Date Point: 13y3m AV
Starship Racing Thunder, Patrolling near Cimbrean system, the Far Reaches
Shipfather Yefrig
On the day that the *Racing Thunder*’s exile had been announced, Yefrig had privately ranted and clawed the walls whenever the younger Brothers of his crew weren’t around to see it.
Hindsight, as the humans had it, was perfect vision. In retrospect his ship, its crew and their talents had been wasted as a minor system picket in a busy high-traffic trading system. They had loitered near Perfection’s most-used parking orbits and flexed their metaphorical claws, doing their best to cow thousands of freighters into law-abiding behaviour.
The occasional stop-and-search, the occasional arrest…and Yefrig’s knowledge and experience as a shipfather had been stretched to their limits in keeping his crew’s morale up and their conduct in line.
Near-system superluminal patrol was a vastly better role. They interacted with every ship coming and going from Cimbrean, learned their names, became familiar with their masters. There weren’t so very many yet, but the humans had big plans to turn Cimbrean into a major exporter. They didn’t have anything to offer the galaxy in the way of technology, but their foodstuffs were something else entirely.
Every ship that brought immigrants and alien materials and technology to Cimbrean left with a cargo hold full of “Rice,” “Soybeans” and “Cornflour” that were already revolutionizing the manufacture of ration balls. Most also carried a delicacy that was rapidly gaining in popularity among Vzk’tk—crunchy, sweet “Carrots.”
The Gaoians, whose territory was only one week away, were getting the best exports of all—deathworld meat. Chicken, beef, pork, lamb, turkey and salmon. Delicious, rich and absolutely full of protein. And that wasn’t even to mention cheese!
If the humans devoted their worlds to exporting nothing but food, they would soon have the market cornered. Deathworld crop species produced far more calories per square kilometer, and the humans apparently already had some pretty cunning proprietary genetics technology that prevented their customers from just planting the crops themselves.
As things were going, Cimbrean had achieved financial self-sufficiency much sooner than had originally been predicted. In fact it was on track to finish paying off its debts entirely within twenty years.
That success naturally attracted interest. Not so long ago, the colony had been under a permanent Hunter blockade. The blockade might be gone, but nobody had forgotten it, which was why the *Racing Thunder*’s first and primary responsibility was to range far out from the system’s borders and keep a nose to the wind in case of incoming large fleets.
And that, in turn, was why Yefrig had been roused from his sleep and was bounding onto the bridge with a definite sense of trepidation. The night watch had picked up just such a fleet, and had diverted the ship as per protocol to get close enough for a positive ID.
A couple of junior Brothers got smartly out of Yefrig’s way as he threw himself at his command seat. “Report,” he ordered, buckling himself in.
The senior of the two sensor operators, a Rite-Brother by the name of Duri, waved a claw at his console. “Gaoian ships, Father. A whole flotilla.”
That was a relief, at least, but it opened a whole series of other questions. “Clan?”
“Not ours, Shipfather.”
“Accelerate to intercept, peaceful overtures. Message buoy back to Cimbrean.”
There were obedient yips from all over the bridge, and Yefrig settled into his seat to watch his map. The display was ludicrously not to scale, of course—how could it be? It encompassed a radius of twenty lightyears—but the objects within it at least gave him a sense of relative position and speed.
The Racing Thunder was aptly named; when they really opened up the engines she could outrun anything. Not even a Human V-Class could match her acceleration or peak FTL velocity, and the helm had laid in an expert trajectory that should see them flash across the incoming fleet’s nose, close enough to identify them but with enough breathing room to get away if things had gone entirely insane and their own people turned out to be hostile.
“Time until we can verify their IFF?”
“Less than [two minutes], shipfather…” Duri informed him
“Keep our claws in.”
“Yes, Shipfather.”
Yefrig scratched his own claws nervously across the coarse fabric of his chair and ran through possibilities in his mind; There were very few reasons why a Gaoian flotilla of that size might be cruising toward Cimbrean, and he wasn’t sure if he was more worried by the most positive or the most negative of those reasons.
