Date Point: 17y2w AV
Asteroid belt, liberated system, former Hunter space
Brigadier General Rylee Jackson
When Hunters didn’t want to fight, they were about as slippery as a bar of soap in the bathtub. When they did want to fight, they threw everything they had into it. No middle ground. It was dismayingly sensible of them.
Not that Rylee had expected this to be trivial. Or quick. They were crawling their way around a twenty-five AU circumference, thoroughly checking every asteroid. There were more than two million in this belt that came in at a kilometer or larger. Gaoian drone and sensor tech was making the process doable but that didn’t mean it was fast, or anything but tedious.
Pilot fatigue was a danger. And those always seemed to be the moments when the Hunters would appear. They had an instinct for it, or just had Murphy on their side.
Still. There had never yet been an engagement between deathworlders and Hunters where the humans and Gao hadn’t flown the pants off the Hunters. Their swarmships hadn’t changed much, in that they were still designed primarily to intercept freighters and capital ships, latch on and dig through the hulls. They were incredibly nimble and fast by the standards of transports… but against a dedicated air-and-space superiority fighter, they may as well have been heavily armed U-Haul vans.
It was hard to tell whether the Firebird or the Voidripper was more effective against them. Firebirds could accelerate much harder along their main thrust axis, but Voidrippers were far more nimble in three dimensions, being pretty much equally as good at +X, +Y and +Z acceleration.
The Gaoian ships were perfectly designed for space combat. They were more or less useless in an atmosphere, where acceleration and the “bite” of a flight control surface mattered. The benefits of priorities, and no need for air superiority in their own territory…
Together, the two designs of fighter formed a hammer and anvil. Firebirds could lance straight in and through, leaving shattered scrap metal in their wake and winning every time on sheer kinetic energy. Paired with Voidripper wingmen, they became impossible to catch off-guard.
All of that became a good deal less straightforward whenever an actual broodship or asteroid facility turned up, though. The belt seemed to contain hundreds of them, hidden in low-emissions mode or cloaked.
“This is RACER-FOUR-ONE, contact.”
Rylee kept a sharp eye on her instruments as a new violent clash played out somewhere fifty million kilometers away. If need be, that distance was nothing at all for a Firebird and she could personally lend assistance in fewer than five seconds. If need be.
As she listened to the contact report, the pilot’s cool, unflustered tone belied the severity of what he’d just run into. Three broodships had powered up and were now forming an interlinked shield web around themselves and an asteroid. Racer Four-One had found something important.
USS San Diego’s comms officer had a fittingly deep, resonant voice. “San Diego en route.”
In Rylee’s HUD, the San Diego and the Gene Roddenberry both blinked forward from the back of the formation, flashing across millions of miles of space to arrive within seconds, alongside their CAP.
Rylee let them work. She had a rock to investigate. It turned out to be a boring pock-marked potato, not yet touched by Hunter industry. Her WSO tagged it as clear, and they moved on.
Minutes later, her attention was drawn to that deep resonant voice again. “PHOENIX-SIX-ACTUAL, San Diego. Got a hardened facility here. GRANDFATHER wants your wing to tidy up and return to staging orbit.”
As a reminder that there was still only the one star on her shoulder, Rylee still had people she answered to, and right now, that included Grandfather Vark. She was in charge of the fighters, but that was just one component of this operation and in this case, that meant her fun was done. “Copy that.”
The staging orbit was back inside the safety of the layered shields around the liberated planet, and specifically at the beacon buoy where HMS Caledonia was waiting, with a HEAT team on board in case they were needed. Which, from the sounds of things, they would be. A hardened facility was any that, by definition, couldn’t reliably be destroyed from the outside even if they nuked it.
So, they’d nuke it from the inside instead.
She kept an ear on the flow of information, directed a few details as they came up. Her thoughts were on the job, of course, but a small part of her was wondering who exactly was on that ship, only five short kilometers away…
She’d met all the HEAT operators, through Owen. Part of her satisfaction at being out here doing this was the chance to get some payback for Blaczynski. If the HEAT were about to get to nuke a base, then they’d be having much the same thoughts.
She especially hoped Owen was leading them. He’d taken it hard.
She let the passing thought go and kept her attention where it needed to be. That facility’s presence stalled the whole operation, on the grounds that they couldn’t leave it intact behind them, and therefore couldn’t advance the sweep until it was destroyed. And they of course couldn’t just leave planes hanging out there in hostile territory standing around not doing anything. That was a sure recipe for disaster. So, over the course of several minutes, she recalled the fighters to staging and then…
Waited.
Space battles were like that. Lots of waiting. The action, when it happened, happened in brief, intense bursts. For the moment, the battle was with shields and titanic forces a person could scarcely comprehend. Eventually, the San Diego and Gene Roddenberry would crack those shields wide open, and when they did…
“Caledonia, San Diego. You’re clear to jump and deliver.”
