Thanks to our two guides we blended in when we left their rather large tent and stayed out of sight as they fed us more and more information.

The only Ucit on the planet was Roh. Although few people came into the tent, we generally got the feeling that every single Mane on the planet was stressed out, tired and had been abused by the Volk. Roh said that we had analyzed the body of his old friend, whose name sounded to our ears like ‘Jerry’. Jerry had the unfortunate luck to be one of the more adventurous Ucit. Some of the other Ucit had headed off world to other Mane planets, and it appeared that whoever had stayed didn’t survive the retribution.

The Mane themselves had so far colonized three planets beyond their home system. From the timeline that Hama gave us, they had colonized their first world roughly a thousand years ago. Then they found their second roughly four hundred years ago.

Then they contacted the Volk. The Volk took them in and adopted them as a client species, but it sounded like it was a terse relationship. The Volk were prone to outbursts that were problematic, but the Mane did not see a way out due to the power imbalance. It was frequently a problem that the Volk military rendered harsh punishment on Mane Soldiers. Soldiers who did all the grunt work for the Volk. Volk who tended to sit in orbit.

The Volk and Mane followed an honor code that was very warrior-like and reminded me of the Samurai culture. Both races had different ways they went about it. The Volk had different clans that although they fought between themselves, they mostly fought against threats to their race. Hama himself had not fought for the Volk, but he was assured that the Volk often clashed with two other civilizations that Roh did not know much about. I resolved to learn about those when the situation presented itself.

Hama had the third largest tent of all the Mane on the planet, mostly due to his having a load of scientific equipment. The first and second largest were the Mane sick bay and food bank respectively. When we first arrived, we spent hours digging a hidden basement and hollowed out a little meeting slash hiding space. It was here that we met with Roh or Hama nightly and we got our little briefs. We kept a nice rug over our ladder down over a plank of wood. Hama had a bench that he then placed over the rug to further obscure it.

Tonight I was trying to learn about the political side of Mane society.

“So, Hama, I appreciate your help in learning about Mane culture. Tonight, I wanted you to explain how Mane society is organized. I know you have more than one planet so there has to be a way that you organize.” I said.

“Well...” Hama looked off to the side. We had strung gentle lights in our little basement under the rock. “We have our federal government on our home planet that runs everything. Each planet has its own internal government that deals with interplanetary matters, and our parliament deals with matters of larger importance. We elect members to parliament every five years, but with us out here we are really out of their grasp.”

“And locally, how were you organized? “I said.

“Well, we had an interim planetary administrator. I don’t know what happened to him, but I’m willing to think that he was probably one of those that were killed aboard our ring. Since he has been missing for years at this point, it is my best guess.”

The Mane had two genders, although the Ucit were entirely all nonbinary. The Ucit were fascinated by the gender roles that the Mane professed, even when it seemed like the Mane did not really hold true to either a patriarchal or matriarchal society. The Volk however, seemed to have a very matriarchal society from what we were learning.

“That ring, it was fascinating. We would love to talk at length about that, later but for now, who runs the Mane here? And how are they...?”

“The head Mane on the planet is now a junior military official named Julan. He is the most senior government official despite being in his capacity for only five years, this is his first tour. He is barely keeping it together, we all are.”

His drooped crest indicated deep sadness. That much we had picked up so far. Besides the head shaking meaning different things left to right meant yes up and down meant no, we were slowly picking up Mane body language.

“Is he in open opposition to the Volk?” Kiernan said.

“Open opposition would be suicide. We give them what they want, because he knows that if he does not, they will hurt one of us. They have already punished us once, and they make sure that we know that they could do it again.” Hamas crest seemed to droop even lower.

This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

“But so far as you know there are only ten Volk here? What possible threat could they be?” Killmonger said.

