Chantelle sat on a chair in the middle of her office, all the furnishings except for the chair had been folded back into the wall and floors and the pure white room with a single orange band circling the middle was clear and empty.
To anyone but Chantelle that was, to the eyes of the blue and white Avali her view of the world was augmented by the ever present virtual reality augment goggles she wore. So for her the empty white room was filled with data, charts, news, notes and minutes from the meeting as well as recordings of the various parties and social events Seinu had been dragged to. They’d been at Homestead for a week now and so far things were still a tangled mess. Scanning through the latest batch of data from the disastrous meeting that happened that morning the blue Avali considered what had happened.
It had seemed like a regular mediation session, Dalant and Seinu were going to meet with F’rarrk and T’lorp for an informal get together. Somehow it had descended into a massive argument, Seinu had arrived with F’rarrk to find Dalant being shouted at by T’lorp. They threw several choice words at Seinu and the “filthy worm” then stormed off in a huff. No one quite seemed to know what T’lorp had been upset about, Dalant said he’d started going on about “keeping him waiting” which was baffling since he’d arrived five minutes before Dalant and Seinu and F’rarrk were not far behind, they’d all been there about five minutes before the scheduled start time.
Chantelle frowned as she considered all the data from that encounter, listening to the recording of everyone's voices whilst reviewing the data Homestead security had made available to her. She paused as something in the scrolling reams of data caught her eye and wriggled her claws to enlarge a log. There was something odd about the background data, she ran it through several scrutineer programs she had, it was tiny, a small discrepancy in elevator logs but it was enough for her to dig deeper. She had a suspicion and set the data aside and called Seinu, her brother was with T’lorp currently, trying to get the Farndosian Embassy to calm down.
“Seinu, sorry to bother you but are you still with the Embassy?”
“I am,” he replied after a few seconds, his icon appearing in her data feed, “T’lorp is very angry, and I am still struggling to work out why.”
“I thought so, ask him what time he arrived for me, then ask to see whatever pad or device he received with the meeting invitation on it.”
“I guess I can try, he’s not really in a very good mood,” Seinu said, sounding doubtful.
“I know but be charming, that is your job, let me know when you have it.”
Chantelle ended the call and turned back to reviewing some other logs, it helped that the twins and Firi were wearing armour everywhere they went. Their suits had some of the best scanners and sensors on them. Even if they couldn’t give her live updates she got a lot of data whenever they came back to the Odyssey. Humming quietly she started to spin data trails through the air around her. Everything was pretty much normal but a pattern started to emerge, the non-sentient AI that ran her Virtual system started to flag items for her review.
Chantelle sat up and frowned, pulling the data blocks out of the air, lining them up one by one and then gasping as her brain connected the dots she sat up and hit an icon on the pack-channel, “Firi where are you?”
“Hmm I am in the drone maintenance bay why?” she sounded grumpy, “I am doing maintenance on my boys.”
“Leave the wyvern drones and get up here,” Chantelle said, “Who is guarding Seinu?”
“Er Cal is with him, he’s with the Embassy, why?”
“Ok good, get up here,” She cut the call and sent an encrypted call to Cal’s armour and ordered it to send her a data dump of all its sensor data. It would blip on Homestead’s security net, everyone would see the vampire bunnies armour sending a big packet of data back to the Odyssey but everyone expected them to spy on everyone else. She loaded Cal’s current data into her analytical matrix, it scoured all the sensor readings from the moment Seinu left their shuttle to that current moment and it spat up one more data-point to add to her results, “Fuck…”
Chantelle closed down the rest of the analytical matrix and called Cri, “Cri, be a dear and go join Cal, escort Seinu back to the Odyssey as soon as he is finished with the Farndosian Embassy.”
“Is there a problem?” the bunny asked, sounding so serious as usual.
Chantelle smiled and let herself relax, the twins wouldn’t let anything happen to Seinu on his way back, she knew she could trust them, “Maybe, get him back here as soon as possible, be wary of anyone trying anything funny.”
