Mateo and Angela stood before three of the launch pads. Two claimant
shuttles had already arrived, and the last one was landing now. No one had
exited yet, per the Vitalemusian instructions. A few minutes after all
shuttles were down, the hatches opened at about the same time. Korali,
Bronach, and Old!Oaksent began to walk down their respective ramps. They
were each accompanied by six others. Also per instructions, they were
allowed to bring one lieutenant, one assistant, and four personal
bodyguards. They were also allowed to leave one or two pilots in their
vehicles, to be protected by no more than two security officers. They took
full advantage of their limitations, which suggested that they would have
rather had even more people backing them up. That told them something about
how this was probably gonna go.
As the claimants approached, medical professionals first handed them their
breathing apparatuses, which only Korali refused. “Team Matic,” Bronach said
to them. “You’re looking...partial.”
Korali looked around. “Where are the other parties?” Her voice sounded
normal, and it didn’t seem like she was having an issue pulling in oxygen.
She must also have an enhanced substrate of some kind. Interesting that the
two Oaksents apparently did not, despite being nigh impossible to kill.
“The Anatol Klugman and the Revolumusians are landing in a different dome,
next to the Vellani Ambassador,” Angela replied. “We are here to escort you
to a neutral third dome, where discussions will begin.”
“We would like to rest first,” Old!Oaksent all but demanded. Tok’ra was not
with him. He was supposed to be, but they received word earlier today that
he had business to take care of elsewhere. Mirage expressed that everything
was okay, and that she would join him as soon as she dropped off her crew.
“That’s not happening,” Mateo informed them. “Your journey on your ship was
not taxing. You would have plenty of time to sleep. If you want Team Matic
here...we’re here. And we’re only here today. You know that.”
Korali scoffs. “He’s weak, and he’s losing. He knows we can’t harm him here.
He doesn’t want a few hours to rest. He wants a year.”
“He’s not getting it,” Mateo reiterated. “Follow me.” He began to walk away
while Anglea shooed them forward, and took up the rear. Vitalemusian guards
surrounded them on either side. They were not taking any chances in this
very delicate situation. He led them to the land vehicle that they were
going to take to get to the diplomacy dome. It was gigantic, and should be
quite comfortable for them all.
When the claimants realized this, they pretty much all stopped at the same
time. “I’m not getting in that thing,” Old!Oaksent insisted.
Mateo was confused. “We can’t walk,” Mateo tried to explain. “It’s, like, 50
kilometers.”
“Don’t they have trains here?” Bronach asked. “I thought that was the go-to
way to get around a paraterraformed planet.” He winked, reminding them that
he was well aware of Castlebourne, and its location.
Angela looked up at the shimmering dome above them. “This world isn’t
paraterraformed. It’s naturally habitable enough. The plasma domes are here
for defensive purposes only. You can’t build permanent structures on the
surface as there is too much seismic activity. Land vehicles are the only
way. They live in them.”
“How do you not already know this?” Mateo questioned. “Didn’t you found all
these planets?” Bronach probably knew all this entirely, and was just trying
to get a rise out of them.
“I didn’t give this one very much thought,” Bronach replied. “I’m only one
man.”
“Two, actually,” Old!Oaksent corrected.
“Shut it, grandpa.”
“You’re both old,” Korali argued.
“Get in the car!” Mateo urged.
They relented, and let the guards help them climb in. They found their
couches, and settled in. Yes, they were couches, instead of seats. This
particular vehicle was designed to transport VIPs. They weren’t really VIPs
now, though. It sometimes felt like the driver was running them over
boulders on purpose, instead of choosing the smoother path.
About two hours later, they were at their destination, having had to drive
slowly because of the instability of the ground, as Angela had explained.
This was actually a little faster than the locals would normally go, but
they were tracking the progress of the other parties, and wanted to arrive
at the same time. The claimants tried to engage her and Mateo in
conversation, but the latter two realized that there was no reason why they
all had to occupy the same space. It was more than big enough for each party
to have their own compartment, so he made the executive decision to separate
everyone.
The other vehicle pulled up next to theirs, and everyone started getting
out. The Vitalemusian guards tensed up into high alert, prepared to stop any
violence. There was very little obvious hostility among the enemies, though.
If Mateo had to guess, none of them wanted to appear to see the others as
any significant threat. In order to maintain a façade of confidence and
dominance, they had to make it look like their opponents meant very little
to them. Interesting again, and it too said something about everyone’s
strategy going into this. They were going for the same one, which how would
that turn out? The non-claimants had one clear advantage, however, in
that the Revolumusians only came as a primary diplomat and a lieutenant.
They didn’t feel the need to bring their own security guards at all, which
really showed how self-assertive they were, and how safe they felt. One
point to the allies already, and talks hadn’t even begun.
Team Matic reunited with each other, along with Vitalie and Kivi. The
31 of them walked together to a third vehicle, still surrounded by about as
many guards. The place was even bigger than the transporters, and resembled
a gigantic clam. It did have wheels, but there were no tracks in the dirt,
giving them the impression that it wasn’t designed to move regularly, but
only when necessary. This might have been a particularly geologically stable
region of the planet.
The diplomacy room looked like it was specifically tailored for this
occasion, and it genuinely might have been. This meeting was on the books
for an entire year, so they knew how many people were going to show up. It
was a round table, much like the one in the VA, but this could specifically
hold fourteen members. Well, it could technically hold more, but it was
clearly divided up with concave sections around the edge, each one large
enough to accommodate the primary and lieutenant. The rest of each party sat
at a half circle table behind them, almost kind of like a VIP area in a
nightclub. The entourage, who weren’t expected to speak.
