---Factions---
---Ndum’s perspective---
My wife stands at my left… as stunning as always but especially so in Terran green, blue and black formal dress, the top of her head well below the level of my shoulder, even with her high heels.
On my right stands my bodyguard.
At a full 55cm shorter than me (scarcely taller than my wife) the wiry, Stetsonned Sapiens woman doesn’t look like much…
She’s missing one of her natural brown eyes, marking her out fairly clearly as a combat veteran, but that’s the same as most Terrans her age.
It would have been the same for me and my wife if the War hadn’t made diplomats more desperately sought after than at any time in Terran history, for the unprecedented need to coordinate a galactic conflict without FTLcoms!
This woman’s talent lies in what hangs at her belt.
Nothing more than a length of heavy rope.
Certainly not a ‘weapon’(!)
Though… I think, if ever the day comes where she’s actually called on to use it to defend me from an attack, Parliament may decide that lassos and whips need to be rapidly reclassified(!)
Though, perhaps not… I think most of my fellow Representatives would realise that, effectively, anything can be used as a weapon in Terran hands and decide it simply isn’t worth the effort to ban them!
Standing behind the three of us is a large crowd, composed of friends and family of the voyagers, ODR personnel and Parliamentary personnel,
In the crowd is Vahatra, my daughter, and Wynythil of the Dancing Reeds, my daughter in law.
I still remember the day she came out to us as being in a relationship with a Tythii, preemptively defiant, only to be met with a bemused chuckle from both me and her mother as we let her know that her being a xenophile was fine with us!
I don’t know that we really could have expected anything else, raising her on the galactic capital from the age of 11!
Finally, the hangar’s roof parts.
I turn my face upwards.
Citadel’s skies are teaming with activity, as always!
It’s astonishing that, from my recollection of the few occasions I’ve visited the cradle, Earth’s skies are so, comparatively, quiet… a fairly robust system of free monorails being what carries the overwhelming majority of planetside travellers there.
I spot what I was searching for and fix my eyes on it as it descends through the atmosphere towards us.
The ship draws close enough for me to make out it’s strikingly colourful, iridescent palette a moment before I see its overall shape, that of a wingless, long necked bird.
The final thing to make itself apparent is this ship’s enormous size… right on the edge of most hangars' ability to handle!
While still a few hundred metres up, the gigantic ship rotates in the aircolumn to point its rear towards us.
It finally sets itself down with the resounding *BOOM* of thousands of tonnes of material being placed, however lightly, against a surface of solid plascrete.
Through the clear polymer of the boarding ramp, I’m able to see a veritable crowd of individuals of various species, all of them silhouetted by the bright, interior lights as they stand there, ready to disembark.
There might be a little shiplag for them to deal with over the next few days…
The ramp descends towards us, slowly.
I give a broad smile up it and bring my hand to my chin to stroke my beard as I see the collection of people starting to make their way down towards us.
Among them, I see the face of an Ulat man my wife and I met 37 years ago (becoming the first Terrans ever to see and be seen by any extraterrestrial in the flesh… mere days after Master Chief Soloniaina became the first to do so via transmission.)
As much as I would like to catch up with the Captain-turned Commadore-turned prodeathworld advocate with whom my wife and I made history, it wouldn’t be proper right now.
There are two among the ones coming down this ramp that I need to prioritise welcoming!
I’ll have time to say hello to Yakchutt over the coming days.
One among the welcoming party, however, does not share my restraint regarding that man(!)
From the friends and family segment, a slender, bipedal, Class 8 Crocodilian woman (more than a metre taller than me) runs up the ramp!
“Yakchutt!!!” shouts the Ulat woman at the stocky man she’s approaching at high speed!
“Klornett…!?” he answers her, bewildered.
Just as I’m resolving her as having to be his sister or something, she opens her arms to wrap him in an embrace and her jaws to clamp around his stout, reptilian head in a show of affection, reserved for spouses and lovers among their kind.
