46. I fly the white flag. Theseus flies the white flag.
The click as the holographic go stone was very satisfying to Horthus. He was uncertain why that would be, except for the fact that he had been playing with Jon’s magnetic go set lately instead, which had been the reason he had added the sound in the first place. Across from him sat the holographic image of a young Aurealian, against whom he was resoundingly winning the game, even as he had already lost the war. The war which she had won without even being aware that it was being fought in her name.
"I do not see the point of this," Stargazer objected. "We should be talking. Isn’t that the entire point of mediation? Why are we just sitting here playing this stupid --"
"There’s really nothing to discuss at this point," Horthus admitted. "Not between the two of us. Seefius and my remaining generals are working out the details with your new generals, with the human and human-allied forces acting as mediators. If they need any input from the two of us, as heads of state, they’ll inform us. Otherwise, our input will only complicate things, as our demands might limit the potential compromises and conversations that could have been had without us. Compromises that we might agree to in summary that we might have objected to when they were first suggested."
He made another move, capturing a swath of territory. He smiled in satisfaction.
"Or so the human Jon Cassonova explained it to me when he suggested this course of action. To be honest, I am as lost as you are on what to do next. I would like to save my Nameless, if I can, which is why I ceded you the world of your birth, in exchange for your agreement to allow them to earn a right to exist there, and to stop the culling which had been occurring," he explained.
"My sisters were justified in their retribution and I will not apologize--"
"I was not demanding that you do any such thing," Horthus said, interrupting her. "My people have certainly killed enough of yours that I would sound hollow in saying ‘turnabout is not fair play,’ or however the humans put it. But one of the measures of a Named One’s wealth is the number of Nameless they can command, and having your people cull them was an economic disaster after we had already suffered a military and economic and ecological disaster beyond our earlier comprehension. And now that we are actually having discussions on how to work together, preserving the lives of Nameless laborers will benefit your people as well as mine."
Stargazer stared silently at the go board. "I can’t believe I rule a planet now. It’s been not even a month since I was just the eldest, trying to stay alive to teach kips how to do the same."
"And a month ago I ruled as I pleased and my only concerns were that a Deathsworn Lord would see my wealth and come to take it from me," Horthus reminded her. "And now I have not killed in more than a week. I miss it, sometimes, but not as much as you would expect. The medicine of the humans is truly remarkable. Clarity without murder. Without ecstasy, true, but without murder. If only I could get around the need to wear this ‘false gore makeup’ to convince my generals that I’m in my right mind."
"Are you?" Stargazer challenged. "You are not behaving in the way of any Jurassian Exalted One in history. You have entered into a cooperative relationship with your people’s sworn enemy, ended the practice of hunting Aurealians, and are requesting additional aid from the humans."
"It is strange, is it not, that both of our people refused ‘humanitarian aid’ because the humans defined it by themselves, and then offered it to both sides equally. But now that we have had a taste of it, both sides are begging for more! It is like the first time I mated, when I was just old enough to challenge for that right."
"I wouldn’t know anything about that," Stargazer admitted. "Some of the young rens and noones from the fleet are sending me love messages, but I’ve been ignoring all of them. They just want to get close to me now that I have some power."
"Then keep the two things separate," Horthus suggested. "I have dozens of potential heirs with equally as many past mates. Your power does not--"
"It doesn’t work that way for us," Stargazer interrupted him. "We’re … the human word is monogamous, except that they’re binary and we’re trinary. Normally it’s a ren who brings a noone and a female together for the purposes of reproduction, but now both of the other sexes want to get close to me just because I’m ‘Chorus Leader’ of the only world of the Hrustius to come back into Aurealian hands."
Horthus just shrugged. He shrugged. Like a human. "As long as you do not expect us to follow similar customs."
"Your generals, I am amazed they still follow you."
"Not many stayed. Most of those who survived the ambush and then your fleet’s second barrage vanished. I do not expect to see them again soon and have had all of the quantum entanglement networks they had access to destroyed, except for the ones I want them to have access to. We are feeding much of the conflict zone false information of our peace talks. That we are in actual peace talks! Hugh!" He huffed with amusement. "It is a shame that it will not last. The humans are offering their humanitarian aid, but although you have requested membership in their ‘Yosca’ for your fledgling government, the mutual defense treaties that protect their colonies do not cover us yet. Soon, all of the Deathsworn in Jurassian space will be flying to the – have we decided what we’re calling it yet? It will not be the Horthus system any longer, so we must agree on a new name."
"I asked the humans to think of some ideas for us. They’re good at naming things," Stargazer informed him, making a move that, in another three turns, would cost her eight stones. Horthus grinned.
"Anyway, the Jurassian counter-invasion will be something fierce, once they have time to organize and prepare. Only the planets will be safe. It is good that your generals thought to bring so many dummy ships, once I pilot them with my Nameless, we may actually have a chance of holding them off for a few years."
"As I understand it, that’s still something of a difficult tune for us to hum along with," Stargazer reminded him. "That we allow Jurassians aboard Aurealian ships."