Caledonia promptly vanished with that characteristically anticlimactic blink of pure black, taking the handful of fighters and drones that made up her escort with her. Rylee checked her mission clock, made a note of the time, and listened intently to the command channel.
Shortly thereafter, she grinned inside her mask as the tactical network kindly informed her of a distant nuclear detonation, twenty light minutes away. A few seconds after that, Owen Powell’s distinctive round Yorkshire accent delivered a terse report that still managed to carry a freight of vindictive satisfaction.
“GRANDFATHER, STAINLESS. Mission successful.”
Rylee didn’t know if it was new tactics, unprepared Hunters, or simply a less dangerous situation, but from the moment Caledonia jumped out to the moment the nuke went off had taken a mere eight minutes and forty-three seconds. She’d have to congratulate Owen, after this was done. The Hunters wouldn’t have even known what hit them.
“Copy that, STAINLESS. PHOENIX-SIX-ACTUAL, GRANDFATHER. That obstacle is removed, please have your pilots resume their sweep.”
“Roger, GRANDFATHER. Resuming sweep.” Rylee was the last to jump back out to the belt, once all her pilots were away and the extermination was back underway. They’d probably just had a taste of how the rest of the day was going to go, but that was no problem at all as far as Rylee was concerned.
Caledonia jumped back to the staging orbit just before she jumped out. She gave them a fly-by out of respect, then returned to her work. There was still a lot of space to scour clean.
It was good to be back.
Date Point: 17y2w2d AV
Folctha, Cimbrean, the Far Reaches
Ferd Given-Man
It was Ferd’s fourth day of “leave.” A strange idea, but he wasn’t complaining! Lots of time for exploring, and eating well, and training with War-horse and friends… All the things that were best in life!
Especially when he went back to the ‘club’ from the last time he’d been in Folctha, and met the pretty-hair girl again. She ended up feeling even better than Ferd had imagined! They had been spending many nights together like all young and strong people were moved by the gods to do. Very enjoyable nights! She was stronger than she looked, and could last longer than Ferd would have guessed… And when she did need to rest, Ferd was happy to rest too.
Yes. Leave was good.
When he woke, it was still dark outside and the sky-people village was fast asleep. She was asleep too and curled up against him, all softness and good-tasting affection. The only thing he wanted to do (besides fuck again) was wrap himself around her and hug her so tight…
So he did that, and wrapped his tail around her, too. Human women weren’t like the women of his people. There was strength there, he could feel it…but they were so small, and so soft-feeling. Just the meat of his lower leg was bigger around than her hips and the rest of him was even bigger! But she knew how to play as good as anyone, even if it took a long, careful time for them to fit together comfortably. Strange, different…very, very pretty, though…
She stirred awake, gave him the cutest little sleepy smile and ran her hands along the hard lines of his body, appreciating the strength he had to offer. He did the same, squeezing at her wonderfully soft skin with his hands, and then his feet too, and soon…
Well. They played together all the way through the night, and the sun was up and streaming through the window of his ‘apartment’ long before they were done.
Humans were good about balancing Givings and Takings. Everything Ferd and his men did for them was fairly rewarded, mostly in the form of a steady supply of Mun-ee that, Ferd had discovered, was plenty to live on. So, he and the others lived at the top of a brick building that was like a hand of huts stacked on top of each other, and the ‘land-lord’ who owned it told them it was okay to climb up and down the outside wall if they wanted to.
He was very nice! Part of their Giving for the Taking of the room-hut they lived in was that they helped him do work around the place, which was never hard. They dug out a garden, and helped him build a shed out of bricks using a special mud called ‘mortar’ that dried hard like stone. Neat! Ferd learned how to use a level, how to use a square, how to read a ‘blueprint’ (which wasn’t actually blue) and measure things with a ‘tape measure’ like he’d seen Vemik use sometimes…
And he got to spend a lot of time with the pretty-hair girl!
Her name was a tongue-twister. Amaryllis. Am-are-rill-liss. It didn’t fit Ferd’s mouth at all, and came out more like “Amawiwish,” but she didn’t mind, and had told him to use “Amy” instead. Even so, he always thought about her hair first, so…pretty-hair.
He, Nomuk, Tumik, and Genn were staying in Folctha for now and lived in the ‘apartment’ when they weren’t back on their own world. Their days had fallen into a pleasant routine. Explore, train, learn, and do it all again, every day until their next mission was ready. They didn’t have any strong game to hunt on this other-world, but exploring the trails around the village was still fun, and some of the things were surprisingly tricky to catch. ‘Squirrel’ might have barely been a snack, but they were very tasty, and the bones were crunchy, too!