It takes me a moment (considering the reason that this woman being Yakchutt’s partner is so surprising) before it clicks that I’d parsed him as ace the first time I met him! That assumption was then not challenged in the nearly 4 decades since(!)
Ulat have some of the most dramatic sexual dimorphism of any species in the galaxy!
Other than their reptilian scales, their 2-0-2 arrangement of fingers and basic body plan of a head on top of an upright torso with two arms, two legs and a tail, they could not look more like an interspecies couple!
Yakchutt’s scales are a dark green, the woman’s are pale enough to verge on white!
She is around 70cm taller than him (with most of the extra height coming from a long, serpentine neck, in contrast to his complete lack of one) but so much slimmer that I’d guess her to be only half his weight!
Where he has a short, stubby, vestigial tail, hers is long and whip like.
In contrast to his thick, short snout on a stout, Krogan like head, her jaws are long enough to almost completely enclose both sides of his face!
Their phenotypic dimorphism is matched by their behavioural dimorphism; male Ulat being typically more stoic and reserved, in contrast to their females, a lot more passionate and forthright.
Thankfully, the only victim of this woman deciding that she simply could not wait one more moment to embrace the partner she’s been separated from for the better part of 2 years is Yakchutt’s dignity(!)
The man, while clearly pleased, is also quite clearly rather embarrassed by the woman who has him immobilised, right in everyone’s way, and stammers up into the crocodilian mouth as the crowd parts to flow around them.
It seems like the pintsized, green skinned bipeds on their left (my right) are, far from being offended by the display, actively amused by it, issuing many appreciative hoots and hollers at the pair.
The large arachnoids, on their other side, simply politely ignore them.
I see a woman in a glossy kimono with a silver streak in her dark hair running ahead of the crowd and turning backward.
“Representative Khr’kowan… Representative Viig…” she calls to her left, then right, a smile in her voice “…please come forward!”
The largest of the Vrakhand extracts herself from the throng and strides ahead towards me.
One of the Twigg (the only distinctive aspects of her appearance being her yellow eyes and light brown hair, in contrast to the greens and blues of most of the rest) does the same on the other side.
Miyazaki comes forward and places herself on my left, out of the way of my wife.
“Khr’kowan, Viig, this is Ndum ‘Lemur’ Rain… The United Terran Coalition’s current representative to the Parliament of the Galactic Union and this…” she gestures Nirina “…is his wife, Nirina ‘Orchid’ Rain.”
Instead of extending either hand for a handshake (which would necessitate either choosing which woman to acknowledge first or, ridiculously, simultaneously extending my right hand up to the right handed Vrakhand and my left down to the left handed Twigg) I bend at the waste and render a low, respectful bow, aimed precisely at the space between them, saying “It is an honour and a delight to meet both of you.”
My wife dips her head, pulls out the folds of her dress in a curtsey to them and says “Likewise.”
She always was a little old fashioned… in public at least… not so much behind closed doors(!)
“The honour is mine, Representative.” answers the arachnoid empress, matching my bow but still looking down from above me.
“Yeah, it’s good to meet you.” says the Twigg girl, casually, looking up at me before rendering a nod to my wife.
Then, her yellow, slitpupiled eyes flick to the other woman, standing on my right, and stare up with some interest.
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Taking the cue, I introduce her “Representatives, this is my bodyguard, Jaylah ‘Rider’ Chevalier.”
The Texan woman steps forward.
I’m just about able to see a mirthful smile curling her lips, around the brim of her hat, before she brings up a hand to its front and tips it slightly forward, greeting “Howdy… Happy to meet y’all!”
The little green girl's focus does not waver from Jaylah’s face after she makes her introduction.
Perhaps her attention has been captured by the glowing green artificial left eye… though, I’m fairly sure she’s seen bionics before, given that that R’qali ship captain over there (perched on the muscular shoulder of the cute faced redhead) has two bionic eyes and a bionic leg!
