Eric Flint's Blog, page 211

The Span Of Empire – Snippet 30

The Span Of Empire – Snippet 30

Chapter 15

The morning of the jump-off for the big voyage, Caitlin gave Ed a long and lingering last kiss at the mouth of the boarding tube to the Lexington. At length, she broke away, held her hand to his cheek, and whispered, “You be careful.”

His mouth quirked, then he folded her into a massive hug that caused her ribs to creak. “You, too,” he said. “You come back to me.”

Caitlin nodded as she broke the hug. She placed her hand on his heart, to be pinioned a moment later by one of his. “I will,” she said.

She finally turned from him and walked into the boarding tube without looking back. If she hadn’t, she might not have gone at all. Tamt and Caewithe followed close behind.

****

Caitlin proceeded directly to the Command Deck. All her gear was already in her quarters, and she could just as easily follow their progress from there, but today she was too nervous to shut herself up down there. It helped to be in the middle of things.

She was one of the last to arrive. “This is not going to be a single jump for the fleet,” Wrot said, meeting her as she entered from the lift. “First, the fleet will retrace our path to one of the former stars we checked out at the edge of the Orion arm, then the Ban Chao will jump to the first star in the path to the Sagittarius arm.”

Caitlin nodded. “And then we wait.” In response to Wrot’s nod, she asked, “How long?”

Wrot shrugged, and stroked the place on his cheek where his bauta scar had once been. “Oh, we will know within a few hours if the Ban Chao survived the jump. If the Frame Network can connect to the ship, then they survived.”

That was good news, Caitlin realized. She’d been afraid they’d have to wait for the messenger to return before they’d know if the Ban Chao had survived. “And then we wait,” she said. “How long for that?”

“The Starsifters elian believes it will take about a week of observations by Terran measures before the rest of us can jump.”

“A week,” Caitlin said. “Joy.”

Wrot responded with another shrug.

It wasn’t long before the fleet–no longer a flotilla–was ready to move. Fleet Commander Dannet gave the order.

Jumping was familiar now, that gut-twisting feeling of being nowhere and everywhere at the same time. Lexington went first. Caitlin closed her eyes as the great ship leapt. They were going back to a star already checked out. There should be no surprises, no fleets of Ekhat ships waiting to fire upon them. “Easy-breezy,” she murmured as minutes later they emerged in the star’s photosphere.

Jao voices read off the readings. Flue Vaughan was at his station, tapping pads and murmuring. No one seemed upset. The smell of overheated wiring came to her faintly, but the repair crew was on it in an instant. Even Dannet was calmly striding about the bridge, not striking anyone who incurred her displeasure. It was oddly anticlimactic.

Within a couple of hours, the rest of the fleet had followed without incident. “Now,” Dannet said. “The Ban Chao will go on.”

“And we sit around here and wait,” Caitlin said, “which is in many ways the hardest part.” Suddenly, she understood why Tully had insisted upon going.

She should have gone too.

****

The Ban Chao was not a small ship, though smaller than battleships like the Lexington and the Pool Buntyam. Tully tucked himself in a corner of the Command Deck and watched its crew, mostly Jao, busy themselves for the blind jump. The assault troops were suited up and locked into their shock frames. Everything was ready.

More could go wrong with such a jump than a regular one, even when going to a normal star, much less the variable that was their target today, but the Jao were used to the operation. If they couldn’t jump blind, they’d never get anywhere they hadn’t already been, limiting to say the least.

Vanta-Captain Ginta gave the order to jump. Tully was a bit startled. He’d expected more of a build-up to the moment, maybe even an inspirational speech; but then again, these were the Jao. They didn’t get overly dramatic. They had a job and they did it. Anything else was just emotional histrionics to them.

The awful inside-out feeling crawled over him, sizzled down through his bones, threatened to make his brain boil out through his ears. He felt like the top of his head was going to melt. Was it just his imagination or was this jump actually worse than the others he had been through? He pressed his back to the bulkhead and tucked his hands into his armpits.

Jao voices rose around the Command Deck and he thought he detected a thread of alarm. The ship shook as though in the grasp of a great hurricane. He was hard pressed to keep his feet. Vanta-Captain Ginta was darting from console to console, checking readings, directing adjustments, his voice stressed.

Finally, with a great heave that knocked Tully sprawling to the deck, the ship arrived–somewhere. The shaking ceased. He pushed up from his stomach. The viewing screen was a blaze of over-bright light. Sweat dripped down the back of his collar.

“We have pulsation!” a voice said.

“Inward or outward?” Vanta-Captain Ginta asked.

The speaker hesitated. “Inward.”

“Full power!” Ginta said. “Get us free!”

The bridge crew had only seemed busy before. Now, they were frantic, adjusting this, augmenting that, running about in controlled chaos. And there was nothing Tully could do except stay out of the way. He heaved back onto his feet.

“The inward rushing current is pulling us with it,” a Jao officer said. “We can slow the process, but we don’t have enough power to break away.”

The Starsifter elder apparently knew what he was talking about, Tully thought. He craned his head, trying to see what the crew was doing. They had to get out of the photosphere as quickly as possible. The shields wouldn’t hold forever. He’d seen back at the battle of Valeron what happened to ships who encountered a star’s fire with a naked hull.

“Come port eighty-four degrees and down sixty,” Ginta said, peering intently at a screen.

The ship vibrated, caught in the immense forces of the solar tides as the crew tried to follow orders. It shook so hard that Tully lost his balance again and fell heavily to his knees. He felt so damned helpless!

Thank goodness the rest of the fleet had not followed on their heels. The Jao were innately cautious in their practicality. He’d never had more reason to be grateful for that than he did at the moment. And for the moment, he almost regretted on insisting the jinau remain onboard.

“We have to ride it until the pulse reverses,” Ginta said. “Then we can use it to push us out of the photosphere.”

But could they last that long? The view screen now showed a vast canyon of fiery white-hot plasma, laced with flickers of red and blue and yellow, around them. They were sliding along, all but out of control, fighting with every erg of power they could wring from the Ban Chao’s engines, trying not to get pulled in too far.

There was an electronic squeal, then something failed. The lights on the Command Deck went out and the emergency lighting flickered on with a sickly orange tint. Ginta didn’t seem to notice. He pulled a tech out of his seat before a monitoring station and manned the controls himself.

Just like Dannet, Tully thought numbly. Hands-on all the way.

The ship bucked and shook and quivered as though trying to escape Ginta’s firm hand. Tully wished there were something–anything–he could do to help besides stay out of the way.

“Pulse slowing,” a voice said. “Wait, wait.”

“Reversal initiated,” Ginta said as though discussing if he would take a swim. “Brace for impact.”

Tully swore and scooted back against the wall. A second later, they were hit so hard, his teeth clicked together and he bit his tongue. His head collided with the wall and for a few seconds, he was dizzily out of touch with the situation.

He swam back up to full alertness, his mouth tasting of blood.

“–full power!” Ginta was saying, unusually animated. “If we don’t free ourselves from the photosphere with this pulse, we may not last long enough to make a second try.”

The Ban Chao shook and wavered. The Command crew was frantic, increasing this and adjusting that. He only hoped they knew what they were doing.

“Increase power!” Ginta said.

“But we are already exceeding all safety parameters,” a Jao tech, female, said.

Ginta knocked her to the floor and took her place. “Safety parameters cannot help us here,” he said grimly and pushed the lever down. The ship shook, as though in the grip of an angry giant, then–they were free, moving through increasingly less turbulent plasma, and finally gliding out into blessedly black space. It even seemed cooler, although Tully knew that had to be an illusion.

“We are out,” a Jao female said. “Hull surface readings falling, although we still have to shed the plasma we picked up.”

Tully regained his feet, soaked in sweat. He was suddenly glad that Caewithe wasn’t here. It was hard enough to be brave with no one looking.

He toured the Command Deck, looking at the monitors and readouts over the shoulders of the techs. He could read a few of them, but those few told him very little.

“Any sign of civilization in this star system?” he asked one of the sensor techs.

“Nothing in the way of technology,” she said absently. “At this distance, we might not pick up other signs right away. Not that we expected any, in a system like this one.”

“Establish orbit around the star,” Vanta-Captain Ginta said.

Tully tried to imagine the Lexington or the Pool Buntyam leaping into that hell and shuddered. The Ban Chao, being somewhat smaller and with correspondingly more powerful engines, was more maneuverable. Could the larger battleships have handled those conditions? He wasn’t sure they could, and he was very glad they hadn’t had to find out the hard way.

“Orbit established,” one of the command deck crew said. Tully looked over his shoulder and read the distance from the sun. He pulled his com pad out of his pocket and converted the Jao number to human measurements. The Ban Chao was about twenty light minutes out, or a bit more than twice the distance from Earth to the Sun. He relaxed a little at that.

He relaxed even more when messages from Major Liang and First Sergeant Luff arrived on his com pad indicating that the assault troops had come through the jump wrapped in their shock cages with nothing more than bruises.

After watching the command crew for a few more minutes, Tully left the Command Deck and went to his quarters where he showered for a good fifteen minutes, letting the cool water sluice through his hair. Try as he might, though, he couldn’t wash away the feeling of having been very nearly burnt to a crisp.

 

Through Fire – Snippet 29

Through Fire – Snippet 29

Alexis stepped heavily across the beach, still moving fast, still without giving the impression of being winded. The doctor’s wife ran alongside him, to keep up with the pace.

The beach was hardly that. There was a semi-circular space of soft sand and, at the end of it, a bit into the sea as though enclosing the space, stood a ring of tall, dark stones. From a certain regularity about them, I guessed they were not real stones, but poured, black dimatough.

In other words, we were in a private cove, probably the private beach of some property, where the owners could have disported in safety and privacy. The waves broke, passing through the tight space left open between the ring of stones. The water in the cove rose and fell with the effect of something breathing deeply. I could easily see it as a place for children to learn to swim, or for a family to enjoy the sea without being watched by strangers.

Now, as Alexis got to the edge of the water and continued into it, splashing up to his knees into the ocean, a shadow detached from the deeper shadow around the rocks. It revealed itself as it approached as a little boat, the kind of craft children will motor in around safe areas. And like a children’s toy, it made no sound, save the buzz of an electric motor.

