I’m watching out the stardome at the empty blackness of the stars when the station intercom buzzes. “Unidentified ship approaching, be aware. IF code reads Zarinnian, possible hostiles aboard.” I wait. “Unidentified ship has landed. Diplomatic party required.” I sigh. Are they waiting for me to take the hint or will they come right out and say it? My question is answered when a notification comes in on my comm. “Zorana Akiralara, your presence is required in Command, effective immediately.” All messages repeat before I delete them. I make my way to Command.
As I enter, I see every person in the room stiffen. They’re scared of me. I walk straight to the Admiral and wait silently. He stirs and asks the nearest tech, “Where is she?” The frightened officer points over the Admiral’s shoulder at me before jerking his hand back as if burned. The Admiral turns with a start. “Ah, Shadow, you’re here. We have a Zarinnian ship docked in our maintenance port and we need an envoy. You and your twin are the only ones here who speak their language, will you negotiate with them?”
As usual he’s overly polite. Since I am not directly under their command and technically possess a higher rank, they speak as if any word could set me off. I nod to him and he visibly relaxes as I leave. The protective dome over the maintenance port will provide the necessary oxygen and atmosphere, but I take a mask anyway. It wouldn’t be the first time a hole has appeared in the shielding.
As I step outside I have to raise an eyebrow in appreciation of the size of the ship in front of me. Massive isn’t even enough to describe it. My internal fighter tells me that there must be either at least a couple hundred people on board or a lot of cargo. Either way, I’m here to talk, not fight. Walking closer, I wait just out of range of what must be the door. Ships of this style have a door similar to a drawbridge that lower to the ground on a hinge using pneumatics which also act as support columns. This one is closed, likely because of the absence of a prior diplomatic party. I sigh. They could have at least established contact and informed the ship of my approach. I use my CSD (Communications and Scanning Device, I know, the inventors must be really creative) to scan the immediate area for any cameras before finding what on Old Earth would have been called a doorbell. Touching it lightly, I wait for a response while leaving my face in plain view.
Ten minutes of patience later, the door begins to lower and I back out of the way. Six impressively dressed Zarrinian men stride out of the ship like they own the station. I stand in silence and wait for them to finish their display. If only they knew that they aren’t having an effect on me… I think to myself, careful to keep my smirk off my face. When they come to a halt, I plant my right fist over my left shoulder in a Zarrinian sign of respect. “I come under a peace flag with orders to negotiate. Do you speak Terran?”
The men’s eyes widen in surprise. “We do, but as you seem to be knowledgeable in our ways we would prefer to converse in our own language. We understand your people like to install recording devices.” says their leader, a tall man with dark hair and blue-green eyes. “What are the terms?”
I consider briefly. “For what reason have you docked here? Given this is the maintenance port, if you knew that before landing I would assume you have a mechanical issue that requires repair.” Formalities are tiring me out quickly, but they’re necessary since I don’t want to be responsible for a war. “Is this so?”
He considers me as if watching for treachery. I hold myself with a preternatural stillness that often bothers those unaccustomed to my presence. I meet his eyes and he twitches as if startled into speaking as he states, “It is as you say. We were fired upon when we left our system. The projectiles bounced off, but our engines were damaged in our escape. Our engineers advised us to land for repairs as we do not have the technological supplies to repair it in flight. We chose to dock here as it was the closest station to us when we exited lightspeed.” He pauses. “We are not here to fight, steal, or bother your people in any way. We only wish a safe place to dock while we repair our engines.”
My comm buzzes. “What in the seven hells is going on out there? We can’t understand a single damn word! What do they want? Why are they here? For Sinak’s sake, girl, report in already!”
The Zarrinian leader frowns. “Your commanding officer?”
I shake my head. “The Admiral leads the station, but I have the highest rank here and he knows it. He’s just impatient or he wouldn’t dare speak to me that way.” I glare at my comm. “Please excuse me for a moment.” He nods and I step away, though I remain within earshot.
Lifting my comm to speaking level, I hiss out, “Conducting negotiations. Repairs required. No help needed.” As I lower my CSD I also turn it off, cutting off whatever the Admiral was trying to growl at me. I would have thought he’d know by now not to get involved in an active negotiation. The last time he did that, he almost started an inter-system war. I turn toward the Zarrinians with a perfectly blank expression and wait for them to begin speaking.
“Should you not show more kindness to those who follow you?” The question is posed to me by a man who appears to be the Zarrinian second-in-command. “You were quite short with him.”
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“They do not follow me. They fear me. I belong to no one and owe no obligation to their systems. They fear what I could do if I decided to stop listening to orders. I do not enjoy speech the way many seem to. Wasting words on unnecessary interruptions is rather displeasing.” I am fully aware that my words may be characterized as rude or offensive since I basically just told them I hate talking. They are no doubt wondering why I would be the welcoming party if I’m that anti-social. I watch their eyes for suspicion.
They are watching me just as carefully. The leader opens his mouth to speak, but gets cut off by his second-in-command. “Shall we dispense with formalities, then, and speak freely? Like you seem to be, we are tired by the polite speech and twisting words often required by political negotiations.”
