The Span of Empire: Chapter Two

    The five Lleix strode back through the ship’s corridors to their common room, aureoles quivering. It was so strange, Lim of Terralore thought, to sit in the presence of human and Jao, to see two species who processed information in such different ways still able to find common purpose.

    “So we will go on to the next star system,” the young Lleix said.

    Brakan and Matto of the ancient and highly respected elian, the Starsifters, forged ahead and did not look back. The two, both much taller, who had quite properly been accepted by the Starsifters during their Festivals of Choosing, did not approve of “dochaya trash,” such as Lim and Pyr, believing themselves on an equal footing with real elian members.

    No matter what Tully and the other humans had tried to teach them about rights and justice, traditional Lleix continued to find comfort in sensho, in doing things as they always had been done. They believed one either found an elian at the proper moment in his or her life or was quite correctly turned away and worked forever as a lowly unassigned. You did not make up a name for a new elian and then prance about with new purpose in the face of your betters, expecting their respect.

    Oddly, despite belonging to the equally-august Ekhatlore elian, Ramt did not join them. She lagged behind, not quite walking alongside Lim and Pyr but remaining close enough to avoid being openly rude the way the two Starsifters were being.

    Pyr looked at Lim as they passed a knot of humans working on a conduit. “Each time we ‘jump,’ as they call it,” he said, “I fear they will be there on the other end, waiting for us, the great devils who eat the universe.”

    Brakan and Matto increased their pace as though even hearing the two Terralore speak was polluting their ears, then entered the Starsifters’ quarters. The door slid shut as the three remaining Lleix passed.

    “We may encounter them again,” Lim said, “but this is a mighty ship; the great Lexington itself, which took our people to safety. Lexington defeated all the Ekhat who came to kill us that day. And now it is joined by two other ships just as powerful. Four Lexingtons all told, if we count the Krant kochan’s Pool Buntyam.”

    They reached the quarters of Ekhatlore. Nodding at them politely, Ramt passed within. Lim and Pyr continued on a short distance until they reached their own quarters.

    “Our benefactors fear the Ekhat,” Pyr said, turning into Terralore’s quarters. “At least as much as ever the Lleix did.”

    “Because they are wise,” Lim said. “Only the very foolish or ignorant would not fear them.”

    Director Kralik had requested strong representation from both the Starsifters and the Ekhatlore elians for the expedition, as they had records of the Lleix travels throughout the galaxy and their own form of framepoint travel.

    She had asked members of Terralore to accompany the expedition as well. The official explanation was to function as translators, should another living civilization be found. Lleix were naturally gifted linguists compared to their new-found allies. Apparently, in humans and Jao, the portion of the brain which allowed babies and children to easily acquire language switched off at some point in their early development. That same facility in the Lleix brain, however, remained active all their lives.

    Lim and Pyr were quite sure that explanation was a polite fiction. The Starsifters and Ekhatlore Lleix could have served as translators just as well. They thought the real reason they’d been asked was that the humans deliberately tried to bolster the status of the newly formed elian created by the dochaya.

    Unfortunately, polite fiction or not, translation was their only official function on this voyage–and there was no translation to be done when all that was found were the long-dead ashes of those for whom they’d be translating.

    “So far, we are useless here,” Lim said, “unless another inhabited world is found.”

    “I learn more about humans and Jao every day from the records,” Pyr said, “which will enrich Terralore when we return.” He settled onto a bench and turned to a viewing station hooked into the ship’s information database. He keyed it on and the screen lit up with a brilliantly colored picture of the Colorado mountains. “Both have a most astonishingly violent history, and it seems that humans perpetually fought among themselves whenever the least disagreement occurred, never letting their eldests sort matters out.”

    Lim was so astonished, she had to support herself against the wall. “They fight each other?” On Valeron, children who showed early and constant aggression had been quickly ejected from the Children’s Court and barred from taking part in the Festival of Choosing, doomed forever to labor as common workers in the dochaya.

    This wasn’t because violence and combat were in and of themselves in some manner unacceptable for the Lleix. They had armed spaceships, after all, and had fought the Ekhat and their Jao slaves as bravely as they could for much of their history. But the actual combat was supposed to be performed only by members of the Weaponsmakers elian, and had been limited to desperate defensive measures.

