Worldwar:

Balancing act

Chapter 01

Karen Yeager brachiated into the command center of the Sacagawea, accelerating into the Eta Cassiopeiae system at one tenth the force of Earths surface gravity, she wieghed a little under 15 pounds. At over a century old she was glad of the oppertunity to be relieved of most of her weight (that she had spent about a third of that time in cold sleep brought her little comfort). Under current conditions aboard the American starship, she could swing comfortably from the handholds spaced evenly throughout the corridors of the spacecraft she would call home for the next six months while still weighing enough to drift towards the rear of the ship if she tried to stay in one place long enough. As she looked around the command center she could see that almost all of the crewmembers invited to the post-transition meeting had arrived ahead of her, granted the majority of them were stationed here and were present when the Sacagawea travelled almost twenty light years in as many milliseconds, however she did notice that that Lieutenant Colonel Colin Burton had beaten her here despite his journey from the engine control room being at least three times longer than her own journey from her quarters.

The crew of the command center was gathered around a holographic projection of a medieval crusader in slightly rusted chainmail, the infamous image taken by the probe The Race sent to Earth (or Tosev III as they knew it) over eight hundred and fifty years ago. When the Conquest Fleet that arrived a couple of years before Karen was born turned up, the warrior currently on display was the most fearsome opposition they had expected to find, instead they found an industrialised world mobilised for war and on the cusp of developing nuclear weapons. Despite the severe technological disadvantage the disunited Human race found themselves with, they managed to fight The Race to a standstill. After the fighting ended, (or at least, the first round of fighting, Karen remembered how Nazi Germany had tried to take on The Race alone in the 1960's and paid for that mistake severely) the United States and the rest of the independant human powers that controlled under half of the surface of Earth immediately set about stealing as much of the technology The Race brought with them as possible. Eventually humanity graduated from stealing technology from The Race to improving on it, while the image of the crusading knight taken by The Race was obviously identifiable as a hologram, images captured with cutting-edge American holography equipment was almost indistinguishable from the real thing. The crewmembers gathered around the hologram were recovering from fits of laughter as Karen arrived next to them, grabbing a handhold and adjusting her orientation to match that of the rest of the group.

"Ah, Karen, you're here!" Commander Roxxane Torres, the starships signal processing officer, exclaimed. "Uotat, do your impression of Fleetlord Atvar again, Karen here has actually met him, she'll appreciate it."

Karen turned towards Colonel Uotat, one of the Sacagaweas pilots and one of several males of The Race on board. When the conquest fleet arrived, The Race discovered that ginger, a common spice on Earth, was to them an addictive stimulant. A generation later, when the colonization fleet arrived, The Race discovered, to its horror, that ginger induced out-of-season sexual receptiveness in females of The Race. The effect this had on the society of The Race was profound (especially for a society that considered change at a glacial pace to be rapid), for a while, males and females of The Race that decided to adopt ginger-aided monogamy wound up exiled to the United States and other independant human nations. The policy of exiling monogamous lizards didn't last long, it quickly became clear that monogamy was becoming popular enough among The Race that their labour pool would be negatively affected, it did however last long enough for a population of American lizards to estabilsh itself. Uotat was, as far as the 14th amendment was concerned, as much of an American as Karen was. Some had tried to argue that the 14th amendment only applied to humans, though the 29th amendment "A Halless, Rabotev, or member of The Race hatched in the United States, or from an egg laid in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, or hatched from an egg laid by a citizen of the United States, shall be considered a natural-born citizen of the United States" put to rest any doubt about the citizenship of the hatchlings of lizard exiles.

Uotat puffed out his chest, a somewhat bizzare pose given his naturally forward sloping posture, and gestured for everyone quiet down while turning a eye-turret towards Karen.

"Alright, alright, for Karens sake, i'll do it one more time." Uotat said in english, before switching to the language of The Race. "Assembled shiplords, behold! The most fearsome warrior of Tosev III!".

Along with his short speech, Uotat gave the hologram a series of gesticulations no individual who had been raised in the culture of The Empire was ever likely to make. The assembled members of the crew erupted into raucous laughter once again. Karen laughed too, but her thoughts drifted towards Mickey and Donald, the lizards raised by her parents in law (and later, her and her husband, Jonathan) as humans. While the Yeager family had done its best by her adoptive brothers in law, the pair had still ended up with unpleasent psychological issues. When Karen returned from her journey to Home, the homeworld of The Race, the pair of American raised lizards (especially Donald) held it against Karen, Jonathan and Sam, Karens father in law. In the years since they had returned from home there had been some reconcilliation, Jonathan had been invited to come to Eta Cassiopeiae too, but chose to stay behind on Earth to help the ongoing family healing. None of this applied to Uotat though, he had been raised by males and females of The Race that had assimilated into American culture as adults, other than speaking the language of The Race with an odd accent, he was as well adjusted as any male of The Race raised in The Empire.

