My Mother was wise indeed in her youth and her age. She knew that the Terrors would return in her heart, so she guided her people to ensure that they would survive the Terror's re-emergence into the galaxy.

When the Terrors re-emerged with the bellowing, enraged scream of "LET THE UNIVERSE SHAKE IN THE WRATH OF TERRASOL!" she knew that fate had led her to the paths that her wisdom had allowed to traverse.

When the Terrors asked: Are you with us or against us? my mother had a single reply.

"As we stood respectfully by your grave in your death, we stand next to you during your rebirth." - Battle Master Sethanathi, Orion Arm War Fleet Commander.

"We can be well dressed wearing those fashionable skull decorations and do our job in a orderly fashion without being the baddies, ja. We are professionals, not barbarians." Rifleman Gunter G Gunter, Solarian Iron Dominion Navy, Spurwide Mar-gite Conflict

The Humans? They're scared.

They went from who knows how many systems to one. Their home. Their one place they were sure they were safe.

And it's because that one final safe spot, the Bastion at the End of the Line, was attacked. The sanctity of the hearth was broken. Inside every Human is a little kid that wants to run home and have Mommy kiss their boo-boos better.

And now Mommy has a black eye.

They're scared, they feel threatened, their flight-or-fight response is in full 5-star red alert danger zone critical and they have nowhere to run. So guess what they are going to do.

If they even think you are going to do so much as cough in their general direction and you'll be lucky if they only knock you back to the stone age.

Don't quote me anywhere near a human though, I like living. - Golnar, Psycho-historian, 1 PTE

Violet stared for a long moment at Ms. Nargwark as she sat back, sipping at the glass of blush wine. He thought over what she had said and then cleared his throat, flashing an emoji to signify the change of subject.

"My real question, Madame Diplomat, is quite simple," he said. "Any recordings made will be sealed."

Ms. Nargwark just nodded.

"I fear that the Terrans will not rejoin the Confederacy and my office wishes to know, unofficially, what the stance on such a diplomatic difficulty would be for the Rigellian people," Violet said.

Ms. Nargwark sat silently for a moment.

"Fifty thousand years ago for us, ten thousand for the humans, both of our people had almost no space infrastructure," Ms. Nargwark stated.

Violet sat silently.

"The humans had this solar systems, two fledgeling colonies. We had that banding that surrounds our system," Ms. Nargwark said. "It had made it so that even colonies within our solar system were almost impossible. Grav drives seemed beyond us due to the rippling effect," she sipped at her drink and looked up. "The humans knew we were in there. Radio waves showed them our broadcasts from centuries ago as soon as they got within three light years of us. They managed to reach us," she looked at Violet intently. "Do you know what they found?"

"A planet on the edge of ecological collapse, if I recall correctly," Violet said.

Ms. Nargwark shook her head. "Not on the edge. It had collapsed. Our seas were radioactive and poisoned. Our air the same. Our soil was barren. Our eggs had thin brittle shells that a duck would break settling on. Our duck's feathers were falling out. We had widespread mutation birth defects," Ms. Nargwark said. She sighed, flexing her pectorals in alternating stress instincts. "It was glorious that had arrived, but sad. We were already over the edge of extinction. There was nothing we could do."

She stood up suddenly, putting her hands behind her back and tensing, making her muscles stand out. "We were dying. One, maybe, just maybe two generations, and we'd be extinct and our planet dead," she said. She began pacing. "Clouds of toxins filled the sky. Our strategy of moving waste to our moon had proved too little too late with even more problems. There was less than a million of us left," she stopped, tensing again. "The humans looked around and offered to take us off planet."

She paced back and forth again. "It was fifty thousand years ago, but I can still feel the despair my ancestors felt. We had lost our home, we might never recover," she stopped and stared at Violet, her eyes flashing with passion. "We agreed, but wept that we would leave our cradle. We told the humans that we understood that the only choice was to evacuate some of us. We understood that you cannot fight a planet," she put her hands behind her back and tensed again.

"Do you know what they said?" Ms. Nargwark asked.

Violet nodded. "That they would reterraform your planet," he said.

"Yes, but no," Ms. Nargwark said. She tensed again then visibly struggled to relax. "We told them that you cannot fight a planet and the diplomat who had come to us, knowing nothing about us, rolled up his sleeves, gave us that human smile, that damned human smile, and said: Wanna bet?"

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She sat down, picking up the blush and sipping. "You ask us, will we stand with the Confederacy or the humans if they will not rejoin?"

Violet nodded.

"We stand with our sisters and brothers," Ms. Nargwark stated.

She said nothing else, simply got up and left.

Violet knew that there was nothing else to say.

0-0-0-0-0

The Treana'ad ambassador was a worker caste. Violet was familiar enough with the Treana'ad to know that the ambassador, one Sh'Pok, had excellent coloring, shape, and carapace design. The worker Treana'ad, short for a Treana'ad at only 1.7 meters, moved into the Violet's quarters and sat down at the motion.

A few pleasantries were exchanged and, right about when Violet had estimated it would occur, the Treana'ad ambassador leaned forward.

"So, what's this here all about now?" Sh'Pok asked.

"There are concerns that the Terrans will not rejoin the Confederacy. My office wishes to me to get a 'feeling' for how the elder members will react," Violet asked.

Sh'Pok gave a chittering laugh. "Just come right out and ask, huh, pardner?"

Violet nodded.

Sh'Pok leaned back, sipping at his sasparilla. "I assume you have looked over Treana'ad-Human relationships? In particular, the War of Human Aggression?"