That exploring was just him and his men, though. His Human friends were back on Earth-world, most likely having young-man fun, and for various reasons that Ferd didn’t quite understand, he couldn’t come explore with them. Aww! Tooko was off too, wooing an apparently very pretty woman of his sky-tribe. Good for him!
That wasn’t to say they were completely alone. Ferd and his men had some success with the women when they went back; his men were big and strong and good-looking after all, and Ferd was all of those things even for a Given-Man. But they didn’t do well enough as far as he was concerned. Until he founded a tribe of his own, he’d have to constantly prove his worth to every pretty girl every time he felt the itch to fuck. Which, being a Given-Man…
Hmm!
He was just a man, after all. And she was just a woman. Who were they to deny the gods? But they couldn’t fuck all day long; she slapped his chest and shook her head.
“Oh, no. No. I’ve had enough. And I have work!”
The light from outside meant it was definitely well into the day…what time was it?
Ferd reluctantly glanced up at the big wall-clock she’d got him. Humans followed the tick of their machines more than the rise and fall of the sun, and Amy worked the “late shift.” She had to get ready. He had to go do some promised chores for the land-lord, and also help a very nice old woman living in the apartment across from his who had an old couch she didn’t want anymore and said he and his men could have it, if they wanted.
And he had to go meet his Human-friends at the terminal a finger before the sun went down, too. So reluctantly, he stood up and busied himself cleaning the apartment while Amy showered; Humans liked their homes uncluttered and clean-tasting, so he pulled the sheet-cloth off his ‘futon’ and piled it up next to the ‘washer’ machine thing, picked up things and put them away, opened the windows and the tall glass slide-door to get some fresh air. It was nice out today!
Then he made food. He was particularly fond of scrambled eggs and Yan had recommended he try putting ‘ham’ and ‘cheese’ in them. Tasty! They ate quickly, he gave her one last quick kiss, and a gentle bite on her neck as a promise of things to come…
Alone, now. His men had gone back to People-world last night to go make merry. He hadn’t followed this time, because someone had to stay behind in case there was a mission that came up, and Daar Stone-Back always said a good man led his men from the front. Strong words, those. Besides, Ferd had Amy, so it wasn’t like he felt too lonely. And sometimes Singer visited too! She loved Vemik very much so Ferd hadn’t chased after her too hard, but she had twitched her tail at him, and Vemik had snarled at him in a friendly challenge, so maybe they could have fun together!
He did chores. The couch didn’t fit through the door except if he turned it a very weird way, but it wasn’t heavy at all so mostly, it was like one of those fun puzzle-toys Professor had given him, where you had to pull the two things apart without breaking them. She gave him a kiss on the cheek as thanks, he went to go give mun-ee for more food, did some other things…
It was nearly sunset when he reported in at the “base,” with its metal fences and serious guards. The base had its own jump array, built underground near the HEAT’s training room and barracks. Wild, Frasier, Rees, Tooko and Coombes were already there, and Coombes’ grim face told Ferd that fun times were over, for now.
“Mission?” Ferd asked him.
“Yup.” Coombes nodded. “Hope you enjoyed leave.”
“Easy to get fat and lazy having so much fun.”
Coombes chuckled. “Y’ain’t wrong. Your guys should be comin’ through any second–”
There was the feeling of a heavy thump through the floor, and Wild laughed. “Good timing.”
Ferd hooted appreciatively, and stepped out of the way for the door to open. The air around Nomuk, Tumik, and Genn tasted of home as they shouldered the doors open and bounced through, slamming straight into Ferd in a coordinated tackle.
Ferd had learned some good tricks from Jooyun and his friends, though. The Given-Man spun on his left foot, turning their tackling motion into a hard bodyslam. Still. There were three of them…
…So it took him a few breaths to win. He pinned them all, using his hands for Nomuk, his tail for Tumik, and his feet for Genn. He’d be fucked if someone else decided to play, but that was okay. The humans were happy to watch and laugh, and Tooko wasn’t big enough to count. In fact, he carefully got out of the way.
Wild let them have their fun just long enough for Ferd to finish pinning his three friends, then delivered a hefty kick to Ferd’s rump. “Oi! Mind on the job, mate.”
The humans liked to tease him for his great big rump, but that was okay. Wild couldn’t really hurt him without a weapon, so Ferd would get his revenge later. When nobody was watching, maybe…
For now he let go, stood up, and helped his men to stand as well.
“Nearly got me that time!”
“Sure,” Wild said. “Come on, we’ve got work.”
They were shown to a gray room with bright lights that hurt Ferd’s eyes a bit, and small tables with sturdy steel chairs. He and his men knew by now to avoid most chairs, but these were the ones the big humans used. Anything that Yan or War-Horse or Daar Stone-Back could sit on was probably safe…
Still… he propped his tail under him just to be sure.