“They are led by Blademother K’ellvandra.” Roh paused as he looked at Killmonger. “The Blademothers are the larger female Volk who are easily entrusted with squads of far greater size. Not every female Volk can be a Blademother, but those that can are very intimidating. In the Volk warrior caste, most of the warriors are male, except for Blademothers and Blademothers in training or at least that is what I’ve gleaned. Each of the nine under her are sworn to defend her honor and would die without question to please her. If she were to be removed, I don’t know how the rest of her team would fare without her, but it would probably fall to her first Blade to restore her honor somehow.”

I resolved that if I ever got a more badass spaceship up and running that I would call it Blademother…. that or Stevie’s Ship. I loved alliteration almost as good as a badass naming convention.

“Hama, if we were to meet with Julan…” I started as he turned to me. “Would he give away our secret?”

“I think that he wants this particular Volk dead nearly as much as I do, but he would be duty bound to report you. Then he might even get better treatment if he does. Better to lie low for now until we figure out a way to take this Volk contingent out.”

“Hmmmm.” I said. “Anything else?”

“They’re scheduled to have a re-supply every six months, or at least that was the frequency with which supplies have landed since the incident. K’ellvandra does not like her position here and must wish that she wasn’t on this planet. She is very vocal about it when she leaves the Volk station.”

The Volk had the only hard structure left on the planet that wasn’t a fabricated tent. It was a glorified aircraft hangar minus any aircraft. They rarely left and when we were able to sneak a peek, the Blademother was never outside. At most three of the Volk were out at once. With their full body armor, we couldn’t really distinguish any differences. It could be the same three every time, or a different three. I made a mental note to do another survey of their headquarters. Perhaps a tiny drone would do the trick, but old fashioned surveillance should be enough.

After all, who knew what kind of defense mechanisms they had in place.

“When was the last re-supply?” Killmonger asked.

I was already thinking about projecting what that would look like.

Hama seemed to do a little math in his head.

“About two years ago? I will check my calendar.”

“Are you thinking what I’m thinking?” Kiernan looked at me.

“Once the resupply is over, that is when we can make our move.” I said. “We’ve got four months to plan on how we want to hit them.”

“Hama, now the important question. How do the Volk get here?”

“The way I see it,” I told the group. “We’ve got three choices on how we get what we want.”

Roh had retired to sit watch. I was addressing the group in whispers.

“What is it that you want? You said that you wanted to hit them, but how?”

“I want to figure out how they got here, and I want to hitch a ride.”

“You want to hitch a ride?” Kiernan asked.

“Right, so my first idea is we can try to talk our way past the Volk. Do a chin wag, get their buy in and then, BAM,” I said.

Kiernan sighed.

“A chin wag, that’s what you called those civil engagements, right? Talk to the local tribe leader to get their buy in and such?” Kiernan said.

“Their ship is our ship.” I said.

“Okay, what is your second idea? They may catch on to that easily…” Killmonger said.

“Stealth. We do the old smash and grab. Sneak in and find our way to the controls, Killmonger you’re going to have to learn how to jerry rig the system.”

“Killmonger is going to have to learn how to tamper with an alien computer system. Okay that’s doable,” Kiernan said.

“It seems like a tough job, but what other chance do we have,” Killmonger replied.

“Well the third option, instead of a smash and grab, it’s more of a stab and stab,” I said.

“Straight up assassination? I think that we can almost certainly count that one out,” Killmonger said. “We need to not start an interstellar war. Stealing a ship through charisma, do a so-called chin wag? Or going through it with stealth?”

“Our best option is probably to figure out how to sneak on, have Killmonger tamper with, disable or destroy something vital, but not something so vital that it won’t ground the bird.” Kiernan said.

“So I’ve got four months to figure out how to perform a miracle?” Killmonger said.

“I’m going to have to study the Volk and figure out a fall back plan,” I said.

Killmonger and I turned to Kiernan.

“What? I’ll help! I can figure out a way to make us more deadly in case we need to do a stab and grab,” She said.

“Well that covers all of the different options,” I said. “Kiernan, if you can figure out a way to make us stealthier, that would help.”

“Make it easy for me, why don’t you?” Kiernan replied, “This is just like that time on lady steelheart's ship.”