My first day of Blockade service pretty much set the tone for the majority of my time out there. Moments of tedium and camaraderie crowded into the minimum of allotted space, interspersed with moments of intense tension and frenetic activity. It was very much like the day-to-day life of soldiers patrolling in a war.
Then again, it was a war. The politicians just thought that calling it a Blockade would sound more reassuring to the folks back home.
~Ia
JANUARY 4, 2494 T.S.
SS’NUK NEH 1334 SYSTEM
Ia stayed in her bunk for a few minutes past the end-lurch that was the emergence from the hyperspace tunnel. Her stomach insisted on it, churning unhappily at having been woken by the OTL klaxons. Worming a hand free of the covers she slapped the button that locked the narrow, cradle-like bed in a stable position and released the webwork of restraints holding her in place. Everyone strapped in for OTL; going without restraints and cushioning of some sort meant the risk of being pasted against a rearward bulkhead by the abrupt acceleration forces sucking a hypership into its wormhole.
The one drawback the restraints couldn’t help with was the exhaustion of having lived too fast. The side effects for everyone, Ia included, were shaking muscles, dry mouth, nausea, and hunger. The last three did not mix particularly well. Once she was sure she could stand, Ia climbed out of her bunk, then straightened it and restored the webbing. The comm by the door came to life as she padded toward the closet-sized room that served as her private bathroom.
“Commander Salish to Lieutenant Ia, rise and shine. This is your wake-up call. You have one hour before your duty shift begins.”
Swerving by the doorframe, Ia touched the private return-call button. “Gee, and here I thought the OTL warning was supposed to be my adrenaline-based wake-up call.”
“I like to do both. Private Ryker says breakfast will be ready for the Audie’s crew in ten minutes. He likes to cook extra spicy, just to warn you.”
“Acknowledged.” Ending the call, Ia padded into the head. From the storage cupboard over the toilet—which came with its own set of acceleration restraints, just in case—she pulled the locking boxes that held her “holy beads.” She had already showed the untainted ones to Salish. Now, she pricked one of the veins on the back of her hand, extracting the day’s allotted dose of blood with the Triple-S she had washed and passed under the sterilizer last night.
Sticking her hand into the box of beads, she extracted energy from the mass, molding and shaping roughly a quarter of it into a single large glob with a shot-glass-sized hollow. Injecting the hollow with the blood, she mashed and melded the two with mind and hands, then divided them into beads telekinetically before rehardening them and dropping them back into the padded box in a trickling clatter of crystal on crystal. It took up most of her allotted ten minutes, but breakfast would be kept hot and ready for her in its own warming tray.
Securing the box, she quickly scrubbed and sterilized the extractor and put it away, then used the facilities, scrubbing hands and face and giving a sketchy wash of the other areas. She also dampened her sleep-rumpled hair, allowing her to comb the white locks straight. Once that was done and everything stowed, with even the rag she had used tucked into the sonic cleaner, she exited and dressed quickly in black ship boots with their steady, deck-gripping soles, dark blue trousers, and a light blue shirt.
Her arm unit, Ia clasped over her left sleeve; jacket sleeves had snaps so the units could be discreetly covered or easily accessed, but shirt sleeves were often tucked under the bracer-like devices. Before retiring to sleep, she had pinned her bars and wings on the collar points and boards with the wings centered inside the stripe loop that designated her part of a ship’s bridge crew. On the left breast pocket, she added a flat triangle pin with the middle point carefully aimed downward, mark of the upper crew for a Delta-VX patrol ship. Once the tails of her shirt were smoothed into her trousers and a stray fold of sleeve fabric tugged straight under her command unit, she was ready to go.
Ia didn’t have far to go, to get to breakfast; her tiny cabin was attached to the equally small captain’s office, with both squeezed between the bridge at the heart of the ship and the galley. Orienting herself more from precognitive familiarity than from the colors banding the placards holding every door and cupboard sign lining the portside corridor, she headed toward the bow and entered the dining half of the galley.
Most of her crew were there. They had departed from the Mad Jack at the start of the Murphy’s watch, which had given Ia’s half the chance to rest. Eight soldiers, five in the blue of the Navy and three in the brown of the Marines, occupied the space. All of them wore a shallow triangular pin on their shirt pockets with the middle point turned down, indicating they crewed the upper of the two ships.