"I think you should be wearing the Fleetlords body paint, you sound just like him" Karen told Uotat. "Perhaps we should get started with the meeting, are we all here?"

"Not quite." said Dr Maria Cortez, the Sacagaweas head astrobiologist. "We're still waiting on the commandant coming-" right on queue, Lieutentant General Amanda Carter floated into the command center, grabbing a handhold and settling just to Karens left.

"Apologies for keeping you all waiting" Carter said. "Once again, Major Harris ignored orders to brace for transition and wound up visiting the infirmary." Exasperation was evident in her voice.

"Again!" cried Colin Burton. "Kevin stabbed himself in the refectory on the way to Halless I, and broke his wrist on a handhold on the way back from the Sirius system! The man is a liability, I tell you." He delcared. The commandant shook her head and dismissed the engineers comment with a wave.

"That's no important right now, let's get down to business, shall we? Hines, why don't we start with you?"

Captain Michael Hines paused for a second to clear his throat before beginning.

"Our astrometics instruments confirm that he have arrived in the Eta Cassiopeiae system, they also confirm that the data we acquired from The Race on the layout of the Bzenk system is consistant with that of Eta Cassiopeiae." Hines said, as he did so he changed the holographic image from the knight to pair of near-identical star system diagrams.

"In red we have the Bzenk system as it appears in the archives of The Race, while in blue we have Eta Cassiopeiae as we measured it on our arrival." Hines passed the hologram controlls to Colonel Uotat, who replaced the star systems diagrams with a globe, then continued.

"Here we have our destination, Bzenk IV, right where we expected it to be. Or at least within a margin of error of 0.73 percent. After some minor course corrections, our ETA is ten weeks from now."

"That all sounds promising," Carter declared, "Burton, I hope you can continue the streak of good news?"

"I sure can, Lieutenant General. All systems are operating well within acceptable parameters, a couple of systems did show some minor fluctuations during transion but these are most likely due to the sensors rather than the systems themselves."

"Hmm, keep an eye on those systems." Carter said with a slight scowl. "I don't want that turning into a problem later. Major Daniels, if you would be so kind as to continue."

"Certainly." Major Lucy Daniels answered, grabbing the hologram controls that Uotat tossed to her out of the air. "The space station segments do not seem to have been impacted by transition" she said as she brought up a holographic image of the Sacagewea. "As soon as we arrive in orbit around Bzenk IV we can begin deployment of the space station. Within three weeks of arrival, the United States will have a permanent presence in this star system." The holographic image began to move, segments attached to the hull of the starship detached and assembled themselves into a spoked wheel with a diameter four times the length of the Sacagawea. Major Daniels passed the controls to Dr Cortez, who, at the tap of a button, zoomed the hologram in to one segment of the large space station the crew were planning to assemble. Half of the segment dissapeared from the hologram, revealing the inside of a hydroponics laboratory.

"Once Roosevelt Station is fully assembled, this segment will be fully dedicated to hydroponics. The current plan is for forty percent of the hydroponics equipment we have on board will be dedicated to keeping the crew supplied with fresh food, reducing our reliance on freeze dried rations and resupply from home." Dr Cortez paused to allow mutterings about the quality certain rations to die down before continuing. "The remaining capacity will be used to study the plant life native to Bzenk IV. The exact split between equipment used for growing our own food and studying Bzenki flora will be easy enough to adjust if needed. Who knows, perhaps we will find some native crop that tastes better than string beans and tomatoes?" Cortez looked around at the rest of the assembled crew expectantly, frowned slightly then wordlessly passed the hologram controls to Commander Torres. Karen figured that something she said was intended as a joke that hadn't quite landed, she didn't contemplate that for long though, as her attention quickly turned to the signal processing officer, who began her part of the presentation.

"We have detected faint signals coming from the direction of Earth, Rabotev II, Halless I and Home." Commander Torres began, "No radio signals have been detected from Bzenk IV however, which isn't surprising, the probe sent by The Race got here while Washington was camping out in Valley Forge and by all indications the Bzenki had just mastered smelting iron at the time. We will soon see if their rate of technological advancement matches that of Earth or matches the worlds of The Empire." The holographic image switched back to the globe of Bzenk IV, this time, several green dots appeared across the surface. "These are the locations where the probe sent by The Race deplyed landers, if any of them are still intact, we will recover them." Torres declared.