While Mateo and Romana hung back in their little pod, Leona and Angela sat
in their designated spot at the big table. They waited there silently until
realizing that everyone was staring at them. Leona spoke, not with
awkwardness or confusion, but calm, grade school teacheresque
inquisitiveness. “Are you expecting us to run the show?”
“That’s why you’re here,” Bronach responded.
It hadn’t been entirely clear what her role here was supposed to be, but she
was prepared for this. She glanced at the other members, whose facial
expressions implied that they agreed with Bronach’s assertion. “Okay.” She
looked over at Vitalie. “I need them to have compatible personal devices;
tablets or handhelds, or something.”
Vitalie looked up at the nearest guard, who unlocked a cabinet on the wall
with his biometrics. He distributed seven phablets accordingly.
Leona went on, “please take a few moments to write down your goals here.
Only one each. Tell us all what you want. You can say,
we demand a bouquet of flowers or
I wanna destroy the entire universe. It’s up to you what you
choose—however insane or unreasonable it may be—but it must be singular, and
genuine. Go ahead.” She simply typed PEACE on her own device.
Once they were all complete, Vitalie used her master device to project
holograms in front of each party to display their response. Bronach wrote
total control over the entire Goldilocks Corridor, and the safe return of
all Exin defectors and hostages. Okay. Korali and Old!Oaksent both basically said that they wanted control
over their half of the Corridor, suggesting that they had already
been working on a deal to divide territories in some fashion. It also
clearly told everyone that Bronach should end up with nothing. The
resistance fighters from Revolumus wanted the dissolution of the Exin
Empire, and for a fair republic to be erected in its place. All three
claimants would be barred from so much as thinking about taking any
part in the new government. The Verdemusian warriors didn’t care what the
people in this sector of the galaxy did, as long as they left everyone else
alone. They were evidently fine with an oppressive government if the
Exins—or anything which might take its place—remained isolationistic. They
were particularly concerned with the secure and successful dispersal of the
modular ships in the Stargate project. Team Kadiar asked for safe passage
within the Corridor to ferry any refugee who would like to leave for
Castlebourne. She quickly added not hostages in response to Bronach’s
message. Vitalie abstained from a response.
“All right,” Leona said. “Now we know where we’re starting from, which means
we know how far apart we are. Our goal here should be the move everyone as
close to the center as possible. You all want power that you can’t have at
the exclusion of each other. My job is to see what we can do to make
everyone both unhappy, and happy. I’m actually already seeing a potential
solution, and your goals are probably not as distant as you think. I’ll hold
off on judgment for now, though. First, we all need to spend some time
making clarifications and elaborations.” She literally rolled up her
sleeves. “Let’s get to it.”
They talked all day, barely taking any breaks. It wasn’t as hard as they
assumed for people to start recognizing Leona’s idea, even without her ever
saying it out loud. She was right that they could reach an agreement without
making too many sacrifices. The main thing that some of them would lose was
absolute supremacy. Even Korali and Old!Oaksent’s plan to divide territories
assumed that each planet in that territory would want to follow their new,
singular leader. The easiest decision they made was to appease the
Verdemusians to halt all aggression from the Anatol Klugman warship.
Verdemus was sufficiently far outside of the Goldilocks Corridor, and
Extremus was not even a blip on their radar anymore as it had long since
reached its destination, or at least attempted to. As far as Project
Stargate went, the Corridor was obviously wholly off-limits, but so was a
sizable bubble beyond that, which should insulate them from interference
from worlds that Stargate did manage to settle. It was hard for the Exins to
agree to allow the module that would be responsible for colonization
here, but that was kind of a non-starter. The Anglos needed to follow their
pattern as planned. Even if that meant staying dormant forever, they
couldn’t just send that module somewhere else. The algorithm didn’t work
like that. That’s what they claimed anyway.
Next came the hard part, which was the question of who would control all of
these stars. The claimants all had rational reason to believe that it should
be them, but if they didn’t find a peaceful way to govern, the Revolumusians
weren’t going to let them relax. The rebels were friends with the crew of
the Vellani Ambassador, which was still the most powerful ship in the
universe, even compared with the Jameela Jamil. If Team Kadiar ever decided
to stop transporting refugees, and start using their vessel as a weapon
instead, no one would be able to stop them. As small as it was, its speed
was unmatched, and nobody wanted to antagonize them, especially not after
Angela strongly suggested that Ramses was developing an entire armada of
slingdrive-equipped battleships. That wasn’t actually true, but it was
believable enough, and unequivocally within his capabilities.
They could not complete all of the negotiations in only one day, but they
did have a framework for one. The three claimants could maintain control
over the sector as a Triumvirate, but planetary and local governance would
be completely democratic, as overseen by a team of Revolumusians. It wasn’t
apparent how exactly this would all work, but they would spend Team Matic’s
interim year hashing out the details. They still hadn’t figured out how to
handle the refugee issue, but Kivi pointed out that there would likely be
fewer applications for emigration if the citizens were treated well. They
would be happy, and not interested in leaving, as wherever they were now
were their homes. It was hard for the claimants to believe this, and it was
true that there was no guarantee, but they seemed to be opening their minds.
This might actually work out.
Team Matic disappeared at midnight, confident that all would be resolved by
the time they returned. Of course, though, their faith was unfounded. When
did anything ever work out that well for them? They finally found out why
Tok’ra was not present as the equivalent of Old!Oaksent’s lieutenant. He
decided that this meeting did not have the right to speak for the entire
Goldilocks Corridor. He had been back on New Welrios, rousing a new
rebellion. They too wanted a seat at the table, and nobody was having it.
Surprisingly, not even the Revolumusians thought that they deserved a voice.
After all this work, war was closer than ever.
