The next couple of days proceeded in that strange manner where they seemed simultaneously interminable and all too brief. Lin continued managing the fabrication systems, researching the strange phenomena she continued to find as she explored the valley, and developing contingency options for conflict with the Protectorate. Andrea had continued to travel to meet with Unla-Ela and their students, polishing her skill in the trade tongue while continuing to build the language model to assist in future translation. Andrea was determined that, at the very least, her meeting with the Protectorate would not fail on the basis of miscommunication.
During the meetings just outside their camp Andrea had also tentatively proposed a plan to Unla-Ela and Olan Lunere that might at the very least delay the possibility of open conflict with the Protectorate while simultaneously legitimizing Andrea's position as a representative of a foreign government. She suggested that Olan Lunere lease the valley to her on behalf of the Maleprian dual monarchy. Andrea would then establish a small compound to function as an embassy. In the short term this would hopefully discourage the Protectorate from intruding in the region. In theory they should be leery of potentially provoking an unknown foreign government and handing their opponents in the region an additional ally. In the long term, Andrea made it clear that she fully intended to legitimately use the valley as the site for an embassy, cultural exchange center, and potential commerce hub between her empire, Malepre, and points beyond. In this process Andrea was careful to never explicitly state the exact location of her country. It was clear that both Unla-Ela and Olan Lunere assumed it lay somewhere in the unexplored region in proximity to the valley and Andrea was in no hurry to clarify that the sole point of access back home was both located in the valley and currently closed.
Olan Lunere expressed interest in Andrea's proposal though they also made it clear that they had their doubts as to how much of a deterrent the ploy would actually prove to be. The Olan also noted that while they could make a provisional lease agreement, and provide documentation for that lease for Andrea to present when speaking to the Protectorate expedition, they did not actually have the authority to unilaterally ratify an agreement of that nature. They thought it was unlikely that the dual crown would reject the idea out of hand, but Andrea would need to renegotiate the terms at a later date to establish a legitimate lease on the region if she still wished to do so.
As Andrea continued her diplomatic efforts and intelligence gathering, Lin continued to explore the valley and expand the contingent of drones available, using the base camp’s fabricators. She began carefully airlifting some of the small spider-like stealth drones into areas that appeared most likely to be crossed by the Protectorate expedition. While she had asked Andrea to get around to probing her new friends for information on the military of the Protectorate, Lin was neither content to wait nor satisfied with relying solely on unvetted second hand intelligence. She intended to very carefully begin reconnaissance, from her experience with Unla-Ela and Olan Lunere’s expedition Lin felt that her stealth drones were very unlikely to be discovered, and even if they were, their self-destruct could easily be taken as yet another peculiar ability in an unknown species from an unexplored region. This meant she felt safe using them for close observation without a significant threat of revealing either her presence or capabilities.
On the evening of the second day Lin used a light security drone to make an announcement at the table in the hab dome. Having climbed up it settled down across from Andrea before striking a pose reminiscent of a cat that was feeling proud of itself. “Both the heavy lift drone and the passenger pod are finished and ready to be used! You’ll get to ride in safety and comfort and I’ll finally have the other half of our production capacity free for other uses.” Andrea finished the last bite of the smoked salmon and cream cheese meal bar she’d settled on for dinner, her enthusiastic thumbs up at the small drone Lin had preening on the table presaging her sentiments fairly clearly. “Awesome! I was really getting tired of being hauled around dangling in the open air. This’ll be even better for when I go to meet the Protectorate, I’ll be able to look the part of a diplomat rather than a wind wracked mess, a flight over those mountains in the open would have been really rough. Now that we’ve got fast and secure transport, we need to discuss when I’m going to actually go and meet our latest group of adventurous alien beings.”
There were about ten days left until the earliest estimated arrival time Lin could calculate for the Protectorate expedition. Though that would only be reaching the heights of one of the passes that looked down into the valley, actually reaching the valley proper would likely take another full day. Lin had realized that they had a bit longer than she’d initially thought, since the group would slow down significantly once they had to abandon the wheeled vehicles. The transports were proving well suited to traversing the open plains, despite the lack of roads, but Lin had examined the likeliest courses for them to take and none of them would allow the vehicles passage, without multiple significant engineering projects. Nothing Lin had seen led her to believe the expedition was intending to build bridges and cut wide cliff side roads as they went. In fact if that turned out to be their plan after all, she’d have to add far more time to their estimated arrival.
