Chapter 96: Ambassadorial Interlude

If it hadn’t been for her wristwatch, Ambassador Soumare wouldn’t have been able to tell you how long she sat in her office, trying to process what she’d just seen.

Had it been a person who’d brought the message, there was a good chance she’d have assumed they were playing a cruel, awful, prank … or had been sent by someone doing the same.

But no, this message had come in through the top-secret, emergency-only, single-use messaging channel meant for just such an emergency.

In other words, it was as guaranteed to be true as anything possibly could be without the Secretary-General having personally talked to her about it.

Earth had been attacked. No, Solas a whole had been attacked. The fact that the damage had been “contained,” and wasn’t that word choice terribly tone-deaf to the Belt, was hardly the silver lining the writer of the report seemed to have believed it to be.

That was … she was read in certain worst-case scenarios, but nearly all of those had been designed believing that humanity’s homeworld would be attacked on the tail end of an enemy campaign, that they’d already be on war footing by the time things well and truly reached their peak.

Something like what had actually happened, without even a declaration of war, was unthinkable, unacceptable, unconcionable.

And now it was her job to try and drag in the very first alien species humanity had ever encountered into this war. It hadn’t been phrased like that in her orders, but that was what it boiled down to.

Soumare glanced down at her wrist once again. Much as she was still far from “calm,” she was also half an hour from a meeting with the Provost.

The leader of the Koinian people wasn’t actually called that, but the actual title was sufficiently unpronounceable that the closest equivalent in the English language had had to do.

Not that “Provost” came particularly close to the idea of “leader of the people that is wide but also their servant, as a part of a constitutional monarchy” concept, just the only option that hadn’t been prohibitively wordy.

Her phone suddenly chimed.

“Madam Ambassador, there is an official party at the gates, asking for you.”

“Define ‘official party.’”

“Three guards of the governing council and I’m hearing a motorcade heading in this direction.”

“I’ll be right down,” she said, quickly heading through the embassy before walking out onto the front steps where she was indeed greeted by a trio of Koinians.

Bluish-green skin, thin, tall enough that there was not a single human who didn’t have to crane their neck to look into their wide-set eyes … they were very clearly not human, but also far from in-human, something that was no doubt a far larger component for a successful first contact than she wanted to think about.

“Good afternoon. I was told you wanted to speak to me?” she opened.

In lieu of answering, the alien simply saluted, then stepped to the side.

To a Koinian, their salute was doubtlessly a gesture laden with meaning and history.

To any human who saw it, the motion appeared more like someone pantomiming putting on a seatbelt.

Then again, a human salute was simply an abbreviated version of tipping one’s hat, when militaries switching to strapped-on helmets had made that a far more involved action than it had originally been …

The alien guard held that pose for a brief moment before stepping aside, allowing the one they’d been escorting to take their place.

Apparently, whatever this was, involved the Provost coming out to meet her.

Or at least the being before her was wearing the uniform and looked enough like the leader of their people that she couldn’t tell the difference.

Telling aliens apart was shockingly difficult. The brain evolved to clue in on the tiny differences that differentiated individuals in one’s own species, not on a wholly different one. Much like how zebras could identify each other at a glance based on their stripe patterns, but any human trying to do the same would need either a specialized computer or a truly absurd amount of practice, even with higher mental stats.

Hell, that same issue of the mind zeroing on specific aspects of the face was the entire reason why a simple black bar across the eyes was an effective way of anonymizing photos. Only a tiny part of the face was actually blocked, yet it worked.

As such, generally speaking, individuals who regularly dealt with aliens tried to identify themselves by their clothing as often as possible, and that went for every known species.

For that reason, Ambassador Soumare had an entire wardrobe of entirely identical suit jackets, complete with a pin of the UN’s logo over her heart, distinctive rainbow cufflinks that bordered on the garish, and a tie with traditional patterns that almost certainly would not have flown in a professional setting back home.

It might not be necessary in situations where proper security checks were made, but in crowds, balls, parties, meet-and-greets, and the like, being identifiable at a glance was an important part of one’s presentation.

So, unless someone was playing a spectacularly stupid game with clothing, had found someone who looked near-identical to the Provost, and was messing with the [Skills] she had for keeping track of the thousands of people she needed to be able to identify for her job … the leader of an entire people had taken up position outside her door.

Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

Soumare bowed her head, then offered her right hand to shake, which the Provost did.

“I have three questions for you,” the man bluntly stated.

Soumare nodded.

“If there had been any kind of official contact between your people and the scourge, would you have known?”

“Most likely.”

She’d have loved to be able to give a flat “yes,” but there was doubtlessly a truth-telling [Skill] in place, and it wasn’t entirely out of the question that some black bag idiocy had occurred. That uncertainty didn’t seem to bother the Provost any.

“And was there?”

“No.”

It was pretty clear where this was heading; a decision had to be made, and the questions the Koinian people would no doubt be asking needed to be answered before things would proceed … apparently.

“Is there any concrete reason you can think of why someone might feel the need to attack your homeworld?”

“No.”

And with that, the Provost spun on his heels, took two steps towards the motorcade that had arrived while they’d been talking, entered the vehicle that looked the most like a limousine, and was off before Soumare had really even processed what had happened.

