I had woken up at about eight thirty and my body ached. My shoulders were screaming at me and my arms were no better. It took me a bit to get dressed but I managed it, pulling on my spare jumpsuit, and attaching the shield port to it so I could wash the other one. I had then left the tiny bedroom to get some advil and make breakfast for myself. Which I had done as quietly as I could because I could hear Hudson snoring quietly at the back of the ship where he had tucked his stuff. I had been glad to see he had at least used the small foam camping mat, blanket, and pillow I had set next to his things, rather than just sleep on the bare floor like he had the first night.
The dude had been out, which was good. I still couldn't believe he had pulled an all nighter watching videos and looking at pictures. Which I was hoping I could keep from Hollister. I didn't want Hudson to get into trouble for it because technically it had been my fault for introducing him to the dragons of Torin so late at night and then giving him complete access to my laptop. So really it had been my fault the guy had pulled an all nighter.
But I had made breakfast, managed a quick and quiet call to Torin, where it was just Dunner, Mare, and Loril on the call. Gal'rug had still been at home when I had called. Which had been understandable, he had stayed late for me the night before. I had learned that At'kat'vo had finished the cracking phase and had was now into the full moulting phase. Which was basically his old chitin was now falling off. They told me he would be out of his trance in another full day, once all his old chitin fell off completely. I had appreciated the update on him regardless of how little information they were actually able to give me.
Bianca had then called at around nine thirty to check up on me to see where I was because she hadn't seen me at the canteen. I told her I had breakfast on the ship and was waiting for Hudson to wake up before I headed in. She had been a little concerned that it was past nine and he was still asleep until I explained that it was completely self-inflicted on his part and we would be in when he woke up and ate something. She had seemed mollified by that and we had ended the call.
And then sleeping beauty finally got up at ten thirty. I had made a second type breakfast for him with some ryn-bk and some more mild foods from Torin that had gotten packed for my trip. He had stumbled to the bathroom with bleary eyes and had come out fifteen minutes later clean shaven and looking like he had showered. He had hesitated at the food until I told him he would be the second human being to ever eat alien food. After that he had ate. Which amounted to him taking a hesitant bite and then scarfing the rest of the food down like it was going to escape from his plate.
From there we had spent the day in the base helping explain some context for the Accords. Mainly it was just words and some phrases but it had been needed. Hollister seemed to be blown away by the sheer scope of the Accords. Apparently they had printed it out to be easier and it had ended up being a twenty thousand page document, double sided. They had then separated it into the appropriate sections and the assigned people had gone to town on them. They still were just scratching the surface of it but at least everyone assigned to a section was actually starting to understand their section.
But Hollister was getting updates, which was why he was pacing in front of me. "Detonating rounds." It came out of him clipped and I nodded.
"Technically organic trigger exploding rounds cause they only detonate when shot into a body, but yah." I leaned back in my chair as I watched him pace. The Accords held some pretty nasty shit in them. I wasn't sure why he was freaking out, I had warned him it contained over five hundred thousand years of history. The Accords had a bunch of dangerous shit, yes, but they also explicitly say to never use any of it and to do so would forfeit your right to be in the Galactic Union and you would be retaliated against with the same use of force you used. Turns out the aliens took mutually assured destruction to an entirely different level. With a minor exception you couldn't just not stockpile those dangerous things, you couldn't make them at all. Best way to have everyone win in a standoff, is that no one has the guns in hand to make it a standoff.
"They have descriptions of bombs in here that make the Tsar Bomba look like a fucking night light." I couldn't tell if he was just stressed or half scared at the prospects.
I tilted my head. "Which one?"
"They have more than one?" He whirled around as he asked it, his eyes widening.
