Zakabara Prime-Second Border

One of the key principles to survival in space as a human military ship was to remain undetected.

Unfortunately for Commandant Laurent, one of the key principles for deterrence is that you have to let the other side know that you're still there. Once in a while. Just to make sure they don't try anything too stupid.

Today, their target of intimidation was a lightly armed Zakabaran destroyer stationed right at the established midpoint line between Prime and Second. The goal is to paint them as a target on radar, get close, say hi to their radio operator to let them know they were still there, and then get back into stealth as fast as possible.

"We're coming up behind him, two hundred klicks," said Martin, her experienced pilot, "should we announce ourselves?"

Laurent took a deep breath, then nodded, "attention, crew: battle stations!"

There were only four other people in her highly automated destroyer, but it was still a good habit to remain disciplined and official in battle.

She felt her ears pop and the unpleasant telltale signs of decompression as they drained the atmosphere out of the crew compartment into compressed reserves.

The ship became much quieter, eclipsed by the sound of her breathing. Then, the acceleration kicked in as the ship fired the main thrusters to make itself a more difficult target in case they were shot at.

"Switching on active radar."

"We've detected a ship on radar!" shouted the nervous pilot of a Zakabaran Prime ship.

"It must be the human invaders! Where are they? Find out where they are!"

He scanned around on the radar screen, but he didn't see any ships, until…

"HOSTILE SHIP TO OUR REAR! Turn and face it!" the commander ordered.

"I have it in our sights, commander!"

"What are you waiting for?! Shoot them!"

"VAMPIRE! VAMPIRE! VAMPIRE!" shouted Martin, "missile launch detected from target ship! One hundred fifty klicks! Thirty-two seconds to intercept! Defending!"

Laurent felt the ship shift vector and her blood chill. She had only faced this situation in simulators and practice before. It's one thing to chase down pirates from out of their range, and something else entirely to have a target that could shoot back. Then, reverting to the calm of her training, she queried, "can we go dark?"

"Negative. We're getting painted by active radar," Martin replied, looking at his instruments, "and we don't have anything to hide behind them. Recommend we launch active kill countermeasures and maneuver between them and Second."

"Do it. Launch all four."

At her command, four small, agile missiles dropped away from the maneuvering ship, raced towards the incoming triangle on the tactical map for a precious ten seconds, and then…

"Splash! The first one got it," Martin breathed a sigh of relief.

Then, after a second, as he put the background radiation of Second behind them, "we've gone dark. I'm detonating the remaining countermeasures to prevent capture. Should we lock them with Fox Threes?"

"No. They were probably just spooked," Laurent replied as she recalled the specifics from her orders, "let's avoid an interstellar war today if we can."

"Understood."

"Hm, those missiles," Martin said after a while, "so they can do that now."

A team of engineers on Zakabara Prime looked intently at the slow motion telescopic silent footage of the human ship firing four missiles, one of which appeared to successfully engage and destroy the outgoing friendly missile.

"Hm, those missiles," the lead engineer said after a while, "so they can do that now."

Olgix

After the fall of the Berlin Wall in the 1990s, McDonald's opened a franchise at the heart of the West's former foe. They planted the symbol of capitalism about one mile from Red Square in Moscow. Lines stretched around the block for months.

Some highly optimistic political commentators started to believe in a rosy view of the future of human conflict. They proposed a tongue-in-cheek observation they called the McDonald's Theory of Peace: no two countries with McDonald's had nor will they ever fight a war against each other.

The theory explains that McDonald's only enters and succeeds in markets where countries are stable and a large middle class is present. These countries tended not to fight against each other.

Several counterexamples have been given. One prominent one is the rocky relationship between Pakistan and India, both of which had franchises of the fast food chain in their countries during numerous border skirmishes and limited wars.

In any case, at least one thing McDonald's has never been known to do on Earth was to start a conflict.

City of Lights Spaceport, Olgix

The newly constructed concrete and steel building at the outskirts of the spaceport was the first of its kind, a monument to the fusion of human engineering and Olg laborers.

