Date Point: 16y7m1w AV
Folctha, Cimbrean, the Far Reaches
Ava Ríos
“Don’t you usually lecture me about leaving my work in the office?”
Ava looked up from her tablet and blinked. Her head was full of facts, statements, recent history, dates and times and locations and people and…
All of the ingredients that went into an article. The APA were big news right now. Kind of a final death throe, now that the organization had allegedly been forcibly dismantled in one bloody night of SWAT raids. Writing about that and specifically how it affected Folctha’s ET population and the broader galactic community as the Interstellar Defense Talks got underway over on Rauwryhr had consumed her.
So much so, in fact, that it took her a second to recognize her own fiancé.
Derek. Right.
She blinked, and surfaced from whatever deep journalistic waters she’d been swimming in. He noticed, and smiled. “Ooop! There she is! Welcome back.”
“…Sorry.” Ava set her tablet aside and realized just how stiff she was and how her left leg had gone numb from being curled underneath her. She swung it out from under her and grimaced at the white-noise fuzzy barrage of sensation that swarmed all over it. Derek flomped down next to her with a tray from Ninja Taco and a big bottle of Talamay, and they traded a welcoming kiss.
“S’okay. Big news week.”
“Yeah, but you’re right…” Ava stretched out, and made a satisfied squeaking sound when her spine went pop in three places. God, she must have been sitting hunched over for hours.
A glance at the wall clock confirmed what her body was telling her, and inspired her stomach to supply that it was very empty and not at all happy with the situation. Especially now that there was the tantalizing waft of a Triple Cheese Jutsu under her nose.
“…I should leave my work at work,” she finished, snagging the laden taco and gladly turning her face into a cheesy mess.
Derek chuckled, took one for himself, and ate it with a little more finesse. “I got some prime-grade gossip for you!”
“Ooh, do I get to play muckraker now? Give!”
“Hoeff’s got himself a girlfriend.”
“So it’s Tuesday.”
“No no, I said a girlfriend not a fuckbuddy.”
Ava scooped some cheese off her cheek and gave Derek a skeptical look. “…Wait, you mean he’s going steady?”
“Yeah! He snagged himself a doctor! This one is different, I can tell.”
“How, exactly?”
“Oh, easy. Hoeff is normally the type to bang and run, and he makes damn sure his dates know it. They’re lucky if he buys them tacos!”
“Tacos, huh? How romantic…”
“Hush, you.” Derek bit into his with a satisfying cronch. And in one of the many ways that made him better than Ava’s last boyfriend, he chewed and swallowed before continuing rather than talk with his mouth full. “Anyway, a reliable source with direct knowledge of the situation—Champion Meereo in this case, don’t ask—saw him escorting the young doctor out of the Pinkwood. And he was dressed up! Like, all fancy an’ shit!”
Ava smiled. “So it’s a good news day all around.”
“Yeah-huh.” Derek draped an arm around her and turned the TV on. For some reason the default channel was ESNN, and Ava was treated to the sight of her own face: The report she’d done from in front of the Alien Quarter that afternoon.
It had taken a couple of years but she’d eventually managed to stop feeling embarrassed whenever she saw herself and heard herself on TV. She pointed at the ticker running along the bottom.
“That’s the story I really want to cover,” she said. “Daar and Sartori attending the defence meeting on Rauwryhr. I wish I could interview a Kwmbwrw matriarch right now…”
“Why? They’d just piss and moan about it. ‘S’all they ever do.”
“C’mon babe, there’s gotta be more to them than that!”
Derek shrugged and finished his taco. “They don’t like humans and they don’t like Gaoians, and didn’t you write that article a couple weeks ago about how they’re sidelined at the Dominion Council now that the Corti and Guvnurag have sided with us?”
“The Guvnurag remnant aren’t exactly a big force in politics any more,” Ava sighed. “At least, no more than any other refugee population. They’re a humanitarian crisis, not a major galactic player.”