    Violence and fighting among the ranks of the other elians was simply not acceptable among the chosen. It was not sensho, acceptable behavior. Or at least, it was never recorded in the records they still had of their racial history.

    “They did,” Pyr said. “I do not think they do now, at least not very much, though it is apparently one of the reasons why the Jao were able to conquer them.”

    Lim tried to imagine Caitlin or Tully striking one another and failed. “They are an–an energetic species,” she said, “for ones so short.” She used the word not to indicate not only a deficiency of height, but in the Lleix manner referring to a lack of experience and wisdom, as well.

    She had grown a bit herself since leaving Valeron and gaining access to better nutrition. No matter how long she lived, though, she would never be a tallest. Early malnutrition had stunted her growth, but her skin had brightened into a passable silver and her aureole thickened. She appeared somewhat more respectable now, so that she did not automatically shame her elian.

    “I was disappointed we did not find them here,” she said. “The Boh. They have not been anywhere we have visited so far.”

    Pyr looked up from the viewer where he was examining the ship’s records. “These people most likely had other gods,” he said. “Not the Boh. There was no reason you should expect to find them here.”

    “Their gods are dead,” she said, “because all who knew their name are gone.”

    Pyr’s aureole sagged. “But the Boh yet live,” he said, “because the Lleix do not forget.”

    “Their memory is safe on Terra,” she said, “for now.”

    Pyr did not answer this time, seeming absorbed in something he had called up to his screen. She settled then at her own data station, missing her elian. So much of her short life had been spent in misery in the dochaya, going out each day as she sought work at the fabled elian in the city, hoping for a chance to work as a servant and, in that capacity, spend time in one of the great houses where her betters ran the city.

    She remembered seeing the elongated Boh-faces carved into the fronts of many of the elian-houses, reminders of what they had lost. They had been so beautiful and so sad, forever left behind when the Lleix had fled the Ekhat and gone into hiding. They had tugged at her every time she saw them. What would it be like to actually experience the presence of the Boh?

    Humans had “churches” and “temples,” actual land and buildings where they experienced their gods. Lim had investigated those whenever she got the chance, but felt no sense that the Boh were there either. They were gone, with all their wonder and wisdom, and Lim found herself aching for them. The universe was so large and the Lleix had left the Boh behind such a long time ago. How would they ever find them again?

 

---

 

    “I will go and speak to Tully,” she said to Pyr’s back. It was Tully who had first taught her English, coming to the dochaya day after day, telling her and everyone else who lived there in long endured misery that they could have a better life, but they would have to make it for themselves and not wait for the elders in the elian to simply give it to them.

    “Let me know when the ship is ready to jump,” Pyr said without turning around.

    “Yes,” she said and slipped out of the room.

 

---

 

    “Did that go as you expected, Colonel?” Tully’s companion asked after they exited the meeting.

    “Pretty much, Sergeant Luff, pretty much,” Gabe replied. “The director isn’t going to give up after this, even if she did talk like that was one of the options. Not after finding those dead worlds. All that does is make her more determined to find other civilizations.”

    “I can see that,” the sergeant said. They hit a T-junction in the hallway, and paused. “Sir, we’ve got a little over half an hour before the shuttle leaves. I’d like to check in with the lead sergeant from Lexington’s jinau detachment. Last I heard, he had a suggestion about training that sounded good.”

    “Go to it, Top,” Tully responded. He tapped one of his pockets. “I’m going to find a cup of coffee and a table somewhere and see if I can make a dent in this month’s paperwork before returning back to the Ban Chao.”

    “Very good, sir,” the other said. “Meet you back at the shuttle.”

    The first sergeant took off down one angle of the hall, and Tully went down the other. Before long he found one of the Lexington’s officers’ messes and stepped in. He pulled a cup of coffee from the appropriate machine, settled at a mess table, and took an appreciative sip of the dark liquid. Lexington had picked up a few traditions from some of the United States Navy personnel who had survived the conquest and made themselves of use in the new era following the establishment of Terra taif. One of their traditions was having good coffee.

    Tully propped his pad up and opened up the next in an interminable series of reports that he needed to read and approve. If he’d realized just how much paperwork being a colonel involved, he’d have turned down the promotion when General Kralik offered it.