"Yah, there's like four?" I squinted slightly, thinking back on it. "No," I shook my head. "Three. They have three. Black Breaker and Sunrise. Those are Ilthi designed. Then the Grog have one called 'Ge'k frak'tik Ilk'tga Hag'fik'gor' Which when translated into English means 'Universe with cock in ear' but a better translation is 'to fuck the universe's ear'. Which I only remembered because it's hilarious." I chuckled at the remembrance. Bof'jag had told it to me because he said it was one of the only things he could ever remember from the Accords. "I remembered four because one was actually used back when they had discovered Jy and there was a massive, planet destroying asteroid heading for the planet, so they used I think it was Sunrise? Yah it was Sunrise, that's how it got its name. And blew it up. Apparently it was so powerful of an explosion that it temporarily made shadowed side of Jy light up like it was day. So for like seven minutes, Jy had daylight on both sides of the planet."
"And these people want to get into a peace agreement with us?" Hollister looked incredulous and I rolled my eyes.
"Yes. Listen, yes there's scary shit in the Accords, that's the point of it. But it's very much outlining that everyone knows the scary shit but agree to never make or use it, unless completely agreed upon or universally requested, or it will come with retaliation." I shrugged again. "It's rather ingenious. Everyone knows about it, everyone understands it, everyone agrees to not touch it." Best way to win a standoff, was to mutually agree to never get into one.
"What if we did..." He paused as he said it. "Touch it that is."
"You would forfeit your right to be in the Galactic Union, you would be barred from all new technology, and would be retaliated against." I shook my head, leaning it over the back of my chair with a yawn. "I'm sure there is probably a discussion phase before all that that would allow you to take apart all the dangerous tech and get rid of it but I'm not an Accords expert so I don't know. You would have to ask the person in charge of that section." I waved him off as I said it. I knew bits and pieces, weird little facts, not the entirety of it.
"It's just they are technologically superior to us. We can't defend ourselve-"
"Why would you need to?" I cut him off as I lifted my head to look at him. "Why would you need to defend yourself against them?" I tilted my head as I stared at him, my eyes narrowing.
"They are technologically superior-"
"Which would be pretty much eradicated because once we join the Galactic Union they distribute that tech to us as well so we can be brought up to their level." That was the point, you joined the Galactic Union, they elevated your species to the same level as everyone else. So everyone had the same chances and tech and advancement. "So what are you defending against?" I watched him carefully as I said it. Humans could be a little paranoid and trigger happy so I wanted a reason for it.
He sighed, running his hand through his short cropped hair, "What if one of them decide to go rogue?"
My eyes narrowed further, "Which one? There has never been a rogue species since the Galactic Union was founded like four hundred thousand years ago. But yah, I'm certain they will break that streak just for us." I couldn't help the sarcasm I took as I rolled my eyes.
"I don't appreciate the attitude." It came out clipped and I rolled my eyes again.
"What do you want, Hollister?" I gestured at him with my arm. "You're looking for a reason to distrust them, you're looking for a reason to be paranoid, you're looking for a reason to tell them no. You think there is something underhanded going on." That was clear, the human paranoia was creeping in, understandable but irritating from my perspective.
"Because no one is willing to give us that tech for nothing and I want to know what it is." It came out of him quickly and almost harshly.
I stared at him hard, wondering if he was actually asking that and didn't know or if he was just stressed because he was literally looking at what the Galactic Union wanted. I slowly nodded. "What is it you think that they want from earth?" I asked it carefully as I watched him.
"Perhaps gold, silver, other precious metals." He gestured and then started pacing again.
"Functionally useless, they don't really have a monetary system based in precious metals. Used in decoration, yah, but that's it." I watched him, pinching my lips together slightly. "Try again. What would they like from earth? Think very hard because they do want something." I gave a not so subtle gesture down my body, silently giving him a very big hint about it.
"Some form of resources. Could be precious stones, our metal reserves, oil-"
"Oil?" I barked it out in slight hysterics. "They have Thorium nuclear reactor cores, why would they need oil?" Oil? Why the hell would he think they needed oil? And that wasn't even to say each planet had oil, oil came from dinosaurs, aliens might not have had dinosaurs.
