Winning Peace - Chapter 36 (Patreon)

I was watching Casey toddle about when I got the call.

Well, 'call.' It was more of a priority message.

Specifically it was a Black Paper, and I sighed before skimming it. A fraction of a fraction of a second after I was done I groaned and popped my neck. It was one of those human condition things that I absolutely didn't need, but was soothing in subtle ways. I shook my head and returned my train of thought to the more important topic at hand rather than musing on existential bodily comforts I'd installed.

Putting my hand next to my face, I fanned my thumb and pinky out in the same way a surfer bro would when yelling 'gnarly' or 'radical' and dialed up my wife.

“ Hey Z, what's up?” Sasha asked. In the background, I could hear her friends chatting as she stepped away.

“Looks like I need to go into the office, honey. My supervisor just called and asked for a big favor,” I replied tiredly. “Think you could cut things short and come home?”

There was silence for a long second. “Z, to the best of my knowledge, you don't have a boss or an office. Even when you were pretending you answered to the government, you still didn't really. So, either this is a bit or you've actually gone out and gotten an office job. If it's the former, cut to the chase and just tell me what's going on. If it's the latter, tell me who your boss is so that I can tell them to start running before it's too late.”

“That's very hurtful, dear. You know how hard I work trying to put food on the table for you and our son,” I answered, absently projecting a 'bouncy' energy field to stop our child from running right into a wall, and another to stop him from falling flat on the floor. Instead of cries of pain, he squealed in laughter, so I assumed I was being a good father.

“It's times like these I have to remind myself of the reasons I chose to marry you and this is my own damn fault,” Sasha sighed, her tone full of fond exasperation. “So what's really going on?”

“Fine, be a party pooper,” I replied, then picked Casey up and bounced him in the air a bit as he screamed in excitement. “Yes, that's right, Momma's a party pooper!”

“You're being sickeningly wholesome, Zeke. I'm starting to worry,” Sasha stated bluntly.

“Alright, alright. The Prime Minister called – messaged – and she wants me to show up and help the whole turian fleet thing. Apparently there have been some glitches in the translation programs that they patched because the models were being too literal. Which has led to misunderstandings and they've had to can the current team.” My explanation brought out a sigh of relief from my wife, even as our son giggled and squirmed in my arms.

“I thought it was something serious for a moment,” she admitted.

I chuckled. “Your confidence in me is reassuring, honey-cakes.”

“One, never call me that again. I can barely tolerate 'honey.' Two, I'd be worried if it was anyone else. Sending you to handle a situation like this is like sending a full battle group to handle a single pirate ship. Honestly, what I'm most surprised about is that you're actually agreeing to help at all.”

“Well, last time they very obviously made a point of not inviting me to the party. We didn't really discuss it given everything... else that happened back then, but I think they wanted to go it alone for First Contact just as much as I wanted them to. Second Contact will be less significant, so I'm willing to play ball. I guess.”

“They probably also want you to screw up. Or, at least, have their second attempt result in someone with fewer political aspirations going down for it,” Sasha stated, and I could hear the frown in her voice. “Don't forget, Z, I worked with these people for years after you left. I know what they're like.”

“Political beasts, one and all. You're almost certainly right.” I paused, chuckling. “Which kind of entices me to make it look easy when I do it.”

“I'll tie things up here, babe, and head back in a few. Keep up that energy and remind them why they should be scared to call you up. I think you need something like this, you've been...”

I hummed. “Yeah, I know. Just been a bit lazy. Something drives you for twenty years and then when you get out the other side of it... I probably do need some kind of project.”

“Now I'm really scared,” Sasha replied, her tone indicating anything but fear. “But, in all seriousness, they burned a Black Paper on this, so they must be getting desperate. Go get 'em, tiger.”

“Me~ow!” I replied snarkily before cutting the line and bouncing Casey again, grinning at my son. “Mommy's coming! Yay!”