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After some discussion, Andrea and Lin decided on waiting three more days before Andrea traveled over the mountains to meet the Protectorate expedition, this would give Andrea a little more time to learn what she could from Unla-Ela and Olan Lunere, this included conventional etiquette for diplomatic exchanges, a procedure that Olan Lunere was required to know as an officer of the dual monarchs. In a stroke of good fortune Olan Lunere’s expertise in diplomacy was what had singled them out for leading the Maleprian portion of the joint mission, making them an excellent teacher on the subject. Additionally Andrea was going to be learning a smattering of the official language of the Protectorate. As a multi-state Empire there were many different languages spoken in various regions but the traditional language of the original monarchy was retained as the official language and anyone with any education in the Protectorate learned to speak it. While Andrea wouldn't have the time to learn much, nor were there any experts in the language among Unla-Ela's party, she would at the very least have a small vocabulary with which she was familiar and the translation software would be able to begin building a linguistic dictionary.
Over the three days that Andrea was spending in learning what she could, Lin would be continuing to surveil the incoming expedition as well as seeding additional caches of spy drones ahead of their path. The expedition was on track to pass the first group of concealed spy drones, about a day before Andrea was going to attempt contact. Lin intended to make use of the limited language dictionary for the Protectorate's official language by listening in on all the conversations she could, allowing her to both feed more data into language translation software. Ideally, Lin would be able to learn a bit about the intentions and dispositions of the expedition’s leaders ahead of Andrea's meeting with them.
The three day deadline left them in a bit of a rush having to curtail some of the prep work they would have preferred to do before engaging in another first contact. The duo had however come to the conclusion that it was better to have this first meeting while the group was still at least a week away from actually reaching them. If the meeting went well, excellent, if it went poorly or it seemed like there would be trouble regardless of how the meeting went, then they would have seven or eight days in which to decide on the best response and prepare it.
The next morning Lin continued her preparations, temporarily setting aside her lab work and research to entirely focus on gathering as much information as she could and fabricating the first vacuum aerostat platform. Andrea still pulled along the escort of half a dozen combat drones but now they all flew unencumbered in a fast moving formation around a vehicle that dwarfed them in size. Thirty meters long and ten wide, if the combat drones looked insectile, then the heavy lift drone appeared to be one of their oversized prehistoric ancestors. Clasped securely to the abdomen of this artificial flying beast was the large oblong shape of the passenger pod, much of its broad curving walls were currently set to be transparent allowing Andrea a spectacular view of the valley as it flew by.
In a matter of minutes after take off, the large drone was descending back down towards the small clearing Andrea had been using. It slipped carefully through the small gap in the forest canopy and settled down on half a dozen landing legs that folded out smoothly as the ground rose up to meet them. Andrea opened up a hatch on the side of the transport pod and stepped out of her new ride. It was unlikely that Unla-Ela and Olan Lunere would miss the large vehicle, being both relatively noisy and landing only a moderate distance from their camp. Andrea had insisted, against Lin’s protests, that they not try and hide the transport, both Unla-Ela and Olan Lunere had been gently probing Andrea on both how she was leaning when the Protectorate expedition might arrive and how she was planning on meeting them before they did. Andrea decided that a direct demonstration, including offering to take them on a ride would satisfy some of their curiosity and begin to establish her more securely as representing a legitimate sophisticated foreign government. With three days till she was to leave Andrea hoped that showing off like this would expedite the process of getting useful information, particularly out of Olan Lunere. The Olan had, up till now, balked at demonstrating any of their military hardware, or discussing how it compared to the Protectorate’s equipment. While she had no interest in fighting another war, Andrea believed that ignorance could be deadly and that sometimes peace could only be maintained at knifepoint. It was time to see how good a whetstone the Olan would be.