Private Ryker entered behind Ia, dangling a carrying case from one hand. The pin on his shirt had its middle point facing up. He nodded to her. “Sir. Breakfast has been delivered to the Audie four still on watch. Shall I fetch your breakfast now, sir?”
Ia nodded and took her place at the head of the long metal table. At the far end sat First Petty Officer Michaelson, the Audie’s noncommissioned officer. Down each side sat most of her crew, save for the four manning the Audie’s systems during the off-watch, and one missing soldier. The absent, brown-clad woman came hurrying in a moment later, still tucking her shirt into her pants.
“Morning,” she murmured, nodding to the others. She lifted her chin at the Murphy crewman working in the actual cooking space at the far end of the galley. “Hey, Jack, I’ll take a caf’, hot ’n black. None of that creamy-sweet v’zuei the officers drink.”
“Private Knorssen, your language is highly inappropriate,” Petty Michaelson snapped. “Your disrespect will not—”
“Will be tolerated, Petty, before the first cup of the day,” Ia interrupted, holding up her hand. She met Knorssen’s slightly pink-cheeked glance with a wry smile, knowing the woman had planned to test her new commanding officer this way. “But be advised, Private, only before the first cup of the day. Also understand that I will give as good as I get.” Lifting her chin and her voice, she, too, addressed the man in the galley. “I’ll take the Marine’s choice of breakfast drink, Private Ryker.”
“Sir?” he asked, ducking his head enough to look out through the pass-through between the two spaces.
“Milk,” she told him, and slipped a wink to the nearest enlisted Marine on her right, who choked on his caf’. “Cold. Straight. You got a problem with that?”
“No, sir.” Pulling back, he finished gathering her meal together.
A couple of the crew were whispering and snickering softly among themselves, casting her amused looks. One of them whispered a little too loudly, “Maybe Jack should make that a chocolate milk.”
Her petty officer gave her a disgruntled look. Bracing her elbows on the table, Ia loosely clasped her hands together and addressed the men and women around her.
“Over the last two days, we were briefly but formally introduced to each other. Myself as your new lieutenant, and you as the various members of my half of our joint crew. But we were pressed for time in getting the Audie-Murphy turned around, and did not have the opportunity to go into background details,” she explained, pitching her voice just loud enough for Ryker to hear. Ia knew he would carry this information to his own crewmates on the Murphy side of things. “Allow me to enlighten you with a few of those details.
“I started in the Service as a grunt in the Marines. I bear more decorations from my two years of service than anyone else outside of a Blockade Patrol. Most of my career in the Corps, I served as a noncom officer. I earned my Field Commission at the battle of Zubeneschamali…and I earned my military nickname from my very first combat three and a half years ago. My CO looked at me standing there before him, covered multiple times from head to toe in Choya blood and Salik guts, and dubbed me ‘Bloody Mary.’ I have kept that nickname throughout my career to date, and kept it fresh.
“Call me whatever you want before my first cup of the day, whatever I may choose to drink…but you will learn to call me it with respect the moment we go on duty.”
She paused a beat as Ryker came out, bearing one of the multilidded trays the others were eating from. He clipped it onto the table in front of her and tucked a lidded mug of milk into its holder at her side. Opening the compartment with her silverware, she plucked out the fork and snapped that lid shut before opening the next, following the Lock and Web Law of shipboard life even as she dug into her pepper-fried potatoes.
“For those of you who doubt my nickname, and doubt my abilities as either a combatant or a commander, you will have ample opportunity to see both in action firsthand. This is the Blockade, after all.” Popping the forkful into her mouth, she chewed and swallowed, then unclipped her mug. “In the meantime, while I may take combat very seriously, I see no reason why our breakfast should be considered a mirth-free zone. Or a conversation-free one. Private Tamaganej, tell me something about your home. Your file says you’re from North Mumbai? How long have you lived there?”
“Ah…yes, sir,” he said, glancing briefly at the others. Shrugging, he dug into his salsa-slathered eggs. “My family’s lived on Earth, in one part or another of India, for…for as long as the Ganges has flowed, I suppose. My family line has been traced all the way back to before the Persian Empire. Or so I’ve been told.”