“I have a clear reading on their IFF…Shipfather, the fleet is escorting the Playful Breeze.”
“…Hail them.”
So. The terrifying best-case scenario it was. Yefrig stood and combed down his fur, took his place where the camera could get the best look at him, and straightened up.
He ducked respectfully to his counterpart when she appeared on his screen. “Shipmother Ataya,” he said. “It’s a pleasure to see you again.”
Ataya was as scarred as the most battle-battered male, and flicked the stub of her left ear. The legend of how she had lost that ear and gained those scars grew with the telling, and Yefrig was one of the privileged few who knew the truth: that spaceships of any generation or technological level had their hazards, and Ataya had simply fallen afoul of one of them—A massive steam explosion while touring a starship as a cub. She had been lucky: Two Sisters, a Mother, and the shipfather had perished. Lucky for him, because if he had survived then his reputation and mating prospects would have completely evaporated.
Other people might have understandably never set foot on a ship ever again, but Ataya had paradoxically made them her passion and her career. She was Gao’s only Shipmother, and naturally she commanded the personal transport of the Mother-Supreme.
Nobody doubted her credentials for a second. That ship had only survived the Hunter assault on Capitol Station thanks to her quick thinking.
“Yefrig! No new scars? I’m disappointed,” she told him.
“The humans have strict rules about honor fights,” Yefrig sighed. “Naturally, I must set an example for my crew and obey them.”
She chirruped an ironic noise of mock irritation. “Too bad. The Mother-Supreme is on board, Yefrig. She desired a surprise visit.”
“I had inferred as much. The humans, sadly, also have rules about inspection and they absolutely will not yield on them. The Mother-Supreme must come over on a shuttle or the Playful Breeze will be searched tip to tail, and her databanks ransacked.”
“Obviously I can’t allow that,” Ataya shook her head.
“Then a shuttle it is. I will inform Cimbrean Border Force to expect a diplomatic entourage. I imagine the humans will be well pleased to learn of this.”
“You know me. I always did enjoy a little mayhem.”
“Does the Mother-Supreme?”
To Yefrig’s surprise, Ataya chittered sharply and her ear-and-a-half flattened sideways into an expression of profound amusement.
“Oh yes,” she said, and leaned on her console. “Very much so.”
There was nothing to say to that, so Yefrig cleared his throat and straightened again. “Well. Shipmother Ataya, the Playful Breeze and its escort have permission to approach the Cimbrean system and enter orbit of the fifth planet.”
“On behalf of the Mother-Supreme, I extend the gratitude of the Clan of Females. Sail well, Shipfather Yefrig.”
Yefrig relaxed outwardly as the channel closed, but internally he was cringing; he would need to place a call to Governor Sandy.
And something told him the humans weren’t going to like this.
Date Point: 13y2m2w AV
HMS Sharman (HMNB Folctha), Cimbrean, The Far Reaches
Master Sergeant Harry “Rebar” Vandenberg
Morning PT hadn’t slacked off in Warhorse’s absence, but anybody would think it had from the way he charged around the training field correcting everybody on small errors in their form with terrifyingly renewed vigor, to the point where Rebar made a note that their young NCO in charge of physical training was to be gently encouraged to save up his leave until reaching his ’use it or lose it’ threshold.
If soaking up the sun in the Bahamas could energize him so, then the less often he took the opportunity to luxuriate the better. HEAT men were no stranger to agonizing pain and a river of sweat cascading off their noses, but the little changes made a big difference. Warhorse had an almost supernatural understanding of the body and its kinesthetics, and the torture he could inflict with simple movements and using just his victim’s own body weight against them—and in low gravity, to boot—was truly something that had to be experienced to be believed.
Heaven help whoever ‘Horse decided needed deep tissue massage after that.
