Three years and seven months AV
Alliance Embassy Station
Of all the warp-capable species in the known galaxy, perhaps the one that most resembled humans were the Qinis.
Not that anybody would ever confuse one for the other. Qinis were tall, taller even than Vzk’tk, and their slender bodies were an exercise in long, gently curving lines that made the human form look positively squat and gauche. They had large, expressive eyes set in their noseless faces above surprisingly feminine lips, and even though the eyes were slightly too wide-set and aimed apart to grant broad peripheral vision at the expense of binocular range-finding, the overall effect was, in an exotic way, actually rather appealing to the human sense of aesthetics.
Which was another way of saying that Rylee thought they were weirdly sexy. Especially when you threw in the large, pointed ears that swivelled this way and that seemingly with minds of their own.
Then there was their fashion sense. The Qinis bucked the interstellar trend by favouring clothing for more than simple utility. Practically every species at least wore a few pockets, packs, pouches and bags strapped onto their bodies, but by and large the interstellar community had zero nudity taboos: Clothing was an uncomfortable necessity when the wearer needed protection from some environmental or personal hazard, nothing more.
Only the Qinis and Gaoians seemed to differ from that general attitude, and even then, while the Gao had discovered long ago that clothing was practical and useful, they had largely constrained themselves to colourful overalls that left their shoulders bare.
The Qinis were different. They had fashion shows, trending designers and labels, the works. Admittedly, by human standards, Qinis clothing was far from modest—Rylee had been to a few fashion shows in her time, and the Qinis seemed to go for the kind of breast-baring, strangely cut artistic pieces that had made her internally roll her eyes while politely applauding. The objective of Qinis clothing seemed exclusively to be the artful enhancement and decoration of their physical features, rather than concealment, warmth or function.
At that objective, however, they succeeded admirably. She was finding it hard not to stare, or fantasize.
Not that anything could ever come of such speculative fantasies, of course. That gracile frame and its stately movements were the product of crystal-delicate long bones, upon which the muscles were strung more like gossamer than like the mechanical powerhouse of a moving creature. Any kind of an intimate tryst with a Qinis would have inevitably and swiftly become an agonising introduction to the joys of bone fractures, no matter how gentle the human tried to be. They were fragile even by the standards of other nonhuman species, having evolved on the lowest-gravity cradle world thus far known to the interstellar community.
It had come as a surprise to everyone that they had sided with the Celzi, in fact. Their kind simply were not warriors at all—too fragile, too slow, too gentle and esthetic. Siding with an open rebellion had seemed like a very strange move from them, but in fact they had become the industrial base of the entire Alliance, having long since mastered the engineering arts of automated assembly and resource extraction, keeping all the heavy lifting and physical exertion safely on the far side of a sturdy entourage of robots and drones. One Qinis engineer could mine asteroids with her left hand while directing the construction of a battlecruiser with her right, all while relaxing at a party wearing a stately and decorative robe of diaphanous fabrics hung with gems and loose-wound wire.
Next to which, Rylee felt downright dowdy in her USAF dress uniform, though she noticed that some of the Qinis males were eyeing the uniform’s cut speculatively. Either that or they were eyeing her—maybe humans were just as strangely beautiful to Qinis? It was hard to tell.
At least she didn’t need any such guesswork when it came to the Russian ambassador to the Alliance, who may as well have opened the conversation with “Hello Captain Jackson, would you like to have sex with my wife while I watch?” and was clearly not going to let a merely arctic reception dash his hopes. The wife in question—a bored-looking pencil sketch of a blonde supermodel—seemed to exist purely to agree with her husband and give Rylee a look that said that the sex would be a wonderfully pleasurable exercise in athletic hate-fucking, though she had relaxed the moment Rylee’s disinterest in the veiled proposition became apparent.
Snubbing the lecherous creep would have been in violation of her briefing, however. Rylee had been given explicit instructions to try and leave a positive impression on everyone there regardless of species or allegiance, so she spun a careful half-truth that left the wife satisfied that Rylee wouldn’t be in their bed tonight and the ambassador equally hopeful that she would, and excused herself in search of more tolerable company.
She found it in the form of a small knot of Gaoians. Their body language was a little hard to read, but looking at which way their feet pointed she decided that the group was having two separate conversations—one between four males with dark colouration and a tall female with much more silver and white in her fur. The other conversation was between an obviously younger female and…she peered at the markings on his face for a careful second to make sure…
“Goruu!”
The Gaoian pilot looked up and around at the happy exclamation of his name, and his ears pricked up adorably. “Rylee!” he said, and the translator filled his tone with genuine gladness to see her. “I was told you were here somewhere.”
They shook hands, gently. “Rylee, this is Sister Niral. Niral, Captain Rylee Jackson, pilot of Earth’s first superluminal vessel.”