“Still. That Matriarch would just be a fountain of salt at you. Why even bother?”
“‘Cuz it’s column inches.”
“Which I find funny ‘cuz you don’t print in columns, and everyone hates on inches these days.”
“You have your funny Army lingo, I have my funny journalism lingo,” she retorted primly, and sipped her soda. “Anyway. There’s always something to pick apart. I mean, there’s got to be a reason they’re salty.”
“Maybe they’re just bigots.”
“Or maybe it’s the fact that Daar showed up to the defense conference anyway and nobody really cared.”
“He’s deliberately tweaking Henengywire or whatever the fuck her name is, too. Did you see the joint address with President Sartori? He’s doing the short-fur, prowly-growly thing again.”
“He’s really good at that, though.”
Derek chuckled. “Reckon you’ll ever get to do a Laid Bare with Sartori?”
Ava laughed. Daar was one thing, he was kind of a force of nature who obeyed his own rules and wrote his own book on how Great Fathers should behave. But the POTUS? The fact that it was basically definitely not going to happen went unsaid, so instead she entertained the fantasy for a second. “…Now that would be a contrast. He’s kinda…dad-bod, you know?”
“You mean he’s short, squishy and bald.”
“Well, it’d certainly be brave as hell of him to put himself next to specimens like you for example. Or I guess Julian, since he was the last one I did.”
Derek grinned and gave her a smooch. “Thanks for thinkin’ of me first. And you should just put them next to each other, for fun. Do a line-up!”
Ava giggled at the idea. “Laid Bare wasn’t ever supposed to be comedy relief. You should know, it was your idea!”
“Exactly! Means I get to play around with it. Anyway. So Hoeff’s got him a smart squeeze, an’ I’m pretty sure he thinks she’s outta his league. Good for him! What else you doin’?”
“Oh, just…” Ava picked up her tablet and waggled it at him. “…Writing the APA’s obituary. I talked with a bunch of the ETs today, got their opinion on it all.”
“Like who?”
“The usual suspects. Gyotin of course, Mother Myun, Pickles—”
“Who?”
“P’kkikkl’zk. You know, the Ricky who owns the ET food shop on Jackson Lane?”
“Never met him.”
“It’s the place that smells really horrible whenever he’s got a new shipment of Zrrks in.”
“That’d explain why I never met him.” Derek chugged his soda and crumpled the cup back into the cardboard box their food had come in. “So what do they think?”
“That the APA are a bunch of racists and good riddance, really. Also, seriously?! Why are all the radical activists always basically the exact damn thing they claim to hate?!”
“Projection. I heard that once on a podcast.”
“That’s awfully cynical of you.”
“Babe, I was a Green Beret before all of this, and then I got dragged into an actual secret alien conspiracy hell-bent on enslaving the galaxy. Ordinary folks being dumb as shit is a welcome break from the weird.”
“…You and I have very atypical scales for what constitutes weird, I think.”
Derek chuckled. “…Wanna hear something really cynical?”
“What?”
“Lotta people online are talking about how the Ag Secretary’s death had very convenient timing…” He grinned.
“Oh come on.”
“Why not? I mean, maybe he had the wrong friends and the Powers That Be decided to get rid of him quietly rather than put him on trial. You don’t buy that?”
“I don’t buy that they’re that subtle,” Ava said. “If I’ve learned anything, it’s that our governments are usually pretty terrible at keeping secrets.”
“Oh I dunno, we kept the Hierarchy pretty well wrapped-up for a good long while…”
“Sure, except for the mass migraines and weird reports out of Ceres. And the sudden product recall on translator implants. And the anti-implantation laws. And, y’know. People like Adam exist. It’s kinda hard not to notice some of that.” Ava swiped through her half-finished ‘obituary’ and then set it aside. “So, no. If Ross Guillory was murdered by some government assassin then it would be super obvious. We’re talking… nerve agents on the door handle, or an umbrella full of Polonium. That kind of thing.”
