Date Point: 15y6m2w5d AV
Dominion Council Ship Rich Plains
Ambassador Sir Patrick Knight
“Unbelievable. Un-bloody-believable. We literally prevent a massacre and the council somehow finds a way to complain!”
Knight threw his jacket over the back of a chair and sat down. The table that had been groaning with alien foods on his first arrival was now playing host to a rather more modest but decidedly better selection of ham, cheese, bread, pickles, salad and so on, and the table itself could actually employ a rather clever forcefield to function as a fridge. He rather liked the arrangement. It gave his suite a homely, comfortable feel which was the closest thing the Council was ever likely to show him to actual hospitality.
He’d have to be disciplined, though. A man could graze until his trousers burst without care.
And if that happened, the HEAT would end up “fixing” him. Even retired admirals were inescapably stuck in their orbit.
The thought brought a small smile to his face as he sliced off some of the (truly excellent) roast ham and assembled himself a sandwich while Kirk spread his hands resignedly.
“They cannot show gratitude in the public arena of the Council without losing face and making a political wave,” he explained. “The Kwmbwrw in particular—”
“Oh, to Hell with the bloody Kwmbwrw,” Knight growled. “And to Hell with face and political waves, too. Hussein was right you know—I don’t know what we have to do to get those bigots out there to like us, but I know damn well that we shouldn’t be interested at this point.”
He sighed and finished making his sandwich while Kirk shifted his weight comfortably onto his second and third pair of legs. “…Why does the Council listen to the Kwmbwrw so much, anyway?”
“They have held the line against the Hunters for nearly three hundred years,” Kirk said. “And still built the largest empire among the Council races. And because of the way the Dominion works, the resources they expended in acquiring that territory were folded back into improving the lot of other species. They are viewed as quite philanthropic as a result.”
“I thought the Domain was the largest?”
“By population, yes. The Kwmbwrw have purchased more systems. Their approach seems to be to… I believe I heard the phrase ‘building wide’ as opposed to ‘building tall’ once.”
“And because of the growing cost of each subsequent system, they really have paid the Dominion a lot…” Knight surmised.
“Meanwhile, Humans are simply taking deathworlds because nobody else wants them, and apparently getting away with it. They feel you are…” Kirk paused, and made the grinding noise in his throat that was the Ricktick equivalent of an ‘er…’
“Cheating?” Knight suggested.
“Yes.”
“Well, this isn’t a damn board game. Real lives are on the line.”
“You feel passionately about this,” Kirk observed, mildly.
“I never did have much patience for…no, never mind. If I keep insulting them I’ll just whip myself into a rage…” Knight sighed, then realized what was missing from his table. “…Out of interest, who does a chap have to shag to get a cup of tea around here?”
“Asking nicely will usually suffice,” Kirk replied. Knight gave him a sharp look. Kirk’s alien body language and dependence on a translator made his deadpan absolutely flawless.
A shimmy of the mane was Kirk’s equivalent of a cheeky smile, and he circled the table to avail himself of an unwanted cucumber. “I wouldn’t worry about what the Council say in session. The real progress happens off the floor anyway. In fact, I’m running a timer as we speak.”
“A timer to what?”
“To the moment when the first of them requests to see you. Sometime in the next ten Ri’ or so, I should think… I promise not to be too smug if I am correct.”
Knight snorted and finally found the mustard. A ham sandwich without mustard was, in his opinion, a crime against nature.
“…Is there any more of that ker-zit-skik? That was rather nice.”
“Krztkzk?”
“Yes, that.”
“Probably not today. I’m sure the hospitality staff will be able to accommodate you if you ask. Your terminal should—”
There was a polite chime from the door. Knight gave Kirk a raised eyebrow, received what he knew was a very smug expression in return, and discreetly covered the ham with his napkin and stood up.
“Come in.”
Champion Sheeyo was a welcome sight… especially as he was accompanied by the Rauwryhr Ambassador, Scrythcra.
It was easy to draw comparisons with bats when meeting a Rauwryhr. They were natural gliders, from an extremely low-gravity homeworld. So much so in fact that even galactic standard was a burden for them. Knight felt the room’s plating adjust for his guest and suppressed the urge to grab the table’s edge.
He’d read the briefing. No shaking hands: Rauwryhr had strong cultural norms about personal space and physical contact. Besides, those long slender fingers looked alarmingly more fragile than they probably were. He settled for a stiff, shallow bow instead, then shook Sheeyo’s paw.