It seemed like an unprovoked strike at a species’, any species’, homeworld had set off the Provost something fierce, and all that had really been necessary was some kind of confirmation that humanity had not, in fact, picked that fight.

Soumare glanced around, noting that several of the “pedestrians” within eyesight seemed to be carrying an unusual amount of recording equipment. Reporters, but not ones eager for a proper press conference.

Freaking aliens. Just when she thought she understood them, this happened. Even so, this was still the best of news.

***

He missed the sun. Any sun. Even the too-bright, too-harsh mess that hung above his current posting, even if there were a couple of hundred meters of rock between the embassy and the surface. The Assai homeworld really was a shitty place for anyone not of their species.

There was a reason why Ambassador McArthur had known he’d be replaced five months from now, six after he’d first been placed here. Even with the importance of personal relations with the locals, embassy staff had to be rotated at a high frequency … a policy that was almost certainly going to fall by the wayside in the middle of a war.

And now, a mere month after arriving, he’d have to ask his “hosts” to commit to fighting a war against an utterly monstrous opponent.

Theoretically, this should be easy. Humanity, the Koinians and the Assai had mutual defense treaties that, while limited, solidly covered issues like attempted genocide. Which blowing up hundreds of space stations with millions of civilians aboard almost certainly qualified as.

But anyone who thought this would be easy had not spent enough time around Assai anymore.

For a species most well-known for being “terminally jumpy on a genetic level,” they sure as hell had overcompensated in the wrong direction when it came to politics.

As such, he’d been standing outside the imperial palace for two goddamn hours by the time the first guard acknowledged him, and that was on the short end of waits, according to scuttlebutt.

The alien was … nearly as unsettling as the very first one he’d met had been. There was simply something unnerving about a being with a second set of eyes on the back of their head, especially combined with the partial exoskeleton, unnaturally fluid movements, and a white-and-violet color scheme not found anywhere on Earth.

Even without the viciously barbed “ceremonial” spear, the best McArthur could manage was to squash any and all visual signs of discomfort.

He bowed, folding in half at the waist until his torso was nearly parallel to the ground, the formal motion surprisingly shared between their respective species. The notion of one, at least.

Because what his opposite did was not anything a human would have considered a bow … or even been able to pull off. Aside from the fact that an Assai bow involved bending at the waist, it had basically nothing in common with the human notion, being more akin to a twisting combination of a Yoga exercise and Cirque du Soleil act that McArthur was a long way from getting used to.

However, there was a reason for the complexity of the motion. It was very hard to attack from, which was what it had originally been meant to indicate.

“Ambassador, Her Imperial Majesty has granted you the honor of an audience.”

“I am honored to accept.” McArthur replied formally, bowing again, deeper this time.

The “gate,” which really was an oversized door set into the cavern wall, opened up to reveal … a smaller cavern. Granted, the walls were decorated, there was a small pool in the center, and several servants clearly stood waiting, but a cavern nonetheless.

What followed was another hour of “bathing,” that really was just wet cloths being dabbed on various points of exposed skin, to the point where any baseline human would likely have been reduced to a shivering wreck by the end of the procedure.

The next room delayed him by a “mere” half an hour, a “sooting flower garden” that looked like mushrooms and smelled like ammonia. If it hadn’t been where it was, one might have assumed its inclusion in the formal entry process had been intended as a prank upon human diplomats. Well, diplomat. He hadn’t been allowed an aide.

A new door opened, two guards planting themselves outside it, crossed spears slowly uncrossing at the same pace as the doorway granted passage …

And beyond sat the empress, on something that looked like nothing so much as a solid gold stool on a central dais that, according to the reports, could spin, allowing the empress to easily see any portion of the cavernous domed room without ever turning her head.

Right now, she was facing him, the “forward” pair of eyes locking with McArthur’s.

“We have received the reports. We have understood your request. We will need to investigate. We cannot commit to a war humanity may have provoked or started outright. We will speak once more in a week. You may leave us.”

And that was that. Damn, they were still mad.

The initial meeting between humanity and the Assai had been a battle. One the aliens had lost, but also long since forgiven humanity over, after all, they were no strangers to knee-jerk overreactions.

What they weren’t okay with was the fact that humanity had gained the catapult technology from the defeated force … and proceeded to sell it to Koinians.

He could argue, he could rage, he could completely blow his top and start throwing around threats, but he was all too aware of how these people worked. If he tried to force a new agreement, he’d get one on the current mood. Which would be awful if he pushed things.

Goddamn was it hard to negotiate with the Assai.

As such, McArthur bowed one final time, and retreated.

Back in the embassy, he collapsed into his office chair, then began typing up the report. His efforts might have ended in failure initially, but if they kept that covert, there was every chance an enemy as insane as the one they were facing might attack the Assai empire. As long as none of those moronic “intelligence operatives” didn’t try some kind of false flag bullshit first.

What he would do was talk to some of his people. Make sure the Assai military made preparations for when it was needed, either when the leadership got their act together, or when they too were attacked.

They were not receiving help at this moment. But the chances of someone stupid enough to attack Sol like that not making any mistakes that would eventually cause even the Assai to see them as “the villain” to such a degree that they threw in with humanity … they weren’t high, exactly, but certainly far higher than he had any right to expect.