Subject: Ship-Head Uleena

Species: Urakari

Description: Reptilian humanoid, no tail. 5'3" (1.6 m) avg height. 135 lbs (61 kg) avg weight. 105 year life expectancy.

Ship: RSV Lowelana {Fights with Honor}

Location: Sol

"It's been more than three hours, ship-head. When can we stand down?" asked Kriin.

"We'll be able to stand down when they tell us to stand down, sister," replied Kraan in my stead.

Kriin made a face and hissed softly at him. This playful exchange did a lot to ease the tension that had settled over the bridge as time had dragged on. It even got a smile out of Liwna.

It was still unnerving to be on standby so long after the battle had ended, though. I'd asked for an explanation but received no response, which indicated something was happening or had happened. The OU had consistently increased their numbers with each wave, so I desperately hoped it wasn't going to be another attack. Maybe we'd received orders from the Republic to go home. One could dream.

A soft bing from my terminal nearly made me jump. All heads turned to me as I opened the message, desperate to know if we were in the clear. I nibbled my tongue as I softly pressed the notification to open the message.

--

Ship-Head Uleena

RSV Lowelana and her crew are to stand down but remain in a state of readiness. You are summoned to meet with Admiral Heckett and myself. A guide will meet you in the bay.

Fleet Leader Onaya

--

I looked around at the faces of my bridge crew. They were all hoping I would be giving the order to stand down, to tell them we were in the clear. The anticipation was brutal, and I found myself considering a little prank. If I were to simply say that the message was nothing, the looks of disappointment would be pretty great. Although, the fleet leader wouldn't appreciate waiting...

"Stand down, but stay ready," I said and then sighed audibly, "I'm off to meet with command."

"You have my sympathies, sir," Liwna said.

"I'm sure it won't be that bad, ship-head. Maybe they want to give you a medal," Kraan said cheerily.

"Don't get your hopes up, sir. We didn't really do anything medal-worthy. But maybe we'll get to see one of the planets we've been protecting," Kriin said excitedly.

"That's one way to look at it. Another way to look at it is 'one of the planets we put at risk'," Kraan replied with air quotes.

"That's rich, coming from the cloaca that put the planets at risk in the first place!"

"Hey! I was following procedure! Why don't you..."

"That's enough," I interrupted, trying to keep a straight face. "I'll go find out what they want. You just stay ready for our next move."

I stood and left as the two siblings began whispering insults at each other. As I exited the ship, I wondered how long I'd have to wait for the guide. To my surprise, the guide was actually waiting for me. A seven foot tall human wearing olive drab armor and carrying a rifle that was the size of my leg. That's a bad sign.

"Ship-head Uleena. This way please," the marine gestured.

"Of course," I said as I began to follow.

We walked past a crew of gont engineers and one of them waved at me. I waved back. Must be Plinas, but it's hard to tell them apart at a distance. We continued into a corridor and I began to have questions. I worked up my nerve to ask the giant death machine that was guiding me to my destination.

"So, why isn't Tim guiding me this time?" I finally asked.

"I don't know, sir," he replied.

"Do you know Corporal Simmons and Lance Corporal Johnson?"

"I know a few Corporals named Simmons and a few lances named Johnson, sir."

"They're the ones who were assigned to our rescue detail."

"Oh. Then they're probably part of a ship crew. Or maybe MARSOC," he said. "So I probably don't know them."

"What's MARSOC?"

"Marine Special Operations Command. It's special forces. They get assigned to whatever needs a specially trained marine, and usually whatever's closest to wherever they happen to be."

"So they probably wouldn't still be on the Thanatos, then?"

"Sir, I'm not qualified to even begin to wager a guess," the marine said with a chuckle. "There's plenty of MARSOC marines aboard, but I'm not one of 'em. Just a home-grown, corn-fed grunt, at your service."

"Corn?" I asked. "What's corn?"

"Huh?" He stopped to look at me. "Oh, right. It's a type of vegetable that's kinda sweet. Small yellow kernels that grow on a cob are the edible part, but some people use the leaves to store their food for some added flavor."

"I see... So you eat a lot of corn?"

"Yes, sir. It's good for muscles if you have it with meat," he said as he began to guide me again. "The phrase corn-fed refers to someone who's normal, though. Like, there's nothing special about them."

"But aren't you one of those... um..." I said as I struggled to remember the term.

"A gen-alt? Nope," the marine replied with laugh. "Believe it or not, some of us humans naturally get this big."

"Really?" I asked, my eyes widening in shock.

"Oh yeah. The genetic augmentation just swaps around certain genomes that we all already have, or something like that," the marine said. "Technically, every human has a chance to be born with all the benefits of being a gen-alt. It's a pretty low chance though."

It was with this shocking information that we boarded a bus. The ride was spent in silence as I digested what I had just learned. Humans were odd, to be sure. Despite their soft skin and disarming features (which I'm pretty sure has a lot to do with how much of their face actually moves), they were a warrior race.