One by one, the crew of the Sacagewea assembled in the command center turned from Torres to Yeager, Lieutenant General Carter did so last, but was the first to speak up.

"Well Karen, that just leaves you. Are you ready to become an expert on another intelligent alien species?"

Karen glanced up out of the large cupola window above the holographic projection of Bzenk IV. Eta Cassiopeiae, Bzenk, was visible as the brightest star in the patch of space the ship was facing. In the coming weeks it would begin to look more and more like the sun she knew back home (and the one she knew back on Home). She looked back down towards the rest of the crew and drew in a deep breath.

"I'm ready."

Ffoteruk skittered through the dark, derelict factory, eye-turrets turning in every direction other than the one in which he was going, if he had a clear head he would have wondered the factory manufactured before it was abandoned, but his head wasn't clear. He could smell the lime-cured ginger in the pouch on his belt, not tasting it was driving him mad but he forced himself not to taste right now. If it wasn't for the stench of industrial lubricant turning his stomach (and the fact he knew the ginger was adulterated) he would have already given in to the craving he felt deep inside him.

A light was visible coming from a room up ahead, that was his destination. As he entered the room he let out a small, pained hiss as the darkness of the night gave way to the brightness inside what used to be an office. Two armed Rabotevs stood on either side of the door, in the middle of the room, flanked by two more Rabotevs, sat a male of The Race, hands bound behind his back. His snout was bloodied, one of his eye-turrets was severly swollen, to the point where the attached eye was completely shut and could not be opened. He wore a wig that imitated the mess of fur Big Uglies grew on their head (though Ffoteruk was certain that no Big Uglies naturally grew fur that as the same colour as the ridiculous wig in front of him) and the sloppily-applied bodypaint of an agricultural goods wholesaler, which was one way of describing his job.

Ffoteruk stopped in front of the restrained male. The male attempted to stand up and adopt the posture of respect but the Rabotevs on either side grabbed him by the shoulders and forced hib back down, he let out a quiet whimper as his hind quarters made contact with the seat. Ffoteruk turned both eye turrets towards the pathetic male in front of him and glared, then raised his hand and slapped his captive as hard as he could, knocking the wig to the floor. The bound male let out a deafening hiss of pain, Ffoteruks fingerclaws had lacerated the swollen tissue on the restrained males eye turret. His blood stained Ffoteruks scales.

"By the emperor! Do you have even the slighted idea how absurd you look wearing this?" Ffoteruk screamed into the other males face as he picked up the wig, his eye turrets involuntarily twitching at the mention of the sovereign of The Empire. He threw the wig to the side and continued. "We have enough Big Uglies walking around on Rabotev II without males and females of The Race doing their best to look like some distgusting mix of both species!"

"Many ginger tasters are obsessed with with Tosevites!" the male spluttered, "I wear that to make them think I'm one of them, they buy more ginger that way!"

"You will speak when I tell you to speak, you miserable little pile of Sevod guano!" Ffoteruk interrupted. At the mention of ginger, he decided now was the time to indulge in the sample of the herb he brought with him. He reached into the pouch on his belt and withdrew the vial inside. He poured the herb directly from the vial onto his tounge, as the taste of ginger washed over him he felt relief as the craving subsided. He allowed himself to relax briefly, but the gritty texture he felt in his mouth brought his attention back to the business as hand. He spat the herb still on his tounge on to the other males face then held up the vial he had just tasted from.

"Do you know what this is?" Ffoteruk demanded.

"G-ginger?" The other male stuttered.

"This is ginger that has been cut with sand!" Ffoteruk bellowed. "That you cut with sand! Explain yourself!"

"I was trying to stretch out the herb you gave me! I only sold it to first time buyers, they won't be dissapointed by the quality and start buying from your competitors, I swear by the emperor!" The male cried out, turning his intact eye

Ffoteruk hissed angrily and kicked the other male over, the Rabotevs that forced him back into the chair before now picked him and the chair up and put them back they way they were. "Do you think I am a fool! This isn't about quality, this is about money!" Ffoteruk shouted into the males face, close enough that their snouts were almost touching.

"What?"

Ffoteruk slapped the male again, for talking out of turn. More blood flowed from the swollen eye turret. "You said it yourself, you stretched out the herb I gave you, you were able to sell more tastes than planned and I know you charged full price for the herb you mixed with sand! Where is the money you owe me!"

"But, I already paid you the amount we agreed!" The male added an emphatic cough.

"Where is my cut from the excess you we able to sell!"

The restrained male let out a quiet, mournful hiss. He looked away from Ffoteruk, as if doing so would force him to withdraw the question.

