Ivan Kal - Warpath

That is why he had already decided to be very picky about who he let in the Empire.

“Thank you. That is all that I wanted to speak about.”

The agent nodded her head, stood up and left the room. Leaving Tomas alone with his thoughts and decisions.

Seo-yun and Laura sat in a room at the Research and Development’s main building, on one of the walls a large screen showed a direct feed to the cell occupied with one of the Sowir prisoners.

She – and they were positive that it was a she, although there was no physical difference – was just in the process of waking up. Seo-yun’s people had placed a Sowir translating device inside the cell, hoping to establish some kind of communication with them. As the Sowir slowly woke she became aware of the device. She looked at it for a while and then stepped up to it and placed its body inside, then attached some kind of a band on her head. A few moments later a voice speaking in Nel started coming out of the device.

“ You wish to communicate? ” She said.

Seo-yun looked at Laura. “I guess that it works.”

Laura approached turned the on the comm that will transfer her voice to the cell and translate it into Nel.

“Yes.” Laura said.

“ Then speak your mind. ” The Sowir said.

Laura steeled herself and spoke. “Why are you doing this? Why are you attacking other races? How can you justify killing other intelligent life?”

“ There is no need for justification, we are not killing intelligent life. ”

Confused Laura exchanged looks with Seo-yun. “What do you mean? We are an intelligent race.”

“ That is false, you are blind/deaf/senseless – you cannot be intelligent. ” The Sowir said.

Seo-yun leaned forward and spoke. “What do you mean blind?”

“ You cannot see/hear/sense the Spirit of the Universe. You cannot communicate other than by primitive, animalistic ways. ”

Seo-yun turned to Laura muted the comm and whispered, “Does she mean telepathy?”

“Maybe… But why would that be a reason for them to kill other races?” Laura asked.

“It could be their belief is that the only beings that are truly intelligent are telepathic.” Seo-yun suggested.

Laura unmuted the comm. “You believe that we are not intelligent because we do not have your ability to speak mind to mind?”

“ That question only proves your unworthiness and ignorance. Communication between minds is only one of the things that makes us superior/intelligent. You cannot hear/see/sense the Universe around you, you are ignorant of its true form and that makes you no better than the animals that live their lives in ignorance of higher understanding. ” The Sowir said.

“But we have technologies that are far ahead of yours, how does that make us primitive and ignorant?” Seo-yun asked.

“ Again, your ignorance shows, there is a difference between intelligence and intelligence. ”

Laura and Seo-yun frowned, and muted the comm again.

“I don’t think that these translations are perfect, there must be something lost in translation.” Seo-yun said.

“I agree. But still could the reason they are wiping out other races truly be because they don’t have telepathy?” Laura asked.

“Humans went to war for far stupider things.” Seo-yun added. Laura nodded and turned the comm back on.

“Is there any chance of peace between us?” Laura asked.

“ The universe belongs to those who can see/hear/sense its true form. Your knowledge and tenacity makes you a threat to the true beings. There can only be the peace of oblivion. ” Sowir said.

Laura sighed and muted the comm again.

“Well, I guess that just confirmed that we can’t trust them to keep their word to us. They think of us as animals, they believe us inferior.” Laura said.

“There must be something that we are missing. We need to keep talking with them, and see if we can take the translating device and improve it.” Seo-yun said.

“Good luck with that. I on the other hand have to fight and win a war against them, so anything that can help me do that will be appreciated.”

“I’ll send you anything of value that we learn.” Seo-yun said. Laura nodded and left the room, leaving Seo-yun to ponder on ways to improve the alien translation device.

Sanctuary

Tomas sat in yet another meeting with his closest advisers, Seo-yun, Laura, Jack, and Nadia.

“I have decided to allow the Trivaxian’s into the Empire, if they fulfill all the demands that we will make of them.” Tomas said.

“And what are those demands?” Nadia asked.

“That is what we need to decide. I am certain that they need to learn to standard, I believe that their mouths can recreate the sounds, but their understanding is more important than speaking. The second is that they need to submit their children to the Empire educational standards. And I think that they need to accomplish a few additional tasks, like building a viable colony and reworking their economy. I wanted to see if you had any other ideas.” Tomas said.

“We need to put them into our schools like you said, but not just the children. All of them need to be reeducated.” Nadia said.

“I think that we need to put them through an acclimation period, or something like that. A few years at least, where we introduce technologies slowly and push them to change their society.” Jack said.

“What about the immortality treatment?” Seo-yun asked.

”We will of course start the development of immortality treatment for them, but they won’t get it until they join as a full member.” Tomas answered.

“Are you planning on making them a Clan or split them up into several?” Nadia asked.

“Definitely a Clan.” Tomas said.

“Alright, I will draw out the documents outlining what we want from them before we allow them to join, and get it to you for review before sending it to them.” Nadia said.

“Thank you Nadia.” Tomas said. Then turned to Jack and Laura. “How secure are our acquisitions in the Sowir territory?”

Laura answered first. “On the space side, we have things under control. We monitor almost all of the neighboring systems so if they decide to counter attack, we will have enough time to move our ships via trans-space. The systems are under our control.”

Tomas nodded and turned to Jack. “The situation on the ground is a bit complicated… We have control of some of their stations and shipyards, but we are still doing sweeps for hidden enemy troops. The planet in Laraska is definitely not under our control, we only have footholds for future actions. It will be years before we get the entire planet under control.”

Tomas looked thoughtful before speaking. “What do you think about us sending noncombatants to the stations and shipyards that we control? I would like to start upgrading and exploiting the industry we captured.”

Jack grimaced. “We can start with the stations that are cleared. But I would wait a bit on the shipyards, we are still finding hostiles left behind and hidden. Let’s wait a few more months until we are sure that we have cleared everything.”

Tomas nodded and with that ended the meeting, letting his people get back to work.

Seo-yun found Tomas standing in the library, looking out of the window at the Olympus city. She walked over to stand next to him and put one hand around him. For a while they just stood there watching the Sun set on their city.

Then after a while Tomas spoke. “Sometimes I wake up, and for just a moment I feel as if all of this was a dream. I think that I must be back on Earth, and my desire to take humanity to the stars had created all of this in my head. And then when it doesn’t slip away from me, when I get up and look through a window, I realize that it isn’t a dream. That I have done what I have always wanted to do. Humanity among the stars. Only it isn’t quite like what I imagined it as a child.” He said softly.