I'm somewhat amazed Rivkah did not kill anyone here. She always struck me as the "shoot spies first, investigate after the war" type.
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We'll get there. But the answer stems from Sharpbeak's own past, and the loss of his people.
She did grab his throat tightly enough to cut of his air supply.
Plus, this spy has elements of his story that can be verified, and if failed, she can eat him then.
- 1
Faustian Pact, Sharpbeak
"Faustian Pact, Sharpbeak"
29th Hoggagha, 10 (2189)
Rivkah Of Unity
29th Hoggagha, 10 (2189)
Rivkah Of Unity
"Ah Kryydur. I see you got the message. Where is Rivkah?"
Kryydur looks at me. "Here."
"Good. Bring her on."
I walk over.
The Avian and I stare at each other. It lasts ages, as neither of us back down. Eventually biology means he yields as he blinks to stop his eyes drying. I smile inside at the perks of being a member of a race with secondary eyelids.
Contest over, we look at each other. Four eyes, with red and white plumage. He wears a colourful uniform. I'm wearing a dress and cape, both crimson. I've decided I like dresses.
He speaks first. "We should talk. There is much to discuss."
"Kryydur tells me you are actually an ally, of sorts."
He sighs. "You distrust me, yet trust Appia."
"Appia has her downsides, but at least she's an opportunity to direct the future of MSI in a favourable way."
He shakes his head. "You don't understand Olinbari the way I do, girl."
I bare my teeth. "Enlighten me."
"At a personal level, Appia feigns allegiance because she needs your support. But you don't need hers. At the systemic, Appia is a symptom of the deeper problems within MSI, their greed, their lust, their cognitive dissonance, et cetera ad nauseam. The correct thing to do with cancer is cut it out. Do you think it is by accident that I have maneuvered into the position of strength within MSI's military?"
"Of course not."
"Thanks to you, MSI is no longer strong enough to stop me. Appia knows that, which is why she is trying to turn you against me."
"You sided with the Traditionalists."
Shrill laughter sounds. "Because Appia got you, and through you got the Humans and took the Lokra-Kitan from me in an effort to isolate me from those I've been supporting. I was left having to side with the Traditionalists so that I could get them to waste their time on stopping Appia."
"And what's your plan now?"
"Hear me out. Forget what Appia has told you about me for a moment, and hear me out."
I scowl. "Do you know who I am?"
"Not personally, no."
"I'm the adopted child of Naomi and Buri. I grew up afraid that one day MSI would descend from the stars and carry us all away into the night. And then your name was raised in hushed whispers, this legendary leader who was so powerful with a fleet of cloaked ships who was loyal to the Traditionalists who freed him and let him establish himself... Ever since I heard of you, I've had to plan to fight you."
He nods. "Such is the way Appia exploits my position to keep you on her side."
"You can imagine it's difficult to hear when you say we're not enemies."
"I can. You are right, I am the monster in the dark MSI keeps chained up to loose on those that merit their wrath. But no more. You broke their fleet in an act of perfidious brilliance, and that means we can look to the future. Which means discussing my past. Tell me, what do you know of my people, the Skarvarids?"
"Nothing."
"Precisely. Me and my people are the last of our kind. Our world was attacked, and we were sent to punch a hole to allow them to escape. We don't know if they did. After that, we turned mercenary, eventually were trapped by the Prikki. MSI freed us, and soon after a mutual acquaintance earned my respect. And he is why I trust you enough to have this conversation. You and I represent two schemes of his Rivkah."
I scowl again. "So why weren't we told?"
Skrand lifts his eyes, his beak forming a parody of a smile. I turn to see what he's smirking at.
"You never tie two boats in a storm."
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An intriguing first-face-to-face for Rivkah and Sharpbeak. His image as MSI's nuclear option is not totally rehabilitated here, but he's off to a good start.