"That is what I thought." Ffoteruk flicked an eye turret to each of the Rabotevs in front of him. "Hold him."

The Rabotevs obeyed, both of them stepped forwards and grabbed the bound male of The Race, one hand on his shoulder, the other on his arm. The male began to look all around himself in a panic. Ffoteruk took hold of the males bloodied snout and forced it to point upwards, exposing his throat. The male started to thrash violently when he saw the light reflect off of Ffoteruks knife. He thrashed even more violently as the knife sank in. Again. And again. And gain.

By the time the male was still, the pleasure from the herb had subsided, a crushing depression began to overtake Ffoteruk. He took another taste of the sand cut herb, spat on the floor then squeezed the vial into the bloody pulp that was the neck of a male of The Race. He walked over to where he threw the wig earlier, picked it up and started to ineffectively dab the blood off of his chest, the wig was made out of some non-absorbent polymer. Ffoteruk threw it back down on the floor in disgust. He had his driver wait directly outside the entrance to the abandoned factory, there was no great risk of being caught covered in blood in the middle of the night before he had a chance to return home to clean himself and reapply his bodypaint. He looked over to his Rabotev muscle, each with immaculately applied bodypaint declaring them to be private security, with the subtle addition of a grey stripe at the base of their eye stalks. All of the males and females Ffoteruk employed as "private security" did likewise, at his direction. It let members of his gang recognize each other without having to have met. He didn't include the addition to his bodypaint though, anyone that needed that to recognise him did not deserve to recognize him.

"What now, superior sir?" One of the armed Rabotevs by the door asked. "Is it time to bring in the starving befflem?"

"Yes, Maargeyes, bring them in." Ffoteruk replied. "I hope they are hungry!"

"Sir, they are ravenous." Maargeyes added an emphatic cough.

Ruth Russie awoke to the sound of the shower turning on, she looked around and saw that she was alone in bed. Drawing the obvious conclusion, she got out of bed, threw on a bathrobe, walked over to the window and opened the curtains. It was mid-morning and the people of Jerusalem had long since started their days. From the bedroom window of her apartment she could see a pair of hatchlings of the Race playing longball, a female of The Race was attempting to take a rather large tsiongi for a walk, though given how enthusiastically it was attempting to chase the local birds it might have been more accurate to say the tsiongi was taking the female of The Race for a walk. A Jew driving a truck manufactured by The Race was having an argument with an Arab driving Volkswagen imported from Germany, Ruth winced at the sight of that. A century ago, the Russie family was living (if you could call it that) in German-occupied Poland when The Race came and delivered them from the Nazis. Had they not come to Tosev III, Ruth was sure the Nazis would have achieved their goal of annihilating the Jews. As a Jew herself, Ruth was grateful the Nazis genocidal plot had been foiled, though she knew that plenty of Tosevites both here in Jerusalem and around the world felt the opposite way. She wondered if the Arab in the Volkswagen arguing with the Jew in the truck was one of them.

Ruth hadn't noticed the shower turning off, she did notice the door to the bathroom open, steam flowing out behind the figure wrapped in a towel.

"You went for a shower without me!" Ruth complained with faux indignation.

"I couldn't bring myself to wake you up, you were sleeping so peacefully." Fatimah said with a chuckle. "Sorry, my love."

Fatimah showed Ruth how sorry she really was by pulling her into an embrace and giving her a firm kiss. Ruth returned the kiss and the embrace, then let her hands wander downwards. Once her hands reached their destination, Fatimah chuckled again, pulled away and gave her girlfriend a gentle slap on the rear.

"Alright you, go jump in the shower before someone sees us through the window." Fatimah said with a smile. "We have places to be today, don't worry though, there will be plenty of time for that tonight." She winked at Ruth, who snuck another kiss before getting in the shower herself.

Being a descendant of Jews living in Poland in the 1940s was not the only reason Ruth was glad The Race now ruled over much of her homeworld. Her family had all but disowned her when they found out she had an Arab woman as a roommate, (her grandfather had been killed in an Arab terrorist attack when she was four years old, her family laid the blame at the feet of all Arabs) she didn't want to think about what they would do to her if they ever found out Fatimah was her lover. The lands ruled by The Race were by far the safest for Tosevites that mate with their own sex to live in. While most Tosevites who lived in these lands would react violently if they found out someone they knew was that way inclined, The Race was indifferent to how Tosevites mated with each other and disapproved of them killing each other over the issue. Some of the independent not-empires had policies of violent persecution, while others obstinantly refused to copy The Race in any way that wasn't directly to the detriment of The Empire and quietly ignored the fact that people like Ruth and Fatimah existed.