    Of course, he wasn’t sure that the general would have let him say no. He still recalled that conversation rather well.

    He’d been called to the general’s office not long after the Valeron expedition had returned with all the Lleix refugees that would come with them. “Take a seat, Tully,” Kralik had said before he was two steps in the door. The general’s voice was brusque; his face was showing lines that Tully hadn’t remembered being there. Above all, the normally unflappable Kralik seemed to have an air of harried patience.

    “Tully, I’ve got a job for you,” the general began.

    “Back to dickering with resistance groups?” he’d asked.

    “No. We pulled in the last of the effective ones while you were gone, and the others are evaporating now that jobs are available again. No, I need you to take a command.”

    That had set Tully back a bit. He’d figured he’d stay with his assault company on Lexington if the resistance work was going well.

    “What kind of command?”

    “All the ground forces in Caitlin’s flotilla.”

    He remembered his jaw dropping as he looked at Kralik in shock.

    “You’re making me a freakin’ general?”

    Kralik had chuckled, and a few of the lines on his face had eased.

    “No, I’m making you a freakin’ colonel. Mind you, I could almost justify a general, because by the time we put a full assault group on the Ban Chao and fill all the companies on the battleships, you’ll have close to an old-time brigade’s worth of bodies. But neither one of us are ready for you to be a general. It’s enough of a stretch giving you the eagles of a colonel.”

    “But why me?” He remembered the moment of panic he’d felt. Truth be told, some days the echoes of that panic still were felt. “Don’t you have real colonels you could use? Someone with experience at the job? What about Rob Wiley? He was on the Lexington, too.”

    Kralik had leaned back in his chair and interlaced his fingers over his flat stomach. “Yep. And General Wiley and the others are all going to more important, more high profile positions. You haven’t been back long enough to catch on to what’s happening. Aille has us expanding the jinau forces as rapidly as we can; space, air, and ground. We weren’t much more than sepoy troops before, mostly just keeping order and occasionally dealing with the Resistance. Now we’re adding new companies every month, organizing new battalions every quarter. We’ve got three new divisions formed up while you were gone.

    “We’ve learned the Ekhat lesson, Gabe. They’ve got our attention. China alone has mounted two of those new divisions, even after the diversion of resources to deal with the aftermath of the plasma bombing. We have recruits from all over the world. And Aille will see to it that they are ‘of use’ in the war against the Ekhat.

    “We can train them–barely,” the general had said as he sat back up straight. “We can shove the best of them through quickie officer training and get embryo company officers, enough to keep things organized. And between us, the Europeans and the Chinese, we’ve been able to find enough–barely–effective senior officers to get by. What we don’t have is the middle–we don’t have anywhere near enough experienced field grade officers, even using the simplified organizational structures the Jao have mandated for the jinau. That’s where the casualties of the conquest have really hurt us. You’d have been put to work months ago if you’d been here instead of haring off in the Lexington.”

    “So why me?” he’d repeated his question. “Why for this one?”

    Kralik had started counting items on his fingertips. “One: you have a reputation as a fighter, of not backing down from anybody. The humans respect that, and even more importantly, the Jao respect that. You will have a lot more Jao troops under your command than you’ve had before, so that respect is important.

    “Two: right now you are one of a unique–and very very small–group of humans. You have fought Ekhat up close and personal and survived, and brought most of your troops back as well. You have no idea what your reputation among the troops is like because of that. That kind of track record is invaluable.

    “Three: the Fleet Commander will be Jao, no two ways about it. It will be years–decades probably–before we have enough sufficiently experienced human ship captains to even consider putting a human in that position. But because Terra taif and Krant kochan contributed almost all the ground troops for the fleet, we can put you in as ground forces commander, which means that you will counter-balance the fleet commander, as well as giving Caitlin someone she can rely on with no hesitation.”

    “Politics,” he’d muttered. “I hate that.”

    “Time to grow up, Tully. The Jao–or at least Pluthrak kochan–could have taught Machiavelli a thing or two, and Preceptor Ronz could have tutored Sun Tzu and Miyamoto Musashi. You’re going to deal with it for the rest of your life; you might as well get good at it.”

    Kralik had ticked off one more finger. “Four: you not only have a reputation of being a fighter, you’re a damn good one. If it comes down to hand-to-hand combat for any part of the fleet, I can’t think of anyone better to have on hand.”