There was no sound either, as Alexis nodded to the one man in the craft and then carefully, delicately, deposited the doctor in the little boat. The boatman nodded.

And then… and then the little craft grew a dome of transparent… ceramite or dimatough, I’d guess. And silently it submerged.

We waited in silence while I tried to make sense of what I’d seen. I’d guess that the little craft was a submarine’s lifeboat. Its retractable, transparent dome had halved, retracting down to take in the doctor. Then it had closed again to take him to… a submarine waiting beyond the black rocks, I guessed.

The little craft came back silently, and Alexis turned to Madame Dufort and said, almost soundlessly, “Madame.” She had stepped up to stand beside him, the sea wetting half of her very proper skirt, but she turned back, to where Corin and I had stopped at the edge of the sea, “Corin?” she said. “Son?”

Corin shook his head. “Apres vous, Maman,” he said. But I knew that voice, that stubborn tone, and I had a feeling that he had no intention of going, before or after her.

She seemed to know that too. By the light of the moon, her expression was exasperated, a mother’s annoyance. “Corin,” she said.

“No,” he said. “This is my place, enfin. You and Papa must go. I don’t have a need to. No one knows me. And there is… a man must make sure that no innocents are harmed– Surely you understand?”

She shook her head and said, “Take care,” and to Alexis, “Look after him.” Then she stepped into the craft. The dome closed and the craft went under again.

I expected Alexis to turn and come out of the sea. Then we would have time to talk. At least I hoped so, because I had a lot to say to him.

But he remained very still, and I thought he was waiting for the craft and then… would get into it and go with the doctor. Of course, perhaps he needed to go with the doctor and his wife, to arrange their stay wherever it was they needed to be.

On the other hand, perhaps he meant to run away, abandon the isle after setting whatever plans he’d got started.

The craft came back, the man in it sitting, immobile and impassive, a slight man with dark brown hair. And Alexis turned to me, “Madame,” he said. “If you will.”

“What? No.” I was outraged. “I have come here for a purpose, and I have not fulfilled that purpose.”

Alexis’ homely countenance looked like he was counting backward from three thousand. Slowly. Possibly in Chinese. “Madame,” he said. He turned and advanced out of the sea towards me. “You have to go.”

“No.” I stepped backward up the sand and half hoped he would try to force me, because I was more than willing to show him that I was not his to command. “I came here to save the Good Man and I–”

“The Good Man,” he sneered, his countenance turned ugly. “If you think that the Good Man should be saved by you, you are–”

That was when the voice called out from up on the beach. “Alexis Brisbois. Mailys Bonheur. Doctor Dufort. Madame Dufort. You are under arrest by orders of the Protector of the Republic.”

“Merde,” Alexis said. “Zen, now, please, I beg of you.”

I shook my head.

At the head of the stairs, a man appeared, standing in the full moonlight. He was short, with a haircut that made each of his hairs fall into the exact position to delineate an elegant cranium. Except for the balding up front. And the unmistakable rabbit-quality of his features.

“Alexis,” he said. “Surrender. You know she has a tenderness for you. It won’t go badly for you.”

Alexis’ face did something. I wasn’t sure what exactly, but for just that moment, as his facial muscles contorted and his heavy eyebrows came down over his dark eyes, I wouldn’t at all have been surprised should he have grown enormous fangs or turned into a werewolf. At any rate, he looked as though he’d very much like to acquire a more murderous shape. “I’d like to beat you,” he told me in a vicious whisper. “If I weren’t sure you’d manage to get into even greater trouble, I’d knock you unconscious and stick you in that craft.” Then he moved, just so slightly. I realized he was moving to hide view of the craft from the beach, and he turned towards the figure up on the sea wall, by the stairs, “Jean!” he said. “Are you now her errand boy? Did she threaten to burn your frocks?”

The man took a step back, shook his head. “Don’t play the fool, Alexis. I have ten guards with me. This is no time to be an idiot. Rose said to bring you, and that you had nothing to fear. We understand you were caught on the Good Man’s side, and you had no chance to escape. We understand your natural sympathies are with us.”

I saw Alexis’ hand go back to the back of his pants. I figured he had a burner hidden there, where the fullness of his doublet-like coat hid a multitude of sins. Still in a whisper, he said, “Run. Left. There’s a path out. Keep the children safe.”

I had no idea who he meant by the children, and then I perceived that the girl who had guarded the cove for us was knitting herself with the wall, hoping, I was sure, to pass unnoticed. And she was a child, probably well under twenty. And Corin, too, was a child in a way.

I grabbed at his arm. He seemed to resist briefly, but as Alexis said, “My dear Dechausse, you have no idea where my sympathies are or why!”

And then, lightning fast, so fast I could barely follow it, Alexis drew a burner and fired at the man on the wall. And shockingly, unbelievably, the man returned fire. Even as he fired back, I realized he was too intent on Alexis to see us. I ran, holding Corin’s arm, to flatten against the wall. Then, pulling at the young woman, I led them both at a fast sort of slide, in the direction Alexis had indicated. As I did, I realized that I’d have been killed by Alexis first shot. And I was faster than normal people. But then perhaps Dechausse knew Alexis very well and knew what he was likely to do.

My heart hammered in my chest, pushing the blood past my ears with a sound much like the sea. I was trying to move as fast as possible, but not so fast that two normal young people couldn’t follow me. To their credit, neither of them protested. They obeyed my pull in silence, even the young woman who knew nothing of me. Corin was the one having trouble keeping up with the speed, stumbling occasionally as I tried to rush him along.

In the confusion, intent on getting the young people to a safe place, I didn’t pay attention to Alexis’ fight, except for keeping an eye out on the beach, in case the man atop the wall or the men he had with him should come after us.

Alexis seemed to be firing with both hands, and some other men had joined the fight from above the wall — or at least burner rays were coming from multiple places in the retaining wall, lending credit to Dechausse’s claim that he had many men with him.

We hit water, and walked sideways into it, trying not to splash or make too much noise, even though I was sure that we couldn’t be heard above the zap of the burners. But it also seemed to me that, in the light of the firing weapons, we were fully visible, no matter how closely we knitted ourselves against the wall.

Then, suddenly, something blew up. I couldn’t tell where, precisely, but it seemed to me in recollecting the images before the explosion that Alexis Brisbois had taken a grenade from one of his pockets, and pulled the pin.

There was a fountain of sand, a lot of screams and a lot of imprecations. And I realized from some of them that the men from the wall had to be on the beach, having somehow crept there without my seeing them. I grabbed Corin and half threw him into the deep water. Then I threw the young woman. I screamed as they tried to come up again, “Dive, dive, dive.”

And then I dove after them, in the dark water, with the pale moonlight filtering through, my lungs bursting with lack of air.

Alexis had said there was a passage here, but I couldn’t see one above water, between the dark, artificial rocks, and the retaining wall. So the passage must be under water.

I dove deeper, looking for it.

 

1636: The Chronicles of Dr. Gribbleflotz – Snippet 44

1636: The Chronicles of Dr. Gribbleflotz – Snippet 44

Ted smiled at the man in his white ruffed-collar and black coat and said, quite seriously, “I’m pretty sure you could, if you wanted to. What I really want to know is if you are willing to make a lot of it for us.”

Zacharias nodded. “You’re right. I could make it, but to make it in any volume would take me away from my students and my research. Have you considered asking one of the alchemists in the city?”

Ted frowned and nodded. “None of them are interested. They think making a cooking powder is beneath them.”

Zacharias nodded. “That might be a problem.” His face pursed in thought for a while. “Have you tried Dr. Gribbleflotz?” he asked.

“A doctor?” Ted laughed. “If the alchemists aren’t interested, what chance is there that a doctor will be interested in helping us?”

Zacharias hemmed and hawed for a while before explaining. “Dr. Gribbleflotz isn’t a practicing doctor. He’s sort of an experimental alchemist with pretensions to being an iatrochemist, but he lacks the proper academic training.”

“But you called him Dr. Gribbleflotz,” Ted said.

“There is some who question his right to the title. However, he is a gifted laboratory technician. His acids are the envy of every other alchemist and even the university iatrochemists. Anybody who can afford them buys their acids from him.”

“And you seriously think someone with all that going for him is going to make us our cooking powder when everyone else has said no?”

Zacharias nodded. “I’m sure he will. Dr. Gribbleflotz’ patron died recently, and he is in the unfortunate position of being financially embarrassed. If you can afford to cover his needs, he will be beholden to you.”

Ted nodded. This man sounded interesting. “You’re sure Dr. Gribbleflotz can make our baking soda?”

Zacharias nodded. “He originally trained as an assayist and metallurgist at Fugger’s in Augsburg. There’s probably no one in Jena more able to make it for you. He has no experimental flair, but I know no one better able to follow a recipe without deviating from what is written down.” He pulled a piece of paper out of a drawer and wrote on it. After sanding the paper he handed it to Ted. “That is Dr. Gribbleflotz’ direction.”

“Thank you,” Ted said. “And thank you for your time.”

****

Tracy slumped down with her elbows on the table while she waited for her order to be delivered and looked across the table to Danielle and Steve Kowach. “It’s as if they don’t want our money,” she said. “As soon as I say I want someone to make baking powder for cooking they get all uptight and condescending. Their holier than you ‘I am an Alchemist, not a cook’ line is really getting to me. Have you two had any better luck?”

Danielle shook her head and looked at her husband, who shook his head in negation. “We’ve been getting the same story, ‘Alchemists are not cooks. Please go away and stop bothering me. My work is important.'” She mimicked the condescending attitude that Tracy had run into with so accurately that Tracy started to giggle.

“Here comes Ted. I wonder if he’s had any luck.” Steve waited for Ted to sit down beside Tracy. “Any luck?” he asked.

“Well, I’ve ordered a heap of canvas. A few hundred yards of cord of varying diameter, and some oils for waterproof — ouch!” Ted grabbed Tracy’s hands to stop her pummeling him.

“Edward Robert Justinian Kubiak, you know that’s not what Steve meant.” Tracy said, struggling to pull her hands from Ted’s grip.