“You’re thinking of the Russians. They don’t generally give a fuck.”
“Well… whatever. Is that the kind of thing the USA does?”
“Sure. I mean, I’ve never been briefed on anything like that so I’m free to speculate…but of course they do. Ever pay attention to central America? Tell me someone ain’t bein’ naughty.”
“I guess, but… a member of the Cabinet? I don’t buy it, and Sartori looked genuinely upset. So no, I don’t buy it. That sounds too much like clickbaity conspiracy theory stuff.”
Derek gave her a fond smile and stroked his thumb through her hair. “You’re so innocent sometimes.”
She gave him an irritated slap in the chest and grabbed the last taco before it could go soggy. “Or you’re just being jaded.”
“Maybe. But Gabe resigned, remember? Like…right at the exact same time. And suddenly, too. I think that’s as clear a signal as any.”
Ava slowly lowered her taco. That was… inescapably true, in fact. And he hadn’t discussed resigning at all, which was… now that she thought about it, he’d probably have hummed and hawed about the decision for months and talked it over with Ava herself, and with Adam, and with Jess and everyone else really before finally committing.
A crawling sensation up her spine dumped her very briefly back in Egypt, to a memory of running for her life and expecting to be shot in the back at any second. It was a warning instinct, something buried deep in the human hindbrain that sniffed the air and listened for breaking twigs in the forest, and existed to keep her from blundering into danger. And right now, it was screaming.
“…You know what? Let’s say that conspiracy theory is right,” she said, carefully. “I would have to be some kind of a suicidally brave idiot to want to try and blow the lid on that, wouldn’t I? ‘Cuz if it’s true and there are forces out there who would brazenly murder a member of the US Cabinet, then what would they do to an uppity journalist who decided to investigate?”
Derek considered that for a moment, then cleared his throat. “…Forget I said anything.”
“And if it’s not true, I wouldn’t have a story to show for it,” Ava added.
“Alright, I get it. Leave sleeping giants alone.”
Ava sighed, took the remote out of his hand, and changed the channel. She’d got into watching esports at university, and Derek was pretty happy with anything so long as it was even vaguely exciting, so she picked the Mythos Arena North America championship highlights and cuddled up to him.
“…Maybe we should go to that restaurant sometime,” she mused after a few minutes.
“Sure.”
“You mean it?”
“Of course I mean it!” Derek leaned over and kissed her head, “It’s a date.”
Ava nodded, smiled, put her head down on his shoulder and relaxed into a gentle evening at home.
“It’s a date,” she agreed.
Date Point: 16y7m1w AV
Folctha, Cimbrean, the Far Reaches
Doctor Claire Farmer
“…You know what I’m trying to figure out?”
“What?”
“If anyone ever asked me if I liked ‘bad boys…’”
Hoeff smiled a bit tiredly, and Claire almost melted right then and there. He’d worn himself out rather thoroughly showing her just what that bad-boy body of his could do…and something about his face was just made to smile. It was a shame he only smiled that smile of his occasionally, but a part of her was grateful he saved it mostly for her.
“Well…I won’t deny it. I’m not a nice man. This is…new territory for me.”
Claire rolled over on top of him, propped herself up on her elbow and gave him a long look. He’d gone all out for tonight, expensive Egyptian cotton sheets and everything. It felt like she’d dropped into a movie, almost. A James Bond movie, maybe. Except…
Well. Nice man or not, he was a better man than James Bond. That thought quirked her face up in a smile, and she leaned down to kiss his nose.
“I know. You’re damn good at it, though,” she said. “And… You don’t need to be a nice man.”
She got that smile again. It was so easy to draw out, when he was relaxed. “…So what’re you trying to figure out?” One of those rough hands of his reached up and firmly massaged at the back of her neck. It felt good. She pushed back into his grip before relenting and nuzzling against his broad chest, just enjoying his heat and musk. They both sighed happily.
