Captain O’Sullivan sat down at the conference table with an involuntary groan. Her hand subconsciously reached out to touch the spot on her chest where the Jerrassian bullet had pierced her right lung.

Unconscious, she had been rushed aboard the Wałęsa and immediately taken to the Medical Department, where her wound had been cleaned and filled with hormone gel to stimulate the growth of new cells and accelerate the healing process. What would naturally have taken weeks to repair had, thanks to the growth hormones, only taken days. At the same time, nanobots had been injected into her body. They directed the growing cells and wove the new tissue into a pattern indistinguishable from her undamaged self, preventing the formation of scar tissue. There would be no blemish to mar her chest, nor any calluses to constrict her lungs.

That didn’t mean it didn’t hurt. The newly formed skin was still fresh and white, as no pigment had yet developed in it. But the pain would eventually subside, and in time, a little sunshine would surely take care of her skin coloration as well. Other than these two minor annoyances, she was as good as new.

“Are you alright, Captain?” Admiral Ekberg asked, his dark brown face showing genuine concern. “Do you need anything?”

“I’m fine, thank you, sir,” O’Sullivan replied. “Just a little pain. Nothing I can’t handle. It could have been a whole lot worse.”

“I can’t deny that,” Special Agent Oliveira quipped.

“Well, what did I miss?” Captain O’Sullivan didn’t like having lost days to unconsciousness and desperately wanted to catch up.

“We’ve been trying to get permission from the Jerrassians to interview the shooter. It’s been easier said than done.” There was a note of frustration in Admiral Ekberg’s voice.

“They claim there’s been a clerical error, and they’ve somehow lost the prisoner,” Oliveira explained. “I say he’s either lying in an unmarked grave in some Jerrassian forest right now, or sitting in an expensive hotel suite, toasting with his pals in the People’s Council. Either way, the Committee for Jerrassian Security clearly didn’t want us to get the chance to talk to him.”

Admiral Ekberg leaned forward. “We’ve been very clear that all we want is an interview. We’re not going to extradite him. He’s a Jerrassian prisoner and will be dealt with under their justice system.”

“Or whatever they have instead of justice,” Oliveira interjected. Admiral Ekberg shot him a dark look but quickly composed himself, realizing what he was doing. Despite not having a formal military title, the Special Agent was technically his superior, at least in matters outside the day-to-day operations of large-scale fleet affairs.

“And speaking of lies,” Oliveira continued, “we also have the whole mess of their plutonium enrichment program.”

O’Sullivan groaned, though this time it wasn’t due to the pain in her chest but the memory of Chairman Patek’s cringeworthy denial. “Yeah, I don’t know what to say,” she admitted. “It’s like they don’t get it. Or maybe they’ve been lying for so long they’ve started to believe their own propaganda.”

“There was a saying on Old Earth about big lies,” Special Agent Oliveira said. “The bigger the lie, the easier it is to believe. I guess if the lie is outrageous enough, people assume no one would be brazen enough to make it up. Therefore, it must be true.”

“Good thing we know it’s not true, then, “ O’Sullivan replied. “But it was embarrassing. I didn’t know what to say.”

“You handled it well,” Oliveira complimented her. “All we wanted was to hear his explanation. There was no need for you to answer it. And besides, the Jerrassians themselves took care of that,” he said, gesturing toward her chest.

“Anyway,” he continued, “I have some concerns about their nuclear program beyond their lies. After the assassination attempt, the Jerrassians pulled back their troops from the enrichment facilities and stopped transporting plutonium in armed convoys. Now they’re using single, unmarked vehicles, trying to make the sites look like ordinary factories, with nothing suspicious going on at all. I’m sure they have soldiers riding in those vehicles, but still, you can only fit a handful in there.”

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“Right,” O’Sullivan said. “They got scared when I told them we’d found their plutonium enrichment program. But they don’t understand how we detected it, so they’re incorrectly assuming it was through visual inspection. And they’re reacting accordingly.”

“That’s incredibly dangerous,” Admiral Ekberg pointed out. “It leaves their enrichment facilities and transport vehicles vulnerable to espionage, sabotage, or perhaps even theft.”

“It’s also telling,” Oliveira added. “It shows they fear us detecting their nuclear weapons program more than they fear theft or espionage. That, if anything, is deeply concerning.”