Olgix had been sending its skilled laborers to Earth for a few years now. Some of those worked in construction in humanity's many new projects during the economic boom, and they were trained to work with human materials, logistics, and project management. When some of them returned to their homeworld, the central Olg government lavished them with credits and put them to work on new construction projects that tested their newly acquired skills.

It not only had the basic utilities that the first offworld fast food restaurant on Gakrek did, it even boasted several new features. Central heating and cooling, fireproof insulation, and even several large windows that featured prominently in modern human architecture.

It was a thing of beauty, and for Olgs, a point of pride. It represented the alien ideal that one day, they too might be able to develop their economies to resemble Earth's prosperity.

Not to be outdone, the Gak refugee community nearby contracted a similar construction project. After all, they were the descendants of some of the richest and most skilled craftsbeings that were sent from Gakrek millennia ago. They solicited donations from their homeworld. Gaks, eager to impress the galaxy, sent money and expertise via their new traders.

Their construction site was nearing completion when McDonald's came surveying sites for its first Olgix expansion.

This competition for franchise sites led to some ugly fights and debate in the Olgix political sphere. Ethnic resentments that had been buried by the humans years ago were resurfacing.

Today, it was another Gak protest in front of the Olg spaceport building. It started out peacefully. Then, some Gaks started throwing rotten fruit and tree branches at the government soldiers guarding it. Luckily for everyone involved, they decided to request help instead of taking matters into their own hands.

The humans were called in. The Olgs requested a riot control squad from Constellar. Reese and his team responded.

"This has been declared an illegal gathering," Reese yelled into the bullhorn, "please calmly return to your homes. We do not wish to use force."

The crowd groused and shouted insults, but ultimately, they complied. The humans' weapons and big armored vehicles were scary, sure, but the human faces were what really convinced them to calm down. After all, everyone knew the humans were the good guys, even if they were protecting the Olgs here.

The mob left.

Then, a small band of Gaks returned two nights later, and smashed every window of the new building.

"My human friends, we can't let the sneaky Gaks get away with this!" Reeptar begged. She was the local administrator of the spaceport, which made her the local representative of the Olgix government.

Reese couldn't help but feel sympathy for her. The windows would be costly to replace. And it was so hard to say no to her, when she was giving him the puppy wolf eyes. But he said, "Reeptar, we've been over this. We will do our best to look for the culprits and bring them to justice, but we're not gonna just go and help you get some revenge on innocent random Gaks that probably don't have anything to do with this!"

"How much would it cost to get you to change your mind?" she asked.

Even before the introduction of credits, bribery was a common theme on Olgix. Here Reeptar was hoping that the only reason Reese and his team hadn't gone out to shoot up a Gak school was she hadn't offered them enough credits.

"No, that's not it," Reese put on a kind, patient smile, "think about it, Reeptar. If we go and destroy something of theirs, they'll come back tomorrow and do it right back to you. What if they come back with one of their bombs?"

"They won't!" she declared, "because then we'll just kill more of them."

Reese tried his hardest not to roll his eyes. "That hasn't stopped them in the past, and you know it. It's not worth it to take that risk, is it?"

She whined, and she pleaded. In the end, her irrational love for her precious building trumped her irrational hatred of the Gaks. He managed to extract a promise from her not to do anything stupid.

XBC Studios, Earth

"Welcome to Good Morning Galaxy. We have several good programs for you today, my fellow aliens," Zurim read on the teleprompter, "and our first guest today is one teddy bear from Gakrek. The famous Gubarak, Ambassador for the Gaks at the Galactic Union for four years! Everyone, give a hearty welcome to Gubarak!"

"Thank you for coming on. How are you doing this morning, Ambassador?" Zurim asked.

"Oh, good. So good. I had some sushi right before I came here, and I'm still feeling its buoying effects," he replied earnestly.

The studio audience gave that a little chuckle. Gaks on Earth eating sushi for breakfast was a common meme.

