And so they finally stood before the leader of the infamous Onnobolda, or at least that was what Liana suspected the woman they now faced was. At least it was clear that it wasn't just anyone that was sitting in front of them now, one a weird organic throne. She was very prominently present in the room somehow, although it wasn't her clothes or her height. At first glance, she was just an ordinary Nummerfil fighter in the typical Onnobolda black combat attire, just like Liana herself wore too at the moment. But somehow it felt like this woman didn't belong in this world, which gave the whole room an alienating effect. Like all Nummerfa she had a pale face without a hint of pink, with very dark that almost shone bluish in this semi-darkness, and her eyes were also unnaturally blue. But her dark purple lips were what stood out most. Liana found them very unnatural, even for a Nummerfil. Was it lipstick? That would be very unexpected for a Nuanderran. She had no jewellery except for a sharp pointy black stone on her chest that could have been obsidian and some sort of unknown watch-like device on her wrist. She also seemed more 'transparent' than other Nummerfa she’d seen who were not in the side dimension, but it was clear that she was also visible to ordinary people and Drotnira.
But the most striking thing wasn't her looks, it was her strong mind. Liana had already automatically shut off her head instinctively when they were first ushered in this weird place, but it seemed like something still invaded and kept 'watching' in her head. Liana looked around the room, then back to the strange rebel leader in front of the. Her huge chair of woven branches reminded Liana of Inaya's home, far away in another world, and just seeing that chair made her homesick for a world that wasn't even her own. Around her a few bizarre technological devices stood that Liana couldn't identify, but beyond that, everything in this room was organic, as if it was built as an enclave of the oak wood. The woman in the chair didn't quite fit into this world, but she wouldn't fit in Nuanderra either, let alone her own world, Liana thought.
“Andira!” Inaya seemed to have recognized her as an old acquaintance. She didn't respond to her name though, and seemed to be silently waiting for everyone to take their position to respond, and it was clear that she was just scanning the area for now. Liana had already noticed that they were not alone here, but only now was paying attention to the other people around them. Several Drotniril guards had already been in the room when they arrived, joined by the four STC agents and the two Nummerfil guards who had led them there. All of them stood in a semicircle around Andira, with the three prisoners in the middle, and they also seemed to be waiting. Liana still got the creeps from all those guns she didn't even know what they were doing.
Meanwhile, the interrogation seemed to have begun before a word had been said. Andira had looked at the room, and then at the prisoners for a long time, but her gaze remained mostly fixed on Inaya. “Ah, Inaya, my dear,” she said, for some reason in Dutch. Then she looked disapprovingly at Lun, finally turning her gaze even more disapprovingly to Liana, as if she were an insignificant afterthought that had no place in this story. ”Yes, I knew that you were here with your little helpers. I wanted to see what you were up to, but when you got too close I couldn't let you snoop around too much, could I?” Liana felt anger flare up in the otherwise calm Inaya, but Andira ignored it and moved on with her speech. “Yes, of course I knew you were coming, silly girl. To be honest, I had expected snoopers from the council much earlier. I was disappointed that you didn't come earlier." A cruel smile played around her mouth, and she briefly pointed at Liana before continuing without looking at her. “But with an actual Gorchbold? Seriously! Have some honour! Has the council fallen that low?”
She paused, as if she hadn't thought of anything, and then continued: “But you are three still everything the council of Nummerfa has sent? After all that time? Probably the whole council of councils even? Ah, as always they miss the big picture completely!” She let out an eerie laugh that sent Liana shivers down her spine. “And you are already too late to stop me. Way too late. Soon all of Oranderra will be mine! And then will it be finally free from the Shadow!” She leaned toward her captives, as if to whisper something to them, and leaned her head toward Liana here.