“You’re tryin’ to tell me that your family line goes back three thousand years?” one of the brown-clad crewmen across from him asked. “I can barely trace my family line back three hundred, when we moved into Lower New York.”
“You lived in Lower New York, Kipple?” Private Nguyen asked, lifting his head from his meal. “I have family in Lower New York, too. I used to spend every summer there, with my cousins.”
“You did?” Private Kipple asked him. “Well, hell, I’ve served with you for a tour and a half, and I never knew that. I grew up in Jersey Province, but I used to visit Saint Vinnie’s Deli every time I was in town. You ever eat there?”
Nguyen snorted. “Who didn’t? Mind you, they couldn’t cook pho worth a shakk, but the matzo ball soup was pretty good.”
Private Kipple leaned over and nudged Ia’s elbow. “How ’bout you, sir? Ever been to Lower New York? Or even the Upper side?”
“Can’t say I have. Most of the time I visited Earth, it was either to Australia for Basic, Portugal for the Academy, or Madagascar to visit friends.” She unsnapped the lid over her toast and discovered Ryker had dusted it with pepper as well as butter. Plucking one of the triangles from the tray, she gave the man cleaning up in the galley a wry look. “Pepper even on the toast, Private Ryker? This is like eating my brother’s cooking! Are you sure you’re not a long-lost relative?”
The others chuckled among themselves. She bit off a corner of the bread before the others could try and tease her directly, enduring the tingling burn of the little flakes without any change of expression. This was the real reason why she had requested the milk, to kill the fire of the capsaicin seasoning her meal.
The rest of it was equally spicy, from the cold salad of steamed vegetables in a vinaigrette to the pepper-smoked bacon. Even the cheese had pepper dusted on it. She would suspect a deliberate trick played on her, if it hadn’t been for Salish’s warning that this was indeed how Private Ryker cooked all the time. At least it was reasonably well-cooked beneath all that fire. Private Kipple, she precognitively knew, could barely slap together edible sandwiches whenever it was his turn in the galley. Which is hardly any better than what I can do…
“Think we’ll find anything today, Petty?” one of the Navy privates asked the noncom at the far end of the table.
“Three mining ships and a petrotanker, all FTL, plus twelve mining skiffs, insystem speed only. That’s on the docket for 1334. We board the petrotanker, two of the mining ships, and a minimum of four of the skiffs, chosen at random by the Lieutenant,” First Petty Michaelson stated, nodding at Ia before looking back at the private. “Anything else, we shoot it down, and if there’s anything left, ask a lot of questions. The exact same as always.”
“Well, sir?” the private asked her next, turning to look at Ia. “Any guesses?”
“The three mining ships are Tlassian-run, under contract with the Alliance to supply the Salik back on the domeworld of Ss’nuk with basic metals and petroleums in carefully controlled amounts. If the profits weren’t so good, between what they mine for themselves, what the Blockade pays, and the premium the Salik are forced to pay, they wouldn’t bother. As it is, the Tlassian hate the Salik—they share the common insult of ‘egg-suckers,’ except that for the Tlassians, it was a very real tragedy of the war. One which the crewmembers of this particular mining consortium have neither forgiven nor forgotten, despite the intervening centuries. I doubt many of them would collaborate with the enemy.”
“And that means we search…?” he asked, shrugging. “Which ships?”
Ia shrugged back. “I’ll flip a coin.” Checking her chrono, she dug into her eggs. “Eat up and tidy up; our shift is in forty minutes.”
They dug in. The Marine woman, Private Knorssen, leaned closer to Ia and frowned at the heaped contents of her tray. “Hey! How come you get more food than I do? Food is supposed to be strictly weighed and rationed.”
“I’m a heavyworlder. We have more muscle mass, so we burn more calories.” Opening one of the untouched lids on her compartmented tray, she eyed the cinnamon roll warily. No pepper flakes, but he had dusted the premade roll with extra cinnamon. “For future reference, Private Ryker, try not to waste excessive amounts of spice. Since I know you are capable of cooking otherwise edible food, I would like you to try following the preparation instructions a bit more closely than this.
“I do expect all of you to toe the line and give your absolute best while you are members of this crew, and on duty,” she added, looking around the table. “I know you can do it, therefore you will do it…and it is easier to live up to these expectations than you’d think. All you have to do is put your mind to it, and it’ll get done.”
