What to Do with Jardin (Fan Fic)

[sunphoenix]

EXCELLENT! "The TYRANT'S LAMENT"~ "Oh WHY does not everyone understand the burdens that beset ME on all sides?!? Can they not see that all MY efforts are to enforce unyielding order in the face of their criminal laziness and mendacity?!? I must bear the toil and effort of beating them all into submission for the sake of the whole! I am soo underappreciated!"...

hahaha! loved it!

Oh.. and thank you for the o mage{sp?} to Snow White.. didn't know how to spell her name in Loroi!

[ShadowDragon8685]

EXCELLENT! "The TYRANT'S LAMENT"~ "Oh WHY does not everyone understand the burdens that beset ME on all sides?!? Can they not see that all MY efforts are to enforce unyielding order in the face of their criminal laziness and mendacity?!? I must bear the toil and effort of beating them all into submission for the sake of the whole! I am soo underappreciated!"...

hahaha! loved it!

Oh.. and thank you for the o mage{sp?} to Snow White.. didn't know how to spell her name in Loroi!

Really? I figured you'd chosen her name very carefully, because both words appear in this (extremely limited) Lexicon of the Loroi Trade Language.

[Hālian]

You said "proscribe" (forbid) when you meant "prescribe".

Oh.. and thank you for the o mage{sp?} to Snow White.. didn't know how to spell her name in Loroi!

“Homage”.

[ShadowDragon8685]

You said "proscribe" (forbid) when you meant "prescribe".

Thanks for catching that. I am anything but infallible.

[raistlin34]

EXCELLENT! "The TYRANT'S LAMENT"~ "Oh WHY does not everyone understand the burdens that beset ME on all sides?!? Can they not see that all MY efforts are to enforce unyielding order in the face of their criminal laziness and mendacity?!? I must bear the toil and effort of beating them all into submission for the sake of the whole! I am soo underappreciated!"...

hahaha! loved it!

Oh.. and thank you for the o mage{sp?} to Snow White.. didn't know how to spell her name in Loroi!

I admit, when I read the part about "stupid sexy alien" I couldn 't stop laughing
Opal is soooo tsundere.

[ShadowDragon8685]

EXCELLENT! "The TYRANT'S LAMENT"~ "Oh WHY does not everyone understand the burdens that beset ME on all sides?!? Can they not see that all MY efforts are to enforce unyielding order in the face of their criminal laziness and mendacity?!? I must bear the toil and effort of beating them all into submission for the sake of the whole! I am soo underappreciated!"...

hahaha! loved it!

Oh.. and thank you for the o mage{sp?} to Snow White.. didn't know how to spell her name in Loroi!

I admit, when I read the part about "stupid sexy alien" I couldn 't stop laughing
Opal is soooo tsundere.

It's not every day you get to use the phrase "Masculine wiles" in all seriousness. Yesterday was just such a day...

Now... Oi vey. I'm trying to work out how in the hells I'm going to work the events of Cydonia Rising into WtDwJ, even as a cameo/background. Trying to figure out how in the hell it takes them 5 years to get to Earth... Whatta nightmare.

[Sweforce]

EXCELLENT! "The TYRANT'S LAMENT"~ "Oh WHY does not everyone understand the burdens that beset ME on all sides?!? Can they not see that all MY efforts are to enforce unyielding order in the face of their criminal laziness and mendacity?!? I must bear the toil and effort of beating them all into submission for the sake of the whole! I am soo underappreciated!"...

hahaha! loved it!

Oh.. and thank you for the o mage{sp?} to Snow White.. didn't know how to spell her name in Loroi!

I admit, when I read the part about "stupid sexy alien" I couldn 't stop laughing
Opal is soooo tsundere.

It's not every day you get to use the phrase "Masculine wiles" in all seriousness. Yesterday was just such a day...

Now... Oi vey. I'm trying to work out how in the hells I'm going to work the events of Cydonia Rising into WtDwJ, even as a cameo/background. Trying to figure out how in the hell it takes them 5 years to get to Earth... Whatta nightmare.

Cydonia have taken onboard a mysterius device they do not know the purpose of. Maybe it interacred with a jump and sort of artificially kept them from returning to normal space normally and only let them of years later. The real purpose of the device would then be to delay your normal space reentry (with no time used onboard) perhaps as a way to avoid pursuit. The pursued enter a target system way after whoever is hunting them and hopefully they would have given up by then. Essentially it allow a ship to hide in hyperspace by delaying reentry. As an extra bonus the technology may perhaps be adapted to force ships stuck in hyperspace to reenter if good enough jump data for a lost ship is know. If so, some of the ships that didn't make the double jump could be saved, as well as others lost maybe centuries ago. As long it is know where they where lost and their target is know.

[sunphoenix]

The story is actually bigger than that... but the device as I was informed by the GM yes was a part of it as well.

[Krulle]

That was a wonderful intermezzo.

At least she "saw" that not all of the Loroi could've meant to insult her.

Once again, thank you.
(My boss is of a different opinion, but then this was (a part of) my lunch break I used).

[ShadowDragon8685]

It's not every day you get to use the phrase "Masculine wiles" in all seriousness. Yesterday was just such a day...

Now... Oi vey. I'm trying to work out how in the hells I'm going to work the events of Cydonia Rising into WtDwJ, even as a cameo/background. Trying to figure out how in the hell it takes them 5 years to get to Earth... Whatta nightmare.

Cydonia have taken onboard a mysterius device they do not know the purpose of. Maybe it interacred with a jump and sort of artificially kept them from returning to normal space normally and only let them of years later. The real purpose of the device would then be to delay your normal space reentry (with no time used onboard) perhaps as a way to avoid pursuit. The pursued enter a target system way after whoever is hunting them and hopefully they would have given up by then. Essentially it allow a ship to hide in hyperspace by delaying reentry. As an extra bonus the technology may perhaps be adapted to force ships stuck in hyperspace to reenter if good enough jump data for a lost ship is know. If so, some of the ships that didn't make the double jump could be saved, as well as others lost maybe centuries ago. As long it is know where they where lost and their target is know.[/quote]

That would be... Interesting. Even plausible - hell, if it can adjust gravity to such a high degree, it could be used to facilitate double-jumping, long-jumping... Hell, depending on how powerful it is, if your numbers are good enough, theoretically you could jump straight from Earth to Seren!

Skipping a lot of time like that, though, would be... Problematic, since the age of two Loroi children and one Loroi rescuee became part things. Still... Such a device would be a good big of plot hookery.

The story is actually bigger than that... but the device as I was informed by the GM yes was a part of it as well.

The Device. A nice name for it.

Also, I could see that becoming a sticking point - the Loroi want it, the Humans are all "our ship recovered it," and neither is willing to capitulate on the issue, so they look at a Loroi vessel under command of a Human captain...

That was a wonderful intermezzo.

At least she "saw" that not all of the Loroi could've meant to insult her.

Once again, thank you.
(My boss is of a different opinion, but then this was (a part of) my lunch break I used).

Well, she's not entirely unreasonable! There's a quantum of reasonability in her.
What do you mean your boss is of a different opinion, though? Did he reckon that Opalstorm was in the right or something?

[Krulle]

No. I am spending too much time reading here...

[Sweforce]

Maybe Opalstorm can be salvaged if someone where to "knock the stupid" out of her and the first steps of doing that "knock" was to have her sent to the brig.

My suggestion regarding the device on Cydonia was meant as have caused the ship to essentially be frozen in time. Want to go wierd? Maybe it is "too" powerful and causes havoc to the space time continuum over large areas and both back and forth in time. If so it may even have caused the time jump of the ship in the "Calm Seas" story.

[raistlin34]

Nobody is commenting about Stillstorm´s `possible reaction when she heards Alex has put her daughter under arrest? I can imagine her subordinates mustering all their courage to resist the instinct of hide in a corner of the Tempest, tembling in fear.

[ShadowDragon8685]

Nobody is commenting about Stillstorm's possible reaction when she hears Alex has put her daughter under arrest? I can imagine her subordinates mustering all their courage to resist the instinct of hide in a corner of the Tempest, trembling in fear.

Frankly, Opalstorm should thank her lucky stars, individually and by name, that she's in Jardin's brig and not her mother's.

Remember, Fireblade, Tempo, et al, have served under Stillstorm. They know damn well just out-of-line Opalstorm is, and just how few fucks Stillstorm would give that her daughter was arrested, compared to how angry she would be with Opalstorm when learning just how egregiously out-of-line Opalstorm was.

Not that she'd be happy to hear that the weird pink alien man whom she was dead certain was a shell construct is running a Loroi warship. Which she would have, by now, but they're at least a month racing across the intervening space until she could possibly hear that Opalstorm has been arrested.

But yeah, when she hears about this, she's gonna be furious. It would be wise for her crew to keep their heads down and possibly armored for a while.

[raistlin34]

Nobody is commenting about Stillstorm's possible reaction when she hears Alex has put her daughter under arrest? I can imagine her subordinates mustering all their courage to resist the instinct of hide in a corner of the Tempest, trembling in fear.

Frankly, Opalstorm should thank her lucky stars, individually and by name, that she's in Jardin's brig and not her mother's.

Remember, Fireblade, Tempo, et al, have served under Stillstorm. They know damn well just out-of-line Opalstorm is, and just how few fucks Stillstorm would give that her daughter was arrested, compared to how angry she would be with Opalstorm when learning just how egregiously out-of-line Opalstorm was.

Not that she'd be happy to hear that the weird pink alien man whom she was dead certain was a shell construct is running a Loroi warship. Which she would have, by now, but they're at least a month racing across the intervening space until she could possibly hear that Opalstorm has been arrested.

But yeah, when she hears about this, she's gonna be furious. It would be wise for her crew to keep their heads down and possibly armored for a while.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BRwJNM1UCDg

[ShadowDragon8685]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BRwJNM1UCDg

Nah, that's Opalstorm when she loses it.
Stillstorm is just going to be very cross, and probably leap on any (genuine) opportunity to take any of her subordinates to task for minor failings. So don't forget to shine your armor!