    The general had folded his arms on the desk and leaned forward. “I’m not going to leave you hanging totally out to dry, Tully. We’ll find some good sergeants and Jao equivalents for you. They may be more valuable to you than a bunch of new officers.”

 

---

 

    And Tully had to admit that the general had delivered on that one. Every detachment on the battleships had at least two experienced sergeants, and the assault group had experienced men in three out of every four non-officer leadership slots. The Jao were just as good. And First Sergeant Luff, crusty as he might be at times, was pure gold. He’d come out of the pre-conquest United States Marines, where he’d been a gunnery sergeant. There wasn’t anything that anyone, Jao or human, could pull that he hadn’t seen (or done) worse. There wasn’t a problem that anyone could think of that he didn’t have a suggestion or two about how to deal with it. And Tully had learned that if the first sergeant said, “If I might suggest, sir . . .” that he’d best pay attention. He’d learned that the hard way after one monumental goof, and Luff had saved his official colonel-type backside for him more than once since then.

    Kralik had ended their talk with, “But get this straight, Gabe. Caitlin’s mission is what we used to call a reconnaissance in force. You may or may not end up conducting ship to ship actions, and maybe some raids along the way. But your purpose is to defend the fleet and the director. This is not an invasion force. You will not have enough troops and resources to take and hold ground against what the Ekhat could bring. So be smart. Be very smart. Not because of Yaut, or even Aille. You risk the fleet unnecessarily, you waste this command, and I’ll shred you. Yaut will get to sweep up the pieces.”

    Tully came out of the haze of memory. “Gotcha, boss.”

    He took another sip of coffee, and dove into the reports on his pad, skimming and thumb-printing as quickly as he could. Before long he was so deep in the routine that he was startled to hear his name.

    “Gabe Tully,” a familiar voice said.

    “Lim?” He looked to find the young Lleix standing before his table. She gazed at him with those narrow black eyes, her body very straight, and so utterly still; as the Jao, with all their fancy body-postures, never were.

    “I would speak with you,” she said clearly.

    “Fine,” Tully said, waving a hand at an armless chair. “Take a seat.” His pad chimed, and he looked at it. “Never mind,” he said, standing up and sliding the pad into a pocket. “I’ve got to head for my shuttle. Walk with me.”

    Tully was fond of this particular Lleix, who had been among the first in the dochaya to believe him when he said the unassigned did not have to just give up and be second-class citizens all their lives.

    “Do you need something?” he said, looking up into her silver face for a moment. Tully was not a short human, but even short Lleix topped him, with long graceful necks, upswept black eyes, a dished face with very little nose, and stocky slightly pear-shaped bodies.

    She twitched at her robes, though they’d already seemed just fine to him. “I have no purpose on this voyage,” she said, matching her pace to his. Her black eyes glittered. “I am useless.”

    They turned a corner. “During explorations, most of us in the fleet have no purpose,” Tully said, “and will not, unless or until we find another species or get into a battle with the Ekhat.”

    She was silent for a moment, her fleshy aureole rippling across her head. “I am not accustomed to being useless,” she said finally. “All my life, I am working hard, cleaning elian-houses, fetching supplies, weeding and cooking and repairing, not just sitting around and–waiting–for something that may never occur. This–” Her black eyes gazed around at the ship. “This being unneeded is too hard. Studying Terralore is not enough. I require something to do–now.”

    They stepped through a set of heavy blast-proof doors and turned another corner. It was clear to that the poor kid was bored out of her mind. He could certainly sympathize with that. He studied her from the corner of his eye. “What would you like to do?”

    Lim stopped and twisted her fingers together, shifting her weight restlessly from foot to foot as Lleix often did when uncertain. “What is needed on the ship?”

    “All jobs are currently filled,” he said, “but you could train for one of them anyway as a backup. What are you interested in? Engines? Communications equipment? Food service?”

    She was silent then, as though she wanted to say something but did not know how to bring it up. “Pyr said humans used to fight one another,” she said finally.

    “Yes,” he said, “we used to be very quarrelsome among ourselves, but now we use that energy to fight the Ekhat.”

    His pad chimed again, reminding him of the shuttle. “Walk with me,” he said again.

