The Span of Empire: Chapter One

PART I

Reconnaissance

    The gray moon still held a few ruins, mostly extending beneath the surface, while the once habitable planet visible overhead in the airless sky had been scoured lifeless with solar plasma in that gruesome way the Ekhat had so long ago perfected. Suited up against the vacuum, Caitlin Kralik stepped down carefully from the shuttle and rotated her body to get a better view. Inside the helmet, her breathing rasped in her ears and she felt awkward in the low gravity, which was only about a fifth of that of her home world, Earth.

    The Ekhat plasma strikes had not been aimed only at the planet. Caitlin had to watch the placement of her feet, because the shuttle had landed at the edge of a strike here on the moon, and the nearby surface was marred by ribbons of solidified molten splash from that attack. She picked her way across the flow until she reached her destination, a structure that was just far enough away from the center of the plasma strike that it had survived, albeit with serious damage.

    The pitiful remains of the moon’s former inhabitants, mummified by exposure to vacuum, were scattered across what had once probably been the observation deck of an eating establishment. Thick glass lay shattered in the moon dust, the shards reflecting the starlight like discarded diamonds. Metal struts that had formed the supporting structure had been melted into formless slag that had puddled, then solidified on the ground.

    These nameless people, listed nowhere in the Jao database, had been diminutive with long sinuous arms and a multitude of digits that resembled tentacles far more than fingers. Their hairless heads were narrow, their eyes small and recessed deeply into their skulls. They had apparently loved color because red, purple, orange, and blue clothing draped their shriveled torsos.

    Many of the mummified corpses were tiny and had fallen clutching one another. Small figures made of a plastic-like substance lay scattered about, most of them crushed, broken, or melted. Caitlin picked one up and turned it over in her gloved hand. It was iridescent blue and seemed to be some sort of animal with an oversized skull and three slender trunks.

    Then she realized–they were probably toys. Dear God, these small bodies were most likely children. Had this been some sort of daycare or a creche for the raising of the next generation?

    Her eyes felt damp, but Caitlin resisted the urge to weep for these lost people. If she gave into her emotions now, she would have to cry for the rest of her life because the damned Ekhat had apparently been everywhere in this arm of the galaxy, working their way out from the galactic center and killing every sentient being in their path except for those they enslaved. The Ekhat had done their maniac worst here long ago and moved on, seeking more victims.

    “These people have obviously been dead for millennia,” she said. “Could even be a million years, who knows? The Ekhat are ancient.” Her fists knotted in frustration. “There’s no way we could ever have gotten here in time to help.”

    “We will take measurements,” Kaln krinnu ava Krant said, responding to Caitlin’s rhetorical statement with Jao literalness. “At least, the information will fill out the database and allow our calculations to be more accurate.”

    The Jao tech had joined the landing party from the Lexington class ship that the Krant kochan had contributed to the fleet. Caitlin’s shuttle had contained techs from all over the fleet, since it was obvious soon after they had jumped in that the system was lifeless. Kaln wouldn’t be needed on her ship for now and had joined the others to make herself of use by helping with forensics instead of preparing for battle. That of course was the way of things when working with Jao. For them, making oneself of use at all times was of the highest priority.

    The Jao stared at her, body neutral, waiting, and Caitlin realized that her statement had actually been a request for direction. Caitlin had oudh, as the Jao termed it, in this search for sentient life and new allies. It was for her to decide how to proceed.

    “Yes,” she said. “Please collect samples and take the proper readings.” For all the good it will do these poor lost devils, or even us, for that matter, she told herself.

    This was the second dead civilization they had found since they had left Earth almost a year ago out of eighty-one systems visited, working their way by frame gate travel along the Orion arm of the galaxy toward the center. The first one hadn’t been technologically advanced enough to spread beyond their own planet, though.