And of course, there was the cold water. Hoeff had introduced that one to Arés’ arsenal by talking at length about the therapeutic benefits of vasoconstriction and the methodical madness behind SEAL training’s love of cold water. Naturally, Arés had immediately done his research and had worked their cold w ater swimming pool into their regime as the last step. One last indignity on top of the exhaustion and pain—being half-drowned and then hauled out by the scruff of the neck. HEAT operators were about as graceful in the water as a sack of bricks. The pool was only five feet deep…but that was five feet too many if your natural swimming stroke was the “Titanic.”
Arés claimed it was all beneficial, anyway. Rebar wasn’t sure he completely believed it—Mostly it just felt like one last kick in the dick to really round off the training session.
After that bit of mandatory fun he had no option but to lie groaning in the soft sand with the others and bask in the euphoria of letting his muscles actually rest.
Arés came around with the ultra-performance recovery shakes, each one perfectly customized to its intended drinker’s specific needs, and a Crue-D patch, gave some words of beaming encouragement, made sure they were all okay, and then went haring off to see to his own regime. All that and he was still in the process of winding back up through the gears into full Warhorse mode. What he would be like in two weeks when he entered his first heavy cycle was…
Rebar quite liked the quiet moments after a subjective eternity of suffering when he could lie back and feel his body putting itself back together. It was a weird sensation, the sense of his own distressed tissues knitting themselves under the crue-D’s influence. He could actually lie there and feel the gravity become less relevant again.
This part of the routine was strictly “in your own time.” Rebar liked to get up and moving as soon as he could, trusting movement to massage the Crue-D into his aching muscles and get them working again sooner.
The cold plunge at least spared him the need to go shower, so after clambering to his feet he waded through the sand into the barracks, dried off, got changed and checked his emails.
Ten minutes later he was fully dressed, sharp and alert and knocking on Lieutenant-Colonel Powell’s office door.
He heard Powell shift in his seat inside. “Come in,” he called.
Rebar turned the handle and very nearly tripped up as the door didn’t open as expected. Rather than swinging to the side, it tried to open upwards like a cat flap. He lifted it out of the way on his way in—somebody had dismounted the hinges, reinstalled them at the top and hung the door from them.
Ah. Shenanigans.
He used the time as he carefully lowered and closed the door behind him to put his best professional deadpan in place.
Powell was on the phone. He gave Rebar a nod and a quick gesture with his fingers, requesting patience.
“Aye…Aye, that sounds right…No, Commander McDaniel already tried that last year. …Like a chocolate bloody teapot, that’s how. Aye, that’d be good. Yeah. Yeah, cheers Wilde. You too.”
He put the phone down and offered Rebar a tight but not unwelcoming little smile. “Good afternoon, Master Sergeant.”
“Good afternoon, sir,” Rebar replied.
“Please, sit. Won’t keep you long,” Powell offered and promised. Rebar was getting good at reading his moods these days, and while anybody else would have thought Powell was being inscrutable, Rebar could tell that he was in good humour and inclined to indulge in a little harmless fun.
“Thanks,” he replied, sitting. “How was Earth?” Powell had been away the day before and that morning for the monthly situation briefing.
“Fookin’ warm. Scotch Creek in the summer’s not half bad. Lads behaved themselves?”
“I didn’t notice any misbehaviour, sir,” Rebar answered truthfully.
“Aye, they’re good about knowing when to be on their best, aren’t they? Helpful too. You know, I had Colour Sergeant Murray in here just day before yesterday to go over our notes on the low-profile insertion to Aru. The Gaoians did well there, I reckon.”
“Very well, I thought,” Rebar agreed.
“Mm. Aye. Anyway, he commented when he came in that my door was a bit sticky. I agreed. Been meaning to have a word with building maintenance about it.”
“Probably just needs planing down,” Rebar opined. “That’s happened to a few doors around here.”
“No need now,” Powell informed him, breezily. “Because in my absence it seems somebody took it on themselves to do me a favour and fix it.”
“That was nice of them.”
