Holding paws with his brother Cal stared at the big screen that had covered one wall of the conference room. The sickening, horrifying visage of the scaled, horned King of the Horkers faded away. He was trembling, literally shaking and the only reason he was keeping down the urge to throw up was because he could smell Seinu's care for him. The silver Avali had an arm around them both, just holding them gently and reassuringly whilst he focussed on his job.
“That was them,” Cri chirped angrily, “The Horkers and their king and we are just letting them go?”
“I’m afraid we can't really do anything else,” Seinu explained, “We’ve thwarted King Kyóurgawabadi’s plan and embarrassed him, but that's about all we can do right now.”
Cal stopped listening to Cri’s outraged grumbling and focussed on calming down. He couldn't decide if he was terrified or angry or both, but he felt awful. It was like his body had gone into shock at just the sight of that ugly, smug face. Staring at the screen he watched as the fleet of ugly saucer shaped ships slowly turned around, the sleek, menacing, black hulled craft that carried the king in the lead. Once they'd turned around the ships leapt into warp, vanishing from the screen and Cal bit back a sob of relief.
Seinu placed both his paws on either side of Cal's head and chirped, “Are you OK?”
“Not really,” Cal wiped his nose and leant back against his silver space bird, “Those monsters are still on the loose, you know what they wanted to do to the planet below us, what they will do to other planets and people… how can we just let them leave.”
“Because he hasn't technically broken the law,” Dalant said, the Cultarvian negotiator sighed and sat down in one of the chairs, more slumped really, “I still can't believe what Elegon did, he nearly plunged us into a war that would have handed that monster all three of our homeworlds.”
“I still don't quite follow what their plan was,” Cri chirped, tugging on his long, braided neck-ruff, stripping off the coloured beads that held it wound together and started to re-braid it, “Like I don't follow every step we thwarted?”
F’rarrk let out a rumble of frustration and settled down, “He was playing on our long held fears, arrogance and insecurities,” they grumbled, flexing their manipulating dactyl whilst closing their mouth, “We built the University here long before anyone knew the Farndos existed, our government had always been fearful they'd try to force a claim on it.”
“We never really wanted it,” T'lorp replied, “It’s an awful desert planet, the university is a well renowned institute of learning but the planet itself was not of interest to us,” they made a soft plopping sound as their gelatinous mass moved, the living moss shifting in their chair, “But when we started receiving reports from a Cultarvian source that the S'Grael where hiding massive mineral wealth down there with the help of the Avali we started to pay attention more.”
“The information had more weight as it was coming from someone in my office,” Dalant sighed, “I didn’t realise it, I assume you thought I was in on this and hiding it?”
“It made sense your government wanted to hide it,” T’Lorp rumbled, “After all the S’Grael are one of your biggest customers for agricultural products.”
“So what our government feared the most happened,” F’rarrk sighed, “The Farndos launched a legal claim on the University and the Coalition did what they usually do and tried to compromise by appointing the Cultarvian as the negotiators.”
“Which was an utter disaster,” Dalant sighed, “Now I know Elegon was working to sabotage things from the start. It makes sense but T’Lorp was already hostile to us when they first arrived.”
“Of course we were,” the Farndos embassy grumbled, “It looked like a Coalition stitchup, the species appointed to act as mediators was in on the plan to defraud us and hide the mineral wealth.”
“So when it was all going sideways and Elegon suggested we contact the Illuminate as third party outsiders I thought it made sense,” Dalant glanced at F’rarrk, “The Avali have been partners with the S’Grael for centuries, whole Avali packs study at your university.”
“And they used to run the mineral extraction systems back when the University was first founded,” F’rarrk sighed, “It was a very clever scheme to discredit us all and back the Farndos into a corner.”
“Indeed,” Seinu sighed, “It must have felt like we were all ganging up on you and just lending more weight to the idea that we were still extracting minerals from the University and out to hide it from you.”
“Oh yes,” T’Lorp grumbled, “It looked like nothing short of an attempt to strong arm a young species and screw us over in favour of an established cartel.”
