May flew over her forces as they approached Be'er Sheva. Matilda had healed her over an hour earlier, and now she was headed back to Tel Aviv to report to Amos.
May flew high above of her one thousand strong attack force as they engaged the enemy. Soon, Israel would own Be'er Sheba, the city of Mitspe Ramon, and its airport once more.
An hour later, May landed next to the warehouse outside of Tel Aviv. It had become the base of operations for all Zerg activity. Here, the Israelis could communicate with all of their forces and the Prime Minister.
She walked through one of the doors that was large enough for her to fit through and walked up to Amos who was watching over the many T.V. screens within the warehouse.
"How did things go at the airport?" Amos asked.
"Most of the Roaches I took with me are dead, but the airport is ours. It is in bad shape though. The Saudi Arabians launched an artillery strike that destroyed all of the buildings and dug craters in the runway."
"It can be repaired. With that airport shut down, along with your attack on the enemy lines outside of Be'er Sheva, we should have our forces at Mitspe Ramon within a week."
"Where do you need us until then?" May asked.
"Our ambassador to the U.N. says that the U.N. security council wants to meet with you. The U.N. is very influential. Both the War Counsel and the majority of the Knesset are in favor of you going."
"What can I expect from the U.N. if I go?" May asked.
"They will probably want to know about your intentions, plans, and military power."
"I am not sure how much I like that last one. Are any of our enemies members of the U.N.?"
"Most of them are." Amos replied with a subtle hint of disgust.
"Why should I meet with our enemies and tell them our military strength?"
"The world is getting anxious. They want to know what the Zerg are and why they are helping Israel. We have kept a tight lid on any information about you, and other nations don't like it. Telling them a little bit about yourself could get a nation or two on our side. Not going could do the opposite. You also may gain some ground on becoming a nation."
"Then I don't have much of a choice."
"Welcome to the world of being the small fish in the big pond." Amos said before walking off to make a phone call, leaving May to worry about meeting with the U.N.. She had never done anything that had to do with politics before, and she did not like the idea. What if she said something wrong? What if she said something that would make more enemies?
May changed her focus to managing her swarm. The only opinion that mattered to the Zerg was hers. Simple. Efficient. The exact opposite of politics.
The rest of the day was spent coordinating with the Israelis in the warehouse.
Amos returned that night to tell her that a meeting had been scheduled for one week from then. He also assured her that she would receive training on U.N. proceedings.
Over the following week, May was taught how to answer difficult questions, how to answer a question without giving more information than needed, and how to avoid being trapped in her own words. By the time she was scheduled to leave, she felt much more confident in her ability to not make a fool of herself in front of the U.N..
She would be riding in a large C-130 Hercules transport aircraft. The flight was seventeen and a half hours from Tel Aviv to New York with a stop at Amsterdam to refuel.
The flight was long, and would have been boring if she hadn't had tens of thousands of her children to keep her company at all times...even if they were not all intelligent enough to hold a conversation.
After the uneventful flight, May walked down the ramp of the large plane at the JFK airport less than twenty miles from Manhattan. Looking around the tarmac, May saw something that she did not like. A semi-truck. In front and behind the truck were at least a dozen police cars.
May stepped onto the tarmac followed by two Israeli soldiers and two Zerglings.
"Hey." Someone said in Arabic. May looked down to see a short blonde woman in her mid-forties with hair down to her shoulders. "Unless there's another dragon around here, we need to get you to the U.N. headquarters. Follow me." The woman said as she turned around and began walking away. Through the Arabic, May could tell that the woman had a strong southern accent.
"Okay." May replied. Nobody had been quite that straightforward with her in a long time. May hopped once to catch up with the woman before settling for a slow walk. At least, it was a slow walk for May. The short woman was speed walking.
"My name is Stephanie. I will be your guide and translator while you are here." The woman said.
"Why do I need..." She was going to ask why she needed a translator, but realised that she had not spoken to anyone in Israel in English. May switched over to English. "I can speak English."
"Well that makes my job one heck of a lot easier now doesn't it?" The two approached the semi-truck, and Stephanie stopped.
"Don't tell me that I have to ride in the back of this thing."
"Well look at you! Showing up here and surprising me with speaking English, and without an accent! That makes me smile." Stephanie said as she smiled up at May for a moment before getting serious again. "Sorry, but it was the best we could do in such a short amount of time. A couple of days ago, the city decided that they didn't want a dragon flyin' around here. Go figure. It won't be fun, but we've got a good driver. Just don't move all sudden-like. Ya might tip us over."