The warm water felt good on her skin, even if the pressure was more suited to what a male or female of The Race would enjoy. Most of the residents of the building were not Tosevites like Ruth and Fatimah and as such it was constructed to be more suitable for The Race than for Tosevites, the shower head was adjustable to a heights suitable for any species, at least. Once clean, Ruth walked into the bedroom while drying her hair with a towel. Fatimah was still trying to dry hers with a hair dryer, Ruth kept her hair short and didn't have the same issue. Eventully the pair were fully dry, they got dressed, Ruth helped her girlfriend apply her bodypaint with the fabric-safe paints Tosevites used and she returned the favor. Once ready, the pair headed outside.

"The weather is lovely today." Fatimah said. "Perfect blue sky, beautiful".

"you can say that again!" Ruth replied. "This weather couldn't have come on a better-"

Ruth's thought was interrupted when something hit her on the side of the head. She brought her hand to the spot she had been hit and discovered a ball tangled in her hair. While she attempted to disentangle the ball, a pair of Race hatchlings skittered over to her.

"We are very sorry, superior Tosevite. Kvess didn't mean to hit you, we were just playing longball." Once of the hatchlings said, the other, presumably Kvess, hissed in panic.

"Kassquit! Don't say that, you'll get me in trouble!" Kvess spluttered.

Ruth freed the ball from her hair, knelt down beside the hatchlings and handed them back their ball.

"It's alright, no harm done. have you been good hatchlings? Are you going to be celebrating the emperors hatching day today?" Ruth added an interrogative cough and glanced at the ground, having mentioned the emperor. She got the hatchlings attention, they both turned their eye turrets towards here and enthusiastically made the affirmative gesture before remembering to turn their eye turrets towards the ground. An adult female of The Race wearing the bodypaint of an intermediate hatchling civilizer approached and spoke to the hatchlings.

"Kvess, Kassquit, you two better not be bothering those Tosevites!" She said, adding an emphatic cough. The two hatchlings now enthusiastically began making the negative gesture before Fatimah spoke up.

"Not to worry, intermediate hatchling civilizer, you have a pair of upstanding little citizens of The Empire here. they could use some more longball practice though."

The intermediate hatchling civilizer turned an eye turret to each of the hatchlings. "What have I told you two about playing longball in places where you could hit someone?" she asked rhetorically.

"Sorry Ttenniv." Kvess said quietly. Kassquit made the affirmative gesture before also apologizing.

"Come along now, you two have chores to do before we go to give reverence at the shrine to the spirits of emperors past." Intermediate hatchling civilizer Ttenniv told the two hatchlings, casting her eye turrets down along with Ruth and Fatimah. The hatchlings evidently didn't hear the part about chores as after casting their eye turrets down they began running around Ttenniv making excited hissing and popping noises. Ttenniv sighed and looked towards Ruth and Fatimah.

"These two hatched from the same egg, I'm sure it makes them better as causing chaos with each other." she let her mouth fall open with a tired laugh before turning and herding the rambunctious hatchlings away.

"Well, shall we head to the shrine now?" Fatimah suggested. Ruth grabbed her girlfriends hand and gave it a squeeze.

"Let's head out."

Ruth and Fatimah made the rest of their journey unassailed by stray sports equipment, when they arrived at the shrine they were glad to see that the crowds of Tosevites that clung to their native superstitions that usually loitered outside to intimidate more cultured Tosevites and discourage them from giving proper reverence to the spirits of emperors past were not present today, that likely had something to do with the number of armed guards being at least triple the usual number. The Tosevites entered the shrine with no issue, they were regulars and the guards eventually learned to recognize them despite the normal difficulties males and females of The Race had telling Tosevites apart. As Ruth walked through the shrine she felt overwhelmed with emotion, the feeling of safety and protection she felt in this place was unlike any feeling of saftey she had ever felt anywhere else. Again her thoughts turned to where she would be if The Race had never came to Tosev III. Most likely she would never have existed, her ancestors murdered in the Holocaust. Where would her beloved Fatimah be? Stuck in a marriage with a man she couldn't love, forced to submit to him intimately and to bear children she didn't want. Ruth would always be thankful for The Race, if the majority of her species thought her a traitor for thinking so then that was too bad for them. Perhaps one day they would stop being uncultured savages.

As Ruth and Fatimah were leaving the shrine they saw a small crowd of Tosevites (mostly Arabs but Ruth spotted a couple of Jewish men amongst them) being dispersed by the armed guards. Whatever they had been here to do, they hadn't spoiled the emperors hatching day. As she walked down the street with Fatimah, a passing car stopped beside them. A Jewish woman stepped out of the passenger seat, threw a can of red paint over the pair then dove back into the car, shouting something vulgar in Yiddish as it sped off.