Coombes took a spot at the front of the room and placed the things he was carrying on the table there. “We’ve got coordinates for another Hierarchy relay,” he said. “This one’s a fair bit further from Earth than the first one, but if the nerds at Mrwrki are right then its coverage includes both Gao and Akyawentuo…”
He tapped on his tablet, and an image Ferd had seen before filled the wall behind him. Humans called it the Gal-axee. All the stars in the sky and many, many, many more besides, twisted around like a dust devil, or water swirling down a hole. Four points on it were highlighted: Earth, Cimbrean, Gao and home, scattered across the bottom quarter of the map.
“For the sake of our monkey friends… nobody ever really gets just how big all this is. So when I tell you the target is about here—” he tapped the tablet again and a new marker appeared “I want you to understand, this is a long way from civilization, even thought it might look like it’s somewhere in the middle. For Tooko’s benefit, the nearest spacelane is Green-Oval-twelve-forty-four-twenty-three, here.” a thin green line snaked across the map.
Tooko made a harsh noise in the back of his throat. “That’s a long haul. Where’s the nearest layover station?”
“This degaussing facility, here. ‘Next To The Endless’ From there, your target world is more than a month away at SBD’s cruising speed.”
Despite what Coombes said, the scale of what he was looking at suddenly landed on Ferd’s head. He’d seen how fast the ship was over land, and Tooko told him that in space it was one of the fastest ships anywhere. A whole hand of weeks to travel that short distance on the map?
He shivered a little. That wasn’t going to be fun. They’d probably spend time in stay-sis again. All of them, because the humans ate a lot of food, too.
Coombes gave the team a sympathetic look. “This is why we pay you gents the big bucks,” he said. “You’re gonna be a long way from anywhere. Anyway. Mission is to identify the precise location of the relay on the planet’s surface and engineer its destruction. We expect Big Hotel have tightened security around these things. You’ll be fully loaded-out with full weapons stores and long-term supplies. That means we’ll need to re-fam you with some of the nastier toys, re-test on ship procedures…”
Ferd grunted. “That will take some days, yes?”
Coombes nodded at him. “Yup. During which time you four are getting Warhorse’s personal attention.” Ferd growled happily at that while Coombes considered his notes. “…Obviously, how you go about executing this mission is going to have to be your call when you get there. You’ll be operating far outside of our territory, on an uncharted and unknown planet with no way of predicting exactly what conditions are going to be like on the ground. But shit like that is why JETS exists, and you’ve done it before.”
“Better be fuckin’ Christmas on the supplies, then…” Frasier commented. Ferd wasn’t sure what that meant, but Coombes chuckled and passed around a set of notes.
“Don’t worry. You’re gonna be loaded for bear. We’ll pack you to the gills with everything you need. That there’s your mission schedule. Any other questions?”
Feed reached for his copy of the mission file. He was pretty good at reading now and didn’t see many words he would need to ask about. “Maybe, we read first, think of question then.”
“Fair. I’ma go grab a coffee while you read, we’ll do the Q&A when I’m back.” Coombes left them to read.
Ferd’s thoughts were on one important fact: this thing threatened his home and his people. The sky-magic involved was more than he yet understood, but that part was clear and simple… and he remembered the bad days, of fleeing over the mountains, of all the empty burned villages, and the great flash and thunder of the Hierarchy’s “nook.”
The Big Enemy was hiding, but not gone. And Ferd Given-Man wouldn’t let them live. That was the only way to balance what they had done, and tried to do: Take everything they had until there was nothing left.
Life was good for him now… but it was good only because he was doing good. Putting the world right, one mission at a time. The Hunters, the Big Enemy, and whatever other terrible things might lurk out among the stars were his responsibility now.
And that, he took seriously.
Date Point: 17y2w3d AV
The White House, Washington DC, USA, Earth
President Beau Chambliss
Herculean efforts had gone into completely turning the White House over for Beau’s Presidency. He’d seen Sartori’s Oval Office, with its green curtains and space photos, but had never set foot in it. By the time he first walked through the door, his specifications had been followed, the place had been entirely redecorated and even the stationery was in place.
The Resolute desk had been swapped out for the Theodore Roosevelt, the curtains were a rich blue, the floor was polished wood parquet, the space photos had been replaced with oil paintings of some of America’s iconic city skylines and several family pictures…
A new office for a new president. A fresh start. A reset button, an opportunity to re-assess policies and direction.
It wasn’t without continuity, though. Traditions abounded, law was supreme. The President was not sovereign; American sovereignty flowed from the people through the Constitution.
But one of the first orders of business in the opening weeks of the new year was meeting somebody for whom the opposite was true. A living, walking, breathing sovereign who had to duck and turn sideways to fit through the door, and who seemed to strain the very space he inhabited, both metaphorically and literally; the sturdy floors creaked loudly under his feet.
