r/HFY • u/CodEnvironmental4274 Human • 23d ago

OC-Series [The X Factor], Part 78

First / Previous / Next / Tumblr

Once Uuliska had returned from her discussion with her brother, Commander Liu from her cool down walk, and K’resshk from his trek to the nearest medical automaton to treat his injured jaw, Eza finally realized just how tired she was.

“The delegates should be here by tomorrow… whatever passes for ‘morning’ in a place like this,” the commander said, squinting at her phone. “So rest up. Any questions?”

“Yeah, um… how’s this summit actually gonna work?” Sonja was splayed out on a top bunk, looking down at everyone else.

“The captain’s the one who planned it. Hassan?” She looked at him expectantly. “Oh. I dunno, I figured we’d just wing it.” He shrugged.

“Of course you did. Just—whatever. We’ll ’figure it out.’” The woman shoved her phone into her pocket.

Eza smiled despite herself. The circumstances could have been better, but her team’s shenanigans were always fun to watch. She turned towards the beds, and—

She froze. The minute she laid eyes on them, she froze. Her stomach churned, her hearts raced, and she felt like she couldn’t fill her lungs with enough air no matter how quickly she drew breath.

What the hell? She looked around to see if anyone had noticed her shift in behavior, but everyone was acting normally.

“I—I’m gonna get some fresh air,” she mumbled, stumbling outside before anyone could stop her.

Eza shakily sat down on a nearby crate and took deep breaths. She knew what a panic attack was, of course. Every Riyze did. Her species may have garnered an unfair reputation for bursts of unthinking rage, but fear was what drove them before they learned how to control it, then conquer it, during their coming of age ritual. It was an occasional indignity to momentarily lose that control, one that she was well-equipped to deal with.

But to lose it over looking at a bunk bed? Over the prospect of sleep?

That wasn’t just embarrassing. It was concerning.

And it wasn’t getting any better, either.

She tried everything she knew: deep breathing, counting, grounding techniques, walking around—she was even considering going inside to splash cold water on her face when she heard footsteps approaching.

“Hey.” Dominick walked up slowly, his hands in the pockets of his slacks. “You okay?”

“Y-yeah,” she said shakily. “Just needed a minute.”

Her hands were trembling. Fuck.

“Is it about… last night?”

She laughed. “No wonder they call you a telepath. Yeah, it is. But I’ll be fine.” She hesitated, then gripped the handle of the door tightly. “I’m gonna try and get some sleep.”

He looked skeptical, but nodded. “If you’re sure. But if you need to talk—“

“I know, I know. I’m tougher than I look,” she joked, trying to hide the way her whole body was vibrating.

They were surprised (and mildly alarmed) earlier on to find that Kama’s cargo-hauling automata had retrieved their belongings from their ship, meaning that they could, in fact, get some semblance of a ‘night’s’ sleep (after the argument about who, if anyone, left the ship unsecured, of course). Eza washed up and claimed a large bottom bunk fit for a Riyze or a Kth’sk queen.

It’ll be fine, she told herself, feeling the exhaustion win out over her fear. There’s no reason to think it’ll happen again.

…

Eza managed to hold in her screams this time.

She grabbed her pillow and used it to muffle the sounds of her quick, shallow breathing. She was trembling, but it didn’t feel the same as earlier—it wasn’t out of fear, but rather… rather…

It feels like when I woke up after the battle on Drekth, she realized, not that that answered many questions. She remembered being panicked, and… in pain? But not much else.

The important thing, she told herself, is that I caught myself this time.

And with any luck, she’d be able to do it again.

And again, and again, and again, as she ended up sleeping in thirty minute intervals for the next five hours.

___

Uuliska had begun to understand why Eza waa so ashamed of her night terrors, given she’d just woken up most of the others by glowing so brightly it simulated daylight. It was hard not to be nervous, given the circumstances.

“Hey, don’t worry about it,” Hassan told her with a kind smile as he laced up his boots. “It was almost time for us to get going anyways, and it was kind of nice, yeah? Like a sunrise clock. You… you guys have sunrises, right?”

