Chapter Thirty-Two (Dreams) (2/2)
”So you wiped out the native sentients and replaced them with these genejacks?” Dreams asked. She shook her head. ”The Terran Confederate Genomic Self-Determination Act makes this illegal according to Confederate legal codes.”
”But that isn't Confederate territory,” Hashknesh answered.
”If it is under control of the Confederate Navy after heavy enemy action, it's Confederate territory through right of conquest,” Dreams shot back. ”The Confederacy may return it if previous treaties apply or if they are feeling generous, but until it is decided in a court of admiralty law, then the Kteshaka'an system is Confederate territory until the cessation of hostilities.”
Hashknesh felt pleasure at the last part. ”So, when the battle of over.”
”That battle was not the final battle of the war. Over sixty-eight more systems report Precursor incursions, nearly two hundred have gone silent, and nearly five hundred more are suspected of having fallen under Precursor control before I arrived at this planet,” Dreams answered. ”Hostilities have not ceased,” She leaned back against her abdomen. ”The war hasn't even really begun.”
”What?” Hashknesh frowned. ”Your navy is engaged in combat. Of course the war has started.”
Dreams shook her head slowly, flashing runes for negation. ”No. The Navy, a military service branch dedicated to defense of out systems, as well as the Confederate Quick Reaction Force, has engaged the enemy in order to bring the order of battle into such a state that the Space Force and the entire Confederate military can be brought to bear against the Precursors. Right now there are thousands of ships, heavily armed, fully crewed, heading this way. Volunteer Irregular Forces, colloquially known as ”The Idiots” have been unthawed or deputized. The entire Confederate military has been put on full war-time footing according the laws and regulations passed after the Fifth Precursor War.”
Hashknesh folded her hands and watched as Dreams cleaned her bladearms, the holorune for patience appearing. Hashknesh noted that Dreams antenna seemed to slowly calm. Finally the rune vanished and Dreams continued.
”You have come in here, in a roundabout way, to tell me that this Kilnametik Industrial and Manufacturing Concern in the Kteshaka'an System is going to attempt to force the Confederate Navy to surrender the system to their control?” Dreams signaled the rune for exasperation. ”Are you all mad? The system is still in combat action with several planets still having the Confederate Marines fighting the Precursor machines for control of the planet itself, and your precious KIMC is going to jump into the system with guns clear and demand a Confederate Naval Fleet surrender?”
Hashknesh stared. ”Well, yes. The KIMC feels that directly after the battle the humans will be tired and will have undergone severe mental trauma and would prefer not to reengage combat action so soon after finishing a hard battle.”
Dreams just stared. ”You know nothing of all about humans. Despite everything my office has transmitted to your people, all of the inter-species analysis, the historical information, their physiology, their psychiatric makeup, and you, in your infinite wisdom, thought that threatening humans still covered with the sweat of battle and bleeding from a few dozen minor wounds would make them flee in fear? Did you read nothing my office transmitted you?”
”We are in the process of determining which offices should have the responsibility of not only examining that information, but what to disseminate to the other councils. As it stands, the KIMC fleet intends on pressing the issue if the Terran fleet has suffered at least ten percent casualties during the battle,” Hashknesh said, signaling satisfaction. ”That is the number any logical being would realize they are no longer battle capable.”
”Pardon me, madame Speaker, but it appears I have spontaneously combusted and that is the reason for the unfiltered light causing you distress, please allow me to extend my apologies for breaking your food dispenser. Oh, and my watch seems to have stopped, do you know a good watch repair shop nearby? Was what Dreams thought for a long moment, just staring at the other being.
”Are. You. All. Stupid?” Dreams managed to click out in her own language. The diplomatic filter kicked it back, merely offering up to the other diplomat.
The sudden urge to lash out with her psychic powers, climb up the saurian's back, stand on the shoulders of the stunned creature, then crack open its skull with her bladearms roared up. Her implosion wire tingled and Dreams sat perfectly still, reciting mantras of calm.
Turning her back to the Saurian, Dreams got up slowly, mindful of her armed suicide device, and slowly moved toward the bole of the tree. She stopped next to the stream and looked down at the little fish. The manufacturer of the hard light simulation had been very proud of those little fish, bragging that the fish themselves had their very own custom coded VI to guide their movements and actions.
After a long moment of silence Hashknesh looked around. ”This is an elaborate simulation, Speaker.”