He stared at me, his eyes narrowing. "What then?" It came out of him in a sharp crack.
I covered my face with my hands, in utter disbelief as I slid down in my chair. "Me, they want me, Hollister." I dropped my hands to look at him. "They want my tech. They want my FTL engine and all the other iterations of it that they can get." I threw my hands up into the air as he just blinked at me.
"But that's yours, not earth's." That had me giving a rather agonized groan.
"For fuck's sake." I forced myself to sit up straighter. "My tech, yes, but I belong to earth as it is my home world. That's what brings earth into the conversation. They treat my tech like it belongs to earth so they can start a discussion about adding humans to the Galactic Union but the tech is secondary in the discussion." They were using my tech as a stepping stone, something to trade for, yes, but mainly so they could bring a new species into the equation because they wanted to start the process of adding them into the galactic community as friends.
"What if you wanted nothing to do with earth and just went to Torin, giving them the tech?" Hollister gestured almost wildly, looking a bit alarmed at the thought.
"The tech. Is. Secondary." I pointed at him with each bitten off word.
"What. Does. That. Mean?" He looked utterly frustrated and I stared at him hard, resisting the urge to get up and shake him.
"I think she's saying the tech is just an excuse to start discussions about bringing earth into the galactic community." Hudson said it and I whirled around in my chair, pointing at him triumphantly. Score one for boss.
"Yes! That's exactly it!" I turned back to Hollister. "Yes they want my tech, it solves a lot of their current issues with space travel but more than anything, they want humans to be part of the intergalactic community because we're out here and they want to be with us and us with them so we aren't all so alone." I shook my head, gesturing with my hand. "There are seven species, count them. Seven. Out of those seven, six of them of super strong pack bonds to things outside of their race and the seventh, the Antwyn, while generally don't have a strong pack bond outside of their species, tend to be very excited over new concepts and very protective over things they deem as theirs like friends."
I stared at the Commander intently. "They're using my tech as an excuse to make friends." That was the biggest part of it. The Council of Torin cared about me, deeply, like I cared about them. They wanted the same thing for every single other planet in the Galactic Union. They wanted more humans, they wanted more Roxie Matthews to join them out in the stars because they met me and the first thing they thought was, friend. They saw us as friends and they wanted us to see them like that too.
"So even if there hadn't been anything to give. Like if they happened upon earth and we didn't go out there to meet them..." Hollister trailed off almost as if confused and I nodded.
"They would still open discussion for bringing us into the Galactic Union because they would want to be friends and have a relationship with us." That was the biggest thing. Mare-aidee had said that when the Ilthi had first stepped out into the stars they wanted to push the boundaries of where they could go but when they found the K'gtar and they realized there could be others out there, others they couldn't physically imagine, it grew to encompass the fact that before the K'gtar, they had been lonely and so they wanted to find more and more and more because space, the universe, was less lonely when you had others to explore it with.
"My tech is an excuse. The tech upgrade would have happened regardless of it being there or not. But as it stands now, in exchange for my tech and good relationship with earth, we get a serious tech upgrade and we will then grow parallel to them as long as we follow the Accords." I leaned back in my chair, "That's what they want."
He seemed to ponder that before he let out a sigh. "But we need an army."
I rolled my eyes again, "They never said you couldn't have an army, just not a stockpiles of nukes." I shook my head and then paused. "Oh, also training. You gotta have appropriate Galactic Union training for the troops. They gotta meet the intergalactic standard and will probably end up just amalgamating everything into one because it's easier." Which I also knew because Gal'rug said that he probably would have joined the GUA but he has stayed to get his education finished first and then he had been pretty much shunted to the Council of Torin due to his 'mild' temperament.
The Commander seemed to do a double take, "Wait they have an army?"
"Uhh yah." I rolled my eyes once more. If he kept it up they would roll right out of my head. "Just because they get along and wanna be friends, it doesn't mean there aren't assholes in their species. They have a standing army reserve. It works as their police force as well because it was easier to have a galactic force to cover all aspects of protection and policing than a bunch of little ones, its like a sub grouping? I'm not sure. But yah, they have an army, several billion people strong if I remember correctly." I gave a flippant wave of my hand.
