Chapter 3
Dray Helvan left the Urna's conference room alone--the first to make his escape.
He had an excuse, but it was just that, an excuse. He chose to prioritize the request sent to his comm unit from Grih Battle Center over the small talk that had broken out at the end of the meeting.
Sometimes, that's when the real business got done, during the informal chats after meetings, when people were less on their guard and every word they said wasn't being weighed.
Although Dray had a very strong feeling that every word of the small talk was being weighed and judged. He glanced to his left, out of the long transparent side of the ship, to look at Bane. The Class 5 was easily keeping pace with the Urna--in fact, they were probably slowing him down.
Something about Bane, the shape of him, or rather, the ship he inhabited--like a prickle ball from Dray's home planet of Xal--skewed Dray's thoughts. He felt a strange push and pull in his head.
He'd been raised on the notion of how dangerous thinking systems were, yet there was a fundamental Grihan connection to the Class 5s that drew him. They had been built according to the designs of the long-dead Xalian scientist, Fayir. Dray's fellow Xalian had certainly caused a lot of trouble hundreds of years after his death, but there was no going back to the way things had been.
The light jump, as the saying went, was already in motion.
Thinking systems were once again part of the UC's reality.
And that didn't sit well with some of the UC leadership team. Especially those who weren't Grihan, and didn't have the same relationship the Grih had with them.
“Dray.”
The call came from behind him, and he just resisted making a face. He hadn't gotten away as cleanly as he'd thought.
“Yes, Ambassador.” He turned smartly.
His fellow team leader was from the Grihan planet of Nastra, and she wore the flowing robes the Nastrans favored, the bright orange contrasting pleasantly with her warm brown skin and light brown hair tipped with gold.
“I told you, call me Yolandi, or I'll be forced to go back to calling you Commander.”
Dray nodded, but said nothing. He preferred Battle Center's habit of referring to people by rank, but he would have to adjust. This wasn't Battle Center.
Yolandi sighed. “I don't know what you're thinking.”
His lips quirked. “That I need to get out of my Battle Center habits. For years, my only family has been my colleagues in Battle Center, and I think I've become a little stuck in my ways. I'm not used to civilian life.”
She tilted her head up to look at him, her eyes full of sympathy. He wanted to tell her he didn't need it. The friends and colleagues he trained and fought with, his created family, were more than enough for him.
“Titles aren't very helpful with the three of us, because we're all equal members.” Yolandi worried her bottom lip. “But if Zutobi also prefers that--”
Dray shook his head. “She doesn't. It's good for me to change things up.”
“Well, I think we'll be getting a lot of that where we're going.” Yolandi smiled.
Dray grunted. That was an understatement, but diplomats like Yolandi seemed good at understatement.
Zutobi, from the Grihan planet Calianthra, was the administrator of the group, he was the soldier, Yolandi was the diplomat, and when they arrived on Tecra, they would be the most resented, perhaps the most in danger, of everyone on the UC team.
No planet liked to be dictated to, and the Tecran weren't just being dictated to. They were going to have to welcome invaders into their home, and let those invaders take the reins of control for five years. They would have to let the UC uncover every dark and dirty secret their military had hidden, not just from their fellow members of the United Council, but also their own people.
He could imagine there were plenty of Tecran with the same problem of push and pull in their brain that he had about the Class 5s.
They had been lied to by their own military, but would still resent being in the position of having strangers tell them what to do.
It would be a delicate balancing wire to walk.
Yolandi was going to be better than himself or Zutobi at that.
In fact, Zutobi was refreshingly direct in her speech, and seemed serenely unperturbed by the insult or outrage she caused by giving the facts.
He had enjoyed watching her cut through some of the crap in the meeting, and then watching Yolandi follow behind her administering first aid--metaphorically speaking--to sooth the burns.
“You were called away to the comms station?” Yolandi asked.
“Yes.” He glanced behind her, saw some of the other UC leadership team were leaving the conference room as well. “You wanted to talk to me?”
“I'll walk with you.” Yolandi smiled, not answering.
Dray started moving and she fell in with him. When they were far enough away from the rest of the leadership team, she cleared her throat delicately.
“I wanted to talk to you without being overheard.”
Dray glanced over at Bane again, flying so close to the Urna that Dray could see the individual spikes that covered the outside of Bane's Class 5.
Yolandi must have caught the direction of his gaze.
“Hmm. Well, not overheard by the other members of the team. I can't do anything about Bane.”
“Some would like to.”
She sent him an amused sidelong look. “Quite a few, by the earful I got.”
Dray shrugged. There was nothing to be done. Bane was here, at the Grih's request, and no one could send him back.
Any whining was just a waste of time.
“It's about one of those conversations I had concerning Bane that I want to talk to you about.” Yolandi's voice dropped, so Dray had to lean closer to hear her. “The Fitalian ambassador on the team, Pilto, put in a request that we ask Bane to hang back a bit when we get to Tecra and stay out of sight of the planet. He seems to think Bane orbiting overhead like a third moon will be seen as an aggressive tactic. Some sort of intimidation.”
Dray just lifted his brows.
Yolandi blew out a breath. “And that's just what he is, isn't he? The big stick to our . . . smaller stick.” Her lips pressed together.
She was right that there was no sweetener involved in this mission. No possible way the Tecran could see their arrival as anything other than a punishment.
Except . . . “The sweetener is they get to stay in the UC, and not be at war with the rest of us.”
“Not taking something away that they already have isn't a very compelling sweetener.” Yolandi sighed. “You think Bane will refuse?”
“I refuse to ask him. Bane looming over Tecra is exactly the kind of power move we need to make it clear we aren't messing around and we have the means to enforce the agreement they signed if we have to. It'll save all kinds of stupid power plays.”
“What should I say to Pilto?”
Technically, none of the Grih had any special access to Bane, and Dray hadn't been designated as the liaison between the Grih and the thinking system, but he understood why Yolandi had approached him. He was from Battle Center, and almost every interaction Bane and his fellow thinking systems had had with the Grih had been through the military.
“Tell him no. And if he wants to argue the point, he can come and speak to me.”