“Aye, but it’s left me a mite puzzled, you see,” Powell replied, sitting back easily with a relaxed air and his hands behind his head. “There’s summat about the repair that doesn’t seem quite right…but, I’m aware I’m no kind of a construction engineer or owt like that. An’ it’s a basic principle that you should seek out the opinions of those more knowledgable than yourself in these matters…”
“True,” Rebar agreed.
“So I thought I’d get you to run yer expert eye over the fix, if that’s no bother.” Powell stood, ambled over to the door and hinged it upwards. “What do you think? Does that seem right to you?”
“No sir, I reckon that should be opening sideways,” Rebar deadpanned.
“Mm.” Powell nodded. Both men’s faces remained perfectly serious. “Easy mistake to make, maybe?”
“Not for a professional, sir.”
“Ahh. Rookie error, then.” Powell nodded and sniffed.
“…Perhaps I should, uh, stress to the Lads how important it is to leave this kind of work to the custodians?” Rebar suggested.
“Aye, that’s probably for the best. I appreciate the gesture of course but we don’t want the fix to be worse than the problem, do we?”
“As you say, sir.”
Powell returned to his desk, nodding comfortably as if they’d discussed a minor imperfection of no consequence. “What else was there…?” he asked himself as he sorted through a short stack of papers and letters on his desk. “Oh aye, our MTOE. Tremblay’s of the notion it’s a bit on the empty side.”
“Because it is.”
“Aye. We don’t even have a full team, let alone the six we wanted to start with.”
“Three Protectors, six Defenders, and nine Aggressors each, as I recall. We’re half that for the Defenders and we still need three more Aggressors…to have one full working team.”
“Hence the big questions comin’ from some quarters about the future of HEAT,” Powell informed him.
“We need those six teams, sir, if we’re going to sustain any kind of continuous opstempo. As it stands now, every time a mission happens—even little ones like we seem to get a lot more of these days—we gotta stand down, rest, evaluate, and reset. That means every time more than one or two of us puts the suit on for any reason at all, we lose the HEAT for a week. At least. If it’s a big mission, it could be a couple of months.”
“Right. Honest assessment then, and no bloody ‘can-do attitude,’” Powell said. “Can it be done?”
Rebar shifted in place, attempting to escape the answer he knew he needed to give. Finally, he sighed and answered plainly, “No.”
“Why not?”
In response Rebar rolled up his sleeve and flexed a bicep the size of a bowling ball. “This is why. It takes a special kind of idiot to sign up for this, and besides all that which we’ve groused about for literally years now, the training standards preclude it. EV-MASS is just too demanding. Of our four new members, Newman and Parata were last-minute replacements because the original selectees backed out once they saw us in person. We had another two guys suffer broken ribs and washout within the first fifteen minutes of initial suit fitting. Hell, the last group we ran in Alabama? Not a single one of them qualified. If we want to recruit more people, we gotta lower standards, and to do that we need something more like the Gaoian suit. Which, y’know. We’re not gonna get. Sir.”
“If I take that assessment back to AEC, then HEAT has a lifespan measured in weeks.”
“Which puts us in a bad spot because we need the capability, which is another reason we can’t lower standards. My men can do things nobody else can do, and it’s exactly because we’re all freaks of nature that we can do all that in the first place. I don’t know how the hell we lucked out the first time with the people we have, sir, but a HEAT operator is a rare fucking specimen. All of us are, especially the Trio. No fancy spacemagic suit is gonna fix that.”
“Preaching to the choir,” Powell agreed, though his expression darkened. “And I will not let the Lads have done all this for nowt.”
“Then maybe we need to consider the HEAT more like the CIA considers their, uh, more operational side of the house. Very small, very special-purpose units…maybe what we really need is a more realistic reset of expectations, sir? We’re assuming we need to sustain operations indefinitely, but, frankly? Why? I mean, hell,” Rebar stood and paced as he gathered steam, “Let’s be realistic. What kind of combat are we in if we need HEAT teams continuously deployed? We don’t have the navy to back that scenario in the first place.”
