Chapter-1
diplomacy
Vinivus waited in the expansive and ornate lobby, the Imperatoria Dominationis put quite the effort into their embassies, preferring to go with old and better looking masonry, rather than the cold blues, industrial carpet, and straight corridors, that almost all government buildings owned by the E.B.P consisted of, it showed that the Imperatoria Dominationis was more invested into keeping their buildings to traditional standards, and being nicer to look at, rather than the more utilitarian buildings that the E.B.P made, the lobby looked as if it was straight out of a movie, set in the nineteenth century rather than an actual modern day diplomacy building, but alas was the architecture of the Imperatoria Dominationis.
"Vinivus!" called someone to his left, it was Otto Bleier, a fellow diplomat, also working for the Imperatoria Dominationis, carrying a briefcase firmly in his right hand, joining him was Piotr Jonaitis, he also worked the same profession, all three were tasked with a simple goal: to ensure that the Imperatoria Dominationis would benefit as much as possible out of the upcoming war. Everybody had been saying war was coming, it had been hundreds of years since the last big one, and the diplomatic ties between the E.B.P and the O.D.A has been nonexistent for over ten years, and smaller nations like the Imperatoria Dominationis wanted to make sure that they wouldn't get swallowed up by the two largest super-states when they went to war again, and it was the job of people like Vinivus to make sure that did not happen.
As the three approached the large, ornate wooden doors that formed the exit to the Imperatoria Dominationis embassy, they opened automatically, revealing the snowy, orange tinted nighttime cityscape, with the large skyscrapers surrounding them, Vinivux wished he had worn warmer clothing, as their destination was far enough away that the cold would have long enough to bother him.
At this time of night, the streets were deathly quiet; most people were sleeping at this hour, resulting in very few people outside to cause any noise, with only the occasional car passing by, or the occasional deep rumble of a ship ascending in the distance from the local spaceport.
"So what are we to bring to the table tonight?" Piotr asked to Otto, motioning to the briefcase in his hand.
Vinivus was surprised, he had assumed that Otto and Piotr had gone over these details before; it was not a very good sign when a diplomat did not know the details of the diplomatic deal he was about to propose.
"The general idea is:" Otto began, pausing for a noticeable moment at the end, as if he was a student trying to remember an answer, after being asked a question by a teacher.
"That we give some materials to them, and promise to stay out of the war, and in return that we will get quote-on-quote 'something extremely valuable'" Otto finished off.
"Hm…" Piotr mumbled, showing that he was thinking of what it could be.
"A planet perhaps?" Vinivus chimed in.
"No" Otto said back,
"Wherever that planet would be, it would be completely surrounded by the E.B.P, it would be extremely pointless, they could take it away any moment, it would be too remote." Otto said.
"I'm guessing it will be some technology or even some old cultural artifact of ours, they do have many of them." Otto finished off.
The Imperatoria Dominationis had been formed by several E.B.P military elements and government officials, with ideals that the E.B.P found to be of most dislike, so, when they declared their secession from the E.B.P, a quick, but brutal war ensued, it lasted 15 years, and ended when it pushed what remained of the Imperatoria Dominationis into a neighboring empire, the only other empire aside from the O.D.A and the E.B.P, they had been granted protection and were given a small slice of the corner of the galaxy, and since then, they had lived out a hard, but fulfilling life since.
Obviously, they had little to no diplomatic ties after the war officially ended, but, that had been five hundred years ago, and since then, their relations had warmed greatly, to the point where they no longer actively sought the destruction of each other, and while the Imperatoria Dominationis was tiny in comparison to the E.B.P, the nation still mattered enough to where they were worth doing large dealings with, and the nations still shared several goals and interests that aligned with the E.B.P.
Coming to the gates of the E.B.P local government building, they walked to the guard booth, that housed one extremely bored looking solider, who seemed to be putting vastly more time and effort into his hand-held game console rather than his actual job, however: as the diplomats walked up, he put his hand-held distraction down and grabbed the gun next to him, and walked out to meet, and stop the diplomats.
Walking out into the snow, his Dust-grey trench-coat reached down to his ankles, making him look more like a walking shadow than a person in the dim light.
Slung around his shoulder via shoulder-strap was the standard assault rifle for the E.B.P-International, it was almost visually identical to XM29, a very very old weapon, however the internals were extremely different, the story was that the E.B.P engineers used the old design as a base, and changed it where it needed to be, to make it more up-to-date.
"I'm sorry sirs, but I will need to see some form of identification and a reason for entry" He said, his voice sounded youthful, most likely early twenties by Vinivus's best guess.
"We are diplomats from the Imperatoria Dominationis, and we are here to have a meeting with M. MacDonald," Otto said, handing over his identification.
The guard took it with his left hand, his right still resting on his gun's grip.