Sheeyo was… intriguingly ostentatious. He was a far cry from the understated poise of a Whitecrest or the roughneck ruggedness of a Stoneback: his fur was immaculately glossy, he’d braided jewelry into it especially around his ears and whiskers, and although it could be hard for inexperienced humans to tell a Gaoian female apart from a male sometimes, with Sheeyo the difference was almost negligible.
He was, apparently, very handsome indeed by Gaoian standards. And had a reputation for siring daughters.
“Your excellencies, this is a pleasure. We were just sitting down to dinner, if you’d care to join us… I do apologise, ambassador, but there’s meat on the table. I can have it cleared away if…”
“There’s no need,” Scrythcra promised him. “You’re omnivorous, I respect and accept that.”
“I thought I smelled ham…” Sheeyo’s nose twitched, and he flicked a mischievous ear at Knight as they sat. Scrythcra sniffed at a bowl of olives and sampled one with every sign of delight. Good start.
“To what do I owe the pleasure?” Knight asked.
“I wanted to extend Rauwryhr’s gratitude,” Scrythcra said. “Your fleet’s intervention was near our borders after all. Two of the ships you saved were our citizens.”
“I appreciate that. I must be blunt, however: I would have appreciated that a great deal more on the chamber floor.”
He wasn’t sure about Rauwryhr body language at all, but he thought he detected… a smile? The equivalent anyway. Scrythcra glanced at Sheeyo and made a ticking noise with his mouth. “Ambassador Sheeyo said you were refreshingly forthright. I’m glad to find out he wasn’t exaggerating: It’s a trait the council could use more of… and I would have much preferred to speak our gratitude on the chamber floor.”
“I take it you had your reasons.”
“It’s neither my job nor my desire to stir up an eddy in the council, your excellency. We have had hundreds of years of prosperity thanks to the Dominion and especially thanks to the Kwmbwrw and Domain. They have been good and valuable allies to us for a very long time. Much better, alas, than they have been to Humanity and the Gao.”
He offered an apologetic shrug and sampled another olive.
Knight nodded. He could remember plenty of cases where British foreign policy had been in conflict with allied nations and diplomatic silence had been the only acceptable way forward.
Sheeyo, who had discreetly helped himself to some of the ham, cleared his throat. “Nevertheless, you do stand alongside us and the Corti nowadays.”
Scrythcra imitated Knight’s nod. “The Dominion was always supposed to be a mutually advantageous trading arrangement. It was meant to promote peace, prosperity and a fair set of rules. It was not meant to become a galactic superpower.”
“So you’d rather see it return to its roots,” Knight surmised.
“That’s the consensus among my people’s elected representatives, yes. We’ve had concerns over the–” The translator hiccuped slightly: the display on its upper surface spun thoughtfully for a moment before it settled on ‘glacial’ “–pace of decisions in the Council, not to mention questions over how enfranchised our people really are, the wisdom and immediacy of decisions made on such scales, the overreach of powerful people who aren’t truly accountable to the people…”
“That sounds familiar…” Knight agreed.
“But of course, you are left in a position where you are forced to choose between principle and prosperity,” Sheeyo said.
“Which is divisive,” Scrythcra agreed. “And most Rauwryhr prefer prosperity, on balance.”
Knight nodded again. “Very familiar,” he said. “And so you stand in our faction on the Council as a statement of dissatisfaction with the status quo, but find yourselves unable to press much harder than that.”
“You have it. And my apologies.”
Knight nodded. “…Thank you for your candor. My next question then is, how can we help you reach a point where you feel more able to speak out? Because frankly your excellency, my job is to stir up an eddy in the council… and hopefully change it for the better.”
Sheeyo leaned forward and rested his paws lightly on the table. “You’ve succeeded admirably, by the way.”
“Indeed,” Kirk agreed. “I didn’t think I’d ever see the day A’tkznkrtz’rrtk was speechless.”
“I fear you’re going to have to suffer many more years of thankless toil…” Scrythcra warned.
“Just so long as I’m not assassinated,” Knight replied. He wasn’t sure if he pitched it right for the Rauwryhr sense of humour in general, or Scrythcra’s in particular, but he got a kind of chirruping sound which he knew was their version of laughter.
“I suspect that is unlikely, given your honor guard on the first day.”
Knight smiled, then put on his serious face again. “But you do have something concrete for me? Something I can work toward to strengthen your footing?”
“We would be… much more able to stand up to the Kwmbwrw in particular if we weren’t so dependent on them to keep Hunters away from our home systems. If we could defend our own borders and even help the Kwmbwrw defend theirs, it would remove a debt we owe them.”