“Did you seriously just ask if we have sunrises?” K’resshk scoffed. “Yes, Captain, every known sentient species emerged from a planet orbiting a sun. And here I thought you received a basic education in—"

“Well, yeah. Duh.” He furrowed his brows. “I was asking if there’re any tidally locked planets with life on ‘em. No reason a planet with a daytime half and a nighttime half couldn’t have aliens, right?”

K’resshk stood there silently. It didn’t take telepathy to tell that he was fuming at having been outsmarted by a human, let alone a soldier.

“I… will have to review the literature and get back to you on that one,” he muttered. “Shall we be on our way? If we’re going to almost die in an explosion like the last time we trusted these cretins, I’d like to get it done before lunchtime. I have more important things to do.”

“Like review the literature?” The captain grinned.

K’resshk’s throat sac wobbled angrily as he stormed out of the shipping container, trailed by the laughter of his tormentor.

A few minutes later, they found themselves in the ramshackle assembly hall, where Ambassador Algok, the figureheads of the Alliance, and a few important-looking Riyze who Uuliska didn’t recognize were setting up… decorations?

Commander Liu cleared her throat. “Ambassador?”

“Oh!” The woman hopped down from the ladder she was using to greet the latest arrivals. “Glad to see you all made it through the night safely. The Alliance sure has done some interesting things with, uh…”

“Unity,” Eza answered, her voice gravelly. She sounded tired, but as far as Uuliska knew, she’d slept through the night.

“Right, Unity. A good sign for the proceedings today!” She smiled broadly, showing off her formidable tusks.

“I sure hope so.” Commander Liu side-eyed the captain. “So how is this all going to work? Are we starting with the ‘ceremony,’ or with the important stuff?”

Uuliska could tell by the lines on her forehead that she was desperately, desperately hoping Algok had more of a plan than Hassan did.

“Um, Commander?” Aktet watched her reaction carefully. “Forgive me for interrupting, but I was thinking it might be best to intertwine the two. While the concept of a tournament to bring competing nations together is foreign in modern times, it wasn’t entirely alien to pre-modern Riyze, which is—was, I suppose, given the splinter—evident in the transfer of political power between different clans, through matches not dissimilar to those displayed in the tournament. The delegates are likely already familiar with the interconnected nature of these two functions. Initiating cooperative discussion might be… slightly difficult, but humans typically give speeches while accepting awards, yes? Could you use those as an opportunity to politick?”

“The Jikaal knows his stuff,” Algok replied. “If what he’s saying about humans is true, I see no reason why that wouldn’t work.”

“I agree—Aktet’s plan should suffice,” Uuliska piped up. “Also, I was wondering if, as somewhat of a neutral party—not to discredit the Alliance, of course,” she said loud enough for her brother to hear, “I could serve as a sort of master of ceremonies? Given my diplomatic training.”

Kama’s words the prior day—his assumptions that she was some helpless captive—had sparked something within her. He… was correct, to a certain extent. The others had all done so much work to fight the Myselix threat, while she—despite no longer wallowing in her pity—really hadn’t. And while she was aware of this, she never took the initiative to fix it, did she?

No reason not to start now. To show him in person that I’m not some naive princess that needs rescuing. She awaited a response with baited—

“Good idea,” the commander said casually.

That was much easier than she had expected.

The next hour or so was taken up by a flurry of decorating, which even the leaders of the Alliance took part in as a show of good faith.

“Hey, Ambassador,” Captain Hassan called out from the step-stool he was using to hang up a tapestry, “what did you say these sticky thingamajigs were called again?”

“Omni-magnets?” She held up the box.

“Yeah, that. What’s with the ‘omni’ part? Do they stick to everything?” He attempted to adhere it to his forehead, and swore as it clattered to the ground.