Supposedly he could smell lies. If so, he’d certainly be able to smell trepidation, which was a hard emotion to quell in light of how serious and important the day’s conversation was going to be.
Daar was all friendliness, though. He spared Beau the infamous crushing bear-hugs, and instead seemed genuinely happy to meet a new face.
And he came bearing gifts.
“Congratulations on ‘yer victory, Mister President! Here’s a small gift ‘fer you from me, an’ a less small gift from the Clans o’ the Gao to the people o’ the United States!”
The small gift was a simple stoneware vase bearing a handsome arrangement of alien flowers. Recalling his conversation with Naydra at the ball, Beau accepted it. “One of your creations? I understand flower arranging is one of your hobbies.”
“Yeah. Kinda against type I guess…” Daar pant-grinned. “But a man’s gotta ‘member what the point o’ all of it is, yijao?”
“…Sorry?”
“Ah! Yi an’ jao are the Gaori words ‘fer yes and no. It means, uh…sorta both ‘y’know’ and ‘do we understand each other’ at the same time.”
“Actually, I think I have heard it before…” Chambliss recalled. “My grandchildren use it, I think.”
“Prob’ly! It’s kinda fascinatin’ how much our cultures’re cross-pollinatin’ these days.” Daar turned and gestured to his personal assistant. “Anyhoo. That less small gift.”
The gift was presented in a wooden and glass display case, about the length of a man’s forearm, with a large and sturdy key. Inside, resting on the polished wood, was a slender spearhead. It wasn’t any kind of a complex ornate shape, but it wasn’t unadorned either: the metal had been engraved with Gaori text.
“That there is from the spear that won Great Father Fyu his final victory at Wi Kao, an’ ended up makin’ him a Great Father in th’ first place. The poem he inscribed on it is a lament ‘fer more peaceful times…it’s a love poem, actually.”
“To Mother Tiritya?”
“Her, yes. An’ the Females. An’ the Gao as a whole, too. Tricky wordplay there, way better’n I’ve ever managed…I’ll leave it ‘fer you ‘ta translate, if ‘ya want.”
Beau regarded the artifact with a combination of awe and trepidation. “This seems like it would be a treasure of your people.”
“It is. I ain’t giftin’ it lightly, Mister President. Consider it a gesture o’ trust an’ esteem. President Sartori’s expressed a sort o’ grudging respect o’ you, y’know.”
Beau smiled and gestured to the couches, wondering whether or not that spearhead had a place in this office, or…
Well. No. It did. He couldn’t avoid that much. Like it or not, the Gao could not and would not be ignored, and Daar’s gift was not the sort of thing to be displayed out in the corridor. Daar knew it, too. There was nothing subtle about a gift of that magnitude.
Well, then. The best approach was to be unsubtle with him, too.
“You’re making a powerful statement here,” Beau told him as they sat. “And a blunt one. Ever since I won the election, I’ve been… pressured, let’s say, with a pretty strong message. You clearly don’t like my campaign promises.”
“That ain’t the concern, Mister President. I ain’t gonna begrudge ‘yer people rebuildin’. Balls, that’s been what consumes almost all my attention, most days. What I can’t permit though, is ‘fer any more Gao t’fill Hunter bellies.”
“You have the resources of a whole planet to achieve that. I have the resources of one nation. A nation with friends and allies, maybe, but most of t he Earth—” Chambliss waved a hand toward the window. “Isn’t on board, and probably won’t ever be. Meanwhile we have people out there working longer than full time hours and still not holding it together. We have a large and growing underclass in this country of people who just don’t have the same opportunities as everyone else. My first responsibility is to the people I represent, and the war that Sartori fought alongside you is quite literally taking food out of mouths.”
“There’s a bunch’a people who’d disagree with that assessment, but I ain’t gonna wrap m’self up in ‘yer politics. I don’ think that’d be appropriate.”
“Thank you. But you see my point. Don’t get me wrong: the Hunters are monsters and the Hierarchy are evil. But I made promises I intend to keep.”
“I ain’t askin’ ‘ya ‘ta be a liar, Mister President. I’d never ask that, of anybody. What I am askin’ is that you not forget that some’a the best people I ever knew died fightin’ ‘ta end both those evils, an’ that you think good an’ hard before you do anything that might waste their sacrifice. Because this ain’t won, not by a long shot, an’ the consequences o’ not winnin’ it when we can could be civilization-endangering.”
Beau looked up as his personal assistant brought in some coffee and fruit for them. “Is your concern with the war effort, or is it specifically with the HEAT?”
“Ain’t no difference ‘tween the two. They’re the only folks that can fight this war.”
“And you consider yourself one of them.”
“‘Cuz I hafta be. Ain’t many who can do what we do.”
“You appreciate of course that America has been budgeting that program in its entirety. An oddity, considering that the only two officers in the HEAT are a Brit and a Canadian.”