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I remembered how nervous I had been to meet my first Isolan. Now THEY look the part of a warrior race. Muscles that ripple and bulge with every movement, a natural scowl, and elongated canines that can definitely tear into most throats with little to no effort. Their military was very disciplined as well, to the point that horror stories about disciplinary action have spread throughout the fleet. Still, the Republic would have been able to handle the Isolan without much problem if they went rogue.

I can't say the same about humanity, though. Maybe if the Republic had found them early on in their development, we could have taken them. On the other hand, I get the dreadful feeling that we would have lost a lot of people in the attempt. I couldn't help but imagine what life would have been like if humanity had joined the Republic without a fight, though. We'd have a lot more in the way of technology, that's for sure.

They like to give a lot of credit to the knuknu and the gont for their current level of tech, but it's obvious that the majority of it comes from humans. The other species likely sped things along, but humanity would have gotten to the point they are now on their own eventually, and still much faster than us. Although I wonder how much of that is due to their bloody history, and how that history would have changed as part of the Republic.

"We've arrived, sir. Just inside those doors is where the debrief is," the marine gestured.

"Understood, thanks," I replied.

I stepped towards the doors and they opened with a slight hiss. Inside the room was a table with plenty of chairs and several US and Republic officers. I immediately recognized Reynolds and Wong, as well as fleet-leader Onaya. I snapped to attention.

"Ship-head Uleena reporting as ordered, sirs!"

"Sit down, Uleena," Onaya said with smiling eyes.

I took my seat as introductions went around the table. Most of the people here were higher officers of the fleets protecting Sol, but there were also a couple of diplomats from both sides. Not my sister, though. Thank the sun. I'm sure she tried to be here, but I'm willing to bet that our father blocked her attempts. Far too dangerous.

"There's one more that we need to introduce, but he's been delayed somewhat," Admiral Heckett said as the doors hissed.

I turned to look and saw a short human in the black directorate armor with two marines flanking it. It took me a second to realize that the human looked short because the marines were so damned tall. I'll never get used to that.

"What impeccable timing," Heckett said with a grin. "Everyone, meet Director 3. I'm sure he already knows who you are."

"Correct," Director 3 said as he took a seat. "Ship-head Uleena, pleasure to see you again."

"Likewise," I replied.

"Oh, hey Uleena!" one of the marines said with a familiar voice. "Good to see you again."

"Simmons, we're on duty. We can say hi later," the other marine said.

I smiled and replied, "Hi Corporal Simmons and Lance Corporal Johnson. Good to see you too."

I was glad to see the two of them alive and well. So glad that I almost didn't notice the rest of the Republic officers giving me a sideways glance. As I deflated slightly under their gaze, I noticed that the human officers were doing the same to the two marines. I guess we're more alike than I thought.

"Okay. Well, with all of the pleasantries out of the way, I'm going to turn things over to Director 3," Admiral Heckett said.

"Thank you, Admiral," Director 3 said with a nod before turning to look at the Republic side of the table. "The invasion of the Omni-Union stronghold was a success."

Clapping and some light cheering erupted from both sides of the table, but Director 3 quickly held up a hand to quiet things down.

"That's the only good news, I'm afraid. What I am about to tell you has already been relayed to the Republic's senior leadership, and they will be communicating with you in regards to whether they consider the information classified or not. Until they do so, I recommend treating it as classified," he said.

After a round of nods, he continued, "First, some of you may already know this, but we have a super-weapon called the USSS Nidhogg. It's a dreadnought class ship that has the capacity to destroy a solar system by causing a star to go supernova."

"What?" one of our officers asked in shock. Several senior officer's eyes immediately darted towards the offending individual, who quickly quieted down.

"Your shock is understandable. To clarify, the Nidhogg was built in response to our conflict with the Daluran, as a deterrence to any further xenocidal action taken against the United Systems and its member species. Frankly, many of us hoped to never use it. But we were forced to use it against the Omni-Union during the invasion."

I couldn't believe what I was hearing. It was like the room got smaller somehow. A super-weapon that can destroy an entire solar system, something the likes of which the Republic would likely never get close to. And they USED it. Wait hold on, did he say...

"Apologies, Director, but what do you mean you were forced to use it?" Fleet-Leader Onaya asked.

"Exactly that. One of our AI infiltrated their planetary systems, as planned, and retrieved mission critical intelligence. The next step of the plan would have been to cripple the OU's planetary activities by any means possible and move on to the next planet," Director 3 said. "However, it turned out that the planet wasn't actually a planet at all. It was a massive machine containing an Artificial Intelligence of unknown origin. And it was heavily armed."

Silence filled the room as images taken from US ships began to display. A planet filled our view. It looked like any other planet, but something was off about it. The images scrolled until they reached a short video of the planet firing, and two US ships exploding. My blood ran cold. Two US ships, ships with the most advanced shielding and hulls that I've ever seen, with one shot.

As much as I hated to admit it, I was grateful that they had that super-weapon. The Republic was pursuing an offensive war against the Omni-Union even now, and if we would have run into this thing... Sun preserve us.

