fleets, their current war machinery, and remove their ability to create even more.”

  All five K’Katta chittered, in a sound that had no translation for a few seconds, then their leader click-whistled, and the others fell silent. “What you are suggesting,” his translator box stated, “sounds like xenocide. Our people will fight the guardians of the enemy when they make an attack, but we will not permit the slaughter of their civilians!”

  Two things happened simultaneously; the neck-hood of the Tlassian warlord snapped wide, and the Solarican War Princess hissed. Both bared their teeth, and not in anything resembling a friendly Human smile.

  Before either could speak, Li’eth spoke, his voice snapping cold and hard. “Tell that to the citizens of Au’aurrran and Glau!”

  “Gentlebeings! What I believe we are trying to say,” Jackie offered with a tiny bit more diplomacy, her voice cutting off the rising protests, “is that the Salik do not distinguish between civilian and military targets. Not only for their targets, but for themselves. From what I have learned, having searched the minds of dozens of their kind . . . they do not have civilians. Their leadership consider every Salik citizen a member of their military structure. Even the females who are raising their children are considered to be training future soldiers.

  “They know that the fighting on land will be harder than the fighting in the skies, they expect to have to fight soldier to soldier, citizen to citizen, on the ground, and they are prepared to spend decades subduing your worlds once they have destroyed your infrastructure and your ability to travel from world to world.”

  “You do not know that all of their citizens are actively supporting their government!” the Commander-of-Millions retorted, gesturing with two forelegs in his agitation. “You cannot crater whole cities!”

  “Our plan, gentlebeings,” Admiral Nayak asserted, his hard tone cutting through the rising chitterings of the upset aliens, “is to target their military infrastructure first. Primary targets will be industrial complexes that cater to the needs of their military and their transport systems. Spacedocks and shipyards, fueling depots, supply depots, munitions caches and manufactories, and spaceports that cater in the main to military vessels.

  “When they try to retreat from the Alliance fle
ets to get their repairs, when the people back home try to build new ships to replace those lost, they will have nothing to fall back upon,” he asserted. “Let them be pushed to the brink of collapse, as they are pushing you.”

  “I will remind you that this is just what we can do with the Terran and V’Dan fleets,” Jackie stated in the contemplated quiet following his words. “When we realized the only mass munitions your people have on a scale compatible to ours were based on the old radioactive fission bombs, we increased our military and communication productions dramatically. If we can arrange for more vessels to pick up our equipment and the Terran technicians to handle them, we can have every colonyworld seeded with orbital explosives.”

  “Nonradioactive, these explosions?” one of the Chinsoiy asked.

  “That is correct,” Admiral Nayak confirmed. “We are not like your race. Our bodies and our environment cannot tolerate radioactive explosions.”

  “Powerful they seem as the life-bombs of our kind,” another Chinsoiy stated through the intercom. “Scaled as such, devastation comparable would be to radiative means.”

  “They are indeed comparable to thermonuclear devices in their size of impact,” Nayak confirmed, a little wary now on where the subject was headed. “They will cause a great deal of devastation. But unlike those devices, we can calibrate the effects by reducing the fuel to be catalyzed before launch, or even midlaunch, provided we have a mi-nah of advanced warning.”

  “We do not want to bomb the Salik,” Jackie stated firmly. “But we do not want to go to war, either. Yet here we are at war, and we must act to survive. These are weapons that we can use, and feel we must use, in order to end this war quickly, with the least loss of lives. I may prefer peace, meioas, and I am not advocating the wholesale slaughter of the Salik race . . . but even I know that wars are very rarely won by purely defensive actions.”

  The K’Katta were not pacified; the lighter-furred female waved a foreleg in negation. “No! That is unacceptable! Bombs of a size comparable to radioactive nuclear fission are too destructive. Massive weapons of such a scale are forbidden by the Alliance Charters.”

  “Gentlemeioas,” Lieutenant Paea stated, speaking up for the first time. His face still had pink spots where his flesh was still healing from the harsh peppering of glass fragments from that broken window back on Au’aurrran, but his hearing had been restored by V’Dan microsurgery, a much faster repair than his superior’s removed arm. “I understand your concern . . . but you thought you knew how big the Salik fleet really was. You have made your estimations based on what you thought you knew of Salik manufacturing rates.

  “The Salik colonists on Au’aurrran were able to either smuggle in or directly manufacture for themselves the parts for a mechsuited army . . . and from what War Prince Naguarr reported to the Ambassador in the aftermath of the invasion attempt, his people did not notice anything of the sort in the eight years of records they hold for all imports to that planet prior to the start of your war. This means they might very well have spent the last few years manufacturing those suits on-site . . . or that they have been stockpiling weapons and ships for a lot longer than you think.

  “There are a lot of stars out there,” the lieutenant reminded everyone. Like Jackie’s Hawai’ian accent, his Samoan accent handled the glottals of Imperial High V’Dan even as it forced his listeners to concentrate on the rest of his pronunciation. “Gas giants where they could siphon methane and other gases to process into starship fuel. Asteroids and such that could be rich in metals and churned into raw materials and basic components for shipbuilding—I’ll remind you, all of their ships are very uniform in shape and size, from class to class. The hulls could have been made decades or even centuries ago, and simply retrofitted with the latest technology.