“I’m… not even sure.” She frowned. “Just… Why, I guess. Why I would have said no before. I don’t feel like I’ve changed…”
“Maybe you’re overthinking it.”
“I’m an anthropologist, overthinking this stuff is what I do.”
He chuckled, pulled her in for a tight snuggle…and decided to be mischievous. His hands traced down along her body, lower, lower, and then–!
When she eventually got her wits back about her, she swatted him on the shoulder.
“Hoeff! That was hardly a gentlemanly thing to do!”
“I ain’t a gentleman. I’m a bad boy, remember?”
“I don’t think you’ll let me forget.”
He grinned like a wolf, and now it was his turn to roll over, pin her flat to the mattress…and get a good long look at her. Every. Last. Inch. She played at trying to escape, and felt a rush run through her from her head to her toes when he didn’t let her. His grin grew predatory as he tightened his whole-body grip around her. He had her pinned so fiercely, she couldn’t wiggle her legs or hips even one little inch. God but he was strong! All she could do was claw at that rippling back of his while he held her head in place and inescapably kissed and nibbled at her throat, sampling his way up along her neck and eventually towards her ear–!
“Good,” he growled, then snarled right in close as he bit at her lobe. “‘Cuz I’m done with playtime.”
Claire didn’t do much thinking for the rest of the night.
Date Point: 16y7m1w AV Whryvyr Conference Center, Planet Rauwryhr, The Rauwryhr Republic, Perseus Arm
Shwmwrwyn, Military envoy of Grand House Gwedrynydwr
Great Father Daar’s presence was being read by Shwmwrwyn’s superiors as a direct insult, but Shwmwrwyn was largely of the opinion that her superiors were idiots.
This was a considered and expert opinion. As Fleet Matriarch of the coreward marches, she’d been the Kwmbwrw people’s front line of defence against the Hunters for twenty years, and she didn’t much care whether Daar was insulting the Grandmatriarchs by attending or not. She just wanted to know how to kill Hunters as well as the deathworlders did.
But then again, it took a specific kind of stubborn pride to become a Grandmatriarch in the first place. They were as they were practically by design.
The Great Father wasn’t exactly making it easy for the Grandmatriarchs to listen, however. His rhetorical approach seemed to rely on charismatic antagonism. An oxymoron, but… well, there it was. He was saying things that Shwmwrwyn really thought the Grandmatriarchy had needed to hear for the last several centuries, and doing it in such a way that although everything he said was an assault on them, they still listened.
An impressive feat, that. All by itself that should have been enough evidence for anyone that there was plenty going on inside the mind of the snarling mountain of muscle that was the Great Father, much more than the Grand Houses cared to admit. Alas, it seemed to matter little.
As for what he was saying…well. She could see the Human contingent, over at their circular table, keeping very blank faces. Tellingly blank.
He knew absolutely everything the Marches fleet had done over the last year. Their every movement, the disposition of their forces, their training maneuvers… he knew where everything was. And though he wasn’t so unsubtle as to explicitly say it, Shwmwrwyn got the message loud and clear: if the Gao intended the Great Houses any harm, there would be absolutely nothing the Kwmbwrw could do about it.
“So ‘ta sum all that up,” he finished loudly as he returned to the middle of the room, “…’Yer fleets are stretched to their breaking point, ‘yer intel ain’t secure, none’a your infrastructure is adequately defended…” he paused, and looked at Shwmwrwyn. “…But the bright side is, you have miracle-workers in ‘yer ranks who’re holding it all together in spite of all that. Lose them, though, an’ you’ll have nothing.”
Predator. All Shwmwrwyn’s instincts were singing raw threat at her, from something deep in the most instinctive layer of her brain that only saw his fangs and claws and prowling menace and wanted to run out into the deep marshy ground where it was safe.
There was nowhere to run, though. So like the others, she watched cautiously, transfixed as if her life depended on it. And she paid attention.
