Chapter Eighteen: Blood Pact Diplomacy — Part 1

After a cursory study of the Kindred, Susan took the commander’s seat, settling into its plush covers with a mixed sense of anticipation and satisfaction. The spacecraft, modified for twisted space, looked more a prototype than an end product, but both the Antansi natives and her own scientists promised her that it would fly with integrity. The ship had Antansi weaponry, powerful enough to destroy anything as small as a single person or as large as an Earth-sized city. It also had Antansi defenses, capable of repelling even a nuclear blast. Susan highly doubted she’d have to use such cruel measures on a person or a planet, or require such extreme defensive capabilities, but the Antansi were insistent on capability.

The ship’s control center was built similar to the bridge styles used on Cynosure craft, with the Captain’s seat set, oddly enough, back behind the crew. Susan, however, preferred to stand or hover around the chamber. Looking back at the different stations, Susan smiled at her mismatched crew. Drake looked especially scraggly with a fuzzy scaled lizard curled up on his lap. His eyes glistened with excitement, reflecting the room with surprising clarity.

“I hope the stabilization systems work.” Charles said nervously.

“What would happen to us, should the ship start to resonate?” Vertigo asked.

“It would be bad.” Devon said.

He had developed and perfected the technology used to stabilize ship resonance, but he’d never had a chance to test it with human life on board. Everybody sat at a different station. Telepathy helped them to work as an efficient team, to keep tabs on the various systems responsible for keeping them alive without having to fill the air with distracting words.

“Are you sure about the resonance stabilizers?” Susan said to Devon.

“Would I be on this ship if I weren’t? The course is set, and we’ll leave by your command.” Devon said, nodding to Susan.

Devon smiled as Susan signaled him to engage engines. The ship shot into space and out of the solar system within an hour. The stars in her line of sight spun around the port nacelle as the ship entered twisted space. The hum of the engines raised a notch and then the resonance died down as the engines shut down, and the ship burst forward and into space.

“We’re now at maximum velocity. The stabilizers are working better than I expected. What are we going to do when we get there? I mean it’s not like we can say, ‘Hey man, we got your message, so we thought we’d drop in for a chat.’”

“That’s exactly what we’re going to do. We’ll also ensure our safety in the alliance as best we can. I brought Laura, for example, because she has strong diplomatic skills.”

“My diplomatic skills are over three hundred years old, and have had plenty of time to atrophy.” Laura said.

“We’ll talk the talk and walk the walk —” Susan said.

“— And hope that we are not killed before peaceful negotiations are underway.” Charles finished for her.

Everybody remained quiet. Already they felt the distance from Antans, felt the longing to return home.

Susan let out a sigh. “How much longer?” She asked.

“Six hours, twenty three minutes, our time. In the universal time flow we’ll have traveled seven days, two hours, and fifteen minutes. Antansi Standard.”

Susan chastised herself as she tried to do the conversion from Earth to Antansi standard in her head. Even after three centuries she found it hard to remember that Antans had a daily rotation of 26 and a quarter Earth hours. The Antansi natives broke their day into 18 hours, eight Light hours, eight Dark hours, and two twilight hours. The ‘hour’ on Antans, however, was actually almost one and a half Earth standard hours. It was broken into eighty-one minutes, and each minute had sixty-three seconds, and the seconds were a little slower than normal human seconds. Giving up on the calculations entirely, Susan, having settled at some point during her thoughts in the command chair, stood up and began pacing. She decided, immediately, that some relaxation was in order.

“I should hope that would be enough time to take a nap.” Susan said, a little snappily.

Jonathan’s eyes did not leave Susan’s sleek body as she walked off the bridge, and to his surprise Laura and Seva both followed her. When Susan was closer to her quarters, she turned and smiled playfully at Laura, whose eyes seemed to anticipate something.

You wanted me to join you? Laura inquired. Seva held Laura’s hand. Seva’s body was maturing slowly even by Antansi standards. Her mind, however, was as old as Susan’s.

Yes, I’m going to take a short bath and then I’m going to rest. Join me for both please. We need to share thoughts for a while.

Once in her quarters, Susan stripped her armor and prepared the tub. Once it filled with water, she sunk into hot, perfumed pool, drawing Laura and Seva in with her. She squeezed Seva’s hand.

Susan began, more comfortably, with words. “Now that we’re sealed off, I feel it safe to talk to you rather than strain against my nature and try to privately send thoughts.”

Laura sunk down to her shoulders into the murky water, watching her body disappear under the surface, and Susan’s toes ran playfully up the outside of her leg. Laura flushed, not from the water, touching her Leader’s feet with her slender fingertips as they drew closer to her hips. Seva broke their conversation of touch unintentionally.

“What do you think we can expect from these ‘Resistance Class’ Citizens? Do you think we can trust them? After they see us will they respect us as equals?”

In response to her question, Laura touched Seva’s leg with her toes. Next to her, Susan squeezed Seva’s hand. Seva lost her train of thought completely.

Susan answered, when it was apparent that Laura would not. “I don’t know what to expect. They’re human, so they’ll have customs and diplomatic standards, but those standards will be different from our own.

“Mostly because we aren’t human, at any rate.” Laura added.

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