Utopia War

Chapter 10 - Hercules Ring (ii)

Fermi's Folly, a diamond-shaped void of light, balanced perfectly on it's bottom tip. The doorway dissolved away, and a ramp extended down to the starport to allow Min-ji and Sparkle to disembark.

Caesar hadn't been lying so far; he was able to get them access to a very nice starport. Min-ji had been in hundreds of starports designed by dozens of different species, and this was certainly one of the most lavish. Of course, she assumed much of it was her human biases at play.

The walls were plush and decorated with works of alien art, some from species Min-ji had dealt with. There were 5th dimensional time sculptures created by Yeyiian machine intelligences, feather mosaics from Moloban, epic war-propaganda depicting the Battle of Black Nebula, and mindworm-silk tapestries looted from the former Empire of Two Suns. There was even ugly, lumpen Hiver secretion art tucked away in a less prominent area.

She hoped the crystallized light was just a very well made copy. She had always known an FTL player had been involved in the looting of the Joss Sphere, but she would be incredibly ashamed and upset to learn it had been humans.

There weren't too many others ships. Just a few more trillion-classes, a gaggle of different landing craft, and a small number of more exotic vessels. There were more empty spots than occupied ones, yet somehow they hadn't been able to get permission to land until Caesar vouched for them.

Subservient-acting people were flitting about, attempting to help her and anyone else they encountered with anxious enthusiasm. It made her nervous. At first Min-ji tried not to notice them, but then wondered if that was even more rude.

Sparkle was less conflicted.

"Hey, you," she snapped as soon as anyone came near her "Go away. I don't like strangers anymore."

In this way she was able to keep anyone from getting too close.

Caesar spotted the two, waved, and rushed over.

"I told you I had a little pull around here," he boasted, with an insufferable grin "How else can I help you?"

"We're here to get weapons," said Sparkle "The biggest, most sophisticated ones you have."

Caesar's grin grew even less sufferable.

"I can't help but feel there's a story here," he said.

"Something we believe is a hostile alien spacecraft is en route to Proxima Ring," said Min-ji "It has already permanently killed nine Proxima citizens. As of yet we have been unable to remove it from our space. We were hoping, to be perfectly honest, that the people of Hercules would help us out of simple human solidarity."

"That was optimistic of you," said Caesar.

"You're saying you won't help us?" Min-ji.

"I am being a tremendous help and you know it," said Caesar "The rest of the people here have their own problems; they're not concerned about human solidarity. Over here you get out of the system what you put in. If you want something capable of destroying advanced alien spacecraft you're going to need to put in a great deal."

"Can't you get them for us?" asked Sparkle.

"I could but that doesn't serve my purposes," said Caesar "It's in my interest for the two of you to gain rep. Increases the rep I gain from helping you. So it would defeat the entire purpose if I did everything for you. The starport hookup was just to get you in the door."

"How altruistic of you," Min-ji deadpanned.

"Just being honest with you kids," said Caesar.

"What can we do to get rep, then?" asked Min-ji.

"I don't know," said Caesar "What can you do?" What do the two of you do over on Proxima Ring?"

"I integrate myself into alien cultures to better understand them and work towards the establishment of peaceful contact with the Human Consensus," said Min-ji.

"I'm a guard dog," said Sparkle.

"I can work with this," said Caesar, after a long thoughtful pause.