[ShadowDragon8685]

Once again in command of Swiftwind - his ship, Captain Jardin sat brooding in his ready room, the altercation with Torrai Sorimi Opalstorm and the difficulties she represented fresh on his mind. She was cooling her jets in the brig for now, but Jardin felt a foreboding of what she represented to his crew and the welcome - or possible lack thereof - they would be receiving when returned to Loroi space. It did not bode well at all; they were, to the last, heroes, they'd taken a tiny fleet of overengined corvettes and drawn a Umiak fleet away from far, far more than their value in larger vessels, had defied the laws of physics, and endured a harsh and difficult journey to reach safety. They deserved better treatment.

‘His’ crew... It was odd how comfortable that thought sat with him, and it brought with it the realization of the fierce loyalty and instinctive protectiveness he felt toward them; the extended family he had ‘claimed’ as his own in the last few months.
It was hard not to; outside his own circle, only one Loroi in his whole fleet was actually older than his little sister. They may have grown up fast, and been relentlessly drilled into soldiers, but it was hard for him to see them as adult. Not children; by no means, but young, intensely determined - spectacularly capable in their fields of training, and shockingly ignorant outside of them. Yes, he damn well was protective of them, even if he was also damn proud of everything they had accomplished. He wondered if this was how it would have felt to be an infantry commander during times of crisis, leading units of mid-teens drafted into the military and drilled hastily.

He had to respect them for all they had done, and all they could do. They placed their trust in him, when they were facing certain death at what he considered an unconscionably young age, and he had trusted them; and in turn, they'd pulled off miracles. Not only miracles, they'd come through hardened by the fires of war and adversity.
He wished he could send them all to just live for about five more years before they even had to think about war again, but that was impossible. In lieu of that, he was clearly going to have to protect them from Opalstorm and her ilk, just as much as he'd had to protect them from the shells. Assuming he wasn't summarily relieved of command and told to kindly fuck off.


Jardin felt, more than saw, eyes boring holes in his head, and looked up from his desk to see Tempo and Ensign Kelly still waiting on him. Tempo - if Beryl was just the most adorable face he'd ever seen, she was easily one of the two most heartwrenchingly beautiful - smiled at him, her deep red eyes meeting his, soft brunette hair framing her face. "You are brooding, Alexander. I imagine it is this unfortunate business with Opalstorm weighing uneasily on your mind; allow yourself some ease. She was entirely out of line, and as the commander of this vessel, you took every appropriate action to restore order. Indeed, I dare say you were generous, giving her two opportunities to withdraw from the ship voluntarily. I am sure that New Moon's report will reflect that, and though we all know she considers you an indignity she will have to bear, I suspect," Tempo said with a mischievous smile, "that she is well-acquainted with Opalstorm's particularly toxic form of discipline, and would much rather use this incident as justification to harshly discipline her."
Kelly snorted, and shook her head. "If some jumped-up Lieutenant Commander had boarded the vessel of one of the real badass captains like Carl Hamilton or Jeremiah Blake and done what that crazy bitch did, she'd be busted to Ensign, assuming she wasn't given a Big Chicken Dinner."

Tempo blinked, and half-turned in her seat. "A... What? I am familiar with chicken being a form of fowl from Earth adequate for the main dish at a banquet, but I fail to see why one would host a banquet for someone whose conduct was as egregiously poor as Opalstorm's," she said, and Kelly laughed.
"Sorry. You're such a smooth talker, it's easy to forget you're not human," she said, and Tempo quirked her lips.
"I will take that as a compliment most high. But could you please explain?"

Jardin couldn't help but snicker, and shook his head, nodding to Kelly to indicate she should do it. "Jardin's used the phrase 'Charlie Foxtrot' around you, and you know how it actually stands for 'clusterfuck,' right?" Tempo nodded, and Kelly continued, "In this case, Big Chicken Dinner is military slang that goes back centuries. It's the first letters of each word that are important - B, C, D. In this case, to say that a member of the military has received a Big Chicken Dinner is to say that they have received a Bad Conduct Discharge - been stripped of all rank and ejected from the service altogether."

Tempo nodded, slowly. "Ah, I see." Tempo smiled. "That is... Possible, theoretically," she conceded. "Girls who are obviously unfit to be warriors are removed from the warrior castes when they are young - unless they certain qualities which make their service as a warrior absolutely vital, such as the eidetic memory like Beryl's that marks one out for the Listel caste, or the telekinetic power which marks one as one of the Unsheathed.

Tempo folded her hands together. "Theoretically, a grown warrior can behave herself so very poorly that she may be ejected from the warrior castes, but this was rare before the Umiak launched their prepared invasion, and all-but-unheard-of in these times of war. A warrior may be punished harshly; she may be assigned to highly unpleasant, menial or degrading duties, she may be confined for some time, but we need all the trained warriors we can get, and ejecting one to the civilian castes; especially one trained as highly as Opalstorm, rated for shipboard duty?"

Tempo shook her head. "Unthinkable at present. Misbehavior badly enough that would prevent her from being returned entirely to service would also be something so bad that she would be executed, such as if she murdered a shipmate... Speaking of execution," she said, looking back to Jardin, "Did you anticipate that she would resist arrest when you gave Fireblade and Pulsar very direct orders to execute her if she resisted?"

Jardin shook his head, swallowing. "No, I didn't. I was really, really hoping she wouldn't be that stupid... I didn't want her dead," he said, and Tempo raised her eyebrow.
"Then why did you order it?"
Alex looked down at the desk. "I had to. I just thought, 'what would Captain Hamilton order; what would Stillstorm order,' and it was... Clear. If I didn't authorize an, um... Terminal sanction if she resisted, the crew might not believe I was fully committed to backing them. I am; I am committed to backing this crew to the hilt." He paused, taking a shuddering breath, picturing what might have happened had Opalstorm done something foolish like striking Tempo, and shuddered at the idea Firestorm and Pulsar having fired. "I really, really didn't want her dead... But if she forced the issue, I had to prove that I was willing to use any and all necessary force, to protect the crew of this vessel from all enemies, within or without." The brunette Loroi smiled, and nodded at him.
"May I ask if there was any particular intent behind your ordering Fireblade to use her sidearm instead of her powers, or was that simply your natural inclination as a human? Also, may I ask, why not simply order Fireblade to forcibly restrain her with her powers?"
Jardin looked up, and nodded. "Yes, there was. It was about choice. I didn't order Fireblade to forcibly restrain her telekinetically because I needed to make it abundantly clear to Opalstorm that it was her actions and choices which got her into this mess; and it was on her to do the smart thing instead of simply having Fireblade pin her to the deck while we shackled her hand and foot. As for ordering Fireblade to use her sidearm instead of telekinesis, that was about authority. Fireblade's powers are kind of a... Wildcard - awesome, of course, but intangible, right up until the point they become all-too tangible. It doesn't have the same effect as staring down the barrel of her sidearm; especially when Opalstorm would know damn well that Fireblade could have turned her into a mess we'd have to hose off the walls, and when I gave the order to use her sidearm, she complied. That's the kind of loyalty," he said, with a slight smirk, "that we feel for one another. Fireblade will wield her weapon instead of her powers when I tell her to."

Tempo nodded. "I see. So, do you fear what Commodore Fragile Storm will do when New Moon makes her report?" Alex bit his lip, and shook his head.
"No, I don't. Like you said; she's probably heard the name Opalstorm a few too many times, and probably hates hearing it more than she hates hearing my name, if she's even half as toxic to Retribution's morale as she was here. But eventually, what it was that set her off... That's not going to be a matter for Fragile Storm - the matter of our girls will be kicked up the chain eventually... Is this going to happen again? Are they going to be deemed tainted somehow, unfit for service? Sent to some kind of reeducation camp? I mean, you said that Warriors don't stop being Warriors, but what happens if they're considered unfit? Are the just... Gotten rid of?"

Tempo shook her head, vehemently. "We are not the Hierarchy; we do not abandon our own or exterminate them when they are inconvenient. If a warrior becomes unfit for active service - such as injuries too grave to restore her to full function, or mental trauma too bad to continue to fight - they will be rotated away from the front lines; perhaps placed on logistic duty deeper in the Union, or entrusted with training the young. If they are entirely unfit for any duties, they will be cared for, with as much dignity and honor as is possible to afford them. I am sure that most Loroi would consider the girls we've turned into warriors over the last half year strange, exotic, perhaps a little alien in outlook," she admitted with a smile.
"I see a few possibilities, Alex; they could be mixed into training details for remedial training in Loroi procedures. That would be an unusual step, but putting experienced warriors in training details with the younger Loroi just coming out of their childhood would certainly allow for them to impart advanced skills and hands-on experience to the young, and they would adjust back to our way of doing things soon enough. Alternatively, if it is deemed that the human naval traditions we've instilled in them have been ingrained too deeply to retrain out of them, they could simply treat them as Loroi of an exotic and unusual martial discipline, and leave them organized into a unit of their own. This has happened in the past," she said, with an ambivalent shrug. "The most likely outcome, however, is that their abnormality will be viewed as an asset; it would not be necessary to take tentative, cautious steps in organizing our military advisor program, training Loroi officers to interact with human military personnel, as you have already gone to the trouble of organizing a large corps of Loroi who are already nearly capable of respecting human males as warriors, and begun familiarizing them with human military tradition, without erasing our own traditions or ignoring our unique needs."
"Huh." Kelly digested Tempo's words for a moment. "So... If you can't, or won't, serve her a BCD, what'll happen to Opalstorm, assuming that Fragile Storm is furious with her and wants to punish her as harshly as she can? Like, without shooting her, I mean," Kelly asked, and Tempo half-turned again. "Would she be demoted? Like, busted back to Paset?"

"It is possible," Tempo said, after a moment. "But it is exceedingly unlikely," Tempo conceded. "Opalstorm is not just of middling-high rank, she has advanced to the Torrai caste from that which she entered as... Most likely Soroin, I think, though possibly Tenoin. Again, this is theoretically within Fragile Storm's power, to say nothing of an Admiral's power, but it is a far graver step than to demote someone within their caste. Old laws could come into play, and as prideful as Opalstorm is, she might just demand the right to refuse the judgment with a duel."
Kelly stared at her, and Jardin nodded. "Yeaaaah, they do that. Sometimes. It's rare. I've never seen one," he elaborated. "I don't think I've met any Loroi who have," he said, with a shrug.