“Easier said than done, sir,” Private Kipple muttered.
“Not in my experience, Private,” Ia corrected him, opening up the compartment that held her eggs. Overspiced or not, she needed to eat. “It’s often easier done than said. Just make up your mind to do it, and you’ll get it done.”
Left hand swooping and flexing subtly, wrapped in the sensor glove that controlled the direction of the twinned starship, Ia played with the controls. Her right hand tapped and stroked the piloting controls, adding and subtracting the power of thrust from the panels dotting the hull. She didn’t pull any high-speed maneuvers, no tight turns or sudden reversals, just moved it enough to get herself used to piloting the ship. With her seat centered in the bridge, which was centered on the middle deck in the upper ship, everything was almost perfectly balanced around her, maneuvering-wise.
Salish put up with it for a few minutes before her voice crossed Ia’s headset. The commander’s tone was light, though, when she asked, “Are you done playing with the controls, Lieutenant?”
Ia grinned and swooped the ship a little harder, just a quick back and forth, then steadied their course. “Now I’m done, sir. I believe I can handle her.”
“Good. I am transferring the off-watch command to you, Lieutenant Ia. Logging the time and control of the Audie-Murphy to you…now.”
“Thank you, sir. Have a good night, sir.” Closing her end of the link, but keeping the incoming channel open in case the four off-watch crewmembers on the Murphy side needed to talk to her, Ia shifted the current sensor readings to her left secondary screen. She adjusted their heading and read the new results. “ETA to pinging range of the Tlassian mining ship Red Iron Tail…seven minutes insystem. Any sign of unusual activity on the lightspeed, Private Kipple?”
“No, sir,” he replied from his position as combined navigator and scanner tech. “They are still in a standard mining orbit around asteroid 75,331, exactly where they said they’d be. Skiffs are still displaying standard mining activities.” He shrugged, restraint straps creaking slightly against the pull of his shoulders. “Which means either they’re doing exactly what they should be doing, or they’re very cleverly concealing their true activities.”
“Nice to see you have the proper mind-set for Blockade work, Private,” Ia quipped.
“I have been out here for a tour and a half, sir,” he reminded her.
“Sir,” Private Knorssen asked from her position at the combined engineering and ship’s systems post. “Do you want me to give the orders to start warming up the mechsuits for the boarding party?”
“They’re apparently law-abiding under the conventions of their Blockade mining contract. I want Private Higatsu to suit up in halfmech. He’ll be the only one; Privates Tamaganej and Nguyen will don close-quarters armor,” Ia instructed.
“Sir?” Knorssen questioned. “That’s not standard procedure.”
“Dealing with aliens is a tricky business, Private. Did you read the crew manifest for the Red Iron Tail?” Ia asked in turn. “Almost eighty percent of the crew are warrior caste.”
“Yes, I know, Lieutenant, and that’s why I’m concerned about your orders, sir,” Knorssen told her. “I don’t feel comfortable with you going into a ship filled with venom-spitters, sir.”
“Well, that’s where you and I differ, Private,” Ia stated. “I feel very comfortable going among them unarmored.”
Out of the corner of her eye, Ia could see Knorssen open her mouth, close it, open it again, and again hesitate.
“Whatever it is, Private, go ahead and say it. Just say it respectfully,” Ia told the other woman.
“Then, said with respect, sir…you’re crazy.” She shot Ia a sideways look of her own before returning her hazel green eyes back to her screens.
“More like well-versed in alien psychology, particularly that of the Tlassian warrior caste,” Ia explained. “That, and almost half the crew comes from Glau. Two hundred years ago, that colonyworld was so hard-hit by the Salik during the war, less than fifteen percent of the adults and less than five percent of the children survived. If the non-Glau crewmembers tried anything vaguely resembling cooperation with the Salik, the Glau colonists among them would tear them to shreds. Instruct Private Higatsu to suit up in halfmech, and Privates Tamaganej and Nguyen to don light armor,” Ia ordered.
“Aye, sir.” Turning back to her workstation, Knorssen did as ordered.