“Here’s the thing. All that I jus’ said? It ain’t an indictment on most of ‘yer people. The problem is, ‘yer thinkin’ like prey. You just worry about surviving the Hunters, an’ that won’t do you no good no more. It ain’t good enough ‘ta just survive. We’re at war now. An’ Clausewitz, a really balls-smart Human, said that war is fundamentally a contest of wills. An’ he’s right! So which is it? Are ‘ya gonna let the greasy-nut monsters save ‘yer meat for the last? Or are ‘ya gonna pin ‘em down and show ‘em the meaning of power?”
There was silence, and then one of the Humans—Sartori, the allegedly most powerful man that species had—made a soft noise in the back of his throat to clear it.
However powerful he truly was, Daar, the Great Father of the Gao, had clear and obvious respect for the man. Fondness, even. He glanced Sartori’s way, then duck-nodded. “I yield the floor.”
Sartori nodded his thanks and stood. He strolled to the middle of the room with his hands behind his back in pretty much the opposite posture Daar had taken. Where Daar had prowled and snarled and flexed his physique both literally and figuratively all over the place, Sartori moved slowly and with deliberation. He paused to adjust a wide, thick decorative ribbon of some kind around his throat, and cleared his throat again.
“We have made,” he said, “an opportunity. Up until recently, the species of the Dominion have been at the mercy of Hunter raids which were too big, too coordinated and too skilled for you, and so the only thing you could do, as the Great Father said, was survive.”
He looked to the Kwmbwrw again. “That has now changed. My people, along with the Gao, obliterated the [Lion’s share] of their power in one fell stroke, with the Great Father here personally leading the strike. Consequent to that, the Hunters are reeling, and all our intelligence says that they will be reeling for some time. They have completely ceased raiding along the Far Reaches, near the Clans of Gao, and in the Border Stars thanks to our protection fleets. They are withdrawing from the Free Systems, the Akw’tun Band and the Inner Orion Spur due to their own weakness, and the last time they attempted a serious breach of Kwmbwrw territory we crushed them. Very, very literally.”
He turned slowly to look at each delegation in turn. “They are the weakest they have been in the Dominion’s entire history. But they will recover, if left unmolested. And they will surely take their vengeance. So this is not the moment to relax and take our foot off the gas—forgive me, that’s a Human metaphor meaning to reduce the pace of activity. The beast is hiding in its lair and licking its wounds. It is vulnerable. And we can, if we have the will, hunt it down where it hides and end it once and for all.”
Most of the gathered delegations were making gestures of agreement, seeing the clear wisdom and logic. He turned back to the Kwmbwrw, and Shwmwrwyn became aware that she too had been bobbing her head in agreement, even while the Grandmatriarchs glared at her.
She returned the glare with interest. Were they not listening?
Sartori saw the whole exchange. He stepped forward, and spread his hands openly at hip height. “What possible objection could you have?” he asked. “What stops you? We’re standing here pleading with you to take action in your own defence. And yet despite the fact that no Human or Gaoian has ever done anything so monstrous to the Kwmbwrw people as what any Hunter would gladly revel in… I see nothing but hostility and distrust here. Why?”
Daar growled solicitously from his floor-spot next to the Gaoian delegation’s table.
“Do you have something to add, Great Father?”
“If ‘yer ready ‘ta let me, yeah.”
“I yield my remaining time back to the Great Father.”
The Great Father leapt high up from his spot and pounced directly into the middle of the floor right next to the President with no discernable effort whatsoever. Gasps or their equivalent circled the room but Sartori, for his part, seemed utterly unperturbed. There was a brief but very fond exchange between the two men as the President walked back to his table.
“Oh, it’s obvious what they object to. It’s me. I’m an avatar of everythin’ the Grandmatriarchs hate, ain’t I? Well, here I am! Just say it! Tell the world how you really feel!”
