Jodi Harrington

Location: The Golden City of Luck, Happiness, Prosperity, and Servitude, Hegemony of Peace and Tranquility of Sapient Beings

Jodi tried to ignore the vibration in her pocket as her encrypted PAD pinged for the second time. She’d had to excuse herself from a negotiation about potential trading rights with a high-ranking Stormbreaker to receive word that the SRRT team was seeking permission for an orbital strike. Not a big one, but one that would certainly be picked up by the Hegemony species present.

It put her on the spot. She had to make a policy decision that would be adhered to for a long time. What happens when citizens of the Commonwealth get in trouble with the Hegemony? The diplomat who’d been taken by what the Stormbreakers called the Tuschimi species, and what her own people called Squids, had not done anything wrong. That made her decision making process a little easier. The Commonwealth hadn’t done anything wrong. The Squids had started this. Her security detail was just ending it. She approved the strike package and returned to her previous conversation.

Now her PAD was pinging again, and she was in another high-level discussion. This time it was with an entirely new diplomat from a previously unknown species. Like most other species the diplomat was taller than humans, about three meters, but unlike others, he didn’t look like he would crumble under Earth’s gravity.

The species seemed to have some natural type of armor plating, which gave it a rough appearance of the extinct Earth-rhino. The alien’s skin was covered in barbs and spikes that looked deadly. It was a quadruped, but all four lower limbs jutted out from the torso, which gave it a much more humanoid look than a rhino. A ring of eyes covered its head so it could see in all directions at once, and the fleshy area of its neck, and vulnerable head, could be sucked back into the more heavily armored portion of its torso like a turtle.

The data dump she’d received when she arrived in the hangar bay had basic data on all the species within the Hegemony, and the turtle-rhinos were an interesting one. Despite their formidable appearance, the species was non-violent by nature. All of their physiological features had evolved from being the prey on their home planet. Only their continued defensive evolution and the application of highly developed brains had kept them from extinction. When their natural predators couldn’t keep pace with their defensive evolution they had to fall back on more inferior food sources that eventually made them extinct.

The turtle-rhino’s historical experience as prey had greatly influence their psychology, and had driven them to become one of the Hegemony’s premier providers of weaponry. Their golden egg was a system defense system that would shred the entire Commonwealth Fleet without breaking a sweat, but there was no way the Commonwealth could afford it. Instead Jodi was busy discussing what she knew the Commonwealth could purchase and quickly apply to their existing ships to stave off aggressors like the Blockies and Windsor’s.

That was when her PAD started pinging, and she wished she’d undergone the IOR procedure before setting sail. In delicate conversations with previously unknown species it helped if her pocket wasn’t vibrating every second; especially when the species she was conversing with had sensitive senses due to being hunted for most of their existence.

The turtle-rhino’s head dipped into its protective shell when it felt the vibrations through the air.

“I apologize.” At least the Stormbreakers had fitted her with a Hegemony translator programmed with all its member species’ languages.

The Turtle-Rhino replied that it was not irritating. Jodi wouldn’t call herself an expert on reading turtle-rhino body language, but the species hadn’t evolved a good way to lie. It was clear he was agitated, and that didn’t bode well for the arms deal she was trying to arrange. Thankfully, their host came to her rescue.

The Stormbreaker talked to the Turtle-Rhino about the human’s lack of knowledge about their kind, which came off mildly insulting to humanity, but it continued with an old story about the Turtle-Rhino’s own first contact with the Hegemony. Apparently, the delegation of Turtle-Rhinos had spent the entire conference with their heads in their shells and been biologically unable to come out and talk with the other Hegemony species.

The Turtle-Rhino huffed in what was either laughter or indignation, but either way it calmed down, and even dropped its price on the arms Jodi was requesting.

“Thank you,” she said to the Stormbreaker whose alien name meant Meaningful Thought in English standard.

{It is for the good of all, human Jodi, for the Hegemony of Sapient Beings to be strong. Even the Urg understand that.} Meaningful Thought relayed as the storm at the center of his being flickered with lightening.

“The Hegemony is very impressive,” Jodi complimented. It was an understatement. The Hegemony was a behemoth of economic, political, social and military might that the Commonwealth would need millennia to catch up with. She was just glad that, in terms of galactic real estate, the Commonwealth was in a backwater area. If it had been prime territory, Jodi had no reservations that some Hegemony species would have showed up with a Battle Fleet instead of a trade ship.

{How did your soldiers conduct themselves on the surface?} The Stormbreakers weren’t big on easing into a topic, but the statement still caught Jodi by surprise.

It shouldn’t have, but her slight hesitation would have told a human about her unease. She wasn’t sure if Meaningful Thought picked up on that. Still, there wasn’t any reason to lie to the alien. It probably had more detail on it than she did.

Jodi pulled out her PAD and checked her messages. They showed the mission had been accomplished. The diplomat was in shock, but relatively unharmed. One of the SRRT soldiers was injured in the fighting, but everyone had come back alive. The biggest failure was equipment related. All of the teams V4 LACS had been rendered useless and they had to destroy them on the surface of the planet.

