I didn’t know where to go when I woke up, but staying by myself in Hao’s room was definitely the wrong choice so I made my way back to the mess, but on my way there I ran into Lee in the hallway.
“Sleep well?”
“Not really, and not long enough, but better than not sleeping.”
“That’s still good I guess. The sphere council or whatever they call themselves has said they want an investigation and asked us to stand down, but I don’t think they’ll interfere. No word from the venalia yet.”
“Okay. Thanks for telling me.” I wasn’t sure what she expected me to do with the information.
“Yea, yea.”
“Are you doing okay?”
She laughed, “No, but there’s not much more to do. Speaking of, you don’t have to, but do you mind helping a little, mostly because of the language barrier, and you know so much more about venalia.”
“You can stop saying I don’t have to do things.”
“Better safe than sorry.”
“... Anything you need me for right now?”
“Right, yes, a meeting with the captain of the marines.”
“Marines?”
“Infantry.” I shouldn’t have been surprised the humans had soldiers on their “exploration” fleet, but somehow, I was.
We went to the bridge, Lee sat in her chair, I stood next to her, same place as during the captain’s meeting.
“Congrats Admiral, and nice to meet you Saria, thank you for meeting with me, and for starting this.” I wasn’t used to or expecting to be addressed directly, so I didn’t respond, I didn’t know how to. Thankfully Lee spoke quick enough that my hesitation wasn’t noticeable.
“No need for congratulations. I’ve talked to Habi, who’s been in their buildings. Walls are metal but otherwise they seem normal. Door to door should be like it was on earth, if it comes to that.”
“Agreed. My only concern is I don’t have as many men as I would like. I would like permission to recruit volunteers to guard the transports and any prisoners we might take. We don’t have anything that would work as a holding cell, it could get manpower intensive.”
“Granted, only people with actual military small arms training though. Saria, do you know where they keep their guns, how many they have, is the ammunition metal propelled by explosives?”
I didn’t quite feel guilty, but in that moment I was very much aware that I was helping to plan an assault on my home.
“Yes, just bits of metal, bullets? Is the translator getting that?”
“Yea.”
“Good. All the guns are normally locked away in the armory, though by now they have probably handed them out. There is at least one gun for every venalia, but most aren’t comfortable with firearms, I doubt all of them will fight, I doubt any of them will fight. They have guards, security, not soldiers.”
“And the ioe?”
“Will be in our bunker, it’s under the warehouse closest to the administrative building. They won’t know what is happening, we never do, might even think it's a drill.”
“Could you record a message then, something short, explaining what’s happening that the marines can play if they come across any ioe?”
“I, what do you want me to say?” That was why Lee was leaving the captain out of the conversion, she wanted to ask something of me, still worried about pressuring me.
“Whatever you think is best.”
“Okay.”
“Anything else captain?”
“No, that's all I wanted, thank you, Lee, Saria.”
Lee gave a little nod, I didn’t respond, and she ended the call.
I worked on the recording while Lee tried to get some sleep. I wished it wasn’t up to me, but it was. “They are here to liberate us ioe. Venalia who surrender will not be harmed. Ioe will not be harmed, not taken from our home, not coerced in any way.” It wasn’t less awkward in pyrav, but I felt it was more important to be clear and to mention that it was an ioe who recorded it.
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I was waiting for Lee to wake up so she could give any input, but it was only a few minutes before the venalia called. Lee, myself, and the crew all gathered on the bridge. Lee had put on a uniform, it was clearly different than the previous admiral’s, having less on the shoulders. The only addition was a metal cross pinned to her chest. I stood far to the side, off camera instead of what was becoming my usual place next to Lee. She looked at me and I stared back, and she understood that it was better if I was out of sight this time.
“I am Rhagil, President of the venalia presence on the sphere, formally requesting to negotiate with the leader of the human fleet.”
“That’s me, Admiral Lee Cartwright. What do you want?”
“My apologies I was misinformed, I thought you were a captain.”
“There was an election.”
He paused, “I understand. Let’s proceed then. Our first request is for arbitration –“
“No.”
“I assure you the –“
“No.”
“In that situation then, may I know why you refuse to negotiate on that point.”
“We could destroy every ship on the sphere easily and I hate slavers.”
“We are not slavers.”
“Little late for that. Anything else?”