Faustian Pact, Unveiled
"Faustian Pact, Unveiled"
29th Hoggagha, 10 (2189)
Rivkah Of Unity
29th Hoggagha, 10 (2189)
Rivkah Of Unity
Grepp.
The words hit me, but I suppress the impact as rage takes over, and I pin the slippery little gecko to the ground. I growl in his face. "Explain yourself, or I'll have breakfast."
He imitates a yawn. "Are you done?"
"You backstabbing little reptile. You were working with them all along!"
Grepp stares at me. "Get off me, child."
"Why should I?"
He licks an eyeball, then flicks me with a finger, and I'm flung across the room by a torrent of force. He stands, and dusts himself off. "Because I said so. Now listen like a good girl, I dislike repeating myself." He turns to Skrand. "We are moving into the second stage of the game. Excuse Rivkah, she has the temper of her father, and it sometimes overwhelms the intellect of her mother." Then he looks at both of us. "Remember, you two are allies now."
I snarl. "You Prikki really are pricks."
He chuckles. "My dear Rivkah, here is a very simple question. Please answer it - why did you assume I only had one plan in mind? Do you think I've been doing nothing towards my goals all this time?"
"'You never tie two boats in a storm.' What you just said..."
"The quotation should be familiar to you."
I glare at him. "It is. So are us and Sharpbeak the only boats?"
"No. But you are the boats we are introducing to the open plan now. The others will come in due time." He looks at me. "Since your anger is making you dense, I will put things your mother would have figured out into words. Your Life2.0 and Skrand are two paths towards my intentions for an alliance of Uplifted Pre-FTLs in the region. Between us three we will decide the fate of MSI. First subject is Appia; do we bring her on board, or not?"
Sharpbeak speaks first. "We can't trust her."
I snort while I look at Sharpbeak. "We can't trust him."
Sharpbeak frowns. "Rivkah, Grepp has been working on this project since the Last Great War."
I glare at Grepp. "He wants a puppet-state that he controls. He's no different to MSI. Worse in fact, he's a Prikki, and everything he says comes with the threat of reducing you and everyone you love to protein soup."
Grepp smirks. "Would you prefer dishonesty?"
I snarl. "I'd prefer not to be tied to a callous monster who thinks nothing of anyone else."
Damn his smirking. "Rivkah, you can imagine my head on a pike as much as you like, the fact remains we have work to do. Now, what say you on Appia?"
I stare at Grepp, knowing he's already decided what will happen to Appia. "We keep her, or Life2.0 walks."
Outwardly, I'm still struggling to decide who I want to gore first. But I'm settling on Grepp. Inwardly... The knowledge that I'm joining a woman who raped my mother, a threat and a monster in an alliance leaves me realising that I've never felt so alone as I feel right now.
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Faustian Pact, Exposed
"Faustian Pact, Exposed"
29th Hoggagha, 10 (2189)
Naomi Of Unity
29th Hoggagha, 10 (2189)
Naomi Of Unity
Buri and I watch the scene. When it ends, I look at Buri first. "Maybe us going away was a bit badly timed."
Buri looks at Grepp the way he looks at other predators on hunting trips. "We have to get back for her."
We look at the Holocron, and entwine our claws. "How much longer?"
He leans forward. "You've got ten days left. We can short-cut it by synthetic substitutes, but I can't emphasise enough how much I recommend you finish the process."
"What exactly is left?"
"Some internal organ development for lung and heart strengthening, dermal layer generation, plus diagnostic whole system checks."
The Holocron reclines. "I could take a message to her. We've got to talk anyway about the weapons development projects."
Buri and I look at each other. I nuzzle him. "I'm worried for her."
"I think we need to do some serious combat training while we are in here."
"Yes..." I look at the Holocron. "Don't let her feel isolated, please. She has to know that Grepp's way isn't the only way."
"What strategy would you have her do?"