“Has anybody ever told you you’re beautiful when you’re riled?” Ted asked, a smile in his eyes. They both fell silent as their eyes locked.

“Hey, you two. None of that in public,” Danielle said. “So Ted, have you found us an alchemist?”

Ted broke eye contact with Tracy and turned to Danielle. “First thing I learnt is we don’t want an alchemist.”

“What?” Danielle and Tracy asked in unison. “Of course we do,” Danielle continued. Tracy nodded in agreement.

“That’s where you’re wrong. No.” Ted held up his hands to silence their protests. “No alchemist will lower themselves to do what you are asking. What you need . . .” he paused dramatically, “is a technician. Some suitably trained plodder who can follow directions without making any spontaneous additions just to see what happens.”

“And how do we find this suitably trained plodder?” Tracy asked.

Ted theatrically drew a piece of paper from a pocket. “By pure chance I have here the directions to one Phillip Theophrastus Gribbleflotz, who was originally trained at the Fugger’s in Augsburg. Apparently he lacks the proper scholastic and academic attitude to be an alchemist, but in some quarters he is a highly regarded technician.”

“What’s the significance of him training at Fugger’s?” Seeing Ted’s blank look Danielle hurried on. “Never mind. He has to be better than those supercilious morons from the university.”

“I wouldn’t bet on that, Danielle. He styles himself as Herr Doctor Phillip Theophrastus Gribbleflotz. His clientele humor him. He’s good at what he does, and it’s a fairly harmless conceit. But it does mean you’ll need a lever to persuade him to make your baking soda.”

“Will money talk?” asked Tracy.

“Ah, the Evil West Coast Businesswoman strikes. Yep. My informant indicates that the good doctor has a massive ego, only eclipsed by his vanity. His major expenses are his continuing experiments and flash clothes. Currently he’s financially overextended and he struggled to make this quarter’s rent. I’d say he’s the perfect mark for what you want.”

Tracy smiled and rubbed her hands together in anticipation. If he was desperate, then he couldn’t afford to knock them back. He would probably offer token resistance as a matter of pride, but to Tracy’s mind, they already had him in the palms of their hands. It was always better to negotiate from a position of strength.

Jena, later that same day

Phillip pulled his hand out of the bucket of cold water and examined the burn. It was going to blister. He sighed and looked around his laboratory. He’d had the misfortune of burning his hand when a glass retort broke. It was the latest of a string of silly accidents caused by his overtiredness, but there wasn’t anything he could do about that. He had to work sixteen hour days if he was going to pay off his debts and redeem his lucky crystal before the pawnbroker could sell it. It was only the fact that his creditors knew he was back producing acids that was keeping them from his door. Unfortunately, he was now one retort down, which he couldn’t afford to replace. That meant he was going to have to work even longer hours just to keep volumes up.

Phillip was in a pain induced foul mood when he opened the door to a couple, who based on their styles of dress, he knew immediately were two of the infamous up-timers. “What do you want,” he asked them in his native German.

“I’m Tracy Kubiak and this is my husband Ted,” Tracy said, “and we’ve been informed that you might be willing to make some of this for us.” She held out the recipe for baking soda.

“Informed by whom?” he asked as he accepted the paper. The movement aggravated the tender flesh of his burnt hand.

“Professor Brendel,” Ted said.

Phillip raised a brow at that before skimming through the contents of the paper. “What is it?” he asked.

“It’s a rising agent for baking.”

Pain made Phillip more irascible than normal and he took it out on Tracy. “Let me see if I understand you correctly, Frau Kubiak. You wish me, Herr Doctor Phillip Theophrastus Gribbleflotz, Great Grandson of the Great Paracelsus, to make this ‘baking powder.'” At Tracy’s nod, he continued. “I. I am not a cook. I, do not follow a recipe. I, am an Alchemist. A Great Alchemist. A Great Alchemist does not make funny white powder so people can bake.” It came out stilted, growing in volume as he spoke, until he was almost roaring.

It was a strategic cough from Ted that drew Phillip’s fire from Tracy. The six-foot, two hundred plus pound frame of Ted towered above Phillip’s thin, short frame. With his pronounced Adam’s apple bobbing, Phillip swallowed his words and turned his attention back to Tracy.

“But you could make the powder if you wanted to couldn’t you, Herr Dr. Gribbleflotz?”

 

Castaway Odyssey – Chapter 14

Castaway Odyssey – Chapter 14

Chapter 14.

Tavana let out a whoop and for a few moments everyone was cheering except for the Sergeant, who was just grinning from ear to ear and leaning back in his seat with obvious relief.

Finally the noise died down and the Sergeant stood up. “Whoo. Feels real funny standing now, but also seems my medical nanos didn’t let me get too weak. Still, everybody be a little careful moving around ’til you get used to walking again.”

He looked around the little group. “Now, we’ve got one question left: can we breathe the air? If we can, odds are a hundred to one in our favor that Emerald’s a Terran-type world, and we can live here.”

Tavana thought, and suddenly a chill went down his spine. “Sergeant… we don’t have any chemical sensors, do we?”

“Not without ripping them out of LS-88’s air system, and ripping the air system apart – even a little bit – before we know exactly what the air outside is like… sounds a little bass-ackwards to me.”

Maddox pursed his lips. “If I had my collection, some of those would have sensors on them.”

Xander shook his head. “Sergeant, there’s got to be something in the cargo with a sensor that could be adapted.”

Campbell looked at him. “If you’ve got a suggestion, son, I’m all ears.”

“It’s oxygen we need to check for, right, Sergeant?” asked Francisco.

“That’s right, son. The chemistry that supports an oxygen-rich atmosphere is the one we depend on. We’ve only found one exception.”

“Well… then can’t we just put something in the airlock that’s on fire, and if it stays on fire after we open the airlock, then we know there’s oxygen?”

For a minute Campbell just stared, and then threw back his head and laughed loudly. Xander snickered and started to laugh, and then Tavana joined in. Dieu, how we miss the obvious.

Francisco was looking embarrassed and angry; but before Tavana could call the Sergeant’s attention to it, Campbell stopped on his own and knelt down next to Francisco. “Hey, son, we weren’t laughing at you. Laughing at myself, really. Here we were looking for some fancy high-tech way to find out if we could breathe the air, and damned if the youngest kid in the crew sees the answer that was right in front of us! Good work, Francisco! Great work!”

The uncertain face suddenly broke into a brilliant smile. “De veras? You mean it?”

“I sure do! And let me tell you I’m relieved as all h… heck, because without some trick to tell us if there’s enough oxygen out there, the only way we’d have known is to have someone step outside and find out.”

Tavana shuddered inwardly. Of course if the air outside wasn’t breathable… He shoved that thought as far away as he could, but it wasn’t that far.

Francisco had blushed visibly. “It wasn’t just my idea, though, sir. I remembered something in one of the old books my mama read to me; one of the people in it said ‘where a light can’t live, I know I can’t,’, so…”

“Memory or your own idea, you were the one who came up with it for us.”

Campbell went into the cargo, came out with a plastic bottle of clear liquid. “Alcohol. All-round good disinfectant, useful for a lot of things. And perfectly flammable. Now, lessee… sure, I can use a cooking pan to hold it.”

“Can I do it, sir?” Tavana asked.

“Why not? You’ve got the idea, I’m sure.”

“Go into the lock, put alcohol in the pan, set it on fire, then go out and close the door and then let it equalize with exterior air.”

“Simple and straightforward. But here,” he handed them a wad of packing material, “add that. Pure alcohol flames can be tough to see; adding something else fixes that problem.”

“I wanna light it!” Francisco said.

“Your idea, your right to help out. Okay, you two.”

Tavana walked to the lock – slowly, feeling as though his pants were made of lead, and his shirt too – and opened the inner door. Placing the pan on the floor, he poured it half-full of alcohol and dropped in the packing material which swiftly absorbed a lot of the liquid and sank in a sodden mass to the bottom. “All right, Francisco. Careful! Don’t get too close, there’ll be fumes.”

But Francisco obviously knew how to light a fire – his pocket TechTool actually had a firestarter mode, which Tavana knew his didn’t. The little multitool extended into a slender wand that allowed a hot, bright spark to be generated quite a distance from the user’s hand.

With a gentle whoomph! the alcohol ignited, the vapors around it making a momentary, ghost-blue fireball; the alcohol-soaked packing material began burning briskly with orange and blue flame.

“Okay, let’s get out!”

Tavana felt his gut tensing sourly as the airlock door swung shut and the cycle began. He turned to watch, but Campbell was standing in front of the door, looking through the port already. “Excuse me, sir.”

“Eh? Sorry. Here, everyone crowd around, we might as well all watch this.” He lifted Francisco up so he could look through the port and the others managed to stand and peek through one way or another.

The little pan of fire was still burning, but the air exchange was still going on. It flickered and guttered momentarily, and Tavana felt sick. Is it going to go out?

But whatever air current had wafted its way around the room had faded. The fire rose slightly higher in blue-tinged orange.

Then the outer door opened, admitting brilliant sunshine and the pure air of Emerald.

The dazzling sunlight dimmed the flames… but they were still there.

The fire was still burning!

“Sergeant –”

“It’s burning. By GOD it’s still burning! Boys…” and suddenly his voice broke and he sank to his knees. “Oh God, I think we’re gonna be okay. I finally think we’re okay…”

Tavana felt a burning in his throat and eyes, tears answering those pouring down the Sergeant’s dark, lined face; suddenly he realized how terrible the strain must have been on the seemingly invincible Sergeant Campbell. He said it himself, he was responsible for all of us. And no matter what he could do, he couldn’t change whether Emerald was livable. He knew how thin the chances were before we even started for this system.

“Sergeant?” he said, seeing the others as dumbfounded as he by Campbell’s sudden breakdown. “Sergeant, it is all right. You did it, you got us all here safe, and it’s okay.”

“Yeah… yeah, I know. Sorry, kids. Just… just finally had it all catch up to me, you know? Started as a goddam milk run, then suddenly we were stranded in space. Couldn’t take time to panic.” He stood up. “Sometimes it gets you like that, when you finally aren’t in a crisis. The relief, you know.” He grinned at them, wiped the tears away. “Felt good, actually. Released all that tension I had.”