"It is indeed a very rare, archaic thing, but it is possible," Tempo said. "Such a duel would be intrinsically between Opalstorm and the officer issuing the order, unless the officer chose to designate a second. Fragile Storm would not. Our duels also have no concept of being limited for fairness, and as Fragile Storm is Unsheathed... Opalstorm would be, in Jardin's colorful turn of phrase, a mess fit to be hosed off the deck before she could even clear her sidearm from its holster. But she is so prideful that no doubt she would demand the duel; thus, attempting to demote her caste like that would most likely be tantamount to an execution."

Tempo smiled, thinly. "Just because itis impractical to demote her rank does not, however, mean she cannot receive a great variety of potential punishment. She could be stripped of authority; retaining her rank but with extremely limited opportunity to exercise it. She could be given a great variety of deeply unpleasant, even humiliating punishment duties; even ordered to perform duties typically associated with lower ranks. Her potential advancement, I would say, is likely to suffer, but her potential advancement was already in doubt, given the many disciplinary actions already on record for her. I believe that the worst they could do to her would be to place her on some sort of boring, inglorious rear-echelon duty, such as serving aboard a freighter, tanker, or system patrol vessel, the kind of duty that would be intolerably mundane and afford her no opportunity for glory... Of course, that possibility must be tempered with the unquestionable fact that placing her aboard such a vessel inevitably means placing her in command, and that would rapidly be toxic to the crew morale. Alternatively, she could be incarcerated for a great time."

Kelly absorbed this, and shook her head. "This all seems a bit... Byzantine," she said, shaking her head. "Wouldn't it be simpler to just kick her out altogether? I mean, she's really, really bad for morale, but probably not bad enough to deserve being shot."
"Simpler? Perhaps. It would also be simpler to summarily shoot her," Tempo explained. "Remember, your people consider yourselves citzens first and foremost. Even if you fail abjectly at being a soldier, a warrior, you may always return to civilian life; in disgrace, if you were ejected for bad conduct, but you may do so. Remember though, Opalstorm is only seventeen Earth years old."

Kelly blinked, and blinked again, her eyes opening wide, staring at Tempo. "Loroi mature faster than humans do," Tempo explained. "We can be educated more swiftly, and we are not given the broad educations you are and then left to find our own way in life, we are tested and trained in what we are indicated as being most apt at." Kelly blinked at Tempo, who smiled back at her.
"Among humans, Jardin is, I understand, a rarity to have been assigned to such a prestigious post, the helm of an explorer starship, at the age of twenty. In our current state of war, however, most of the combatants on our side are under the age of fifteen. You must understand, Loroi warriors - and make no mistake, even diplomats such as myself, or intelligence officers like Beryl, are of the warring castes - are born for service. We are raised for it, we are subjected to hardships and made to fend for ourselves when we are very young, in ways that has made Jardin violently inarticulate to behold, even compelling Fireblade and Reed to restrain him and prevent him from speaking his mind, for his own good."

Tempo smiled sweetly, and Jardin winced at the memory she evoked, as Tempo continued, "All of us, even soft, sweet Beryl, who reminds you of your beloved sibling, have come through this crucible, and I know what your next question will be: yes, quite a few of us die in childhood in the process."
Tempo held her hand up, as Jardin could see the anger in Kelly's eyes beginning to form. "Please, withhold your objections for a later time; Jardin has already voiced them all, and while I am not averse to receiving and answering criticism of our ways, I am telling you this now to illustrate my next points with regards to why it is almost impossible for a Loroi warrior to cease to be one, even when we had the luxury of dispensing with the service of a trained warrior.

Kelly's jaw worked, but she nodded, and Tempo turned in her chair, to fully behold the redhead. "You are Amelia Kelly first, and Ensign Kelly second. This is not the case with Opalstorm, or myself, or Beryl. To be a warrior is integral to our sense of self, and it is all that we know. We are not capable of taking up a civilian trade, we do not know how to interact with our civilians, especially young warriors such as Opalstorm who have known only war, let alone how to be one. In a very real sense, civilian Loroi are as alien to me, or to Opalstorm, as you are. In some ways moreso, as you, and Jardin, are like us warriors, and we can relate to that far more easily than we could relate to, for example, a textile manufacturer. To attempt to eject a warrior like Opalstorm from the warrior castes would be a fate worse than death, in her eyes."
"And, as I have said," Tempo pointed out, "Opalstorm has been born in the crucible of this war, it is all the life that she knows, and she is damnably prideful to boot. Whilst it is within the power of a superior officer, she could demand the right to refuse the judgment by a duel if it did not come from a very high-ranking Loroi indeed, and almost certainly be killed, making it a de facto execution. Indeed, I believe she would prefer to die on her feet than to... What was that phrase you used, Jardin?"

"Regarding the Umiak, I said it was better to die on your feet than to live on your knees," Alex supplied, and Tempo nodded.
"Yes indeed, and Opalstorm is likely to feel that way. Even if, hypothetically, the order came from someone whose rank was beyond reproach, whose decisions were beyond even the challenge of a duel, such as Emperor Greywind herself, it is almost certain that Opalstorm would commit suicide. You are bound by oath to service, Amelia Kelly, and I understand and respect that that is in no way a light thing; perhaps in some ways it is more meaningful, as you have voluntarily taken this burden upon yourself and we have had it thrust upon us, but we are bound by our nature to the ways of war. This is irrevocable."

Kelly's mouth worked a few times, and then she bit her lip, shaking her head. "Wow. What a head-trip," she said, and Jardin snorted, nodding. Kelly was quiet for a moment, then she lifted her head, but Tempo cut her off by holding her hand up, her eyes gaining a kilometer-long stare that Jardin knew meant she was focusing on sanzai.

Something had drawn her attention, something unusual, and that made him wonder what was going on. She looked very puzzled, and he tilted his head.
"I sense something... Unusual," she said, in response to Jardin's unspoken query. "Perhaps more than one something unusual, I... I cannot be certain," Tempo said, quietly. Jardin bit his lip. "No, not Opalstorm," Tempo hastened to clarify, and Jardin nodded, reaching out for the computer on his desk, keying in the communications to the bridge.
"Bridge, this is the Captain," he said, quietly. "Is there anything to report?"
"Not that I - One moment," Beryl responded, cutting herself off. After a moment, she said, "there is... A highly unusual party aboard, Captain. They're asking to meet you. I've sent Fireblade to collect them; shall I show them in?"
Alex looked at Tempo, who wordlessly communicated that her puzzlement was as great as his with a shrug, and Alex nodded. "Very well... Send them in."

It wasn't a long trip from the airlock, which he presumed was where an unusual party must have been, to the bridge, and his ready room was just a door separated from the bridge. Tempo turned around in her seat, and walked to the fore wall, sitting on the couch next to Kelly, but Tempo had a very strange look on her face. "What is it," Kelly asked, picking up just as fast as Jardin did and beating him to the punch by a moment. Tempo looked at her, and Alex saw a look he didn't often see on her face; abject puzzlement, confusion, unsurity.
What could possibly leave Tempo speechless? Jardin didn't have long to wait; the door to his office opened with a chime and shrak, and in walked Fireblade, with a look Alex had never seen before; abject puzzlement, just as with Tempo. She stepped aside, and Alex blinked.

In walked another two Loroi, the first somehow, vaguely familiar. She was tall, built just like Fireblade - she was practically identical to Fireblade, in fact; mustard-and-green armor characteristic of the Unsheathed caste, and unlike Fireblade's typical status, she was armed; or so he thought at first. Unlike Fireblade, she had her holster on her thigh, but when his eyes flicked down, he noted it was empty; flicking his eyes up, he had a flash of memory; that same face, attractive, quizzical, smug; yellow-green hair in a wild shock around her head and with two trailing, tight braids hanging down. Not quite as beautiful as Fireblade, then or now, but mischievously attractive, reminiscent of Talon and Spiral. Around the crown of her head, helping to restrain her wild lemon-lime hair was a crown-like psionic amplifier, with two dramatic horn rising above her face, almost bull-like.

She was familiar, damn familiar, but he'd met a lot of Loroi over the past five years. Even a great many Unsheathed, though they tended to be less talkative than most, which was saying something. But she seemed just so familiar, like someone he had met before; briefly, but having left a strong impact. Alex was almost laser-focused on trying to place the Unsheathed, he almost failed to pay any heed at all to the Loroi behind her, but when he did, he found her even more unusual than the Unsheathed bringing her in.

She was young, notably so, shorter and slender, moreso even than Beryl. If he had to guess, he'd place her at roughly equivalent to a human teen of 14-15, and she had a cascade of Beryl-white hair running down her back. That was surprising, but not nearly as surprising as what she was wearing - a sundress. He blinked, and looked to be sure his eyes weren't playing tricks on him; the Loroi girl was wearing a sundress, spun out of white fabric, and looked seemingly handmade.

A glance behind the two went across the faces of his three officers; Kelly looked unsure of herself, and leaned over, whispering something in Tempo's face; Tempo looked just as unsure, and leaned back, whispering in turn. Fireblade... Looked like she was caught somewhere between 'seen a ghost' and 'I have no words'. Her eyes kept flicking back to the other Unsheathed. Fireblade knows her - damn, why can't I place her? I really wish we'd talked that Historian into making that implant version of that think-alike thing.

His eyes were drawn back to the second Loroi, and then he blinked; he realized that the girl was showing many cybernetic ports; in her wrists, forearms, and just under her collarbones. He couldn't remember meeting any Loroi with cybernetic implants; as a general rule, they preferred to use biological custom-grown replacements for lost limbs and body parts, and didn't go in for Transhuman (Transloroi?) personal augmentation.

The curiosity of a Loroi - wearing civilian-looking clothes (Human civvies, no less!) almost caused him to miss the third Loroi, though that was somewhat more understandable given the third one was very short; his eyes went wide as he caught sight of the boy; his skin was a purplish-gray, hair white with hints of golden highlights, his ears pointed, but not nearly as dramatically as that of a normal Loroi. He - and Jardin would have bet his shiny new medals it was a boy - was holding on tightly to the hand of the sun-dressed youth, and trying to half-hide behind her. He had to be a half-Loroi, which seemed impossible; as far as he knew, there were only twenty-nine half-human, half-Loroi hybrids in the galaxy, all of them sired quite involuntarily by himself, and all of them very female. Also better than 200 light-years away from Earth, which was how he preferred it; he was going to have a hell of a time explaining the last five years to his parents without the "Oh yeah, and you know how you always wondered about grandkids?" talk.