I close my eyes, focus on the variables. Buri joins me, and we work through the analysis together. "We need to get strong enough to beat the Prikki. We need more allies, and we need more power, because until we are strong enough to beat them, all we will do is swap out MSI for the Prikki. There's got to be other factions out there who can help us. We need to keep it secret from Grepp... Can Grepp manipulate Psionics? Maybe we can find allies out there through Vorosh. Or C'ean Comms. But the most important thing is we need Rivkah to have allies she can trust."
Buri finishes. "And Grepp must die."
What are the other "boats" in this "storm"? More importantly, could Life 2.0 convince them to betray the Prikki?
Will Naomi and Buri attempt to make Grepp's death look like an accident? They shouldn't play their new hand this early, after all...
Will Naomi and Buri attempt to make Grepp's death look like an accident? They shouldn't play their new hand this early, after all...
Our protagonists don't know either yet, along with a lot of things; they've only had a very minimal window into the wider galaxy so far.
Assassinating Grepp would be a high risk move of course, something he's well aware of.
- 1
Switzerland
"Switzerland"
29th Hoggagha, 10 (2189)
Rivkah Of Unity
29th Hoggagha, 10 (2189)
Rivkah Of Unity
Until now, I never actually thought about how the Holocron did the mining for building his underground facilities.
But standing here watching the test firing of an eleven megaton Casaba howlitzer...
I'm wearing a lead armour suit in a lead box looking through googles so darkly tinted even my eyesight is struggling. A Human would be blind.
And then the flash as a five ton fusion boosted nuke detonates and leaves a cavern glowing red from the searing plasma of the thirty tonnes of beryllium oxide tearing its way through rock.
Eventually, the Holocron turns to me. "As you can see, we've been hard at work developing weapons."
"Good. What we need to discuss is just which scale of casaba we need."
"I've been discussing shielding technologies with Appia, and after converting MSI's Power units into Joules and Watts, I believe that they have hundreds of terajoules in their shielding systems."
He thinks about that momentarily. "Then we can make a good fight of it."
"I'm a little worried about the armour. Neutronium pellet reinforced."
"Solid neutronium could be a problem, but they must have neutronium fibre, like epoxy resin holding carbon fibres. The mass penalty would be too great to use anything beyond a single micron of neutronium."
"I've been thinking about trying to make the casabas into kinetic weapons. MSI rely on shields more than armour, and a shield is going to struggle with a several tonne chunk of metal."
"In the lab, I have weapons derived from the bomb you've just seen capable of sending said several tonne chunk of metal at over half a million metres per second. Look up explosively formed projectile and put a device like that behind it."
"How soon can you have them battle ready?"
He thinks for a while. "How many do you need?"
"The immediate target is MSI. After that, we need to think about the Prikki."
"Grepp."
"Yes."
"Your father wants to eat him."
"You showed them the recording then."
"Your Mum wants me to tell you to find allies. That you aren't alone."
"I feel alone. I'm stuck in a quartet with Grepp, Skrand and Appia."
"There's an alternative. Whoever comes to attack Unity has to either get within jump drive range, or come through the Hyperlanes. We can ambush them."
I turn back to the still red cavern. I smile. "Pinball."
"What we lack is a means of going on the offensive."
I think of Old Earth. "True. But maybe all we need is to be Switzerland."
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Are we thinking "militant neutrality" Switzerland here or the lesser well-known "The Earth will break before our defenses do" Switzerland?
'Cause Switzerland and Sweden are the modern posterchildren of the "Total Defense" doctrine.
Wait, was the Holocron mining with nukes? That's... extreme. I really hope Unity's environment isn't massively harmed by that.
How large is Life 2.0's combat forces, anyway? How large could it become in ideal circumstances?
They could also be, "if we were invaded by a million men, we'd shoot twice and go home" Switzerland.
How large is Life 2.0's combat forces, anyway? How large could it become in ideal circumstances?
Subject to the proviso that planet breaking weapons are available to the prospective enemy, very much the latter.
For example, nuclear power is used for practically everything where shielding mass is not mission critical because Naomi values the reprocessing for every last bit of Uranium-233 and Plutonium-239 she can get.