“May we have an extension to –“
“No.”
He was good, didn’t seem angry at all, even though he must’ve been.
“If conflict is inevitable –“
“It isn’t. Free the ioe.”
“If conflict is inevitable, can we agree to abide by the battle in space? No hostilities in our habitat until one side surrenders or is destroyed. If you win we will surrender the ioe to you, as per your original terms, if we win you will withdraw to another solar system.”
“Agreed.”
“At least we were able to achieve something, even if small. Normally this would be when we write up a formal treaty and have a signing ceremony, but I see you are publicly broadcasting our meeting. Am I to assume that means you would prefer this conversation to be our agreement?”
“Yes. Transparency is best.”
“Thank you for your time and consideration. It is a shame that we were not able to agree on more, not able to prevent violence. Best of luck in the coming battle.”
Lee hung up on him.
“How are you doing?” Habi asked while Lee and the rest of the crew talked among themselves.
“Hungry.”
She laughed, “Yea, fair. You going to be okay?”
“We can go about ten days without food, then we start sleeping more and more until, doesn’t matter, I’ll be fine. It’s just today and half the night. The battle won’t take long I assume.”
“No, five minutes at most.” Figured. Habi looked at Lee and continued, “She needs to sleep. The big decisions have been made, we can handle the details and getting the Chang’e ready. Do you mind keeping an eye on her, make sure she actually sleeps.”
“I could if I knew how.”
“Great, thanks. Lee,” she said, loud enough to get her attention, “we got this. Go get some sleep.”
“No, I’m fine. I managed to close my eyes for a few minutes.”
“You’re no use to anyone dead tired. Get some real sleep, exoskeleton off. Saria will make their recording and go over the battle plan and when you wake up the two of you can talk.”
Lee thought for a moment, “Fine, probably would collapse at some point anyway if I keep going like this.”
“Good choice.” Habi took a phone from her pocket and handed it to me along with a stylus, “This is yours. Sorry, I know touch screens don’t work for you, I’ll get one with buttons made, but this is all we have on hand right now. It’s open to the battle plans, has access to our internet, and should translate everything, or try to at least.” At the time I was suspicious of how kindly I was treated, but I wasn’t going to risk losing something good.
I followed Lee to her room but stayed outside, sitting on the floor, and read from my phone. It was incredibly slow going. Terms like battleship, cruiser, torpedo, had no equivalent, so I was spending my time reading about other things so I could understand the battle plan. About half an hour later Habi knocked on Lee’s door and opened it without waiting for a response. “Saria,” she said, so I stood up and followed her in.
Lee was sitting at her desk, her phone in front of her.
“I guess you’ll have to stay here to make sure she sleeps.”
“Habi this is ridiculous.”
“Is it?”
“Saria shouldn’t be involved in this.”
“They’re one of us now, and everyone else is too busy to deal with your usual bullshit, and they don’t mind, right Saria?”
“It’s fine.” It wasn’t, I didn’t know how they all trusted me so easily, and I couldn’t do the same. From my perspective, I hadn’t done anything to warrant that, from theirs, they were trying to give me what they thought I needed.
Habi left as Lee started to take off her uniform. I got up to leave.
“I have another layer of clothes on underneath, unless you're uncomfortable.”
I had to think about it. “Honestly I don’t know, we, I, have no issue with nudity around other ioe, but with venalia it is the opposite.”
“Hmm, well you can always leave if you want to. And remind me later to get Kamaal or Habi to introduce you to their imam, might be interesting.”
“Okay,” I replied, without knowing what that meant.
Her arms were exposed after she took her uniform shirt off. Thin strips of metal went lengthwise down them, with what looked almost like netting around her wrist and elbow. She noticed me looking.
“I’m from earth’s moon, born there, grew up there. Not a lot of gravity, so I need help.”
I didn’t say anything.
“You can ask about it.”
“I don’t want to take up time that you should spend sleeping.”
“Shit, yea, didn’t realize I was putting it off. I’m not this bad normally but with… I’ll shut up.”
Thankfully Lee did sleep and I didn’t have to do anything. I spent most of the time trying to wrap my head around missile doctrine and the military industrial complex. The venalia only had a few wars with over 10,000 casualties, so the lengths humans would go was new to me and I got lost in horrid fascination.