The Tosevites stood there looking at each other in shock for a moment. They had both been harassed for regularly attending the shrine before, but no-one had ever done something so brazen, especially in full view of armed soldiers of The Race. One of the soldiers came over to make sure they were unhurt and assured them that the Tosevite with the paint would be tracked down and brought to justice, then returned to his post.

Ruth sighed, "Well, that's our day ruined ."

"My day hasn't been ruined." Fatimah leaned in and slipped her arm around Ruth's waist, "I'm still here with you." It took all of Ruth's restraint not to give Fatimah a kiss right here in the middle of the street.

It was sunset in Ressik, a city on the confluence of the equator and the prime meridian of Halless I, Vorriv looked out at the slowly darkening skyline of the city. The view from the rooftop of the Imperial Tavern, the bar she was currently a patron at offered an excellent view not just of the Ressik skyline but also of the extinct volcano that gave the city its name. As a hatchling, Vorriv often worried that the volcano would erupt, destroying her, her friends and the entire city. As an adult she new better, and could enjoy its natural beauty.

A spacecraft zipped out from behind the volcano and across the sky, as though emerging from it. Spacecraft visible in the sky was not an uncommon phenomenon on the worlds of The Empire, this spacecraft however, was different. Vorriv recognized this spacecraft as one not constructed by The Empire, this spacecraft was constructed by the Tosevites of the independent not-empire (whatever that was supposed to mean) of the United States. When the first Tosevite starship arrived in orbit around Halless I, shock and panic spread over the surface. When they proved that they had the technology to travel faster than the speed of light, panic intensified. In response Fleetlord Fesstrev declared a soldiers time, the first on Halless I since the days of Hisstan the Conqueror. Four years ago (four of Homes years, not the shorter years of Halless I), orders came from Home to declare a permanent soldiers time. These orders were sent before the signals carrying news of the soldiers time that had already been declared had reached home, the Tosevites threatened Home as well as Halless I. Word hadn't yet come from Rabotev II as to whether they were under threat or not, but the American Tosevites word was to be trusted, word would come soon.

Vorriv tried to put the Tosevites out of her mind, she had been conscripted shortly after news of the threat to Home reached Halles I. Since then she hadn't had more than 10 days leave at a time, until now that was. She was on her fourth day of leave out of twenty and she intended to make the most of them. She turned her eye turrets away from the odious alien spaceship and towards the street below. Erakatt suggested that they meet at sunset and was now officially late. Vorriv enjoyed teasing her friend about her chonic tardiness, who was more than willing to make fun of Vorriv for always being overly early. Vorriv scanned the street, her eye turrets methodically looking back and forth, until... There! She spied a female Halless with the bodypaint of a botanical researcher coming around the corner. Vorriv stood up, finished her drink and headed downstairs to meet her friend at the door.

On the staircase down the bar of the Imperial Tavern she found her path partly blocked by a male wearing the bodypaint of a courier. As she tried to squeeze past, the male held up a small vial of brownish powder.

"Can I interest you in a good time, superior female?"

Vorriv waggled her eye turrets in anger. "Get that filth out of my face!" she snarled contemptuously. The male looked her up and down, then, having noticed the bodypaint of an infantryfemale, slunk off to peddle the accursed Tosevite herb somewhere else. Males and females across the three worlds that were fully part of the empire we not used to seeing soldiers everyday, many found them intimidating.

She got to the bar and ordered another drink, the Halless behind the bar handed her the drink and held out the device to charge her account for the drink. She swiped her card and thanked the bartender, who mimed bending into the posture of respect before attending to another customer. Just as she was about to head to the front door to wait on her friend, she felt a handful long fingers on her shoulder and heard a familiar, high-pitched, squeaky voice.

"Well, well, well, look who was early!" Erakatt said. "Why am I not surprised?"

"I knew you were going to be late, so I had to be early to compensate!" Vorriv replied, her mouth dropped open in silent laughter at her own wit.

"Clearly, you are already drunk, telling jokes that bad! I'd better catch up quickly." Erakatt jibed before stepping up to the bar. "Do you have any Tosevite beverages?" she asked the bartender.

The bartender made the affirmative gesture, "We have a small selection of spirits from Tosev III, brought here recently by one of the Tosevite starship as a gesture of goodwill. The government has distributed them all across the planet."

