“Those are wise words,” Erlyn muttered, yanking her attention back to the conversation.
“They are the truth.” Jaiya set the glass down and grabbed her tablet as she tried to ignore the prince’s unwavering gaze upon her. “Let’s not waste anyone’s time and get to the root of this meeting.”
“Which is?” Idris asked, turning on his tablet.
“What do my people have to offer you? Or rather, which of our resources is so important, it would propel you to fight a decades-long war with us?”
Jaiya didn’t miss how the prince flinched from the bluntness of her question.
“How can you not know?”
“You shot our representative’s ship before it was able to return home,” she growled. “How would we know what was discussed between our species twenty-five years ago? The last communications we received from the mission were from a diplomatic assistant’s private messaging with the admiral at the time.”
“Watch your next words carefully, diplomat,” Idris hissed, tensing in his chair. “We did not shoot your transport. Someone sabotaged the vessel, making it self-destruct.”
“That couldn’t be further from the truth,” Jaiya growled, forcing herself not to give in to his intimidation. “As soon as they warped into Hawking’s star system, a ship was waiting for them and shot them down before we had any chance to react.”
Prince Idris turned to his assistant. “I want you to bring up any record of ships dispatched within the time frame of that mission. If there are any system readings, I want those also.” He returned his attention to Jaiya, his hardened gaze turning his teal eyes to sapphires. “I swear to you, my people believed someone within your federation didn’t want peace between our species and started the war on purpose.”
“And am I supposed to blindly accept your records as proof? How do I know they haven’t been doctored?”
“Why would we start a war with the only species that has access to the resource we need and don’t need it themselves?”
“And what do we have that you need?”
“You have seen it already, in your quarters,” Erlyn explained. “In all three-star systems governed by the Cosmic Trinity Alliance, there is at least one planet containingAeolian Arkosesand—maybe even more. It is a kind of black or green volcanic iron-based sand. Our star systems don’t have enough reserves to support our population, and all other species whose planets do, need the sand as much as us.”
“Your species was the first we have come across who were willing to trade,” Idris breathed. “We would never break a trade deal with the CTA, especially since we were already battling a war on the other side of our territory.”
“Then why has it taken this long for either side to try to reconcile and try again?” Jaiya shook her head in disbelief. “Why would you continue to fight us humans when you were already at war with another species? That doesn’t make any sense.”
“Because the chance to conquer one of your star systems and mine the sand for our home territory was too tempting. ” Erlyn brought up a chart on his tablet, gesturing at various bars representing resource distributions. “We only have about two-thirds of the sand we need in this system. Do you see the red, green and purple bars? Those are your three star systems. Taking over just one of them would give us enough sand to support our current populationandthe next generation.”
Sand.
This whole war had been fought over a bunch of sand.
Not water or technology or some mortal offense.
She had even wondered if the Daextru needed human breeders to reproduce, like she’d heard some romantic humans speculate back home. But no, all they wanted was sand.
“If we were willing to give you the sand you need, what would you offer us in return?”
Please say your bodies.