He looked at the door, then at the rest of them. “Well, this ain’t going to be a picnic, either, but if we’re smart and careful, I’ll bet on us living here. So we’re going to get us some proper equipment for a little expedition, and then we are going to be the first people to step foot on this planet!”

 

The Span Of Empire – Snippet 29

The Span Of Empire – Snippet 29

“So, what is it you want me to see that I had to come to Ban Chao rather than you com me or come to the Lexington?” Caitlin asked.

Tully pointed to Bannerji, who flipped a switch on the wall and barked something in what could only be Ekhat. Caitlin hadn’t been exposed to much of the language, but it was unmistakable. She did have to suppress a chuckle at the effect Bannerji’s British accent had on the alien tongue.

The effect on the slaves was extreme. The pile of black bodies in the corner flew apart as if a grenade had been pitched into it. They rolled and scrambled and scurried and scrabbled until they were standing in the line that Tully had shown her in the com pad call.

Before Caitlin could say anything, Bannerji spoke, and the line shifted to a circle. Again he spoke, and the circle morphed to a line again, only this time on a slant. One final command, and the slaves returned to the original straight line.

Caitlin’s mouth quirked. Her first reaction was to make a quip about producing an alien drill team. But then what she had seen sank in. “You’re able to communicate with them, to get them to follow instructions.”

“To a limited extent, yes,” Bannerji said. He waved a hand at the window. “They are like so many Labrador retrievers–more intelligent than we first thought, and eager to please.”

Caitlin laughed. “I thought they looked like a bunch of puppies huddled there in the corner before you said anything.”

“They are very gregarious,” Ramt said, stepping forward to join the conversation. “More so than any Terran species, even dolphins or whales.”

“Are they as much fun to work with as Labradors?”

“Yes and no.” Bannerji chuckled. “They are much stronger, and if they run into you they can knock you flying. And given their, ah, conditioning at the hands of the Ekhat, avoiding injury in themselves or others is not a high priority. But once we got them to calm down, then yeah, they’re fun.”

“We must continue to be careful,” Ramt cautioned in her even tones. “They are not dogs. They are not tame animals. And for all that they are sentient beings, they are also hideously ‘programmed’, to use a human word, to consider themselves as nothing in relation to the Ekhat. At the right–or wrong–word, they will kill themselves; or they are just as likely to attempt to kill whichever one of us is with them.”

Caitlin took a deep breath, then released it. “You’re saying they really are slaves, not just prisoners or drafted labor.”

“Bred and born to it,” Bannerji said soberly. “So much so that I wonder if it will ever be possible to emancipate them without tinkering with their genetic code.”

Anger began to rise within Caitlin. The Ekhat could never be forgiven for this. “Okay. No quick fix here, obviously. But this can’t be why you asked me to come over. What do you want?”

Ramt and Bannerji looked to where Tully leaned back against a wall with Liang and Luff, arms folded.

“I think we need to keep them with the fleet.” Tully straightened and clasped his hands behind his back.

“Why?”

“This is the first time we’ve managed to get anyone from an Ekhat ship to talk to us, even a little,” he said. “Ramt and Vikram here are getting more and more out of them every day. Little bits, granted, but get enough of them and put them together, and who knows what we might find? I want to let them continue to work with the slaves.”

Caitlin shrugged. “Makes sense to me. So what’s the problem?” She was beginning to see that there must be some kind of issue with Tully’s plan.

“The problem is that Gram of the Ekhatlore elian wants them left here at Ares base for him and some of his fellow Ekhatlore to study.”

“Ah.”

“Yeah. Number one, I don’t think they’ll do any better than these two at working with the slaves.” Tully jerked a thumb at where Ramt and Bannerji stood together. “Number two, we won’t get any information they might develop in anything like a useful time frame; and last but definitely not least, there’s no guarantee they will be able to keep them alive.”

Caitlin understood Tully’s points, and the last one in particular was important to her. None of the captives taken from the Ekhat ships during the Valeron battle had lived long. The sole Ekhat they had captured by lasering off its legs had gone into what seemed like a catatonic state not long after being taken aboard the Lexington, and had died before it got to Earth. The few slaves that had survived the battle hadn’t lasted much longer. They all seemed to just lose the spark of life and fade away, one by one. So the fact that Ramt and Bannerji had managed to not only keep these slaves alive, but get them to actually start interacting with humans and Lleix made them the experts, as far as she was concerned.

“Let me guess–Gram is senior to Ramt in the Ekhatlore elian.”

Ramt folded her hands together. “He is. And I have not the stature within the elian to stand against his orders.”

“Hmmph. Not a problem,” Caitlin said. “I have oudh over this whole effort. It’s my decision that it is necessary for the slaves to remain with the fleet so that we can derive immediate benefit from any intelligence gained from them.”

Tully grinned.

“But,” Caitlin said, raising a hand, “can we divide the group? Leave some here and take some with us?”

Both Bannerji and Ramt shook their heads. “No,” the human said. “We think one of the reasons they’ve survived is because we have enough of them together to reach a critical threshold to keep a colony of them alive. If we reduce that, even by just one or two, we may drop below that threshold, and then we’d lose all of them.”

Caitlin nodded. “Makes sense to me. So,” she turned to Tully, “that’s my directive, Gabe. We keep all of them.”

“Right.” Tully’s grin flashed again for a moment, then he sobered. “But there is one other thing . . .”

Caitlin sighed. “Spit it out, Gabe.”

He spread his hands at waist level. “I think they need to be on a different ship. If Ban Chao is going to be leading the way with these pathfinding jumps, you run a greater risk of losing them.”

Caitlin’s stomach lurched at the thought of losing the ship and everyone aboard, including Tully. But that discussion had already happened, and she couldn’t go there now. It took a moment, but she moved beyond that thought and said, “Okay, point. We’ll move them to Lexington. And these two as well.” She pointed to Bannerji and Ramt.

“Hey, wait a minute,” Tully objected. “Vikram’s my intelligence officer. I’m going to need him.”

“Have Ed assign you another one,” Caitlin said. “Right now he’s one of the two best Ekhat slave wranglers in the universe, so he’s not any more disposable than they are. My orders,” she declared, staring Tully in the eye.

Tully stiffened and his jaw set for a moment, then he unbent. “Yes, Director.” He looked to Bannerji and Ramt. “Pack your stuff, guys, and get ready to move.” Then to Liang and Luff. “They’re going to Lexington. Make it happen, preferably without breaking either the prisoners or anyone else.” Back to Caitlin with a wry grin. “They’re all yours.”

 

The Span Of Empire – Snippet 28

The Span Of Empire – Snippet 28

Chapter 14

Caitlin’s com pad pinged. She looked up, a bit surprised and a bit disgruntled, since she had set the pad to route all calls to one of her assistants except those coming from the top officers in the search fleet or in the base command. So if someone got through to her, it had to be someone pretty important with something they considered serious enough to call her. That didn’t bode well for her schedule for the rest of the day.

She tapped her pad, and Gabe Tully’s face appeared.

“Sorry to disturb you, Caitlin, but we need to see you.”

“We?”

“Yeah, me and Lieutenant Bannerji and Ramt.”

It took a moment, but then it clicked for Caitlin that those two people were the ones doing the interrogations of the Ekhat slaves they’d captured. Yeah, she’d consider anything in that area to be serious enough to call her.

“Okay,” Caitlin responded, reaching for the pad. “Let me see when I can clear you a meeting time.”

“No, you don’t understand,” Tully said. “I think you need to come to the Ban Chao. Real soon now, if you get me.”

The picture in Caitlin’s com pad began shifting. Tully was obviously turning his around. In another moment, the picture stabilized, and she could see the Ekhat slaves sitting in a row. A couple of them were wagging in the hind end like excited puppies, but it was the fact that they were all sitting neatly and more or less still that caused Caitlin’s eyes to open wide.

“I’ll be there within an hour,” she said.

“Right.” Tully broke the connection from his end.

Caitlin tapped her pad to open another call. “Caewithe, I need to go to Ban Chao now. Yes, I know it’s not scheduled. Get ahold of the command deck and get a shuttle cleared for us, please. Let me know which one, and I’ll meet you at the bay.” She tapped her pad again to break the call.

Caitlin looked at her work station and tried to decide what she could finish in the next five or ten minutes, closing down the rest of the files. All the while, in the back of her mind was running the thought that if those two Ekhat experts had made a breakthrough of any kind with the slaves, she would kiss them both.

The com pad pinged again just as Caitlin finished sending a note to her assistants telling them where she was going and to not let anyone disturb her for anything less important than an Ekhat attack. Caewithe’s message floated there: Shuttle 9 at Shuttle Bay Green 2. She shut down her work station, grabbed the com pad and headed out the door. “Did you get the message?” she asked as she paused by the guards.

“Yes, Director,” the Jao guard said, falling into place ahead of her. “Shuttle Bay Green 2. Captain Miller and Tamt will meet us there.”

“Let’s go, then.”

And go they did, moving through the corridors at a brisk pace with a burly human and an even larger Jao leading the way. Everyone else took a cue from the Jao in the corridors and cleared out of the way.

Tamt was standing by the shuttle and waved her through the hatch, following her through. Navy crew shut and locked down the hatch as they made their way to their seats. It was empty except for them and the crew–one of the perks of being The Director, Caitlin supposed. No one questioned her about this kind of thing. If she said she needed to be somewhere, then everyone in range would focus on seeing that she got there. A heady brew of authority, Caitlin thought. Her shoulders twitched, shaking off the allure, as she sat in her seat and fastened her harness.

Tamt took the seat next to Caitlin, and Caewithe Miller took the seat across from her. Caitlin waited until the pilot had maneuvered the shuttle out of the shuttle bay, then looked at her guard captain with a grin.

“So, have you seen Lieutenant Vaughan lately?”

Caewithe didn’t say anything, just nodded with a grin of her own.