"I had heard as much, I'll have a wizki-zour please." Erakatt noticed the quizzical look Vorriv was giving her. "I promise I'm not addled, the strange drink is related to why I was late."

"Go on, explain. You have my curiosity." Vorriv tacked on an emphatic cough.

"I was heading out of the train station on my way here when I happend to see Gnoff walking past."

"Gnoff!" Vorriv exclaimed. "He is just back from his vacation today, isn't he?"

"He sure is." Erakatt replied. "We started catching up, hence why I was late, when he told me that when he got to his hotel near Zzel canyon he found a group of big uglies were already staying there!"

Vorriv let out a hiss in surprise. "What were big uglies doing at Zzel canyon?"

"Sightseeing, same as Gnoff. One night they invited him to drink with them in the hotel bar. Apparently they were the most arrogant, vile and uncultured group of individuals he had ever met in his life. They were drinking for free though and by joining them, so was he, so he tolerated them." Erakatts mouth dropped open in laughter. "They had brought some of their own beverages with them and introduced him to wizki-zour, he very enthusiastically reccomended it."

The bartender handed Erakatt her drink, Vorriv saw a slice of a strange, unfamilliar fruit floated in the glass. Erakatt took a drink and squeaked with joy. "By the emperor, this is as good as the big uglies are appaling!" She exclaimed, here eye stalks bending down towards the floor at the invocation of her sovereign.

"I'm skeptical, but I'm glad you are enjoying your drink." Vorriv said, eyeing an empty booth off to the side. "Let's go and sit down."

The two females took their seats. The Imperial Tavern was a popular establishment, it was quiet just now but unlikely to stay that way and there was no guarantee they would find seats later.

Erakatt took another gulp from her bizzare Tosevite drink, "So tell me, how is the life of an infantryfemale these day?" She asked, adding an interrogative cough.

"Dreadfully dull, I regret to report. There is a lot of standing about guarding places that nobody is trying to attack or sneak into." Vorriv declared with exasperation. "And of course, the day the life of an infantryfemale becomes exciting is the day that infantryfemale joins the spirits of emperors past." She continued, eye turrents briefly glancing downwards.

"At least you are making the Bug Uglies think twice about attacking us, I certainly wouldn't want to fight soldiers of The Race." Ekaratt replied inbetween gulps of her drink.

"Neither would I, Neither would I." Vorriv agreed. "Your turn, how goes the fight against ginger?"

"There has been some progress on new pesticides, but I don't see the herb being eliminated anytime soon." Erakatt explained, "I'm just glad it's only spreading in the wild near the poles, to us Hallessi it is absolutely repugnant."

"That reminds me, my next deployment is to an artillary test firing range in the north, closer to the pole than the equator, maybe I will see some of that invasive ginger.

"If you do, be sure to shell some of them for me!" Erakatt said. The two females laughed at the notion of using military equipment to manage invasive species. They continued trading anecdotes from the time between their last meeting and now as the Imperial Tavern grew busier. After about a daytenth and a half (Vorriv wasn't quite sure, ippa-fruit cocktails were not exactly conducive to keeping track of time) The male that had tried selling Vorriv ginger was chased out by two angry females of The Race. As he made his way through the front door he almost collided with a male Halless, whose eyestalks turned back and forth between the male of The Race and the two females chasing him. After a moment, he seemed to have deduced what happened then made his way to the crowded bar.

"Three wizki-zours please!" The male shouted over the din of the crowd and music once he caught the bartenders attention. As the bartender was preparing his drinks, his eyestalks began to scan the room, stopping once they had spotted Vorriv and Erakatt. Once he had paid for the three drinks, he picked them up and made his way over to the females table, who spotted him halfway.

"Gnoff!" They exclaimed in unison.

Gnoff put the wizki-zours down and jokingly bent into the posture of respect.

"Exalted females, I saw you had some empty glasses and had to intervene." he said as he sat down next to Vorriv.

Erakatt picked up one of the wizki-zours Gnoff brought over. "You have my sincerest thanks, superior sir!" She said, before taking a drink.

Gnoff started drinking too, then said, "I think I was almost knocked over by a ginger dealer on my way in, I could smell it on him. absolutely vile!"

"Thats not the only thing thats vile!" Vorriv gasped, slamming down the third wizki-zour, "How any civliized being can possibly stand to drink that is beyond me!"

"It could be worse," Gnoff responded, his mouth hanging open in laughter. "The Tosevites don't drink it at room temperature, they drink it a couple of hundreths above freezing."

Vorriv was appalled, she decided then and there that she'd had enough wizki-zour in one night to last a lifetime.