“Wooo!” Casey gurgled, trying to vocalize something once again. He was getting close, though. I had faith his first words would be soon.

Getting him ready for the hand-off, I reflected on the mission at hand. Overall, it'd be pretty easy to communicate. The glitches those heathens had introduced into my translation programs were easily fixed by using the original versions. I didn't care if they were too literal. There were specialized sub-programs for known languages that I'd evolved out of the original program based on my research into breaking Linear A and Minoan Hieroglyphics. There were a host of lost languages now entering the public consciousness for the first time that could be easily loaded onto skill chips.

I mean, could you really set up a period-accurate Roman VR sim if you couldn't use period-accurate Latin?

“They'd called me mad, Casey! They called Daddy mad, but I showed them, didn't I? Yes I did!” I booped my son's nose as he giggled. “How about we let you play with the holo-game? You like that, don't you?”

Casey immediately perked up, confirming there was something going on behind those eyes as he squirmed out of my grip onto the holographic pad I'd set up with his favorite puzzle game. It wasn't really anything to write home about, but definitely kept the kid entertained by prompting him with alpha-numeric problems to solve, thereby teaching him language and numbers slowly.

With that done, I spent a little bit making Casey a snack and flipping through potential options to... make an entrance.

Well, that is, if I wanted to go that route. I mean, I could just message the Shanzi colony's traffic control and schedule a pickup in the city with priority codes. But that was boring.

“Well, she did say to make a statement,” I hummed with a grin.

The sound of a portal opening jarred me from my thoughts.. “Z, I'm home!”

The sound of a laugh-track rang out through the house.

I winced as the footsteps sped up, towards me. “Ezekiel Lopez! I know you didn't just-”

“Sorry honey, gotta' go or the boss will skin me alive!” Another laugh-track.

“Oh, for-you didn't even make a joke!” Sasha cried as I popped a portal, waving at her before it closed up. “Ezek-!”

“Going to have to do something nice for her. I totally forgot about that prank.” Sucking in a breath as I took off in a job towards where my ride was waiting, a classic that I'd modified into a devastating custom design. Arriving, I ran a hand across the flawless white and blue body, the red shield, and tapped the gold accents. Gundam Wing had... a bit of reputation in the anime community, especially given it had launched a huge amount of boy's love art and fanfiction back in the day. The Gundam hipster community was especially derogatory towards all of the anime neophytes who didn't appreciate the classic MSG.

“They just didn't want to admit Amuro was a whiny traumatized bitch who wouldn't stand a chance against the teenage terminator Heero Yui,” I chuckled, patting my Wing Zero Custom in Fighter Mode.

Which, yeah, I was maybe a little biased. Wing had been my introduction to the greater Gundam franchise, after all, but the UC timeline was such a cluttered mess with over a dozen properties in it even before I'd reincarnated that I couldn't realistically endorse it for anyone but a hardcore anime fan. Wing was all that much better given it's obsession with geopolitical complexity over linear plot structures, but it was at least self-contained.

I chuckled. “Getting off-track, aren't I? Well, I suppose I better go ahead and dive back in.”

I gave the machine one last pat. “Once more into the breach, dear friend. Let's give them a fighting chance this time, eh?”

…

“Sir?” Monitoring Officer Swanson called, looking up from his feed and directing an AR data flow towards his superior. “We're getting a sensor ghost on the grav-wave monitoring system.”

Captain Alsworth frowned and cued up the feed through his personal security firewall as he leaned back in his command chair. “Did you cross-check for aberrant solar activity?”

“Yes sir, first thing we did. We also ran a full sensor diagnostic since this is the first time I've ever seen readings like this outside of stellar phenomena like quasars and micro-black holes or particularly aggressive solar storms,” the officer explained.