    “The Lleix tried to fight the Ekhat,” she said as they started down the passage, “especially at first, but they always just killed us, so mostly we ran away.”

    Tully wasn’t sure where this conversation was going. “There’s no shame in refusing to fight a battle you’re sure to lose if you can avoid it.”

    “The Ekhat drove us from our homes,” she said, “from lush beautiful worlds with perfect climates, soaring mountains, deep swift rivers. Every time this happened we left behind gardens that had been tended for a thousand years, great houses whose every room had been perfected over many lifetimes, and elian containing knowledge that has never been recreated.” She was silent for a moment, blinking. “We even left behind the Boh. The Ekhat took everything from us, including most of who we are.” She was quiet for several steps, then said in a low voice, “But we let them.”

    “I have been in an Ekhat ship,” Tully said. “I have fought against the crazy devils myself. They have endless resources, and are scary crazy, mad to destroy. I am sure that the Lleix did the best that they could under the circumstances.”

    They took a turn into a wider passage.

    Lim’s fathomless black eyes regarded him. “Did they?”

    He didn’t know what to say then. The Lleix, with their emphasis on sensho, which ranked individuals according to age and height, viewed life very differently from humans. Even Lim and Pyr, who had been remanded to a slum solely because of their failure to meet Lleix standards of beauty, aspired to be old and tall, as though those qualities really mattered. Frankly, Tully was not surprised that, in the end, the Ekhat had pretty much kicked the Lleix’s collective ass, though he kept that opinion to himself.

    “I am wishing to no longer be helpless,” Lim said. “I am wishing to learn to fight so that if we encounter the Ekhat again, I do not have to cower in my quarters and wait for others to save us.”

    Tully regarded the young Lleix. “Isn’t there an elian that fights? Aren’t they building a Lexington for them?”

    “The Weaponsmakers.” Lim adjusted her robes again. “But they were–are–not very good. Not effective.” The last almost sounded like a curse in her mouth.

    The Lleix were not cowards, certainly. But it dawned on Tully that they had nothing in the way of a martial tradition as humans and Jao did. There was no separate function for soldiers in their society; nothing even close to a warrior elian. Instead, when the Lleix had been forced in the past to fight back against the Ekhat and Jao, they had turned the work over to the Weaponsmakers elian. From what Tully could tell, it was as if, in human terms, fighting World War II had been turned over to Rosie the Riveter and the engineers who designed the B-17s and the Sherman tanks. And Tully knew better than anyone that there was a world of difference between being able to make or service a weapon and being really good at using it.

    The Lleix had no tradition at all, so far as Tully knew, of fighting hand-to-hand or at close range. For Lleix, “combat” was something that geeks did at a distance, using geek methods. If the enemy managed to get close, they were as helpless as so many lambs. Big lambs, but still lambs.

    Tully spent a bit more time studying the young Lleix as they moved through the big doors to one of the Lexington’s shuttle bays. Lim had grown sturdy with better food and living quarters, and she was certainly intelligent, having learned English and other Terran languages with a rapacious ferocity that spoke volumes about her will. Her desire to learn combat was perhaps an unusual attitude for her people, but her determination was not–at least, not among those who had not been part of the elite. She had clawed her way out of the dochaya, and she wasn’t the only one who had when their one opportunity to do so had arrived, courtesy of Caitlin Kralik and one Gabe Tully. There was no doubt in Tully’s mind that she could accomplish anything she set her mind to.

 

---

 

    They came to a stop by the lift to his shuttle.

    “So what do you want?” he asked.

    “To not be afraid,” Lim answered simply.

    “Learning to fight will not kill your fear,” Tully said. She looked at him in silence. “But it might teach you to work beyond your fear.”

    Lim nodded. “Teach me.”

    Tully looked at her. With her recent growth, she was now taller than Tully and had longer arms. She had mass. With some training, she just might be able to hold her own in a battle. It was worth exploring, anyway.

    “That’s not a bad idea,” Tully said. “If you like, you can drill with my troops. I think everyone should know how to protect herself.”

    The Lleix’s black eyes gleamed. “When shall I be starting?” Lim said.

    “Now is fine with me–well, let’s make it after the next framepoint transfer,” he said. “Unless you have something better to do. Come to the Ban Chao and we’ll see what we can do.”