"Sushi for breakfast?" Zurim mocked outrage as he completed the joke, "now I wish I'd gone into government service instead of broadcasting."

Cue some more laughter. The audience knew that Zurim was one of the richest Zeepils in the galaxy. He could get sushi any time.

"Speaking of food, ambassador," Zurim turned serious, "how is the harvest on Gakrek looking this year?"

"Amazing," Gubarak got down to business. This was his bread and butter. "Gakrek's agricultural industry continues to industrialize, and we expect our food production to grow to forty times its size as it had when we first met humanity."

"Wow, really! Forty times?! That's fantastic news, really fantastic."

Gubarak's entire job here was to advertise his planet as an attractive destination for investors, so he got to it. "And our service industry is growing. Our spaceport at Gophor? It recently opened its third business! A noodle shop this time. I highly recommend it if you ever visit!"

"Gophor, eh?" Zurim asked, "is that the one with the first McDonald's-"

"The very one," Gubarak beamed. Time to drop some names. "I visited Ms. Rey Crawley when all these shops opened, and she said she expected dozens of similar restaurants to pop up in Gophor within two years!"

"Wow. Speaking of McDonald's, what do you think about this little expansion they got going on Olgix?"

"Our community on Olgix is filled with skilled and talented workers," Gubarak replied, looking straight into the TV camera, "and we expect that we will have no problems getting McDonald's to pick our location as a first franchise instead of the spaceport, which we all know is in a rather unstable location. Last I heard, a band of criminals stormed their building at night and broke all their windows. If they can't even take care of their own security…"

City of Lights Spaceport, Olgix

"And so you had your soldiers sneak in and destroy their interior scaffolding?!" Reese asked as if he couldn't believe she'd done this. The problem was, he had no problems actually believing it. She was as vindictive as she was deceitful.

In this case though, she didn't even bother lying.

"Yup. It wasn't that hard. There wasn't anyone at the Gak community center because they all went home for the weekend," Reeptar replied gleefully. "My pack just cut them down with a saw they left lying around. Just as a little warning to them."

"Now you're gonna need to beef up security at your own restaurant, and it's a never-ending escalation that'll cost you more money! I thought we went over this!" Reese felt like punting her through the door.

"That was before their ambassador went on Zurim to insult our building," she replied smugly, "and look who has security issues now!"

"Okay, we're going to fix this," Reese calmed down and decided, "you're going to go to the Gaks and apologize. Say you made a mistake. And then pay to fix their scaffolding."

"What? No!" Reeptar was appalled. Why were humans always so annoying? It was just some cheap wooden platform. "That defeats the point of destroying them in the first place."

Sensing no way to reason her out of it, he went for threats. "Reeptar, you're going to do as I say, or I'm going to call Constellar headquarters and recommend that we pull out of here. And then maybe we go over to the Gaks and ask them whether they need some security services."

"You can't do that! We have a contract!" she almost started crying. The idea of her limited number of soldiers facing down the inevitable mob of local Gaks that would come at her if Reese and his men left was honestly frightening to her.

"Our contract specifically states that you have to do as we ask in terms of security concerns. This is one of those. Now, go be a good neighbor and offer to fix what you broke."

Reeptar reluctantly did as Reese asked. She went over, apologized to the manager of the Gak community center, and offered to pay expenses for replacing the scaffolding they destroyed.

It was humiliating, but at least the Gak didn't rub it in. He graciously accepted the offer for a few credits to fix the damage, and promised they would do their best to help find the criminals that destroyed the Olgs' windows. He didn't want war either.

Gakrek's Avengers Underground Meeting

"They paid for the damages," Gripon reported, "and apologized for it. It sounded sincere to me."

They were meeting at an abandoned warehouse right next to the community center and the new construction building that was shaping up nicely.

Grouchik was not convinced. Many in her family back on Gakrek had died during the famine, and she blamed the Olgs. "They shouldn't have done it in the first place. And Reeptar only did it because that human made her do it."