    There might have been sentient populations on two other planets, but if so they’d been too technologically primitive to have left traces after the Ekhat scoured the planets with plasma balls. The expedition had also passed by many more solar systems than they’d investigated, because they’d been able to determine that they didn’t have habitable planets. It was possible that a few survivors of a ravaged species might have been hiding in one of those systems, if they had the technological capability. But the likelihood was remote and they couldn’t check every possibility.

    And if they did, they probably wouldn’t have detected anything anyway. Such a species would have to be very well hidden, if they’d been able to escape Ekhat attention.

    Caitlin had known the Ekhat were fiercely efficient exterminators. But it was one thing to know it with the logical part of her brain, and another altogether to stand over the remains of slaughtered children and their broken toys.

    Kaln’s arms moved in a choppy version of the Jao posture signifying orders-acknowledged. The Jao kochan of Krant, though tough and reliable, was not much taken with fancy body-styling. The Jao was taller than Caitlin, taller even than her husband, Ed, built broad and stocky with heavy bones. Her dark-russet face with its nearly invisible black facial markings, or vai camiti, blinked at her with green-laced black eyes, then Kaln gestured to one of the tech teams emerging from the shuttle with their equipment.

    Captain Caewithe Miller, commander of Caitlin’s bodyguard, picked her way through the debris into the shattered observation deck and stared down at the corpses. “We have to stop the Ekhat,” she said. “Things cannot go on like this.”

    Caitlin nodded, though the gesture felt foolish in the stiff spacesuit. Someone did need to stop the insane Ekhat in their quest to exterminate all sentient life in the Universe. She just wasn’t sure it could be their Jao/Human/Lleix alliance. The Ekhat were an incredibly old and vicious species, and successful at killing far beyond anything humans had ever imagined before the Jao had conquered Earth.

    When the Jao had arrived on her world, over twenty-five years ago, they had defeated Earth’s armies after a short but savage war and then installed their own government. They had informed their new subjects about the dangers of the Ekhat, but humans had not believed them. Even her father, who had been Vice President of the United States at the time of the initial invasion, then later puppet ruler of North America for the Jao, had not credited the stories about the fiendish bogeyman aliens who wanted nothing more than to be alone in the Universe with their own perfection.

    What they had not understood in those early days was that the Jao, though consummate warriors and gifted techs, had no capacity for imagination or prevarication. They had been uplifted into sentience long ago by a faction of the Ekhat to serve as warrior-slaves in the ongoing slaughter of all intelligent life. The ability to picture that-which-did-not-exist, what they called ollnat, had been bred out of them long before they finally freed themselves from their terrible masters. They did not make things up because they couldn’t.

    When the Ekhat had later attacked Earth, humans realized that the Ekhat were far more terrible than the Jao had ever been able to make them understand. The reality of the Ekhat was a hundred times worse than any tale ever told, no matter how gruesome.

    Gabe Tully emerged from the shuttle, a gun slung across his shoulder, although there was no one left to fight here in this depressing moonscape. He had accompanied a squad of his soldiers; not that anyone expected there to be any dangerous Ekhat or other aliens lurking in dark vacuum corners. Still, the occasional need for strong backs still arose, even in this day of starships and solar plasma balls. He hopped toward them, using long gliding strides in the low gravity. “Didn’t leave much, did they?” he said, plowing to a stop just short of Captain Miller.

    His tanned face beneath his gold hair surveyed the wreckage and dead bodies. He looked a little green beneath the tan. Caitlin knew he didn’t like space travel and would have much rather remained back on Earth, cajoling the remaining scattered pockets of the human Resistance to come out and use their fierce will to help in the fight against the Ekhat.

    “They didn’t leave anything,” Caitlin replied in a grim tone. “It’s beginning to seem utterly hopeless. I think they’ve already scoured this galactic arm from here on in.”

    “We found the Lleix,” Tully said. He bent to pick up a shard of shattered observation window and turned it over in his gloved hand. “They survived, so there must be more species out there.”