Jardin looked up at Tempo, catching her eyes; she was as mystified as he was, and shrugged. The Loroi in the lead - the armored Unsheathed - stopped before his desk, standing straight; not exactly coming to attention, but clearly formally standing.

"Captain Jardin, hello," the Unsheathed said to him. He blinked; she spoke like Fireblade; comfortable with speech. A second later, he realized what was weird; she had spoken aloud in English. Yet she surely wasn't any of his crew; Fireblade was the only Unsheathed among the almost-900 Loroi he had escaped to safety with.

He stood up, and nodded, as she continued, "Most likely you do not remember much of me; it has been quite some time, and we only interacted briefly. My name is Stormrage, and we met aboard Tempest.

Suddenly, it hit him, as she turned to fix her pretty green eyes on Fireblade's. However mystified Fireblade was, she smiled, clearly happy to see the other Unsheathed, and suddenly it hit him; recalling two Unsheathed walking into the medical bay aboard Tempest at Stillstorm's back; one had purple hair (he thought,) and the other was standing before him now. "Commander Stillstorm ordered Fireblade, Razorthorn and myself to interrogate you most roughly, which I understand caused you some distress, for which I must apologize."

Jardin blinked, and shook his head, swallowing. "No need. You were following orders - and from what I understand, I actually got off light in that interrogation compared to the three of you." The ghost of a smile crossed her lips, and those of Fireblade. "I haven't heard of Strike Group 51 arriving, and I don't imagine they'd send Commodore Fragile Storm and Group Commander Stillstorm to Earth, let alone separately. You're a long way from home... And you have some..." Words failed him for a moment. "Unusual company. Hello," he said, gesturing to his chair, and the couch at the fore wall of the room. "Please, sit," he offered; Kelly was quick to cede her spot on the couch, followed by Tempo; Stormrage looked back, and at the younger Loroi woman. Wordlessly - though, almost certainly telepathically - she moved to the vacated couch with the boy, sitting on it, whilst Stormrage sat in the chair across from him. He looked up at his friends; Kelly had an obvious 'WTF' look in her eyes, and both Tempo and Fireblade, oddly, seemed hesitant to meet his eyes, and perplexed bordering on troubled.

Kelly looked like she desperately wanted to say something, but bit her lip, as Jardin gestured to Stormrage. "Do you mind introducing your companions," he asked. "I, uh... I've never seen a Loroi civilian wearing a dress like that -" or, indeed, any kind of a dress at all, he thought; Loroi civilians were just as given to skintight outfits just like the warriors were when they weren't wearing armor "- let alone mechanically augmented. And... I don't believe I've ever seen a boy quite like, well, him," she said, nodding to the child holding tight to the augmented youth's hand.

"It is quite a tale," Stormrage said, half-turning, and nodding to her companions. "This girl is Sisto-liper, whose spoken name means -"
"Snow White," Jardin translated, somewhat dumbstruck. The girl with the mane of white hair nodded at him, and looked back to Stormrage, who nodded at her, and looked back to Jardin.
"Indeed, Captain. The dress was fabricated for her by hand by a human crewwoman, for she was quite without any possessions at all when we rescued her; but I am getting ahead of myself. It is quite a long story," Stormrage said, and Jardin sat as well.
"I don't doubt it," he said, and nodded. "Please, I think we're all dying to hear this one," he said, staring at the Unsheathed sitting across from him. Stormrage nodded.

"Very well, Captain Jardin," Stormrage said. "Very shortly after you were sent to the sector capitol at Serren, Commander Stillstorm detailed the Totor-class Frigate Argent Fire to locate your homeworld verify your story." Jardin's mind quickly recalled the details - the class name literally meant 'Blaze;' a Blaze-class frigate in 2160 would have been before the refit versions were produced; crew of 150, Class II screens, 32g maximum acceleration, weak armor for a capital warship; two single medium blaster turrets, six laser autocannon triple-turrets, and 36 AMMs. Heavily-armed for a ship only 34m longer than his own Swiftwind, but any three of his refit corvettes would have her grossly outmatched, though she would still have been able to tear into any of his pre-refit corvettes.

Jardin blinked. "The Steppes are two-hundred lightyears from Earth," he said, and Stormrage nodded.
"This was not known to Stillstorm at the time she gave us our orders. She was under the impression that if, indeed, your race was real - and she was under some doubts at the time, though I cannot speak as to her beliefs later - you would be not far away. She judged the technology difference between your vessel and ours to be great enough that one fast corvette, acting alone and jumping in the likely direction your vessel had come from, would easily be able to locate Earth before it needed to return to refuel. Obviously, she greatly underestimated your race's resourcefulness and willingness to mount a long expedition."

"Myself and quite a few of the more specialized experts from Tempest were assigned to Argent Fire. When we forced to return with no news, Stillstorm assigned us a logistics support vessel, and told us to find your homeworld, and not come back until we had done so... To our shame, we had to defy that order when we ran out of supplies once, but wew ent back out to search again - the captain of Argent Fire decided to mount a very thorough search. Unfortunately, at some point during our search, we attracted the attention of two Hierarchy frigates, which began to shadow us. They caught up with us investigating a solar system and attacked."

That was... Problematic, Jardin knew; while a Loroi frigate could easily ditch two Umiak frigates, a Trade Winds-class Fleet Support Tanker could not, and would have been a sitting duck. They would have had to stand and fight, against bad odds.

"The fight did not go well for us," Stormrage said, with an ironic smirk. "We destroyed one of the shell vessels, but we lost our tanker first; they went for it to ensure we would be stranded even if we prevailed in combat. Then they successfully crippled Argent Fire before we destroyed the first and drove away the second... Thirty-two of us escaped in a slipper-class shuttle," she said, quietly.

Jardin closed his eyes and bowed his head; a Blaze-class frigate was rated for a crew compliment of 150. "You have my condolences," he murmured, and looked up. Stormrage had a faraway, sad look on her face.
"Thank you, Alexander Jardin," she said with a soft, sad smile. "It is shameful how poorly my people treated yours in similar circumstances... Especially in light of the fact it was a human vessel, ECS-098 Cydonia, which was the salvation of Argent Fire's survivors."

Jardin's eyebrows raised. What was Cydonia doing that far out, he thought. It wouldn't have been impossible for one of the England-class Destroyers to make it so far out, but it would have required logistics. "It was... A long journey to the home of your race," Stormrage continued. "Cydonia had been left in the system that we blundered into, by chance, on a long-term observation mission. A great many implausible circumstances arose which made simple return impossible, as though merely convincing thirty-two Loroi and one-hundred twenty humans to coexist peacefully were not enough. We returned shortly after your own arrival, in fact."

Jardin waited, and Stormrage appeared to ponder for a moment. "A great many implausible circumstances occurred to us, in fact," she said, and Jardin snorted, thinking back on all the improbable, impossible, downright physics-defying things that had happened to him over the last five years; double-jumping over a star system and making a 16-light jump made the top ten, but not the top five. "I understand your experience has been similar, Captain," she said, with a wry smile. "When I last saw you, you were believed to be a trick of the shells, and here you are sitting in command of a Loroi warship."

Jardin thought about that for a moment, and nodded; it was impossible to deny. "It has been a crazy five years," he said, and Stormrage nodded, as he continued, "so it's honestly good to see a familiar face still alive." There are too many who aren't, he thought, though thankful that his core group of familiar faces were all intact. Mostly, anyway; Reed's condition notwithstanding. "And..." He looked to Stormrage's companions, and Stormrage nodded her head.

"Snow White was a... Prisoner, captive, experiment of the Umiak. We rescued her from a shell vessel," she said, quietly. "The one we disabled and drove off, in fact," Stormrage said, quietly. "I cannot account for the unusual behavior of that, except pure speculation, but if I were to do so, I would say that her survival was rated by the Hierarchy as a higher priority than our destruction. They fled from battle, and fled away from the Charred Steppes. Coincidentally, perhaps, to the very same system wherein lied a remote human refueling station that Cydonia intended to use."

Alex blinked, and stared at her. He kind of thought he would have heard of that in the intervening time, and Stormrage nodded. "I cannot account for the likelihood of it, only that it happened. The shells had docked with the refueling depot, and slaughtered the station's personnel, presumably because they were too stubborn to attempt to work out any sort of trade."

Jardin blinked, and nodded. The word trade made sense; even if humans didn't have any use for currencies found in Umiak space (even assuming Hierarchy vessels carried any,) then samples of the Umiak technology would have been more than worth a full load of fuel. "Naturally, this sat unwell with both the crew of Cydonia and those of us she rescued. We counter-boarded the station, and the shells felt our combined wrath to a highly satisfactory degree. We captured their vessel, and aboard it..."

She looked back to the Loroi youth holding the child by the hand, and Jardin swallowed, hard. "We do not know where she comes from, or to which caste she was born," Stormrage said, quietly. "The shells were... Manipulating her, very crudely; some of the... Augmentations, you called them," she said, turning her gaze back to Jardin with a slight edge in her eyes, "connect directly to the pleasure and pain centers of her brain, the implications of which are obvious."

Alexander nodded, and looked down. "I apologize," he said, after a moment, looking to the young girl in his office. She looked down, pensive, and Alex helplessly looked to Tempo; she looked stunned, and her eyes flicked to Fireblade's; Alex followed her gaze. Fireblade was furious, as he expected, and he nodded at her. That pissed him off, too. "Please, Stormrage," he said, and she nodded.

"We also recovered aboard that station, in addition to samples of Hierarchy technology which the crew of Cydonia were understandably eager to seize, having decided that the shell's attack on your station constituted a state of war between the Hierarchy and humanity, some most curious evidence which delayed our arrival quite significantly; firstly was evidence that a faction - a corporation - of humanity was already in contact with an alien faction not known to us. The second was an artifact of that alien race, a most curious device that was as strange to us as it was to your people. This, Captain Blake determined, constituted something which required immediate investigation, overriding even the requirement to return us to your homeworld... Things became quite... Interesting after that. The story is a very long one, and I have probably already told you more than either of our superiors would prefer I share with you."