Henenwgwyr, of course, took up the challenge. She rose from her chair, and then reared upright on her hind legs, uncoiling her tail behind her for balance so she could achieve the full imperious effect of her impressive height. She certainly towered over the Humans and Gaoians, who would have been the smallest species in the room if not for the Corti. Even Daar, massive though he was by any reasonable standard, had to tilt his muzzle up to look at her.
Somehow, in that moment, she managed to be almost as much of a presence as him.
“…You are a tyrant and a mass murderer,” she told the Great Father, levelly. “And you repeat the mantra of tyrants: that everything you did was necessary. Every tyrant in the history of every species has used that claim, and every last one was wrong. The Kwmbwrw Grand Houses see no good reason to conclude that you are uniquely different.”
She stepped forward. “You were at war. We understand that,” she said. “I am sure you feel that war justifies all atrocities. We do not. You killed billions of your own people, Great Father.’ We cannot understand how the ones you deigned to spare seem to love you for it.”
Daar’s ears moved subtly as he thought. His head tilted first one way, then the other, and he sniffed the air. Henenwgwyr stood tall and glared at him until he finally spoke.
“Okay. That right there should be ‘yer first clue that ‘yer missin’ somethin’ big an’ important, but let’s table that ‘fer the moment. What does any of that have to do with ‘yer survival?”
“You are asking us to trust our survival to your wisdom. Not just asking, but demanding, and belittling us when we are reluctant to trust a tyrant with a body count in the billions.” Henenwgwyr glanced at Sartori. “And you’re pleading with us? You’re asking us why the animosity exists when this being here—” she gestured to Daar.
Daar snarled out a warning. “I am right here, Grandmatriarch. You will address me in the first person present. I am the Gao, not simply a male you dislike. Remember that.”
Henenwgwyr did not turn her head. “—Has shown that he will not hesitate to burn away that which he sees as weak or an impediment.” She returned her attention to Daar. “Your pride will kill our people.”
“Well, there’s a lotta stuff to unpack there, ‘yer ideas on tyrants bein’ jus’ one o’ the bigger nuggets, ‘yer just…Mister President, wassat idea we talked about last night?”
“Um…Projection?”
“Yes! Thank you. It’s pretty fuckin’ ridiculous of ‘ya to talk ‘bout pride at this point, but whatever. ‘Fore I tackle any o’ the rest, I need ‘ya to unnerstand somethin.’ President Sartori is concerned ‘fer the well-being of ‘yer people, ‘cuz ruthless though he is, he’s fundamentally a man who cares. You must not make that mistake with me. I am a Great Father. We are not created on a whim. We come into being when the Gao are under dire threat. Our purpose is ‘ta cut through the posturing an’ the nonsense, and ta’ solve the problem. Right now, the thing that threatens my people is the Hunters—the Discarded, as our great Enemy calls them, they who murdered billions o’ my people in an instant. If they are allowed to regroup, they will obliterate us all. An’ yer’ mind-blowin’ pride an’ sense o’ self-importance is keepin’ ‘ya from seein’ it. We’re pleadin’ with ‘ya to open ‘yer gods-damned eyes an’ see the endgame. We’d rather ‘ya had a part in our collective salvation. But know this: ‘yer right.”
He stepped right forward into Henenwgwyr’s collective space.
“I will leave those who cannot or will not be saved to die, if I must.”
There was a long, glaring standoff, and then quite abruptly he turned his back on the Grandmatriarch and returned to the Gaoian table. “I yield my remainin’ time.”
The Grandmatriarch was stunned into silence, but only for a moment. Right as Daar had sunk back to all fours, she blurted out, “And what about the rest?”
Daar turned around and sized her up, not bothering to rise to his legs again. “What about it?”
“How do you answer the charges?!”
“I don’t seem to recall anyone anywhere havin’ the authority to charge me with anything.”
“And yet I charge you, nonetheless! You are a mass-murderer and a tyrant.”
