Date Point: 16y7m1d AV
Abergerrig, New Belfast County, Folctha, Cimbrean, the Far Reaches
Gabriel Arés
“…I hate it when I’m right.”
Gabe was retiring, not retired. Men like him didn’t have the luxury of just quitting with immediate effect. So, for now and the next couple of weeks, he was still technically Folctha’s Chief of Colonial Security, and that meant occasionally having to turn his personal attention toward interesting or unusual cases.
For example: the way a large carrot farm out at the furthest extremes of Folctha’s settled territory had abruptly become a ghost town. The mail carrier had tried to deliver a number of parcels for them, found the place deserted, grown suspicious, reported it to the New Belfast police, who’d taken a look at the place and promptly kicked it up the chain.
The place had been expertly cleaned, but not perfectly. A Gaoian officer had claimed to smell a faint hint of blood under a workbench in the garage, his nose had been vindicated with the assistance of Luminol, and from there…
From there, Gabe had gotten involved, because if there was one thing his senior investigators could sense by the pricking of their thumbs, it was a shitstorm far above their pay grade.
There wasn’t anything big, no splattered walls or anything like that. Mostly, it was small things. But it was a lot of small things, as if there was enormous time pressure on the assailants to clean up quickly…and as if the assailants had no fear of consequence, and were therefore doing said cleanup as a courtesy anyway.
Also, there was a deep-set and freakishly wide size thirty footprint out in the field about a hundred yards from the farmyard. The next print was ten feet away, and those after that were significantly further apart. Somebody—a human—who was both impossibly heavy and impossibly fast had sprinted through the soft soil, leaving ruined baby carrots in his wake.
Gabe knew exactly who it belonged to.
From there the little details started to come together. By the end of the afternoon, they had a pretty solid idea of what had happened: a raid led by extremely competent operators—everyone knew who, even if they wouldn’t say it—had descended on the place and committed some act of extreme physical confrontation. Beyond that…
…Nothing. There was evidence of some violence, but nothing even remotely on the scale that several dozen people just disappearing might indicate, especially in the dead of night, especially while stripping the compound clean. There wasn’t a personal piece of property to be found, anywhere.
There were, however, a couple of bullet holes. But only a couple. That suggested a rather massive imbalance between the combatants…
And again, there was little question what group of men might be involved.
One major set of evidence did remain, however, and it spoke volumes. It seemed that somehow the occupants of this farm had been acquiring a bunch of items that were individually harmless—copper wire, high-capacity power cells, electrostatic field emitters—but which put together should have been raising some red flags with the customs and port authorities, as they could be assembled into crude gauss weapons.
It was clear why that stuff had been left—there was too much to get rid of except with a convoy of big vans—and it told Gabe a lot about the sort of people who’d called the farm home, especially to have attracted that kind of ire.
…It was probably also left in place to be found.
Gabe hated this covert cloak-and-dagger shit. Oh well, that left one thing to do.
“Well… okay. So I want all this stuff inventoried and a preliminary report drawn up. I’ll… Liaise.”
He called the Prime Minister on the flight back toward the city. Her image on his tablet nodded solemnly as he laid out what he’d found.
In the end, she took a deep breath and gave him a clear, challenging look.
“…Come out and say it, Mister Arés. What do you think happened?”
“I think the SOR just flattened Folctha’s APA cell. I think that’s pretty obviously part of a coordinated action, given the news that’s been breaking since this morning. And I think they did so around Folctha Colonial Security Services and the police.”
“You are correct. I advised the Governor-General to authorize that action, in official consultation with our interested allies.”
“This should have been a police matter, Prime Minister.”
“No, it should not have been,” Winton told him, flatly. “Not in this particular case. Your diligence is admirable and appreciated, as always.”
Gabe knew when there was no point in arguing. “…I’ll have the evidence brought back to Folctha. And then I suppose there’ll be a legal proceeding to see who takes ownership of the farm.”
“Appreciated. Expect appropriate contact from my office shortly. And Gabe, please remind your staff about their obligations under the Official Secrets Acts.”
“…Yes, Prime Minister.”
And… that was that. It was frustrating enough that once upon a time he might have ground half his teeth down, but Gabe found that he no longer cared. He was retiring, he was unofficially persona non grata among the allied security services even if FCSS were still loyal to him. But that couldn’t stand: it’d just get in the way of them doing their jobs.