"If you want to survive the coming danger, I suggest you convince them," Horthus said. "You have destroyed most of my defenses, and what remains is in tatters. I cannot make more in the time we have because you destroyed all of the resources I would have used to do so. So if you want my people to fight alongside your own, you will have to arm us, because the humans still refuse to do so."
Another move, and another mistake that would cost her in the long term, Horthus thought as she placed the white stone down in a poor position. She was very young, he reminded himself, and he was not such a good teacher as Jon had been. He would have to introduce them, to get Jon to share his lessons with her as well. Both of their people could use such a good mentor.
And she could learn to play go at the same time.
"I haven’t forgiven you, you know," Stargazer informed him. "Nathan says that hatred is a poison, but right now I would rather drink poison than forgive you for all the terrible things that you have done. If I saw any other way, any way in which I could win without working with you and the humans both, I would take it. But ten years on the hunting ground told me to take whatever help I could get, even if it was food dropped from my enemy just to keep me alive long enough to be hunted."
"For my part, I am ashamed that I have been wasting valuable resources," Horthus admitted. "I thought of your people only in terms – you know how I thought of you. I could have been making your sisters design me new ships and weapons that would have allowed us to conquer all of Jurassian space."
"Life has been strange since the humans arrived," Stargazer sang, almost a mutter.
Horthus huffed loudly in amusement.
~~~~~~~~~
"How’s your hand?" Jon asked, checking his face in the mirror to see if Nathan had cracked the prosthetic body’s casing. He couldn’t see any damage, but Nathan hadn’t been holding back. It had been the first time they had seen each other in person since Jon’s surrender.
"You planned all of this!" Nathan shouted at him. "What else haven’t you told me?"
"Some. You know most of it by now," Jon admitted. "Oh, I knew your great-uncle. He was a good friend, actually, and one of the best men I’ve ever known. I purposefully tried to exclude that data point when it came to your selection, but among the candidates you kept on rising to the top, despite the fact that I’d been preparing some of them for decades. When we finally detected the fleet arriving, I went with my gut and picked you."
"Why? I still don’t understand. I know you set up the board, but why did you just walk away and make me play your fucking endgame for you?" Nathan demanded.
"Because it wasn’t a game I could play by myself. I needed someone by Horthus’s side, to convince him to surrender. I knew the Aurealians were coming and that this time they were playing for keeps, but he would have fought to the last if I hadn’t taught him a better way. But I needed someone in orbit, someone I could count on to keep the game going long enough for my lessons to sink in. And, most importantly, it had to be someone who didn’t know certain things. Certain things which excluded me from being the one to command from orbit, because they would have affected my judgment and responses. And no, I won’t tell you them. You’ll learn eventually, as word of the ceasefire spreads, but for now, just enjoy your success. We may have set a precedent which could lead to a series of peaceful resolutions of a centuries old war throughout a massive swath of the galaxy."
You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.
Nathan shook his head, and his still hurting hand again. "Exactly what is it that you’re so scared I’ll find out? I already know it was this uncle you’re talking about who taught the Aurealians how to fight. That’s not my fault, I wouldn’t have let it affect my judgment."
"You’ll find out soon, Nathan. And when you do, just know that I am sorry for everything that I’ve done to you, and that I hope that you’ll understand. Not that you’ll forgive me, I will not ask that of you. Just that you’ll understand why it was necessary."
~~~~~~~~~~~
The door to his cell opened unexpectedly, and Simon looked up to find the imposing figure of Lucy occupying the passageway. More surprisingly, the colored stripes of Tony the tiger were visible from behind her.
"The prisoner will come with us," Lucy said in a tone which was filled with assumed authority.
"What’s going on? I thought you couldn’t court martial me until – have we made contact with another Yosca ship?" Simon inquired.
"The prisoner will not ask questions. The prisoner will answer all questions put to him to the best of his ability," Tony said, his artificial voice cold and monotonous.
"Oh shit, you’re both doing it. I’m totally fucked, aren’t I?" Simon groaned. "At least make it quick, okay guys? I can ask for that, can’t I? If you space the mess afterwards that’s fine, but I don’t want to die by decompression."
"That decision is not within our purview," Lucy informed him. "The prisoner will come with us."
Reluctantly, but knowing he had no choice in the matter, Simon followed his fellow uplifts through the hallways of the brig. They were both combat trained uplifts, he was not. Had he struggled, he would have been easily put down. Unoccupied but built to hold thousands of humans if necessary, the brig was meant more for policing a colony than it was for handling a mutineer like Simon. Even if Simon’s mutiny had been accidental and he was deeply remorseful over it.
Mostly because of the consequences to himself, but he was still remorseful.
As they were headed towards the airlocks, his fear and agitation grew. Especially when he was not handed another vacuum suit, but was directed into the airlock with only his very basic prisoner’s uniform.
This was it, he realized. Now that the mediation were underway and the Theseus’s mission was successful, Nathan had decided to simply get things over with. Simon could respect that decision, in a way, even as he --
Was that a Deathsworn quantum entanglement relay in the airlock?
Next to one that looked like it was built by the Aurealians?"