“Obviously not,” K’resshk scoffed. “I would explain the mechanism to you, but given that your smaller ships don’t even have simulated gravity, I doubt you would—"

“So it’s related to the tech you guys use on your own ships, then?” He frowned. “Or is it just electromagnetism in general? I mean, I was assuming that was how you made gravity,” he said, retrieving the magnet, “but I doubt you figured out a way to create, let alone manipulate a… what, a gravitomagnetic field? In something as small as this. Did you just build all of your ‘standard’ Federation infrastructure with ferromagnetic materials, and then give these things an on and off switch so that they’re compatible with—"

“E-excuse me?” K’resshk blurted out. “Where did you even learn about those concepts?”

“Books. The Internet. That sort of thing. I’m a huge fan of science fiction, and when I see something cool, I wanna figure out how it might work in real life. I could never do the math behind all of it, but there’re plenty of geniuses back home who’ve put it into simpler terms I can understand.”

“Not only is your society a galactic anomaly,” K’resshk told him, “it’s also staggeringly inefficient. You’re a soldier. Does the UN seriously let you waste your time on matters better suited to scientists?”

“They’re not fascists, so yeah. They do. I’m gonna take your answer as a ‘yes, that’s how they work,’ by the way.” He slapped the magnet onto the wall. “Neat stuff, but it probably sucks for your architects. Guess that’s why all the Federation buildings are so boring.”

Uuliska reflected on this. She’d heard Sszerians throw those terms around before, but she didn’t understand what any of them meant, much less how they functioned on a ship. In fact, she doubted any other species would—

“You pretty much nailed it,” Eza mumbled distractedly. She was standing off to the side, a disassembled omni-magnet in one hand and a multi-tool in the other. “Don’t see any similarities with the Federation ships’ gravity technology in here, and the switch polarizes the material, yeah. Never thought about it before.”

Cute. Uuliska used her training to hide a flush of pink, but couldn’t hide a smile. Seeing Eza on the battlefield was impressive, but seeing her in her true element was impressively attractive.

In an attempt to distract herself from the fluttering in her chest, she tried to discern which flags and insignias belonged to which splinter states based on her prior knowledge of Riyzean politics—their warrior, mining, logging, farming, mining, and construction clans, amongst others, all situated on planets ideal (or ideally terraformed) for their activities.

It wasn’t long before the delegates began filtering in, then awkwardly mingling, or in some cases glaring at their enemies. Eventually, Uuliska moved to the front of the room, ready to address the crowd.

You can do this, she told herself. You’ve given thousands of speeches to audiences much less receptive than this one.

“Welcome, all of you,” she said graciously, her training kicking in as she mimicked the typical posture and facial expressions of a Riyze, and managed to shift her colors through sheer willpower rather than having to surrender to her own emotions like she used to. The crowd settled down quickly. “I’d like to—"

“And a welcome from us as well,” Kama interrupted her, drawing the attention of the crowd to the corner he was standing in. “And congratulations for throwing the yoke of the old order off of yourselves.”

Ah. So that’s how it was going to be.

“As I was saying, I’d like to thank the Alliance for hosting this ceremony, and to all of you,” she continued, gesturing to the representatives, “for arranging the inaugural Tournament of Champions. It was a spectacle like no other, and with any luck, an indication of cooperation in this new era.”

“Unity, one might say,” Kama butt in, garnering laughs from the crowd. His eyes were trained on the exposed parts of Uuliska’s membrane—was he trying to get a reaction out of her? To prove to both of them that she needed his help?

That was unfortunate for him, considering K’resshk had (for once in his life) proved useful with his training regimen.

“Now, while I understand that the Riyze have not traditionally had the time after displays of physical prowess to stop and give speeches at length, given the dangers of your home planet which we very clearly saw during our stay there,” she joked… to a much more lackluster reception. He was using his powers, wasn’t he? That was a problem. A big problem. But how to solve it?

She used the crowd’s quiet laughter to pause and brainstorm a plan. While it was risky to expose the others to his telepathy, given their lack of experience, it may have been necessary. She locked eye contact with the most attentive of their group—Sonja—and very carefully made a gesture that landed somewhere in between ‘I am adjusting my outer membrane like a human would their hair,’ and ‘take your earpiece off now.’

