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Chapter 47 - Diplomacy

“So, remind me why I decided to let a bunch of Soviet cosplayers onto our ship whilst a different group of people look like they might kill us at any moment?”

Elliot sighed, straightening his tie, “Because it would be good to figure them out and know what they might do?”

Edward tugged at his shirt collar, easing the itching sensation on his neck for a moment. To be honest to himself he was hoping the next time he was going to be getting some formal clothes on with Elliot would be on a date night, but fate seemed to have other plans yesterday.

“It still sounds insane that this is a situation we’ve gotten into though. I mean, really, one group calls themselves the “Awakened Directorate of Humanity” and the other one is modelling itself as a new USSR with the technology to boot.”

Elliot turned to Edward as he cocked his head, “How can you tell what sort of tech level they have?”

Edward blushed a little. The almost puppy like head cocking almost throwing him off before his inner expert won over, “Ah, well, first off, their transmission quality hasn’t been particularly great compared to even the sort we got on Gen 2 ships. But I’ve mostly gotten that idea from their ship designs. You noticed how much they looked like tall tower blocks with lots of struts?”

“Yes,”

“Well, after they stopped their manoeuvring, several blocks folded out of the main body and started rotating around the ship. Which means they don’t have artificial gravity systems like we have and are instead using a mixture of thrust and rotational systems.”

Elliot’s eyebrows furrowed, “I think you told me about them…”

“Rotational ones run off of the centrifugal pseudo force you get when you spin something around, thrust ones run off of the acceleration force that using your engines create. And that system they have was used on a couple of our earlier ships and allows them to keep all the habitation bits firms secured and using thrust gravity when it’s man overing like in combat or long voyages. Then they also have the option of folding out these arms and spinning them for when they’re not moving. It’s clever but it doesn’t need the sort of barely understood knowledge required for the gravity plating system we use along with also being cheaper.”

“And that means they’re on the level of us ten years ago..?” He asked.

“Oh, not at all!” Edward laughed, “They seem to be using recoilless rifles instead of railguns too and if they can’t get a railgun to work in space… I’d say they must be thirty years behind us at least.”

“So… You don’t think they’d make for good allies?”

“If they even want to talk to you, I don’t think so. Other than potentially opening up another front with the potential bad guys next door to us. Which would certainly lighten a load on our limited fleet with its small officer corp.”

“Right…”

“You can do it. We can put our best foot forwards with these people and hope we come off well. Now, I think their shuttle will be arriving in a few minutes, so we need to get going.”

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They’d done the best to dress up the hanger and bring in something resembling an official reception. However, there was only so much you could do with a cold, sterile hanger that would be vented as part of the shuttle landing. But still he did manage to arrange everything needed suitability formal greeting with a squad of marines and selection of well-behaved officers. Which meant him, Eli, Elizabeth and also Elliot as the proper diplomatic representative.

But as they all entered into the pressurised hanger, Edward wasn’t quite sure what to make of the craft sitting in front of him.

It was bulky with large engines including a set of landing engines along with the usual reverse and forward ones. It was also clad in white thermal fabric like old spacecraft, branded with the expected stars and hammers and sickles in wreaths on it’s sides. But wherever it wasn’t clad in that fabric it was coated in antennas, radiators and various greeblies that Edward would need a fair bit more time to identify.

Time which he did not have, despite how much he would wish to have it.

The hatch hissed open on the front of the craft as some members of the hanger crew pushed a set of stairs in front of the now opened door. Revealing its occupants.

A tall, pasty, bulky man stood at the front, his slim brown eyes looking down at the group and garbed in a light uniform, complete with a large, brimmed hat. Behind him was two other men. One was a slim, lanky man in a tan suit and round rimmed glasses, and the other seemed to be another officer who was noticeably shorter than the others, with what Edward could swear to be a smaller hat.

Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

“Stand to attention!”

The hanger echoed with the sound of boots clanking against steel as all the marines and IFC officers bolted to parade ready.

The other men’s faces however remained stern other than what might have been a slight smile creeping onto the lead officer’s face. Behind them as they exited their shuttle were six other men, clearly marines, clothed entirely in armoured pressure suits with their reflective visors flipped up and sleek, white, AK like rifles in hand.

It had all been communicated beforehand however, all by a man with some rather… Rocky English skills but Edward still wasn’t sure what to make of these foreign soldiers boarding his ship while he knew nothing about their state. Though they clearly didn’t quite trust him enough for their marines to leave behind those pressure suits. But at the same time, it seemed like they trusted him enough for the officers to not ditch their fancy dress uniforms.

Maybe a good sign then…

They stopped a few feet in front of him, the two officers saluting him as Edward and his officers saluted back.