    “Until we find a new species with whom we need to communicate, I have nothing to do,” Lim said. “I am much wanting it to be otherwise.”

 

---

 

    Caitlin entered the bridge of the Lexington, or the command deck, as the Jao preferred to call it. Caewithe Miller came with her and Tamt followed them, a silent shadow who took up a stance beside the lift.

    Fleet Commander Dannet herself, in the days when she was Terra-Captain Dannet, had not approved of superfluous personnel in her command space on the Lexington. She had allowed it during the mission to Valeron, because Wrot krinnu ava Terra had possessed oudh over that mission and he had wanted others there.

    The new captain of the Lexington seemed to be a little more tolerant than Dannet had been. Terra-Captain Uldra krinnu ava Terra had been born Uldra krinnu Ptok vau Binnat, scion of a lesser associated kochan of a mid-tier kochan, according to the briefing Caitlin had received. The Jao, of course, would never have described the relationships that way. They would have instead said that Binnat was a kochan of lesser associations to the great kochans of Pluthrak, Narvo, or perhaps the scarcely lesser Dano, Hij, and Jak. Not as lesser as Krant had been before their Krant-Captain Mallu and his crew had become entwined with the affairs of Terra taif and its guardian, the Bond of Ebezon, the one Jao organization that was apolitical, standing aside from the constant association maneuvering and shifting that was normal existence among the kochans. But lesser, undisputedly.

    Binnat and Ptok had sent troops for the conquest of Terra, perhaps more than they could rightly afford to risk; and more still for the long struggle to maintain Jao control of the restive planet. Uldra had been among the first of them. He had survived the conquest. He had survived the long grinding aftermath to the conquest, and finally had taken the bauta and retired from service on Terra, much as Wrot had done. But perhaps most importantly, he had come out of retirement to pilot one of the hastily modified Terran submarines that battled the Ekhat ships in the interior of the Sun; one of the two surviving pilots who had done so with some skill. As Wrot had put it recently to Caitlin with one of the human phrases he loved to collect, Uldra “had seen the elephant, up close and personal.”

    At the founding of Terra taif, Uldra had joined the overwhelming majority of the veterans of the Terran wars in shifting allegiance to the new taif. Now, in the Jao manner, Uldra was of use as the captain of one of the greatest warships Jao warriors had ever manned, greater even than the Harrier class warships of the Bond of Ebezon, as well as serving as what the humans would have called the ‘flag captain’ of the fleet under Fleet Commander Dannet.

    So far Caitlin had found him to be even-tempered. Given her experiences under Oppuk, the crazed-and-now-mercifully-dead Narvo governor, she chalked that up as a big mark in the plus column.

    At the moment, the mood on the bridge was industrious, voices murmuring, heads bent low over displays, crewmen consulting one another in low voices. Dannet krinnu ava Terra was up there too, standing and gazing down at a readout, her body communicating uncomplicated steady-interest. Her golden-brown nap was still damp. Evidently she had come straight from one of the Lexington’s many pools. Lieutenant Vaughan was seated at a station to the rear of the deck, focused on multiple screens all streaming data, oblivious to everything going on around him.

    Caitlin drifted around the bridge. She still didn’t understand a lot of the details of what was going on, but she had been on the bridge often enough in the last two years to know whether things were in their normal flow. No problems yet today, it seemed.

    The mood subtly shifted. Crew, both Jao and human, settled deeper into their seats and bent over their screens. Voices did not grow so much louder as more intense.

    It was getting close to the time for the jump, she thought, and her stomach gave a lurch. Personally, she found frame travel extremely uncomfortable. It wasn’t that it hurt. The experience was more that she felt like she was being forced to exist for the duration of the jump in dimensions that did not support human life. Or life of any sort. Like she was being folded and stretched at the same time, existing both here and there, turned inside out and upside down. She shuddered. She’d tried to explain it to her father, after they’d returned from the Valeron mission, but words had simply failed her.

    Dannet looked up at her with green fire blazing in her black eyes. “You feel it,” the Fleet Commander said.

    Caitlin nodded. “Yes,” she said, “I don’t know how, but I do.”

    “Not entirely unexpected,” Dannet said with a satisfied flick of one ear. “After all, you were associated with one of Narvo’s best.”