    “The Lleix had been fleeing and hiding for over a thousand years,” Caitlin said, “and even so the Ekhat found them again and again. If we hadn’t come along when we did, they would have exterminated them at Valeron in that last raid.”

    Which would have been a terrible loss, Caitlin acknowledged to herself, picking her way through the rest of the debris. The Lleix, with their amazing capacity to adapt and learn new languages and concepts, were staunch and valued allies now. The Jao/Human taif that ruled Earth had allotted them temporary living space on the Colorado high plains and promised to relocate them to a new world all their own. But so far, on this exploratory expedition, the only habitable worlds they’d found that might have once harbored intelligent life had already been savaged by the Ekhat, every one of them reduced to lifeless cinders like the one overhead at the moment.

    Tully turned back to her. “What now, Madam Director?”

    What now, indeed? she thought. She was in charge of this disheartening and fruitless chase. What had seemed an exciting opportunity to acquire new allies back on Earth when Preceptor Ronz first approached her now was only tedious, often depressing duty, just going through the motions until they could justify giving give up and returning home.

    “Document what we can,” she said, resisting the urge to sigh. “Wrot has taken a shuttle and tech crew to the planet, but I don’t think they’ll find even this much there. From the readings we took in orbit, it doesn’t even have a proper atmosphere left, just a bit of out-gassing from its interior.”

    “It’s not your fault,” Tully said. “The Bond laid this course out for us. We’re acting on the best information we have.”

    “I know,” she said. “We’ll gather as much data as we can here, then move on to the next system.”

    “Even though there most likely won’t be anyone home?” Miller asked.

    “It will just take one inhabited world to make this expedition a success,” she said, though she feared she was right, and it was so heartbreaking to follow the scourged trail left by the Ekhat, finding nothing but once verdant planets burned to ashes, a holocaust of dreams, and slaughtered children. “If we can discover even one advanced species, we’ll increase our own chances of prevailing against the Ekhat.”

    “And we just might save one more planet and one more people from becoming nothing more than a haunted memorial,” Tully said in a remarkably poetic utterance.

    Caitlin looked at him in surprise. “We can try.”

    That was reason enough to go on, she decided. To try and keep one more planet from becoming nothing more than an orbiting gravestone for a nameless race.

    Senior Tech Kaln krinnu ava Krant prowled the surface of the dusty moon, taking samples and readings while others penetrated the building and its lower levels. Her nap crawled with distaste. Waterless environments always affected her like that. The Jao had evolved in the seas of some now-nameless world and always felt most at home when swimming. She gazed out at the arid, dead landscape. No one had ever swum here, even before the Ekhat had blasted this outpost to ashes. She could not understand a species that could be happy under such circumstances.

    But then the Lleix were not swimmers either, yet they had made good lives for themselves, despite the pursuit of the Ekhat. One of the great unstated truths of the universe was that there was no one way to live best. You only had to look at humans and Lleix to understand that. Even the many Jao clans, called kochan, varied in their approach to life and living well. And now that her kochan, Krant, was becoming more prosperous, their two home worlds were changing. Jao, who did not adapt well to change, were being challenged by the alliance to stretch their minds, to see possibilities where none had occurred before. That was mostly the influence of the humans, who pursued ollnat as rigorously as Jao had always pursued pragmatism.

    It was her secret that she was attracted to ollnat, that doing things in a new way made life more interesting. She had kept that part of herself hidden with some difficulty until Krant had come in contact with humans and their way of thinking. Humans valued ollnat with the same devotion that Jao strove to be of use. She actually felt at ease among them, since she had come to understand that.

    Kaln collected samples of the blasted buildings with her gloved hands, stowing them in her pouch, then recording images on her scanner. This had been a frivolous establishment, set out here on the surface, when it would have been much more efficient to locate all facilities under the moon’s surface, but she supposed, like humans, the view had beguiled them–back when there was a living planet above them in the sky and not a lifeless ball of scorched rock.