Ia watched the distance count down on her tertiary screen, numbers for both distance and magnification scrolling rapidly as the scanners constantly readjusted the displayed size of their target. They could have used the hyperrelay comms to contact the Red Iron Tail sooner than this. Or they could have short-hopped to a point much closer to the alien vessels and caught them by surprise. The point of gliding in at sub-light insystem speeds was to take advantage of lightspeed wave fronts, matching what they saw with their own sensors against the hyperrelay pings from the system buoys, in case of sabotage or ambush.
There were times when it would be more prudent to sneak up with a short-hop and surprise the ship in question, but Ia knew this wasn’t one of them. As soon as they were in range, she sent out the signal requesting communications with the Tlassian ship. Within moments, she received a pingback, and an open transmission.
“Thiss is the Red Iron Tail, of the Rurrulda Minnning Compannny to the Audie-Murffphy. We are ssstanding down operationsss to comply with boarding prosssceduresss.”
“Acknowledged, Red Iron Tail,” Ia returned. “Your prompt diligence honors your employers. Estimated boarding time, seventeen ziknnah Tlassian Standard.”
A pause, then the comm tech on the other end hissed, “Who do I have the pleasssurrre of ssspeaking with?”
“Lieutenant Second Grade Ia. Mok’kathh ssuweh neh khunnssswerreah Ssarra L’kuhl Kunhienn,” she added in Tlassian. “And yes, I do know my accent is atrocious.”
A staccato hiss of laughter echoed back along the link. “Wissse is shhhe who confrontsss her own ffflawsss.”
“Alas, it is a form of combat only a seasoned diplomat could win. I am but a soldier. Who do I have the pleasure of speaking with?” Ia asked in turn.
“Thhird Chief Watcherr Ffred, captain of the Rrred Ironnn Tail. My kinssship affiliationss are not quite ssso essteemmed.”
“I am sure you bring honor to your kin with each sun’s rising. I will see you shortly, Third Chief Watcher,” Ia promised.
“It will be a pleasssurre to be insspected by you. May all otherrrs be ssso polite. Rrred Iron Tail ending call.”
“Acknowledged.”
“Okay, now I know I’m missing something. Sir,” Knorssen added politely. She craned her neck, looking at Ia over her shoulder. “Kinship affiliations?”
“When I was still a young teenager, I sent a letter to the brand-new Grandmaster of the Afaso, a Tlassian named Ssarra. I managed to impress him enough that he not only corresponded back, we stayed in contact through the years,” Ia explained. “Just before I joined the Marines, he adopted me as a sort of clan-cousin-sister-thing. Terran cultures have no exact equivalent for it, though the closest are a combination of…sister-in-arms and honorary extended family member. Though more of the sister-in-arms thing, as it’s a warrior caste thing, but a closer kinship than just a strict military affinity would be. That’s why I know it’ll be more impressive to the warrior caste if most of us board their ship in light armor, rather than in mech. I’ve had the opportunity to get to know how they think.”
“If you say so, sir. I was more into the Gatsugi in my Alien Culture classes,” Private Knorssen dismissed.
Kipple, watching the scanner boards as they approached the mining ship, snorted audibly. “Well, that certainly explains your choice in civilian clothes…”
“Stuff it, Kipple,” Knorssen muttered.
He shook his head. “I’m just saying it’s a good thing you aren’t working the scanners, because with your color sense—”
“Stuff it, Kipple,” Ia echoed, keeping her tone mild. “Eyes to the boards, thoughts on your tasks. We’ll be docking with the Red Iron Tail in twenty minutes.”
Ia wiped another trickle of sweat from her brow with the back of her hand, then stroked her finger up the writing pad’s screen, scrolling through the last of the supply logs. The dry heat of the ship was a bit more than the standardized temperature Terran military vessels used, but it was tolerable enough, if warm. She nodded and handed it back to the captain of the Red Iron Tail.
“Everything appears to be in order, Captain. Thank you for your cooperation. Sschah nakh.”
“Ssthienn nakh,” the saurian replied, bowing at the hips. “Sssuch courtessy iss appreciated. As iss your effficiensscy.”
“You have money to make, the same as any other businessmeioa,” Ia told him, shrugging. “These delays are an unfortunate but necessary evil. You have a solid record of complying with Blockade laws and procedures. To approach you without courtesy or efficiency would dishonor your efforts—oh, you might want to change out your power relays in the forward cargo hold. I could smell the ozone from sparks near the starboard-side junction,” she added. “The minerals you’re mining aren’t particularly volatile, but it would be prudent to replace them.”
