He stroked his hand from his neck to where his pants dipped low on his hip, snagging my attention on his gold belly button piercing. It had a bright green jewel dangling from it. My mind couldn’t help but drift to how shiny and soft his fur looked or what it would feel like everywhere else as well, since his hands were so soft. I mentally slapped myself and zoned in when I realized he’d continued talking.
“—didn’t used to be here. It took forever to talk people into trying out other species’ food. But eventually we got there. Beware the Orook’s stall. Their noodles could melt the coating off a shuttle.”
We passed the stall in question, and a wide bodied alien with pale yellow fur looked up from his openfire grill to grin at me with a double row of triangular teeth, like a shark. The scent coming off the pot over the fire made my eyes water and my nose burn. I sneezed three times in a row while Rathal laughed and dragged me away. I looked up at him blinking my watering eyes.
“Holy shit, what is that?”
He laughed louder, tugging me through a maze of stalls and vendors calling out their wares. “I have no idea. Don’t try it.”
There was so much to look at. A medley of vendors with a riot of colorful aliens until it all blended together like a melted wax picture in my mind. The smells were mouthwatering… once I got away from the hellfire cook. There was a cook holding up a small cage filled with fluttering glowing beetles. I stopped to watch someone approach his stall to buy something and recoiled in horror when the vendor took a handful of bugs and mashed them roughly with the side of his fist and then rolled a roasted piece of meat in the chunky paste, stuck it on a stick and handed it to the customer who happily shoved the bug covered meat into its mouth.
“Oh, that’s not right.”
Rathal leaned over me, his jaw brushing my temple. “A delicacy. Don’t be squeamish, darling.”
When he made to grab a bug kabob, I squealed in protest and jerked his arm down. Rathal’s laugh rose above the din of the market and I walked away from him grumbling to myself about disgusting assholes. When he got himself back under control enough to catch up to me I was browsing through the gems.
“Do you enjoy jewels?” Rathal asked, stepping in close behind me.
I moved on, brushing past him to a frilled female alien’s spice stall. “What will you give me if I answer?”
He hummed behind me as I leaned over the little baskets filled with aromatic and colorful powders. “How about news from the front?”
I straightened, my heart dropping into my stomach. “What news?”
“Jewels first.”
I whirled to glare up at him. “Yes. I like jewels.” I wouldn’t take a bowl of spice and throw it into his eyes. I was civilized.
He nodded and brought his wrist up to my eye level. He turned his hand until the inside of his wrist was facing up and a small orange hologram ball floated up from his skin. Once it got about three inches high the ball flattened into a line and then popped up into a square. I leaned in close when images flashed into life. It took me a second to understand what I was seeing, but when it clicked my breath froze in my lungs.
“Is this the inside of a Unity ship?” I asked quietly, the noise of the market fading into the background as I hyper focused on the image in front of me. The ship's interior was incredibly similar to the Solus, though on a smaller scale. Black clad soldiers moved around the room within the camera's view.
“Yes. TheRokaris. A Dreadnaught. They are planning an assault on one of the Out planets in the same quadrant as Korsal. I suspect they are planning on making this planet, a planet simply designated PX445432, a staging point. But don’t take my word for it, darling. Watch.”
I squinted. The camera panned up, to a holoscreen opened above the center console on the bridge. Some very important looking Unity officers stood around it. They pointed at a galaxy with fourteen planets orbiting their stars. Korsal was the tan planet fourth to the left of the twin suns. The holoscreen zoomed in on Korsal and magnified again. The orbital station Anu had been building was completed, its white rings rotating lazily while dozens of ships floated around it, waiting their turn fora dock. The aliens gestured wildly at the orbital station’s many, many guns and the massive black Dreadnaught docked on the uppermost ring.The Solus.
“Is there sound?”
“No. I tried, but every time I tap into their audio feeds it trips a silent alarm. They aren’t planning on attacking Korsal, Callie. They are trying to strategize if they could, theoretically. But Anu’s station is a good deterrent for now. The Unity is spreading itself too thin. As far reaching as their power and as large as their military forces are, if you attack enough planets within the same timeframe, you are bound to start feeling the strain.”
I tore my eyes away from the bickering Unity officers to look at him. “Why the hell would they do something so dumb?”
“If you were an empire who hadn’t fought a serious war in roughly a thousand years, would your military tactics be very good? Oh sure, they’ve squashed rebellions that have cropped up here and there. A few of those battles have even been significant, but a true war? No. Not in a long time. Plainly speaking, they’ve grown fat and lazy. Academics, most of them. They discuss and study past wars and plan theoretical battles. There are simulations for them to play their war games, but this war with Ohem and Jack and their allies was thrust on them before they were ready.”
He laughed without humor. “The Unity usually plans in the dark, gathering its power around a victim in secret while putting on a pretty show of diplomacy and then the trap's teeth snap shut. There is more than one way to conquer a planet, and very few of them require all out bloodshed.”
I scoffed, shaking my head. “Like a hostile takeover through backdeals. How very Wall Street boardroom of them.”
I could tell by the confused look on Rathal’s face that he didn't know what I was talking about, but I was too busy watching the holofeed to explain it to him. The camera had zoomed out awayfrom Korsal and now five other planets in the same galaxy were being highlighted in red. Little red ships were pushed by one of the officers across the screen to circle each planet. The others started arguing, pointing fingers at three other planets on the board.”
“The Commander wants to stick to these five planets. Something two or three Dreadnaughts carrying a few hundred Insects and ground forces could handle without much difficulty. The other across from him, the female with the red crest, wants to add three more planets to the target list. They are arguing the risks and probable outcomes.”
The red crested female lost the argument. The five planets the Commander had targeted got an additional red ring around them and the meeting broke up.
“Can you tell Anu this? She can inform Izari about the Unity’s plan and maybe we can get some boots on the ground on those planets to boost their defenses.”
I didn’t know if those planets had been given the vaccine yet. So far we've managed to stay ahead of the Unity’s trump card. The Red Plague.