“Yes, I’m speaking in the Oranderran language of our little friend here, because perhaps I might say some things that our other friends here better don’t hear.” And she very subtly pointed her finger at the STC agents motionless aiming their weapons at Liana and her friends. Or did she point to the Drotnira? Liana wasn't quite sure… “You all know the problem. The big problem we've had since the dawn of known history. The great risk that awaits like a shard in the grass where bare feet pass all the time. Like a scorpion waiting between the straps of a sandal.” She jabbed her finger back at Liana, still without even looking at her. “The Shadow of Oranderra. The evil that wants to invade all worlds. We will never be safe from that. As long as Oranderra is under the Shadow, we will continue to be a risk in Nuanderra.” Her eyes seemed to blaze hate at Liana. “So we have to completely purge the old world. Remove all evil.”
Liana knew what was coming, but for some reason she wasn't afraid anymore. She'd been through too much, seen too much, walked around in an alien world for too long to be impressed now by Andira and her talk. But the woman was certainly getting on her nerves with her strange nonsensical prejudices about her. Liana answered her only with a blazing irritated look. Everything was wrong with this woman: her clothes, her appearance, her words. She seemed fake, and her story was paper-thin and wrong. “So you intend to conquer our world with the weapons of Superior Tech Corp? You allow yourself to be used by my fellow humans; and then exterminate them all yourself?” Andira looked at her for a moment, with deep horror in her purple-blue eyes. “Is it any of your business what I'm going to do, Gorchbold-min? Do you of all people dare interrupt me? A little half-nawa like you.” She turned back to Inaya. “Since when has the Council of councils fallen so low as to admit a thing like her? Inaya, you really can do better than that!”
Inaya looked at her calmly and finally answered. “It is certainly not Liana who is the monster here, Andira. And it is not she who further infects worlds with the shadow of destruction. Strange, by the way, that you complain about us collaborating with a Hmana-orr in the prevailing circumstances.” Andira didn't seem to notice and just kept going. “But as I wanted to say, all of this will pass too. The shadow will be washed away with the light of progress. We can clear this and all the worlds of these monsters, and then we can start over, here too. And we will be able to learn a lot from what they will leave behind. Just as our people will benefit greatly from what the Kavanderrans have left behind.”
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
It took a while to realise what Andira had said. The Onnobolda's plans went far, very far. How would this woman, who clearly based her conquest power on the expertise of the Superior Tech Corp from her own world who worked for her here on the spot, clear the worlds of all Hmana-orr without getting into serious trouble with their allies? She seemed to forget that the STC also clearly had plans of their own with the technology being worked on, and they certainly had an agenda of their own that Andira had completely missed in her disdain for Earthlings. Why have the people of the STC been so busy moving for so long by the way?
Liana broke off her train of thoughts when she found Andira speaking to her again, eyes full of hatred that barely rested on her again. “Yes, we purify all the worlds of your kind, Gorchbold-min.” She pronounced the loanword from the Drotnira language with heavy contempt. “With the technology of the old Kavanderrans and the help of our brave Superior Tech Corp, it will finally be possible!”. She gestured wildly, like a maniacal dictator, and Lun and Inaya stared first at her and then at each other in horror. What was she possessed by? This couldn't be real! Liana mostly felt like she'd ended up in a really bad movie. She cursed the probably drunken screenwriter who would now decide her life and that of her kind. Everything was unreal now.
The beings who always considered themselves so pure, and who fled from the evil of humans at the beginning of history, and who had never known war in their thousands of years of existence on Nuanderra were now building a army force here with terrible weaponry from three worlds, and all of that in collaboration with a shady American company? Who would ever believe such a stupid story. She'd certainly read fantasy stories that were more cohesive and believable than that… Her eyes drifted to her surroundings, especially the two Numberfa guards Inaya had previously mentioned by name as Marah and Frest. Next to it stood the Americans with their alien weapons, and behind them the Drotnira who, in addition to Kavanderran weapons, also had swords and axes. But why did they do it? The Americans simply for the money, she guessed. Who knew how Andira even got the money to pay them. Or was it in technology itself that they got paid? That was, in a way, even more terrifying. Would they themselves have better plans for her world than Andira?
