Negotiation conference

Tisss was waiting on the landing pad when Dustin exited the shuttle. “Dustin, thank you for coming. Please, follow me - my superiors wish to meet with you urgently.” The lizard woman’s tone was polite, but there was an edge of nervousness to it as she escorted him back into the cloaked building, this time moving past the stairs that led to the observation tower in favour of heading into a large conference room at the rear.

Screens filled the room - mostly blank, although a handful showed more Olanse. Some of them wore military outfits, while the remainder had official looking clothes; Dustin guessed they were a mixture of commanders and governors given the context. Tisss led him to one of only a handful of seats in the room, settling into one nearby herself once he was seated.

“I am here as first contact to ensure communication is smooth,” she began to explain, “but my superiors will be the ones doing most of the talking. We have the commanders of both system defence and our main fleet, as well as the ministers for trade, star travel and culture present. The lord counsel wished to attend, but the attacks have left our citizens shaken and he needs to do media appearances to contain public unrest.”

Dustin inclined his head towards her. “I assume the lord counsel is the head of your government? Despite everything, we’ve not had much of a clear picture of how your leadership operates.” Then, turning back to the monitors, he smiled. “I’m delighted to meet you all. How can I help?”

The officers exchanged glances. The diplomats shuffled papers. At last, the minister for trade spoke, his face warm as he began to go back over the trade deal that had been scuppered previously when Dustin had told Tisss about the conflict with the Fractals. “This was a deal between two distant peoples.” The minister concluded, then shook his head. “Now, however, we are not distant. You came to our aid when we needed it the most, despite our treatment of you previously. Your ship put itself in harms way for us. The least we can do is offer more favourable terms. But, before we go over setting out new trade agreements, other species wish to make contact. Many of our dear friends sent ships and saw the power of human weapons. May we invite them to this meeting?”

“Of course.” Dustin wished he had Emely with him as he spoke. First contacts were always a tricky affair, even when you had fully working translators. He wasn’t entirely sure how well the systems his fox girl had been working on prior to him leaving Sola would handle multiple different species with potentially previously unheard languages, and more than that he wanted her there to ensure he didn’t somehow offend accidentally by action or inaction, gesture or deed.

Wishing however wouldn’t change the fact that he’d left his pregnant partner back on the relative safety of his ship, nor would it do him any good to try and stall for time - this was a golden opportunity to not just patch up the somewhat rocky relationship with the Olanse, but potentially add several more species to the list of humanities allies.

The discussion had gone on for hours. Just the initial greeting from the five other species the Olanse were regularly in contact with had taken long enough that food had been delivered to the conference room for Dustin and Tisss; he’d stepped out a couple of times to call back to Sola for advice from Emely and on more than one occasion he’d had to apologize when a trade suggestion went way above what he could approve on his own.

Despite all that, Dustin smiled as one by one the alien species disconnected from the call, leaving just the Olanse to conclude their own separate negotiations. “I think that went rather well,” he observed dryly, “all things considered. Thank you all for your efforts in getting this conference together - I’m sure my government will be delighted to hear about all of this.”

The system defence commander leaned forward at that point. “Starships. How many and how quickly can they get here.” His tone was curt, and it was clear he considered this to be the start of the real discussion rather than the trade and friendship deals Dustin had already agreed.

“Realistically, there’s two options.” Dustin began carefully. “If we send a fleet from Earth - probably a month or two at best. We haven’t fully mapped all the possible routes to your star system yet, so any fleet would need to dog-leg around through the systems I’ve visited. If I contact the expeditionary fleet on the other hand, they should be able to send a ship or two here within a few weeks at most. But if we go with them, you should know that they’re on the front lines against the Fractals. While ships coming from Earth will be state of the art and in full order, anything pulled from the front is likely to be in need of downtime or potentially repair. Not to mention being older tech; they’ll hold up as well as my craft do, but you have no idea how big some of the Fractal craft can get.”

The two officers exchanged a glance - at least, Dustin assumed that was why they both glanced off camera at the same time in whatever distant office they were sitting in. “Our stardocks are still handling the repairs after the attack. Neither option is particularly great,” the fleet commander said at last, musing over the issue. “And our neighbours would likely prefer any vessels you send remain in their space despite our systems being under the greater threat…”

“There is a third option.” Dustin’s voice made the two look up as he continued, “I hesitated to mention it before, because I doubt you’d be interested - but I figure I should let you know now since you’re not happy about either of the other choices.” Glancing up at the ceiling for a moment, he wondered how much he was overstepping his authority by offering this, then looked back at the screens. “If you were willing to trade your cloaking technology, Earth would provide details on how we build our weapons in exchange. I can’t be specific on what tech we’d share, that’s above my authority to decide but I’d think at least it would include the big gun fitted to my ship and it’s equivalents.”

It wasn’t a small offer. From what he’d seen of the other fleets, the Olanse and their friends had weapons that were strong, but ultimately trivial against Fractals. They’d pulled together a huge fleet to stop what was ultimately a scouting group - and had paid dearly for every machine ship destroyed. Sola on the other hand, while not even a human warship had comfortably taken out multiple Fractal craft and survived, even if she had been heavily damaged by the boarding action. On the other hand, the cloaking technology was the Olansian trump card.

The figures on the other end of the call paused, a collective intake of breath at the offer obvious even with the muffling of the video call. The two officers frowned, then shook their heads as one. “We cannot accept this offer under any circumstances. Firstly, we are not authorized to share information on the shroud - only the lord counsel may, and even then only after a discussion in parliament. And secondly, because to do so this soon would be tactically foolish. We mean no disrespect, captain Dustin, but while you acted to aid us we still know little about your species or your war with the shadows. This might be a trap.”

Dustin had expected as much. It’d been a risky play, but one he’d felt he’d had to make regardless. As the mood calmed, the system defence commander gave a long sigh. “Please ask ships from your fleet at the front to come here. If it is a few weeks, we can repurpose some of the older disused stations that are currently mothballed to act as staging points for your vessels. It’s not ideal… but ultimately, all we really need your ships to do is sit there as gun turrets in case the shadows return in force.”