“Never will, unless we build more Caledonia-class. They’re the space navy answer to a carrier.”
“And we won’t. System shields are just better and everyone with half a brain knows it. Our space military is never going to be all that big. Which, I mean…isn’t that a good thing?”
“We’ll always need force projection.”
“How much, though? I mean, again, I know it’s an overused example but look at us and tell me we really need or even want a bunch of me, or ‘Base, or—God forbid—‘Horse and Firth running around. Honestly the more I think about it, I think we need to be a small unit. It’s a Goddamned miracle we’ve got what we got right now. What we really need is JETS.”
Powell nodded slowly and at length, thoughtfully.
“Wish I could be more positive, sir.”
“You’re just echoing what I told Tremblay,” Powell reassured him in a regretful grumble. He stood up abruptly and retrieved some writing paper and his good pen from a neat stack on top of his filing cabinet. It was a foible of Powell’s that he preferred to write things down the old-fashioned way, on important occasions.
“Can we achieve one full team, d’you think?” he asked.
“Yes,” Rebar had no qualms at all about answering that one definitively. “If we couldn’t even do that, we wouldn’t have what we already do. Over time I think we can get two teams, maybe three. But six? I’m skeptical.”
Powell put his hands together and steepled his fingers. “What do you think our recruiting priority should be, then? What will be the hardest for us to fill?
“Well,” Rebar considered, “I figure combat arms are full of the kinda guys who want to try to meet the HEAT Aggressor standard. A few will even be good enough. Protectors, well…we already know their superman button, but they’re so fucking dependent on good genes and raw physical talent that we can’t really do anything but encourage and wait for them to come to us.”
“And the Defenders?”
Rebar nodded. “They might be the toughest niche to fill. On the one hand, we don’t need to be hyperactive murderbunnies or big damn heroes and that means we don’t need to be perfect genetic lottery winners like the rest of you fellas. I bet there’s a pretty good pool out there of really big, tough, ornery combat armsman that can wear the Mass and train up to size. But on the other hand, the engineering mindset is rare and that’s the problem. The structures that’re in place to detect suitable candidates are channeling them toward other units.”
“Like the three of you and Delta Force.”
“Exactly. And we only fit the combat engineer role in a kinda-sorta-maybe way. Which is a shame, ‘cuz every 18C guy who tried out for HEAT so far didn’t make the cut.”
“There owt we can do about that?”
Rebar thought about it. “Brute force recruiting effort. Scale down our expectations for how big HEAT can be but hold ourselves to being the ultimate weapon where needed. JETS needs to expand, and we need the allied services to sacrifice some of their best and brightest to make it happen. They, uh…won’t like that.”
“Oh, fook no,” Powell agreed as his forehead wrinkled into a wry expression. “But they’ll bloody well have to relax and spread wide, won’t they?”
Rebar grinned out the side of his mouth. “We’ll loosen ‘em up with a little sweet talk, sir.”
“Aye. I’ve half a mind to—hang on.”
Desk phones were going to be around forever, in Rebar’s estimation. The modern generation could seamlessly tell if their intended user was at his desk or not and divert incoming calls as appropriate, but when it came down to it that was a minor reason to have a big black chunk of plastic on the desk.
More importantly, when that chunk of plastic made a piercing ringing sound, Powell had the handset snatched up and held against his ear inside a second. Rebar, meanwhile, had lost count of the number of cellphone calls he personally had missed from trying to fumble the damn thing out of his pocket.
“Powell. …Oh aye? …Bloody hellfire. Alright, recall the Lads and especially the Gaoians. No, he’s on Earth. Take it to Caruthers instead. Aye, cheers.”
Rebar let him consider the handset and slowly replace it in the cradle. “…Sir?”
Powell looked up and gave him the brittle, unamused smile of a man who was in no way amused or happy.