So, he made the appropriate calls, checked with his secretary that there was no other urgent business waiting, and informed her that he’d be spending the rest of the day on-call rather than pacing his office.
With that taken care of, he spent the rest of the flight thinking.
The APA were dead. Okay, most of their members probably weren’t, on an individual basis, but the Alien Protection Army’s demise as an organization had been headline news all morning even before the business at the farm filtered up to him. And given that he’d known for a fact there must be an APA cell somewhere in Folctha…
…What exactly had the Ag secretary been up to, that it would justify activating an apparently undercover assassin to take him out? Who happened to be Hoeff of all the fucking people?
Gabe suspected he knew, now. A mystery closed, albeit never to become public knowledge.
Sartori had even wept on the news as he told the nation all about Guillory’s selfless service and virtuous character, the lying hijo de puta.
Well, whatever. So the president was the kind of asshole who’d murder a friend and shed crocodile tears. So Gabe himself was now firmly out of the loop on national security matters, and Winton was apparently quite comfortable and happy with letting foreign powers, albeit allies, assassinate their own citizens in her jurisdiction.
Either Gabe had woefully underestimated the nature of his leadership, or he was woefully unfamiliar with the nature of evil. Or both.
It didn’t matter, he decided. It wasn’t his problem any longer, and making it his problem could only end in bringing grief to the people he loved. He didn’t think of himself as a coward, but…
…But there was a time when sensible men knew when to quit. There was a time to stand on his principles, and a time to… to…
To what? To turn his back on them? Maybe he was a coward after all! But search his gut, his heart and his conscience though he did, Gabe just couldn’t find it in himself to stand up any longer. It had taken a lifetime, but the bastards had finally worn him down.
All he wanted was to see his family grow up. He wanted to walk Ava down the aisle, and hold his grandkids, and live out his sunset years with his kindly angel of a wife. If that meant not making a futile stand against the evil of men and women more powerful than him, then… God forgive him, he had no more fight left.
It was with that thought in mind that, once he was back in Folctha, he walked over to Adam and Marty’s apartment, jogged up the stairs, and knocked on their door.
The floor shook as Adam rolled to his feet and thumped his way over to the door. He opened the door clad in his usual broad handsome smile and not much else, all bouncy energy and grins. Once he looked down and saw who was visiting, however…his expression hardened instantly.
The boy—what a ridiculous word for the hulking warrior of a man standing before Gabe—hadn’t ever really stopped growing from…hell, whatever it was the military was doing to him. He was now so tall that his head brushed the top of the doorframe, so ridiculously broad that he plugged the rest of it full from his head to his toes with his hypermuscular bulk, and his shoulders were so wide, his arms hung entirely outside the door frame. Dios Mío.
“…Dad.”
Getting that look and that tone of voice from his own goddamn son hurt. In fact, it nailed Gabe’s feet to the floor and glued his mouth shut for good measure.
He pulled himself together quickly, but thank God Adam wasn’t completely immune. A mirroring wince of pain crossed his face, and he stooped under and barely squeezed sideways through the door for a hug that was a lot less enthusiastic and a lot more awkward than usual.
“…Come on in.”
Marty gave the two men a quizzical look as she crossed the room with Diego cuddled up against her shoulder. “Damn, are you two okay?” she asked, as she gave Gabe a one-armed hug.
Gabe kissed her on the cheek, then gave his grandson a special little bit of affection. “I’ll be glad to retire,” he said. “I swear, I think this job’s gonna start tearing me apart soon.”
“Uh-huh…” Marty gave him a skeptical look, then shrugged, handed him the baby, and headed for the kitchen. “Coffee?”
“Sounds good.” Gabe nodded and followed his son back through to the living room, tickling Diego’s cheek as he went. He noted dispassionately that Adam was deliberately soft-stepping his way across his own home; either he was being nice to the neighbors, or he was worried about Diego.
“I think you’ve outgrown the apartment, Mijo.”
“…Yeah. I’ve got a land deal in the works, but it isn’t done yet. Hopefully I can save money and build the house myself.”
“You’re not a carpenter.”
“No, but I can still learn.”
“That’s hard work, being a carpenter. It’s how I got through college.”
Adam grinned a bit wanly, looked down, balled up a gargantuan fist and curled his waist-thick forearm into a terrifying flex. “Eh…I think I can handle a little hard work.”