"This AI was called Prime 29 and the machine itself is a Mobile Prime Platform. During the confrontation with our AI, Prime two-niner was able to extract actionable intelligence from the AI. Thankfully, prior to this confrontation our AI managed to disable their communications which prevented Prime two-niner from being able to communicate said information with the Omni-Union. We were able to keep it trapped in the system using our own warp-jamming technology," Director 3 said. "The reason that we used the Nidhogg was to make certain that it didn't have enough time to eliminate the warp-jammers or escape their range."

"If we had tried to eliminate that thing with standard tactics, our casualties would have been in the tens of thousands," Admiral Heckett said. "As it stands, we lost 2,316 ships and more than one million marines."

"The Republic's casualties would have easily exceeded one hundred thousand ships. If we were even able to take it out at all," Fleet-Leader Onaya said, looking somewhat deflated.

"Was this the only Mobile Prime Platform, sir?" I asked, knowing damned well what the answer would be.

"No," Omega said, his avatar appearing where the images were previously. "We found intelligence in the form of a list that shows a total of 114 Mobile Prime Platforms. The intel indicated that at least one was damaged beyond repair prior to Prime 29's destruction, and that one is currently being built. Since we couldn't confirm if the other four planets in the stronghold system were MPPs or not, we will go on the assumption that there are now 111."

"Why don't we know if the other four planets are MPPs?" Onaya asked. "They didn't attack, so isn't it likely that they weren't?

"I suspect that the platforms require immense amounts of power, and so they stay in a sort of hibernation until something forces them out of it. Since the OU didn't awaken the MPP, it's reasonable to assume that they might not be able to. Prime 29 also had its communications cut, so it wouldn't have been able to wake them up, either," Omega said. "We had to go on the assumption that the other four planets were also MPPs, which is why we utilized the Nidhogg."

"So what's the plan to deal with them?" I asked.

"We're working on that," Director 3 interjected. "Obviously, we don't want to be running around causing supernovas everywhere."

"I guess it's time to come up with another 'bigger gun', eh?" Tim asked.

"Or a lot of little ones," John replied, appearing next to Omega.

A lot of our officers began to look nervous. Until very recently, AI was seen as the enemy and it's hard to kill old habits. They all looked to fleet leader Onaya to judge what their reactions should be. He didn't react, so they didn't either.

A bigger gun, or even a lot of little ones, would probably take quite a while to come up with. The US has amazing manufacturing procedures, but not nearly as many shipyards as the Republic. It was arguable whose engineers were better. The US had come up with some amazing things, but they had the benefit of necessity driving their creativity. Our engineers came up with what they created out of pure speculation. If the two worked together...

"Omega, if I may ask, how long would it take the US to create a new fleet?"

"One of ours or one of yours," the AI asked with a hint of smugness.

"One of yours," I replied.

"Factoring in material procurement, at least a year and a half. Assuming everyone working at capacity and nothing went wrong, which isn't a very realistic assumption," Omega said.

"What about us, fleet leader? How long to manufacture five million ships?" I asked.

"Or primary delay would be material procurement, but we managed to do eight million in seven months at the beginning of the OU war," Onaya replied.

All of the US officers eyebrows rose at this. I took a little pleasure at being able to surprise them, for once. Our manufacturing capability was borne from nearly every species already having at least one shipyard prior to joining the Republic, and maintaining those shipyards even now. If we were able to apply US manufacturing standards to those shipyards, the OU wouldn't stand a chance.

"We have a lot more shipyards than the US does," I began. "If the US were to make use of those shipyards, both sides would benefit massively."

"While that may be true, there's always the risk of us turning on each other after the OU is dealt with," Omega said.

"That's a bit pessimistic," John said.

"But historically accurate!" Tim cheerily exclaimed.

"That may be the case, but there are ways to prevent that. Bolstering the US fleet and shipyards to meet the same size as the Republic's, for instance. It would take quite a while for the US to catch up to the Republic's ship count on its own, and we've got barely any chance of catching up to your tech on our own," I said, holding my hands up to quiet the AI.

"This is true," Onaya began, "and your corporations would even fall in line. Greed is their primary motivator, and this deal would require a lot of trade and chance for profits."

Director 3 looked deep in thought before he finally spoke up, "Is this something that the Republic would agree to?"

"Probably," I said. "I'm not an official diplomat so I can't say with 100% certainty, but the US is more likely to say no than we are."

"I'll bring it to the Directorate, and we'll convince the senate of the necessity," Director 3 said with a nod.

"And I'll have the diplomatic corps draw up an official agreement, and I'll push the proper buttons to get the votes on our end," Onaya said with smiling eyes. "Also, Uleena, you actually are an official diplomat now. The RSV Lowelana is our first armed diplomatic vessel. The decision came down yesterday."

"What?" I asked in shock.

"Your temporary post as liaison has become a permanent one. You'll be starting your training as soon as we can spare you. Same with your crew," Onaya said, the smiling eyes turning ever so slightly malicious.

Ah, I see. The Sun has forsaken me for some grave, unknown sin. Woe be unto me.