The V'Dan (50 page)

There were certainly plenty of precedents in the bloodline’s forty-five hundred years. And technically, it was not a betrayal to consider his second-eldest sister as the better candidate for the Eternal Throne. But it
felt
a tiny bit like treason, since his eldest sister had been the Heir for longer than Li’eth had been striped.

JUNE 22, 2287 C.E.
FEVRA 15, 9508 V.D.S.

The increasing presence of Shi’ol Nanu’oc, Countess S’Arrocan, in the halls of the Terran embassy annoyed Jackie. For whatever insane reason the two of them had, it appeared that the countess and Lieutenant First Grade Brad Colvers were now officially dating. An unlikely duo in Jackie’s opinion, but there it was.

An odd couple, since Shi’ol still acted superior around anyone who was markless, and Brad was about as markless as
a Terran could get. He didn’t even have any visible moles or freckles beyond one or two tiny spots on each of his arms whenever he wore short sleeves. But Shi’ol did behave herself, mostly. She might stare for a moment at Jackie and Li’eth, but she always averted her eyes after that moment and studiously ignored the two of them.

Jackie could tolerate being ignored. She now had so much on her plate, it was hard to find the time for herself other than late at night or early in the morning. A fresh influx of guards and staff had arrived, along with fifteen new ships for the
Embassy
fleet.

Embassies 16
through
30
came with experienced bureaucrats, scientists, historians, and several soldiers—Army, Special Forces, Marines, and Navy personnel, as well as Admiral Nayak, who had been reassigned to serve under Jackie, who had had her commission retired so that she was no longer forced to play double duty as an officer as well as the Terran Ambassador. It also came with the promised Peacekeepers, a cluster of ten sober, police-trained personnel and a corrections facility doctor who specialized in overseeing cases of corporal discipline.

The doubled fleet also came with a contingent of psychics sent from both the Psi League and the Witan Order. Some of them would go with Rosa when she traveled to each of the other races’ capital worlds, in a mix of original and new staff and guards, to help her meet, greet, and present the Terran Charter to the member nations of the Alliance. It was the will of the Terran United Planets Council that the former Premiere should be the Grand High Ambassador to the Alliance at large, while Jackie remained Grand High Ambassador to the V’Dan in particular. Aixa Winkler had volunteered to go along as well, citing how well she and her “peer in age” got along. She was strong enough to serve as Rosa’s staff xenopath, which made her an excellent choice in Jackie’s opinion.

The current influx of psis numbered nearly twenty—a very large number in proportion to the others who had arrived—but that was because the Sh’nai Temples had finally bowed to the reality of Terran psychic-gift training. They had declared it superior . . . and someone from a department called the D’aspra Archives had scrounged up some vaguely worded prophecies
that confirmed the “Second Empire”—the Terrans—would “. . . teach new ways of enlightenment and power, admonishing it be ever and only used for good, as coded in their writ and in their way.”

Even with over twenty psis, most of whom were qualified to teach, and with the ability now to cover the explanation, demonstration, and teaching methods of nearly every form of psychic ability currently known to the Terrans . . . they still required Jackie’s presence to help with some of it. To reassure the V’Dan priests and priestesses, and even now some Gatsugi psis and Solarican Seers, and a contingent of Tlassians of the priest caste, the Grand High Ambassador had to be on hand for these first new teaching sessions. To answer questions and give reassurances.

Even more were scheduled to arrive as time went on, in an influx timed to arrive every ten days or so. They now had a currency exchange going. New forms of Alliance technology were being integrated into existing Terran technologies, and some of their own—hydrogenerator tech, if not the recipe for making the catalyst itself—was being sold to the V’Dan. Things were starting to look up for everyone. Emerging from her private quarters in a good, hopeful mood, Jackie therefore found she had to ask an abruptly important question on a topic utterly unrelated to the influx of new personnel weighing on her mind.

“What is
she
doing on this floor?” she demanded bluntly, eyeing the green-spotted blonde, whom she had only seen in the lower levels before now. Shi’ol and Brad were just at that moment stepping out of the lift.