“Well! Ain’t you sweet, darlin’…” chuckles Jaylah to the Twigg girl “…don’t mind the attention one bit(!)”
The little Twigg girl bares her four fanged teeth at her, briefly terrifying me into thinking she’s making a threat display, before bursting into giggles.
Her Vrakhand counterpart looks three parts exasperated, one part amused, as she sighs.
Clearing my throat, I regain the Graom-Wakhkortan representatives’ attention to ask “I apologise if this seems a little rushed but… would the two of you mind accompanying my wife and I back to the ODR in our vehicle just now? The rest of your respective contingents will be conveyed there shortly, there are just a few matters we would like to discuss with you alone, if that’s alright?”
Turning her palm in a gesture of acceptance, the empress acknowledges “Of course, Representative. Please lead the way.”
“No problem.” shrugs her Twigg counterpart.
“Excellent.” I smile before turning to the Japanese woman to ask “May I leave coordinating things here to you, Mistress Miyazaki?”
Beaming, she answers “Absolutely, Representative… Coordination is my job, afterall(!)
“Then, if the two of you would follow me…?” I invite the very large and very small women, walking away.
The *clack* of my wife’s heels, the *clink* of my bodyguard’s spurs, the *pitter-patter* of the little goblinoid’s digitigrade feet and the *pwuck-pwuck-pwuck* of the enormous Spider queen’s ‘boatshoes’ let me know that all four of them are following behind me.
I lead the band of us to an ODR owned atmo craft, with a luxurious interior, spacious enough to accommodate the 3m tall, 5m long Vrakhand woman as well as the rest of us.
Jaylah takes out her holo and runs it over the vehicle a few times to triple check it hasn’t been tampered with while out of our sight, before pronouncing “It’s clean, Boss.”
“Thank you, Jaylah.” I acknowledge, receiving a tilt of her hat as she nods.
I turn to my fellow representatives and gesture inside the vehicle, bidding “After you.” with a smile.
The two of them climb aboard, the 20cm step up a little awkward for the submetre Twigg to manage.
My wife follows them, giving me a delightful smirk as she does.
I turn to Jaylah who tilts her hat backwards giving me the opportunity to see her natural brown and synthetic green eyes in a rare moment of eyecontact.
“Yer chivalry’s wasted on me, Boss(!) I’m yer bodyguard… Means I’m the last one in(!)” she observes.
I chuckle and briefly throw up my palms in concession before stepping aboard.
I take the seat beside my wife before the Texan woman takes a backwards step aboard, her face still scanning around outside until the moment the door slides shut.
The craft takes off, lifting the five of us over the ecumenopolitan vista of the second most populated planet in the galaxy.
The pair of them are clearly trying hard not to stare.
My wife gives a warm smile and gestures out of the window, indulging “It’s a stunning view, isn’t it!” to give them an excuse to look.
“It’s incredible.” says the empress, soberly.
“SO many people!” remarks the little brown haired girl, standing on her seat to get a better look.
“There really are, aren’t there… the planet Ndum and I are from doesn’t even have a tenth as many as live on this one!” says Nirina.
The Vrakhand turns her face to her, frowning curiously “I… thought Earth was the most populous planet in the [galaxy]?”
“Oh, it is…” answers my wife, sweetly “…but we aren’t from Earth… It’s our cradleworld, of course, and we’ve visited it a few times but our planet is actually called Lemak Vaovao.”
“I see. I apologise for my oversight.” says the empress.
“Not at all!” beams the love of my life before explaining “It’s a mistake a lot of people make, Terran and nonTerran alike! My husband is actually only the second of five representatives not to be from Earth so far… Even though Earth only makes up a little more than 3% of the UTC’s population, there’s definitely still… a little bit of prestige attached to being from the cradle(!)… It seems quite natural in people’s minds that the one who represents Terrans ought to be from there… We take no offence!”
“We’re here, folks.” announces Jaylah as we approach the roof of Citadel’s ODR main residence building.