“Why do I feel like removing their leverage isn’t likely to please them?” Knight asked, rhetorically. This time he got a chitter from Sheeyo.
“Oh, they’ll hate it,” the Goldpaw predicted. “They can’t process the idea of carnivores acting with any form of nobility.”
“It’s true that they have a… prejudice in such matters,” Scrythcra agreed. “They think you’re both murderers on an industrial scale. They don’t appreciate the distinction between a sentient animal and a sophont.”
“You’re obligate herbivores yourselves, I believe?” Knight checked.
“Frugivores, technically. I don’t know if your translator found an appropriate match for that term?”
“It did.”
Scrythcra nodded again. “Evolution is an inherently amoral process. I’ve always found it strange that the Kwmbwrw insist so strongly on moralizing it. But the point is that my people would like to be in a position where we are no longer required to care whether the Kwmbwrw are pleased or not. We won’t get there unless we risk their disapproval at least a little.”
“…What if I were to propose to a symposium? An exchange of academia and the sciences?”
“I don’t see how that benefits us militarily?” Scrythcra asked.
“We consider military studies to be a science.”
He watched the subtle changes in posture and expression as sly comprehension dawned for Scrythcra.
“…Intriguing.” The Rauwryhr mulled it over, eating another olive as he did so. “We host an interstellar exchange of ideas and technology. Agriculture, communications, all branches of the sciences. The Kwmbwrw can’t possibly complain about that.”
“And the Gao and Humanity hold a number of seminars on military technology and doctrine on the outskirts of that symposium…” Sheeyo continued.
“Open invitation, of course,” Kirk interjected.
“Absolutely. We want to participate in the free exchange of ideas after all.”
“And if the Rauwryhr military council happen to order a number of our senior officers to attend and see what they can learn…”
Knight smiled. “Then we’re hardly to blame, are we?” He picked up his sandwich and paused before taking a bite. “What do you think?”
“I think… What are these dark brown things?”
“Sun-dried tomatoes. A fruit.”
Scrythcra skewered one with a feeding claw and sampled it. His ears feathered and fluttered delightedly. “…I think… perhaps a culinary exchange is in order too.”
A laugh, a chitter, and a rattle rolled around the table, and Knight waved a hand. “Please, dig in. They always lay on more than I can eat anyway. Apparently humans are infamous for our appetites.”
The three aliens gladly complied, and the conversation drifted away into small-talk, pleasantries and getting to know one another. When Knight broke out a bottle of Pinot Noir later, he was delighted to discover that Scrythcra was a natural wine taster. And after a hard and difficult day, now it seemed maybe interstellar diplomacy could have its enjoyable side after all.
There was a lot still to do… but he’d seen progress today. That made it all worthwhile.
Date Point: 15y6m2w5d AV
Mrwrki Station, Erebor System, Deep Space
Darcy
“Okay, daily progress update, let’s get this outta the way so we can get back to work, eh?”
Chuckles swept the room at Nadeau’s traditional weekly pep-talk. Mrwrki had a strange culture: A Canadian Military commander, several government employees, with enough civilian and ET to make life weird, not to mention the presence of folks from all of the 5-EYES nations. Nadeau did a respectable job of juggling them all, especially considering that it was clear to everybody that he’d much rather be buried nose-deep in ES-field theory.
Kirk’s absence was making the place a little stranger, though. It had certainly left Vedreg in a slump, and their enormous “morale officer” was needing plenty of morale maintenance himself for now.
Still. He was getting very good at mixing drinks. Apparently he could see whether his creations were any good by carefully studying the color and hue in ways that a human would never hope to see.
“First on the agenda is Von-Neumann development. Lewis?”
Lewis was always happy to show off his work. “The V-N scout’s almost ready for field trials. Not a lot to say, dude, we already worked out mosta the kinks on the Coltainer. If it all goes good, we should be able to launch Scout One sometime in a month or two. After that… geometric growth up to the generation limit should take a couple years, after which we’ll have eyes on all the spacelanes.”
“Alright, thanks. Warp tech?”
Sergeant Lee stood up. “Still making incremental progress. The type-seven engine prototype is in the printer right now. We’re going to install it in Chester as soon as it’s done, see if we’re right about shaving five percent off the power draw.”
‘Chester’ was the name given to Mrwrki’s workhorse test Weaver. That dropship was probably the most advanced of its kind in the galaxy, constantly being tested out with upgraded shields, improved kinetic drives, better capacitors and field emitters. Apparently it was named after somebody’s dog.