Alex blinked, and nodded. "I see... It sounds like your last five years have been as crazy as mine." He looked up to Fireblade, giving her the ghost of a smile; she returned it with the ghost of a smirk. "I am sorry for the losses you have suffered, Stormrage. I... I am glad to see you alive and well, really... But I admit, I'm confused as to why you'd seek me out, and not Mazeit Fragile Storm."

Stormrage smiled, thinly. "As the first ambassador between our races, you hold... Special sway, I understand. Snow White - so named because 'Snow' is the first word she spoke when we awakened her, and the color of her hair - is... In a curious position. Obviously, many Loroi do not trust her. Indeed, a Torrai Sorimi aboard this very vessel attempted to order her summary execution."

Jardin's eyes snapped to Stormrage's. "Opalstorm," he said, the word almost a curse, and she nodded. "That was her name, I believe. Your crew flatly refused to follow any such order."
"I am half-surprised Pulsar didn't throw her in the brig right then and there," he admitted, and Stormrage inclined her head.
"She might have done, but I understood that Opalstorm was not in charge of this vessel. She was becoming more and more insistent, and rather than see something which might be deemed mutinous by a superior officer transpire, I volunteered myself and my companions into protective custody until the proper authorities could determine a course of action. Opalstorm clearly believed that those authorities would be sympathetic to her ruling, and the fact that it was to you whom I referred escaped her in her arrogance... We elected not to enlighten her."
Jardin nodded, and looked back to Snow White, her eyes flicking over her. She looked withdrawn and quiet, but inoffensive. The cybernetics in her skin seemed almost innocent, but now that he knew their origins, he felt uncomfortable. "If I may... I imagine that getting her this far was not easy. I'm surprised your own party didn't... Terminate her upon discovery."

"There were those of us who wished to do so," Stormrage admitted. "However, Twilightsaber, at the time the highest conscious officer, intuited that the human crew of Cydonia would take such an action very poorly, and it would reflect poorly on the Union. Keeping her alive and speaking with her was deemed... A calculated risk."

Jardin nodded slowly. "I see. And the boy?" He worried about that, wondering if, perhaps, one of the crew of Cydonia had taken some unforgivable liberty with Snow White, but Stormrage smiled.
"The boy is Kamielle Aldridge... My son."

Jardin blinked, and glanced around the cramped room; Tempo looked shocked, as did Kelly. Fireblade, on the other hand, looked less shocked and more amused, with overtones of disbelief. He looked back to Stormrage, who appeared to have an idea of how improbable the situation was, bearing an amused expression on her face. "I see," Jardin said, quietly. "I think we're all eager for the elaboration."
I sure as hell am. I didn't even think Loroi-Human hybrids were possible - of course, there's twenty-nine purple hybrids I knew of before this who'd disagree, but I thought that drink they gave me had something to do with that.

Stormrage nodded. "It is... Well, a simple enough tale, really. There were just over thirty of us confined in close proximity with the hundred-fifty strong crew of Cydonia. Sergeant Charles Aldridge, one of the... Security officers aboard..." She closed her eyes, trailing off and her lips twisted up in a smile. "Charlie made a favorable impression on me." She clasped her hands together, below the line of his desk's surface. "Kamielle was the... Very unanticipated result," she said, turning and smiling at the oddly-toned boy.

Alex nodded, numbly. Thank god for small miracles at least. There's no way anyone took advantage of one of the Unsheathed. Then again, with the Loroi's ability to telepathically call for aid, it would have been practically impossible to force one of them unless she were unconscious, so on second thought, it might not have been quite that surprising. "And I presume there's an... Unhappy reason Sergeant Aldridge isn't with you," he asked, casting his eyes to the conspicuously empty seat next toStormrage, and she bowed her head, nodding sadly.
"My condolences," Alex said, taking in a slow, deep breath. Oh man. What a cluster... What do I say? "How can I help," was what came to mind. Good boy.

Stormrage met his eyes, and smiled, sadly. "I came here to meet with you because... I do not wish to proceed to Retribution in company of Snow White and Kamielle," she explained. "I have actually come to this installation straight from the facility which the TCA provided to house and question the entirety of the survivors of Cydonia. The reaction of Sorimi Opalstorm is what I am concerned with. She ordered Snow White destroyed, and my son detained. Some of what she expressed about them both..." The Unsheathed trailed off, and Jardin got the distinct impression that Opalstorm should count herself lucky to currently be holding the rank of prisoner, and not that of 'mess being hosed off the bulkheads.' He expected that Fireblade would be similarly wroth if she had tried to order his execution, and have exercised less restraint. "I came to seek... Sanctuary for Snow White. She has been grievously mistreated by the enemy, and the Loroi reaction to her has thus far been to treat her as a threat and eliminate her. This would be a gross injustice, and I know that humankind are more willing to take... Risks in the name of not violating principles than my own race. And as for Kamielle..." She looked back, and the boy hopped off the couch, walking over and climbing up into her lap. Jardin studied his face; it was somewhat difficult to tell; he had to be at most three years old, but he looked about five. Though she was wearing armor, Stormrage hugged him carefully, laying her head atop his.
"Charles would have wanted him to meet his - Charles's - parents, to see the world where he was born. I do not anticipate much, if any, of a normal future for him amongst Loroi," she said, and Jardin blinked, meeting her eyes. "I have taken responsibility for both of them, Captain Jardin. I cannot simply abandon them, but I fear that I will be unable to ensure their continued safety if I should report to duty aboard Retribution and bring them with me. I do not, however, believe that the matter will be seen as urgent enough to make a diplomatic incident over - if, say, they were already assured protection by your government."

Jardin swallowed. She's asking for asylum - for Snow, anyway. And for the boy - what? Does she want to give custody of him to his grandparents? Hoo boy. "I see. Well, this is... Going to take time to arrange," he said, and Stormrage nodded.
"You will attempt to satisfy my request, then," she asked, and Jardin sucked in a breath.
"It would help if you spelled out exactly what you require," he elaborated. "I understand that you want my government to extend asylum to Snow White," he said, nodding to the Loroi youth. "That will not be simple, but it may be possible... But what are your desires for Kamielle?"

"In truth, I am uncertain," Stormrage admitted. "I know relatively little of human customs for such cases. I do fear that among Loroi, he would be treated as a freak; likely marginalized, or housed in a laboratory. His early upbringing - indeed, that also of Amber Eyes, his peer - has been entirely unlike that which a Loroi male child should have, let alone one with my power."

Jardin raised an eyebrow. "He's... Telekinetically powerful, then?" Stormrage nodded, and Alex shook his head. This just keeps getting better and better. "Well... As you say, these are... Unusual circumstances," Alex agreed, biting his lip. "If he were entirely human, and his parents died aboard a vessel, he'd probably be turned over to his grandparents. Kelly," he said, and Ensign Kelly snapped to attention.
"Captain!" Kelly looked surprised; she was watching the interplay between Jardin and Stormrage with rapt fascination.
"Pull the personnel records of ECS Cydonia. Marine Sergeant Charles Aldridge - next-of-kin, emergency contacts, status of parents, siblings," he said, and Kelly nodded, pulling her tablet out and starting to fiddle with. Jardin looked back to Stormrage.

"I... Imagine you can understand that this is going to be an awkward situation," he said. "Telepathically speaking, on Earth he'd essentially be in a black hole, unless he was housed near enough to whatever embassy is going to be established to interact regularly with Loroi... Which might be seen as an intentional insult, I can't be sure. Telekinetically speaking - it would be like reinventing the wheel, without the benefit of an already-circular object to pattern on. Such power is simply not extant among us, as I'm sure you're by now aware. There is nobody on Earth - again, excepting perhaps other Loroi attached to the diplomatic mission, and only an Unsheathed at that - who could teach him to control or harness such power."

She inclined her head, squeezing the child on her lap. He looked around with a nervous glance, his eyes settling on Jardin, and smiled. Uuuuuh... No, please... I am not good with kids, Jardin thought, and then the boy looked over. His eyes found Ensign Kelly, then Tempo, and he giggled quietly. Tempo raised an eyebrow, and glanced at Fireblade, who shrugged at her. Then again, I get the feeling nobody here is, except maybe Stormrage.

"Quite frankly, Captain, I know this is... A lot to ask," Stormrage admitted. "But Snow White, Kamielle... Even Amber Eyes. They would not be able to be fit into Loroi society. Snow White and Kamielle, for obvious reasons, but all of them because they are too old, and have been raised in such a nontraditional environment for too long. I am sure that in your own travels among my people, you have come to appreciate the great strength and rigidity of Loroi tradition, which gives us such great clarity and purpose... But it is deeply lacking in the necessary flexibility to cope with such abnormalities."

Jardin nodded again. Kelly glanced at him, her look suggesting she already has the information he had requested, and Jardin then looked back to Stormrage. "You've mentioned Amber Eyes twice. Would you elaborate?"
Stormrage nodded. "One of our crew, Yellow Sun, was late in pregnancy when the Argent Fire was destroyed. She went into labor very shortly... Very shortly after Cydonia rescued us, and gave birth to a male child... As you can imagine, they were challenging times for us all," she said, with a wry smirk. Alexander nodded. Yeah, I ducked a bullet there - none of my crew were pregnant. No mean feat with almost 900 Loroi warriors.

"I see." Jardin nodded. "I hope you're not asking for asylum for him as well," he said. "That would be... Extra-complicated," he said, seeing a slightly hard look in Stormrage's eyes as she quizzically glanced into his, "on account of him being a normal Loroi, not in self-evident danger, and also, you not being his mother. It would be Yellow Sun's place to ask on his behalf - if that's what she wished."

"I see your point, Captain Jardin," Stormrage conceded. "I will suggest she bring it up, then. That aside... What is your recommendation?"
My recommendation. Oh boy. Alex shook his head. "For now? Return to wherever they're holding the Cydonia survivors and sit tight. I will bring this up with whomever I am required to in order to advocate for your request."