“They’ve been spending more time in the water lately than we Jao,” Tamt rumbled from beside Caitlin. Caitlin turned her head enough to see flecks of green in Tamt’s black eyes, and her ears and whiskers tilted enough to hint at the posture for blatant humor, which probably ought to be translated as ribald humor. Jao humor, such as it was, tended to be pretty blunt. She looked back at Caewithe and raised her eyebrows.

“I have this one swimsuit, you see,” Caewithe said with a wicked grin.

“Cruel, evil woman,” Caitlin said, laughing, “to lure the poor boy on like that.”

“I’ll let him catch me before too long, I think.” Caewithe’s dimples appeared, then she laughed.

“You’re the first humans I’ve seen who pursue this mating thing properly,” Tamt said. “Although the officers’ pool is kind of public for a mating ritual.”

Caitlin started laughing as Caewithe spluttered. Tamt’s delivery of those lines was very matter of fact and dry, which just made it funnier. From the wiggle of Tamt’s whiskers, it seemed she agreed.

“Okay, that was funny,” Caewithe admitted, “but let’s leave my love life–or lack of it–out of the conversation now, unless you want to start talking about yours.”

Tamt shrugged. “Is nonexistent. Terra taif has offered potential mates, which is more than Kannu ever did.” That was the first time Caitlin could remember Tamt referring to the kochan she had belonged to before being called to Aille’s service and subsequently joining Terra taif. “But I won’t have cubs right now. A battle-ready fleet doesn’t provide the right environment for Jao cubs. They need space to roam and lots of water to play in before they must learn to be of service.”

“Do you want cubs?” Caitlin asked, looking at the being who was perhaps her first real female friend.

“Perhaps,” Tamt replied. “Before Yaut found me and called me to Aille’s service, when Oppuk ruled Terra and none of us knew when we would die from a sniper’s bullet, I would have said no. Now, sometimes I think I would.”

Caitlin looked at Tamt for a moment longer, then looked away with a quiet resolve that her friend would have that opportunity.

They sat in silence for some little while after that. Caitlin pulled her com pad out to see if any further messages had come through. Just about the time she was through with that, the crew announced that they would be docking with Ban Chao shortly.

****

Tully met them at the shuttle bay, along with Major Liang, his executive officer, and First Sergeant Luff. “Hi, Caitlin,” he said. “Glad you were able to make it. I really think you need to see this.” He nodded to Tamt and Caewithe, but didn’t say anything. Given what Caewithe had told her, that didn’t surprise Caitlin. They were both probably a little uncomfortable.

“Okay, I’m here,” Caitlin said. “Let’s deal with this, gentlemen, shall we? I’ve got to be back on Lexington before too long.”

“Right. This way, then.” Tully gestured toward a hatch and led the way in approved Jao style.

Caitlin found the corridors in Ban Chao to be just as maze-like as the corridors in the Lexington, as well as somewhat more congested. But the crew and jinau of Ban Chao made way for them just as well as the Lexington’s crew did, and before long they were entering a compartment that had a large window in one side of it that looked out over another compartment. “Hello, Ramt, Lieutenant Bannerji,” Caitlin said, greeting those who waited their arrival.

Both responded with a quiet, “Director Kralik.”

Caitlin moved to the window. She could see a glistening black mass of slowly moving bodies in one corner of the other compartment. It looked for all the world like a mass of puppies huddled together in sleepy togetherness. Nonetheless, her shoulders still twitched at how alien the Ekhat slaves were. Oh, she knew how weird that sounded in a universe where she had endured Ekhat and lived with Jao and Lleix. But still, the slaves were very different.

 

1636: The Chronicles of Dr. Gribbleflotz – Snippet 43

1636: The Chronicles of Dr. Gribbleflotz – Snippet 43

Tracy lounged back on the sheltered veranda with a group of Kubiak clan women watching the activities, relaxing after finally getting their assorted babies settled.

Erin Zaleski, one of Ted’s cousins, turned to Tracy. “How’s the military outfitting business going, Tracy?”

Tracy dragged her eyes from Ted, who was playing in the yard. “I’m still being run off my feet.” Tracy looked around the assembled women. They were all, like Ted, direct descendants of Jan and Mary Kubiak, the original owners of the land known locally as Kubiak Country. “I’ve got a pile of jackets that need buttonholing if anybody wants a job.”

There was a smattering of “I’m in” and “Yes, please” from the other four women. Tracy gloried in the easy camaraderie and supportive nature of the Kubiak women. It was so different from her own family, left up-time in Seattle. “If you come over the road after lunch I’ll show you what needs to be done and give you the necessary thread and buttons.”

There were murmurings of agreement before the women turned back to watching the activities going on in the yard. Their quiet contemplations were disturbed only when Tasha Kubiak set a covered tray of steaming biscuits on the table. “Tuck in while they’re still warm, girls. After this batch, there are no more.”

Mary Rose Onofrio turned away from watching Jana Barancek and a couple of other cousins trying to get everyone to sit down at a couple of food-laden tables set out by the grill. “What do you mean, Tasha?”

“This batch used the last of my baking powder.” Tasha replied.

Belle Drahuta waved a hand. “I’ve still got some if you need it.”

“Same here,” Tracy said. “I haven’t had time for much baking lately, but I think I’ve still got an unopened can in the pantry.”

“Thanks Belle, Tracy. You’d think there would be a way to get more baking powder wouldn’t you?” Tasha shook her head.

Mary Rose snorted. “Get real, Tasha. If it doesn’t go boom, none of the guys are interested. I can just imagine going up to Cousin Greg and asking him to please make some baking powder so we can do some baking. He’d laugh his head off.”

“You really think Cousin Greg would know how to make baking powder, Mary Rose?” Tasha asked.

“If he can make his boom toys and rockets I don’t see why he can’t make baking powder. I mean, how hard can it be? Baking powder has been around for I don’t know how long. It’s probably written up in one of his books somewhere and all he needs to do is look it up.”

“But, Mary Rose, that doesn’t get us any baking powder.”

“No,” Mary Rose agreed, “but it would get us some instructions on how to make it. Maybe Cousin Greg can write out a recipe. Something easy to follow. Then we could make our own baking powder.” She looked around the table at the other women, an excited look in her eyes. “That would be great wouldn’t it? We’d never have to worry about running out of baking powder ever again.”

“So when can you ask Cousin Greg for an easy to follow recipe for making baking powder?” Belle asked.

Mary Rose looked from Belle to Tasha. “I was kinda thinking, maybe Tasha might like to ask Amy to ask Cousin Greg. After all, she is a chemistry teacher in training.”

Nodding her head, her mouth full of biscuit, Tasha agreed to ask her daughter to pass on the request.

“Michael. How many times have I told you not to feed that dog from your plate,” Belle bellowed before launching herself from her chair and making her way to her son.

The ladies watched Belle put a strong restraining hand on her five-year-old son while giving her husband, who should have been watching him, a sharp talking to.

“Situation normal,” muttered Erin with a giggle.

A week later, Sunday lunch, Tasha’s place

“Guys, Amy here has come through. Come on, Amy. Show them the recipe,” Tasha said pushing her daughter towards the seated mothers. A little self-consciously Amy placed a single sheet of paper on the coffee table in front of the ladies and stood back to let them read it.

“Uh, yuk. Do you see that?” Mary Rose pointed to the first instruction. “Imagine carefully fermenting urine. Does that mean we have to, you know, ask people to fill a bottle? And why add honey? Is that to sweeten its taste?”

“Ha ha, Mary Rose. Obviously the honey is there to help fermentation,” Tasha said, continuing to run her eye down the directions. “How do you cook off limestone?” She looked up at her daughter, a question in her eyes.

With a heavy sigh Amy looked at her mother and her friends. “I think this is going to be a bit like the time Dad tried to do some baking. You remember how he couldn’t understand how you got cream from butter and sugar?” Smiling at the memory Tasha nodded her head. “I think you might want to find someone who knows a little chemistry and see if they’ll make the stuff for you.”

“But we know somebody who knows something about chemistry,” Tasha pointed out, giving her daughter a significant look.

In horror Amy took a sudden step back, getting some separation between her and her mother. “No way. Sorry, but no way. I’m much too busy at school.” She held her hands out defensively and shook her head. “Really. I think you should find yourselves a friendly alchemist and pay them to make the stuff.”

“And how are we going to find one of them?” asked Mary Rose.

“Well, Jena is a university town. There must be tons of them there.”

“So you think we should go knocking on doors in Jena asking alchemists ‘Please sir, can you make baking powder for us?'”

“Baking soda. If you’ll read the recipe again you’ll see it’s for making baking soda, not powder,” Tracy pointed out, her finger pointing to the top of the sheet.

“Amy?” Tasha turned to her daughter. “I thought you were going to ask about making baking powder?”

“I did, Mom. I asked Mrs. Penzey. She said you have to make baking soda before you can have baking powder. If you look near the bottom,” she pointed to the bottom of the sheet of paper, “you’ll see she’s included how to make baking powder. The problem is getting the cream of tartar. Mrs. Penzey says that it’s a by-product of wine making, but she’s never seen it in its raw state, and has no idea how to get any. And that’s another reason why I think you should contact an alchemist. They know about things like cream of tartar, except they probably call it something different.”

Mary Rose looked at Amy. “What you’re saying is, we can get baking soda easily, but if we want baking powder, that’s going to take a little experimentation?”

Amy nodded. “Yes.”

“That’s not so bad,” Belle said. “We can make biscuits using baking soda. I’m sure we all have some recipes that’ll work. Besides, there are tons of uses for baking soda. There’s toothpaste substitute for a start. And soon enough we should be able to get baking powder.”

Amy slipped away while the ladies sat silently digesting their thoughts.

“Tracy, are you planning on a buying trip to Jena anytime soon?” asked Tasha.

“Ted and I were planning on going down river in another week or so. I guess we can ask around. We should see if Danielle and Steve can go as well. It’s a pity we don’t have more people able to speak German. The more people searching the faster things will go.” Turning to Belle, Tracy continued, “Will you be able to look after Danielle and Steve’s two little monsters if they go?”

“Sure. They aren’t that bad, and they are closer in age to Louis and Michael than your mob. It’ll keep all of them out of my hair if they can entertain each other.”

