After setting the white garment from her head on the counter, she put her arms on it, resting her upper body by the looks of things.
“This is going to be unprofessional as Hell, but I’ve been awake for something like 36 hours and if you don’t mind, I’d rather relax for just a few minutes.”
I turned my head a bit quizzically, “Given that I know precisely nothing about human formalities, I’d say you’re safe here.”
She turned around and was about to continue talking when she saw my hands. “Good Lord, they just left you with blood all over your hands?”
She opened one of the cabinets and pulled out a white piece of fabric and unfolded it. She then held it under a pipe over a basin built into the counter and hovered her other hand under it, which caused water to dispense. After which she handed it to me.
“There, maybe you can scrub the majority off. Then get the rest off with just the water. Alright, now what I’m here for. You have been put in a very unique situation here. One that could wind up reflecting very badly on us and Humanity as a whole.”
“Why? You were attacked by pirates, it’s by pure coincidence I happened to be here.”
“No, no, not pirates. Slavers. Slavers that we knew about prior to our meeting, slavers that we were asked to keep quiet about by your galactic government. How hard would it be for them to blame this whole incident on us? The new, militarized predator species with a less than desirable past that was being monitored long before we discovered FTL? That’s what everyone believes, regardless of its truth. The Floriacians now know you exist. They found your station through us. If there are any species in the galaxy remotely close to humanity, they’re going to want to know why they weren’t notified so they could prepare.”
As terrifying as what she said was, it was at least somewhat true. Somehow with completely limited knowledge of galactic affairs, she had predicted very specific things that were not impossible. I didn’t believe the Federation would blame the humans for this new threat, but I could see where she and likely many others in human leadership were coming from. The very first interaction the humans had with the Federation was full of deceit; it made sense that they would expect nothing different going forward. That wasn’t the only thing she predicted though. Despite not being explicitly said, the way her tone changed when she mentioned that humanity is a predator species suggested a knowledge of certain prejudices that might exist among Federation members.
“No one will be worried, nearly every species has an individual navy not even counting the GDN. One rogue species isn’t any match.”
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“Ozis, you don’t understand. A slaver species is the most dangerous thing that could happen to your conglomerate. Let me break down exactly what I think is going to happen.”
She pulled over a chair from the other side of the room and moved it in front of me. She sat down facing me.
“To the Floriacians, we have just opened up an entirely new source of revenue. They are going to learn population numbers, species’ strengths, trade routes, you name it. They are going to start small and efficient raids on individual ships, gaining individuals to hold without being enough of a problem that they rouse a proper military force. They are going to slowly escalate, using brutality and fear tactics to scare the ever-living shit out of any civilians living in these empires. These civilians are going to want something to be done. Something to be done using their big, imposing, and powerful warships. They are going to all create a narrative that the only way to stop this is to completely eradicate the Floriacians from existence. The Floriacians know this, and they are going to use slaves as shields, they are going to threaten to torture and kill them by the thousands. They are going to fill military ships with slaves and use them as bait against a would-be attacking government. When this government attacks, it won’t be long before a bait ship filled with 10,000 slaves gets hit by a laser, or their attack causes a prison to self-destruct. Bombs are indiscriminate. That government is going to be responsible for the deaths of their own people, their own people that have been enduring slavery up until that point. This government will be thrown into political turmoil. However, that’s not the worst part. There will be tens if not hundreds of different species of slaves on those ships and planets. At least one of them is bound to have tense relations with the species that was simply trying to stop the slavers. The killing of thousands of members of a species sounds like a perfect excuse to start a war to me. The Federation and all its members will be thrust into chaos as individual conflicts start between them, and when the dust settles, the Floriaicians will prosper, having been given a galaxy of slaves on a platter by its own navies that were supposed to defend it.”
I didn’t know what to say. Regardless of the actual scale of what would happen, with the number of species members in the Federation that hate each other, what she said only needed to happen once. That one conflict would cause allies of each species to be forced to help, allies who have their own allies and enemies. Chaos would begin growing exponentially.
“What do you want me to do?”
She took a deep breath and ran a hand through her hair, which had fallen in front of her face.
“I need you to tell whoever you report to that our ship was struck by a small asteroid that damaged our communications system. We could only get it fixed by going back to human space, and that’s why you were gone so long.”
“What? Why?”
“Look, the original plan was to use this event as leverage to get a meeting with all the members of the Federation to explain the scale of the problem, but now we think this is for the best. Humanity is closer than any of your members to Floriacian space. We know the most about them. We are more equipped to handle this than you are, and even though it will be costly, it will only be between us and them. Let the galaxy believe this is a small pirate problem, and we will personally see to it that they are dealt with. No one has to go to war. No one has to know.
She stood up and put the white object back on her head.
“I’m sorry to do this to you Ozis, you don’t deserve it and honestly I don’t either. But our plan hinges on your ability to tell this one lie, and I understand if you can’t. I’ll give you until tomorrow to decide. If you decide to help, we will send you home on a small transport ship, you will tell them about the asteroid and then go back to cataloging our weapons and whatever else you do in your job. If you decide you cannot do it, we are going to show up with our entire navy and demand a meeting with your Federation.”
With that, she stood up and walked out of the room.