“It came too close to nearly succeeding,” Dalant said, “If it hadn’t been for Seinu here there would have been a war and then the Horker King would have got exactly what he wanted, all the excuses he needed to smash us both and take charge in the name of keeping peace.”
The Cultarvian glanced at Seinu, “How did you unravel it all anyway? I was understandably kept in the dark about quite a bit of it. I understand it was the only way to keep Elegon in the dark but I’d like to hear how you realised what was going on.”
“It was a number of factors actually,” Seinu replied from where he was sitting on the floor, the Avali stood up and placed a paw on Cal’s head affectionately before resuming his seat, “The Quarantine at Solanta was the first clue, I didn’t pay much attention to it at first but Chantelle flagged that all traffic had stopped.”
“Yeah,” Dalant shook his head, “The Horkers stopped everything from leaving, their voluntary help was a bit heavy handed.”
“Why would that be unusual?” Cri asked, “Like it was a quarantine, I know what one of those is.”
“Ah but quarantining a planet is different from say a town or hospital, the idea of a quarantine is to stop the spread of disease but for a planet you stop people leaving, you make sure the general population and those who are visiting who might have been exposed can’t leave but you don’t stop everything.”
“Indeed,” T’Lorp rumbled, “It’s a badly coordinated effort if you stop everything.”
“I don't understand?” Cal said, “Surely that's the point?”
“Not with an intergalactic colony,” Seinu explained, “You need to stop the people who may have the disease. But the produce a planet makes can still keep moving, food harvested by robots, devices built in factories can all be shipped to orbit and loaded onto ships. Crewed by people who haven't left the secure environment of their ships so can't have been infected.”
“Ooooh,” Cri smiled, “That makes way more sense, otherwise the planet's economy could collapse.”
“Indeed,” Dalant sighed, “It’s going to take months to untangle the mess Solanta is in, but the Horker King offered his services for free to enforce quarantine, we should have known he'd brute force it.”
“Indeed, once we had determined the Horker fleet was nearby I knew something had to be up, he's not the sort to do something so altruistic without an ulterior motive.”
“Like what though?” Dalant asked, “This is the bit where I was out of the loop, you were all so angry with each other.”
“That was mostly an act,” F’rarrk said, “Seinu got secret messages to us both explaining the sabotage coming from your office.”
“That was harder than expected,” Seinu sighed, “But Ki made it possible in the end, he and my brother Taran hid messages in videos the same way Elegon was messing with the negotiations.”
“Visiting the Odyssey helped too,” F’rarrk said, “That ship of yours is quite something, I was surprised how quickly it could feed fake information to the bugs keeping tabs on us.”
Seinu shrugged, “We are the Avali, we are quite good at technology, but once I had everyone on the same page we had to put on a show.”
“That was infuriating,” T’Lorp grumbled, “We could have solved all of this about two weeks ago but we had to keep up the facade to pull the Horkers out of position.”
“I’m glad you did,” Dalant sighed, “I thought Seinu had gone insane, everything he was doing seemed to piss you off more and more but getting the Horkers away from Solanta was important, I dread what they’d have done if we’d all played happy families whilst they were still in orbit.”
“I can guess,” Seinu grumbled, “This is just my opinion not the Illuminate’s but I am quite sure their King would have constructed a whole raft of evidence of why he had to bio-tear the planet into the bedrock because the disease had mutated.”
“Possibly,” F’rarrk frowned, “I’d like to think he wouldn’t stop that low but after hearing about what they did to Cri and Cal’s people here it wouldn’t surprise me one bit.”
“He’s a monster,” Cri chirped angrily, “They all are!”
“Yeah!” Cal jumped up, “They.. they are awful and they stink too!”
“Their behaviour stinks,” Seinu said as he took hold of Cal's arm and squeezed it gently, “They annoyingly smell quite nice, now I stink and T'Lorp has a very pungent Earthy stench but we're all different and that's what makes us so unique and awesome,” he turned to look at the others, “It was our differences however that nearly handed the Horkers victory, now would you all be willing to listen to a proposal I have?”