“Nice work. Xenotech?”
“Vakno’s contacts are still working on getting us that full surgery suite. No progress on the estimated delivery time, but once they have one the pipeline is in place to deliver it. In the meantime they did get their hands on a cracked copy of some proprietary materials technology belonging to Thryd-Geftry, which is in the hands of a trusted courier on its way to Armstrong.”
Nadeau nodded and looked to Darcy. “Digital sophont studies?”
Darcy shook her head as she stood up. “Still no contact from the Entity. The Cabal agent recovered from Gao has been released to our custody and transferred to Alaska for long-term detention, so I’ll be heading over there in the next few days to ask it a few questions about the Hegemony and the Igraen instantiation process, but otherwise I have nothing to report.”
“Alright, thanks. Cosmology?”
Darcy tuned out and sat in thought as the meeting briskly jogged along to its conclusion, which was basically ‘business as usual.’ She’d been growing increasingly worried about the Entity ever since the Ring had fallen. It hadn’t sent her so much as a brief emote. Hopefully that just meant it was…
…Something. She really had only had the one contact with it, and that hadn’t been anywhere near enough to really glean much from it. There was a reason that Digital Sophonts was a one-woman department, for the time being.
The meeting broke up with the usual round of jokes and chuckles, and she returned to her office with a frown on her face that vanished the second she opened the door and saw the Entity’s avatar—holographic image of Ava—standing patiently in the air over her desk’s emitter. It smiled at her.
The image had changed since last time. Previously the Entity had just manifested Ava’s shoulders and head: now it had achieved a full body, albeit one that was about as detailed as an unclothed Barbie doll. There was something a little off about the proportions, though. She couldn’t put her finger on what.
“…You’re back!”
“We got… stuck,” the avatar said. “The datasphere around the Ring collapsed, and the only escape route was into the Hunter network… Sorry to worry you.”
There was something off about the voice, too. The inflections and accent were accurate to what Darcy remembered of the original Ava, but the high tones were missing, lending it a deeper, warmer sound.
…She realized that that must be hearing what Ava’s voice sounded like to herself.
“Even so, from what you’ve described of dataspace…” Darcy said, sitting down.
“A more important concern came along. The Entity is… worried about what happened among the Hunters after the Ring’s destruction.”
“Why, what happened?”
“The Alpha-of-Alphas is dead.”
That sounded like Big Intel. Darcy recorded it immediately, and notified Nadeau that her guest had returned as she did so.
“We don’t have much intel on the Hunters’ command structure. What’s an Alpha-of-Alphas?”
“The Alpha-of-Alphas is the supreme leader. There’s only one, if there is one at all. The late Alpha-of-Alphas attained the rank by hunting a Vulza and presenting it to the Brood Alphas… I’m translating here, you understand.”
“Naturally. Broods?”
“Genetically related Hunters with distinct internal cultures and hierarchies. You can roughly divide them into two groups, Hunters and Builders.…”
Darcy checked that her computer was recording everything the avatar said via speech-to-text, and listened, asking questions here and there as she felt necessary. It was a comprehensive and disturbing insight into a very, very alien culture.
Funny, to think that something like the Hunters could even be said to have a culture.
Then there was the really useful stuff: a precise count of the Hunters’ numbers, ships, where they were, how they were operating… genuine actionable intelligence, the kind that would save lives.
“…So the new Alpha-of-Alphas is a Builder that defeated the old one,” she summarized once it had finished.
“That’s right.”
“Is that likely to cause problems?”
“…Getting out of the Hunter network was more difficult than getting in. They’re redesigning it, hardening it. I think they’re aware of dataspace life forms, and have decided to lock us out.”
“Why didn’t they before?”
“The Entity thinks the old Alpha-of-Alphas had some kind of a deal with the Hierarchy.”
“Can you get back in?”
“Maybe. But there’s a lot to discuss before we try.”
Darcy tried not to think about what it meant that the avatar was saying ‘we.’ She’d been okay with treating the Entity’s use of Ava’s appearance, voice and mannerisms as a kind of… skin. Something superficial, not really the young woman herself but the filter through which the Entity addressed the world of matter.
‘We’ meant that on some level at least the avatar was behaving like its own person, distinct from the Entity. That was… troubling.
She put the thought aside. Right now, she had a source of incredibly valuable intelligence that was willing and eager to share. What she learned in the next few minutes and hours might be crucial.
“Alright,” she said. “Tell me everything.”