  “Until we capture more members of the Salik High Command, until we can interrogate them telepathically, we do not know how big their stockpile of war machines is. Given how our ships are mass-manufactured,” Paea continued, “we can swap out parts very quickly and retrofit the latest and greatest gizmos in a matter of hours. But those latest and greatest most likely will come from major industrial centers on major planets, where they have the best access to a lot of raw materials. And those centers must be destroyed.

  “To do anything less is to waste our time arguing about how dangerous the weapons in their grip might be while completely ignoring the weapons sheathed and holstered on their bodies and stockpiled all around them. And that is not only negligent, that is aiding the enemy, by permitting them to continue to have the resources to attack, and attack, and attack,” he continued, thumping the table with his finger, much as Admiral Nayak had done. “That is why we must strike now, strike hard, and stop them.

  “I don’t want anyone else to be captured or killed during another Au’aurrran, or another Glau. Do you? Can you sit there and look into the eyes of these Tlassians, these Solaricans, and tell them you don’t want to stop another Au’aurrran invasion? Or another Glau?” Lieutenant Paea challenged the K’Katta.

  The beige-furred female wasn’t the only one of the arthropoids to curl in her foremost pair of legs. So did the two dark-furred males. None of them said a word to their counterparts on the other side of the circle.

  “Nnnone of usss are strong enough to withssstand the SSalik assaullt unnnopposed,” the Choya war leader stated in the quiet following his words. “Therrefore, we mussst oppose it. We musst fight. I agree to dessstroy their infrasstructure, and demorrallize their citizenss with these nnnonradioactive weaponnns.”

  “The Terrans have a similar preference,” Nayak agreed. “Precise bombing of Salik targets, while the fleets fight and give chase.”

  “The Collective/People will/will oppose/thwart/fight the Salik/enemy in any viable/successful method/way our militaries/allies/analyses deem/determine/prove are most/most effective,” the leader of the Gatsugi race stated, his skin flushing a determined shade of reddish violet. “Mobility/Movement is vital/imperative for victory/success. Fleet against/at Fleet, yes/agreed, but infrastructure/war machinery must/must/must fall next/soonest as well.”

  That gave them three votes for the plan. The Grand General, glancing at Li’eth and receiving a nod of confirmation, spoke next. “The V’Dan military believes that victory lies best in mobility and swift, decisive action. We also vote to use the Terran bombs on their infrastructure, and the Imperial Fleet against their ships.”

  He looked to the Solarican delegates at the next table.

  The Solarican War Princess of their foremost colonyworld flicked her ears, sending her rank-jewelry swaying. “The Sollarrican Empire wishes for this warr to ennd. It must ennd swiftly. We have an advanntage we cannot afforrd to waste. We know as hunnterrs that mobility is vital for success. We will chase fleets with flleets.”

  “. . . And the bombing?” Admiral Nayak pressed. “What is your choice in that matter?”

  Those golden, alien eyes closed and opened. Her ears remained up, her whiskers level, but her tail-tip flicked visibly. “Countess Prrang has a Sallik warrrship that lllanded upside down over part of the city of Gonn Staa because of colonnists she trrusted. That ship alllmost destrroyed parrt of the city when it crrashed. I will perrrmit the use of these weaponns on purrre Salik worllds, but nnnot on the jointly held onnes.”

  “That would be our preference as well,” Nayak agreed.

  “That is nnot a confirrrmation,” War Princess Pallan not quite growled. Her tail stilled, but her ears dipped down and back.

  “If there is a viable target that is clear of non-Salik personnel, we will take it,” Nayak countered, holding her gaze.

  “Thank you, Admiral, for clarifying what we could do,” Jackie chided. “But the final decision will be made by the Admiral-General, by the Ambassador to non-Terran worlds—which would be me—and by the Premiere, as your superiors in the Terran chain of command.”

  One of Pallan’s ear
s flicked up. “That stilll does not clarrify yourrr position in this matterr.”

  “Admiral Nayak is correct in that it is a viable option if there are no non-Salik personnel known in that area,” Jackie repeated, expanding on her answer. She didn’t like the answer she had to give, as a civilian, but knew it was the only one she could give, as a representative of their military’s highest leadership. “But the Terran government would prefer to stick to purely Salik worlds and space installations. We cannot and will not make any decisions more clear than that because we do not believe in tying one limb behind our backs.

  “I don’t like it,” she confessed, wrinkling her nose in distaste, “and we will use those weapons first and foremost with the highest preference on clear military targets. But we will hope that they decide our resolve to bomb them into worldwide rubble is strong enough that they will choose to surrender, rather than keep fighting, and keep being destroyed site by site, world by world.”

  That tail twitched again, but Pallan’s other ear relaxed back to neutral. “Then we willl have to be satisfied with that.”

  She turned to look at the Tlassians. The Worker Caste representative, her scales olive green and yellow, spoke. Not the head of their Warrior Caste. Her accent was nearly flawless. “We will agree that fleet must chasse fleet, and infrastructure must be reduced . . . though we regret the losss of lives nonwarrior. Yet this brings a very important quesstion to our minds. We mussst therefore ask it.

  “How do we contain the Salik?” she asked, lifting her saurian hands into view, touching the short, blunt claw-tips together in a cage shape. “How do we ensure they do not attack again in jussst a few years, once they have rrrebuilt?”

  “Slice their wingskins,” the Chinsoiy Fearsome Leader asserted. “Their ships remove, restricting them to slowness of insystem speeds. No unassisted travel between skies.”