"I doubt that I will be able to move at all." May said with distaste.
"Just hop in and get it over with. Waitin' around here ain't gunna make it go away." The woman stated with a bit of attitude.
May looked down at the little woman who was staring at her with an eyebrow raised and hands oh her hips.
"You certainly aren't the kind of person I am used to." May said as she started getting ready to back into the open trailer of the semi-truck.
"Is that good or bad?"
"It is just kind of funny. I have had grown men trained for war that have trouble looking me in the eye."
"Well I guess that makes me either brave or crazy, and I'm not brave. Now get in there. I'm not getting paid to stand around... Then again, I'm mostly getting paid to translate."
May lifted her tail into the semi-truck, and her back legs soon followed. Once she was halfway in, Stephanie interrupted.
"What made you want to go in backwards?"
"I can either go in backwards, or come out backwards. This way, I don't have to guess what is behind me."
"Alright. Just wondering."
After May crammed into the semi-truck, her two Zerglings hopped in with her. Then the truck driver came around and closed the door.
The tiny semi-truck trailer was extremely uncomfortable. Add to that the fact that it was pitch black inside and May firmly decided that she would not be riding it back to the airport. She would walk if she had to. The ride to her destination was just over thirty minutes, but it felt more line an hour and thirty minutes.
When the truck finally came to a stop and parked, May was relieved beyond measure. She heard the door get unlatched, and was met with blinding light when the door opened. May lowered her head and raised her front paw to block the bright sunlight as her eyes quickly adjusted.
Once her eyes were accustomed to the sunlight, she lowered her paw. In front of her were dozens of reporters standing and staring in silence. Awkward. May climbed out of the back of the semi-truck trailer with her two Zerglings and looked around.
To her left was a large building complex with three buildings that she could see. The entrance to the complex was about ten yards away, and appeared to be a restricted area at the moment. The building on the left was about four stories tall and had a reddish brown dome poking out of the roof. The center building was very tall, about forty stories, and looked like a huge glass wall. The building on the right was three stories, but it was as tall as a four story building. The bottom floor had a much higher roof than most buildings, giving it extra height.
May looked back down at the silent reporters to see Stephanie beckoning her to follow. Stephanie began making her way to the building on the left, and as May and her Zerglings followed, the crowd parted, giving May a wide berth.
Once Stephanie and May were past the border of the restricted area and all of the reporters were behind them, May dropped her head to speak to Stephanie.
"That was awkward."
Sephanie slowly nodded in agreement while looking ahead.
The two made their way into the building through a heavily guarded double door meant for loading and unloading supplies. As Stephanie led May and her two Zerglings through the halls, that May found to be very narrow, she told May everything that she needed to know for the meeting.
"The meeting starts in an hour. There are fifteen nations represented by the security council at any given time. Five nations are permanent members while the other ten are temporary. The representatives from the five permanent members will be directly in front of you with the temporary members seated on the right and left. The five permanent members are Russia, the United Kingdom, France, China, and the United States..." Stephanie continued telling her a flood of information while they made their way to a waiting area. The waiting area was just an empty room with a chair and a T.V. in the corner. Everything else had been removed to better accommodate May.
For the next half hour, Stephanie continued talking about each of the members of the security council.
"Okay. That was the last council member." Stephanie said once she finished discussing the members. "Do you have your speech ready?"
"Speech?" May replied as she narrowed her eyes at Stephanie.
"Did you not receive a copy of the schedule?"
"We requested one, but we never received it. I'm assuming that it says something about a speech."
"You are expected to give a thirty minute speech about the Zerg as a whole, followed by a Q&A about your intentions in the Middle East."
"Any tips?" May asked with a calm and steady voice that did not reflect her mental state.
"Have you ever given a speech before?" May shook her head no. Stephanie sighed and shook her head. "Get their attention in the introduction, have two to five main points, and sum everything up at the end. Tell em what you're gonna tell em, tell em, and then tell em what you told em." Stephanie said with a worried look.
"Okay. It sounds almost easy when you put it that way."
"You have less than thirty minutes to think about what you want to say. Make the most of it."
May shuddered. She had never spoken in front of a group of people before, but she figured that it should not be very hard to talk about the Zerg. She knew everything that there was to know about the Zerg, so all that she had to do was tell the Security Council what she knew. Some of what she knew.