Despite his black mood, Gabe smiled and laughed faintly. “That you can,” he agreed. He settled on the couch and bounced Diego on his knee. “…You know, I hate to do it. But there’s something I gotta bring up, Mijo.”
“…You sure you gotta?” Adam asked. He settled himself down right next to Gabe, ignoring the muffled screams of the ironwork underneath the couch’s homemade padding. He’d never grown out of close physical contact, even now while he wasn’t happy with his papá. That meant he’d basically crushed the two of them together on the comparatively tiny couch and pinned Gabe in place with one of those giant arms draped inescapably over his shoulders. Gabe wasn’t one to complain about well-meaning affection…but Adam was, as always, a huge musky iron-hard furnace of a man. And that arm of his was far too heavy for any normal man to comfortably bear.
Gabe sighed, and tried to wiggle into a more comfortable position. “You know me. And my damn code. There are some things I can’t let go without comment.”
“Papá, you know I can’t comment on anything I may or may not have done about what you may or may not definitely be here to talk about. That’s part of the deal. I obey lawful orders.”
“…Well some hulked out titan with size-thirty feet was out running around New Belfast last night, before apparently dragging some bodies into a storm drain or something. That doesn’t leave a lot of suspects. Not even clown shoes leave prints that wide—”
“Dad,” Adam interrupted him. “I can’t comment, either to confirm or deny. You know this.”
“Fine. You don’t have to.” Gabe sighed. Why was he even here? He’d known that he’d meet an impenetrable wall.
But the question answered itself. He was here, first and foremost, because he was worried for his son.
“…Are you…okay with this, Adam?”
“Okay with what exactly?”
“I thought we couldn’t talk about that.”
Adam sighed, and ran one of his calloused mitts through the stubble of his HEAT helmet mohawk. There was no surer sign he’d been on a mission than that; he normally let his hair grow out to the limits of the regs. “Okay. Look. In general I love the mission. I maybe don’t like some of the stuff I do–”
“Such as–?”
“–But I haven’t ever objected to anything I’ve ever been ordered to do. Sometimes, if you wanna save lives, you gotta take out the fuckin’ trash first.”
“Even if it’s not what you signed up for?”
“That’s the thing, papá. The kinda thing we’re talkin’ about is what I signed up for. Maybe I didn’t completely understand when I was sixteen, but I understood well enough. No regrets.”
“…So long as you’re doing right by your own code,” Gabe decided.
“I am. I know it ain’t the same as yours.”
“That’s probably for the best, I guess…” Gabe tickled Diego’s tummy and felt much better about life in general when the little one graced him with a smile. Baby-smiles could brighten even the darkest days. “…The police and the military don’t do the same job, after all.”
“…No. Thankfully.”
Gabe nodded, and decided they’d both said as much as was wise on that subject.
“…How’s the unit?” he asked. “I’m so sorry about Bozo. I heard he was given a proper memorial service.”
Adam turned his head and gave him a very carefully neutral look. “…Yeah.”
“…You blame me.”
“I know you didn’t mean for any of what happened.” Adam paused, then clicked his tongue in his mouth. A half a second later a gigantic missile of a dog slammed into his chest, all wiggles and happy energy.
Doofus was a fair bit different to his legendary sire. Smaller and lighter-framed with longer and finer fur thanks to his mother… but “smaller” and “lighter” were relative terms. He was still about the biggest and most powerfully-built dog Gabe had ever seen after Bozo himself, and he would have been utterly unmanageable if he wasn’t perfectly trained. Adam knew that fact well, so although Doofus was a boisterous happy face-licking typhoon when it came to him, with guests and with the baby he was the very picture of patient obedience.
Adam brought the mutt under control by pin-scritching him with one of his mitts. The dog’s blissed-out expression at the rough affection sure lived up to his name.
“You know I didn’t… but,” Gabe prompted.
“Well fuck, Dad, what do you want from me!?” Adam asked. “I lost a friend! Balls, I almost lost two!”
“You know personal protection. How quickly did his team get to him? Two minutes?” Gabe countered. “How good is a good time? Would Hoeff have done better? From what I’m told, he doesn’t stay at Julian’s side when he’s out running either. None of them can keep up! And they were in the middle of nowhere! So you tell me exactly what difference did my choice make?”
“It’s the principle of the thing, Dad!”