Colvers twitched a little at the demand but faced her politely. Somewhat politely, since his reply was as blunt-voiced as hers. “I
live
on this floor, remember? Just because Admiral Nayak is now in charge of all four Branches out here does not move me out of the suite I was granted as Robert’s right hand. And I am
free
to bring whomever I like to my personal, private quarters, provided they have passed a security background check.

“Which Shi’ol has,” Brad added tersely. “Or are you going to hold her past mistakes against her?”

The lift doors slid shut behind them. That meant she would have to wait for it to return to that floor if anyone else had summoned it on a different floor. Jackie met Shi’ol’s gaze for
a long moment before pulling it away from the rosette-spotted woman. She eyed Brad instead. “So long as she
keeps
her mistakes in the past, I will. And not one word out of
either
of you about my personal life or how it supposedly influences or adversely affects my duties and my loyalties. Is that clear?”

“Crystal, ma’am,” Brad told her. Now that she was a retired colonel, he didn’t have to call her “sir.” She was still in his chain of command, but only because she was the official representative of the Secondaire and Premiere in all matters. He eyed her in her civilian clothes, a softly clinging pantsuit in deep orange scattered with peach and white flowers. “Is that what you’d call formal attire?”

“I’m going to a meditation class being held for Imperial Prince Balei’in, the youngest child of the Empress, and several members of the Solarican Seers’ Guild and the Tlassian priest caste. He’s a psychometric, like Li’eth, with the ability to read the history of the objects he touches. Since it’s an ability I myself am starting to develop through the Gestalt, I’m going to be meditating with them, learning how to tap into those abilities consciously and under full control. In order to do so successfully, I have elected to wear comfortable, nondistracting clothes. Now, if you’ll excuse me?”

She started to step around them. Brad turned to follow her. “One moment . . .”

Stopping, Jackie twisted to face him. “Yes?”

He frowned and moved around her. “Hold
still
, Ambassador. You’re still our Grand High Ambassador . . . and you really need to start brushing your hair
before
you change your clothes.”

She felt him pluck twice at the back of her right shoulder, then again at the left. Twisting to eye him, she watched as he shook his fingers, letting the hairs fall to the floor. Beyond him, Shi’ol smirked slightly, but only slightly, and said nothing. “. . . Thank you. I’ll keep that in mind.”

Striding up to the door, she pushed the call button. Thankfully, no one else had summoned the car. Stepping into the lift, she pressed the floor she wanted. Her last sight as the doors slid shut were of Brad wrapping his arms around an almost giddy-looking Shi’ol. The thought of the two of them together, doing . . . things . . . churned her stomach.

In that much, I guess I’m no better than Crown Princess Vi’alla,
she thought, and sighed. Her Imperial Highness still did not like the Terrans, and in particular did not like Jackie. She was civil and courteous, but it was a cold courtesy at best. Fortunately, Jackie did not have to deal with Shi’ol. The woman had no voice in Jackie’s level of politics or military interactions. Unfortunately, she still had to deal with Her Imperiousness, Imperial Heir Vi’alla.

Let it go, Jackie,
she ordered herself. Breathing deep, she emerged on the right floor and strode past the security desk.
Let go of your irritation and get your mind focused on the class that lies ahead. You have very little free time right now to waste, and you
need
these lessons in psychometry. Just let the thought of the two of them float away and crumble into nothingness. You are calm, you are safe, you are in your own little bubble of protective safety . . .

AUGUST 4, 2287 C.E.

MARS 27, 9508 V.D.S.

Jackie nodded slowly, listening to the indigo-striped woman on the other end of the hyperrelay connection. With a greatly shortened and cache-provisioned route picked out between Earth and V’Dan, there were only a few seconds of delay between the two places. “. . . That’s excellent news. I’m glad the first test runs of artificial gravity are progressing ahead of schedule, Ambassador.”

“Please, I told you, call me Ah’nan,” Li’eth’s secondborn sister urged, smiling. “We are equals in our chosen careers, after all.”