Cri signed off and Chantelle stared at the blocks of data surrounding her, she broadened her exploration of data, pulling up information that was unrelated in every way to the negotiations. Most of it was public data from Homestead’s computer systems, scan data from the Odyssey since they arrived in orbit as well as a few discrete taps into the Cultarvian security network and information the Illuminate’s spy network and trade informants had forwarded to them. So far Chantelle had been focussing on the negotiations, the S’grael and the Farndosian this time she started looking for anything weird or out of place in the every-day operation on Homestead. She’d just finished setting up the data-work and issuing instructions to her VR system when the door opened and Firi walked in.
Her sister was wearing what she liked to call her “comfy work clothes” which essentially amounted to a sleek, moulded, nanite infused ship-suit. The dark grey material bisected by an orange stripe that followed the contours of her feather banding. Over this she had pads strapped onto her knees and elbows and her wing-feathers pinned back under a couple of bands to keep them out of the way. Chantelle thought it was a very unflattering outfit, she detested the ship suits and would only ever wear one when she had to, they made her hips and lower half look chunky and large. Still she appreciated how it must have made crawling around machinery and doing mechanic work more comfortable.
“So why have you dragged me up here?” Firi asked as she shut the door behind her, “I was busy doing maintenance on my armour.”
“Someone is planning to assassinate Seinu, it’s why I called you up here,” Chantelle said as she ordered the material analysis to appear in the real world, not just her virtual vision. Firi to her credit switched from annoyed sister to serious professional mode, which was something most people would never credit Firi as being capable of doing. Despite her fun loving, whacky, gun-nut personality she took the safety of the pack very seriously.
“Show me,” she said as she moved over to join Chantelle, “Where is he now?”
“He is with the Farndosian Embassy, Cri is going to join Cal and bring him back here, but here we have last week's sensor readings from your armour and the twins.”
Chantelle reached out to turn the first cube, displaying a chemical formula and a report including time, date and where in the station it happened. “Over the past week Seinu has come into contact with all of these substances, small amounts, barely registering on your sensors, on their own they don’t mean much, we come into contact with chemicals and substances all day long from cleaning solutions to debris and dust in the air.”
Chantelle swiped left and opened another cube, “But all of those substances are inimical to slime based creatures, someone is slowly exposing Seinu to different toxins and solutions that would be damaging to slime based lifeforms, someone who knows about his unique “Avali Augment” is trying to determine what his slime is weak to.”
Firi frowned, “That isn’t good,” she glanced her eyes across the array of chemical recordings, “This pattern doesn’t match a Sleriki though? They wouldn’t be weak to any of these.”
“No,” Chantelle said, “But if whoever is doing this thinks his body is some sort of nanite based Avali slime suspension they would start with these,” she pointed, “They are starting to change tack here toward the end of the week, yesterday they are starting to test organic solvents, again they won’t hurt a Sleriki like our brother but sooner or later they’ll find something that works, someone is trying to work out how to kill him.”
“And via a rather nasty method too,” Firi frowned, her ears twitching for a moment as she read over the data Chantelle had presented to her, she sighed after a moment and nodded, seemingly satisfied about something, “I think we can rule out Negotiator Dalant,”
“How so?” Chantelle asked looking at the images again, “How do you work that out?”
“If it was Dalant he could kill Seinu via any number of accidents, cause a plasma conduit to blow out and fry him, blow a window in a tragic accident, have an elevator plummet to its doom, whoever is planning this can’t circumvent station security.”
“That’s a good point,” Chantelle nodded, “I hadn’t thought of that, but it could still be T’lorp or F’rarrk or one of their people.”
“Well T’lorp is his people, but yes,” Firi shook her head, “Something is very odd about all this but we can’t rule out Dalant’s staff either, Dalant may be capable of doing something fancier but if this is someone on his staff then we need to be extra careful.”
“What do you want to do?”