“Exactly!” Gabe snapped. Diego squirmed at the raised voices and started to cry, and both men immediately quieted and calmed themselves. Nevertheless, Marty stomped back in from the kitchen, skewered both of them with a disapproving look, then swept the baby away and vanished. Doofus jumped down off Adam’s lap and followed behind her, tail wagging sympathetically as he looked up at Diego.
Father and son looked at each other in mutual embarrassment, and then Gabe slumped back on the couch.
“…Exactly,” he repeated, quietly. “Principle. I stood by mine. And I’m sorry Adam, but I don’t see how that really contributed to what happened.”
“Hoeff coulda kept close.” There was a bit of a sullen tone to Adam’s reply. “He’s done it before.”
“Has he? When Julian’s out for a real run? Hoeff’s a scary little speedster, I’ll admit, but not even he’s up to a task like that. Julian is too damn fast. To make it worse, he didn’t want to make a scene and he didn’t want to disturb nature, especially in a national park. That’s his choice and no matter how good Hoeff may or may not be, choices like that matter.”
“And if he’d been allowed to protect Julian, he’d have figured it out!”
“Adam,” Gabe sighed. “You have a habit of building everyone you care about into supermen. I think sometimes you forget just how much difference that makes, especially when your friends are mostly freaks of nature like you. Hoeff isn’t. Or maybe he’s as much of a freak as a five-foot-four man can be, not that’d matter all that much. In any case, it wouldn’t have made a lick of difference. You prove to me that it did, and I’ll be sorry. Truly I will. But you look me in the eye and tell me that it did.”
There was a long, heavy silence while they stared each other down. Eventually, Adam looked away.
“…Why did you pull Hoeff’s licence?” he asked.
“Principle, like I said. And that’s all I’m going to say.” Gabe stood up and made to leave. “…You let me know when you’re ready to humiliate your old man in the gym some more, okay amigo?”
“Dad…”
“No, Adam. I think we’ve said everything we can say, now,” Gabe turned back. “There’s things you can’t talk about, and there’s things I can’t talk about. That’s why I’m retiring. They’re going to get in the way of family if I don’t… And I love you too much to let that happen.”
Adam sighed heavily. He stood up, thumped carelessly across the room and buried Gabe in a spine-bender of a hug. “…I love you too, Dad,” he said. “I just…”
“I know.” Gabe patted his back, then managed to extract himself. “…Hasta luego. Apologize to Marty for me?”
Adam nodded, and Gabe let himself out.
More than anything else, he wanted to be done with the whole stupid business so he could just go back to being a grandparent. If it was a choice between duty and family… Well. In his heart of hearts, Gabe knew that family won every time.
He just needed to hold things together a little longer.
Date Point: 16y7m1d AV
Planet Rauwryhr, The Rauwryhr Republic, Perseus Arm
Daar, Great Father of the Gao
There were three awesome things going on for Daar as he visited Rauwrhyr.
The first was the defense conference itself. It’d taken months to plan an’ sadly hadta not be held on Earth—for mostly obvious reasons, in retrospect—or Gao, since they had things like the ‘common cold’ now. What a miserable little sickness that was! How could the Humans bear not bein’ able ‘ta smell?!
The second was, Rauwrhyr was pretty fuckin’ neat! He was ‘specially fond o’ the amazingly low gravity. How did it hold a breathable atmosphere? Would Meereo know? Or Loomi? Daar bet they’d know. He’d hafta ask ‘em later! Anyhoo, it was lotsa fun boinging his heavy tail all over the place an’ makin’ the floor shake unner his paws! Though he’d had to teach himself not to accidentally jump everywhere; his normal gait had been Stoneback-trained to be powerful and bouncy since he was a wee, floppy-eared lil’ cub. Here, that might just launch him right off a platform! Which mighta been fun, but best not to test that an’ scare everyone into doin’ somethin’ stupid.
The third, though, was the colours.
The Rauwrhyr people could see in the red spectrum, just like humans, an’ their cities were always lit up in oranges and purples and pinks… but the conference coincided with one of their cultural festivals, the Wrauhathryrnir.
It marked the start of the Rauwrhyr breeding season, and like pretty much every species anywhere ever, the males just had to impress. Little decorative scraps of rich, sticky-backed red and gold-flecked paper were everywhere, slapped onto just about every surface by eager kids and daredevil adults who wanted to show off how well they could fly. Some of them hung in places that seemed straight impossible, and each one bore the name of the intrepid soul who’d managed to get it there. Presumably, Rauwrhyr females liked males who could get his sticker higher amidst the trees or into more awkward corners than anyone else.