    She directed Giln, one of her underlings, to retrieve several corpses from the structure, including one of the apparent young as well as adults. They would be stored on the Lexington, command ship of their fleet, for eventual transport back to Terra where scientists could pore over them and glean what could be learned from the dead flesh of these victims. She wondered if they had even seen the Ekhat coming. She chewed on that as her subordinate, aided by a couple of Colonel Tully’s jinau troops, carefully loaded the corpses into body bags. Or had the world just ended for them between one heartbeat and the next in savage blasts of solar plasma?

    She had fought in two major battles against the Ekhat, the first destroying or critically damaging three of Krant’s treasured ships and killing most of their crews; then in a second, in the magnificent Lexington captained by then Terra-Captain Dannet krinnu ava Terra herself. Against all odds, Dannet had prevailed against five Ekhat ships in a single battle, an amazing feat, never before equaled. Now, like Kaln, Dannet was assigned to this expedition. The Terra-Captain’s new rank was Fleet Commander, putting her in command of the entire fleet–more like a small fleet, if you counted all the auxiliary ships–that had been assigned to the expedition. The Fleet Commander was still on the Lexington, but no longer as the captain. Instead, in the human way of phrasing it, the big ship now served as the commander’s flagship.

    Dannet was all Jao in her devotion to duty and being of use. She had been a gift to Terra from the great kochan of Narvo, in recompense for the actions of a crazed scion who had abused his authority as Terra’s first Jao governor, and she had since proved a valuable one indeed. Her attitudes concerning duty and service provided an exemplar to both Jao and humans within Terra taif. And her astounding combat record as the captain of the Lexington only increased her stature.

    Kaln broke off her thoughts when the body bagging was completed. She motioned to Giln and the two of them followed the other techs into the wrecked facility to record additional images and see what little was left of these unfortunate beings. There would not be much, she feared. There never was. The Ekhat were dreadfully efficient. It occurred to her that this was almost Jao-like.

    Back on board the Lexington, Caitlin called a meeting in one of the conference rooms on the same deck as her stateroom. They’d been at this for almost a year, visiting dead system after system, but she still felt like a fraud whenever she gave orders in her role as the official holder of oudh on the expedition. Three years before, when the Lexington had made first contact with the Lleix, a misunderstanding instigated first by Kaln and then perpetuated by Wrot had fraudulently presented her as “Queen of the Universe,” in charge of all humans and Jao. That had been embarrassing enough; but now her responsibilities were real and she often felt like a child playing dress-up.

    One by one the senior members of the fleet entered the room and sat down. The mood was somber as the room filled. Fleet Commander Dannet krinnu ava Terra entered first, followed by the captains of all four of the Lexington-class battleships and the commander of the support ship fleet. Among these was Krant-Captain Mallu krinnu ava Krant, captain of the Krant warship. It was officially listed in Krant’s shiplists as Krant Ship 3547, but to everyone except perhaps Fleet Commander Dannet it was known as Pool Buntyam. The humans had even christened it so when its construction was complete. Its sister ship, another Lexington-class battleship, in the shiplists as Krant Ship 3548, was Bab the Green Ox. This was also the legacy of the same moment of low humor perpetuated by Kaln that had resulted in Caitlin’s regal title.

    Behind the Fleet Commander stood a very tall, very lean human, Lieutenant Fflewdwr Vaughan. It hadn’t taken long after attaining her new position for Dannet to realize that she would need assistants, a staff of sorts. Her position in Terra taif was not sufficient to take individuals into service, that almost feudal relationship between the highest of the individual Jao and those who were gathered around them; and being who she was, she would undoubtedly refuse to take humans into service even if she could. But Terra taif’s elders had all but ordered her to make use of those humans who would be of service to the taif. And the one who made it past her disdain and bristly attitude was a certain dour young Welshman from Caernarvon. Caitlin hadn’t had much contact with him yet, but from all accounts he was a good match for the fleet commander in personality and temperament.