He stared at me, his face paling slightly. "Would they retaliate if you got hurt?" The question was asked low and I had a feeling he wasn't really looking forward to my answer.
I wondered for a moment if I should let him linger in that thought just to keep the added protection the thought of retaliation brought before I sighed. "Perhaps but they're having the same issue with the engines as you are. Don't have the technique down. So even if they wanted to retaliate it could take them like a decade to get here using their regular engines." I shrugged slightly.
"But retaliation is possible?" He stressed the word and I leaned back into my chair, slouching. Hollister didn't make a face, probably too distracted by the conversation but I knew it irritated him to see me so loose with 'regulations in the face of a superior officer'.
"Well it depends on how or why I got hurt. If I was kidnapped, they would come and demand me back before they came down and did the looking themselves. If I was seriously hurt, they would probably want me back on Torin due to their advanced medical technology and retaliation would be second to ensuring I was safe. If I was killed?" I shrugged again. "I don't know." I didn't. I really didn't know what would happen if I had died or was killed on earth. The Grog would more than likely be not happy, if anyone were to go really off the rails it would be them.
"Okay." Hollister gave a slow nod before looking at Hudson standing slightly behind my chair. "You keep on her ass. I cannot stress how important her well being is to Canada and to earth itself." It was said sharply and Hudson stood straighter and nodded looking too serious for how excited he was earlier with his dragon scale.
"Yes, sir." The super serious way he said it had me nearly rolling my eyes.
I wasn't that important.
Hollister must have been able to read my thoughts because he pointed at me. "I'm dead serious, Captain Matthews. You stick to Hudson and you listen to what he says when it comes to your safety."
I wrinkled my nose, trying to not smirk. "I thought we were similar rank so that there couldn't be bossing around?"
"Shut up." He snapped it out and I desperately fought against the smirk trying it's hardest to cross my face. "You will listen to everything he says for your own safety. The last thing we need is the Grog or the Jyngt landing on earth to retaliate against you being hurt. Am I understood?" He asked it sharply and I nodded. "I need a verbal affirmative, Matthews." He practically gritted it out and I tried very hard to hide the tiny, tiny smirk on my face.
"Yes, sir." I threw in a sloppy salute that I could see him nearly physically cringe from. "But are we done here? I'm bored and I should probably check in back on Torin." I didn't really but outside of listening to him rant about the horrible things in the Accords that were the entire point of the Accords.
"Yes, you can leave. If we need anything, we will be in contact." With that he nodded his head, turned on his heel and marched out of the room.
I watched him silently before leaning my head on the back of my chair, looking at Hudson upside down. "Well, Riviera, should we go?" The grimace on his face at the nickname had me grinning.
"If you want too, Aun." He stressed the word, shaking his head but there was a smile on his face so I counted it as a win.
"Alright, I'm moving." I got out of the chair and stretched. "What's Aun?"
"I'm not telling." He shook his head and I chuckled as I made my way to the door, him following.
"Well, will you tell me why they call your Riviera?" I turned around to walk backwards and he narrowed his eyes at me slightly before pursing his lips.
"Hudson, Hudson River, River, Riviera." It was a quick and simple explanation and I felt giddy he was actually interacting with me rather than constantly looking like I irritated him. Bribery for the win!
"I see, understandable." It really was. I could see the progression, it made some sense. "TruckNuts?" I tried to hide my smile at the nickname and Hudson gave a quick grin before making his expression serious.
"He made a serious error in judgement for his truck accessories." He said it so seriously it had me laughing as I turned around.
"And you won't let him live it down?" I called it over my shoulder with a grin. That sounded about right.
"Never." Hudson's long legs had him catching up to me quickly but instead of stepping up beside me, he slowed his pace.
"Ham?" I glanced over at him as I asked it.