Jackie smiled. “I know, Ah’nan, and I appreciate the courtesy and friendship of it. It just isn’t always easy to remember
it. I was raised to always be polite and respectful in diplomatic circles. Mind you, there are days around here when I want to scream at the locals that I am
not
a child, and to stop treating my people like unmarked juveniles . . . I know your mother is trying, but your people just aren’t getting it. Still, for the most part, I personally prefer to be polite, if not necessarily formal.”

“Yet you are still formal. For myself, I find it amusing that a
Terran
is more formal than an Imperial Princess,” Ah’nan stated, broadening her smile into a grin. It faltered in the next moment. “Are they really still having trouble remembering to treat your people like adults? I’ll admit it took me a couple weeks to get used to the way everyone looks on this world, but most everyone I’ve met has been mature and kind, and now I cannot see your people as anything else. Surely the ones back home have also adapted by now?”

That made Jackie shake her head. “No, Ah’nan, they have not. Well, for a handful of days after your mother’s experiment back at the start of Fevra, yes, but most of them have slid back into their habits of taking us for children and taking our generosity with our technologies for granted. I know we’re getting more substantial items out of them than mere respect, but . . .”

Ah’nan nodded as soon as Jackie’s words reached her over the two-and-four seconds of delay between them. “There is no such thing as ‘mere’ respect. Not having respect is frustrating, insulting, and unworthy of my people. Particularly when I get to join some of the meetings hosted by your Command Staff. They have some very clever ideas. Very different tactics. Very much into covert use of whatever cover lies around, staying out of immediate combat range, skirmishing instead of standing nose to nose with the enemy, taking the blows . . . Maybe you should use those sort of tactics on my people?”

“I think I have been, but I think it’s just too subtle for your culture. Maybe I should just haul back and punch them one on the nose,” Jackie half quipped. “I certainly feel like it, of late, and I am not a naturally violent-minded woman.”

“Well, your ongoing restraint is appreciated by
me
, at least. And probably by my brother,” Ah’nan added. She said something else, but a claxon blared abruptly and loudly in the hall outside Jackie’s office at that same moment. Jackie jumped and twisted, trying to place the noise. It took her a few moments to
recognize the patterns as a combination of
intruder alert
and
evacuate now
.

“—What is that noise?” she heard Ah’nan say. The Imperial Ambassador had raised her voice to be heard over the clamor, now that their communications lag had caught up to her side of things and bounced its way back. “Jackie? What’s happening?”

“I don’t know . . . That’s the evacuation signal on top of an intruder alert. I’ll have to call you back later,” Jackie stated, and cut the connection.

Even as she pushed her chair back and rose, her office door slid open and Captain al-Fulan beckoned sharply. He had two more Marines with him, armed and watching the corridor. “Move it! You have to get out of here!”

What the . . .
Her training didn’t lag behind her confused mind. Jackie let her legs move her quickly out of her office and down the corridor. There were more Marines waiting at every junction, as well as in the stairwell leading down two floors. They flowed around her and the captain, some moving from rear guard to point, others holding position as they hustled the Grand High Ambassador in their midst toward the restricted-access doorway into the top floor of the nearest Guard Hall, the one that stood between the North Embassy Wing and the Imperial Wing.

“Hamza, what’s going on?” she asked her chief of security.

“Someone smuggled a damned
army
of little robots into your quarters and tore everything to pieces,” he told her. “We don’t know how, and we don’t know who, yet. Dozens of them, maybe hundreds. Damned V’Dan use too many robots,” he added in a mutter, his hand on her elbow and his eyes flicking everywhere, trying to watch all angles at once. “When the automated security system finally went off and summoned the guards, they scattered into the vents.”

“Their own version of an AI war was over two and a half centuries ago,” Jackie pointed out. She hurried a little faster, her black-and-flower-printed dress swirling its fluted hems around her forearms and knees. “They literally don’t have anybody still alive who remembers those days, unlike our people.”