“Yeah, kinda the consequence o’ ‘yer size an’ power. Most o’ the SOR is American, of course…but if what ‘yer lookin’ for is a better cost-sharin’ I’m sure we can arrange something.”
Well, at least there was no need to delicately work around to that point. And it spoke volumes that Daar had made the offer so readily and casually. “You really care about them, don’t you?”
Daar’s duck-nod was emphatic. “Yeah. Part o’ that is why I fight with ‘em. Shouldn’t ask somebody ‘ta do somethin’ y’ain’t willin’ ‘ta do ‘yerself, if ‘ya can.”
“…I can respect that,” Beau admitted. “And a more… even-handed… distribution of the costs would allow me to keep my campaign promises…”
Daar gave him what could only be as an uncomfortable look. “‘Ya sure ‘bout that? I ain’t a human, an’ I ain’t American, but it seems ‘ta me that ‘cutting military spending’ means a whole lot more’n money-things ‘fer a whole lotta people…”
Chambliss sighed and stood up to take a slow stroll around the room. “I’m not a peace-at-any-price pacifist, no matter what my detractors may say. I’m not naive enough to believe that Earth is safe yet, and I’m not callous enough to abandon a whole galaxy full of sapient beings to being eaten, enslaved and slaughtered, but I do believe we got the balance wrong and committed more than we can afford. I simply cannot justify feeding a handful of supermen when our basic social safety nets are in tatters and the nation’s infrastructure is in dire need of some investment.”
He sighed and rested his hands on the back of the couch to look Daar in the eye. “So when I said I would cut military spending, I meant exactly that and nothing more, and if there are people out there who thought I was using code for something else, that’s their problem and I’ll handle them. Here and now, all I’m concerned about is that I keep the promise I made. I’d prefer to do it with your help.”
Daar made a grumbling noise in his chest, but if Beau remembered his reading on Gaori expressions and body language then the set of his ears and jaw meant grudging respect.
“That puts some’a my fears at ease,” he admitted.
“I’m glad, because I do want to have a good working relationship with you.” Beau said, and sat down. “Though, I’ll be honest. You frighten me. You’ve done terrible things. Not without reason, I’m sure. Had I been in your position… I don’t know what I would have done.”
Daar gave him what could only be interpreted as a sympathetic look. “Mister President…I think ‘yer ‘bout to learn some things ‘bout ‘yerself in this job that you ain’t ever know’d. I know I sure as fuck did. Jus’ promise me ‘ya won’t ferget, yijao?”
“…We understand each other.”
“Good.” Daar stood up from his position on the floor and rose to his full colossal height. “There’s a lotta things I’d be willin’ ‘ta do ‘ta keep SOR runnin’, includin’ joint treaties, alla that. If I gotta pick up the tab, I can prol’ly do that personally. Now I ain’t jus’ offerin’ a free ride here…but I think we unnerstand each other.”
“I’m glad. We’ll leave the negotiations to our experts, shall we?”
“Ha!” The Great Father made a noise that surely must have been a chitter, except it was several octaves too low and would have shaken the windows if they weren’t armored. “Champion Sheeyo’s been lookin’ ‘ta sharpen his claws on someone! Figuratively speakin’ of course.”
“And I know a few people who’ve been looking for a challenge to sink their teeth into. Also figuratively.” Beau offered his hand, and received a firm but restrained paw in return. “Ours will be an… interesting… relationship, I think. My compliments and regards to the Great Mother.”
“An’ mine ‘ta the First Lady. ‘Yer lucky to have her, Mister President.”
Beau chuckled. “Yes, and the same to you. Until next time.”
Daar duck-nodded, and took his leave. Beau had a moment to himself alone in the office, and he spent it celebrating, a good old-fashioned fist pump and private “yesss!!”
Who said a president couldn’t have his cake and eat it?
Date Point: 17y2w3d AV
London, United Kingdom, Earth
Daar, Great Father of the Gao
Who said a Great Father couldn’t have his cake and eat it?
Travel from D.C. to London was, well…a lot less interestin’ than Daar had hoped. He’d really wanted ‘ta take one o’ those nifty C-17 cargo planes—an actual airfoil!—but sadly, that would have been ostentatious in a way he couldn’t bear. Not when there was a perfectly functional jump link. Folks were literally commuting between the two cities on foot, nowadays.
He did get to galumph his way down toward the Jump Array, though! He’d been cooped up being all civilized an’ shit all day, so a chance to really stretch his legs—and maybe put a teensy bit of fear into the chase driver’s heart, when he had to floor it to keep up—was a temptation way too fun to resist.