"He wouldn't stop exaggerating."
"Timmay?"
"He started that one by saying it all the time."
"Jetski?"
"Last name Jesski. Connection is pretty clear. Also may or may not be there to keep him humble by reminding him of a lake trip we took one year where he ate shit on a jetski."
"Jesski on a Jetski?" I raised an eyebrow as I said it, snorting slightly.
Hudson stopped walking abruptly and stared at me. "How the fuck did we not think of that?" The look on his face let me know he was a man suddenly aware of an entirely new avenue for ribbing a friend and I laughed at it.
"Who else is on your team?" I was now curious, there had been quite a few people on the call and he was sharing. I wanted to see how far I could push it.
"We're a standard twelve man squad. So there's me, Ham, TruckNuts, Timmay, Jetski, Konnie, Twigs, Pinky, Fist, Aragon, Iris, and Sarge." He listed it off quickly and I nodded as nonchalantly as I could, trying not to seem too snoopy.
"Konnie?" I glanced at him and he smiled.
"From the Yukon."
"Aragorn?"
"A lot more attractive covered in sweat and dirt."
"Fist?"
"Pacifist, hates fighting but can and will rock your shit if pushed."
"Twigs?"
"Man has shit genetics. Legs are like twigs no matter how much he works out."
At that I laughed as we turned a corner. "No!"
Hudson chuckled, "Absolutely."
I glanced over at him again, "What about Pinky?"
"The complete opposite of the Brain."
"Sarge?"
"Came with it actually. He wanted to climb ranks in the regular military and made it known that was all he really cared about."
I narrowed my eyes slightly in confusion. "Sergeant's a low rank though, isn't it?"
"Oh yah. I think it was to remind him that he would probably top out at Sergeant." His rather placid response had me laughing. "But as I said, he came with it and we stuck with it."
We came to the exit and stopped. "What about Iris?"
He let out a heavy breath, his eyes wide. "Acronym for 'I Require Intense Supervision'. The man is fucking accident prone, you gotta watch him or you'll be writing out incident reports every day. Usually we keep Sarge on Iris duty, keeps Sarge happy because he likes to feel important and keeps Iris from losing an eyeball because he leans against a wall and some how ends up falling out a window and landing on a stick instead."
I blinked rapidly at that, "Wow. Did that actually happen?" I couldn't imagine someone being that accident prone but it was too specific of a scenario to be thrown out there.
Hudson nodded, "That did. I had to write a rather large report for it. It stabbed him in the cheek, not his eye but still." He shrugged and I pondered it for a moment, trying to picture how that could even occur.
"How does that even happen?" I glanced up at him and he shrugged.
"We still don't know because no one was actually around to see it." He shook his head and chuckled. "Weirdest shit though. He's only like that when we are off base or on leave. He is the most focused and careful operative when we are on base, training, or out in the field. Probably the only reason he's in JTF 2 at all. But outside of that, he's a fucking mess."
"I can tell." I paused for a second before smiling slightly. "I'm glad you have a team you can relax around." I gave a firm nod at that before giving him a sly grin. "I was really concerned you would get splinters from that stick you had up your ass twenty-four seven."
He rolled his eyes but laughed before he pointed at me. "You're never meeting my team formally. I'll get zero peace." He shook his head before putting his hand on the door, looking down at me. "You know the drill, Aun. Stay put while I check the perimeter." With that he was out the door and I stood in place, looking at the boring concrete walls. There wasn't even any colour, not even a shade of white. I didn't get it. The door opened a few minutes later and Hudson gestured silently for me to follow him as he put his gun back in his holster. He never really took his hand off of it when we were out in the open but I tended to ignore it. Came with the territory obviously.
"So what exactly are 'math wars'?" We walked over to the ship and I glanced at him. It was getting dark out and he didn't say anything, just scanned the tree line and I ignored it as I reached the ship and opened it up. I hopped up onto the walkway before it finished extending and walked through the shields before lowering them for Hudson.