“Well, we only have a handful who are still alive who
remember,” he allowed. They reached the checkpoint, where several Elite Guard in armored suits stood guard. “A Squad Alpha, Beta, Gamma teams, go with the Ambassador and keep her safe—you, Elites; split yourselves up,” al-Fulan ordered, lifting his chin at the half dozen armored V’Dan. “I want four of you guarding this door, and two of you on the Ambassador, providing escort with my Marines. Delta, stay here to help guard it. Epsilon, you’re with me.”

It was a testament to their calling that the V’Dan did not argue even though they were not in the Terran chain of command. The lead figure just flicked her machinery-augmented arm, picking out the nearest three along with herself to stand guard, and pointing for the rearmost two to provide that escort. As she did so, she called out,
“Eyah?”

“Eyah!”
the two at the rear agreed.

“Hoo-rah,”
one of the Marines ahead of Jackie muttered. He took point for their brown-clad group, gun drawn and skating his boots quietly over the floor, ignoring the thudding of those armored V’Dan boots. Poking his head through the heavy, airlock-style pair of doors on this level, he pulled it back, nodding. “All clear. Move out!”

Hustling through the doorway, they moved rapidly from the connecting spur into the main corridor. On this level, there were few people passing back and forth. Few guards, for that matter, but then access up here was restricted. They didn’t go far down the Guard Hall, just far enough to get away from the cross-corridor, to control how many directions an enemy could come at them.

“This is far enough. Elites, I want one of you on each side, facing outward. You’ve got scanners on those things, and we don’t, so put them to use. Marines, I want you back-to-back; Gamma, face the walls. There are ventilation shafts up there, and for all we know, they can also chew through the walls or something. Ambassador, you’ll need this,” the lead male added, addressing Jackie.

He held out a spare pistol toward her, butt first, muzzle up, since they were on the top floor of the Guard Halls and there was no telling how solid the floors were when it came to projectile fire.

“It’s got twenty-three in the magazine and a fourth in the
chamber, sir. I’ve got three more,” he added when she hesitated. “Plus knives and batons and other things. You won’t be depriving me of a weapon, honest.”

Eyeing the gun, Jackie shook her head. She was an adequate shot at best; she had passed the Psi Division’s requirements for the firing range just fine, but these Marines would be far superior. “If it’s something mechanical, I’m better armed than all of you are. Bullets might stop a living being, but they won’t necessarily stop a robot.”

“Halt! Identify yourself!” one of the V’Dan Elite ordered, interrupting her before she could point out that as a telekinetic, her only real fears were laser- and stunner-based weapons.

Jackie turned quickly—and yelped, jumping back a little. There were four more Elite Guards, ones not in armored uniforms. They had emerged from the cross-corridor that led into the Imperial Wing, and were accompanying two K’Katta. Nerves already pulled taut by the alarms and the evacuation and the unknown danger of unknown rogue robots on the loose . . . the presence of two giant arachnid-like aliens just meters away had her heart pounding in her chest.

“I . . . sorry, meioas,” she offered in apology. “I apologize for shrieking like that.”

The pair were vaguely familiar; K’Katta fur patterns were nearly impossible for Human eyes to pick out with their limited types of color-sensitive cones, and both were very similar-looking females, save for a modest difference in size. Yet there was still something familiar about each of them.

Given where they had come from, Jackie guessed one of them had to be, “. . . Grand High Ambassador K’kuttl’cha? And, ah . . . Commander-of-Hundreds Guardian Twee-chuk-chrrr?”

The slightly bigger alien chittered, and the small box strapped to the top of that furred, tan, arthropodic head translated. She curled up a leg toward her abdomen as she spoke. “I am pleased to be remembered, Grand High Ambassador. I have been advising our Ambassador on the successes your Terran spy ships have been giving our forces and urging the V’Dan to give your people more support and leeway in the war.”

Creepycreepycreepy . . . stars and my ancestors, I don’t think I will ever get over this reaction to the poor things. It’s
not their fault,
Jackie allowed, suppressing a shudder.
But creepycreepy . . .

“Let them pass,” the head of A Alpha ordered. “I suggest you hurry, meioas. We have robotic intruders in the North Embassy Wing. Get them back to their zone safely, Elites.”