    Also present were Colonel Gabe Tully, the ground forces commander of the fleet, accompanied by the Ban Chao’s First Sergeant, Adrian Luff; Wrot krinnu ava Terra, one of Terra taif’s elders and her primary assistant (a wily old devil, for a Jao); Brakan and Matto of the Lleix Starsifters elian; Ramt of the Lleix Ekhatlore elian, and Pyr and Lim of the Lleix Terralore elian.

    Completing the roster, and standing against a wall flanking the door, were Caitlin’s personal bodyguards.

    For many years Caitlin had been assigned a Jao bodyguard; first Banle krinnu ava Narvo, a terrible wretch who had abused her and held her hostage to ensure her father’s cooperation with the occupying Jao, then later Tamt, a staunch ally who stood between her charge and certain death more than once. After it was determined that Caitlin needed more than the single guard, she selected Miller, a jinau veteran of the Lleix campaign, who was unexpectedly amusing as well as efficient. Tamt now officially reported to Miller, but remained assigned to being Caitlin’s closest companion. Her body-shield, as it were. The two were almost inseparable.

    Caitlin had never had a close female friend before. Though she had attended college, Caitlin’s father’s status at that time as a notorious Jao collaborator had prevented development of those sorts of relationships. Her close association, first with Tamt and subsequently with Miller, had proven unexpectedly welcome.

    Special benches had been provided for the Lleix as their dimensions were rather broader than even the Jao. The four silver-skinned Lleix gazed at her with upswept expectant black eyes, their fleshy aureoles standing at attention like crowns worn over the head on edge from ear to ear. Taller than humans, their vividly brocaded robes were draped properly, which was always of paramount concern to a Lleix, their hands folded in the proscribed most polite fashion. No one outside the Lleix would ever know now, Caitlin thought, that Lim and Pyr had been thoroughly disenfranchised when the Lexington had first come calling, long-time impoverished denizens of the Lleix slum known as the dochaya.

    “We have to make a decision,” she said, once everyone was seated.

    Across the table from her, Wrot’s eyes danced with enigmatic green fire. One of his ears signaled slight-error.

    She sighed. “Or rather, I have to make a decision, but I want your input.” She gazed around the table, gathering their attention, human, Jao, and Lleix. “So far, this expedition has been a failure. We have found nothing but the ashes left behind by the Ekhat. I worry that it won’t get any better if we continue on this heading. The Ekhat have been working their way out along this arm of the galaxy for unknown thousands of years. Quite possibly hundreds of thousands of years. I have to consider the possibility that it might just be best to cut our losses and return to Terra.”

    “We have supplies enough to go on for many months still,” Dannet said. She adjusted an already flawlessly placed strap of her Terra-blue harness, then her face with its bold vai camiti, characteristic of her Narvo origins, turned to Caitlin. That Narvo face always gave Caitlin a bit of a pause, reminding her as it did of mad Oppuk krinnu ava Narvo who had killed her brother and ruled Earth with an iron fist for most of her childhood.

    Dannet’s head and ears were canted at the angles which communicated unafraid-of-challenge to anyone versed in Jao body-speak. “There are millions of stars in the Orion arm of the galaxy. We have examined only a tiny percentage of them. Sampled, it would be better to say.”

    Caitlin flushed and let her own angles answer with the Jao posture bold-intentions. “Yes,” she said clearly, “but we cannot visit any significant portion of them in the time allotted by the Bond for this expedition.”

    “You believe they are all dead,” Lim of Terralore said. She bowed her head on its long graceful neck. Her voice was a piping lilt, incongruous for a creature so tall and sturdy. “That is correct?”

    “They have all been dead so far,” Caitlin said. Heartbreakingly so, she thought, though a Jao would have trouble making sense of that emotion. They were far too practical. Dead was dead and therefore of no use. Move along to the next world.