“For now get Seinu back here and re-spec the forcefield his visor generates,” she tapped her chin, “I will go ask Ki what he has in stock, you tell Selenu, we need to revise his and our security. Remember, if they can’t work out how to strike Seinu they may turn on one of us.”
Chantelle nodded and closed down the images, “Ok, speak to you in a bit sis, lets thwart this fuckers plan.”
Curled up in the primary computer work-shop under a thick, hand-knitted poncho Taran was examining the data-slate Seinu had brought back at Chantelle’s insistence from his meeting with the Farndosian. His workshop was freezing, about -60c to assist in keeping the various half built, disassembled and repaired computer circuits and crystals at a safe and secure temperature.
It was a bit lower then even Avali liked hence the big poncho that Selenu had made for him, it was big and chunky, warm and cosy and made from bright exotic wool, orange, yellow, green and pink. It was vibrant, Cri and Cal called it an eyesore but Taran liked it. It assaulted Chantelle's fashion senses every time she saw it, which made it extra special. The orange and teal feathered Avali was still refusing to grow a fancy long crest she could style; he was quite content with short scruffy feathers.
He glanced up as the outer airlock hissed open then closed so the inner door could swish open. Selenu was standing there, rubbing her hands together and looking around as her tech-specs analysed the room.
“Hi,” Taran chirped, “What brings you down here to my lair?”
“It’s brisk,” she smiled and walked over to flomp down next to him on the beanbag, causing it to shift and roll under them both, “I wanted to see if you’d found anything out?”
“Oh yes,” Taran held up the tablet, “This is a Cultarvian device, pretty standard data-slate like one of ours, they gave it to the Embassy so T’Lorp can be logged into their systems, Farndosian tech doesn’t quite mesh well with Cultarvian.”
“Ok,” Selenu looked at it, “Is there something wrong with it? Chantelle was very cagey about what she was looking for.”
“It is for all intents and purposes a regular, normal data-slate, except it has a over-write in the translator software specifically for Farndosian senses,” he turned the slate around and pointed at something, “The time for this morning's meeting, the one that caused the huge row, if a Farndosian reads this they will see a different time then anyone else.”
Selenu sat up, ears perking, “So they turned up an hour early and were quite rightly furious when everyone else walked in the door?”
“Exactly,” Taran frowned, “It is very sophisticated, but Chantelle saw that the elevator logs had been tampered with, she couldn’t tell what had been changed with her less then legal snooping methods but it was clear someone had been messing with the logs.”
“And angry and upset T’lorp just laid into everyone and kicked off a big argument and no one would stop to think to ask “how long” have you been waiting as time means different things to each species?”
“Pretty much,” Taran frowned at the slate, “It is very, very sophisticated though, to make it output different things to different people, if you or I look at this it’d interface with our translators and show the right time.”
“Does it help us work out who did this?” Selenu asked, “Or at least rule out anyone?”
“It wasn’t the S’grael,” Taran tapped the pad, “Whenever this was done it was done when the tablet was first configured by the Cultarvian and unless the S’grael have suddenly started using Cultarvian agents then it was before F’rarrk got here.”
“Ok thanks bro,” Selenu hugged him and stood up, “I need to go talk to Seinu, see if he can put this all together.”
“I am sure he will,” Taran smiled “He is scarily clever at all this politicking and putting clues together and working out the solutions.”
“He is,” she frowned at the tablet, “But I bet this isn’t going to be a fun or nice solution either. Someone has gone to a lot of effort to set up this deception, it’s going to get messy when we reveal it.”
Taran nodded and handed the tablet over to his sister, “Well we are all here if he needs us, remind slime bro he doesn’t have to do it all alone.”
She smiled, “He knows, even if he tries to keep us out of it, I will remind him again as I must however, or else he will try to fix this without speaking to us.”
“Good!” Taran chirped, “I know what he is like.”
“Fear not, I won’t let him try to fix this himself or it will just go horribly wrong, see you in a bit Taran.”