Jena, ten days later

Ted Kubiak had lucked out. He’d managed to get an appointment with the professor of medicine at Jena. He’d actually been hoping to talk to a professor of chemistry, but there was no such thing, yet. Instead he had to settle for a lecturer in iatrochemistry, Professor Zacharias Brendel.

Zacharias waved the sheet of paper Ted had handed him. “You want to know if I can make this?”

 

Through Fire – Snippet 28

Through Fire – Snippet 28

Egalite

Something Wicked

Corin came running out of the inner room as I was struggling to get hold of the burner. “Alexis,” he said, then a string of words in French, and then, “I’m so glad it was you. I thought–”

“They’re right behind,” Alexis said. “I have arranged to get you out of this. Were you about to blow up the house?”

Corin half nodded and made a sound in his throat that might have been suppressed laughter or a barely contained sob. “I almost blew you up,” he said.

“Never mind that,” Alexis said. “Can you resume the sequence? They were right behind me, and although it will take them time to find the proper place and force the door open, you and I know it must be done. For that matter, blowing up the house will only buy us an hour, maybe two. I can get you out of here. I have made arrangements.”

A closed, mulish expression passed through Corin’s features, and I thought, for just a moment, that I knew that expression, that I’d seen it on Len often enough, only this time I couldn’t imagine what it applied to.

You see, my husband was the nicest man in the world. He was also the only man I could neither bully nor seduce nor budge once his mind was made up. And when that expression appeared on his face, I had to come up with a better plan because Len was going to do what he thought was right and even I couldn’t stop him.

But I couldn’t imagine what Corin though he was going to do. As he turned to go back into the room, Alexis Brisbois took advantage of my distraction to pull the burner out of my hand. As I turned to him, he said, “As for you, Madame, it’s hell’s own time you gave me. I thought you were dead, and what was I going to tell the Good Man?”

I was thinking of Brisbois talking to the man in the dark and seeming to arrange Simon’s execution. Was he going to try to convince me he was a loyal servant all the way? Or was it possible I had the whole thing wrong? Unable to decide, I glared at him, and said, “I have other burners.”

Was that the twitch of a smile at the corner of his lips? People had found me scary and cold, meddling and commanding, annoying and useful, but I didn’t think anyone ever had found me amusing. Except, apparently, Alexis Brisbois. He let go of my arms, as though he didn’t think he need concern himself with being shot. Which he probably didn’t, because I couldn’t bring myself to shoot someone who didn’t expect of me. We all have these little disabilities. “I saw you, in the dark,” I said. “I saw you talking to–”

There was warning in his eyes, and Corin was there, saying, “It is done,” and covering his ears. We covered ours, too, just in time to deaden the sound of the explosion, and feel it mostly in vibration all around. A heavy thud followed the explosion as, I suppose, the house fell in above us. The ground rocked under us.

Alexis turned, lowering his hands from his ears, and asked Corin, “How long do you think until they send another party to find the entrance? Or for the survivors of this one to try again?”

“As soon as it stops smoldering and is cool enough to enter,” Corin said, in a tired voice. “At which point, I hope we’ll be out of here.”

Alexis nodded. “Where is Father?”

I noted he didn’t say “your father.” Nothing in this mountain of a man with the blunt face resembled the Duforts, except that he was presumably human and that they all walked on two legs. But I had seen worse genetic surprises. It would certainly explain why he was here.

“My father,” Corin said, and it seemed to me he underlined the first word just slightly, “is in that room there,” he gestured with his head. “The one that’s open. My mother was tending to him, and I thought it was better to prevent surprises.”

The massive hand of the man who had once been on death row clapped Corin once on the shoulder. “Good thinking that,” he said, and then turned and pelted down the hallway, going in the door where Dr. and Mrs. Dufort were.

It seemed to me that Corin’s face was frozen for a moment. Like there was something unpleasant in the association with Alexis; like there was something about the whole situation that both bothered him and angered him.

I heard Alexis speak briskly, and a male and female voice answered him. “Absolutely not,” Madame Dufort said. “My husband has a broken rib, and is still very weak. You cannot move him within the hour.”

I was aware of Corin coming up behind me, and moving to stand beside me. The two of us filled the door, and the people inside the room ignored us.

“Father,” Alexis said, turning to Dr. Dufort. His tone was both questioning and anguished, a plea, I wasn’t sure for what.

The doctor looked up at him. He was very pale, and obviously shaken, but he looked better than I expected. Through the rent in his shirt, I could see a patch on his chest, not unlike the patch on my arm. That he was awake at all seemed to me a miracle.

“Of course, I must go,” he said, hoarsely. “Now, Madeleine, my dear, you know I must go. It’s not a choice between what I wish and what Alexis wishes, it’s a choice between death and life. I must go if I am to live. You know they’ll keep coming, you know why. If I don’t get out of here . . . And don’t even think of staying.”

“I’ve arranged for transport off of the isle,” Alexis said. “I can carry you to it.”

The doctor gave a laugh like a hiss and said, “You’ll have to. Unless you want to creep out of here and get caught. Are you sure of the transport? I heard that no one could leave by air.”

“It’s not by air,” Alexis said. “And yes, I made sure of it. I’ll get you out the way I would have gotten the Good Man out should he allow it.”

“How is he?”

Alexis shrugged. “Alive. Stubborn, I expect.”

“Of course.” The doctor got up, on shaking legs, retrieved a small bag from somewhere and started putting injectors and instruments into it.

Alexis didn’t say anything, but the doctor must have detected something in his posture or some half-suppressed movement of impatience. “I must take the tools of my trade, Alexis. Into the unknown, and at my age.” The last was almost a grumble. At some point he closed his bag, and Alexis lifted him. I thought I heard Corin huff by my side, but it was such a small sound that it was hard to be sure.

Alexis carried the doctor effortlessly, with Mrs. Dufort running alongside him, down a long hallway and then into a vast room.

To this day, I have no idea how vast the room was or precisely what it contained. I just know that, as I walked past, it seemed to me it was full of glass coffins, and within the glass coffins there floated… people. Or sometimes parts of people: a leg, an arm, not torn and bleeding as they’d be if they’d come off a living person, but whole and sealed, as though they had grown by themselves. There were also other organs, of the kind that were imprinted in my mind as “things that should be inside people and never outside” but most of all, what stayed in my memory was a kind of container at the end, which could be viewed as a coffin on its side. Inside it, floating in some liquid, surrounded by glass, was someone I’d swear was Simon — but the eyes were blank and the body contracted in the fetal position.

I stared at it, and Corin grabbed my arm and said, urgently, “Come on. We must go. They’re going to blow this up.”

“This?” I said. “This secret place, too?”

He pulled more urgently. “They must,” he said. “The things in here…”

And he pulled me out completely.

We left the lab area and trotted down a narrow passageway for a long time. I lost sense of the center of the room and how far we traveled, because we were in the sort of space where the light came on just ahead of us and vanished behind us. It was like moving in a fog, or else in a dream, where the only space that existed was the space immediately ahead, and the space behind us vanished again.

Alexis ran, as though he weren’t carrying a full-grown man, even if one smaller than himself. And Corin walked just ahead of me, pulling me if I delayed.

At the end of the tunnel we emerged into what seemed to be a public park, and miles away — as far as I could tell — from the neighborhood where the doctor’s house had been.

I was shocked once again, by how peaceful a night could look, even when the human world was in turmoil. The night air was warm on my skin, and crickets were chirping in the shadows of palm trees. While we walked, without breaking stride, down a grass-covered slope, and then down narrow stone steps. From somewhere — probably many somewheres given the looting and burning going on — came the smell of fire and burning.

“Alexis?” a voice asked out of the dark.

“Yes,” Alexis answered.

“You were such a long time,” the voice said. It sounded young and diffident.

“Yes,” he said. “I met with some trouble. But everything is all right now. Here?”

“Nothing,” the voice said. I realized it was not only young but female.

“C’est bien,” Alexis said, and walked past a shadow standing on the beach, at the bottom of the stone steps. I spared her a glance as I went past. She was shorter than I, which was no great feat, as most women are, but also one of those young women who would have no trouble passing as young men, save for the breasts. The moonlight glinted on blond hair topped by a liberty cap.

I wondered once more what Alexis was playing at, and would have given the doctor and his family the warning if I thought there was the slightest chance they’d listen to me. But I wasn’t fool enough to think they might.

 

Castaway Odyssey – Chapter 13

Castaway Odyssey – Chapter 13

Part II: Emerald

Chapter 13.

“Listen up, people. We are about to attempt a landing on a planet no one has ever landed on before. That means we’re going in cold, no survey, no beacons, nothing. With the way we lost most of our instruments, we can’t even do much of a once-over from orbit, basically just get a glimpse of the land that’s not cloud-covered and pick the best-looking landing spots.”

The huge curve of Emerald cut across the forward port, softened by the presence of atmosphere, white and green and brown. “Tavana, is the Nebula Drive retracting?”

The French-Polynesian boy nodded. “The dust is going into the containers we set up for it, yes. The gas, however – we will lose most of it.”

“No biggie. It’s done its job.”

It had taken a day or two to deploy the Nebula Drive dusty-plasma sail, and several more days to use the controlled nebula to get them into orbit around Emerald. Other than being slow, however, the Drive had performed flawlessly, something that had made the trip something of a mini-vacation. They weren’t worrying about improvised coils or wondering where they were going, and Emerald had always been there, reassuring them that they weren’t just drifting through empty space any more. Just hope that’s not a false promise.

Getting the dust – programmable nanotech motes descended from the original designs by the European Union for the famous Odin – was important. No telling when we might need a bunch of nanodust, even simple stuff like that. And we sure ain’t making it ourselves.

“Right. Francisco, Maddox, I want you two to go through the cargo area from all the way at the back to the front, and secure anything that might be loose. If you find something, like a big piece of machinery, that you don’t think you can secure right, mark it in your omnis.”

He pushed himself over to where he’d hung his EVA suit. “I got myself one more job, but it’s a quickie.”

“What is it, sir?” asked Xander.

“You can help, actually. While I’m getting suited up and checking out all telltales, go get me those SC 178s, would you?”