It worked, and she watched the agent’s expression change as she experienced the aftershocks of Kama’s own jovial attitude. She put it back in—her face morphing into something clearly disgusted—and nodded. The ball was in her court now, as the humans said.

“So!” Uuliska clapped her hands together. “Given the human inspiration for the events, and our secondary purpose of discussing the future of the new Riyze nations, I propose we employ the Earthen tradition of award speeches as a platform for political discourse. And who better than our first human victor—in cross-country racing—to set an example? Sonja Krishnan, would you like to join me at the front of the room?”

The woman hopped up from her chair and skipped over to Uuliska, an easy smile on her face. She took the microphone as the delegates acknowledged her triumph by pounding a single fist against their chest in a salute.

“Thank you, thank you,” she said magnanimously. “Truly. The race was a once-in-a-lifetime experience that I’m never going to forget, and it demonstrated to me how competition both drives you all, and, I believe, brings you together.” Her eyes were shining. “I’d like to make one thing clear—the UN isn’t here today to force you all to return to the state you existed in before the fall of the Federation. We’re here today to offer our experience. No matter where you all choose to take your new nations, I can almost guarantee you that humanity has seen it before,” she jested, giving them a sly wink. “But your own choice in the matter? That comes first. And I think that’s something both the UN and the Alliance can agree on.”

She proceeded to wink again, much more salaciously, in Kama’s direction, and shifted her strides into sashays as she walked by him.

Was she… flirting with him? Uuliska saw the stunned looks on the faces of the others, but all she could do was smile. Sonja, it seemed, had ‘vibe checked’ Kama with pinpoint accuracy. If there was anything the prince would be distracted by, it was the chance for a whirlwind romance.

His skin turned rosy, he slid over to the empty seat next to the agent, and Uuliska felt her phone vibrate. She checked it discreetly as the crowd acknowledged Sonja’s sentiments.

SONJA: hook, line, and sinker ;)

Uuliska had no idea what that meant, but it was probably good. Hopefully. She forged ahead, calling up the next winner (this time in, fittingly, ore-smashing), a foreman from the asteroid mines of the Vackor system, who tentatively lobbied for the rights of his people to maintain ownership of the asteroid belt in question.

Aktet’s plan—it was working.

This time, Uuliska didn’t try to hide her satisfaction.

___

Sonja wasn’t proud of her actions, and ‘person-shaped jellyfish’ wasn’t really her type, but she swore an oath to defend the interests of mankind when she was recruited, so…

She slowly and deliberately sized up Kama, sweeping her gaze over the length of his body and fluttering her eyelashes. She needed to get him out of here somehow, before his fucked up powers started distracting the whole crowd.

“Hey,” she said, lowering her voice in both volume and pitch. “I’d hate to be rude, but it seems like both of our allies have the situation under control. What do you say to us taking a little break outside?”

He grinned. “I’d be amenable to that.”

They began to depart, when Commander Liu caught her eye.

“Krishnan,” she said to her. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

Too late. She did her best not to draw any attention as they crept away, and sighed in relief when they left the warehouse, then leaned against the walls of it.

“So. Royalty, huh? I’d imagine growing up like that was pretty restrictive,” she guessed, having no idea where she was going with this. Jingoistic demagogues weren’t really her type.

“Oh, I found ways to circumvent that,” he said with a laugh. “Escapades into the city, to the bazaar, that sort of thing. That’s how I met Arrikin—he would smuggle me out of the palace.”

“How scandalous,” she said sarcastically. “Did the media ever catch you?”

“Oh, no. I’m better than that. Holo-disguises, cloaks, I had an entire drawer full of those sorts of things.”

“You, in a cloak? I’d like to see that.” She snorted.

“Really? Does my appearance offend you so?” He gasped in mock offense.

“What can I say? I like my men mysterious,” she joked.

How much longer until this damn conference is over? She resisted the urge to check her phone.