"That's a good thing," Gripon moderated, "it means they can learn. The humans are having a good influence on them."

"Whatever. We're not stopping what we're doing," Grouchik insisted, "they can't be allowed to get the bid for the franchise. We should really be striking at the spaceport authorities to show that their building isn't safe."

"Don't go out and do anything stupid, Grouchik," he cautioned. "Windows are one thing, but we don't want to be responsible for breaking the truce."

Yeah, yeah, she thought, you only care about your precious peace and your silly building.

Grouchik was sane enough to know that very few creatures wanted war, despite the undercurrent of resentment for each other. With that human leader next to the Olg teaching her how to manage the situation, Grouchik would never get the revenge she wanted.

He must go.

City of Lights Spaceport, Olgix

"Wow, this is all very impressive," Isabella complimented. She was telling the truth too. This was the first offworld chain she'd seen using all the modern building techniques that Earth restaurants took for granted.

"Thank you," Reeptar grinned, "our people are very proud of this construction. You'll have no problems finding new customers among them!"

"I'm sure," Isabella said. Then she glanced over at the workers mounting new glass windows onto the frames. "I heard what happened with the Gaks a few weeks ago. My sympathies for your losses. Are there any new developments in the situation?"

"No," Reeptar replied, "the Gaks can't find the criminals that did this." Then she added petulantly, "or maybe they don't want to."

"Well, we'll certainly consider this deal seriously," Isabella said cautiously, "but we'll have to factor in the insurance costs and everything. And we're here to look at alternate sites as well. After all, we want to make sure our first launch here goes smoothly."

City of Lights Gak Community Center, Olgix

"This is fantastic!" Isabella praised.

It was getting hard to tell which site was better. They had similarly modern specifications. The Gak site was cheaper, but the spaceport site would have some more foot traffic from the flights, even if they will get less business from the locals.

"Yes, Gaks worked very hard on this," Gripon replied with a large smile. "This is a way better site to open a restaurant than the ugly spaceport, and we have good security."

"That is one thing we are concerned about," Isabella added, "security. If there's another attack here on Olgix, it could wipe out several months to years of profits on a single day."

"Of course, of course," Gripon assured, "we've come to an agreement with Reeptar and the spaceport authorities. We both only want the best for our people."

Isabella wasn't sure what exactly this meant, so she was still skeptical.

Seeing her expression, Gripon added, "and we're in negotiations with the Olgs so they can visit the community center too. That will surely add to the number of customers you will get every day!"

"Honestly, both lots are equally good. My intuition says whichever we pick is going to be wildly successful," Isabella reported to her manager. "The Olg site could be a slightly more lucrative deal at 140,000 a month. Or we could go for the lower risk 30,000 for the Gak site."

"That is pretty hard to decide," he said, "what about the security situation?"

"It seems… in flux," she replied, "they both assured me that there was nothing untoward happening, and they have a deal. But there's always the risk that the one we don't pick is gonna renege on it and decide to take it out on our store."

"That's not ideal."

"Yeah, but the risk can't be that great, right? The insurance company thinks that the threat of conflict on Olgix is overrated," she frowned, "which is weird of them considering they never give up an opportunity to overcharge us."

Her manager chuckled, "they've been overrating too many threats offworld, and the regulatory agencies are coming down on them hard. They're just using this as an opportunity to lower their apparent margins. We probably shouldn't trust those ratings too much."

"Alright, what do I tell Olgix?" Isabela asked, waiting for a final decision.

"You said it was 140,000 and 30,000, right?" he asked.

"Right, that's what we got them down to," she said, "either of them will still probably be making a chunk of profit off it almost right away."

"We can double down. The prices aren't that much for a first expansion onto a new planet. Can you go ask them whether they'd agree to do both sites and give us a discount?"

"Both sites?" she asked. "Isn't that a bit redundant?"