“The report from the Ng'drakk pack has confirmed what your drone reported,” Ck'akk said, the Director's image on the holoscreen sounded and looked serious, “I’ve reviewed your plan Seinu, it's risky.”
“It is also our best chance of getting out of this with the least amount of civilian deaths,” Seinu replied, “If we push this issue you know what he'll do.”
The Director drummed her claws on the desk in front of her then sighed, “You’re right of course, I've read the data analysis from Chantelle and the cross planning suggestions from Selenu and Firi. I'm glad to see you're not trying to solve this alone.”
Seinu laughed and shrugged, “They didn't give me much choice, they threatened to pull the Odyssey out if I didn't include my family in this plan.”
“That’s why I trust you Seinu, go ahead with your plan, keep me advised and the Ng'drakk are at your disposal, make use of them as needed.”
“Thank you Director, I'll keep you updated,” Seinu replied and the older Avali on the screen nodded and ended the call. The silver avali waved a hand and the screen shut off, he then removed his visor and sat in the darkness. After a moment he left his desk and made his way across the dimly illuminated office to the big window.
The avali left the lights off and stopped being an Avali, he just relaxed out of the feathers, four ears and big eyes adapted for lowlight environments. With just a thought his nanites triggered the cascade needed to allow him to flow like living gel from one form to another, his body reshaping itself, mass being released from the static compression fields that bound it into an Avali shape. It felt nice to let go, Seinu shivered as he felt fur grow out of the outer layer, grey and charcoal covering his purple slime, encasing him in a layer of fuzz that could detect and process sound. He shivered as it spread up over his new muzzle, coated his shoulders and shorter arms. The spray of thick fur that formed his tail felt natural and his large feet wriggled, toes flexing as he finished morphing into his true shape.
Shivering softly as the cold air of the ship bit into his slime, Seinu reached out one hand and picked up the larger necklace Ki and Taran had built for him. He pulled it over his head, pressing the spikes into gooey flesh and sighed in delight as the tech started to warm his body and the world righted itself, his core-cells starting to translate the external heat map of the world that was his vision. The room was mostly a dark shadowy purple with a few points of flickering green to indicate heat from conduits and electrical systems hidden beneath the walls.
He had finished the transition and was now fully a Sleriki, his internal nanites reporting to his mind that the change was complete and they were going back to standard operational parameters. Each nanite generated a tiny field of heat and power to supplement his heated necklace but they were designed to force and push his body into different shapes, with him in Sleriki form the load had been released, they didn’t have as much to do when he was in what his doctor’s had revealed was his “natural” form.
With the change complete Seinu settled back in the beanbag, feet off the floor, small arms resting against his belly he let his thoughts adjust. His view of the world was no longer limited to just what his eyes could see. His body was processing heat from all directions, it was just clearer directly ahead of him where there was mostly the deep dark purple of the window. Seinu had only done this a few times since leaving Avalon and it was still strange and yet at the same time oddly relaxing.
For a time he just sat there quietly, enjoying the quiet, marvelling at the senses this body had. He couldn’t hear as well but he could sense the pressure of the air, his outer “fur” sampling the organic components of dust lingering in the air. It was nothing of the sort of course, it wasn’t hair like on a mammal or human it was his slime, formed and folded and coloured to create an external layer of soft, sensitive cilia that could pick up a range of tactile, olfactory and sound inputs. Most normal Sleriki had an outer layer that matched the colour of their slime or at least was close to it in shade. Seinu should have by all rights have had a layer of colored “fur” like Mekari who worked for MMF and was purple and pink. But his was silver and charcoal except for the translucent, gelatinous fronds that formed his “hair” atop his head. He’d tried experimenting with having a colored outer layer but his nanites didn’t like it, in fact they flat out refused to change his external pigmentation. Somewhere they had decided his outer colour should be silver and charcoal and no amount of tinkering or orders from him or his Doctor pack would change it, Halyu and Halyan called it a post-trauma codification integer lock, essentially the nanites and Sleriki slime had fused something during the rushed job to use it to save his life when he was a kit. When all his nanites were switched off his slime took on a natural yellow tinge to it; the slime used in the procedure had been from a yellow Sleriki but the way the nanites interacted with it created some interesting changes.