The craft touches down on the landing pad and the door slides open.
The Texan steps out, her head swivelling around.
My wife follows her, then Viig, proceeded by a moment where Khr’kowan tries to let me out first but I respond “After you, Representative.”
She climbs out.
As the last out of the craft, the door slides shut behind me and it flies away to store itself.
“I’d sure ’preciate it if we could get off this rooftop right quick and find ourselves somewhere a bit more sheltered!” proclaims Jaylah, looking all around, warily, as if to spot snipers on the buildings closest to us(!)
“Let’s get inside then, Jaylah.” I accept, leading the way.
We get through the door and I ask “Are we OK with taking the stairs? It’s just one floor but we could take the lift if you prefer?”
“Stairs shouldn’t be a problem for me.” declares the Vrakhand.
“Me neither.” agrees the Twigg.
“Alright then.” I smile as I lead the way down the wide, shallow, interspecies staircase.
Jaylah jogs ahead to be the first one to peer around the corner where the stairs turn back on themselves.
Finding no assailants, she takes over the task of guiding us down the stairs and along the corridor to Nirina and I’s apartment.
She takes out her holo and, the second the door is open, walks inside, pointing it everywhere while running through different scans.
“Clear.” she recognises before putting her holo away and walking back past the other four of us, out of the door we just came in.
“You aren’t staying?” asks Viig, sounding crestfallen.
The Texan woman stops, turns to face the Twigg girl and smirks “Sorry, darlin’!… I’m on duty… Much as I’d enjoy more o’ yer company, stayin’ outside’s part of my job(!)” before closing a scarred, russet brown eyelid over her glowing green bionic in a wink, pulling her head out of the doorway and allowing the door to slide closed behind her.
My wife and I now being left alone with the two nonTerran deathworlders, I gesture to the lounge area and suggest “Shall we sit?”
“Sure.” replies the green skinned one.
“Indeed.” agrees the bluish-black armoured one, before adding “Would it be acceptable for me to seat myself on the floor?”
“No problem at all.” smiles my wife “But do you mind if my husband and I sit on the sofa?”
“Please do.” answers the empress.
“I’m sitting there!” says the Twigg, enthusiastically indicating one of the (to her) utterly gigantic loveseats before hopping up onto it, turning to face the coffee table and slumping down on the chair which makes her look like a toddler.
The empress gives a slightly exasperated sigh at her counterpart's lack of social grace before folding her legs and dropping her underside to the floor in the space at the end of the table.
Nirina sits and I take my seat beside her.
“So…” I start “…thank you both for joining us and I apologise if it felt a little rushed. There are just a few things we wish to discuss with both of you before anything else. Once we’re done here, Jaylah will show both of you to your accommodations. Representative Khr’kowan; you are sharing an apartment with your husband… and… Mistress Miyazaki has asked me to let you know that she will be in the one next to yours.”
The giant woman sitting on my floor gives a pleased smile and says “Thank you, Representative Rain… and Ambassador Rain.” directing the latter to my wife.
Turning to the small woman, enthroned on our loveseat, I continue “Representative Viig, in line with your request, we have placed you into an apartment with 19 other Twigg, the remaining ⅔ of your contingent in the apartment next door and the one on the far side of that… Do let us know if you find yourself wishing for a little more privacy than that arrangement affords. We will happily oblige you.”
“Cool!” appreciates the small woman.
My wife here chimes in “We have done our best to make sure your rooms have been appropriately adapted for both your species’ comfort and necessities but, if you find there’s anything we’ve missed, anything you don’t understand or you have any other difficulty, you can call the concierge from the panel by the door… Jaylah will show you how to do that.”
“We are both grateful.” says the empress, speaking for both of them.
The Twigg girl rolls her eyes at being spoken for but doesn’t object.
I allow a brief beat for them to ask clarifying questions.