    I guess you could call it that, Caitlin thought. She’d always thought the word “tormented”–or perhaps “terrorized”–closer to the reality of the situation. But she knew now that Jao were also tough on their own progeny, demanding a lot and not babying them. She’d seen that much for herself after visiting one of the Terra kochan-houses, so perhaps her upbringing at the rough hands of Banle krinnu ava Narvo had not been as vicious in the eyes of a Jao as it had seemed to her. But Caitlin wasn’t Jao.

    A low hum built as the great jump engines charged. The ship seemed suddenly more alive. Uldra was now all business, up out of his captain’s chair and striding from station to station, making corrections here and there, approving readouts and moving on. His ears were flattened in unabashed focus.

    Caewithe Miller came over to her. “Are we close to jump?”

    “I think so,” she said, as her heartbeat accelerated. “Not that anyone tells me anything.” Of course, they didn’t need to. To be fair, that was not her function, all the details that went into the running of the great ship. They would turn to her when it was appropriate for her input.

    “Maybe this time will be the charm,” Caewithe said with a smile. “We’re due for some luck.”

    “Maybe.” She made herself return the smile, though her heart was racing. It was just as likely they would find ten Ekhat ships on the other end of this jump as an inhabited world filled with agreeable aliens and highly developed tech that they would be absolutely delighted to put at the Human/Jao/Lleix’s disposal.

    An alarm sounded, not a strident bell, but a clear ringing chime that was being relayed throughout the great ship. “Stations,” Uldra’s deep voice said over the ship com in his capacity as Terra-Captain of the Lexington. “Jump preparation has been initiated. All personnel take appropriate action.”

    That meant hold onto your proverbial hat, Caitlin thought. No matter how many times they jumped, she never got used to it.

    The bridge doors opened again and Wrot krinnu ava Terra walked through. She motioned for him to join her. The old Jao was both wily and wise, but what she often liked most about him was his sense of humor.

 

---

 

    Close-by, Fleet Commander Dannet looked up over her shoulder at Caitlin. The black eyes danced with green fire. Dannet’s ears canted to an angle that communicated disapproval. “You should take a seat, Director Kralik. It would not do to have you injured on the jump.” She turned back to the console she was monitoring. “That would create a lot of fuss over your well-being at a moment when we could least afford to have our attention diverted from what really matters.”

    Wrot took her arm. “Just what I was going to say,” he murmured in Caitlin’s ear, “sort of.” He settled her into a seat before a vacant station next to Lieutenant Vaughan. She fastened her harness.

    The screen crawled with figures that she supposed no one needed to know at the moment.

    “First framepoint generator set,” a voice said.

    The ship trembled beneath her feet like an eager hound about to be released on the hunt.

    Uldra checked one screen, then another, his ears pitched at a mostly approving angle, though occasionally lowering in dissatisfaction as he pointed out an error that needed to be corrected. He was a calmer captain than Dannet had been, Caitlin thought, remembering how the big Jao had stalked about the command deck, cuffing those who were slow to handle their responsibilities, even throwing one to the deck and taking over the station herself. Of course, to be fair, Dannet had been working with an unfamiliar and mixed crew of Jao and humans, not those from Narvo, her former kochan.

    That, of course, was the norm for this fleet two-plus years later. Only the Krant ship Pool Buntyam was crewed solely by a Jao crew. Even Dannet seemed to be resigned to the integrated crews these days, although one could still see flashes of irritation in her posture from time to time.

    “Second framepoint generator set,” a different voice said with no more excitement that someone reading the choices for dinner off a menu board.

    The vibration increased, so that the ship herself seemed eager to get on with the jump, which all the Jao present mostly found a thoroughly ridiculous notion, she thought.

    “We’re getting close,” Wrot said.

    She took a deep breath. They had jumped the Lexington many times now. The crew knew what it was doing. They would come out into a new system and hope that this time they would find what–and who–they were looking for.

    The shaking increased. Wrot seemed to settle somehow into a waiting-for-necessity position that gave the air of being as solid as a mountain.

    “Third framepoint generator set,” another crewman said, and this time there was just the slightest hint of excitement in his tone.