It was why he was no longer lime and white like Selenu, people tended to forget they were twins. Wiggling his toes Seinu tilted his head back, the quiet, soft purple haze of the chilly empty room had been disturbed. Two dark green shapes had emerged through a hatch in the floor off to one side. Small, less than 90cm tall, the fur covering their bodies was designed to insulate and keep heat in so the pair of them registered as various shades of green.
“Cri, Cal, why are you sneaking into my office?” Seinu asked, well more clicked and clopped and chirped, the Sleriki lack of vocal cords made speaking an interesting experience. Admittedly having a mouth that had no teeth was a fascinating experience, the tongue was mostly for making sounds as opposed to tasting and he had no throat really, it existed mostly to push things down his throat and into the mass of his gooey body.
“Selenu said you were busy,” Cri said as he scampered over, “And we were not to disturb you but well we wanted to see if you were ok.”
Cal joined his twin brother and then clambered up onto the beanbag to rest his paws on Seinu’s side, “We waited until the system said you were no longer in a call,” he chirped away, “Why are you all huge and slime like?”
“I was relaxing,” Seinu reached down to pet Cal’s head, “This form is relaxing for me, like how you two enjoy being in the dark.”
“Oooh,” Cri clambered up on the other side and pressed his paws against Seinu’s side, the soft gelatinous material divoting inward under the bunnies paws, “Well we are glad we got you alone, but you smell sad.”
“You can smell that?” Seinu laughed and rested a hand on Cri’s head too, “Of course you can, I forget how powerful bunny noses are sometimes.”
“You should turn into one of us,” Cal chirped, “You can relax with us then!”
“Cal,” the other bunny admonished, then turned his head back to stare up at Seinu, “But he’s right, relaxing in the darkness with us would be good for you.”
Seinu chuckled and rubbed his small hand up and down across the bunnies heads, “I would but I sort of wanted to just exist like this for now, besides the boss just agreed to my plan and it's a tricky one.”
“Is it a bad plan?” Cri asked, “Or will bad things happen because of it?”
“If we do it wrong and a war starts then millions of people will die,” he sighed and hugged the bunnies against his soft body, “If we do it right… then maybe just one person dies if they are stupid.”
“Oh,” Cal sighed, “Well I hope we don’t do the one where millions die, that would be a bummer,” he peered up at Seinu, “What exactly is a million?”
Seinu blinked and smiled, rubbing a paw atop Cal’s head, “I guess it is hard to imagine that many people when you have no frame of reference for it, a million is a lot of people.”
“Well,” Cal tilted his head, “I can’t quite imagine that, but lots of people dying is bad,” he said sounding serious, “But sometimes if one person dies you have to make the best of it.”
“Back home we live with death every day,” Cri said, “Sometimes no matter how careful we are the predators take one of us, or one of the little ones doesn’t come back home, sometimes if a predator attacks the foraging party you have to just run, saving everyone else whilst they are distracted.”
Seinu shifted and looked down at Cri, “That… that is very practical but also horrifying.”
“Well not any more,” Cal chirped, “You gave us all the means to fight back, to defend ourselves! We can’t thank you enough for that, but well if you aren’t going to kill someone and it's their own stupidity that gets them killed then you should do the plan that doesn’t kill millions.”
“That’s my hope,” Seinu sighed and let their body sink lower in the beanbag, “It’s not going to be easy though nor fun, to get the good ending we need to be very smart, very clever and pull off a really good con.”
“You got this,” Cri chirped, “And you got us by your side Seinu.”
“Yeah,” Cal chirped firmly, “You got us and we got you!”
