The Great Nekoorian Republic grew into power under Batract vassalage. For the longest time, the Republic was the de facto border region of the Batract Hyphae, and with every system the Republic colonized, the Hyphae grew.
This ended when the Republic encountered first the Nuk and then the Shraphen. Their integration into the Hyphae stalled the Republic's growth in this direction of the galactic spur.
Leading to growing discontent in the Imperial Republican Palace. Due to their extensive spy networks, the Republic observed how rebellions usually ended, and their leaders decided to play for time. Knowing very well from their own long history that every empire has its weaknesses and will eventually fall.
On the Species of the Aligned Systems, first edition, 20 P.I.
Mikkra had assumed the humans would bring her into some kind of interrogation room. But to her surprise, Sanders and the soldiers brought her to what seemed to be Admiral Sanders' private office.
No Imperial Republican officer of Sanders' stature would accept such a small and sparse office. But from what Mikkra could glean, human architecture was less about splendor and more about function over form.
"We brought Nacket to the infirmary. Our doctors want to check him out. What do you know about him?" were Sanders' surprising first words.
She had expected the humans to be interested in Nacket's origin, but something in the admiral's eyes told her they were more than interested.
She slowly sat back into the guest chair, glancing one last time over the pastel-colored walls of the office. No personal decoration except what seemed to be an official letter, framed. This woman lived for her work. Why the interest in a slave?
"Chokrata just told me he found him as a boy in the slums of Nir. He was probably a slave, or the child of a slave who ran away or was left behind. Happens."
Something changed. Mikkra almost felt the room grow colder. Sanders, who was about to walk around her wooden desk to sit in her chair, snapped around. The cold blue eyes seemed to burn.
"Slave!?"
Mikkra swallowed. She had fought mercenaries and combat robots. Pirates and criminals. But for the first time, she had the feeling she was eye to eye with an apex predator.
"Yes... slaves. The Batract are the only ones allowed to sell and trade slaves in the Federation. That's one of their main commodities."
Didn't humans know that? Mikkra's stomach sank more and more as Sanders' eyes slowly shut until only a sliver of blue was visible.
How can an ape be predatory? Apes and apelike species all over the galaxy were vegetarian. This human didn't look vegetarian.
"Didn't you know that?" She only dared to whisper now. The trained operative in her screamed at her visible weakness. But Mikkra knew, right here, right now, she faced someone who could rip her apart. And she knew the only way to come out alive was obedience and cooperation.
"No."
One word. One syllable. It told Mikkra everything about human rage. She almost felt sorry for any being that rage was focused on.
"Yes, and the last fifty years, they sold a new species. A hardy one. Now I know they were humans."
"They were selling humans?" Sanders' voice was ice.
"Yes." Mikkra did not understand fully. Why did the admiral act so aggressively? Surely they themselves used some sort of forced labor. Maybe prisoners of war, or vassalized people. Maybe the Shraphen, since they obviously had taken over the government here in the system.
"And other species?"
"Yes. Shraphen and Rikkash mostly. And whatever species was stupid enough to rebel at the moment."
That got a reaction out of the admiral. She took a step back and turned around, looking out of the window, down at the burned husk of what once was the home of the Shraphen. Was she afraid of what could happen if they failed? When they fail.
Mikkra's thoughts raced. She had to get the upper hand again. Think!
This station was massive. The admiral was obviously the most powerful person in the system, or at least one of the most powerful.
Why did her office window face directly toward the burned planet? She had noticed it when they entered. The dead rock was the dominating feature of the view. Why work in the shadow of such devastation?
Then she remembered the fable of the first emperor of the Great Nekoorian Republic, Emperor Larso Mekari. He started the last of the unification wars.
The Republic had won, but the cost was horrendous. The capital city was almost bombed to ashes.
Every window in the Imperial Palace had to be curtained off. Except for the one facing the throne in the throne room.
The story goes that one night, the children of a noble played in the throne room, and when the noblewoman saw the emperor, sitting like the dead on his throne, he said, "It's been long since laughter filled these halls. Come, stay."
