Chapter 272: Historical Archive (PThok Makes a Video) (2/2)

The males cheered for the escaped doomed male.

The females rewound the video and watched it again.

The Treana'ad numbered in the high tens of billions across their eight planets. There were thousands, tens of thousands who needed to breed.

Nearly 15% of them tried the method in the video. Almost of a third of those recording what occurred.

To the shock of everyone, the males survived, escaping while the matron relaxed, puffing on her power smoker and nibbling at the residual tastes on the tips of her bladearms.

Traditionalists wanted the videos banned, citing irreversible damage to society and the way things had always been.

The Male Resistance fractured as one half wanted the videos banned, knowing that political power would slip from their graspers, the other half seeing the videos as proof that no longer would males be destined to die just so that the Treana'ad people could endure.

The Hive Queens of the eight planets, forty-nine in all, eight of whom (one on each world) had bred with a war hero who had survived what would have been a fatal meeting, demanded the videos stayed up.

And what the Hive Queens wanted, the Treana'ad people acquiesced to.

Those four videos hit the Treana'ad species like a runaway train into a moomoo.

The Hive Queens demanded Moomoo Raids into Terran Space. If the Terrans would not share the Moomoos, then the Hive Queens would take the Moomoos.

The Matron who had financed and approved the daring night time raid that had wrested the secrets of ice cream and smoke and even snatched moomoos, who had been promoted to a High Matron, had a different suggestion.

She proposed another daring plot.

She would take a ship into Terran Space, with the War Hero to accompany her along with his faithful and dauntless combat team, and demand that the Terrans send a diplomat to speak with her. She would demand that the Terrans turn over the two red star systems to the Treana'ad people, open trade relations to the Treana'ad People, and in the Treana'ad People's benevolence, they'd return the worthless rainy and plant covered planets around those dangerous yellow stars.

The Hive Queens discussed the plan. It was insane, impossible.

Then the newly crowned High Matron reminded them that the concept of 'birth control' had also seemed impossible, but it had taken Treana'ad scientists less than a month to create a synthetic hormone that prevented breeding hysteria.

The Queens ate ice cream, puffed on their power smokers, and consulted one another.

If it didn't work, then all the Treana'ad people lost was one ship, a newly promoted High Matron, and a war hero who had already bred an outlandish and impossible ten times.

They made the decision.

”Peace or Bust” was commissioned and went into jumpspace, heading for the Terran/Treana'ad Disputed Zone.

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Admiral John Tshuma rushed into the bridge of the flagship of the Enterprise, still buttoning his tunic as the red lights flashed and the klaxon wailed.

”What have got?” he asked, rubbing his face. His jaw ached from the nosleep inhaler he'd puffed on in the elevator.

”Treana'ad ship. Just one. Looks unarmed. It jumped in at the resonance zone and started broadcasting,” LT JG Duong said. ”They're sitting right next to a hypercom buoy and are waiting to talk.”

That was new. Treana'ad usually showed up with hive ships, dropping tens of thousands of warriors onto a planet and spawning thousands of torch-ship fighters. Just one ship, asking to talk, was something that had never happened since the Treana'ad had attacked out of the blue.

”All right, is our hypercom link warmed up?” Tshuma asked.

The LT nodded and the bridge crew tensed.

”Open the link,” Tshuma ordered. The screen cleared of the Republic's wallpaper, the image of the Treana'ad appearing.

Tshuma coughed, avoiding bursting out laughing. There was a huge one, possibly a female, with cloth draped over her(?) abdomen, wearing a leather vest with a silver star on the breast, and a sash covered with ornaments as well as a dangling star from the end of each of her antenna.

The male warriors were what was worse. All but the center one were wearing balaclavas, with imitation Stetson cowboy hats, leather vests with brass stars over body armor, with crossed leather belts packing plasma pistols. The male, an obvious warrior caste, in the center of the picture was not wearing a balaclava, but instead had a cigarette in his mouth.

”This is Admiral John Tshuma, of the Republic Naval Vessel Enterprise,” he said. ”Whom am I speaking with?”

”I am P'Thok, and my words are backed by ice cream and cigarettes so you will heed to the demands of the Treana'ad People!”