They didn't seem reliable at all to Liana and quite dangerous in their own way! The motives of the drotnira, on the other hand, seemed simpler to her. Those little fellows with their stone-colored faces seemed to believe very hard in their ancient myths about the Gorchbolds, and were easily provoked to hate her kind, and to take up arms to defend the good in the worlds. And still Andira was clearly mad, with her grandiloquent sermon that ended up wanting to kill all the humans of Oranderra! Liana couldn't call it anything else. At the level of deranged dictators, or rather the weird bad guys from Hollywood movies. But what good was any of this to Marah and Frest? Why did the regular Nummerfa join this? Did they really believe the whole story? Or was she missing something again? It wasn't the first time that trying to think like beings of a different species seemed very difficult, much more difficult than trying to understand other cultures on Earth.
Meanwhile, Andira was continuing her speach, but she didn't give more new information and Liana listened only with half an ear through her swirling thoughts. Above all, the leader of the Onnobolda proclaimed the same thing again and again with new pompous words, and was above all very full of herself and of her grandiose plans. Liana looked back around the room. She had already noticed that one of the supposed Americans was a lot more tense than the other three, and suddenly she heard him muttering clearly in Dutch to himself: “Good to know all of this.” Then he discreetly typrf something on his smartphone, and suddenly a missing link clicked in Liana's head: The wifi! It had, of course, been from Superior Tech Corp. Nuanderrans did not use Wi-Fi or telephones, especially not Nummerfa who could communicate telepathically with words and feelings over quite a distance. But over the wifi things could be said that Andira or other Nummerfa couldn’t intercept, as good as they were at reading people's minds and feelings.
Andira seemed to have noticed by now, because all her attention was elsewhere and she apparently didn't take the STC very seriously as equals and fellow Nawa, let alone as a threat to her genius plans. They had only been useful for their technical knowledge, but apparently they would be of no further use and would be discarded in a lethal way. Liana, on the other hand, knew she wasn't the only Oranderran in this room who now knew what Andira's plans were. And those plans included the complete extinction of her own species. the Americans of Superior Tech Corp would by no means be happy about that, and neither was she. But the text message that had now been by phone had clearly remained under the radar of Andira, who could only intercept thought waves and words, but not electronic messages. She was also too hyperfocused on her own plans now to intercept anything.
This could only mean the end of the alliance between the Onnobolda and the Superior Tech Corp, whether Andira realised that yet or not. Not that it would have much of a future in a world without hmana-orr, so from the American point of view it was the only option. The only question was how that would turn out for the Onnobolda itself when former partners would turn against each other. And ultimately for her and the rest of the Earth. Armed Americans who also had extraterrestrial weapons could prove to be a dangerous enemy to anyone, no matter what Andira might have thought about them... She managed to warn Inaya without words of what she was receiving without being noticed by Andira, who now paid no attention to the vile Gorchbolds in the room and didn’t seem to be aware of her kah-yito. Hadn't she just called herself a "half-nawa"?
Meanwhile, the great leader herself finished her speech. “We are superior! Nuanderra has never had wars and violence. Murders are extremely rare among us. We need to keep it that way and keep all the monsters out. And that only works by destroying them all. From the first to the last!” She looked triumphant. “And if they’re gone a new empty world will be ours to develop. To bring back to life. To take the nawa to greater heights of knowledge and civilization.” Liana knew enough of the history of her own world to be concerned now not only for her own kind, but also for the soul of Nuanderra herself. This was just manic colonialism as it had destroyed so much of her own world as well. The history lessons about Columbus and Cortez that nearly had given her a stomachache were still in the back of her mind, and Andira fitted the picture perfectly as a continuation of the same illness beyond the normal boundaries of the story! A female Cortez, who went on to massacre the Superior Tech Corp who had seen an ally in her, and then the rest of the world as the Spaniards did Montezuma and the Incas. The image now haunted her mind, but something told Liana it wasn't going to end like this after all. She was far from giving up hope yet.