“SC-178s?”

Campbell snorted at himself. You think these kids live and breathe acronyms and designations? “Those things I called commsats for idiots. In the crate marked ICS-GIS-S-C-178. Crate that size probably holds ten of them. Just drag the crate up – remember that –”

“I know, Sergeant, it’s still just as massy even if it’s weightless, don’t crush myself or anyone else by getting cocky with it.”

“That’s sounding almost cocky, kid. Just be careful.”

By the time he was satisfied that the suit was operating perfectly, Xander had arrived with the crate. “Now what, sir?”

“Now I basically dump these things out the airlock. Once they go into vacuum they wake right up. I can give ’em the update on the diameter of the planet and things like that from my Omni. Then they’ll use their built-in micro-ion drives to work their way into a reasonable-coverage set of orbits over time, and deploy their solar recharge sails which they can also use for a little boost. Once on-station, the sails reconfigure to standard power-gathering panels. Guaranteed to last at least seventy-five years on-station.”

“What will we get out of them, with what we don’t have in infrastructure?”

“Don’t sell these things short. They’ve got a lot of standard commo packages, software update services, and more importantly great GIS/GPS capability, which will come in handy if we end up having to navigate around this globe. Good remote storage servers, and – not least – they can use their power to send distress pings out regularly. Not very often, but there’s ten of them.”

“Distress pings?” Xander looked skeptical, and Campbell couldn’t blame him. “That’s a ten-year delay on reception, Sergeant, if we’re looking at Orado.”

“If it’s Orado, yeah,” Campbell agreed, opening the lock and cramming the crate inside; he would just barely be able to fit in with it. “But no one on Orado would notice it, anyway, unless they had a radio telescope pointed in this direction for no particular reason. No, this is just in case anyone comes looking. It wouldn’t take much brainpower to say “hey, here’s a star right near where the disaster happened, maybe survivors went there”, after all. And if we have constant distress beacons, they might be readable from billions of miles away by a search vessel.”

He clambered in and made sure all of him was clear of the hatch. “All right, close her up and put us in vacuum.”

Pressure dropped swiftly, and once it hit less than one millibar – less than a thousandth of Earth-normal atmospheric pressure – he saw activation signals coming up on his omni. “There you are,” he muttered. Opening the crate, he could see each of the SC-178s with its two indicator lights – one for drives, one for electronics – glowing a comforting green. “What do you know, ten for ten. Will miracles never cease.”

A few minutes sufficed to update the satellites with their meager store of information, and then – as he’d told Xander he would – he simply opened the outer hatch and started throwing the soccer-ball sized spheres with their strangely seamed sides out the airlock. Once clear, the greenish-painted satellites opened two small hatches and began preparing for orbital modification; Campbell couldn’t help but grin faintly, because every time he saw an SC-178 deploy it looked like they’d suddenly grown little circular wings or flappy round ears, at least before the solar panels started to deploy; the lines and indicator LEDs gave the rest of the sphere a vaguely cheerful face between those ears. Then he shook his head, closed the exterior door, and waited for the airlock to repressurize.

“Mostly secure, Sergeant!” Maddox said as he re-entered the cabin. “We marked a few things that we couldn’t be sure of.”

“Outstanding. Xander, you come with me. Tavana, make sure all ten of our little satellites get clear of our position. Francisco, Maddox – use the head and then get yourselves strapped in.” He accessed Maddox’ and Francisco’s omnis; there were five questionable areas marked, all of them – as he had expected – associated with the larger pieces of machinery. He and Xander got all of those tended to.

“So now I guess I’d better strap in too?” Xander asked.

“Not yet, son. Now the two of us go front-to-back, inch by inch, and make damn sure there isn’t a single loose object, not so much as a bolt. We’re about to do re-entry at orbital velocity, and anything not strapped down could kill someone.”

Xander nodded, and the two men began a careful survey of the large cargo hold. Sure enough, they found several loose objects that had been hidden behind or under others, including one TechTool that Samuel Campbell had been sure would turn up in exactly this situation. “Tav, found your missing tool. Locking it into a crate back here for now.”

“Merci, Sergeant! I was worried about it not being found.”

“No more than I was. How’re those satellites doing?”

“All have cleared our immediate vicinity; there is nothing within several kilometers now.”

“Good. Then get to your own couch and strap in; we’re just about ready to go.”

Campbell settled himself behind the controls, made sure the restraining harness was secure. Then he checked telemetry on all the others. “Tav, you’re a little loose. So are you, Francisco. Strap in. This ain’t going to be a picnic, and when we land at first we’ll all think we’re in hell, because we aren’t used to weight any more. But we’re going to land, at last, on solid ground.”

All four of his passengers gave a cheer at that, and he grinned back before turning his attention to the controls. “All right, now. You can read, or play your Jewelbug, or whatever, but keep it quiet and do not distract me. I have to do this on manual, and that’s dangerous as hell.”

That was something of an exaggeration, he admitted to himself, but he really didn’t want to be disturbed. Yeah, he’d done quite a few hands-on de-orbits in his time, but every one was a little different, and even after a couple centuries of space travel, the friction of re-entry was still one of the things that could kill a spaceship faster than you could say “oops”.

And, of course, every other time he’d either had expert help, or at least a serious survey, to help him out. This time… this time, it was all seat-of-the-pants and gut instinct.

First he tested the manual reconfiguration. With the automatics out, they’d had to use two of the five omnis to provide processing power to direct the metamaterial that made up a large portion of the shuttle’s exterior. The hookups all still worked, fortunately, otherwise he didn’t know how he’d be able to land this thing; its default shape wasn’t all that different from the “brick airplane” first made famous by the American Space Shuttle back in the 20th century, which meant that it was great for re-entry and absolutely abominable for anything else, like actually flying, let alone landing on anything that wasn’t a gargantuan salt flat or immense tailored runway.

But the reconfiguration did work. It was slower than the original systems would have been, but it did the job, and he was pretty sure he could handle the rough moments while it was between modes. “All configurations check out. Starting first de-orbit burn.”

He was doing a series of burns to slowly lower the altitude until he started getting evidence of atmosphere. He wasn’t sure of the scale height for Emerald, and even if he was, their altitude wasn’t absolutely precisely known, and just how high or low he’d have to be before noticeable drag set in would also depend on a lot of other factors, ranging from just how much atmosphere Emerald had to how active Emerald’s sun had been lately.

It was after the third burn that he felt an infinitesimal quiver. That’s got it. “We are about to start re-entry,” he announced. “Stay calm; this will be rough.”

There wasn’t much way to avoid some battering, at pretty nasty levels, on a re-entry. And here, he was having to wing it. On the positive side, if you get the angle wrong, you’ll not have too much time to worry about it.

The vibration grew, became a faint singing hum, getting louder, louder, dropping in pitch while rising in volume. LS-88 was starting to shake slightly now. “We are in the soup. Starting to see heating. Boys, we are about to do a good job at emulating a meteor.” Or of being a meteor.

The shuttle was shuddering now, violent shakes as pressure of deceleration mounted inexorably, crushing down onto Campbell like a load of wet sand slithering down out of a dumptruck. He heard Francisco whimper. “Only… about four G’s,” Campbell managed to say, trying to make it sound casual. “Just a few seconds, kids… keep calm… breathe slow and deep.”

The forward viewport was black, closed against the heat, but Campbell could see the telltales, temperature climbing. There was one spot that heat was going up faster than anywhere else. He stared at that indication, willing it to slow down, to hold out.

Then the rise did slow down. He glanced at the others, saw that a similar slowdown was starting. Slowly, the massive weight lifted from him, and the temperature telltales began to drop rather than climb. Made it! God-damn but we made it through the re-entry!

The forward port showed a gleam and then lit up as the Thermal Protection System retracted, showing blue-black sky above and fluffy clouds far below, green ocean dotted with islands. “Reconfiguring for supersonic flight in three… two… one…”

The manual transition was a pain in the rear. For a few seconds he almost bobbled it, the LS-88 swaying dangerously through the air like a drunk trying to drive home on icy roads. But he finally got it under control, and now the much more streamlined aircraft screamed its way through the sky with nuclear jets driving it forward.

“All right, people, we are now flying, not falling, and not drifting in space. That heaviness you feel is real honest gravity, and we’ll have to get used to it again. But believe me, I’m damn glad to feel it.”

“This world has worse gravity than Earth!” Tavana said. “Will it be dangerous?”

While his limbs were trying to present the same argument as Francisco, his trained reflexes told him something else. “Hate to tell you, son, but if anything it’s a little lighter on the gravity here. I’ve been to a dozen worlds, maybe more; believe me, I know what high gravity feels like.”

“Where are we going to land, sir?”

“Spotted a couple candidates on our orbits, and figured our re-entry to… yep, that should be it ahead.”

A large island was coming into view; it took several minutes at their supersonic speed to draw near enough to appreciate its size. “An island?” Maddox asked. “Why not a continent?”

“Well, son, we can always move somewhere else if we want. But an island will tend to have a more limited population, especially of hostile predators, since any predator has to rely only on what’s on the island; he can’t trot off to the mainland and get himself food like we’d order takeout, after all. And this island’s plenty big enough for four people.”

He was puzzled by the lack of real mountains; from orbit he had seen things that looked, visually, like mountain ranges, but now that he was closer he didn’t think any of the peaks he had seen topped three hundred meters, and that was really rare. No plate tectonics? Something wearing them down fast?

Still, everything was reasonably promising. The way LS-88 was responding, the atmosphere was similar to Earth’s in density at this altitude, anyway. Shame there wasn’t any atmospheric sensor functioning so he could tell if the chemistry was like Earth’s. If LS-88‘s jets had been powered by chemical fuel, like old-style airplanes, he’d have had his answer already; without oxygen they’d have stalled instantly. But this baby used nuclear jets, driving the turbines through sheer nuclear heat. No answers there.

One thing at a time, he reminded himself. First they had to get down.

He triggered the second transition, slowing to subsonic speed, watching flight conditions narrowly. No rain, skies are clear, winds aren’t terribly strong. Hard to tell direction right now. When I get closer, the trees and such will give me an indication, as will wave movement.