He walked through and then hit the button to close up the ship. "Warhammer 40K." He relaxed a bit as we moved further into the ship and I gave a small ah.
"And why call it math wars?" I turned off my shield port before glancing at him.
"Oh when you play a campaign, in order to do anything you have to roll dice, measure, and do math before you can move your units or squads or do damage to others." He sat down in the small seat that was technically the 'co-pilot' chair but was really just a small seat that was for passengers.
"That makes sense." I nodded at that before I leaned against the small counter.
"Aren't you going to call?" He gestured to the chair and I shook my head with a small smirk.
"Not right now. I didn't actually need to call. I just wanted out of there." Hudson chuckled at that, a rather amused smile crossing his face. I was glad the dude had lightened up. My phone dinged and I pulled it out of my pocket, wondering who was messaging me. I pulled up the notifs and tapped on the new message from an unknown number. I frowned slightly as I read it.
Star sailor, call this number on an encrypted line.
I stared at the message and the second text that contained the number for a bit.
"What's up?" Hudson leaned back in the chair. "You look puzzled."
"I am. But I won't be in a second." I copied the number and brought up my encrypted calling app, pasting it in there. I hit call and listened to it ring. I wasn't entirely stupid, I knew people were looking for me, specifically several government bodies but it was my Nasa code name.
"Roxie Matthews!" The person sounded relieved to hear me. "Armaan Mahal, I hope you remember me from-"
"Yah, Armaan, you were one of the lead scientists I dealt with at Nasa. What's up? What's with the subterfuge?" I was relieved to know who it was. Armaan was good people, he had been super interested and excited about my engine. I remembered chatting with him quite a bit while helping retrofit my old ship.
"Got myself into some trouble. Can't really explain it over the phone. Is there anyway you can come get me so we can talk in person?" That had me raising my eyebrows slightly.
"No can do, not risking going into US air space right now." There was absolutely no way I was going to do that. I knew my ship was fine, the shields would protect against the blast but the tensions with the US didn't need me darting around the continent as a flying 'Fuck you!' to the US government.
"Not in the US, I'm in the northern part of British Columbia. I'll send you my location." That was surprising to hear. Armaan hadn't seemed like the spontaneous type and I frowned slightly.
"How the hell did you get there?" I was aware Hudson was watching intently, his entire form tense.
"I snuck over the border and have been staying with an ally of sorts. Can you come and get me? I really need to talk to you." There was basically an edge of pleading to his voice that had me buckling slightly. "I'm in trouble and I really need your help. I will send you my location. I just need you to come and pick me up, that's it."
"I'll see what I can do." I was hesitant. I trusted Armaan but I absolutely did not trust the US government at the moment. You know when someone attempts to black bag family members it really didn't help much in the trust department. Really weird, I know.
"I will move to a new location every thirty minutes and send you my pin. I need to keep moving. Is that alright?" Armaan was clearly spooked, the slight agitation and pleading made that clear. I wondered what the hell happened to cause him to be like that. Clearly nothing good.
"Yah, that's fine." My frown deepened as I thought for a moment. "Are we good, Armaan? Like you wouldn't fuck me over, would you?"
"No. Absolutely not. I swear to it." The response was quick and vehement.
I nodded, "I'll call you back once I know for sure." I hung up the phone and pursed my lips before looking at Hudson. "Wanna go for a quick flight to Northern BC?"
"Absolutely fucking not." He snapped it out, his expression absolutely foreboding as he looked at me. I narrowed my eyes slightly and he pointed at me. "We are not doing that. I need to keep you alive and safe. Going into an unknown situation with unknown variables with a person that has potential ties to the US government is not part of that. Absolutely no-"
"I'll teach you how to fly the ship." Complete silence. Hudson stared at me, his mouth hanging open slightly. "We do this, and I'll teach you how to fly the ship." His mouth snapped closed and his eyes narrowed as he looked at me.
I smirked.
Game, set, match.
We were going to BC.