Daar duck-nodded in what could almost be interpreted as respect. “Fair enough! Am I a mass murderer? Absolutely. I am what duty has forced me to be.”
“And a tyrant the likes of which we’ve never seen.”
“Tyrant, eh? See, that? That right there? I don’t think that word means what you think it means. I ain’t interferin’ in th’ daily lives o’ my fellow Gao. They are generally free to do as they please, as long as it don’t violate our Law, and they ain’t workin’ with the declared enemies of the Gao. I’ve been actively encouragin’ ‘em ‘ta do what they want an’ speak their minds, an’ a few of ‘em are finally startin’ ta’ get the message! We got a lotta rebuildin’ t’do, physically an’ culturally, an’ it’s prol’ly gonna take the rest o’ my life t’do it. I think…”
Daar paused for a moment, then changed tack.
“…I have a criticism to offer, an’ this one is from the bottom o’ my belly. I think ‘yer people have forgotten what it means ‘ta really suffer. An’ that’s not my criticism! That’s good. It’s a sign y’all been gettin’ along pretty well! But I think it’s mebbe blindin’ ‘ya to what’s in store ‘fer us all. My people…are intimately familiar with sufferin’ an’ pain. At the end o’ the war, our Females numbered just under one hundred million in a species o’ many billions. Every last one o’ us has seen horrors. We’ve all lost many near an’ dear to us. We’ve watched as life-long Brothers were turned into literal killer zombies, with no hope of recovery. An’ so…”
He shook his head, unhappily. “You can’t understand how some of the ones I spared love me for it? That’s kinda hard ta’ hear honestly, cuz I didn’t spare ‘em at all. I weren’t out ta’ kill ‘em in the first place! That was our enemy, an’ I saved as many of my people as I could. If that makes me a tyrant, well then I’m glad you ain’t got the authority ‘ta charge me.”
Henenwgwyr opened her mouth to reply, but stopped when President Sartori stood. There was a silent moment where the tall Grandmatriarch and the diminutive President held each other’s gaze… and Henenwgwyr stepped back. “…I yield to the President of the United States,” she said.
Sartori nodded as he stepped forward, and Shwmwrwyn noted that the Great Father, insofar as she could read Gaoian body language, made room for him with an expression of fondness and respect.
“I admire the Kwmbwrw delegation’s adherence to their principles,” he said, addressing the room in general rather than Henenwgwyr specifically. “It takes bravery to stand up and forthrightly criticize somebody like Daar to his face. I’m sure the Great Father would agree with me that Grandmatriarch Henenwgwyr has the courage of her convictions and will join me in commending her for it…”
Daar duck-nodded.
“…That being said, the convictions she stands by are luxuries born of generations of relative ease. The Kwmbwrw heartlands are peaceful, prosperous and wealthy. The frontiers where the Hunters raid, on the other hand…” He paused, then turned to the Grandmatriarch. “Are the settlers taken in those raids acceptable losses to you? I don’t wish to put words in your mouth, but I think you would say there is no such thing. So are they simply inevitable and unavoidable?”
He turned back to the room.
“People have the morals and ethics they can afford,” he said. “When the horizon darkens with murderous enemies and when your own brothers and sisters turn on you, well… the currency of high-minded idealism will devalue in the face of simple, brutal survival. It was not so long ago that the Hunters ordered all of your people to throw itinerant human abductees out the airlock or face slaughter… and many of your people obeyed. Including many Kwmbwrw.”
He turned back to the Great Houses delegation and shook his head. “Kill, or be killed. The oldest and most desperate choice. That is what it boils down to: Kill, or be killed. The Gao, and the Allied nations of Earth, choose to kill. You can either come with us, or…”
He let the sentence hang unfinished in the air.
Shwmwrwyn had had enough. She stood, eliciting a surprised look from the Grandmatriarchs and Sartori alike. Daar just pant-grinned and drank a little water.
“…Will the President give way?” she asked.