Stormrage frowned slightly, and Jardin peered into her eyes. "Is something wrong?"
"I had, in all honesty, been hoping we could remain here," Stormrage said, and Alex nodded.
"I see. I'm sure you see, though, that would be... Difficult. This is still a warship of the Loroi Union, even if through some rather improbable circumstances I am in command. In theory, we could be ordered to hand you, or Snow White, or even Kamielle over to Retribution if, for whatever reason, Commodore Fragile Storm demanded them. That would make things very difficult, I'm sure you understand."

Stormrage looked down, and nodded; the child in her lap grasped her fingers, and she let him, curling them around his hand in turn. "I see. Your point is... Well made," she admitted, looking up into his eyes. "You will advocate for them, then?"

Jardin nodded. "I swear I will."
"Very well." The lemon-lime-haired Loroi carefully stood, letting the youngster on her lap stand on his own feet. She looked to the younger Loroi clad in a dress, who stood and turned to follow her out. "Thank you, Captain Jardin."

Jardin nodded at them, and looked up. "Fireblade, please see to it they make it to their shuttle safely. I imagine you'd like some time to converse with Stormrage, as well?" Fireblade nodded at him.
"Thank you, Alexander," she murmured, and turned to the door, slipping out, leading the trio. When the door had shut behind them, Alex let out a heavy breath he almost hadn't realized he was holding, slumping in his chair.

Kelly and Tempo shared a look, as Alex dropped his head into his hands, bracing them on his forehead, and the two of them slipped into the chairs in front of him. He rubbed his eyes, and let out a long, slows sigh. "What a... I don't even know how to describe it. Charlie Foxtrot approaches it, but..." He looked up, into Tempo's eyes. "How much of a cluster is this situation, from the Loroi point of view?"

"Greatly compounded," Tempo answered him, quietly. "While Opalstorm's reaction to the plight of that young woman is extreme, it would not be so abnormal as to be remotely a unique reaction. I suspect that Stillstorm would have had the same instinctive reaction, and even if overruled by cooler heads, would likely demand she be confined. Indeed, we cannot discount the possibility of a link between what was done to that young Loroi - or, frighteningly plausibly, others like her - and whatever conditioning was used to cause loyal Unsheathed, such as Reed, to attack their own crew."

"... You think they might have implanted something in her?" Jardin shook his head. "Wouldn't medical scans after that time she got captured have revealed it?"
"One would think," Tempo said, "But I am not a medical specialist."
Jardin nodded. "Alright. Getting Reed to the medbay aboard Retribution just became a critical issue... Honestly, I wish we could get Snow White into the medbay there, too, but..."
Tempo nodded. "It would be inadvisable without some form of oath on Fragile Storm's part that she would be unharmed." Jardin nodded at her, and looked over at Kelly.
"What did you find out," he asked, and she tapped her tablet. He felt his human tablet computer vibrate, and he pulled it out to look at it. "We'll need to get your tablet linked to Swiftwind sometime, too," he said, as he glanced over it. Kelly had, of course, put a memo on the front page of Sgt. Charles Aldridge's file with the biggest salient points - he wasn't listed as KIA but MIA-PD; Missing in Action-Presumed Dead. That was generally speaking understood as "we haven't seen a body, but we're pretty sure he's a goner," but Alexander's own status had been MIA-PD at one point, so he knew it wasn't final with finality.
Alex glanced at the top, then said "Tempo, I want you and Beryl to brainstorm this Foxtrot - with the girl, with the boys. With a pack of Loroi warriors who've spent years aboard a human warship. What are the future prospects like?" Tempo nodded, and closed her eyes, lowering her head into her hand. "Kelly, figure out who in the wide wide world of sports I'm going to need to get the ear of to try and cut this Gordian Knot." The redhead nodded, and dipped her head to her tablet. I really need a cup of coffee for this, he thought, as he glanced back to his own tablet to peruse the information Kelly procured.

Sgt. Aldridge was born 13 October 2136, Pretoria, South Africa, and should be 28 years of age to Christopher and Anglea Aldridge. His father Christopher, Jardin saw, currently held the rank of Lieutenant General at Dequar Headquarters, Pretoria, South African National Defense Force, while his mother was a senior tax auditor for the South African Revenue Service. Aside from his parents, his Next-of-Kin was, Jardin saw with raised eyes, listed as 'Stormrage, Wife,' and in addition to her and his son, he was also survived by a younger sister, Amy, currently 21 years of age, attending university in the U.K. The circumstances surrounding his death were listed as classified. He was listed as having been married to his wife while the ship was underway, by the authority of Captain Johanthan Blake, TCA.
Heh. After so many centuries of human entertainment propagating that myth, the TCA just up and empowered the captains of vessels to legally perform marriages. Fireblade would be unamused. Of course, before she could know enough to be unamused, he'd first have to explain the concept of marriage, which would necessitate explaining the concept of monogamy... Jardin shook his head. That was a conversation he'd like to have another time, preferably half-past never.

Jardin looked up; Tempo's head was still in her hand, elbow braced on her thigh, with her thigh braced on her opposite knee, in the pose she used whens he either needed to pass out in a chair, or needed to focus on sanzai communications. Kelly, however, looked at him, and he nodded for her report. "In short, Captain? This situation is a Charlie Foxtrot and you're wearing the dress. We have, effectively, foreign citizens claiming asylum for fear of persecution... And they're claiming that asylum from the Loroi - our new allies," she pointed out. "Taking a principled stand could get things off to a rocky start, not to mention that everyone involved has been a participant in highly classified events that would fall under Admiral Callan's jurisdiction. Militarily speaking, we've got Callan on one side and Fragile Storm on the other; diplomatically speaking, we have an entire bevy of politicians with vested interests on our side who are going to want to weigh in, and whatever diplomatic envoys on the Loroi's side have come out on top of their particular dog-heap. And that's notwithstanding the fact that you may not be Fragile Storm's all-time favorite person in the galaxy right now, what with having Opalstorm locked up in your brig."

[ShadowDragon8685]

"Thanks for reminding me. This really is a compound cluster, isn't it? Tempo, any good news?"
"Precious little, Alex," Tempo said, her rich red eyes opening, staring at him with her left eye peering out from between splayed, elegant fingers. "The... altered girl, Snow White, she would be unlikely to be trusted. Even if she were not believed to be a security risk, she would be a question unanswerable; we have no way of knowing her caste, and rightly speaking she belongs to none of them, as we do not to the best of my knowledge have a caste which suits someone whose background is as a Hierarchy test subject followed by years of being raised aboard an alien warship with only warriors as role-models. You know our society to be rather... Inflexible, and I suspect there are those who would advocate her destruction not out of concern for security, but simply to avoid having to answer the question of what to do with her."

Kelly furrowed her brows, and looked to Tempo. "but Jardin said there were six hundred thousand Loroi rescued from the bugs' extermination camps during the, ah, the -"
"Semoset campaign," Tempo and Jardin supplied simultaneously. Tempo continued, with a sad note. "The Hierarchy exterminated the children and men first, as they were both the most vulnerable, and the key to creating more warriors who could resist them." Tempo's voice spoke the words deathly quietly, and Kelly's already pale skin drained of all traces of color. "They then continued their practice of exterminating the Loroi least able to offer resistance first, to prevent them from being able to aid those who could later. This included the young born under what sick regime they had imposed, and our civilians. By the time we liberated them, those who were left were largely insurgents locked in a brutal campaign against their captors. Under such... Extreme circumstances, it was decided to elevate everyone who remained and was not already of them to the warrior castes unless they flatly refused."

Kelly swallowed hard and shook her head, a look on her face that said she was close to being ill. "Such an extreme case of adult social mobility is all but unheard of in our civilization's history," Tempo continued, "And it has passed. It took great deliberations and finally the Emperor's personal authority to make the decision, so deadlocked were the diadem council. Although the precedent exists, it would reopen old wounds to revisit the topic, and there are many who would not wish to see such... Events become anything more than a freak oddity owing to the exigencies of war."

Kelly blinked, and Jardin scratched his head. "Think 'Sengoku Jidai,' if you're familiar with it?"
Kelly looked to him. "The Warring States Period? I know some of it," she said, then she snapped her fingers. "You're thinking of the end, when that shogun, who used to be a peasant himself, forbid any further upwards social mobility to enforce social order," she said, and Jardin nodded.
"Yeah. I can't quite remember that guy's name... That wasn't Tokugawa, was it," he asked, and Kelly shook her head. "There's no need to check," he said, and Kelly snickered.
"Okay. But yeah, I think I get you now," she said. Tempo raised her eyebrow, and nodded at Kelly and Jardin. "And the boys, Tempo?"

Tempo shook her head. "The son of Yellow Sun would most likely be required to return to our worlds. As you well know, Alex," she said, looking to Kelly to make it clear the exposition was for the redhead's benefit, "only one Loroi born in eight is male. Reproductively speaking, we need each and every one of them - additionally, since males cannot become part of the warrior castes, it would be seen as simpler to reintegrate him into Loroi society... This, I believe, would be an erroneous assumption, given that his earliest formative years would have been spent with only male human role-models, and warriors at that."

"... Hang on," Kelly said, quietly. "Only one in eight of your race are male? That's about twelve and a half percent." Tempo nodded.
"That is correct. It is our belief that this is a natural adaptation for a warrior race, such as ourselves. Population control may be maintained easily in peacetime by restricting access to males, but when population expansion is necessary, it is easy for it to grow explosively by granting such access."

"Damn," Kelly said, shaking her head. Alex caught a note of - what was that? Interest? Salaciousness? He wasn't sure, and he suspected he was reading into it something that probably wasn't there. "I just..." She bit her lip, and shook her head. "There are so many implications to that, I'm going to need time to get my head around it."
"That is understandable," Tempo said. "We are still coming to understand the implications even the smallest differences between our races can make. It is clear to us that this is complicated by the many and deep similarities, which means that an unexpected similarity which would not catch us off-guard when regarding, say, an Historian envoy, or a Barsam, can trip us up."
"Like the touching thing," Kelly said, and Tempo nodded. Jardin snorted, and nodded, too.
"It got to be downright eerie for a while," he admitted, "especially after I realized what good friends Tempo and Beryl were becoming, or how Talon and Spiral are practically sisters. It made them seem odd and distant at first."