Pesskrag paced back and forth in her office, this wasn't the first time she had spoken to the emperor, it was highly unlikely to be the last. She was nervous regardless. Almost thirty years ago, Tosevites had arrived in orbit around Home in a starship capable of travelling faster than the speed of light, the very notion of such a craft had been considered madness for millenia and in any sane universe, it would have taken a similar length of time to take from theory to deployment but the Tosevites had done it in less than forty. The Race carefully introduced new ideas and inventions over the course of many lifetimes, ever cautious of the potential damage and destabilisation that society could face were they introduced too quickly. The Tosevites were different, when they discovered something new, they grabbed hold of it with both hands and rushed to find out what it could do as quickly as possible without a second or even a third thought as to the potential negative consequences and now The Race was forced to do the same. Such insanity did not come easy to The Race, when Pesskrag first began investigating the possibility of faster than light travel she had thought anyone who expected to see progress in their lifetime to be utterly addled, now she had to complete the task within her lifetime. The weight of The Empire was on her shoulders, she wasn't sure she could bear it.

After what seemed like an eternity, the phone hissed for attention. Pesskrag accepted the call then bent into the special posture of respect reserved for the emperor.

"Your majesty, it is an honour to speak to you once again." Pesskrag said, with the same level of deference and awe as she did the first time she spoke to the emperor.

"Senior researcher Pesskrag, I am always glad to be able to speak to you. Your work may be the most important work carried out in the history of The Race, if you believe something pertaining to it demands my attention, then my attention you shall have." 37th Emperor Risson declared, "And if there are you require to progress your research, I will personally direct the relevant ministries to furnish you with them."

Pesskrag took a moment to compose herself, this wasn't the first time the emperor has all but declared himself to be at her disposal but she was sure it would never feel normal. "First I would like to update you on the progress that has been made since our last discussion, we have made substantial progress on our ability to move matter through the use of superstring manipulation. We have achieved a success rate of nintey-six percent when attempting to move elementary particles in this manner, on average these particles reached their assigned destinations 3.7 percent faster than they would have had they been limited to the speed of light, in one experiment an electron was moved between two points in a period of time short enough that it would be equivalent to moving seventeen percent faster than the speed of light."

"That sounds promising, that sounds very prosmising!" Risson said excitedly, tacking on an emphatic cough. "Under normal circumstances, this level of progress wouldn't have been made for at least four or five hundred years, that we have made it this far is very good news indeed!"

Pesskrag bent into the special postore of respect again. "I thank you for your praise, your majesty, however ot is at this point where I must now request additional resources, the problem-"

"What ever resources you need, you shall have them. Wherever in The Empire they may be, you shall have them." The emperor interrupted.

"Thank you, your majesty." Pesskrag said before resuming, "The problem, without wasting your time with a large amount of physics jargon, is that the experiments that we can perform, and therefore, the data we an glean from those experiments, are limited my the fact that all of our laboratories are on Home. At the bottom of Home's gravity well, space is, for lack of a better term, far from flat. This limits the extent to which superstrings can be deliberately manipulated."

"Does this have anything to do with why the Tosevites move their starships to the edge of the solar system before travelling to the Tosev system?" Risson inquired.

"Yes, your majesty, that is exactly so." Pesskrag paused before continuing, a generation ago anyone requesting what she was about to ask the emperor for would have been considered utterly addled. "I propose to overcome this difficulty by building a laboratory aboard a starship, then placing that starship at the fourth point of gravitational equilibrium between Home and the sun, space should be flat enough there that any difficulties we have in manipulating superstrings should be minimal."

37th emperor Risson hissed softly in surprise. "Is that all, I will admit this is a somewhat unusual request, but given the circumstances it is not a large request. I will direct the ministy of transportation to furnish you with a starship for you to move your laboratory into. Is that everything you wished to discuss toady?" The emperor tacked on an interrogative cough.

"Yes, your majesty. That covers everything." Pesskrag answered.

"Very good. just so you know, I would have granted you ten starships had you asked for them." The emperor said seriously, "The Tosevites have a technology we do not, I'm sure I do not need to explain to you what grave danger this places us in. Billions of lives across three worlds are endangered, to protect them we need to acquire this technology as quickly as possible and we cannot affort the luxury of concerning ourselves with any potential negative consequences of doing so." The emperors words were grim, in an attempt to end the conversation with some levity, he continued, "Give the word and I will commision you a fleet of starships that would make the colonization fleet that departed Home for Tosev III two hundred years ago seem miniscule by comparison!"

Pesskrag made the negative gesture, "One starship will be enough your majesty. For now."

Before the emperor broke the connection, Pesskrag was sure she saw his jaw drop open in laughter.