Then the lead man said a few words in language that Edward could not decipher at all in a low bassy voice. It sounded like Russian but with some hints of Mandarin? He would have squinted if it wasn’t for the need to stay formal.

The thin man in the suit cleared their throat, standing needle straight, “Vice Admiral Malenkov greets you, fellow officer and says that your vessel is, from what he has seen of it, already looking very impressive. I am Popov Adam Cheng and the other officer is Commander Zhelan Yin. We are all glad to meet you.”

“Greetings. I am Rear Admiral Edward Fletcher of the International Federal Commonwealth. With me are diplomat Elliot Hill, Captain Elizabeth Jennings and Eli Webb. Welcome aboard sirs.”

A short exchange popped off between the two men, with the admiral seemingly taken a little aback by something, before giving his response back to his translator.

“You do not need to call either of us sir, our ranks or names will be find Admiral. Now, may we move to somewhere more comfortable, if you have that prepared?”

“I’ve got a meeting room prepared with some tea for everyone, follow me.”

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The slight smile on Malenkov’s face had grown larger by the time they’d found their way into the conference room. The man had been asking questions all through their walk. First on the artificial gravity, which Edward couldn’t answer given his lack of experimental physics knowledge. Then about the design of the ship in terms of it’s crew amenities, which he was able to answer and seemed to only pique the man’s interest more. Asking about IFC society, which Elliot chipped in to answer, and then when they had sat down-

“So, what power system does this ship use? A saltwater reactor? Liquid metal?” Their translator asked.

“Magnetic confinement fusion. Specifically, a tokamak.”

As the translator muttered, all of their eyes went wide.

“We, weren’t sure that the records were correct, but you have fusion!?”

“Yes..?”

All three of them looked between each other, and back to Edward.

“We should introduce our nation properly then. We are from the Interstellar Union of Soviet Republics. We are somewhat small with only five systems claimed by us. We have not met anyone else in this galaxy before, but, we do have to apologise to your nation.”

“What for..?” Elliot asked, edging a little closer.

“We are from earth. But our ancestors did not want to live in your nation, so they stole several of your vessels with generation zero hyperdrives, all the ones you had left, including a valuable hyperspace ferry, and left. We will be willing to offer a more formal apology to your prime minster later, however we discussed that telling you this here would be a good way to start relations.”

And that is where those vessels went…

Elliot nodded, “Thank you for being so forthright Mr Cheng. Though, what is your current government?”

“The Union is run by The Supreme Soviet, there is also a premier elected by the soviet. Several parties are allowed to run for the Soviet, however…” He cleared his throat, “Any parties outside of revolutionary thought are not allowed to run, unlike, from what we understand, in your system according to our records.”

And there is the catch to their elections.

“And these records from your exodus is also how you know English?” Edward asked.

“Correct.”

“Well, uh, I would like to know what you actually want out of this meeting however. I know neither of us were quite expecting to do a first contact, but I doubt all the questions you have asked so far is not the entirety of them.”

More muttering.

“And what was your intention in inviting us here? We haven’t heard anything from you so far.”

Elliot’s eyes drifted to Edward.

Edward cleared his throat, “I wanted to be able to have a look at you up close and try to gauge your intensions. We have some intelligence that suggests our other new contacts might not be the most receptive of us and I wanted to know if the other group, you, would be a little more friendly.”

Another set of muttering as the Vice Admiral huffed, “The admiral was thinking along a similar line as you. When our fleet entered this orbit, they were edging on the saying that they would blow us out of the sky. We were hoping you would be supportive of our fleet, at least in this instance, if they decided to attack. We also want to establish formal diplomatic channels between your government and ours as per our first contact procedures.”

Huh…

“Well, I would be happy to facilitate your request to open diplomatic channels, something which Elliot Hill here can quite easily help with.”

“And the temporary pact? The admiral understands if it is not your choice to decide. It its technically not ours either but, we know what sort of situation we are in if this Directorate decides to attack.”

Edward’s chin fell into his hand as he thought. His eyes glancing over to Elizabeth’s as he caught her in thought too.

They seemed to have a more hostile response to them than us, so they are more likely to be attacked.... But our damaged fleet going up against the Directorate vessels that we know nothing about could be terrible. So, a few more vessels could be vital in a battle…

He glanced over once again to her, their eyes meeting as she nodded.

He had made his decision.

“I will agree to that, however it is not going on the books officially. However, I will uphold it if you send us a distress call if you likewise do the same if we call for help as well. I don’t like the look of the Directorate and I don’t think either of our nation’s tentative steps towards diplomatic channels should be stopped by one battle.”

“A respectable choice Admiral.”