“So,” Admiral Ekberg said, trying to steer the meeting back on track. “The main purpose of today’s discussion is to determine what our current recommendation to the Solar Council is regarding extending an invitation to Jerr to join the Terran Federation.”

“Well, they’d need to make significant changes to join,” Oliveira said. “They can vote for communists to be nominated as Secretaries if they want to, or even send their own candidates to the Solar Council, but the People’s Council would have to become apolitical. Politics is played on the interstellar stage, not on individual planets. The People’s Council can stay, but it would have to transform into an administrative body, not a political one.”

“Agreed,” Admiral Ekberg said. “They also need to be fully transparent with us before joining—not just after. And not only about their nuclear weapons program, but also their human rights violations. Those dark deeds must come to light first.”

“Absolutely,” Oliveira agreed. “I’m considering proposing they establish some form of a truth and reconciliation commission.”

“Then there’s also the issue of discrimination,” Special Agent Oliveira added.“They need to make a real effort to rebuild the nations ruined by their so-called Great War. It’ll take time, but they must show they’re willing to start.”

“There’s another thing I’ve come across in my research on the Jerrassians that worries me,” he continued. “They systematically discriminate based on size. I don’t know if it’s weight, height, or both, but essentially, the bigger you are in Jerrassian society, the more important you are. Your opinions carry more weight, you get better paying jobs and health care. And if you’re big, you have better odds of being acquitted if they’re in trouble with the law.”

“Obviously, they’d need to stop that practice if they want to join,” Admiral Ekberg said. “But can they? How deeply ingrained is it?”

“Does it matter?” Oliveira countered. “If they want to join, they’ll have to change. Of course, joining hinges on a public vote among the three races first. But unless they change, it won’t even reach that stage.”

He paused, then continued. “I think there’s an apt analogy. For millennia, for nearly all of human history, we discriminated against women. We discriminated against people of color. But then came the Fall of Old Earth, and we had to scramble to avoid extinction. Most of us didn’t survive. The rest of us, living in the domed colonies on Mars, had to band together to make it. We could no longer afford to treat three-quarters of our population as less valuable based on arbitrary divisions - everyone was needed. In that cataclysm, we learned that humans have equal value, regardless of gender or skin color. If we could change, so can the Jerrassians.”

The three Sunguard officers sat silently for a moment, contemplating the difficulty of the task ahead.

“There’s one final point I’ll insist on,” Special Agent Oliveira stated. “I’m sure you will agree with this. It has to be Jerr that joins the Terran Federation—not United Jerr. The invitation will be extended to the entire planet, not to a single nation. In fact, if they want to join, they’ll have to abolish the concept of nations entirely. Once they join, the only state they’ll belong to is the Terran Federation.”

Both Captain O’Sullivan and Admiral Ekberg nodded. They had both assumed that would be a requirement, but it still needed to be said.

“Well, then,” Admiral Ekberg said, “I think it’s time we decide. Can we extend the invitation to them?”

“No,” Oliveira answered quickly. He didn’t hesitate. “Not yet. We’ll have to do it in stages. And at this moment, we’re not even at the stage where the Jerrassians want to join. They fear us and mistrust us. We need to work on improving relations first. Only then can we invite them. But even then, the invitation must be conditional, and at first only a declaration of intent rather than actual membership. They’ll need to begin preparing for integration with the Terran Federation before being allowed in.”

“Very good, sir,” Admiral Ekberg said. “But do we actually want them to join? Or would we be better off packing our bags and returning back home?”

“No, definitely not,” Oliveira replied. “The second we appeared in their skies, Jerr eventually joining the Terran Federation became a necessity. Now they know we exist. They know it’s possible to travel between the stars. If we leave now, while they fear and maybe even hate us, that fear and hate will fester and grow. Before long, they’ll come knocking on our door with nukes in their pockets—much like the Kelar did back during the war. Tau Ceti isn’t that far from home. If we leave now, we’ll be creating an enemy in our own backyard.

But if they join—if they take pride in being members of the Terran Federation, like the Kelar eventually did—the Jerrassians will strengthen us, and we will strengthen them. And we’ll have defused a bomb that might otherwise have ripped our worlds apart.”