“I will.”
Shwmwrwyn shot a glance at her superiors, then stepped forward. Like Henenwgwyr she stood up bipedally as she turned to face them. “With respect to the Grandmatriarch Henenwgwyr, the Great Father is guilty of nothing I myself have not done,” she said. “It is standard operating procedure among the Marches fleets to bombard a raided station if we know we cannot liberate it. We deem it preferable to deny the Hunters their prize, and spare our people the horror that awaits them if they should be taken. That policy has been in place since before I was born.”
She turned to Sartori. “You are right. Our leadership have the luxury of distance and elevation. They have a long-view perspective that neither yourself nor the Great Father are afforded. Things are not so… immediate for them. I have seen otherwise. I have seen the new ship designs the Hunters use, and the reckless desperation behind their actions.”
She turned back to the Grandmatriarchs. “Those are surely the signs of a beaten foe, if we only have the will to push,” she said. “And I for one urge you to push. Whatever our feelings on the Great Father and his actions may be, the Hunters are surely worse! He does not have to be perfect to be better than them! Surely a flawed person is better than a perfect monster?!”
She turned to face the Great Father last, and hesitated. “…I apologize. You are the avatar and embodiment of your species, I know this. Any criticism I make of you is a criticism of your entire people, so I have just called the whole Gaoian race flawed. But I think it is quite clear that my own are just as imperfect.”
The Great Father duck-nodded in what seemed an amiable fashion. “Ain’t nothin’ wrong with criticism, s’long as it’s from a position o’ respect. An’ I do respect ‘yer people. Mebbe, more’n I’ve let on. I’ll hafta find a way o’ expressin’ my true regards on that matter one day. But now ain’t the time ‘fer ego-strokin.’ Remember what I am: I am more than the embodiment of the Gao. I am the manifestation of their will. My purpose is to obliterate anythin’ an’ everythin’ that imperils my people. It is why I exist, an’ why I was called to duty. It’s what I am sworn, bound, consecrated, an’ reborn ‘ta be. An’ I won’t ever be otherwise.”
Shwmwrwyn bowed slightly in acknowledgement, then turned back to her delegation. “…The Fleet Matriarch of the Marches would have us stand with him, Grandmatriarchs,” she said. “Let the monsters be our priority, not the will of a species who ought to be our friends. I return the floor to the President of the United States, with my thanks.”
Sartori gave Shwmwrwyn a grateful nod as she sat down. She knew she’d almost certainly just committed career suicide, but she was past the point of caring at this point. She had done her part for her people, and there was a certain feeling of lifted weight now that the course they set was no longer going to be in her hands.
In any case, Sartori’s return to the middle of the room was punctuated by a sussuruss of conversation among the other delegations, in many languages. The emaciated, traumatized-looking Guvnurag in particular were having an animated conversation in a dazzling variety of hues, most in the reds and oranges. The Great Father was watching them with particular interest for some reason.
“Well then. Thank you, Fleet Matriarch,” Sartori said, and the conversation fell silent again. “I think the time has come, Grandmatriarchs, for your final decision. This defence meeting will proceed, at least until I am told otherwise by our gracious hosts—” he nodded to the Rauwryhr representatives. “—So the question for you is, will you remain and be part of it? Or will you stand aside?”
He put his hands behind his back, and waited.
Henenwgwyr gave Shwmwrwyn a cold, displeased look, and then the Grandmatriarchs formed a huddle that very much excluded her. It lasted a long time, and sounded quite heated to Shwmwrwyn’s ears.
When it finally broke up…
Shwmwrwyn could hardly believe it. She could tell instantly that Henewgwyr had lost. That was an event to rock Kwmbwrw politics to its core.
Nevertheless, Henenwgwyr took it with dignity. She took a deep breath, stood, and stepped forward one last time.
“…The Kwmbwrw Grand Houses will remain,” she said.
And with that, the defence conference began in earnest.