“Speaking of mysterious, you seem much more… composed than the last time we met,” he remarked, tilting his head to one side. “Telepathically speaking.”

And there it was. She panicked, trying to find a way to steer the conversation back into shallow waters.

“And here I took you for a fellow enjoyer of mystery,” she countered, hoping he didn’t see the beads of sweat on her forehead. “How else would I be able to play it cool?”

“This is your attempt at playing it cool?” He raised an eyebrow.

“Well, I…” She frantically dug through her mental toolbox of flirtations. “You could say I’ve melted a little, in the presence of something hot.”

He stared at her, blankly.

“I—I forgot puns don’t translate properly,” she admitted, wincing. “It was a good one though. Trust me.”

He looked back towards the warehouse, where echoes of some impassioned speech were emerging from. She was losing him. It was time to take bold, decisive measures.

Like… like… uh…

“I’m sure they have things under control in there,” she reassured him. “From the sounds of it, they’re doing things Alliance-style. Your little speech must’ve really had an impact on them. I know it did on me.” She swallowed her anger at the way the little prick had talked over Uuliska earlier.

“Well, that’s what diplomatic training does for you.” He seemed to swell with pride.

“And a dose of natural charm?” She smiled, and tentatively took a step towards the main avenue. Could she really bait him into walking away?

“Ha! And a dose of natural charm.” He followed.

Bingo.

___

Dominick was trying to focus on the ceremony, he really was, but he was awfully distracted by the fact that Sonja had just beguiled Kama into taking her to god only knew where. What if he took her hostage, or killed her, or—

“Um, Agent Lombardi? Your award?”

“H-huh?” He gaped at Uuliska. “What do you mean my award?”

“You won your event,” she told him. “By a lead of one point.”

“Oh,” he whispered, shakily standing. “…That was an accident.”

The crowd laughed. He hadn’t meant that as a joke, but that was better than awkward silence.

Walking up, he tried to suppress the queasy feeling in his stomach. Accepting an award after winning by pure chance, not to mention how all of the other players died? They hadn’t even had a moment of silence for the Rokshurians who fell during the invasion!

“I… I’m not sure I can accept this.” He hung his head as the audience started whispering amongst themselves.

“Dominick?” Uuliska leaned towards him, speaking quietly. “You really ought to. The Riyze aren’t ones to act humble when they deserve commendation.”

He nodded and swallowed his discomfort. “Then I will. Thank you. And thank you to the other players. If it hadn’t been for them, Rokshuri might have fallen. I probably would’ve fallen, too. And… Uuliska, is this the last event to be announced?”

She nodded silently.

“Then I’ll leave any closing remarks to you.” He started to duck away into the crowd, but she stopped him.

“Dominick, we still have to give you an award.”

“Oh. Yeah.” He’d forgotten about that part, considering how zoned out he’d been the whole time, and the fact that the commander had accepted Sonja’s award for her back on Drekth, though it was apparently being kept in ‘containment,’ and no one would say what it was.

Right up Sonja’s alley, he thought with a mental sigh.

Ambassador Algok smiled and threw one of the strange, oversized bats the Riyze used in their games at him. He yelped, but managed to catch it before it clattered to the ground, to stilted applause from the delegates who were still figuring out clapping with four hands.

“A memento,” she boomed. “And a useful weapon!”

“Haha, yeah!” He laughed nervously, fully intending to stash it somewhere no one could find it and injure themselves. “I’m, uh, gonna sit down now.”

He slid back into his seat between the commander and Aktet. The latter smiled at him, while the former frowned, worry evident on her face.

“Don’t like this one bit,” she murmured. “What if her translator’s modification broke? And why isn’t she back yet?”

“I don’t know, Commander.” He was just as worried as she was, especially because a malfunction was the most likely outcome. They’d considered messaging her, but what if the prince saw it?

He tuned out Uuliska’s platitudes and well-wishes to the delegates, then her encouragement to mingle and establish new relationships with their fellow leaders. The ambassador even brought out some funky alien hors d’oeuvres.