"What Jardin said to your admiral at the parade was not, strictly speaking, the whole truth," Tempo said. "Unexpected physical contact with a stranger is deeply unpleasant, and it is potentially very dangerous if she is hostile and we are unprepared for such hostility... Though, ironically, when we are pressed by a tenacious and powerful foe from without, it seems these taboos are easing up somewhat, as Loroi unify in purpose, but I digress. When you humans and we touch, the result can actually be... Quite pleasant."
"Pleasant," Kelly asked, with a raised eyebrow, and Tempo nodded.
"Yes, indeed. For your parts, you gain some glimpse of psionic sensory perception, which you are otherwise blind to. On our parts, we gain a perception of you. Jardin spoke of how eerie it was for him when he realized how reluctant we were to touch one another? It is just as eerie for me to be sitting within arm's reach of you and to have absolutely no sanzai perception of your presence. You might as well be a machine for all that I can sense your presence. So, in a way, laying a hand upon you is comforting - I can feel that you are real.

"Are you saying we fall into the Loroi 'uncanny valley' because you can't sense us," Kelly asked, and Tempo shrugged at her.
"Alexander used that very analogy. Humans do, indeed, seem very slightly off to us as a result of your blankness to sanzai, but not nearly to the level of, say, a Loroi corpse, let alone the idea of a walking corpse." Tempo rolled her eyes, and Jardin grinned, recalling the time he had scared the hell out of Beryl and Spiral and made Reed jumpy by talking about zombie fiction without explicitly informing her about it being fictional. Of course, in that case, they'd been sitting around a campfire in the dead of night, and it had happened to be on or about October 31st, while Fireblade and Talon were out hunting, so it was entirely intentional.

"Why... Why are you rolling your eyes," Kelly said. "And why is he grinning - oooooh." Kelly rolled her eyes. "You told a zombie story and it fell over flat," she intuited, and Jardin couldn't help but let out a laugh.
"No, I had Beryl and Spiral going good," he said. "Reed was getting antsy and loading every gun she had, while Tempo was -"
"Perfectly aware of what you were doing, but unable to convince Beryl and Spiral of it," Tempo said, smirking. "Honestly, Beryl should have seen through it - she picked up on your sense of humor faster than any of us. You were able to muster such conviction in your voice that she never stopped to ask if you were fabricating a tale for dramatic effect."

"So why didn't you," Kelly asked, and Tempo's smirk grew into a mischievous grin.
"Because if Beryl, Spiral and Reed were going to let themselves be taken in and convince themselves that I was in denial, I was going to let them work themselves up as much as they wanted."

Alex snickered, and then let out a slow sigh, his mind thinking to Reed, and shaking his head. "So, the boys. You say you don't see anything good there, right?"
Tempo shook her head. "As I said, probably not. We might hope that the normal boy is so young as to be able to assimilate properly into Loroi culture still. As for Stormrage's son..." She trailed off, and shrugged.
"I do not know. On the one hand, the prior example set by your daughters shows that there is at least some will to attempt to train them and see what comes of it. On the other hand, I do not expect they would grant them access to males, and so prevent any potential... Further genetic contamination - even assuming they are reproductively viable. For females, of course, this poses little problem, as we need all the warriors we can train, but a male half-Loroi would be deeply unwelcome, since he would not be able to contribute reproductively, for fear of genetic contamination becoming absolutely widespread... Again, assuming he is viable. If not... Either way, there would be precious little use for him in Loroi society."

Kelly listened intently, then she blinked, and laughed. "Your daughters?" The redhead adopted a huge grin, a moment before Jardin felt his heart sink and saw Tempo's face fall as she realized she'd inadvertently let slip something Kelly was not yet privy to. "Damn, you went full James T. Kirk out there, huh?"
She was grinning brightly at him, and Jardin felt his mouth dry out. His eyes flicked to Tempo's; she looked aghast. Slowly, Kelly's enthused expression began to fall, as he placed one hand upon his face, the other reaching down; he opened the drawer, took out a pitcher of water and a glass, poured himself a glass of water, and drank from it, slowly.

Kelly looked to Tempo, who looked back at her, a grave expression on her face. "I apologize, Captain. I knew that was a sensitive topic for you, I should not have spoken of it." He drained the glass, and sighed, as Kelly bit her lip, her eyes flicking around.
He felt very small and uncomfortable thinking about it. The uniform he was wearing, the heavy jacket resplendent with decorations and patches, the heavy, solid boots; the warship at his command, none of them really seemed to make a difference when thinking about it. "I... Uh... Shit, I... Something... Oh." Kelly bit her lip, and Jardin nodded. He held a hand up for silence.

"It's an uncomfortable thing to talk of," he said, quietly. "It was... Very much the phrase 'the road to Hell is paved with good intentions.' Add in some gross cultural disconnects and a genuine desire to help, and, well..." He trailed off, and shook his head. Tempo lowered hers.
"I am sorry I brought it up, Alexander. Do you wish me to leave?" His eyes flicked up, and he shook his head.

"No. It's... No. I don't want you to leave." He sighed, and turned around in his chair, staring at the aft wall, currently seeming like he was looking through an aft window. "It was... About three years ago," Jardin said, sighing. "Shortly after Fragile Storm was assigned to handle the 'case' of me. I was sent touring the Loroi backcountry to keep me out of danger and out of trouble. Tempo had the idea - a good one, in fact - that I should probably see some examples of Loroi cultural diversity, to offset the military monoculture I'd been familiarized with first. So they sent me to have a look at the... The Oren School of Combat. Think 'Shao-Lin Temple' and you're in the rough approximate ballpark; high in the mountains, snow everywhere: to give you some context,the Hos'te Blec are descended from one of the clans which supported the Third Emperor instead of the second, who had decentralized, and so instead of being dissolved were 'just' relegated to their ancestral lands. So they're pretty far out there as far as you can get from the normal military monoculture and still be warriors."

Jardin rubbed his face, then his eyes, before turning around, facing Tempo and Kelly again. Kelly looked pensive; Tempo looked unhappy. "The Hos'te Blec have a kind of rare drink pretty much unique to their clan. They share it rarely, but one of the reasons they bust it out is as a way of welcoming an honored guest... It's strong stuff," he said. "Among Loroi, it heightens their senses, especially their telepathic ones."

"Oh no... It did something different to you, didn't it," Kelly said, nervously, and Jardin nodded, looking down. He swallowed, taking ad eep breath, and letting it out slow.
"Yeah... Yeah, it did. I barely remember it, honestly, it was... Well, it was a really, really powerful hallucinogen. I was just about out of it... And apparently," he said, swallowing hard, "it was also an extremely powerful aphrodisiac."
Kelly covered her mouth, and Jardin sighed. "They carried me to their infirmary, had some of their doctors look me over. They weren't exactly equipped to handle an alien envoy going through the mother of all acid trips from a substance they considered relatively harmless, but they didn't think I was going to expire of it. They did, however, note how... Uncomfortable I looked."

Kelly started squirming as the awkwardness of the situation hit, and Jardin didn't blame her; he felt like squirming, too. "After the third hour of me being in... Well, in that state, they entertained the idea that it might help to just get it out of my system... So that's what they did. Over the course of the next twenty hours, about every forty-five, fifty minutes or so, they brought in a volunteer to, um..."

He swallowed, looking down, and sighing. It almost frustrated him that he couldn't remember it. Six years ago, being rode like a stallion by two dozen blue alien amazon elves would have been the subject of his teenaged fantasies. Hell, it still had its appeal, in a way, which he felt was ironic. "I know; it sounds like a teenaged fantasy," he said, shaking his head, pouring another glass of water, sipping from it. "But when you get right down to it, it was... Well, it was me insensate on a guest bed, with one of the clan doctors monitoring my vitals, and every time it seemed like I was getting seriously uncomfortable, one of their young warriors would come in and climb onto me."

Kelly sucked in a hiss of breath, and slowly lowered her hands. He could see it in her eyes; just how poorly she would react if the genders involved would be swapped. Jardin sighed. "I know what you're thinking, and... The thing is, it literally didn't occur to them."
"To my eternal regret, my friend," Tempo said, quietly, bowing her head. Kelly looked over at her.
"You... Knew this was going on?"
"At least one of us was always in attendance," Tempo said, wryly. "To ensure that the girl did not become overeager and inadvertently injure Alex."

Kelly shot a venomous glare at Tempo, and Jardin held his hand up.
"It was a mistake, Kelly. One born of a complete and total misunderstanding. Until the... Aftermath of this event, well..." He shook his head. "Look, it's not..." He sighed, heavily. "It's complicated."

Jardin hung his head for a moment, and poured himself more water, sipping it. "They believed they were helping me, medically. Perhaps they were, I don't know, but according to the reports, I certainly seemed more... Relaxed afterwards. And if that stuff hadn't knocked me out of my gourd but still left me painfully aroused and it was offered... Well, I might have accepted." I probably would have, he admitted to himself.

"But the point is that I was out of my gourd. I couldn't choose, and... Well, unlike us, they defaulted to assuming that the male would have chosen." Perhaps not so unlike us, really, he thought about the double standard that remained for female-on-male rape.

"I - I..." Kelly looked at Tempo, who looked back at her, with a sad, tiny smile.
"The idea of a male Loroi forcing himself onto a female is frankly absurd. In all likelihood he would lack the ability to overpower one of us, and a male Loroi has no shortage of sexual encounters in his life. Indeed," she said, quietly, looking away awkwardly, "they have so many that we become essentially an anonymous blur, to meet, briefly and intensely befriend, bed, and then in all probability never see again," she said, uncomfortably, making Jardin peer at her. I think that's the first time I've heard one of my friends allude indirectly to her time getting 'access' to a male... Hrm...

Kelly listened with her mouth open, staring at Tempo in shock. "And while male Loroi are not slaves, and have the right to refuse to mate for any reason they see fit... Well, most would not. As Jardin has commented, he has never seen a female Loroi who was not stunningly attractive in his eyes, and our standards for attractiveness appear to closely correlate."

Tempo bit her lip, looking down for a moment, while Kelly stared at her, but held her tongue. Alex reached into his drawer, and pulled out two more glasses; he filled all three to full, emptying the pitcher in the process, and pushed the two newer glasses over to Kelly and Tempo; both took them, automatically, drinking and affording him an opportunity to take a drink as well.