“Ah, so this is the one you wouldn’t shut up about.” Niral teased. She shook Rylee’s hand also, and both women met each others’ gazes and stifled giggles as the young male’s ears drooped a little, cementing Rylee’s conviction that she liked Gaoians.
“I guess Pandora made an impression.” she commented.
“You both did.” Niral said. “Truthfully, if you were a Sister, I’d be a little bit jealous.”
“You two are together?”
“I’m…not averse to the idea.” Niral said, mischievously flattening her ears sideways. Rylee had to admire her cool and confidence, she didn’t even glance backwards to see Goruu’s expression prick up in delight that completely ignored species boundaries.
“Well, nothing to be jealous of here.” Rylee said, and winked at Goruu. “I’d break him.”
Niral chittered a nervous laugh as Goruu wilted in embarrassment, turning heads from the other Gaoian group, who dropped their conversation and joined the new one around Rylee. The tallest and probably oldest male scratched the top of Goruu’s head, further contributing to his embarrassment.
“Ah, Rylee Jackson, this is Mother Yimyi.” Niral introduced her, then indicated the older male who had scratched Goruu’s head. “Clan-Father Amren of Clan Firefang, Fathers Gu and Yemin, and Brother Roni.”
Rylee decided she was glad that Amren had been facing away from her when she first approached the group or else she might have mistaken him for Goruu. Aside from some extra grey fur, his markings were practically identical to the younger male’s. Family resemblance?
There was an exchange of polite small-talk, which Rylee had only limited reserves of patience for: she decide to make the conversation mean something.
“I’ll confess.” she said, picking her words carefully “I was a little surprised to run into a familiar face at this little soiree.”
“You’re wondering what the tukki the Gaoians are doing at an Alliance party, seeing as we’re members of the Dominion councils.” Mother Yimyi said, cutting straight through the delicate language, and drawing a generally amused and agreeable response from the males. Rylee decided that she really liked Gaoians, and relaxed.
“That, yes.” she agreed.
Amren scratched his ear and indicated, with a subtle tilt of his head, the whole room. The walls have ears was a subtle reminder that didn’t need translating. “As the Celzi are keen to point out, theirs is a war of secession based on the right to self-determination.” he said. “Which is a principle that we stand behind.”
“I sense a “but” coming…” Rylee said.
“But.” Yimyi said “we have reservations about the Celzi’s “you get what you grab” approach to territory. The Dominion, for all its flaws, and for all the arrogance that makes it think it can sell every planet in the galaxy and make money off the sale, at least offers a moderated and civil approach to expansion and colonisation.”
“So you’re here looking to…what, build bridges? Heal the rift?”
“It’s not a plan that all of the clans agree with. Many of our idiot gung-ho warrior clans are eager to pitch in with the war.” Yimyi said.
“The Firefangs are a warrior clan.” Amren pointed out, though his tone carried no objection.
“But not an idiot gung-ho one.” Yimyi soothed.
“What’s holding them back?” Rylee asked her.
“The Clan of Females. Our attitude is that we don’t feel all of the available diplomatic options have been exhausted yet and we are not happy to fully commit Gao to a war that was started by other species when there are still opportunities for non-violent contact.” She looked, if Rylee was any judge, smug. “And the male clans don’t do anything which the Mother-Supreme has expressed disapproval for, if they’re smart.”
She tilted her head, but Rylee wasn’t sure what, if anything, the gesture meant. “In truth, your own species’ ascension has provided an excellent opportunity. Inside the Sol demilitarized zone, with these two embassy stations in place, we now have the most open and accessible point of contact between the two sides for…twenty cycles or longer.”
“Then there’s the way your own factions are seeking to play the rivalry to your advantage” Amren interjected. “Both sides know that for the human race to commit to siding with the other would be disastrous. Not least because a lot of hapless, innocent soldiers would get crushed by a force who drastically outmatch them. We’re hoping to persuade the Alliance and Dominion both that it’s in the best interests of both factions to declare a ceasefire and negotiate a permanent peace before that happens.”
“Know when to walk away with what you’ve already got while you still have it, kind of thing?”
“Exactly. An astute and sensible policy.” Yimyi said approvingly.
“I learned it from a very wise man called Kenny Rogers.”
An aide approached and murmured something quietly to Mother Yimyi, who took Father Amren’s arm. “If you’ll excuse us, it seems the Qinis ambassador wishes to speak with us.”
“Of course.” Rylee said.
The other Fathers and Brother also made their apologies and scattered to mingle with the assorted Alliance members and humans.
“Want to get out of here?” Niral asked.
“More than anything. Are we allowed to?”
“We have talamay and a game you might like in the shuttle.” Goruu said.
“Lead on.”