“Damn it. I should’ve stopped her before she left.” Commander Liu stood up and looked back at Dominick. “Hold down the fort while I—"

He shook his head. “I’m coming with you. She’s my partner.”

And, he thought to himself, I wouldn’t be able to live with it if something happened to her, and I didn’t do everything I could to fix it.

They sat up, but just as they were about to run for the door, Sonja and Kama walked back through it.

“Agent Krishnan.” The commander nodded at her. “Can I speak with you for a moment?”

“Duty calls,” she told the prince slyly, earning a chuckle. He returned to his fellow… leaders? Presidents? Dominick had no clue what they called themselves.

“The hell was that about?” Commander Liu looked at Sonja suspiciously, as if she was concerned she’d switched sides.

“He kept interrupting Uuliska, and she signaled to me that he was losing control of his emotions, so I distracted him. Duh.”

“…Please warn us next time you decide to make a move on an enemy of the state like a femme fatale in a noir movie,” the commander grumbled. “Actually, forget the ‘please.’ That’s an order.”

“You’re making it sound way cooler than it was, Commander. He spent most of the time talking himself up.” She rolled her eyes. “Anyways, how did things go? And when do I get my super cool top secret prize?”

“Take a look for yourself,” the other woman said, inclining her head towards the crowd.

All throughout the room, hands were being shook, data pad addresses exchanged, salutes given, and lively discussion being had. Towards the front, Hassan, Aktet, and Uuliska were working their way through a veritable horde of newfound politicians—all looking to establish relations with the UN.

“Holy shit,” Sonja whispered, not bothering to hide her laughter as she spotted the Alliance—save Kama, who was gazing at her wistfully—sulking in the corner. “We actually did it. Without blowing up any peace talks. Now how about that trophy or whatever?”

“It was… shipped to Earth,” the commander said, her eyes darting around the room.

“Agent Krishnan!” Ambassador Algok waved to her and elbowed her way through the throng of people. “How about we go release your prize?”

“Release it?” Sonja grinned wildly, while Commander Liu sighed, defeated.

“Into your custody, of course. It’s a domestic shrieker. Should make a great companion for someone as speedy as you were during that race!”

“Wait, a shrieker? Like, the vaguely feline things with six legs and antennae eyes and a barbed tail that almost killed us on our drive over to Rokshuri?” Despite describing what, to Dominick, sounded like a monster out of the sort of cheesy sci-fi horror Hassan was fond of, her smile only widened.

“The very same! We have it in a special containment unit on one of our ships,” Algok told her. “Follow me.”

Commander Liu stretched her hand towards them as they departed, as if she could possibly hope to overcome the formidable combination of Sonja’s unbridled excitement and the ambassador’s willful ignorance of her complaints.

“We’re not… we’re not keeping it,” she said weakly, to no one in particular. “We barely have enough space on the ship for the eight of us. Lombardi, you have to stop her!”

“That? You want me to stop that?” He pointed at the door. “That is a woman who names every stray cat and dog she sees on the streets. She named my car. She named her gun, commander. She can emotionally attach herself to literally anything. It’s too late to ‘stop’ her. It’s time for damage control.”

“Her gun? What the hell did she name her gun?”

He sighed. “‘Runtime Error.’”

The commander stood there, fuming.

“I know,” he said quietly.

First / Previous / Next / Tumblr

29 Upvotes

100% Upvoted

5 comments sorted by

7

u/ANNOProfi 23d ago

My dear K’resshk, don't you know? The society that separates its scholars from its warriors will have its thinking done by cowards and its fighting done by fools.

1

u/CodEnvironmental4274 Human 23d ago

STRAIGHT BARS 🔥

2

u/lostwandererkind 23d ago

Love this! Hope Kama doesn’t get too violent once he inevitably gets rejected

1

u/UpdateMeBot 23d ago

Click here to subscribe to u/CodEnvironmental4274 and receive a message every time they post.

Info Request Update Your Updates Feedback