"In any event," Tempo said, quietly, "We are a telepathic race. Preventing one of us from calling for help would require, essentially, isolating us in the wilderness or rendering us unconscious, so the idea of forcing yourself onto someone is absurd to us. If they genuinely didn't wish to participate, they would have the option of summoning aid in repulsing the unwanted attention."

Kelly's eyes began to blaze, and Jardin held his hand up. She fixed her gaze on it, and he met hers - he knew what was running through her head, and he shook his head, certain that Tempo was not engaging in any form of victim blame.

Tempo looked down, taking a slow, deep breath, her head hanging. "It is to our shame - to my shame - that I failed utterly to think that Alex might... Be upset by the event after the fact. We had, not long before, spoken on the topic of our race's similarities, and as I alluded to, he had mentioned how astonishingly sexually attractive he found every Loroi he had ever met to be..." She shook her head, smiling wryly. "Beryl asked him if that meant he'd ever considered mating with a Loroi. When he began to stammer, Talon began to tease him, and all of us - Alex first - laughed about it, made light. It seemed to me that he was comfortable with the idea of mating with a Loroi... In light of that, and the obvious physical discomfort he was in, I honestly believed he would be... Pleased, when he awoke. Obviously, I was egregiously mistaken, to my... To my regret."

Jardin swallowed, and shook his head. "Enough, Tempo. Enough self-recrimination. I'm not happy about it... But I'm not angry, either. I don't blame you, or the Hos'te Blec, or anyone. Definitely not enough to see one of my very best friends torn up with guilt." Tempo looked up, meeting his eyes, and he sighed. "It wasn't even a stupid mistake on your part. With what you knew about me, with that... Conversation recent on our minds, it must have seemed very reasonable; and I knew, and damn well should have remembered, that you guys were perfectly willing to arrange sexual contact for me if you perceived it as being a matter of my health and wellbeing. I really should have clarified earlier that under no circumstances known to me will a human male suffer physical short-term risk of harm for lack of mating... Though, admittedly I don't think you would have been able to rule this out as being circumstances heretofore unknown to me, either."

Tempo snorted, shaking her head wryly, and Kelly looked between the two of them. Tempo saw the questioning look in her eyes. "Loroi males are... Adapted to frequent mating encounters, especially in times such as these. It is not an absolute; some Loroi males do go their entire lives without mating, by choice, but this is exceedingly rare. Sexual interest and skill are encouraged among them. They may frequently become... Distressed if, for whatever reason, no females are being granted access to them. When we first began interacting with Jardin in a non-hostile fashion, he asked about the presence of males aboard our vessels. At first Beryl believed he was concerned about instinctive territoriality; then she began to inquire about humanity, and at a most inopportune moment, asked if human males had a period between mating which became unsafe to exceed."

Kelly actually laughed, startling Tempo, who looked into her eyes. "Was I inadvertently humorous," she asked, and Kelly snickered, shaking her head.
"You were, but through absolutely no fault of your own," Kelly said, shaking her head. "I was just thinking, any guy I know would probably have made up some bullshit to get laid," she said, shaking her head. "Well, almost any guy, because obviously, you didn't, Cap'n," she said, gesturing to Jardin.

Alex shook his head and snickered, slightly. Tempo raised her eyebrow. "I do not understand," she said, for a moment, then she smiled, thinly. "Oh, I believe I do. Like Loroi females, you can go indefinitely without mating, but this does not necessarily mean you desire to do so," she intuited, and looked to Kelly. "You believe your species' males would lie about their health to gain... Sexual access to females?"

"I'm not sure Amelia really believes that, so much as she is indulging in the stereotype of men as being always eager to have sex," Alex clarified, with Kelly nodding. "To be honest, I did consider it - just as I considered saying a whole lot of impertinent things to Fireblade's face when I was first informed that she would not permit any misbehavior. To wit, the idea ran through my head, but it was dismissed as absurd and stupid." He shrugged. "I mean, of course I considered the possibility, but never seriously. The situation was serious, after all... And even though she was making me uncomfortable with all of her biological inquiries, Beryl was already starting to rapidly become one of my favorite new people to know."

"She does have that way, doesn't she," Kelly said, and Tempo nodded. "If not for her eidetic memory and her intellect, she would likely be a Mizol as I am."
"Really?" Kelly blinked. "No offense, I mean... I like her, but she doesn't seem that smart. I mean, not that she seems stupid, but she doesn't seem like an egghead or anything."
Ale snorted, and leaned on his desk. "Kelly, let me put it this way. I graduated with the kind of marks and scores you needed to get onto Captain Carl Hamilton's Bellarmine at the age of twenty." he took a breath. "Tempo is a diplomat par excellence. She comes from a race where tact is viewed by some as being equavilent to lying to your face, which hardly speaks aloud and which communicates primarily by what I can best describe as a stream of consciousness with added emotive and sensory input, yet she is capable of interacting with us mere mortals, to say nothing of Barsam, Historians, Neiridi and more, so well that if we look away for a few seconds, we can believe she's one of our own race. You are a qualified military analyst, even if your prior posting underutilized you..."

He took a breath, giving that a moment to sink in. "Believe me when I say that Beryl makes the combined intellect of everyone in this room look like a high-school dropout. I don't think she's smarter than Einstein, Feynman, Galileo or Von Neuman, but I have no doubt she's in the top five smartest individuals in five kilometer's radius of here - barring them having some super-secret genius lab buried under Luna-9 I am unaware of, anyway."

Tempo nodded. "It is true. I am not sure about the 'high-school dropout' comparison, but I have felt Beryl's mind. Believe me when I say that hers is a towering intellect, far in excess of my own. She also has a natural aptitude with mathematics that, frankly, many should be envious of."
Alex nodded, and snorted. "It's true. The only reason she can't calculate hyperspace jumps in her head is because she's never been to nav school - because that's the job of the Tenoin, not the Listel." He waited a beat. "She's also probably blushing the most adorable shade of blueberry, if Tempo has been relaying this conversation," he said with a grin, and Tempo smiled.
"I may have been doing so. Her reaction may indeed be as you predict, and I may have predicted it before I chose to relay this portion of conversation."

Jardin chuckled at that, as did Kelly. He sighed, leaning back against the backrest of his chair. He felt drained - he'd put down a mutiny, met an old 'friend,' fielded some very strong requests, aired some very uncomfortable secrets, but now he could laugh again. He took the opportunity to rub his eyes, and sighed.
"Okay, so... Brass tacks time. Kamielle Aldridge: go."
"Essentially no future amongst the Loroi," Tempo admitted. "Best-case scenario, he might be raised to be the male your daughters have access to. Assuming, that is, that anyone is interested in letting them procreate, as they are developing slower than a normal Loroi. Faster than a human, admittedly," she said with an ambivalent shrug.
Jardin pondered the implications of that for a moment. While entirely irrational, the thought of having Stormrage in the family, so to speak, made him want to laugh and groan at the same time. He sighed.

"So, then, with Stormrage's requests..."
Tempo bowed her head, closing her eyes; clearly engaging in telepathic communication for a moment. "Beryl, Fireblade and I agree this situation is highly unusual and unpredictable. Fireblade is concerned for Stormrage; she was always prone to forming very deep attachments, and she is now very attached to and protective of Snow White and Kamielle. Fireblade estimates the chances of her turning them over in a situation she deems harmful to them as somewhere below the chances of her obeying an order to kill you."

Jardin blinked, and Kelly turned to look at Tempo. Kelly and Jardin both sucked in a breath, and Tempo said "To clarify, she made it clear she would only obey that order if it came from you, Alex, and only if allowing yourself to live would mean a painful fate worse than death. Beryl, after learning of Opalstorm's immediate order to execute the victim of Hierarchy experimentation, was moved to more anger than I have perceived from her since the time Thunderwave attempted to assassinate Ashrain. After calming her down, she agrees that Snow White and Kamielle will likely face similar prejudice within the Union."

"In other words, it's up to us to make everything right again," Alex asked, and Tempo smiled.
"Just like it always is, Alexander," she said with a smile, and Kelly snerked. Alex rubbed his eyes.
"Alright. Step one: lunch. I am too hungry to easily focus on this mess, and I'm sure Kelly is by now, too. Step two: Coffee. I don't think I've complained about missing anything except maybe my family and friends as much as I've complained about missing coffee. Now that we have a TCA military adjutant par excellence, it's high time we can go about requisitioning a coffee machine and enough beans to keep this entire crew caffeinated from here back to Deinar by way of the Andromeda Galaxy. Step three: ... I suppose I'd better contact Captain Jeremiah Blake. Then Admiral Callan, then Fragile Storm."

Alex sighed, rubbing his eyes. He had a feeling he was in for a long night.

[sunphoenix]

I must say.. this was Ingeniously handled! I Greatly Approve!

I am Deeply Honored to have Stormrage included in the Story, she was well depicted!

THANK YOU! {"Shade and Sweet Water!"}

[Sweforce]

I had a hard time accepting the possibility of human/loroi hybrids and since this story pretty much start by mentioning that I long put of reading it at all due to considering the whole thing non serious. Humans and loroi are biochemically incompatible and most like their genetics code are incompatible as well.

What if the Soia deliberately installed an mechanism for Soia-loren races to crossbreed with their template races? An I'll unerstood organ that somehow related to genetic programming of an loroi egg cell. With no access to humans and failure to notice exceedingly rare Soia-loren/template crossbreeding loroi scientists could simply consider unused oddities in their reproductive system to be an leftover of a mechanism used buy the Soia for genetic programming. Something like "send a signal here and it will change offspring to have green hair despite non of the parents having the genes for that".

With a genetic reprogramming mechanism the offspring would if course be proper Soia-loren specimen but have things that is harmless to add in from the human father to be so. In effect, a human sperm would have no business visiting an loroi egg cell but the genetic reprogramming organ could pick it up and use it's genetic material as part donor when it simply create a "prefertilized" egg cell. In effect the offspring would be "odd loroi" rather then actual hybrids. By this path they should also be fertile as well unless a safety mechanism is there to prevent that.