I’m so relieved that if I didn’t have an audience, I might have actually sighed in relief. “Fine by me. Which repairs? What do you need? What are you here for?” I can sense their shock at my sudden change in speech patterns, but honestly, holding polite tones and formal speech was really bothering me. I should’ve sent my sister. She’s better at this kind of stuff. Even as I consider it, I know why I came myself. Zarinnians, especially Zarinnian men, respect strength and force above intellect and guile. My twin may be better at public relations, but I am undeniably stronger.
After a moment to regain his composure, the leader says, “Repairs to our engine core and wiring systems. We may need some spare wires and possibly a couple of tools. We do not intend to leave our ship unless directly requested to with a valid reason. Anyone entering becomes subject to our rules. Do you need anything from us in return?”
“No. Good.” I offer a slight bow and turn to leave. Lifting my comm to my lips, I say simply, “Reporting. Negotiations complete, spare wires and minor tools needed. No issue. Send an engineer.” I shut my CSD off again. “Careful. Terrans are fragile. I’ll bring my twin in the future. Need anything, contact me. Others speak no Zarrinian.” I turn off the small recording device on my shoulder. “Off record, don’t say you speak Terran. They would question you. I’m deleting this recording. My twin can report instead.” I turn my eyes directly to my sister’s observation post. Usually I’m the one watching from afar. She nods.
They follow my gaze. “We will follow your advice. Thank you. We owe you a favor.” I lift an eyebrow but refrain from mentioning how painful those words sound for him. I turn without further comment and walk back to base.
Upon entering, I’m confronted with one hundred eighty-five pounds of pissed-off Admiral. He’s on the verge of yelling, but forces his voice to be calm as he says, “Where’s the recording?”
I shake my head and gesture to the Zarinnian ship. I type into my comm and a message pops up on the Admiral’s screen, Force field. Disables recording devices. Comms only after ten yards. Technically it’s not a lie. The ship has force fields that do exactly that… they just don’t work on my comm or my recorders. I always fiddle with my equipment to make it damn near fool-proof, but the techs here don’t know that yet. Only my sister does. She comes in a moment later, having swapped with a recon officer after I left. “Kazaya Akiralara, reporting: Zarinnians have returned to their ship. They require only minimal parts and no outside support. No further contact required until departure.”
The Admiral is still fuming, but he nods and flicks his hand as if to dismiss us. We share a glance and shake our heads, staying right where we are. The Admiral looks back at us. “Why are you still standing here? I dismissed you! Leave immediately!”
Kazaya is usually my gentle sister, but even she is beginning to anger at his blatant disrespect. Her voice is deadly calm as she says with quiet anger, “Only superior officers have the authority to dismiss a soldier, and here, we have the highest rank. Therefore, no one present has the power to send us out. In fact, if we wanted, we could dismiss the entire crew and take command ourselves, and no one could argue with us about it.”
She watches with fascinated detachment as the blood drains out of his face and smirks slightly. “However, if you were to ask politely, we may be willing to exit the room and leave you in command.” She pauses and when he doesn’t speak, prompts him with, “Well? Something you want to say to us, Admiral?”
The use of his rank snaps him out of his shock. “Of course, Shadow Ladies. I sincerely apologize for my previous behavior and I would ask you to kindly depart Command for the time being. I believe I have a maintenance effort to coordinate.”
Kazaya smiles and shakes her head. “In order to preserve diplomatic relations, we’ll oversee the maintenance effort ourselves. Have a good day, Admiral.” We exit Command. As soon as the doors shut, Kazaya bursts out laughing. “Did you see his face! It was like he’s never been threatened before. And when he used our titles! It was so hard not to laugh. Why they ever gave us that title is beyond me.” She takes a moment to compose herself. “So what do we do now? We probably just pissed off our bosses, but even if we wanted to leave, we have nowhere to run. They made sure of that years ago.”
My gaze turns distant and I look toward the maintenance port. My sister reads my expression the instant before I say quietly, “I’ve got it. We can go.”
“Are you sure? I’m not sure they’ll allow it… the Zarinnians, not Base Command. We both know BC will hunt us down either way. But will those meatheads let us on board? Hmmm… oh, that’s right. They value strength. You’re strong enough to beat them up is they try to stop us, but I don’t think it’ll come to that. One of them will probably challenge you to a duel, and you can knock him out, and then there probably won’t be any issues! Zora, you’re a genius!”
Now, given that she was basically thinking out loud, it may seem strange that she gave me the credit. But in truth, I had already realized all of that -- she was simply attempting to follow my logic to understand how I came to my answer. She’s right. The Zarrinians will probably object to our presence, but despite their size, I can win their respect. Their ship is our only chance to get off this planet without being stopped by our bosses. The people who recruited us will never let us go. According to them, we’re “too powerful” to be released into the galaxy without government supervision, but their ‘oversight’ is more like indefinite indentured servitude.
I turn to my twin. “Plan. Contact. Escape. Easy?”
“Everything’s easy with you. Let’s go talk to some aliens, why don’t we?”