When none come, I decide to start “First, allow me to apologise on behalf of both the UTC and GU for the perils you have thus far been exposed to by us; the attack on your peoples’ peace conference, the pirate boarding of the Bright Plume you were called on to aid in dealing with and, most recently, the terroristic extortion of your genetic code from you by the Revanchists, Representative Khr’kowan… I understand that, though not directly to blame, these are hazards you would not have been exposed to if it weren’t for us and, for that, I beg your forgiveness. Please rest assured that the source of the leak at the UTCIS, which led to that organisation becoming aware of your people and the potential applications of thanatite in the first place, is under active investigation as we speak.”
“Your apology is appreciated but unnecessary, Representative Rain… These are risks I would gladly undertake again for my people’s sake.” answers the Vrakhand.
“Yeah… No problem… You didn’t do all that!” agrees the Twigg.
With an appreciative smile, I continue “Much as we would like to let you go, to start settling into your rooms and recuperating, we have some things that we need to talk over with you beforehand. The most pressing of the matters we must discuss is the existence of the antiTerran faction in Parliament. Has Mistress Miyazaki discussed this with you?”
“No…?” frowns the Twigg.
“Yes she has, Viig.” corrects her counterpart, sighing.
The smaller woman gives a bemused shrug and answers “Alright, maybe… There’s been a lot to remember!”
I smile.
It seems that the small woman’s species’ strengths in working and procedural memory do not extend to episodic or semantic memory!
“Alright then, just so we’re all on the same page…” I bring up a holographic display of Parliament’s seating plan. 33,972 species’ representatives, arranged in concentric rings around the Speaker’s platform in the centre “…this is a map of Parliament. This is my seat…” I say, highlighting it in green “…These…” I highlight another 5,000 or so seats in a lighter green “…are what our intelligence service have identified as the ‘proTerran faction’. They are species whose votes align with positions advanced by myself and former Terran Representatives significantly more than chance would suggest… Now, that doesn’t necessarily mean that all of these representatives feel positively about us or that they represent species that do. Some of them may be simply attempting to curry our favour and, as unfortunate as it is to need to admit, a fair few of them may simply be frightened to vote against positions we have made our stance known on, for fear of being targeted as enemies should the galaxy ever come to another War… Perish the thought!… Most of the remainder are representatives we have identified as ‘floating voters’…” I say, highlighting a little more than twenty thousand in yellow “…these represent a spectrum of voting patterns, some tending to align more with Terran supported policies, some less, but all with no pattern clearly established enough that they can definitively be inferred to be basing their votes on what position they know we support. They, rather, seem to be voting either with their consciences or according to other criteria in which we may be a factor but not the main factor…”
The Vrakhand woman is paying rapt attention to my words.
The Twigg looks as if she’s trying to but is having trouble with boredom setting in.
“…all of this to say…” I finally highlight a little more than 6,000 seats in red “…this is the antiTerran faction. Representatives who can usually be relied on to oppose whatever position is supported by my predecessors and I… I must, again, sincerely apologise … Your species’ accession to the Galactic Union should not be contentious… but we are almost certain it will be… With me supporting you, all of these seats can be relied on to not only vote against your acceptance (which would already make your species’ admittance the second most voted against in galactic history after only my own’s) but to do their utmost to convince the floating voters to do so as well…”
“Representative, if it weren’t for the War your people fought most of my lifetime ago, we are fully aware that, upon discovery, our planet would have been lain waste rather than considered for membership by the [Galactic] Union. Your apology is, once more, unnecessary!” chides the empress.
“Mmm!” grunts the Twigg in emphatic agreement.
“Thank you, Representatives…” I smile before continuing “…I could not possibly ask you to remember all species currently aligned with the antiTerran faction (even I don’t have them memorised and I’ve been in this job for well over a year now!) but there’s one who I will ask you to remember.”
I bring up a picture of a woman.
Her species look like a cross between wombats and gibbons.
“This is Princess Brathala… Representative of the Battan and the unofficial spearhead of the antiTerran faction… she’s the one you most need to watch out for!”