As part of the cultural exchange, they’d asked Daar to slap a paper somewhere. They probably weren’t expecting him to do much, but…well. He was Daar. And he was the Great Father. And balls, but he could leap, even in supergravity! So, feeling spiky and uncontained, Daar stretched out, took a run at a nicely ridiculous bit of bare tree as fast as he could go, flung himself through the air and—
Holy crap he got sum air! He recovered right away, zoomed up an’ slapped it on the tree an’ kicked off with the most bestest rebound he’d ever managed. Beat that, winged friends! Daar landed on all fours with a heavy thump—an’ fell slowly, because balls the gravity was weak—an’ he couldn’t help but preen a bit. Sometimes, it was good to show off!
…He enjoyed the attention too, he wasn’t afraid to admit. Plus, it couldn’t be a bad thing that the gaggle of Rauwrhyr who’d watched his lil’ bit o’ fun seemed completely awestruck…
And it was fun! Daar did somehow manage to resist drawing some lewd graffiti on his paper beforehand…but he did put a little cartoon-him on there, scratching his back against a tree. He had no idea why the Humans thought that was so funny. He’d hafta wrassle it outta them later!
President Sartori gave him an unwilling chuckle and some rolled eyes when they were in private, an’ they couldn’t commit no nation-embarrassing wrong-paw. ‘Foe paws,’ as the Humans would say. Which was weird ‘cuz Humans didn’t have no paws…well, mostly.
It was about all Daar could do not to just…wallow in it all. He were always a ‘Back who felt the world a bit stronger than most, an’ while that was a blessing he was deeply grateful for, it also meant he’d needed to discipline himself against the temptation from a young age. Sometimes it was the best kind o’ torture, ‘cuz the reward when he could finally enjoy himself…
Gods, it were all just mesmerizing ‘ta look at! He coulda looked out the window and drunk in the view forever….
But there were business to attend to. He took one last look and sighed happily at it all, only stirring when President Sartori returned to their private lil’ office with a big ol’ platter o’ snacks.
“I’ve learned the surest way to a Great Father’s heart is through his stomach.”
Daar thumped his tail from his puddle on the floor. “You ain’t wrong.”
“Then again, I’ve only met one Great Father…” Sartori noted slyly.
“Fyu was a pretty infamous lil’ glutton, ‘least accordin’ to the contemporary accounts. Which is kinda funny since I’m way over ten times his size, even at his most biggest.”
Sartori chuckled, and then opened the hardcopy printout he’d brought with him. “Shall we?”
Daar rolled up to his paws and padded over. He’d found that he was much more disarming on four-paw than upright, especially since he’d started on his weird adventures with the Humans, and that little bit of psychological warfare worked even on clever lil’ Sartori.
“The defence symposium revealed a lot of interesting things about the state of the Dominion’s military,” Sartori said as he pushed the folder Daar’s way. Considerately, it was translated into Gaori.
“I do read English, y’know…”
“And I read Gaori. Don’t ask me to pronounce it, though. I just can’t get that yipping sound right.”
Daar chittered, “I won’t even tell ‘ya how much learnin’ English can be literally painful for a gaoian jaw an’ tongue. You get better though. Just takes practice!”
“For now, though…” Sartori gestured to the document.
“Right, Right…”
It wasn’t as damning as Daar had feared. Okay, it was still really fuckin’ damning, but there were little diamond sparkles hidden here and there in what was otherwise a midden of bought commissions, political appointments, mandatory conscription, and the fact that the Dominion’s most senior species hadn’t even encountered the concept of special forces until twenty years previously.
“I got some points…d’you mind if I switch to Gaori? We’re gonna be talkin’ a lot.”
Sartori plucked a sandwich from the platter. Salmon, dill and cream cheese, from the smell. “By all means.”
Daar used a claw to spear a nice greasy-smellin’ dumpling and popped it into his mouth. Tasty! “Okay,” he said once he’d swallowed. “I think the first thing I gotta say is…how in the balls-licking fuck did these spineless degenerate cowards ever defend themselves at all?!”
“The Hunters were never interested in conquering them,” Sartori replied in English. “Just raiding and feeding. They were predators picking off the weak and vulnerable. By and large, the Dominion never really needed to defend themselves: the only military threat they ever faced in that sense was the Alliance, who are just as bad.”