"From what I can tell, it appears that the Gak site is gonna be majority Gak customers, and the Olg site will be mostly traders and Olgs, so the overlap seems minimal. Besides, not to play politics here, but the security benefit of both sides not shooting at each other's store is gotta be worth something here."

"Sure, I'll ask them. The least they can do is say no."

City of Lights Spaceport, Olgix

Isabella asked them both to meet her at the hangar where she was storing her ship. Technically, this was not neutral territory, being on the spaceport. But these two species were just going to have to learn to ignore those kinds of symbolic concerns if they were going into business.

"What?!" they both exclaimed simultaneously when she made them the offer. She wanted both spaces for 5,000 a month less than they were asking, so she was essentially asking them both to give up some profits so the other could get cut in on the deal.

"Both sites?" Reeptar barked. Her angry wolf-like face looked almost like a husky pup, Isabella thought. "Why are you also putting a franchise on the stupid Gak site?"

"But the whole point of us making a bid was so the Olgs don't get it!" Gripon complained.

Isabella sighed. This was going to be a hard sell. The unfortunate reality was that one of the reasons that both these creatures wanted to be picked over the other was simple ethnic pride. Given that they were almost willing to burn each other down a few weeks ago, it was probably an even bigger sticking point than the discount.

Which is why it was even more important that she got both sites, or she got none. If there was a loser here, there would be no winners. This was some kind of convoluted variation of a prisoner's dilemma, she thought.

Heading off the argument, she said firmly, "we've decided that both of your sites are wonderful. We'd only rent either one if we also got the other."

Reeptar challenged, "if you put a restaurant on both our sites, they would steal customers away from each other."

That's an apt description of the problem, Isabella thought. These aliens were definitely not stupid. Just irrational. "Yes, we've thought of that as well. We think that the cannibalism would be minimal, and there is a big enough market in the City of Lights to support both."

"We are willing to go down to 25,000 under some conditions," Gripon cautioned, "but my people will not like that we're doing it so the Olgs get their restaurant too."

"It's not like we're thrilled that you guys get to leech off our people," Reeptar snapped back at him, "you Gaks already have your own McDonald's restaurants back on your homeworld, and you still want to come here and steal ours!"

"Look, guys!" Isabella stopped them before this devolved into an uglier argument. "You will both make a significant profit off this deal. Your people will get new jobs and new customers. And your economies will both grow tremendously, like other planets and communities have!

"Besides, aren't you both tired of throwing good credits down the drain for a rivalry that we all know leads nowhere good for either of you? Talk amongst yourselves and come back to me when you decide to be adults."

Second & Main Street Intersection, City of Lights

Grouchik laid prone on the second-story balcony as she watched the convoy coming down the street. It was some sales representative from Earth who was visiting the spaceport. She was personally more interested in the man in the lead vehicle, the one who kept ruining all her plans.

She didn't get approval from Gripon for an attack like this. When she told a Zakabaran trader from some faraway planet her problem, the trader had come back a few days later with a few bags of explosives and a remote detonator. The trader even gave her a big discount, which was weirdly generous of him, but she didn't question it.

Grouchik had waited until it was dark to dig a small hole in the street and hide the bags. Given the poor state of the roads, she reasonably assumed that it wouldn't be found.

She fingered the detonator and thought of her dead family as the humans drove right up to where she'd place it.

Death to the Olgs and their collaborators, Grouchik thought.

She triggered the detonator.

Humanity had been fighting industrial-scale warfare for as long as they had industry. The mass production of most of the goods involved in the manufacturing of an improvised explosive device were cheaply available on Earth.

Constellar mercenaries, many of whom had gotten their start with combat roles in the sandbox against experienced practitioners of guerilla warfare, were intimately familiar with these devices.

That's why there was a Duke Counter-IED Electronic Warfare jammer mounted on every single one of their armored cars.

Reese's heart skipped a beat as the module made a loud "bzzzt" sound to indicate that someone had attempted to detonate a device near their vehicle.

"We've got movement, three o'clock, second-floor balcony," the remote gunner called out as he swiveled his turret in that direction.