London was very different to Washington. It was warmer, for a start. Rather than being knee-deep in snow, the British capitol was just slick and silvery under low clouds and a thin, light rain. Anywhere else, it woulda been dreary, but somehow it worked. As Daar’s motorcade slipped through the city, past landmarks that were older than all but a precious few buildings on Gao, he couldn’t help but reflect sadly on all the history he’d personally had to destroy to save the Gao themselves.
Still. That sad thought aside, his day was goin’ damn well. Not many world leaders came trotting up to 10 Downing Street, prol’ly, but Daar did so with his tail high and a renewed spring in his step. After the mission on that array, the most depressin’ thought he’d had to deal with had been what would happen to the HEAT. Now, that problem looked to be fixed and the SOR’s future secure, so long as Chambliss didn’t actively—to use a local phrase—take the piss.
Future Presidents prob’ly wouldn’t like the new arrangements, but that was okay. Daar knew a good firesale when he saw one.
Prime Minister Stephen Davies met him at the famous black front door, where there was a brief bit of stand-and-smile for the cameras while they shook hands–Daar discreetly sat back on his haunches, so as not to totally dwarf the poor man in his own country.
Inside, the conversation was warm.
“So. How did it go?” Davies asked
“Naydi is weapons grade charming,” Daar rumbled fondly. “Poor man din’t stand a chance.”
“Buttered him up nicely, did she?”
“Well, I mean…she convinced me ‘ta buck over a thousand years o’ tradition an’ bond wit’ her, so this ain’t her first rodeo!”
“Thank you for the warning.” Davies chuckled softly. “Tea?”
“…I really should warn ‘ya, I’m one o’ those Gao who’s super sensitive ‘ta caffeine…”
“We should have some decaf around here somewhere…” Davies glanced at one of his assistants, a man in a quiet suit, who nodded.
“Then yes, please.” He wasn’t really a tea drinker, but he did enjoy an occasional cup.
“Well, you’re ahead of the news from Washington,” Davies said as the arrangements were made.
“Marvels o’ the modern world, that. ‘Yer people inventin’ the jump array’s prob’ly the most impactful thing that’ll happen to th’ galaxy in our lifetimes, ‘sides mebbe killin’ the Hierarchy.”
“I doubt we can really claim credit. It was an idea that would have come along long before we did if the Hierarchy hadn’t suppressed it.”
“Balls, sure ‘ya can! You ain’t achievin’ no less just ‘cuz you don’t know who mighta come before.”
“True enough I suppose…” Davies looked up as his assistant returned and tea… happened. The funny thing was, Daar could tell that there was a certain amount of ceremony involved in how it was made here, but unconscious ceremony. The room stopped for it.
Aliens were weird. Humans especially. But the biscuits were crunchy! And frankly, crunchy snacks were one of the easiest ways to Daar’s heart.
“Anyway. News from Washington,” he said, plucking a few more off the plate. The flavor was subtle, but he kinda liked that. So many things on Earth were kinda heavy-handed in their scent and taste. This, though…just butter, flour, and sugar, but not overpowering so. “…Local butter? It….really slightly smells kinda like the general aroma of the isle, I think?”
“I honestly have no idea,” Davies admitted, with just the faintest hint of polite impatience.
“Sarry. Business. News!” Daar regretfully put the biscuit down for the moment. “Chambliss ain’t worried about the SOR still existin’ so long as he can take a smaller military budget ‘ta Congress an’ say ‘Look! I keep my promises!’ He couldn’t care less if the money comes from somewhere else, so…I offered ‘ta foot some o’ the bill.”
“That’s…devious. Are you sure you can afford that? The SOR costs more than most nation’s entire armed forces.”
Daar duck-nodded. “I got the means.” He didn’t feel any need to go into detail.
“So Chambliss just sold you the SOR…” Davies mused.
“Not sold so much as agreed ‘ta let me fund a big part o’ the operations. I’m sure there’ll be treaties an’ all sortsa dung we gotta work through, but…”
Davies sipped his tea. “Still. AEC up until this point has been the America-and-Friends club, because most of the funding was American. Whoever controls the purse strings has power. I’m surprised he’d let go of those strings so readily. Goodness knows, the Royal Navy Space Service only exists thanks to American money. If we funded it all by ourselves, we’d have nothing left over to maintain conventional military or our nuclear deterrent.”
“Ayup. An’ he either don’t realize that, which means he really ain’t ready ‘ta lead at this level, or he does and in that case, he shouldn’t be callin’ th’ shots ‘fer somethin’ like the SOR anyway. Meanwhile, I’m rich as fuck an’ I know what a valuable resource they are, so…”
“You do understand this could put my nation in a complicated position.”
“Yeah. I ain’t lookin’ ‘ta mess up relations wif’ my most closest allies, yijao? Right now, all I care ‘bout is securin’ a fuckin’ irreplaceable asset against uncertainty. I mean, balls! Maybe Chambliss is a stand-up guy under it all! But I don’t know. An’ as far as I can tell, nobody does, ‘cuz he’s a populist that came outta nowhere.”