“We will lllook into that,” Third Chief Ffred promised. He curled one of his scaled arms upward, gesturing for her to precede him out of the bridge.
Ia tapped her arm unit, activating her headset. “Alpha team to Beta, we’re done here. Everything is in the clear. Pack it up and move it out.”
Private Nguyen, clad in the same navy blue and ceristeel grey body armor as Ia but cradling his laser rifle against his chest rather than down his back, nodded politely to the captain of the mining ship. Ffred was staring at him with wide eyes and a cocked head, a species-similar show of curiosity. Nguyen acknowledged him politely. “Third Chief, you are, ah, curious about something?”
“I would lllike to offffer you a drrinnk, warrior,” the alien murmured, eyeing the private.
“Ah, thank you, sir, but no, thank you. I’m not allowed to drink while on duty, sir,” Nguyen replied, glancing briefly at Ia.
Ia bit her lip for a moment, quelling the urge to laugh. An invitation to share a drink among the Tlassians wasn’t quite the same as an invitation to share a drink among the Terrans. Or rather, it was, only more so. Facing the Tlassian captain when she was sure her face wasn’t a Gatsugi-like shade of red, she gestured at Nguyen. “He is male, Captain. Meioa-o, not meioa-e.”
Ffred flicked his tail. “Sssorry, it iss not alwayss easy to tell ssubspesscies apart. I…apolllogize if my prropossition offended you.”
“No, no offense taken,” Nguyen agreed, eyes widening slightly with comprehension. “The armor does conceal a lot, I’ll admit. I’ll, ah, take it as a compliment. But gender aside, I am on duty, Captain. Have a good day-cycle.”
Neither of them said anything about the incident until they had reached the airlock. Beta team had already cycled through, having come from a spot in the ship closer to the connection point between the two vessels. Nguyen glanced at her several times as they cycled through the Red Iron Tail’s airlock, the boarding tube, and the Audie-Murphy’s aft airlock.
Only when they were in the actual corridors of their own ship, where their presence wasn’t being monitored, did he finally speak. “Um…sir? You’re not going to tell the others I was, ah, propositioned by a Tlassian, are you?”
“What, and have you end up with the nickname of ‘Prettyboy’ Nguyen?” Ia quipped. She shook her head. “No, I won’t say anything, I promise. Stow your weapons but stay in your armor and strap in to your prep alcove, Private. We’ll be short-jumping to the next ship in fifteen minutes, and I’ll want you ready to go.”
“Understood, sir.”
The crew of the Six Claws of Dirt were not thrilled to have the Audie-Murphy emerge from hyperspace less than two hundred kilometers away. That gave them just one minute to receive the ping and its command for them to stand down and prepare to be boarded while the Terran vessel braked hard. Ia flipped over the conjoined ships even as the message went out, preparing to dock the alien vessel’s aft airlock to their starboard side. It wasn’t unusual for a patrol ship to sneak up on a vessel this way, but that didn’t mean they had to be happy about it.
“Yeoman Bashramahtra, take over the helm,” Ia announced as they stopped just within grappling distance. “Extend the airlock gantry and match locks with the Six Claws.”
“Aye, sir. I have the helm,” Bashramahtra agreed, his hand already strapped into the attitude control glove. “Sir…that was some rather nice flying. What was your final flight score?”
“It was 97.3. Not quite high enough to qualify for the Shikoku Yama Academy.” Unstrapping herself from her seat, Ia tapped in a final command and left her post. “You have the bridge, Yeoman.”
“Aye, sir, I have the bridge,” the yeoman confirmed.
Exiting the bridge, she climbed one of the ladderways rather than wait for the lift and emerged at the weapons locker. As he had earlier, First Petty Michaelson issued her a laser rifle and matching pistol, scanning her wrist unit and the ident chip embedded in each weapon. One went over her back, the other into the holster at her hip. Reaching the aft, she found the other three waiting, Higatsu in halfmech armor taking up slightly more than the space occupied by Tamaganej and Nguyen in their nonmechanized body armor.