Another bzzzt. He made a split second decision, and called into the radio, "driver! Get us and the VIP out of here! Echo squad, go check out that building!"

Grouchik was confused when the explosive didn't go off. She pressed the trigger again. Still nothing.

The bird must have sold me a bad device! Too bad. I'll have to go get another one and try for another time, she thought as she got back up into the building.

As she started packing her equipment, she heard boots thundering up the stairs. Grabbing her rifle, she aimed it at the door fearfully.

Something smashed the door open. Grouchik readied herself for a last stand, waiting to light up the collaborators coming through the door any moment now. I'll get at least one or two of them, she thought. Not as good as getting their leader, but she wasn't going to die with regret.

Then her ears experienced the loudest bang she'd ever heard in her life, and the brightness of ten thousand suns exploded into her vision.

Painfully deafened and blinded, Grouchik screamed and covered her eyes, dropping her weapon. She felt herself being tackled into the ground by something heavy and lost consciousness.

Outside Galactic Union Headquarters

"Ambassador Gubarak, can you comment on the three-way deal your people have agreed to with the Olgs in the City of Lights?"

"Did you have a hand in crafting what pundits are now calling Fast Food Diplomacy?"

A crowd of reporters had swarmed him as he left the building, all shoving their microphones and cameras into his face.

"Ahem. I have a statement."

"The fates of the people of Olgix and Gakrek have been tied for as long as our species have seen each other across the stars. Last night's three-way deal with the City of Lights Spaceport and McDonald's is simply a recognition of that reality. Our communities on Olgix are grateful for the opportunity to show the galaxy our growing skills and hospitality. While we believe that of the two franchises, ours will see bigger profits, this deal is in the best interests of both our peoples."

He continued. "Furthermore, Ambassador Luperca and I have agreed to gradually begin the process of opening up Gak communities on Olgix to their people. As long as their intentions are peaceful, we are not opposed on principle to welcome them into our businesses and even our families…"

Galactic Union HQ

"The missile incident from last night must never happen again," Amanda said strictly to the face of the parrot on her screen, "you were lucky that our ships chose not to shoot back."

"We have a right to defend our space! This is in the charter of your Galactic Union!" Popptaw said indignantly. She hadn't ordered the ships to fire, but she was still going to defend their mistake to the death anyway. "The invasion of the Zakabaran system shows the galaxy what hypocrites your people are!"

"It's your Galactic Union too," Amanda replied, then added, "and our ships were invited by the citizens of Second, which is recognized as a separate planet under our charter."

"They're our people, whether they realize it or not," the parrot insisted, "and we have the right to stop your people from flooding our spaceports with your cheap goods. Haven't you hurt our people enough?"

"Isn't it true that Zakabara Prime has increased its production output and total credits volume every year since humanity's entry to the galaxy?" Amanda asked, trying a different line of persuasion.

"Our people are working hard! We've invested heavily into developing our economy so we can compete with everyone else!" Popptaw said, apparently not getting the actual point, "we intend to get our fair share of the pie!"

This was going nowhere, Amanda realized, with a species, or maybe just its headstrong leader, that can't see the interaction between sentient beings as anything more than a fixed sum game designed to extract as many resources out of others as efficiently as possible.

"Popptaw, you are getting your fair share. We've allowed you to close down the spaceports on your planet despite the sensible experts' recommendation not to, but that doesn't mean Second has to. This is your final warning: we will not allow you to subjugate the people of another plane-"

"OUR planets!" Popptaw looked like her eyes were going to bulge out of their sockets, and chirped angrily, "we will decide what to do with our own people! You can't bully us out of our cultural heritage! And other species will not stand for it either, human, you can't fight all of us at once no matter how many credits you have in your account!"

Hanging up, Amanda saw the work of years, the dreams of a united and peaceful galaxy, teetering in the balance because of one lunatic leader's inability to see sense.

She picked up the phone. "Get me Senator Hawthorne again."