”It is of a planetary ecosystem anomaly. A rain forest in the northern latitudes of a temperate region of a planet. Far too cool to normally produce the micro-ecosystem needed for a rain forest,” Dreams said, still staring at the little fish. ”It was painstakingly recreated after it was destroyed.”
Mr. Rings poked his head out of the bole just enough for his big expressive eyes to be seen, the blue rings around his eyes startling in their color. Dreams knew that the little cephalopod was nervous enough its neurotoxin glands had filled with extremely lethal biochems.
”Destroyed? Through mismanagement?” Hashknesh asked.
”No. By orbital fire from ships my people sent in an attempt to deliver a blow that would kill the queen, so to speak, and end the war,” Dreams said. She leaned down, stirred the water with her bladearm. ”We glassed the entire regions around the Seatac Metroplex, and the Captain was amused to hit this too.”
”If it was glassed, why, how was it fixed? Everybeing knows you can't undo a glassing,” Hashknesh said.
”That's what we gloated to the Terrans,” Dreams said. She sent a signal through her implant as she spoke. When she got the ding that the treat was ready, she darted her her bladearm into the water, spearing a fish/nutri-snack and lifting the biomatter treat up out of the water. ”We told them that glassing was irreversible.”
She held her bladearm to Mr Rings, still speaking. ”The Terrans, after beating us, turned their vast war industry into solving the problem. Now, you can't even tell we glassed it,” She said. Mr. Rings saw the visitor move and ducked a little into his bole.
”They created methods to clean up glassing?” Heshknesh asked, her mind boggling.
”You see, it was more examples of their primacy over us,” Dreams said softly. ”They not only defeated us, they removed all evidence we even touched them, as if the war never happened. My people are welcome on Terra, allowed to live there, own property on the cradle of humanity, as if we never attacked them.”
Mr. Rings slowly, shyly, reached out for the treat.
”The Overqueens might as well have never existed. The Speakers and Warriors might have never existed,” Dreams said softly. ”The Terrans claimed it was to keep humanity from remaining angry by being reminded by the physical 'scars' on Terra of what we had to them. So they erased it. As if we had never fought. The humans are as terrifying in times of peace and ease as they are in warfare.”
Mr. Rings's tentacle touched the meat with a sucker, extended his hook he used to catch prey/snacks and climb the bark of the trees, and pulled the treat back, still looking around shyly.
”I will inform TerraSol that you are unaware of what you have just done and request that your people are pardoned in ignorance for what you are about to do,” Dreams said softly. ”You should inform your leaders that I am all that stands between your ignorant, naive, and childish people and the 1% Line.”
”The 1% Line?” Hashknesh asked. Those words sounded threatening, as if a mere percentage signifier was supposed to be a dire warning.
”Should you go to war with the Terran Confederacy, as a whole with the support of your people and your government, your people, your planets, your rulers, everyone, will be slaughtered until only a single percentage point of your original population remains,” Dreams said softly. ”For five generations all you will be permitted is what Terrans refer to as 'Pre-Industrial' technology, and your systems interdicted from travel or communication from everything but a Terran Military Station.”
Mr. Rings climbed quickly from the bole, up the tree, his long tentacles allowing him to quickly move to the next water filled bole in the potted plant that Dreams took everywhere with her.
”You will look up at the stars and, to quote a long forgotten human sage: wonder why you had to act like an asshole.”
Hashknesh just stared, where she'd seen the small creature her implant had labeled as a ”Pacific Northwest Tree Octopus”, and felt her scales grow cold as she realized that it wasn't a threat.
The Terran Confederacy had done it before.
To the Mantids.
And they'd do it again.
To the Council.
Speaker Hashknesh got up and left, without speaking, hurrying to the Council chamber and summoning an emergency meeting.
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TO: TERRASOL DIPLOMATIC CORPS
FROM: DREAMS OF SOMETHING MORE
These beings are as children. They were not adequately warned. The actions of the corporations are carried out under their own will, not the will of the government, which largely does not carry out the will of the people. I beg for clemency and mercy on their behalf.
PS: Can you send me some more Pacific Northwest Spotted Salmon Treats, non-synthetic? Mr. Rings likes those best.
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TERRAN CONFEDERACY MEMO
Respond to all attacks under the Confederate Rules of Engagement. Do not carry out punitive responses. Diplomatic and Congressional discussions are underway.
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