“Unlike the members of the last ship,” Ia warned the three men waiting for her, “most of the crew of the Six Claws of Dirt do not have a personal, familial, or social grudge against the Salik. They’re here almost strictly for profit. But, like the last ship, most of them are warrior caste. So they may try to test our boundaries. If any of them do try to test you, be rude to you, push you, or act slow in carrying out your inspection orders, you will inform them that they are not permitted to insult you or refuse you the right to carry out your orders, but must instead come to me as your warchief.”
Nguyen flicked up his inner faceplate, addressing her directly rather than through his halfmech suit speakers. “Warchief, sir?”
She tapped the side of her brow. “Xenopsychology, Private. They are our allies, but they are aliens, and they don’t always see things quite the same way as we do. We’re lucky there are enough common threads of wisdom, morals, and ethics from sentient species to sentient species that we can get the Alliance to work, most of the time. The Salik being the current notable exception.”
“There’s always an exception, sir,” Tamaganej muttered.
“Just about always. Let’s move,” Ia ordered. She entered the airlock with Nguyen at her back. The gantry tube was cold, the gravity supplied by the weave under the fold-out decking nothing more than a weak tug. The airlock on the far side opened promptly at their arrival. Cycling through, Ia and Nguyen found themselves facing the captain of the Six Claws, a particularly tall Tlassian female. Ia bowed slightly to her. “Second Chief Watcher Nnlill.”
“Lllieutennant,” she returned. The alien studied Ia for a long moment before finally moving back, giving room for the two to enter the access corridor. “You may sssearch my sship.”
“Sschah nakh,” Ia thanked her. A huff of breath was the Tlassian’s only reply. Ia waited until Tamaganej and Higatsu had cycled through, then gave them their orders. “Search the lower deck cargo holds. Match them to the manifest, which the captain will provide to you. Captain, we will need to see the crew quarters. The records list that they have not been searched in a while. This needs to be done, to comply with the law.”
Nnlill rumbled and bared her teeth a little, but activated her wrist unit. She snapped a set of orders, then gestured with a curl of her arm. “I willl be presssent for the crew cabin inssspectionns.”
“Of course,” Ia agreed, fishing a pair of exam gloves from one of her black and grey vest pockets. “Private Higatsu, Private Tamaganej, be respectful as well as watchful.”
“Aye, sir.”
Like the previous ship, the temperature in this one was on the warm side. By the third crew cabin, Ia and Nguyen were sweating again. This one, unlike the previous two, was occupied. Rather than doing it herself, the Tlassian ship captain hissed something at the crewman, who grunted, climbed down from his sleeping alcove, and started opening cupboards.
Instead of pulling out the garments and belongings, however, the kilt-wrapped saurian just sort of shoved things around before moving to shut the panel again. Ignoring the sweat threatening her eyes, Ia stared at him. “You will need to pull it out, meioa-o. All of it.”
Nnlill hissed an order and cuffed her crewmate on the shoulder, claws scraping across his scaled hide. He grumbled and pulled out the collection of boots, sandals, the odd trousers that looked like they had three legs, though technically one was meant for his tail…and a collection of plexi packets containing…stuff. Herbal-looking stuff. The enraged roar that escaped his captain’s throat made both Ia and Nguyen wince and sway back.
She lit into him in their native tongue so hard and fast, even Ia couldn’t make much sense of it. Not that Ia was exceptionally fluent in Tlassian without dipping into the timestreams, though she was good enough for casual conversation. Second Chief Nnlill growled, babbled, hissed, and claw-cuffed him again, this time visibly scratching his hide. Tail lashing, she turned to face Ia, but from the flaring of her neck-flaps, the “hood” that marked her as warrior caste, she looked like she was still too enraged to remember how to speak Terranglo.
Ia held up her hand, palm toward herself in nonthreatening Tlassian fashion. “Calm yourself, meioa. Whatever his personal choice of plant-based suicide may be, I am not here to enforce the Tlassian drug laws. I am here to check for a different source of contraband. Ship schematics, hyperrelay manuals, and other engineering specifications. Weapons, both designs and actual armaments. Schedules indicating patrol ship routes and times, past, present, and future. The truly dangerous stuff, not this shova.”
“You willl do nnothing?” Nnlill managed to hiss, neck hood still flared slightly.