“An’ a lot smaller. How didn’t they steamroller ‘em?”
“The Qinis and their drone swarms. Our forces would run circles around them, but in a stand-up brawl those things make the difference.”
“An’ that stalemate was prol’ly engineered, too.”
“We don’t know that, but…yeah.”
“So,” Daar mentally donned his Master of War cloak and began to ponder the horrifying logistics of it. “What we have then is a motley collection of radically dissimilar forces, spread all over to hell an’ gone, most of which aren’t disciplined in the slightest, almost all of which have ethics that smell worse than Keeda’s nuts, an’ none of which could withstand any level of combat against either my people or ‘yers.”
“Don’t forget the massively corrupt officer class.”
“Oh, I ain’t. I’ve just sorta baked that into the nava cake at this point when I’m dealin’ with the herbivores.”
“There are shining lights. The Chehnash and Rauwrhyr.”
Daar shook his head in disagreement. “The Chehnash…aren’t. They talk a good scary tale, an’ they’re okay mercenaries ‘fer low-level scutwork an’ such, but…no. They have zero unit discipline. They’re just bands of raiders. They don’t know what soldiering is an’ being honest, I don’t think they’re socially developed or individually intelligent enough ‘ta teach ‘em. The Rauwrhyr on the other hand…they’ve got a warrior’s soul in ‘em. I’ve known that for a long while, but that little red-paper thing they do? That’s sorta the proof.”
“How?”
“He who won’t fuck, won’t fight. Fyu said that in his happier times. An’ I’m gonna add to it: He who won’t do somethin’ daring ‘fer the chance ‘ta fuck…”
Sartori smirked and quipped, “How very reputational of you…”
Daar chittered deep in his chest and flexed quickly for the President; he loved teasin’ Sartori, because there weren’t many who could banter so good! “Well I gotta live up to the legend, y’know? Imagine if the Females I court felt they weren’t gettin’ the full experience!”
“Heaven forbid.”
“I know, right?!” Daar chittered again, then re-focused on the task. “Anyhoo, I know you ain’t the warrior type, Mister President. But I know damn well you’ve met more’n a few of us. Tell me it ain’t true. An’ then tell me: who in the Dominion treat mating like anythin’ more’n a simple social need? Ain’t many. An’ that’s sad.”
“There’s a few on Earth who feel that way, but… we’re drifting away from the point, anyway. How do we fix this mess?”
Daar’s answer wasn’t one Sartori would like. “We don’t. Or, bein’ more specific, we partner with who we can an’ just ignore the idiots who’re gonna bleat ‘bout the horrors to come. ‘Cuz, that’s the thing. I’ve got a billion-strong army which is ready to go right now. We’ve been preparin’ for this since I wiped out the remnants of our old civilization. An’ in maybe just ten years, I won’t have a Grand Army. If we’re gonna punch hard…we do it now.”
“…And we partner with the Rauwrhyr. Only them?”
“‘Fer now. They’re some of the physically weakest people I’ve ever met, but their souls are up to the fight, an’ that’s what matters most. We can fix the rest, an’ work around it… but what we can’t do is teach righteous anger to the meek. If they couldn’t work up the balls ‘ta fight when their fuckin’ children were bein’ eaten, then there ain’t nothin’ we can do for ‘em. Not inside the time limit. An’ I somehow doubt they’ve got the stomach to exterminate an entire species, even one so manifestly evil as the Hunters.”
“…Sometimes, I forget just how ruthless you actually are, Daar.”
It weren’t meant as an insult an’ Daar knew it. Still, he couldn’t let that go unanswered. “Says the guy who just did a pretty fuckin’ ruthless thing himself…”
“Only with great sorrow. He was a friend.”
“Was. Y’have to be pretty fuckin’ ruthless to do that to a friend.”
“Yes.”
“Exactly. But that reminds me: I happen ‘ta like Gabriel Arés a lot. He’s a good man, an’ there ain’t enough o’ those around.”
Sartori nodded in agreement. “You’re not wrong.”
“Right.” Daar gave him his most deadly-serious look. “Arthur, I ain’t gonna be happy if somethin’ unfortunate happens ta’ him…”
Sartori shook his head. “He’s earned a long and happy retirement as far as I’m concerned.”