The three diplomats glanced at each other and Dalant spoke softly, “Well we did invite you here to help us to find a solution.”
“And you just stopped a war,” F’rarrk said, “Your title of Peacebringer is well earned, what do you say T'Lorp shall we look at the Illuminate’s proposal for peace?”
The Farndos rumbled softly to themselves, making a gloopy sort of sound before they spoke in their high liquid sounding voice, “We concur, we owe Diplomat Trail a debt of gratitude for stopping us from making a terrible mistake, we will listen.”
Seinu sighed in relief and ordered his visor to send several files to everyone's devices, “Well then this is the initial agreement plus something new based on what happened, it's a bi-lateral cooperation framework, the Horker king and his minions can't exploit your weaknesses and long standing disagreements if you're in an alliance together and are talking to one another.”
“Talking solves lots of issues, but we have a lot of history to unpack here,” F’rarrk said as he started to load documents, “But I'm willing to consider it.”
“What do the Avali get out of this?” Dalant asked.
“A stable and secure region of space run by three of our trading partners; friends who won't fall for the Horker's nonsense and propaganda again, that's a big benefit but there are some trade points in this we are interested in but it's all open to negotiation.”
The four of them settled down to discuss Seinu's plan, working through the points and clauses together. Seinu was determined to build something good out of the aftermath of this mess.
Sitting in her chair on the bridge Selenu monitored the departing Horker fleet, the final ships were sliding into formation around the flagship. They hung for a moment and then their warp drives activated, the lime green Avali’s instruments registered the fabric of the universe being twisted by the mass density of such a huge fleet warping at once; then they were gone.
Space outside settled back down to normal and as the Odyssey’s weapon pods flew through the area the scans for anything left behind came back as negative. Sighing softly the Avali turned to the three holographic images displayed on either side of her command chair.
“Well Admirals I’d say we are out of the woods, I would suggest we step down from combat readiness and go to station keeping.”
The S’grael and Farndos admirals nodded in agreement, Admiral Jerak just sneered at her. She smiled back at him; she knew what he thought of her. A pseudo-civilian captain placed in charge of this joint force. She technically had a military rank and had done the training but she sat outside the command structure. As the fleet movements had turned from “Imminent war” into a diplomatic solution led by Seinu the S’grael and Farndos wanted to deal with the Embassy Ship not the military arm of the Avali.
“I concur,” Jerak chirped, “My task force will take over quarantine duties at Solanta, if you will excuse me I must oversee their orders and the scouts keeping an eye on the Horker fleet.”
His hologram flickered off and Selenu shook her head and turned to the other two fleet admirals, “Would you care to join me aboard the Odyssey? F’rarrk and T’Lorp are in a meeting with Seinu and Dalant, I am sure they would appreciate your assistance, Seinu is presenting them with a new treaty idea.”
“We would like that,” the Farndos Admiral said softly, “We shall dispatch the majority of the fleet and keep just the flag-ship squadron then join you aboard the Odyssey.”
“I shall do the same,” Admiral Trallk replied, “I believe we can safely say we are no longer enemies or at risk of war. I will dispatch everything except the flagship squadron and come over in person.”
“I will see you both soon then Admirals, and thank you for believing in us, today has been a good day.”
“Indeed peace is to be preferred every day,” Trallk said then signed off. The Farndos Admiral remained for a moment and Selenu looked at them politely waiting to see what they had to say.
“We wanted to just thank you personally Captain Selenu, your attitude has been much more polite than Admiral Jerak. Please pass our thanks onto your Director for allowing us to deal with you during this fraught time.”
The remaining hologram turned off and Selenu sighed, slumping in her chair and watched as the holographic display showing her the three fleets started to break up, squadrons and battlegroups moving out toward jump locations leaving the Odyssey at the centre of a much smaller group of ships.