She shook her head. “The incident will be filed in my report, of course, but I’m not going to draw special attention to it. Provided you take disciplinary actions and report the matter to your government before mine passes along this incident, there shouldn’t be any problem. Drug violations are technically an internal matter for the Tlassian government to handle,” Ia pointed out. “They are not a Blockade matter.
“However…the fact that he has them at all is a potential security risk. His suppliers could blackmail him into providing contraband information to the black market community. I suggest you contact your government immediately, and have him removed,” Ia told the other female.
“It willl be donnne,” she growled. Jabbing at her wrist unit, the Tlassian snapped several orders to what sounded like her bridge crew.
The male widened his eyes. His own neck flared, and he scrambled to his feet with a hrrnk deep in his throat. Ia snapped her sidearm out of its holster, pointing it at his chin even as Second Chief Nnlill caught and dug her claws into his shoulder in warning. He froze in place.
“Swallow it.” Ia ordered, glaring at him. She flicked the safety off, letting the faint whine of the weapon warm up to an audible pitch. “You have insulted me, meioa-o. You. Will. Swallow it.”
“Vhok na-ashh!” Nnlill repeated in their own tongue.
The crewmember blinked and gulped. Then coughed, gagging a little. Touching her headband with her free hand, the Tlassian mining captain lifted her chin. “Messsage is ssent.”
Ia’s headset beeped, a channel opening from the Audie’s crew.
“Lieutenant, we just received a split-bandwidth transmission from the Six Claws. They’re reporting to us the presence of illegal drugs on board, with a copy sent to the Tlassian War Command,” she heard Kipple state. “Is everything alright, sir?”
Lowering her gun, she flicked it off and tapped her arm unit. “The Second Chief is complying with Blockade procedures, Private. Ia out.”
The crewmember grimaced and rubbed his abdomen. He hissed something, but found himself shaken by the shoulder instead. Nnlill still had her neck-skin flared. “You will nnnnnot get your ssstomach cleannsed jussst yet. Show all sstorage contentsss, ffirst!”
Cowed, the male Tlassian crouched and began digging through the rest of his storage lockers. Ia holstered her weapon and watched. He grunted after a few seconds, hunching over more and more as those seconds turned into minutes.
“Uh…sirs?” Nguyen asked hesitantly after a louder groan from the alien. “If he just swallowed his own venom, shouldn’t he get medical help? Doesn’t that stuff corrode flesh?”
“It willl nnnot killl him,” Nnlill hissed. “Jusst make him wishh he werrre dead.”
“Their digestive tracts have a lining vaguely like our own stomachs, Private. One which resists and neutralizes the proteinic acids in their venom,” Ia explained absently, her attention more on the items being revealed than anything else. “They’re designed to handle it in small amounts. Swallowing enough to spit will simply give him a very bad stomachache, followed by a case of the shilva v’shakk, if it isn’t expurged in the next twenty minutes.”
Nguyen mulled that over for a moment, then offered, “So…it’s sort of like eating Private Ryker’s cooking, sir?”
Ia bit her lip again to control the urge to smile. She didn’t want to bare her teeth in front of the Tlassians, since that meant something completely different. “From what I’ve heard, it’s worse. Not by much, but still worse.” Nguyen grinned at her quip, forcing her to snap, “Teeth, Private!”
That sobered him. Quickly pulling his lips back into place, he sketched a bow to the Tlassians, armor creaking faintly with the move. “Sorry, meioas. My apologies.”
“Acsscepted,” Nnlill muttered. Stooping, she snatched a flat, vaguely rectangular device from the floor where her crewmate had pushed it, emptying out his cupboards. “Book rrreaderr. You will wannt to ssscann thiss fffor conntraband.”
Nodding, Ia unsnapped one of her thigh pockets. Fishing out her translator interface, she sorted through the connectors tucked into the back and hooked the right one into the reader’s socket, checking both screens as soon as they lit up. “Thank you for your cooperation, Captain. Sschah nakh.”
Nnlill bowed and gave Ia the equivalent of “you’re welcome” in her native tongue, as she had not done when Ia and the others had first boarded. “Ssthienn nakh. Let usss hope thiss is the onnly violationn on board. I would nnot carrre to have my sssship dissabled.”
“Neither would I, meioa,” Ia agreed.