The children were then allowed to ask one question, and a girl named Nekomee asked why every window but one was covered.
The emperor said, "My dear, because my heart is heavy with the destruction my war brought to our people, and I am afraid that when I turn a corner and see my beloved city in ruins, unprepared, I would fall and die from the shock."
Then the child had asked why he had one window uncovered, in the throne room of all places. And the emperor answered.
"So that I will never allow myself to forget what I have brought upon my people. I shall never rest until every burned tower is rebuilt. Every house repaired and every street beautiful again, my dear. But now, go to sleep, little ones. I will stay here. Stay and soak up the pain of my own actions."
Was Sanders the same? Did she feel like it was her fault Burrow was burned? Was it her fault?
Psstips were excellent listeners. Especially the females. And Mikkra decided to play this card now.
Standing up and slowly walking toward the admiral, who still stared out of the window, she risked startling the predator.
"Was that what happened to Burrow? The Batract? Or..."
Sanders turned. Not angry, but rather sad.
"In a way, yes. In a way, I think it was us. Me."
Fascinating. Now came the important part. Mammals reacted to cuteness, and seeing small furry creatures running around the whole station, sometimes carried on humans' shoulders, Mikkra assumed humans liked furry pets. Time to act like a pet.
She opened her eyes wide. Really wide. Let her head tilt a bit to the side and move her ears straight up. The cutest Psstips in the universe.
"Why? How would it be your fault?"
Sanders' face softened more. It was obvious that the admiral needed someone to talk to. And Mikkra was ready to listen. The whole night if need be.
And just before Mikkra thought she had her successfully twisted around her tail, the stupid station computer had to interrupt them.
Mikkra couldn't understand a single word, but she knew every sound was captured in her cybernetic ear implant.
Sanders' stance transformed. Back to her old self.
"Zeus informed me that neither we nor the Shraphen nor Nuk have any information about the Batract trading slaves."
The Black Wolves of Ragesh 3 should eat that stupid computer. She almost had the admiral. Now I'm back to getting interrogated.
Mikkra was back in the chair, the admiral leaning on the desk.
"Well, the Batract won't tell you or the Shraphen. Obviously, you were the trading goods, and the Nuk didn't allow any aliens on their home planet. And they almost never trade anyway."
Mikkra was still so surprised about how quickly Sanders recovered that she almost missed the obvious. The humans had access to the Nuk databases.
The Nuk were fanatically xenophobic. The fact that they gave the humans access to their databases... she couldn't even imagine what that really meant.
She had to learn more. Being interrogated was a viable means of gathering information. The questions you were asked always revealed something in return.
Sanders seemed to think her answer over, then turned and said something into her computer. Maps appeared. Mikkra noticed that they were her ship's maps. Well, Chokrata's ship's maps. Humans were quite invasive in stealing intel.
Mikkra could respect that.
Sanders' screen now showed a man, obviously on a ship. Mikkra could hear a slight whining in the transmission. Magnetic coils whining while under strain. The ship was in FTL. Fascinating. Humans had full two-way, high-resolution, paired-particle communication. Even the Republic had only text messages.
Was this because we kept it secret and humans used it openly, or were they really that smart?
The admiral ended the communication.
Mikkra hoped the Spymaster at home could decipher the human language.
Sanders turned, and Mikkra tried her best to appear uninterested in the screens.
"Seen anything interesting?" The human smiled. One master tipping his hat to the other.
Fine, I'll bite.
"You have paired particle communication. That's rare."
Sanders just slightly moved her head, a sign that Mikkra had surprised her.
"Well, obviously so do your people, but how...?"
"The magnetic coil whining. The ship you spoke to was in FTL. How else could you speak with them? We Psstips have excellent hearing. Better than the Shraphen, even."
Sanders' smile grew wider. "So it seems. Well, I guess we have to adjust the audio filters. Thanks for that."
