In the hall of the mountain king

Dustin was not happy. There were several reasons for this, as he paced up and down in the waiting room while Emely and Naera did their best to calm him down. Unfortunately for the ladies, supportive hugs and freshly baked cupcakes were not cutting it.

“Rye’s fine, Sir.” Emely said, doing her best to rub his back as he stomped along. “Yril’k’s team retrieved her fifteen minutes ago and are bringing her back by shuttle, and Bleu’s on her way to check her over just to be safe. And the Uil’l council should call us to give a full answer for what happened any minute now.”

Allowing himself to be calmed at last, Dustin sank into a seat, still frowning. “Separatists. Why didn’t that crop up on any of our briefings? We had plans for Fractal attacks, for Durathisian sabotage… and none for a group of monarchists that decided the best way to get their point across was **** or attacking visiting dignitaries.”

The fox girl’s face fell and she stared at her feet. “I’m sorry, Sir. I overlooked it - the information they sent us, and what we had in our database said that any radical groups were fractured. Certainly not equipped for this kind of an attack on major infrastructure. I should have investigated further.”

Behind them, Naera nervously munched on a cupcake before stepping forward. “It’s not your fault, Emmz. We’ve been so focused on galactic issues, we’re all thinking of local problems as just stepping stones rather than major threats.” The plant girl’s words weren’t much, but Emely flashed her a grateful smile before turning back to Dustin who was now staring pensively into space.

“Is it just a local problem…?” Dustin mused, staring at something only he could see. Before either of the women could ask what he meant however, the door opened and a stout Uil’l in a guard’s uniform stepped inside. “Master Ambassador? The council will see you now.”

The council chamber had been the royal palace back in the brief window between the Uil’l leaving the Tho’unn empire and their re-joining the collective group of aliens, and it showed. High vaulted ceilings were lit subtly by carefully angled spotlights, the dais at one end that had formerly held the throne now holding a massive screen that showed information from a dozen news feeds, while the long gallery was filled with a gigantic table around which the leaders of the mole-like people sat in quiet discussion as Dustin and the others entered.

“We have concluded our preliminary investigation. As per our initial discussion, we received a message approximately eight minutes before the attack on the maglev system claiming responsibility; security services have raided a number of facilities we believe to be associated with the group, and it does indeed look more serious than we first imagined.” The head of the council bowed his head, before gesturing for another of the figures around the table to speak.

“Thank you, head minister. My teams swept four out of five facilities known to be used by the group; I’ve got men monitoring the final one to hopefully catch people coming and going.” The defence minister’s words were delivered in a curt, deep voice as he kept one eye monitoring incoming information on his tablet. “We recovered a lot of files, and more worryingly, significantly more equipment than a group of this scale should have been able to get their hands on. Mining equipment and blasting charges are hardly abnormal for well-equipped radicals, but they rarely are enough to be a threat.”

He paused, before flicking his tablet, sending an image to the main screen. Dustin turned, staring at the picture showing piles of heavy-duty black crates as the minister continued. “Military grade weapons, compact charges that can be set up rapidly, body armour, thermal and other spectrum goggles, smoke grenades… we’re lucky your engineer is a quick thinker to be quite honest, Ambassador, or we’d be looking at a hostage situation at best and a interplanetary incident at worst.”

“What puzzles me is how they could afford all this. My accountants looked over all the financial records you supplied us with as part of reviewing this group over a year ago, and there was no way they had the funds to obtain even a tenth of their stockpiles at market rates. Let alone whatever price any black market would be charging.” Dustin identified the new voice as belonging to the Uil’l finance minister, the defence minister frowning at them before returning to his report.

“Regardless of how they obtained it, they have the equipment now. As a precautionary matter, my teams are checking all other known organisations to see if any of the others have also become similarly tooled-up. Leaving aside the sincere apologies of this council for the unexpected threat to your chief engineer, Ambassador, I’d like to request your crew remain in the facilities around the starport unless accompanied by a security detail. I am aware the cultural minister is opposed to this as he believes it paints a poor picture of our planet but…” The defence minister trailed off, prompting another member of the council to lean back in her chair.

“It would, as both my counterpart in defence and myself have argued, be far more damaging to our reputation if your crew were to come to harm due to an internal matter.” The foreign minister’s words were short, matter of fact and delivered in a measured tone as she glanced up and down the massed ranks of the Uil’l government.

Dustin took a breath. Their reaction was genuine, concerned… political, obviously, they were after all the senior members of the government, but in a way that showed they were clearly worried about the impact this whole incident could have on Earth-Uil’l relations. He was still furious that Rye had been put at risk, but if his earlier thought had been correct there might be bigger issues here than anyone had foreseen.

Choosing his words carefully, he rested his hand on the table. “Ladies and gentlemen of the council… first of all, thank you for your swift work in investigating the attack, and for the clearance for my security chief and her team to act in your airspace to retrieve my pair-partner. I do have to ask though, have you considered that the reason the rebels are so well funded might be due to outside influences? I believe Emely shared our information on the Moa’thif situation with you all?”

The council exchanged worried glances, before at last the foreign minister spoke, her words coming out hesitantly as she asked an uncomfortable question. “You believe the Durathisians might be behind this?”

For once, Rye’s usual stoicism failed as the shuttle landed. She flew across the landing pad with two kicks of her legs, springing into Dustin’s waiting arms before trembling against him. “Fucking… fucks,” she whined as he stroked her back, the Rabyth woman finally allowing the stress of the ambush and the fear of further attacks to be released.

Dustin’s eyes were hard as he stared past Rye to where Yril’k had followed her across the landing pad. “Report.” He said briskly, letting go of the bunny girl so that Emely could lead her inside to where the rest of their lovers were waiting.

The Vex’ess warrior gave a salute - mostly for the few Uil’l security staff that were watching the exchange, then spoke. “I investigated’k the tunnels myself. Rye did a good job’k of dealing’k with her attackers. Their access was partially sealed’k, but my team cleared and followed it to one of’k the warehouses the locals raided’k. The attackers were clearly’k professionals - likely’k hired mercenaries’k rather than fanatics.”

That didn’t clear anything up as far as Dustin was concerned, but rather firmly pointed towards outside influence again. He sighed, then nodded to his security chief. “Good work. Liaise with the locals, this whole business stinks of Durathisians plotting again, and I want someone I trust keeping an eye on things. I’m gonna go make sure Rye’s alright and come up with a plan moving forward.” As Yril’k saluted again and he walked off, Dustin’s thoughts drifted back to the question he’d been trying to answer since meeting the Uil’l government. What should he do while they tracked down whoever or whatever was bankrolling the group that had tried to capture Rye?