“We’re having a surprise visit,” he said. “From the Mother-Supreme.”
Date Point: 13y2m2w AV
Folctha, Cimbrean, The Far Reaches
Julian Etsicitty
“The one who ambushed us at the jump array? Are you sure?”
“Kevin said she wrote an article on me,” Xiù revealed. “A couple of years ago. ’Hometown Hero’ or…something like that.”
Julian and Allison traded a surprised glance. “That one? That was her?” Allison asked.
“You’ve read it?”
“We both did,” Julian revealed.
“Why are you reading news articles about me?”
Allison gave her a patient look. “Because they’re about you, dummy.”
Xiù lapsed into happy blushing silence, and Julian sipped his coffee. Two weeks on from the attack in Omaha they’d finally persuaded their assorted guardian angels to let them have some freedom back, and had returned to the microbrewery and cafe where they’d had a memorable evening the last time they were on Cimbrean. Undoubtedly they were under careful protective surveillance but at least it was invisible surveillance, rather than hundreds of pounds of muscle wrapped in a horrific crime-against-humanity Hawaiian shirt.
Well, not totally invisible. Murray was damn good at making himself a background detail, but Julian knew what to watch for. He caught the taciturn Scotsman’s eye but didn’t give him away by winking or acknowledge him. Just making eye contact was enough.
“Okay, but what about Byron’s own pet news agencies?” Allison asked.
“We already talked with them,” Xiù pointed out.
“Aren’t we, like, under some kind of contract thing to only speak with them?”
“Not according to Kevin.” Xiù shrugged. “He said to consider giving ESNN an interview too. Something about Moses wants the Group to appear open and transparent.”
“You think he does?” Julian asked.
“Probably.” Xiù shrugged again.
“Okay, but come on. The woman who ambushed us at the jump array? Why her?”
“And why do we even need to talk with her?” Allison added.
“Because the more we do the more it helps the People?” Xiù suggested.
“Does it? We already got backing that goes right to the top. Do we really need to win more hearts and minds?”
“Can it hurt?”
“It can hurt us,” Julian said. “I love you, but we can’t be on the job every day. I want some us time.”
“Especially now,” Allison agreed.
Xiù nodded and deflated a little. “So…that’s a no to the interview.”
“Baby, have you actually relaxed at all since we got here?” Allison asked. “You’re gonna worry yourself to death.”
“When have we had the chance?” Xiù asked.
“Right now?”
“We’re being watched all the time, we’re recognized everywhere we go…” Xiù shifted uncomfortably in her seat. “We don’t have the space to relax. And I want to be doing something, everything’s going so slowly! I thought we’d have gone back by now.”
“Or at least that Dan and Clara would be over here by now,” Julian agreed. “She’s got a point, Al.”
“Well, yeah,” Allison agreed. “But talking to a reporter is just…it’s make-work. I wanna do something productive, you know?”
“Relaxing is productive?”
“If it stops us from going completely fucking gaga? Hell yeah it’s productive!” Allison took a sip of her cappuccino. “What is there to do in this town, anyway?”
“Uh…” Xiù retrieved her purse from under her seat and pulled out the tourism brochure. “Many parks and public recreation facilities…Organized hiking tours to see the native flora and fauna…Theatres, bars, pubs…Oh! Spa day?”
“Sounds nice,” Julian agreed, and caught Allison’s faintly incredulous expression. “What?”
“…Nothing. Just…When did you ever have a spa day? I’m used to you cutting down trees and trapping beavers. I didn’t think they’ld be your style.”
“Uh, never,” Julian conceded. “But they must be nice or people wouldn’t do them.”
“Haven’t you ever had a facial?” Xiù asked her.
“Only when Julian didn’t warn me in time that time on—”
”Allison!” Xiù objected, while Julian tried not to laugh.
“I’m teasing, shǎguā,” Allison told her affectionately. “And nope, never. Let’s do it!”