Mikkra loved sparring with Sanders. "Free of charge."
"Do you need a human translation matrix, so your superiors can decipher the recording you made faster?"
Now it was Mikkra's turn to hide her surprise, but her whipping tail betrayed her, and Sanders glanced knowingly at it.
Fuck.
Sanders sat down in her chair, leaning back and crossing her arms.
"Okay, catgirl, let's skip all this intelligence nonsense. We want to know things, and your masters have obviously sent you here for a reason."
What was a catgirl? But before Mikkra could ask, the human continued.
"As you probably noticed, we're at war with the Batract. Now, if something is hunting the Batract, forcing them to retreat, we want to know. And if something is burning planets, we also want to know. So?"
Now or never. Mikkra's mission was diplomatic after all. She just wasn't used to giving away information freely.
"Yes, something is burning planets. The Great Nekoorian Republic has many colonies, and three were burned, just like Burrow."
She pointed out of the window. "Usually, we could rely on Batract support. Either mercenaries, other Batract vassals, or even one of the great fleets. But now... the Batract have retreated completely. Leaving us and others to fight on our own."
She inhaled. The next part was the hardest.
"So the Empress has sent me to find your people. The current Emperor is fighting with a fleet right now, and we're losing."
Sanders raised her eyebrows.
“You're still not telling everything. Listen. I got orders from my government to seek potential allies. And even though the Shraphen have very little good to say about you, they still think your people could be a strong ally. So, spit it out, whatever you're hiding."
Mikkra could only stare. Sanders’ actions were at odds with every diplomatic game she ever played. And did the Shraphen really think we could be allies? What was the Shraphen's role anyway?
Sanders’ patience was obviously limited.
“Look, there must be a reason why your government sent you hidden in a smelly and honestly disgusting smuggler ship. Why not send an official diplomatic envoy?”
Mikkra stretched herself to hide her body language better. Then she decided to "spit it out," as the human said.
"The Republic had a higher status in the Hyphae. Due to the Batract retreating, some of our neighbors... well, they are a bit unfriendly toward us. If they learned we were looking for allies, they might think us weak."
The admiral exhaled.
"And any new ally would inadvertently also be seen as less than friendly by your neighbors."
Mikkra nodded. Another universal gesture.
"Neighbors like the Shraphen or Nuk?"
"No. The Shraphen, maybe, but the Nuk? They don't care if the universe grows dark, as long as nothing enters their system. How did you manage to ally with them anyway?"
The human laughed. "We didn't. They see themselves as neutral. One fleet is honor-bound to one of our ships, and they accepted an intelligence-sharing and technology exchange."
Now it was Mikkra's turn to laugh. "That's more than all other species combined managed to get out of them."
"What enemy is your fleet fighting anyway?"
Grabbing her dataslate and projecting an image of a fleet of enemy ships, Mikkra explained, "We don't know. Some sort of biological ships. They resemble some underwater creatures on Nekoo. And whenever they manage to land on a planet, it burns within weeks. No survivors."
As the admiral didn't answer, Mikkra looked at her. Her face had turned white, and her fingers had gripped the corners of her desk tightly. "Fucking space squids. Dozens of them."
"You know them?" Mikkra was surprised.
"Yes. As far as we know, they are a form of the Hyphae, but they do not work with the Batract-form Hyphae. On the contrary, they kill and absorb the biomatter of Batract-form Hyphae."
What was the human speaking of?
"What form? Batract are the Hyphae."
Sanders shook her head slowly, then turned on the computer screen. It showed a single cell with thirty-four arms or strands extruding from it.
"The Hyphae are an ancient bioweapon. The Batract form I spoke about is a mutated variant that controlled dead bodies of an old race like biological robots. Or suits. The Batract. The bioships are another form. An old program coming to life again. A single squid ship burned Burrow, and I fear..."
The admiral now pointed at Mikkra's projection.
"I fear it has reproduced."
Mikkra fell back into her chair. The weight of the information was too much.
"The Batract are what now?"