Likewise, space infrastructure is first set up for what the military requirements are and then civilian utilisation is structured around that; as seen with Loveboat One, even civilian ships are designed to be adaptable for military purposes and to use the same propulsion systems as the military.
After Duxanek's problems in the Flagship battle and the battle with Gnaea Titius, the medical service is now designed on the assumption that the entire population are engaged by the conflict, with the resulting effects on medical staff training and procurement.
And looking to the future, you can be certain that future Dyson swarms will be dual purpose as Nicoll-Dyson Beams. Rivkah hasn't had a new realisation, only realised why Naomi has done things the way she has.
Naomi would absolutely be considered an international pariah for her efforts towards nuclear proliferation if she was on modern day Earth. She just has bigger problems, living in a world with slaving Olinbari, genocidal Prikki, backstabbing Arishkan and worse...
Can anyone actually fault her for preferring death by cancer over death by being recycled?
Putting a weapon in the hands of every man, woman and child would give a militia in the region of three to eight million depending on which population growth numbers you use. If they weren't armed already of course; we can't go forgetting that there are reasons why Leonardo had to consider civilians and non-state military formations alongside the state military when he was designing his uniforms.
Which leads to:
Conventional weapons aren't going to be enough, which is why Naomi has planned for the use of nuclear and thermonuclear weapons from the beginning; if they don't test the bombs on Unity, what options would they have? Make it orders of magnitude more difficult and expensive by testing them on other planets, with the resultant increase in time taken to develop, knowing time is the resource they have the least of?
Planets can be fixed in victory; but first they must have victory.
- 1
Desperation
"Desperation"
30th Hoggagha, 10 (2189)
Buri Of Unity
30th Hoggagha, 10 (2189)
Buri Of Unity
I admire her beauty in her white dress as she cuddles me. Sighs her contentment as she pulls her hair out of her eyes. "I feel good."
I stretch to nuzzle her. "I'm glad you do."
She looks at me. "Buri, would you tell me what you are thinking about?"
"Apart from this... I'm thinking about MSI, and the Prikki, the Arishkan..."
She nuzzles me. "If your wife is making love to you and that's still on your mind... Want to talk about it?"
"Do you ever wonder if you are a little too win at all costs?"
"What choice do I have? If I didn't, I would have been recycled..."
I let the definition flow through. When MSI has no more use for an Indentured Asset, they inject a large quantity of sedative, extract the organs to sell to desperate Indentured Assets, and then grind the rest to powder to extract the remaining resources. Nothing wasted.
"I suppose."
"I'm desperate to win, because defeat is... Unbearable. If we lose now, after humiliating MSI in battle twice... The best we can hope for is they just kill us all."
She starts to cry. I strain to comfort her. "I'm sorry Naomi."
"Buri... Only in victory can I put things right."
The words hang for a while. "I'm sorry for killing the mood."
She nuzzles me. "I love you Buri."
We lay together as light pours into the window. "I'm glad I'm with you Naomi."
"Being your wife is the best... I had no idea if I'd ever find anyone who would love me even a hundredth of how much you do, husband." She sighs. "I'm getting in the mood again."
I smile. "Naomi?"
She nuzzles me. "Yes husband?"
I look at my hands and feet. "May I be untied now?"
She nuzzles me, then leans back straight. Her eyes focus on mine as she lifts her cascading dress off, revealing her black leather. She smiles.
Why We Can Trust Life2.0
"Why We Can Trust Life2.0"
30th Hoggagha, 10 (2189)
Caeso Canius
30th Hoggagha, 10 (2189)
Caeso Canius
I look at the conference. "I know for many of you, you might have concerns about an alliance with Life2.0. After all, they were enslaved and broke free and now could theoretically go on the offensive. I wish to look at the family at the core of Life2.0 to explain why we can trust them."