As May was organizing her speech in her head, she began to wonder if her swarm could help. She reached out to half of her Overlords and connected their minds to her own. Overlord's brains were designed to compute the efficiency of a situation, and May figured that this could help with her speech.
She did not try to figure out how much her Overlords helped her think. Instead, she went back to forming her speech.
She needed several topics. There may be enemies listening to the speech, so avoid numbers, weaknesses, and goals. Give information about the Swarm as a race. Psionic connection, adaptability, and growth.
May continued forming her speech until her thoughts were interrupted my Stephanie.
"Dragon, it is time." She said.
As Stephanie walked away into the hallway, May followed.
After a short walk, the two came to a set of double doors and Stephanie motioned for May to wait.
Several minutes later, a man opened the double doors and led May through them. Behind the doors was a large round room with a high domed roof. For the first time since entering the building, May could stand at full height.
In front of her was three long curved tables in the shape of a "C" or horseshoe with May at the opening of the "C." At the table directly across from May sat the five permanent members of the U.N. security council, and at the tables on the top and bottom of the "C," or May's left and right, sat the ten temporary members of the council with five on either side. Behind each member stood someone who May presumed to be a translator.
The man who led May into the room brought May near the center of the "C," and walked to the edge of the room.
The man sitting directly in front of her began to speak in a language that May did not understand. Then the man behind him spoke, but this time in Arabic.
"Hello. I am the president of the U.N. security council. I have just received news that you can speak English. Is that correct?" The man who appeared to be a translator said.
"That is correct." May replied in Arabic.
The council president spoke again, but in English. "All those in favor of holding this meeting in English say 'aye.'"
"Aye." The fourteen other voices said in unison.
"Then we shall hold this meeting in English. All translators are dismissed."
At that, the sixteen translators exited, and May realised that Stephanie had been standing next to her up to that point.
"You may begin." The council president stated once all of the translators had left.
May took a deep breath to steady her nerves.
"Good afternoon." She began, "I understand that it would be customary for me to give you my name. However, I have been called 'dragon' by all those who have addressed me up to this point, for I have no name. Going without a name would be, as I understand it, degrading to you humans.
"You humans cherish your identity. Your individuality is what makes you human, and your names give you a greater sense of your humanity. For the Zerg, the opposite is true. I do not need a name because I am not an individual. I have no name outside of the Zerg because I am only my position within the Zerg.
"The Zerg is not a group of individuals, it is a single being with many members. I am the head of this being. The lack of individuality within the Zerg is what makes a Zerg, a Zerg. The Zerg operate as a single unit. One force with one mind.
"In essence, the Zerg is everything that humanity is not. All Zerg are of one mind, but each human has his own mind. The Zerg strive for perfection at the cost of self, but humans strive for self at the cost of perfection. I cannot claim that the Zerg is better than humanity, and I cannot claim that humanity is better than the Zerg. We are very different, and our differences make this day, and this meeting, particularly important.
"Today, I hope that we can look past our differences and to the future. A future of peace and cooperation. However, I cannot expect you to look past our differences if you do not know what they are.
"There are three major things that differentiate the Zerg from humanity. These things being: the unity of the Zerg, the Zerg's ability to adapt, and, perhaps most significant to you, the reason for our rapid growth of the Zerg over the past months..."
In the words of the Dragoon: "I have returned."
So during Christmas and the beginning of a new year and a new semester of school (I have to take courses already. Yes, it sucks.) I have worked on this story some more. The second to last chapter to book one is in the works at the moment, and I hope to make the final chapter the longest one yet. (I also plan on having a "theme" for the last chapter, but I am...musically challenged...so I will be putting the "theme's" name at the beginning of the final chapter, and you guys can look it up on YouTube.)
After I finish book 1, I won't be starting on book 2 right away. I am write in the same way I paint walls. I start one one thing, then move to something else without finishing it, then I go to something else, get distracted by some other part of the wall. I eventually finish everything, but it is not done in an orderly fashion. One story gets partly written, then the next gets worked on a bit, then I work on something else, ect... I currently am working on fourteen different stories, this one included. I have only put out things for this story and another, but there are twelve other stories in various stages of completion. (Many of which will not be finished because I don't really like them) This is, by far, the closest story to being finished.
Thanks for reading everyone, and sorry for the off time.