“Let’s see what our shadow thinks…” Julian muttered, indicating Murray with a tilt of his head. Murray had answered his phone, and made eye contact again, giving off a clear ’something just came up’ vibe.
“Oh, God,” Allison groaned. “What now?
“It had better be good,” Xiù agreed. “I’m not giving up on that spa day for anything less than—”
She trailed off as Murray stood and weaved delicately between the tables. He stopped right in front of them and gave Xiù a shrug of his broad shoulders.
“…Mother-Supreme Yulna’s here to see you,” he said.
Xiù blinked at him.
“…Huh,” she said.
“…Well,” she added.
She turned to Allison and Julian and shrugged helplessly.
“…I guess the spa day’s on hold,” she finished.
Date Point: 13y2m2w AV
Folctha, Cimbrean, The Far Reaches
Ayma
It would have been nice to see Folctha from the air. Something about Jump Arrays seemed wrong—arriving on another world should be an event, in Ayma’s view. It should involve fire, and clouds, and a first glimpse of the scenery rolling away below.
The jump from the heavily modified trade station ”Armstrong” took all the drama out of it. They had gone seamlessly from the inside of the ship, to the inside of a shuttle, to the inside of the station, to the inside of a customs and immigration center, to the inside of a jump array, to the inside of another, almost identical jump array.
Yulna had been afforded slightly more dignity. While her entourage had been brusquely interrogated and searched for whatever-it-was the Humans didn’t want imported, Yulna had enjoyed the personal attention of somebody called an ”Aide-de-camp”
It all didn’t feel like traveling, it felt like waiting.
There was no missing the moment they actually arrived on Cimbrean, however. For their safety and comfort they were seated, but the gravity still landed on them like a thick overnight snowfall. Ayma had felt it before and in some ways even welcomed it, and Myun looked positively delighted to be back in the embrace of Folctha’s municipal gravity field generators.
Most of the entourage made soft exclamations of surprise and discomfort, but Yulna herself knew better. The most concern she showed to her enhanced weight was to stand up carefully and be sure of her footing before she moved—otherwise, she stood as tall and as proud as she could muster. She’d learned the art of looking regal quite well.
There was quite the welcome party waiting for them, all doing their best not to look harried if Ayma’s memory for human expressions and body language was still intact. A tall male in a black uniform that managed to be both austere and heavily decorated at the same time, whose head and face were covered in sleek silver fur. There was a much shorter man with a darker skin tone who was holding a walking cane apparently more out of habit than actual necessity and who looked thoroughly out of place to Ayma’s eyes.
Both were standing firmly in the background of a slim and slight-featured balding man whose minimalist navy-blue suit was paired strangely with a bright scarlet sash, a number of medals, and a wide ornamental chain that had to be gold-plated. Not even a human could look comfortable wearing that much pure gold, could they?
Actually, they probably could.
Whatever role he served, the ornamented human was the first to step forward, leading with an extended hand.
“Welcome, Mother-Supreme. I am Governor-General Sir Jeremy Sandy, I have the honour of serving as His Majesty King George’s official representative on the planet Cimbrean. On his behalf, welcome to our world with the well-wishes of all.”
“A historic occasion, Governor-General,” Yulna replied, shaking the human’s hand. “And I apologize that it was not properly arranged.”
“Not at all,” Sandy managed the neat trick of smiling warmly without baring his teeth—clearly he was well used to interacting with nonhumans. “But yes, a historic occasion, as you say: the first official state visit by a nonhuman dignitary to a human world. One for the books.”
“May the future be full of them,” Yulna replied. Ayma watched the exchange while fighting to keep the amusement from showing in her ears—she’d noticed a few Gaoians in the crowd, one of whom was even among the journalists who had rushed forward to gather as many still pictures of the pair as sapiently possible.
There were some more formalities and niceties, another series of photo opportunities as Sandy escorted Yulna and her followers outside to point out some of the prettier details of Folctha city.
It was a pretty city, Ayma realized.
And now she definitely wished she could have seen it from above.