    Uldra’s posture said calm-acceptance. Caitlin looked over at Dannet, whose body was angled to communicate disdain. One did not surrender to crude excitement when merely doing one’s job, at least one did not if one was Narvo, which Dannet would always be, no matter that she had been gifted to Terra Taif like a prize heifer to make up for Oppuk’s crimes.

    “Fourth framepoint generator set,” a female voice said.

    The ship was lurching beneath their feet now. Caitlin hastily checked the harness that would keep her from being ejected from the seat. “I hate this part,” she said, just loudly enough for her guards to hear.

    “Amen,” Captain Miller muttered back from where she grasped the station console for balance. She looked pale, but resigned. “I don’t hate it as much as the thought of what could be waiting for us on the other end, though,” she finished.

    It could be something wonderful or something terrible, Caitlin thought. The only way to know was to jump and take a look.

    “Fifth set!” a male voice said.

    The ship rocked beneath their feet as though buffeted by five monstrous opposing tidal waves, all trying to wash it out to sea in a different direction.

    “You may jump, Navigator Annen,” Uldra said.

    The great ship leaped.

    As always, Caitlin’s stomach was left behind. She gritted her teeth, feeling distinctly unwell, as though being torn apart and compressed into exotic matter at the same time. She tasted blue on the back of her tongue, saw the strange gleam of bittersweet behind her eyes, felt the rasp of fear along her spine.

    It will be over in a heartbeat, Caitlin told herself. Jao endured this all the time and had for centuries now. She could not let herself be seen to be weak.

    Captain Miller was swearing under her breath. Her face was very pale. Her grip on the console showed white knuckles at every joint.

    On and on they went, traveling and not-traveling, propelling themselves through something that simply was not-there, striding across the galaxy with seven-league boots like some preposterous fairy tale character.

    Then, with a jerk, they arrived, existing at least somewhere again, when only a second ago they had been both nowhere and everywhere. Caitlin’s breath blew out. She hadn’t even been aware she was trying to hold it.

    “I will never get used to that!” Caewithe muttered with a gulp.

    “Amen.” This time it was Caitlin who replied.

    The view screen blazed with light, the local view of the photosphere of this system’s star that surrounded them. “I guess we made it,” Caitlin murmured.

    Terra-Captain Uldra strode from screen to screen, checking readouts, his body showing cautious-approval with every step. Caitlin looked over to the lift. Tamt flicked an ear of inquiry at her. She shook her head and Tamt settled back into place by the door. The Jao guard showed no effects at all, just like the Jao members of the command deck crew.

    Caitlin looked back to Miller, who had released the console and straightened, but still looked a bit green around the gills and showed a few sweat beads on her forehead. She nodded at Caitlin who had to smile. Miller was always trying to prove herself to the Jao. If they took no notice of the discomfort of a jump, neither would she, as far as she was able.

    Over the course of the next minute, the other three battleships reported in, all having jumped safely.

    The screen brightened, then just for a second, Caitlin could see the darkness of space punctuated by distant stars. The fiery plasma closed in again. They were enveloped by starfire. That was the part to which she would never become accustomed.

    Her heartbeat accelerated again, which she hadn’t thought possible. What was out there on the other side of that brightness? Friend? Foe? Or, most likely, more dead worlds?

    “Shedding plasma,” one of the bridge crew said, a slight Krant male Caitlin had seen on duty before but never picked up his name.

    Ten more minutes passed. The sensors detected the other ships of the fleet arriving. Caitlin checked her watch when she thought no Jao were looking. The plasma thinned. The times when their instruments could see lengthened. Nothing was close to the star. At least no Ekhat seemed to be waiting on them. This was most likely going to be another disappointment.

    Then the plasma cleared for the last time. They were out of the photosphere.

    “Scanning,” one of the Jao said.

    Caitlin released the harness and stood to get a better view of the main screen. Techs were checking the system’s orbits for habitable planets. Most star systems had one, occasionally even two or three, if you counted marginal worlds where the gravity would be too high or too low, no liquid water existed, or the atmosphere was unsuitable for breathing without assistance.

    “Coming about,” said the navigator.

    Lieutenant Vaughan suddenly spat out a single hard-edged word. “Damn!”

    Had he spotted something? Caitlin squinted at the screen, then saw what he had already spotted.

    “Oh . . . my,” she said.

    Miller said something even stronger.