"Indeed I have," Violet said.

"Yeah. Whatcha read in them there books and the reality, to the Treana'ad people, are two different things, pardner," Sh'Pok stated.

"How so?" Violet asked.

"Back when we ran into each other, we didn't know we had," Sh'Pok said. He lit a cigarette and puffed on it. "Back then, a male's life expectancy was 'got his head eaten' and females slaughtered each other over birthing chamber access. We'd totally on purpose and not at all accidentally invented the jump drive and started to spread out."

He lifted the armor on the top of his abdomen and fluttered his wings slightly in embarrassment. "Probably would have been faster if the Matrons had stopped eating the researcher's heads so their grubs would be smarter," he said. "Anyway, we discovered a pair of perfect planets. Red sun, high nitrogen, comfortable gravity, wonderful sand and trees. One we converted to a hatching ground, the other we began doing light terraforming."

He took a deep drag and blew smoke rings from around his feet.

"We also discovered some poor benighted primates on a highly dangerous world with a yellow sun. We rescued them," he looked away. "Then we found out that some of those primates had landed on the world we were terraforming," he looked back, giving his species equivalent of a smile. "The fight was on."

He heaved a sigh. "We'd never encountered anything like what we ran into. They were half our size, but immensely strong from evolving in 1G, where we were 0.8. They could breathe anything, eat anything, exist off of anything."

He gave a laugh. "They breathed starship fuel and exhaled terraforming gasses. They drank corrosive H2O and ate anything their powerful grinding teeth could rip apart. They could lift two or three times their bodyweight without augmentation. They could hold their breath for full minutes," He shuddered. "We had plasteel armor and plasma weapons, they had endosteel and kinetic weapons."

"But, thanks to the cleverness and luck of P'Thok, the war ended in a Treana'ad victory. We got everything we wanted, and more. We got the worlds back, cigarettes, ice cream. P'Thok blew a hole in our culture and the Grand Matron Mi'Luki drove an ice cream truck through it."

Sh'Pok looked at Violet for a long moment.

"But they stayed by us the whole time our society was in upheaval. They stood with us through every single thing. We grew close enough that they took our names and we took their's," Sh'Pok laughed. "My name is Scott Garcia Sh'Pok, a traditional Treana'ad name."

"I see," Violet said.

"So, you want to know if the human refuse to join the Confederacy, will we stand with them or with the Confederacy?" Sh'Pok asked.

"Yes," Violet just laid it flat out.

"If they look at what we allowed the Confederacy to become, how we allowed entropy to sip away at our vitality, as we took our safety and security for granted," Sh'Pok said, his voice low and serious. "We know that they will be disappointed in the Confederacy, with it's people," he looked up. "With the Treana'ad people for how we failed in our stewardship."

"I see," Violet said.

"But you want an answer to your question," Sh'Pok said.

"Yes."

"Those who stood with us, we call our brother, into eternity," Sh'Pok said.

Violet knew there was nothing more to be said.

0-0-0-0-0

Speaks in the Wilderness picked up the wine glass from the table and sipped at it.

"Call me Quynh, it was the name I used while I was in studies," Speaks said, expressing pleasure.

"As you wish, Quynh," Violet said. "You have, undoubtably, deduced why I asked to see you again."

Quynh expressed pleasure through a smiley face emoji. "Indeed. You wish to know where Mantid Prime, the oldest of the remaining Hive Homes, stands regarding the humans and the Confederacy."

Violet nodded. "Yes," he looked at the wall. "So far, I have come to believe I have under-estimated various nation-state's opinion of the Solarian Iron Dominion."

Quynh shook her head. "No. Not to the Dominion," she gave a slight shiver. "For us Elder Mantid, the Iron Dominion carries with it the brimstone and warsteel smell of the Combine and the Terran Imperium."

She reached out and picked up the glass to sip at it again.

Violet gave her a moment to collect her thoughts.

"To put it bluntly, to cut through all the small talk," she said, setting down the glass. "The Elder Mantid, all four nations, stand with the humans should they remain withdrawn from the Confederacy."

Violet sighed. "As I suspected."

"You don't know why, do you?" Quyhn asked.

Violet shook his head. "No. I do not understand. The Confederacy has stood for almost fifty thousand years. Why discard it?"

"All things die, Violet, no matter what the queens may have told us," Quynh said. "Daxin the Liberator taught us that. The warriors of MechaKrautland showed that. Before The Flashbang there was plenty of examples of that fact that the queens tried to deny."

She took another sip. "If the Confederacy has rotted, has died, due to the neglect by the elder statesmen, then, perhaps, it is time for it to die."

"And the younger races?" Violet asked.

"They have been part of the Confederacy for at least ten thousand years," Quynh said. "The Lanaktallan have had more social and cultural advancement that the Confederacy as a whole in the last forty-thousand years," she chittered a laugh. "What does that say to you, Violet? That the most traditional, conservative, and hidebound species in the Confederacy has grown while everyone else has stagnated or regressed."

She smiled.

"Even the Tukna'rn have advanced," she said. She looked at her wineglass, swirling the wine gently. "No, Violet, if the Confederacy has died, let us bury the corpse, hold the wake, and celebrate anew. Let us clear the deadwood away before the Mar-gite burn the forest down around us."

She stood up. "You wonder why we stand with the humans?"

Violet nodded.

"Look up Daxin the Liberator," she said softly, moving to the door. It opened and she stepped through, turning to face Violet. "Learn, and understand."

"Understand what?" Violet asked.

"We die free."