I look up at the Human woman on the screen. "This was the image of Atalyah HaMaadimi when I first bid for her services. A suit of a style more than a hundred years old, a ferocious intellect behind the fiercest blue eyes I've seen on a Human. The first Indentured Asset of any species to ever score over a thousand points on our mental apptitude test, beyond even our greatest genius. At the time I was weighing up buying Shareholder status. I invested it in her instead."
I look around the room. I remember most of them as children. "Atalyah joined me on Colonia Lux on my staff in the Governor's Residence. I gave her Marcus Garand as a husband almost immediately, hoping to get her children. At the time, I looked at her like any Olinbari of our age looked at an Indentured Asset - she was a tool, and a staggeringly effective one. Work that once required more than a thousand staff members she could do without difficulty. Even while sleeping part of her consciousness. My office soon became dependent on her, and she used that position to begin working for the freedom of other Indentured Assets, and discussing the need for reform."
I sweep the room again. "Atalyah was executed before her time. The loss of her nearly bankrupted me as I needed to recruit more than a thousand people to match what I lost, and I went from looking at becoming a Shareholder to being bought out by Brutus Licenius."
I look back up at her blue eyes. "She asked me a question once. 'Conquest is not the same as control Caeso. Revolution is inevitable; how long can you resist the tide?' It turns out that the answer was just fourty four years. Atalyah was never brutal. She was a disector who could comprehend incredibly complex situations and analyse outcomes and variables. And she, through persistence, led me to change my perspective. By the time I joined Gaius Licenius for his disastrous expedition, I was a Reformer, and I wanted to work with Atalyah's daughter Naomi."
The picture changes to Naomi and Buri's wedding day.
"Naomi is one of the most Xenophile Humans I have ever known, and this despite being used as a Companionship Asset. Her marriage to Buri is one of the sweetest relationships I've ever seen, and despite all that Olinbari have done to her, she is committed to the principle of equality. Under her leadership Olinbari have been able to pursue life and even leadership within Life2.0. There's no better model for the future of a reformed MSI than what Atalyah's daughter has built."
I smile at the next picture; Rivkah and Ruki. "Naomi and Buri have two children of their own. Rivkah is the older, and is adopted from birth, while Ruki is the product of the work of hundreds of scientists blending Atalyah's genetic reworking with a Xenayan body. This technology is available to all in Life2.0; even Olinbari."
I give one more look around the room. "Life2.0 is only the beginning of what can happen by treating our Enlightened allies as equals."
Attachments
That was an interesting bit of background lore...
Naomi is right that death would be a mercy if the Traditionalists win. Let's hope it doesn't come to that - and that Naomi, Rivkah, Buri, and Ruki survive the war. If they don't... could dissenters within Life 2.0 offend their (current) allies and make any victory won pyrrhic?
Naomi is right that death would be a mercy if the Traditionalists win. Let's hope it doesn't come to that - and that Naomi, Rivkah, Buri, and Ruki survive the war. If they don't... could dissenters within Life 2.0 offend their (current) allies and make any victory won pyrrhic?
Faustian Pact, Discussed
"Faustian Pact, Discussed"
30th Hoggagha, 10 (2189)
Rivkah Of Unity
30th Hoggagha, 10 (2189)
Rivkah Of Unity
Appia sits silent, her mask failing to hide her pursed lips and tense body as she listens to the recording.
By the end...
She sighs. "That Grepp is a nasty piece of work."
"Agreed! Mum and Dad agree too. Dad wants to eat him."
"You interrupted their holiday?'
"The Holocron did, but essentially yes."
Appia holds her head. "You want me alive, Grepp and Skrand want me dead... How many more people do you think he might have? He's admitted he has other people... He has trapped us two in this now." She sighs as her head hits the table.
I gently put my arm around her. "Appia, Grepp wants us two to feel trapped without options. Us two feeling trapped makes us easier to control."
"True." She sighs. "His endgame is uniting MSI and Life2.0, right?"