    “We cannot ally with the dead, and available resources are limited,” she said, trying to think like a Jao so they would understand her reasoning. “We cannot afford to waste time exploring systems unlikely to contain sentient civilizations.”

    “Since you want input, I say let’s not give up just yet,” Gabe Tully said, sitting back in his chair and running his hands through his shaggy blond hair. “The Bond gave us a mandate to explore. Despite the odds, we can’t just go skulking back with nothing to show for it.”

    He was right, she thought. They needed something to justify this expenditure of resources and manpower. Jao respected results. Mere trying counted for nothing with them.

    “We have found two worlds so far that were clearly inhabited by intelligent technology-using species,” Wrot said, “including this latest one where the inhabitants developed space-going technology.” His head with its many service marks nodded. “The probabilities are that other civilizations are definitely out there somewhere. I say we give it a few more tries, and step up the pace so that we look at twenty or more additional systems, jumping, then moving on the moment it appears hopeless, not lingering to take samples and recordings. Out of millions of stars, the Ekhat must have overlooked at least a few.”

    “Is it possible the species we saw today is hiding somewhere in this system?” Tully said. “Like the Lleix did?”

    “No,” Dannet said. “A large outpost was located by our sensors on the next planet out from the sun, which is too cold to sustain life as we know it without environmental provisions. The blasted remains of their settlement were detected. There’s no sign of any energy signatures or survivors.”

    She could dispatch a squad there to check in person, Caitlin thought, but it would just waste more time, and they had none to waste. The Ekhat would attack Earth again as soon as they were ready, one of the Harmony factions, the Melody faction, or even the fanatical Interdict. She had boarded an Ekhat ship once, seen the monsters with her own eyes, which was more than most people on Earth or even Jao could say. She knew firsthand how totally insane–no, unsane–they were. The two that had spoken with her group had killed themselves before their visitors were permitted to leave because contact with lower life forms had rendered them subsequently unfit to exist.

    The monsters had tried to exterminate all life on Earth once already. They would be back, in much fuller force the next time. Their last attack had incinerated a million people and rendered a good chunk of China uninhabitable. The next time, Earth might not survive unless they had extra resources to bring to the fight.

    Resources it was her responsibility to secure.

    “We will go on,” she heard herself say. “We can’t give up until we find what we have come for.”

    “More people,” Pyr said. His aureole stood on end. He inclined his sturdy body toward her. His silver skin gleamed with oil.

    “More people,” Caitlin agreed. “To stand with us against the Ekhat. To ally with Jao, humans, and Lleix. To exterminate the Ekhat as completely as they seek to do away with us.”

    “That is desirable,” Lim said. She inclined her head respectfully. “But is it likely?”

    “Not likely,” Wrot said, “but then how likely was it that humans and Jao should come to the Lleix in the hour of their greatest need?”

    “Not likely at all,” Pyr said, “but much appreciated.”

    “Together, we are stronger,” Caitlin said. She spread her fingers on the gleaming wood table and stared down at them as though they could give her sorely needed answers. “We will find another species and convince them to work with us, and then another after that, and another, until, united, we can stand strong against the Ekhat.”

    Wrot placed his hands on the table across from hers. “On to the next framepoint then.”

    Heads nodded around the table. Even the Jao had picked that mannerism from the human as a substitute for their affirmation/readiness-to-perform bi-partite posture.

    Caitlin looked to Dannet. “How long until we can jump?”

    “We will jump when we are ready, Director Kralik,” Dannet said with a sly crackle of green in her eyes. One of her ears flicked with repressed-amusement.

    A smile quirked at Caitlin’s lips. Dannet was referring to the infamous Jao time sense. Jao always knew how long something would take or when it would happen. They had no need to chop time into tiny pieces and then obsessively count them as they maintained humans did. Strangely, after years of association with Jao, sometimes she thought she could feel it too.