"Looks good to me, if you would be so kind as to follow me, I can take you to him" the guard said, as he handed back the ID and locked the gate behind them.
The E.B.P government building was a rather short building, but it was very wide, with windows covering most of the surface area of the walls, walking inside, the three diplomats sighed, happy to be out of the cold, the guard seemed to be rather happy as well.
The interior was definitely more sparsely decorated than any Imperatoria Dominationis building; however there seemed to be a potted fern on almost every corner and hallway, for some reason the E.B.P seemed extremely fond of them, Vinivus had not walked into a single E.B.P government building that did not have more than one fern in it, he guessed it was to make their buildings seem so drab and depressing, mostly because they looked like offices, with everything being colored some shade of grey.
They soon arrived at a door labeled "M. Macdonald", the guard, knocked on the door.
"Yes, who is it?" a voice came from inside
"Excuse me sir" the guard started, "Diplomats from the Imperatoria Dominationis have arrived"
Vinivus heard a small servo somewhere spin, he noticed it belonged to a small camera mounted above the door, mostly likely linked to a computer inside Macdonald's office.
Suddenly the door unlocked, and a young and tired looking man popped out of the door, looking at the four people standing before him.
"Come on in! Have a seat, and make yourself comfortable, I'll be with you in a second." Macdonald said, opening the door wide, and gesturing into room.
The three diplomats walked in, and sat in the chairs in front of Macdonald's desk, that unaspiringly, had a potted fern on it, with a second in the corner of the room.
"You go on home and get some sleep; I'll close up after they're gone tonight" MacDonald told the guard, both men looked equally youthful, and both were quite young in reality, only in their early to mid-twenties.
The guard nodded and walked out; Macdonald then closed the door and sat back down in his chair, in front of the three diplomats.
"Well" Otto said, "Let's get down to business"
Opening the briefcase on his lap, Otto then produced a document from it, handing the document over to MacDonald, he added: "this goes over all of the details of the treaty, from what we will provide, it has not changed from last time"
"I see" MacDonald said, quickly scanning the document over, "I also believe I have gotten our side of the treaty from my higher ups" he said, twisting around in his office chair, reaching into a stack of papers on the table behind him.
He searched for a minute, and then pulled it out, it wasn't very thick, only three pages stapled together, Otto, Piotr, and Vinivus thought they had their worst fears confirmed, they would only be getting some small cultural artifact, in return for massive contributions from the Imperatoria Dominationis, Vinivus knew his higher-ups would never accept that.
Taking the document in his hands, Otto read the document, however; instead of disappointment, he was speechless at what he saw on the page.
"You're kidding me? Right?" he said, almost giddy, expecting MacDonald to turn around and pull out the real treaty.
"No, I'm not, in exchange for your side of the treaty, post war, you will get lands on Earth once we secure it." MacDonald said, very matter-of-factly, Otto continued to stare at the page dumbfounded, both Vinivus and Piotr looked like they were about to die of shock.
"What condition is Earth in? " Otto stammered out.
The last time a Human had seen earth, it was a crater-pocked snowball, nuclear winter was one hell of a thing to happen to a planet, and the Sol system and been cut off from the rest of the galaxy for the last twelve thousand years due to various phenomenon.
"Well, we gained access to Sol about fifty years ago, and it turns out Earth is completely livable again, green as any life-bearing world, a breathable atmosphere, everything." MacDonald said, sounding about as surprised as any of the diplomat's in front of him.
"Green? You mean, life is on Earth?" Vinivus said, "Yes, plant life, birds, sea life, everything…" MacDonald responded.
The problem was that the Sol system was in no-mans-land between the O.D.A and the E.B.P, so in the upcoming war, the E.B.P would make a dash for earth, before the O.D.A did, and this whole war was going to be a mess.
Otto leaned back and sighed.
"I think this deal will be satisfactory to your leaders?" MacDonald asked.
"I believe so…" Otto responded, still dumbfounded.
"That is good, we shall re-take our home back, and I think all parties involved will be happy." MacDonald stated.
Twenty minutes later, the deal was signed, after the war, the E.B.P and the Imperatoria Dominationis would divvy up the land between themselves, as long as the Imperatoria Dominationis did not have an active military on earth, the exacts of what land was owned by who would be figured out after the war, but for now, the Imperatoria Dominationis had a guarantee that they would get some land out of it, a very worthy investment.
There was one thing Vinivus found off, something that MacDonald said, and it was bothering him, "re-take our home back", re-take it from whom? You surely can't take land back if it was never claimed from you by anyone else, and MacDoanald hadn't mentioned any advanced species, but he chalked it up to MacDonalds odd choice of words.
Because it was unfathomably unlikely that any advanced species has risen in only twelve thousand years.
AN: Any reviews and/or criticism would be welcome.