“Why do you stay?” Seinu asked softly, brushing back Cri’s head fur, gently scratching the top of his ears, “You really don’t have to, you know? We gave you the stars, staying here and listening to my boring diplomacy may not be right for you, you should be out there, exploring the stars.”
“We are here because Sher asked us to stay here,” Cal said, “To look after you.”
“That’s nonsense,” Seinu shook his head, “Sher is a good friend, a nice bunny but he wouldn’t want you to dedicate your whole lives to that promise, I am quite sure he just meant whilst I was on Babupekkakerok.”
“We want to stay with you,” Cri said, forestalling his brother with a paw on his snout, “We want you, both of us want to be with you.”
Cal squirmed bashfully then piped up, “Cri’s right, we want to stay and be here with you, not just as bodyguards but with you, like you know… going on dates and stuff.”
Seinu sat still for a moment then shook his head, “Boys, that is very flattering but I can't, it’d be wrong, I’d be taking advantage of you, you’re under our protection.”
“Oh shut up,” Cri chirped and thumped the slime with his paws, “That’s an excuse, six months ago maybe yes, but if we are wise and educated enough to leave your employ and venture into the stars we are wise enough to know what we want.”
“Yeah,” Cal said, “I have a piece of paper that says I am an adult, an Avali sanctioned citizen of the stars, so I can pick whoever I want to date and I want it to be you.”
“We both like you,” Cri chirped, “We can smell you like us and are holding back so stop it and just let’s give it a go.”
Seinu shifted and looked from one to the other, focussing his forward heat receptors on them both so they glowed brilliantly, they were both staring up at him, he could see the brilliant colour in them both.
“But, you bunnies mate with…” he started but shut up as Cri thumped him again with his paws.
“Shush, we know what our culture back home dictates we should do, we should both mate with a pretty girl bunny and make eggs, well guess what… we don’t want a pretty bunny, we both want you and we know that’s a thing in alien societies.”
“Yeah,” Cal chirped, “You Avali’s don’t often mate at all, you just have casual sex with friends and when one of you has an egg you hand it off to a nursery.”
“So the universe has lots of different ways to have relationships,” Cal asserted, “And we choose to have a weird bunny and slime relationship with you, if you’ll have us.”
Seinu looked back and forth again then reached out to stroke Cri’s hair back, “Of course I’ll have you both but well I’ve never had a relationship like this before.”
Both of the twins just hugged him, squeezing his soft slime and chirped, “We’ll work it out, step by step, day by day that’s the sensible thing to do,” Cri said, “We’re just happy you stopped fighting us on this!”
“We dropped enough hints,” Cal chirped, “I thought we were doing something wrong at first.”
“I just didn’t want to take advantage or anything,” Seinu said, “Like you came away from your home into space because of us.”
“Well enough about that,” Cri chirped, “We are here, we are together so… what next?”
“How about a date?” Seinu sat up slowly, “I’ll turn back into an Avali, we’ll book a fancy restaurant and go have dinner and then wander around and come back here afterwards and talk?”
“Yes,” both of the twins said together and bounced up onto their feet, “Yes that, we want that.”
“But wait,” Cri said, “No way we can go out to a restaurant,” he wagged a finger at Seinu, “Selenu and Firi made it clear you are only allowed to go on station to go to meetings and then come back.”
Seinu frowned, “True, but if we organise it ahead of time, with Firi and the station security services we can probably sort something out. It is just random trips that aren’t allowed, we have to be good and arrange it properly in advance.”
“Ok,” Cri frowned, “I will talk to Firi and see about arranging something.”
Seinu nodded, “I leave it to you Cri, just let me know what Firi says,” he then stood up, “Well then, I guess… I guess you can stay and watch me change, I should warn you it is weird.”
“Why let us stay?” Cri said, “You always make us leave.”
“If… if we are going to do this relationship thing you should see everything about me, no secrets, so… ready to see how weird I look when transforming?”
“You bet we are!” Cal enthused, bouncing up and down, “Show us!”