Alsworth frowned and opened up the diagnostic report, skimming over the complicated readouts he wasn't entirely qualified to understand, even if he did know the error codes. Everything was 'green and clean,' as the junior officers said when they didn't think he was listening. The Uruk, his hexagonal-shaped prism of a star vessel stood out against the backdrop of stars, the turian fleet having been leashed into orbit around the system's gas giant to better put their back against something that would limit their maneuvering. Civilian, scientific, and other traffic had been curtailed on a mostly-voluntary basis given the ongoing incident and lack of a final resolution.

 He watched the 'sensor ghost' again as it swept around the star once again and his frown deepened. “Any chance it's an enemy scout from the Prothean Empire the turians were prattling on about?”

“No sir, eezo-drives give off a very unique grav signature. Even if I use the system to extrapolate a steady reading for this, it's nothing like it,” Officer Swanson replied.

“Have we run it through the database? Any close matches?” The Captain pressed.

“Similar aspects, but nothing like a match. If it's not a sensor ghost, then it's definitely human technology or a derivative thereof. There are aspects of the distortion it leaves that remind me of ahab waves when they're being used to generate gravity fields instead of power ships. I'd be worried about it being a derelict or disabled craft, but it's clearly under power moving like it's appearing to.”

Captain Alsworth paused, leaning forward with furrowed brows. “Communications, do we have any word on when the guest of honor is supposed to arrive?”

One of the other officers, a younger woman, cleared her throat. “Ah, no sir. We have no confirmation that Dr. Lopez is even coming yet.”

Alsworth sighed and drummed his fingers on the armrest of his chair, contemplating it. “Fine. Raise the alert level and send out a general ID call for all vessels in the system. If it's a sensor malfunction or a kind of stellar event we haven't seen yet, we'll treat it as a training exercise. If it's an enemy scout, we'll lock on when it comes in range. If it's Lopez...”

There was a prolonged moment of silence on the bridge.

“Sir?” His XO asked.

Alsworth huffed. “If he really wants to play games during a major incident like this with some new stealth system, give him one chance when he comes in range to ID himself. After that, live fire and we treat him as hostile. In fact, spin up a few dozen antimatter mines that aren't on turian watch-duty and have them ready.”

'Is that really wise, sir?' Alsworth's immediate subordinate messaged discreetly.

'Play stupid games, win stupid prizes, Steven. I'm not going to tolerate these kinds of shenanigans without some reprisal.'

…

“I hope these humans know what they're doing with that much antimatter parked near a relay,” Orolienus griped aloud, voicing his concerns for the first time since the fleet had asked for safe harbor from this new race.

“I was able to get an answer from them about that before the translation interface started spewing nonsense,” Admiral Gratus stated, reviewing the repair logs and the medical reports of the various crews under his command. It was a grim total, but he would be proud to report that every ship under his command would be able to at least limp back to port provided they didn't have to fight another engagement.

There were a few sailors still in critical condition, but by and large the dying was over. Barring another crisis, he'd managed to preserve the bulk of his fleet in an otherwise catastrophic situation. Leaning back, he turned his full attention to his subordinate. “Apparently, whoever designed this strategy made it impossible for the mines to lock onto the relays, much less fire. Even then, if you set all of them to fire near the relay, you wouldn't get the kind of concentrated energy needed to actually destroy one. Although take their word on that with a claw full of smelk, since the diplomat I spoke to couldn't tell me how they knew what a relay's tolerances were.”

“How reassuring,” Orolienus responded dryly.

“Like much of their technological innovations and their unbelievable history, I keep hearing the name 'Ezekiel Lopez' being thrown around, even if no one will give me solid information beyond what's in their First Contact package,” the Admiral grumbled in dissatisfaction, even if it was a mild state by his standards.

Frankly, he didn't give a vorcha's excrement about the politics of the situation beyond not pissing their hosts off. They could say that they constructed every stellar body in this system and he would nod along.

What mattered was the fact that the Hierarchy had, through sheer blind luck, finally found a prospective ally – or allies – against Prothean aggression.

So he would happily consume whatever slop they fed him until he could introduce them to someone more qualified back on Palaven and, if he was incredibly lucky, he might be able to save his career after this catastrophic mess.