LS-88 swept in over the shore of the island, and he began a leisurely survey of his selected target. The island was about seventy kilometers long by thirty-five wide, a ridge of low hills or tiny mountains running down the center from each end and meeting in the middle. The middle ridge extended to the shoreline on each side, and bowed outward in the center of the island, where clear water showed.

He took LS-88 on a high inspection. A circular area in the center, a lot of water in a ring around a central island. Caldera or impact crater, I’m guessing. But that was only a guess. If a couple centuries of space exploration had taught the human race anything, it was that alien worlds were full of surprises, even the ones without anything living on them, and any assumptions you made might get shattered at any moment.

Still, the important thing was that it looked big enough to support them, and there was a larger landmass, maybe a continent, not all that far away if they wanted to move. The question now was, where to land?

“Okay, crew, I’m thinking we want to be pretty close to the shore; fishing and such will be a good way of catching food.”

“Sounds reasonable to me, Sergeant,” Xander said.

“Look for a river,” Francisco said unexpectedly. When they glanced at him, he smiled – a pained smile still, with the pressure of gravity weighing on him, but a smile. “My mama was reading a book to me about old civilizations and said all of them started near rivers.”

A genuine contribution. Not that I wasn’t thinking along those lines myself, but it’ll be good for Francisco to know he was right. “Very good. We’ll want fresh water to drink, and streams are good for fishing too. If it’s big enough, might even be useful for moving stuff on.”

From the high vantage point, it wasn’t hard to spot streams. One looked particularly prominent, gathering several tributary creeks into a respectable flow. Elevation difference isn’t very large, so we’re not going to get too many whitewater rapids or anything. Without a discontinuity like a small cascade, though, tides might make it brackish quite a ways up. Solar tides only; moons aren’t big enough to worry about that way. So, about half the tides we see on Earth. Dunno what the slightly different gravity and such will mean for that.

The large stream also had a somewhat clear region near it, standing out from the surrounding forest, surrounding a small lake maybe half a kilometer across; the stream went into the lake and went out the other side to the sea.

“Got our landing spot picked out, boys.” He flashed it onto their retinals. “Look good?”

There was a chorus of enthusiastic yeses; of course, a lot of that was just the excitement of actually landing; they’d probably have agreed to anything that looked halfway decent.

“All right, descending to five hundred meters. Hold on; I’m about to convert us to VTOL.”

“VTOL?” repeated Francisco.

“Vertical Takeoff and Landing; basically means we can land and take off straight up and down, which lets me put her down on any space she’ll fit, instead of needing a runway. Now pipe down, everyone, this is gonna be tricky.”

It was tricky. The slower-than-design conversion induced turbulence and threw off the aerodynamics drastically. LS-88 almost tumbled, spun once completely around the ship’s central axis as Campbell fought to regain control. He heard a frightened curse from Tavana, a gasp from Xander, and a squeak of fear from Francisco; Maddox was silent, but his hands were gripping the armrests so tightly that his knuckles were white.

But in a few moments the ship steadied, and Campbell began to breathe easier. “We’re okay now, kids. Just hold on a few more minutes.”

He dipped the nose once more, circled his chosen landing spot. He could see somethings flying away from the area. Well, now I know there’s life beyond plants here. Probably a good thing. And the air looks clear. The green color’s from the seawater, somehow. Maybe, just maybe, this is a livable place.

Now came the trickiest part of all. He had no operating radar, no spotters, just 3-D images he’d recorded and that his omni was now overlaying on what he could see through the forward port, showing its best calculation of his current height above the target ground. He let the ship drop to what he guessed was thirty meters, and then reduced his descent to the most exquisitely slow progress he could manage, measured in centimeters per second. Slowly, very slowly, the trees rose up, the horizon began to vanish, the waving grasses gradually became visible at the lower edge of the forward port.

LS-88 vibrated slightly in an unexpected wind, but he didn’t let her sway more than a few centimeters. Now he could see dust and debris flying, and knew he had to be close. Keep it slow, keep it steady, no need to hurry. Slow as you can get it –

The thud of the forward strut striking something transmitted itself throughout the cabin, and was followed almost instantly by smaller thumps from the side struts landing. Tense, Sergeant Campbell started stepping the power down. Moment of truth; I find out if what I landed us on is solid and stable, or if I’ve chosen a pile of quicksand.

But as the vibrations of the engines diminished, LS-88 remained immobile, steady as solid stone, and finally the whine of the turbines faded to nothing. A wide smile spreading across his face, Campbell spun his chair to face the others.

“Gentlemen, we have landed.”

 

The Span Of Empire – Snippet 27

The Span Of Empire – Snippet 27

“Damn straight!” Tully replied instantly.

“Correct,” Ed said in support. “It will risk the jinau, but better to risk them and not need them than to leave them behind and find out you need them after all. As commander of Ares Base and commander of all Terra taif jinau, it may or may not be within my oudh to order it, but if it doesn’t happen you will not want to deal with me.”

Caitlin looked at her husband. What she saw was Lieutenant General Kralik directing his eagle’s gaze at everyone else in the room.

Dannet stirred, angles flowing into something that Caitlin translated as agreement-with-no-brainer. She couldn’t remember the exact Jao name at the moment, but that was what it meant.

“General Kralik is right,” the fleet commander said, “Ban Chao will take full crew and troop load and as much extra weapon load as can be squeezed into it.”

“All right,” Caitlin said. She looked at Tully. “Make sure you have everything you need before you jump. It will be a bit difficult to send back for anything you forget.”

“Grandmothers and eggs, Caitlin,” Tully responded, tapping notes into his com pad.

Tully’s face had lit with glee at the fleet commander’s pronouncement. Tully’s repressed energy was about to blow a fuse. The man was-crazy, Caitlin thought. He liked to be in the vanguard, seeing what was happening. He was infernally curious. That often got him into trouble, but occasionally gave him great successes. “All right,” she said, “but you have to promise not to get killed.”

Vanta-Captain Ginta looked at her sharply. He was a well-made individual with reddish gold nap and a heavily marked vai camiti composed of three stolid thick lines. “Humans can promise such positive outcomes?”

“They can,” she said, “and then do their dead level best to make sure they keep their word.”

“I won’t let them kill me,” Tully said, “and if they do, you can dock my pay.”

Ginta’s ears flattened in blatant bafflement. “If you are dead, you will not care about your pay.”

“Right,” Tully said. He winked. “Are we done here? I’ve got work to do now.”

Caitlin considered for a moment, working around the yawning gulf in the pit of her stomach. This was a decision with much larger repercussions that anything she had faced before. But all things considered, there was no choice. Not to do this would fail their people. She thought of the Ekhat, and her resolve firmed.

“Yes,” Caitlin said, “it is decided and directed. The fleet will jump as soon as Fleet Commander Dannet is convinced we are ready. The Ban Chao will lead the way.” She tapped the table. “Make it happen, people.”

With that, she stood and, in keeping with her use of Jao protocol, waited for her bodyguards and her husband to precede her out of the conference room.

As she walked through the door, she heard Tully saying, “All right! Now the fun begins.”

****

On the way back to her quarters, Caewithe Miller walked next to Caitlin.

“I thought Tully told me once that we are in the Sagittarius Arm of the galaxy,” the guard captain said. “How can we be moving to the Sagittarius Arm?”

“I thought the same thing, myself,” Caitlin responded, “at least for a little while. Bad information from a news program, I’m afraid. We and the Jao are actually in the Orion arm. We got it straightened out before long, fortunately before we embarrassed ourselves too badly.”

A few more steps down the corridor, then, “What was with Tully just now?” Caewithe asked. “Why was he fighting to be on the Ban Chao? He’ll just be in the way.”

“Tully’s got an insatiable urge to be at the leading edge of everything,” Caitlin said. “Aille understands. That’s why he was off in the mountains with the rebels half the time. He’ll make something positive out of this situation, you’ll see.”

“Bleeding edge will be more like it,” the younger woman muttered, and her cheeks were flushed.

Caitlin studied her as they walked. She knew their history as an on-again/off-again couple. “Tully never had a family. He was an orphaned rebel camp brat, surviving as best he could on what he could steal. If he told the truth twice a day, it was an accident. He was spying on the Jao when Aille ran across him, for God’s sake, which would have led to a swift execution if anyone else had detected him. If he didn’t live his life at this sort of fever pitch, he would have been dead long ago.”

“Yeah, I figured that out a while ago,” Caewithe said. “That’s why I finally broke it off with him. He’s fun for a time, but I can’t make a life with an adrenaline junkie.”

Caitlin gave her surprised guard captain a hug around the shoulders. “I could tell it hadn’t worked out,” Caitlin said, “but I didn’t know why. I really wish it had, though. I like both of you guys, and you would have been a great couple.”

Caewithe shrugged. “I really like Tully, too, but living with him would be like living with a hand grenade with the pin pulled. I couldn’t do it. So I let him go while we were still friends.”

“I’m not what you would call experienced at this stuff,” Caitlin said with a wry grin, “not with my background, but I’d say that was probably a wise decision. No sense in destroying your friendship over something if it never had a chance at success.”

“Nope.”

They walked in silence for a few moments, taking the next left and then the next right. Caitlin looked at her guard captain out of the corner of her eye. “So, you started looking yet?”

Caewithe gave a snort. “Got right to that point, didn’t you?” She laughed as Caitlin started to sputter. “It’s okay, it’s okay. Actually, if you want to know, Lieutenant Vaughan is starting to look interesting. And I love that Welsh accent.”

“Good,” Caitlin said as they reached her quarters. Caewithe and Tamt took up their posts by the door. “You just smile at him and use that Alabama drawl of yours.”

“Standard southern belle practice,” Caewithe said with a grin. “Been using it on Yankees for generations; hasn’t failed us yet.”

After the door closed, Tamt looked over at Caewithe. “I’ll take the post and call up one of the other guards. Lieutenant Vaughan said something about going to the officer’s pool.”

Caewithe thought about it for a moment. She had a swimsuit . . . yeah, it would work. “Thanks, Tamt. I’ll owe you one.”

The burly Jao guard just waved her on.