Seinu laughed and started to focus his thoughts on his internal nanites, preparing to trigger the shift back to Avali, this was not how he had expected today to go. Tonight he’d go on a date with a cute pair of identical twins and tomorrow… Tomorrow he’d try and save a world.
Sitting in his office the next morning Seinu was at his desk, the Avali playing idly with two strands of long fur, braiding them together slowly. One of them was copper coloured, the other was grey, two tufts of fur from each of the twins tails. They had given them to him that morning before they went to training and in return Seinu was missing two of the large pin feathers from his wing-arms. Which had taken some nanites engineering to make them lock into feather shape and stay that way.
Smiling softly he looked up as the door swished open allowing Selenu and Taran to walk in. He set the half braided pieces of fur to one side and sat up, ears canting towards his siblings, “Is it done?”
“It is done,” Taran said, “The messages have been encoded into all three gifts, they’ll play for the Ambassadors only.”
“Ok, that’s good,” Seinu turned to his twin sister, “And the traitor we are sure we know who it is?”
“Oh yes,” Selenu replied with a nod, “Chantelle is 100% sure and the Ng'drakk pack confirmed it, they ask are we sure we don’t want them to extract him when it reaches crunch time?”
“No,” Seinu shook his head, “We can’t risk it, tell them to follow the plan, are their drones in place?”
“Oh yes,” Selenu nodded, “They are recording everything, we are racking up a lot of proof but it is only orbital scans but from what they can tell it is just a blockade they haven’t landed.”
“That’s fine,” Seinu replied, “He’s not stupid enough to invade, but he is stupid enough to enforce a full blockade instead of a quarantine, well his commanders are.”
“I didn’t quite follow that bit,” Taran chirped, “Like Chantelle said it stood out like a sore thumb but the planet is under quarantine, why would there be ships coming and going?”
“Food,” Seinu said, “The people of Solanta may be under quarantine due to a plague but it is a massive farming world. Cargo ships can drop into orbit, use drones and bio-scanners to load up the crops and depart without any of their crews ever leaving the hermetically sealed confines of their ship with no risk of contamination.”
“That actually makes sense,” Taran frowned, “But why are they enforcing the quarantine?”
“They aren’t,” Seinu shook his head, “They are the loaded gun being held against Dalant’s head but the traitor on his staff is hiding things, obscuring things, tying his hands so he can’t act properly.”
“So you think this plan will work?” Selenue asked, “It’s a big risk and it could so easily go wrong.”
“We can do this,” he took a deep breath and placed a hand on the half braided rope of fur, “We can do this, I trust the others, it’s going to be quite a performance but if we work together we can pull this off.”
Selenu glanced at the fur then smiled, “How was your date with the twins?”
“Very nice actually,” Seinu replied, ears canting back, “We had dinner, then I took them to see the Planetarium and then we came home though having to arrange all of it in advance through Firi and Homestead security was a real pain.”
“I can imagine,” Selenu chuckled, “But it is important we keep you safe, this situation is unstable.”
“Forget about that,” Taran chirped, “You didn’t join us in the bedroom tent when you got back” the teal Avali teased with a grin, “Where did you go?”
“They invited me back to Cal’s room,” Seinu grinned, “Inviting someone into your private room is a big thing in bunny society.”
“Soooo,” Selenu chirped, “What happened next?”
Seinu hopped up and grinned, “That’s between the three of us, tonight I stay in Cri’s room, tomorrow I invite them both to my room, we are taking this a day at a time and learning about each other, now scoot, you both have jobs to do, I need to go prepare for this afternoon's meeting.”
His siblings left and Seinu turned back to his desk as the built in terminal chimed, informing him that Ambassador F’rarrk was onboard with the plan. A second chime was a confirmation from Embassy T’lorp and after five more minutes a message slithered in from the Ng'drakk pack that Dalant had agreed. Taking a deep breath Seinu deleted the messages and left his office, he had a lot of work to do.