"That's what he claims to me, but he's a duplicitous little lizard and I don't like him."
"Which he knows because you pounced on him and threatened to eat him. He knows he's untouchable because he's Prikki." She smiles as she perks her head up. "We can use that against him by making his position unviable to support."
"How?"
She rushes to grab a subspace communications system. "We can counter their intimidation by escalating the stakes from it being us vs the Prikki. We could go to the Galactic Community, or we could go to the Nalynoids. Either would make the Prikki think twice."
"And if the Prikki won't back up his threats..."
"We can at least avert war. Possibly not me being assassinated though... Skrand is obviously either his contingency plan or was the main plan all along. If unifying is becomes impossible, then he's just going to take us both out."
"What options does he have? Mercenaries?"
"Plus Skrand. Mercenary contracts are very unreliable though, competition law is such you can't get exclusive service, the mercenaries are always entitled to accept better offers, even if it's in the middle of a battle."
"Who made that legal?"
"The Galactic Community."
I lean on the table. It creaks. "Why would that be the case? Do mercenary companies get equal votes or something?"
"No, it was a concession as part of paying off a bloodthirsty warlord who united some marauders a few centuries back." She looks at me. "Life2.0... You haven't got any debt, right?"
I laugh. "We don't even have money Appia."
"Oh."
I have an idea. "But we could get some... Who hosts that 10k Energy Credits for my uncle's head bounty?"
"It's deposited with the Galactic Community Extra-Judicial Measures Bureau, why? You can't be thinking of cashing in."
I smile. "Let me worry about getting the head."
Is this a reference to Mercenary-oriented Megacorps or the Great Khan/Horde event? This passage is ringing bells for me and I can't remember why this seems familiar.
It's a little bit, but not much, of an exaggeration on a gameplay quirk with mercenary enclaves and their non-existent loyalty.
"Breathless"
1st Daas, 10 (2189)
Thando HaMaadimi
1st Daas, 10 (2189)
Thando HaMaadimi
Alexandra dumps another failed pregnancy test on the wash basin, her brow creased. I pull her into my arms as she sighs.
She looks at me. "I'm starting to wonder if there's something wrong with us."
"Could be overuse."
She blushes. Then sighs. "That's the kind of comment Gillian used to make."
"She's a lot less bitter now she has her Leonardo."
Alexandra wriggles around, buries her face in my chest. "I don't want another war Thando." She looks at me. Her eyes are filled with pain. "Rivkah talked to me yesterday about faking your death so that she can claim the 10k Energy Credit bounty, and it's weighing on my mind..."
I laugh. "Oh, they've tried."
She grabs my butt. "I love you Thando. I don't want to lose you."
I see it in her eyes. "You said yes."
"It's being done as a deal; to make Appia's position stronger, we're making a concession and surrendering an animatronic of you into Appia's custody, and then Appia will arrange the bounty to be transferred to Life2.0."
"And us?"
"I talked to the Holocron about the vats. He showed me Naomi's new appearance. I figure that... That the colony can't hide you anymore husband. Now it's a known fact you're here... I don't want to lose you because some bounty hunter thought they'd try to claim it first."
I take a deep breath. "Ok. What do you have in mind?"
"I figure that we can't stay looking Human."
We look into each other's eyes for quite a while. I break the silence. "What are you thinking?"
She shows me a hologram of an Elven woman and her Klingon man. "What do you think? Could you imagine me with pointed ears?"
"I could. But imagining me with head ridges is easier." I laugh. She joins me.
"I thought so too. I'm open to suggestions, although I'm not so keen on going full furry like Naomi has."
Ah. "What's Sis done?"
She sucks in air. "Black wolf with horns and sabres."
"I see what you mean by full furry."
She smiles. "Yes. I'm content with looking a bit rubber forehead alien."
I peck her cheek, and hold her hips. "Our kids are going to look so weird."
She leans back, and drops her dressing gown. "Well, I suppose we could have one more try then."