“Good. I didn’t doubt it, but it hadta be said. I’m jus’ sad Gabe hadta learn that kinda truth.”
Sartori stood up straighter. “He was never in any danger from me, Daar.”
Daar duck-nodded gratefully, and returned his attention to the documents on the table. “So. Let’s talk about the enemy.”
“Starting with the more imminent and physical ones…” Sartori turned to the two-page summary on the Hunters. “Since you blew up that orbital ring megastructure, the Hunters have changed tack dramatically. They’ve scattered and decentralized, and started raiding more aggressively. Their controlled territory is more permeable, as long-range scout drones have found. They’re more selective and clever about which targets they hit and their spaceships are of a superior quality: They don’t seem to be refitting Dominion ships any longer but instead are building their own.”
“Digging them out is gonna take a long time,” Daar surmised.
“They must have resource worlds, and those will be full of feral Dominion slaves like the planet ‘Hell’ was.”
“Yeah. An’ we gotta deny ‘em to the Hunters. Which is gonna mean a rehabilitation, or a slaughter, or just somehow leavin’ em in peace so’s the Hunters can’t eat ‘em.”
“I don’t like those options.”
“Nope. My people are aggressive an’ sometimes violent, but we ain’t hateful, or evil. I can’t ask the Grand Army to exterminate Dominion types. So really, we gotta purge each system, bubble it up, cleanse the world of Hunters, an’ throw up a Farthrow. Repeatedly.”
“That’s…going to be a logistical nightmare.”
“Might be a useful way ‘ta put the Dominion ‘ta use, actually. ‘Cuz we can throw our armies into clean-up an’ then move on. Let the Dominion sort out the bullshit. If they wanna abandon their own people that’s on them. But anyway, the Hunters aren’t even the most important bit.”
“The Hierarchy.”
“Yup. ‘Yer people got Highmountain’s data on the relay worlds, right?”
“And we’ve developed our own detector. Our people in Erebor are assembling it or, uh, them. It’s going to be a network of deep-sky satellites with a parallax of two lightyears.”
It took a lot to give Daar pause, but that just about did it. He stopped for a second and tried to wrap his head around the idea of a telescope that large. “…Ain’t that… kinda overkill?”
“We have to pick out individual rocky bodies within systems that might be on the far side of the galaxy, and there are hundreds of billions of star systems in the Milky Way. My scientific advisors assure me that overkill is the only way to find all the relays in a timely manner. And afterwards, of course, we’ll have the largest and most sensitive deep survey telescope ever built.”
“I can imagine Champion Loomi an’ his Brothers’d be droolin’ over somethin’ like that…”
“Erebor is this generation’s Bletchley Park. I don’t know if you’ve ever heard the name…?”
Daar wobbled his head uncertianly. “Uh…somethin’ ‘bout secret communications, I think?”
Sartori nodded. “Yup! It was a codebreaking operation during the Second World War. Their breakthroughs led directly to computational science and laid the groundwork for our information revolution.”
“Neat!” Daar made a note to ask for some reading material; he loved that kinda military history.
“It makes me wonder what the galaxy will look like in seventy years, after all this and everything we’ve developed…” Sartori mused. “But there we go. I think I can see a plan forming. Now we just need to bring the rest of them on board.”
“Won’t be difficult,” Daar predicted. “The Rauwryhr are ready ‘fer a change.”
“So are the Corti,” Sartori agreed. “They just need an example of leadership.”
“Yeah. An’ we’re pretty different examples of that.”
“…Might be to our advantage, actually. Play it up, maybe?”
Daar felt his tail wag again. “So, I go an’ be me, ‘cept a bit, uh, mebbe a wee bit less restrained. An’ you be you?”
“It won’t be hard to play up our friendship.”
Daar finally gave in, padded over and rest his big ol’ head briefly on Sartori’s shoulder. “Naw. It won’t.”
Sartori chuckled. “You are unlike any other head of state I’ve ever dealt with, Daar.”
“S’what ‘ya get ‘fer makin’ another Great Father. Blame Yulna! Anyhoo.” Daar spun away and went to his Bag of Many Things. “I got some ideas I jot down a while ago, I think they’re relevant. An’ my staff has been workin’ out some battle prep. I think we should figger out what our message is, an’ then I’ll go get some exercise in, an’ then…”
Sartori nodded. “And then,” he echoed, “the first day of the real war begins…”