“Ifelse,” Selenu sighed, “Please prepare for the arrival of both Admirals, let me know when they are enroute so I can meet them and let Major Yusarf know we’ll want an honour guard of marines to form a welcoming committee, something low key.”
“Of course Captain,” the AI replied, “Any instructions for the rest of the crew?”
“Oh right,” Selenu sat up, “I am still not used to having a crew,” she frowned, “Ask everyone to stand down, the threat of battle is over, step down to regular duty shifts and thank everyone for their time and effort.”
“Very well Captain, I’ll take care of it,” Ifese’s indicator blinked off and Selenu pulled off her hexagonal tech-glasses and sighed as she stood up and stretched. Firi walked over and rubbed her shoulders then gave her a hug.
“Well that’s that,” the yellow Avali sighed, “War avoided, victory snacks all around for Seinu and us.”
“It was close though,” Selenu sighed, “If just one of them had not believed us and opened fire, we’d have been screwed.”
“Well we were not screwed,” Firi smiled and squeezed Selenu, “We did it, Seinu pulled it off and they are all sitting down there talking about peace and cooperation and galactic trade right now.”
“Well that is good,” Selenu leant against her sister, then straightened up and smiled, “I had better go call this into Avalon before Admiral Jerak stitches us up with some complaint or other.”
“Ugh he would at that,” Firi shook her head, “It’s not slipped past me that Major Yusarf is his second in command, he shouldn't be leading a marine detail.”
“At least he has a modern view point, I know some of the older packs have complained we didn't switch to running the Odyssey to Military Standards,” Selenu wrinkled her snout at that, “He’s at least tolerable to work with.”
“Well rather you than me sis,” Firi tugged on her braided crest feathers and smiled, “I’m going to go check in on Ki and Taran, they've squirrelled themselves away in engineering.”
“Give them my love,” Selenu swished her tail, “And wish me luck, time to go tell Ck'akk exactly what we've done.”
“Ah she'll love it,” Firi grinned, “We stopped a war from starting and tweaked the Horker King's nose, she'll approve you'll see.”
Selenu smiled at her sister then left the bridge, heading for her nearby office to call Avalon and talk to the Director, it had certainly been an exciting few days.
Yusarf paused outside the Captain's door and pulled his uniform straight, the sleek, nano-weave fabric in the navy blue colours of the Illuminate Navy fit perfectly. It combined both torso covering and knee length kilt into one garment; it lacked sleeves but had a built in poncho covering that draped across his arms to the elbows without impeding his wing feathers.
It was smart and appropriate but Yusarf couldn't help but feel overdressed as he waited for Ifelse to announce his presence. He'd just finished detailing an honour guard to welcome the visiting Admirals when the Odyssey's AI had informed him the Captain wished to see him. He was technically still under her command as the pack leader in charge of this joint Foreign Directorate and Avalon Explorer Corps mission not to mention this was her ship and naval traditions dictated the captain of a ship had command even over officers who outranked them when matters of their ships command was involved.
Still he was well aware of the high level politics at play, Admiral Jerak had ranted long enough at the Odyssey being given to a Civilian commander. But the Director and the Illuminate council had been clear, this was a diplomatic mission not a military operation, it had ruffled feathers up and down the fleet. Yusarf had navigated the unhappy cohesion between civilian and military rank and precedent of who should have been in charge by ignoring it all. He'd fallen back on the even older precedents set by pack hierarchy. Seinu Trail was in charge which meant his pack was top of the local hierarchy, this meant Selenu as the pack leader was top of the pyramid so she was the ultimate authority in the name of the Illuminate.
The rank and file Avali under his command aboard the Odyssey had fallen in line easily. It was an instinct ingrained since birth, every pack knew where they stood in relation to every other pack. The example had filtered through to the crews of the other ships in the fleet and whilst most officers over the rank of Captain had complained bitterly for hours that was mostly relegated to the officers who made up the Admiral's staff.