    “But in human values,” the fleet commander continued, “probably not long.”

    “Good. Until then,” Caitlin said and stood, signifying that the meeting was adjourned. “Batten down the hatches. We’re heading on.”

    “I do not know those words, Madam Director,” Dannet said, rising to her lean muscled height and gazing down at Caitlin. “What are `hatches,’ and how, as well as why, are we to `batten’ them?”

    “It’s a nautical Terran term,” Caitlin said. “It means secure everything and ready the ship for action.”

    “Then I see no reason why you did not simply say so,” Dannet said with an impatient wrinkle of her muzzle. The four Lleix stumbled back to make room as the big Jao strode out of the conference room, her body stiff with simple irritation.

    The door slid open, then closed. “You shouldn’t tease her,” Tully said, gazing after Dannet, though his green eyes twinkled. “I don’t care what color harness she wears now, that one is always going to be pure Narvo at heart. She might snap one day and tear off your head.”

    “I know,” Caitlin said. “But it’s just so tempting.”

    Wrot took a posture of unabashed amusement-at-the-expense-of-others. “Well,” he said, with an undecipherable twitch of his whiskers, “there is that.”

    Caitlin Kralik stopped at the door to her suite.

    “Caewithe, you and Tamt take off and get some rest. I’ll be in my room the rest of the evening. These guys,” she nodded at the two Terra taif jinau who stood beside the door, “will take care of me tonight.”

    “No midnight expeditions without us,” Caewithe said.

    “You’ll be the first I call if something comes up,” Caitlin said, holding up a hand as if swearing an oath.

    Caewithe made a brushing motion with her hand. “All right, hit the sack, then. See you mañana.”

    Caitlin gave a tired wave and ducked through her door. Caewithe gave the two bodyguards, one human and one Jao, the eye.

    “We’ve got it, captain,” the human said with a grin. The Jao just wrinkled his nose in the barest sketch of assent.

    “Call me if she leaves,” she ordered.

    “Yes, sir.”

    Caewithe and Tamt headed down the hall side by side. Sailors and soldiers of both races ducked around them. As chief bodyguards to Caitlin, even though their ranks were nominal, their status among the Jao was high. Caitlin was a member of the service of Aille krinnu ava Terra, governor of Terra and first kochan-father of Terra taif, so her personal status was about as high as it got among the Jao; plus she had oudh over the fleet’s mission, which meant that she was essentially in command over them all. All that status reflected on her bodyguards. As a person in service, Caitlin could not take people in service to herself, but her bodyguards came closest to that status in the eyes of the Jao, and the humans of the mission didn’t think much less of her than the Jao did.

    The two bodyguards drew near to a mess room, and Caewithe looked up at Tamt. “You up for some tea?”

    The Jao grunted. “Swim first. My skin is so dry that it’s about to powder.”

    “Right. Later, then.”

    Tamt said nothing, just continued down the hall headed for the nearest pool.

    Caewithe ducked into the mess room and walked over to a beverage dispenser, where she punched the buttons for Tea, Earl Grey, Hot, Decaf. She did want to sleep tonight, after all. Collecting her cup, she parked at a table and pulled out her com pad to check the next day’s schedule.

    She had finished that review and was about to open a report sent to her by one of her sergeants when someone else came in the mess. She looked up to see Lieutenant Fflewdwr Vaughan coming in the room, reading his com pad as he walked. He made his way over to a beverage dispenser and seemingly punched buttons by feel, never looking up. Caewithe decided he had really good peripheral vision as he collected his cup without a fumble and brought it to his lips.

    Caewithe hadn’t had a lot of contact with the lieutenant, yet, but what little she had seen had impressed her. He was smart, sharp, quick on the uptake; and it didn’t hurt any that he was easy on the eyes. Ever since her relationship with Gabe Tully had cooled to the point where they admitted it wasn’t going to work between them, she’d kind of had an eye out for a possible companion. Vaughan had recently been added to the short–too short–list. So her ears perked up, figuratively speaking.