“Do you think those are really rachni?” Orolienus asked, apropos of nothing as he took a swig of a strong alcohol, poured from a bottle gifted to them by the humans' delegations before they'd been pulled for being incompetent.

“I've seen infographics from the Citadel,” Gratus replied, pouring himself a small glass as well. Even if he was still on duty, the stress of the situation necessitated a few exceptions. “They match up.”

“Makes you wonder if the Citadel and the Protheans just botched their contacts with the bugs, seeing them like this,” Orolienus stated, scrolling through the images the various vessels had captured and key frames pulled from the contact package.

“It wouldn't surprise me if either of the four-eyed bastards handed down an ultimatum or decided they were an infestation right out of the relay,” Gratus replied in a brief moment of unvarnished honesty.

Then a call came through his omnitool.

'Sir, the humans are reporting that they're going to begin a live-fire exercise if we want to observe. We've been assured that none of the ordinance will be direct near the fleet. It seems they want to be ready in case the protheans follow us through the relay.

Admiral Gratus exchanged a look with the Captain before nodding. “Thank the human command for the courtesy warning and send them notification that we'll be aiming active sensor arrays towards the practice exercise.”

The message sent, the two turians threw back what was left of their drinks before rising and making their way to the bridge of the ship. In the interim, the exercise seemed to have begun, as their cameras picked up what was either a small corvette or an unusually large fighter being used as target practice for the powerful beam weapons of the human fleet.

He'd initially believed them to be a derivation of the prothean's own thanix cannon, but his technical officers assured him, with a great deal of excitement, that they appeared to work on completely different principles.

Yet another thing that he hoped to gain access to for the Hierarchy. The Empire's weapons were the pinnacle of capital ship weaponry in the galaxy, with the salarian-derived copies trailing behind those by a significant margin. Finally, the Hierarchy's native program had seen success, but the results weren't ready to be mounted on ships yet, their power requirements necessitating dedicated reactors. As planetary defensive emplacements, they'd seen a great deal of success, but a defensive war wouldn't settle the matter as his people needed it.

Then the fighter replied with a burst of its own twin energy cannons, streaks of yellow charge particles streaming through the black of space as many of his own officers gasped in shock.

“They must be stress-testing a prototype,” Orolienus judged, flicking a glance to his superior. “Showing off for our sake?”

Gratus grunted in reply, but inwardly agreed. Even if the bulk of the contact document was vorcha excrement, the humans were obviously in as much of a position to need allies in the wider galaxy as turians. The accosians, though more numerous than the humans, still only had a population in the fifteen billion range. The rachni were at least holding true to their reputation as prolific breeders, but it would be some time before even they managed to increase their numbers in the event of a prothean assault.

“Sir?” The communications officer asked as they watched the fighter shift into a bipedal form, the sight making both Gratus and Orolienus seize slightly in surprise. Even having been shown footage...

These humans are absurd, but if they save my people I'll even field a platoon of those insane machines in a show of fellowship.

“What is it?” Gratus asked, trying to ignore the tiny spark of wonder he felt at the incredible acrobatics the machine performed, holding up a shield of all things to block a blast of antimatter detonation.

“It appears the humans have compiled a test audio file they want us to listen to in order to assess their alterations on the translation equipment,” the communication officer replied. “It seems to be some kind of song from one of their cultures.”

Raising a brow-ridge curiously, Gratus waved the man off. “Play it.”

As the music filled the bridge, the Admiral allowed himself to fall into the rhythm, feeling hope blossom in his chest at the energetic beat even as the giant mechanoid dueled with the human fleet.

He would, if nothing else, have quite the tale to tell once he got home.

~~~

That feeling when a character decides what the plot is going to be and you're just along for the ride. Then you look at what you've written and wonder what the fuck someone slipped in your drink.

Ezekiel Lopez, folks. He be doin' shit.

Now I'm going to go write about something sane and logical, like a teenage harem in a death game.