Yusarf was distracted from his musings as the door swished open and he stepped smartly into the captain's office; this wasn't her smaller ready room off the bridge but her primary office where she quite often ran both the ship and managed her pack. Yusarf had never been inside before and he was taken aback by the opulence and beauty of the room. This was no stark, boring military office, this was clearly a civilian room. The white and orange walls complemented the dark rust coloured carpet and large cylindrical aquariums stood in each corner, linked by a network of clear pipes embedded in the floor and ceiling.
Shelves contained pictures of her pack, friends, aliens and trinkets and her desk was a circular affair made from Tubasinaki wood, slime moulded by a Sleriki carpenter into a beautiful curved and polished piece of art. The technology embedded into the desk was unobtrusive and the wall directly behind the desk was an extension of the elaborate aquarium set up. Selenu was sitting in her chair and she motioned for Yusarf to join her as she focused on the orange hologram of Director Ck'akk of the Foreign Relations Directorate.
Yusarf walked over and saluted, “Ma’am I wasn't expecting to see you.”
“I was just receiving Selenu's report on how things have gone, I hear we've avoided a war and successfully taken the wind out of King Kyóurgawabadi’s plans.”
“Indeed, it would appear Diplomat Seinu's plan worked like a charm, the Admiral's from both the S'Grael and Farndos fleets are coming over to join their diplomats at the meeting Seinu is hosting.”
“Excellent, does Seinu have a timeline for completion?” Ck'akk asked as she glanced at Selenu.
The lime feathered Avali checked her notes, “Initial indications from Seinu suggest five to six days, most of the new co-operation agreement is just codifying existing treaty frameworks and in the face of the Horker threat all three governments are currently co-operating.”
“Good keep me apprised Captain, now Major,” the older Avali turned her focus on Yusarf, “You’re aware the admiral has been recalled to Avalon?”
“Yes ma'am I received word the flag ship was departing, it was rather sudden.”
“It was, he really shouldn't have left you behind, the Admiralty board would like you to pick a fast courier ship and return to Avalon as well, turn command of the 7th Nesting over to whoever you feel is best and leave instructions for the marines on the Odyssey and come home.”
Yusarf frowned, “Is everything well?”
“Of course,” Admiral Jerak is being rewarded, an honourable promotion to fleet headquarters, a new job and the 7th nesting will need a new commander, the Admiralty board would like the best candidate for the job present on Avalon to talk to,” the Director smiled, “The orders from fleet HQ should be arriving shortly but as I was calling Selenu anyway Fleet Admiral Cont'ri asked me to pass on the message in person.”
Yusarf saluted, “I'll make arrangements and once I receive the orders in writing, I'll be ready to return to Avalon.”
“Excellent, well I will speak to you both soon,” the Director waved and her hologram snapped off. Yusarf let out a deep breath and turned to look at Selenu and smiled.
“I guess Jerak finally did it, pissing off the rest of the Admirals they're “promoting” him out of the field.”
Selenu smiled and shrugged, “I couldn’t say, but you'll do a great job if you land the promotion.”
“Maybe,” he frowned, “Jerak may be difficult but he's a very good Admiral,” Yusarf said loyally, “I wouldn't want to take the promotion if his knowledge is being squandered or wasted.”
If I know the Fleet Admiral she'll not waste his talents,” Selenu said, “He'll be promoted someplace all that skill and knowledge he has can be put to good use, heck it'll probably be something he enjoys that keeps him away from… well you known”
“Where he won't piss off every civilian or alien dignitary he meets,” Yusarf ended with a sigh, “Well I have a few hours until my orders arrive, Fleet HQ will take a bit but I can get a head start on preparing to hand over.”
Selenu stood up and placed a hand on his arm smiling, “Stay for dinner first before you have to go, we can fit in an hour or two for socialising before you have to rush off to Avalon.”
Yusarf smiled and nodded, offering her his arm, “Dinner sounds good to me, shall we?” she nodded and with the prospect of a pleasant evening ahead of him mostly free of politics for the first time in years, the Major headed off for dinner before he had to return to the grind.