“Eyah?”
the lead female of the four challenged him. She planted her hands on her gold-clad hips. “Are you ordering us around, Terran?”

“Hoo-rah,”
the Marine agreed. “I have my charge to protect, and you’re in the way. Go on. Get your own charges out of the kill zone.”

The other female chittered. Her native tongue seemed to hiss off the walls around them. “That is an unpleasant piece of vocabulary, meioa. I will forgive you for it, as you are clearly a Guardian. However, please consider being more cheerful and pleasant. Sweet sap pleases the guest far more than anything bitter.”

“Ma’am,” he stated, as the hissing grew louder, alarming Jackie, “I would be
happy
to discuss courtesy protocols at any time
other
th—”

“Look out!”
the woman on Gamma shouted, jerking her gun up and shooting. The loud
blam blam blam
of her gun echoed down the wall as dozens of silvery
things
poured out of an air vent even as the grille covering it was still tumbling to the floor meters below.

Jackie didn’t have time to throw up a shield; the Marine in charge flung himself on top of her, bearing her to the ground with a sharp,
“—Get down!”

Hitting the floor hard enough to have the wind knocked out of her, Jackie lost control of the telekinetic shield she had been in the midst of throwing around herself. Skittering sounds fought with the blood pounding in her ears, the ragged rasp of air as she finally sucked it in—only to scream in agony as ice-hot fire lashed through her legs, her feet, her scalp, attacking her in lightning slashes right around the Marine desperately trying to shield her body with his own.

Panic flared her gifts outward in a burst of force that knocked everyone over, and knocked the swarming army of odd robots back. Even as she tried to get to her feet, the machines recovered with unnerving agility and leaped on top of her again,
tearing at her clothes, her skin, her hair—Jackie pulsed again, and a third time, this time
holding
the sphere even as she levitated herself up off the floor.

The machines, looking like two silvery spider-things stacked one atop the other, unnerved her in their relentlessness. They leaped at her, most able to get themselves two, two and a half meters up before they bounced off the invisible sphere of her telekinetic shield. Her wounds throbbed and bled, forcing her to put on a second layer of shielding, a pressure layer to force her injuries shut.

The guards shot at the machines, but they were hampered by the way they were evenly spaced around the battle zone. The leader—his name came back to her like a tiny island of clarity amidst the chaotic sea of her dazed, aching panic, Corporal Okonjo—barked orders for everyone to get on one side, and for her to rise higher.

Pamf!
“Jackie?
Jackie!
I—”

Li’eth flinched back as the sea of robots turned toward him. He flung up his arms, and a shield slapped up between him and them just in time to stop the nearest handful from tearing into his sweat-damp exercising clothes. Jackie quickly wrapped one of her own around him as well before the others could scuttle around behind. Lifting him up off the ground, she got both of them higher—and the damned things charged up the walls on either side, punching their claw-feet into the plaster-like material so they could try to drop down on the pair from above.

Except that the K’Katta, both of them, were already up there. With incredible fearlessness, both tan-furred females scurried into the mass. All ten limbs worked frantically fast, either clinging to decorative ribs on the arched ceiling, or grappling, twisting, and snapping the semidelicate joints of the metal beasts.

Seeing them handling the ones from above, and wrapped in the protection afforded by his hard-concentrating partner, Li’eth focused his fire on the ones directly beneath the two of them. Literal fire burst from the processors at the heart of each multilimbed bot, multiple
pop pop pops
that sounded wimpy compared to the harder
bangs
of the Terran weapons, or the sizzle of laserfire from the Elites’ mechanized armor.

More guards came running up, mostly Elite, some Terran, but there was nothing they could do. Within another minute, nothing was left but dissipating smoke and an occasionally twitching limb . . . and that was when Jackie lost strength and collapsed. She managed to cushion her fall to the floor at the last moment, but Li’eth was on his own, thumping down—thankfully on his feet—a few meters away. What felt like every wound on her body broke open when her telekinesis failed, and she cried out.