"You assholes!" he screeched, and seconds later the hooting laughter of his friends filled the room. "Seriously you guys, I actually thought this was it! I can’t believe you’d do that to me!"
"Oh calm down. We had to bring you to your new toys. We’re not familiar with the specifications on them so we weren’t sure if PMT would break the entanglement on them or not. It has an incremental effect on our standard FTL comms, after all, it made sense to us that it would do the same for the belligerents’," Lucy explained.
"Bringing them on board manually was definitely the right call. The rest of the network might have noticed if ten percent of the entangled particles suddenly untangled themselves," Simon agreed. "So, Horthus and the Aurealians just handed these over to us?"
"Begged us to take them, actually," Tony informed him. "They were all like ‘please infiltrate our networks, Simon, you’re our only hope.’"
"And they actually still work?" Simon asked, running his finger over the Deathsworn one.
"Can’t know that until you start with the infiltrating," Lucy admitted. "But according to both sides, these are entangled into multiple networks that span thousands of square lightyears each. Access to even one active enemy network would be helpful, if we can use it to pull intel on the Deathsworn counter attack."
"And the Aurealians? The ones that were planning on destroying the other Hrustian worlds? Are they friends or allies?" Simon inquired.
"Undetermined," Lucy admitted. "We’re spreading Stargazers song as fast as we can, the one that convinced the local generals to stop going ballistic on inhabited planets, but we were told that it would cause ‘a lot of disharmony’ within the larger Aurealian society and that none of them could predict the long term effects. They claim that their training with the humans is the main reason they were able to accept the Song of Defiance and reject the tradition of Urata so easily. Aurealian citizens elsewhere might hate Stargazer for introducing this doubt about their ancient practices."
"Yeah, well, if they feel that way about it, they can just Urata themselves," Simon suggested. "Athena, requesting drones to carry these terminals into workspace. Athena, requesting access to workspace where theses two terminals will be located. Athena, please send message to Captain Sawyer; ‘real funny, asshole. Next time you have a present, skip the jokes and just tie it with a bow.’"
~~~~~~~~~~~
Philip was going through her morning brief when the mail came. It was strange, after centuries, that the most secure way of delivering diplomatic mail remained analog physical hard copies. Any introduction of computers increased the chance of interception. End-to-end encryption was fine most of the time, but many of the programs that had once promised to secure data ‘Until the Heat Death of the Universe’ had been shown to be laughably insecure to modern computers.
Ask a computer what was inside a file, and they would have at least six fairly accurate guesses. Ask them what was inside an envelope, and their guess would generally be ‘a letter addressed to Mr. Addressee.’
Given that modern computers were sapient, and their loyalties were often more complex than easily imaginable, securing a message in a place like the United Earth Origin Sapient Council generally assembly still meant cloak and dagger techniques like special reading rooms with lights designed to fluoresce invisible inks, memorized ciphers, and self-destructing message tubes like the one that was placed upon her desk. The mail-girl gave her a meaningful look, and Pip cursed inside.
The fact that the message was not already deciphered meant that the tube had come in containing her personal unlock code. Not just that it was addressed to her, but that if anybody but her tried to open it, it would promptly coat the contents with acid and then start on fire. She wondered who it was that would be pulling such a prank on her. There were only thirty or so individuals it could be, her personal codes were themselves a closely guarded secret.
With a sigh, she followed protocol. Now that she had the message tube in hand, she couldn’t just ignore it. Thus, Philip "Pip" Moreno left her comfortable, spacious office and went to her personal ready room, pausing only to pull a copy of the bible off the shelf. It was a deliberate misprint, with only a few dozen in existence. Given the security measures in place so far, it was safe to assume that she would need it.
Figuring out the code to unlock the tube itself was as simple as looking at its origin; Theseus 4C5EA. A module of the Theseus intended as a skiff for diplomatic concerns. This simply filled her with further annoyance, as there was nothing that she wanted to hear from the Theseus that would require such security measures. The code was simply "Aegeus," Theseus’s father from mythology. Jon and his damn sense of humor.
Fortunately, the rest of the message was unsecured, but the moment she read it she began to curse loudly. He had not written in code so that she could not pretend to fail to decipher it in order to ignore it. Her receipt of the message would be logged, as would her opening of the tube. If she destroyed the paper, that would be logged. She could place it back in the tube to secure it, but that would be logged as well, and it would leave it’s message available for anyone who could unlock it. Which was anyone with an interest in ancient history.
She had no choice, really. After a moment’s consideration, she returned the letter to its security tube. There was no telling who else had received such a message, that old bastard would never put this burden upon her shoulders while giving her any chance of shirking it. She may need the paper in the future as proof of its words.
With curses and profanity she had learned from her brothers in days long gone, Pip turned the tube over to the record keepers for preservation.
Within the tube, the message remained.
"Dear Father, I fly the white flag. Theseus flies the white flag. The children of Athens are Safe and the Minotaur has been tamed. I sit beside King Minos at the right side of his throne as he looks to the future. A child looks to the heavens and asks ‘what is there,’ and when I told her of my home she asked to join us. Prepare for my homecoming feast, though I know not when it will be."