    One sip, and Vaughan frowned. “We can fly between the bloody stars,” he pronounced, “but we can’t program a machine to make a cup of bloody tea.”

    “Oh, I don’t know,” Caewithe said. “I think it’s pretty good.”

    Vaughan looked up in surprise.

    “Oh, Captain Miller, I didn’t see you.”

    “I didn’t think you had,” she replied, “the way your eyes were glued to your pad.”

    “Sorry.” Vaughan took another sip of the tea, and grimaced.

    “Is it really that bad?” Caewithe laughed.

    “I’ve drunk worse,” Vaughan said, “but not willingly. You, however, being an American, have undoubtedly been abusing your taste buds with generic coffee ever since you were big enough to reach your mother’s cup.”

    “Guilty as charged, Lieutenant. Have a seat.” She waved at a chair at her table, and Vaughan folded his tall frame onto it. “Can I ask you a couple of questions?”

    “Ask away.” Vaughan took another swig of tea, this time repressing his grimace of distaste.

    “How do you pronounce your first name? My best guess is Flewdwer but I doubt that’s right.”

    He smiled. “Not bad, actually, for someone who’s not Welsh. But you can save yourself a lot of grief since I generally go by ‘Flue’. What’s your second question?

    “Just what do you do for Fleet Commander Dannet?”

    Vaughan snorted, then said, “Whatever I can. In a human navy, she’d be a commodore at least, or more likely an admiral, and I’d be a flag lieutenant. But Dannet’s Jao, and they don’t have that concept.”

    Caewithe thought for a moment. “But actually, wouldn’t a flag lieutenant be kind of like being in service, like Caitlin Kralik is to Aille?”

    “We had hoped that she would see it that way,” Vaughan replied. “But Dannet’s not high enough up in the taif ranks to be allowed to take people into service, so I don’t think I fit into that slot in her mind. And she’s still struggling with what to do with a staff-member who doesn’t automatically feel what it is he’s supposed to be doing. Almost as much as I am, that is,” he ended in a disgruntled tone.

    “We?”

    Vaughan looked discomfited. “Well, Lieutenant General Kralik and Wrot. They asked me to volunteer along with some others when Dannet asked for a staff. She chose me, and we talked again.”

    “And?”

    “And?” Vaughan repeated.

    “And if Wrot’s involved, something sneaky is probably going on. Give.”

    Vaughan laid his cup and com pad down, placed his hands on the table, and leaned forward. When he spoke, his voice was low.

    “I really am on her staff, and I really am trying to learn to be a flag lieutenant to a Jao. But I’m also her tactical shadow.” Caewithe gave him a skeptical look, and he nodded vigorously. “‘Strue.”

    “So what’s a tactical shadow?”

    “I’m supposed to record everything she says and does during combat situations, audio and visual, with time ticks and running commentary and every impression I can give. At some point we,” gesturing to the two of them, “are going to want to see humans in the command seat of a Lexington class ship, right?”

    Caewithe nodded.

    “Well, then, Dannet’s about the best we can learn from. She was Narvo, after all.”

    Of all the Jao kochans, Narvo was the most combat oriented, particularly in space-borne conflict. Only the Bond of Ebezon compared favorably to them, and the Bond drew the best from all the kochans.

    Dannet had joined Terra taif willingly, but no one forgot where she came from. No one.

    “That explains why her,” Caewithe said, “but why shadow?”

    “She’s Jao,” Vaughan said. “How good are any of them discussing anything that has to do with their ‘flow’ sense?”

    “Point.”

    At that moment, Vaughan’s pad beeped. “Crap! I’m supposed to be on the command deck in three minutes! Bye!” He slurped his tea and was gone.

    An intense young man, Caewithe decided. But she liked intense.