“They conducted themselves bravely, and accomplished their mission.” Jodi replied proudly.

It had been a mantra of hers for decades.

{As we assumed they would.} Meaningful Thought replied with a fresh wave of electricity within his body that looked a lot like happiness.

“You knew all this time?” Jodi felt things slip into place.

{Yes.} The alien answered simply. {I believe you humans call it a test.}

“What were you testing?”

Meaningful Thought’s statement told her how the Squids were able to kidnap a human diplomat off the Golden City in the first place. They’d been allowed to.

{The aptitude of your species when confronted with a problem. All new species are given a similar test crafted to create a reaction. You behaved as I believed humans would. You identified the problem, developed a solution, and executed the plan. You decided to do it yourself and not ask for our assistance. That level of independence is rare when a species is confronted with the realization that they are not only not alone in the universe, but that they are also technologically and militarily inferior. Most just come to us for assistance. The Urg did so in their test. } Without body language to go by, Jodi didn’t know if this conversation was a good or bad thing. She was going to ask Meaningful Thought about it, but he was already floating away to get some more food.

As far as she could tell, the Stormbreakers ate by some form of osmosis. Items were absorbed through their membrane, attacked by some of the alien’s many tendrils, and even shocked with lightening before being drawn in and absorbed by the central cloud of the alien’s being.

It was all very strange, and Jodi felt herself wanting the company of humans. She wasn’t a xenophobe by any means, but being around stuff so strange made people want to grasp the familiar. The gathering was only supposed to go on for another hour, and then she could return to Argo to check the conditions of her staff member and the injured soldier.

she found the Turtle-Rhino, or Urg as Meaningful Thought called them, and asked for a few addendums to their deal.

***

Mark “Coop” Cooper

Location: Argo, The Golden City of Luck, Happiness, Prosperity, and Servitude, Hegemony of Peace and Tranquility of Sapient Beings

“So I come through the door and BAM!” Coop slapped his hand on the table loud enough for his diplomat audience to jump. “I see him.”

The two women were much older than him, and probably not interested in the way Coop was, but at least he could tell an entertaining story to endear them to him; especially when it involved saving their boss’ life.

“Now remember, the Squids have got him,” Coop placed his arms down at the side of the chair like he was tied up against his will, “and they’re basically having their way with him.” Coop brought his fist up to his mouth but then stopped.

“Hey, Eve, you can fit your whole fist in your mouth. How about you show these lovely ladies what the Squids were doing to our diplomatic friend.”

“Go fuck yourself, Cooper,” Eve didn’t even open her eyes from where she was lying on her bunk. She just gave him the one-finger salute.

Coop waved her off and looked back at the two women; apparently, they didn’t think this was as funny as he did. He wasn’t going to get anything from them anyway.

“Attention on deck!” The SGM saved Coop’s floundering by walking in before LCDR Gold and the Minister. Coop thought the Minister looked a little frazzled around the edges, but she had just ordered an orbital strike against a friendly group of super-aliens.

“At ease,” the LCDR let the room relax as he studied them. Everyone from the SRRT was there except for Sullivan who was in sick bay getting his leg patched up. “I want to congratulate you all on a job well done. You all are being credited as the first group to go into combat against an alien aggressor. Remember and be proud that you accomplished your mission.” The LCDR gave them all a nod and stepped back so the Minister could address them.

“I want you all to know this was a test from the Hegemony.” Her words caught Coop, and clearly others, by surprise. “They let our man get taken by the Squids to see what we would do. I didn’t get a good read on their reaction, but they might have been proud of us.” Coop thought that was a good thing, but judging by the Minister’s face it wasn’t. “Taking the initiative by violence is not something we want the Hegemony to see as a good thing. What if someone decides to take that same initiative against us?”

Coop kept the thought to himself.

“You did well, but I want you to remain vigilant for the rest of the conference. There is no telling what the Hegemony will throw at us next.” The Minister looked like she wanted to say more, but Aiko sprinted into the room with a frazzled look on her face.

Coop hadn’t seen her frazzled many times before, even when her evil ex was trying to kill them after their fuckfest. Something was definitely wrong.

“QE from New Washington with immediate recall orders,” she relayed as she glanced around the room. Her eyes slid over Coop like everyone else, but he thought they lingered just for a second. Like she was glad he was still alive.

“Damn it,” the Minister left abruptly leaving the SRRT and her diplomats with more questions than answers.

“So,” Coop turned to the two female diplomats. “If we’ve got some time on the ride back maybe I can show you what the Squids were doing to your boss personally.” He didn’t even dodge the slap because it would end up hurting their hands more than his face.

He turned to Eve and shrugged while she laughed at him.

{How about you?} he sent over the IOR.

Eve just rolled her eyes and turned over on her cot, which ironically, gave Coop a great view of her ass.

he walked over to try and woo her some more. The shitstorm of this security detail would be totally worth it if he got to bone Eve Berg again.