“Oh, that’s been the story of this century so far.” Davies sat back in his tall-backed leather chair and drummed his fingers thoughtfully on the armrest. “To be frank, the SOR, the Space Service and all the rest of it still have their role to play here on Earth. The HEAT in particular are effectively a nuclear deterrent themselves. When men like them could drop on your roof from orbit, neutralize your nation’s leadership in an instant, and then retreat through an array before any possible retaliation could arrive… Suffice it to say, we—and I mean the Allied nations, not just Britain—cannot afford for them to be unavailable for operations here on Earth. They’ve done a lot of good simply by existing. Those treaties you mentioned would have to reflect that need.”
Daar duck-nodded. It was a moot point that no AEC asset had ever been deployed in any of Earth’s perpetual smouldering regional wars. The whole point of a deterrent was you hoped like hell you never had to actually use it.
“Like I said. I ain’t lookin’ ‘ta hurt our relationship,” he reassured. “This ain’t a free ride, an’ I’m gonna want some assurances ‘fer bankrollin’ them…”
“Naturally.”
“So the question is, is America gonna keep supportin’ the Space Service, or are you gonna hafta look elsewhere?”
Davies sighed. “Well, either way our ability to maintain it is dependent on the generosity of an allied power,” he said. “But I don’t intend to impose on your generosity, and I don’t know whether it’s entirely wise to let Chambliss duck too far out of his responsibility to this fight. America still needs to contribute, and it needs to contribute more than just talented young personnel.”
“Yeah. But I got a good sniff o’ the new President. I think he’s a good man. He’s just…prob’ly gotta learn some things, s’all. This may jus’ be buyin’ enough time ‘fer him ‘ta learn it.”
“…That, if I may say so, is a remarkable endorsement.”
“Well, this good-lookin’ muzzle o’ mine is ‘fer more’n bein’ pretty, y’know…”
Davies had a sort of one-beat chuckle that temporarily lifted the worry-lines off his face. “Goodness knows, we all learn this job the hard way,” he said. “I imagine you had similar concerns about me, when I first showed up.”
“I was real careful not ‘ta break ‘yer hand…” Daar threw in a friendly lil’ snarl, just to keep Davies on his toes. “‘Course, I was just Champion then. An’ a lowly sergeant unner Powell’s command. So technic’ly unner ‘yers at the time, too!”
Davies chuckled at that. “How times change. Well, I know this was just a flying visit. You’re at Sandringham this evening, I believe.”
“Yup. Goin’ pheasant shootin’ in the morning, too.”
“Then I won’t keep you. But thanks for dropping in. It’s been good to get your opinion on the man across the pond.”
They shook hands again, and within a minute Daar was back in his motorcade and slipping through the twilit streets on his way to the airport and a day or two of being entertained by the King, which was the longest stop on his rapid-fire tour of Earth to meet with the Allied leadership and a few other nations. He was especially lookin’ forward to Thailand.
Naydra met him on the concrete at the airport. She didn’t say anything, just gave him an affectionate nip on the ear before they boarded the private flight up to Scotland.
It wasn’t a vacation. Not really. He was here for work and business. But it felt kinda like one, and he realized just how badly he’d needed it as he settled down on the plane’s cozy floor and prepared to fly in a real aerofoil vehicle for the first time in longer than he could remember.
He suppressed a brief stab of guilt at enjoying himself at all. He’d be useless to everybody if he drove himself into a dark prison of the mind. Taking care of himself was an important part of the job. He was a generally high-spirited and positive kind o’ ‘Back, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t find himself in even darker moods. He didn’t have stone-breaking claws for nothin.’
Just bein’ around his Naydi was enough to make him happy, though. Especially seein’ as it was close quarters on-board. More time for snuggles!
Careful snuggles, though. Daar was always careful with his Naydi.
“You’ve had a good day,” she commented as they settled in and the plane taxied for takeoff.
“Yeah.”
“Good.” She scritched his ears. “Did you get what you wanted?”
“After a fashion, I guess. Looks like my bank accounts’re gonna be whole bunch lighter!”
“That will please Sheeyo, I imagine.”
“Oh, he’s gonna be delighted.”
“And you?”
“The SOR’s prob’ly gonna be secure. That’s all that matters. No SOR, no winnin’ the war.”
She duck-nodded and kept scritching, which was unfair. She knew it always made him sleepy. But tellin’ her to stop just wasn’t gonna happen…
Weeks of stress fell away, like a heavy load he could finally put down after movin’ it. There’d be more to pick up an’ move later, but right now there was just a chance to relax, and Daar knew how to take those when they came along.
He relaxed into Naydi’s side and dozed off before the wheels even left the runway.