Chapter 16 Good Faith #2
She stared at him without blinking. He knew her mind was furiously working. She had to know she was beaten. At least for now. If nothing else, he hoped she would take the opportunity to simply give herself more time to think of another crazy plan.
“And if you reach out to my Councillors and they don’t give you what you want?” Nova asked almost sweetly.
“Because they hate humans due to being fed a bunch of bullshit about us? And they don’t want their High Councillor to be humiliated by me?
” he offered. “Every other species in the Alliance will know that the Thaf’ell--because you’re all Thaf’ell on that Council, right?
--don’t respect anyone else’s laws or personhood.
Today, it’s humanity that you’re willing to sacrifice.
Tomorrow? Who knows? Or maybe you have already begun to sacrifice them.
Maybe people have noticed how thin the defenses are getting above their planets. ”
Her face went blank, which meant he had truly shocked her. He sighed and did pinch the top of his nose this time.
“But really, if the Thaf’ell fail to see reason, I will simply have the Ashaton’s systems release a sleep agent into the air and you will all fall unconscious then I’ll have you brought here anyways,” Jace told her with a shrug.
“Oh, and I’ll lock the gate to Earth in case anyone has the bright idea of coming here in a vain attempt to rescue you. ”
Locking the gate was a temporary measure. He couldn’t keep it locked forever, the Osiris told him. But they could disable the rest of the Alliance’s ships.
I don’t want them to know that yet if we can help it. Let them think there’s still the distance thing, Jace said.
“But really all you need to do to fix this terrible mistake is to act in good faith, High Councillor. It’s up to you.” Jace sipped his drink and took another bite of burger while he waited for her to make up her mind.
“If you will allow it, I will fly to the Osiris,” Nova finally said.
“You’ll find one of the Paladin-class fighters will be operational and will fly you here,” he said.
“I will bring three loyal officers with me,” she said, pointedly not looking at Nav’ud.
It didn’t matter if she brought a dozen of her best fighters. The Osiris would neutralize them.
“I look forward to it,” Jace said and cut the connection.
Jace let out a breath that he hadn’t known he had been holding. He put his hands, palms down, on the table and stared at them.
“She has not given up her plans, Jace,” Khoth said. “Bringing her here as anything other than a prisoner is… unwise.”
“I am aware that your mother is likely thinking of attempting to smuggle weapons or explosives or neurotoxin or something with her. In fact, I am certain the Osiris and Gehenna will know,” he said with a wave of his hand. “They’re monitoring every move she makes.”
“You expect treachery from her yet you still intend to go through with the negotiations?” Khoth’s eyebrows lifted. “I know you have not forgotten that she has no bargaining power--”
“I’m not negotiating with her.” Jace scrubbed his hands over his face. “I’m negotiating with the Alliance, and more importantly, a whole list of individuals from species that will be useful in a fight against the Khul, but who have been treated very shabbily by the Council.”
Jace had the Osiris send Khoth a list of individuals from various species that could be partners with them in the likelihood that the official ruling members of the Alliance were not reasonable.
A hologram appeared over Khoth’s forearm as he scrolled through the names of the individuals and species. His brow creased.
“These are… unusual choices,” Khoth stated too neutrally.
“They’re ones that I don’t think you would find valuable based on the current thinking of the Alliance,” Jace guessed.
Khoth lowered his arm, the hologram winking out of existence. “No, I would not. I believe you will not have to contact these individuals, because the Alliance will see reason.”
And when he says Alliance, he means the Thaf’ell, Jace thought. The superior Thaf’ell.
They are the best all around fighters, strategists and diplomats… uhm, despite what happened here today, Gehenna pointed out.
Yeah, well, I don’t think we’ll have the option of anymore Thaf’ell crew members than we already have, Jace told her.
“Oh! Thammah is at the door! Should we let her in? She’s banging quite loudly and yelling,” Gehenna informed them.
“I bet she is. She watched the whole thing in her ship. Let’s see what she has to say.” Jace released the door lock and Thammah’s voice could be heard then.
“Is this what you were hiding, Khoth? You big idiot?!” Thammah’s voice preceded her into the room.
“She’s mad at you? Wait, of course, she is. You were mean to her. You’ve got to make it up,” Jace told Khoth, even as he winced a little. Khoth had gone through a lot.
She stormed in, put her hands on her hips, and glared at Khoth. “Tell me that you didn’t insult me in order to protect me from your determination to get yourself exiled?! Oh, by the gods, what is that?”
She had just got sight of Gehenna in her new body.
Gehenna brought her fists up to her grinning skull mouth and said, “Oh, dear, this form is really not working out the way I’d hoped!”
“Gehenna?!” Thammah laughed. “Well, look at you! All gussied up, ready for a war.”
“I’m a protector!” Gehenna said, striking a pose that made her look like some kind of demonic presence that those she would protect would flee from along with her enemies.
“That you are. And considering High Councillor Nova Voor losing control of her Xi and Xa…” Thammah shook her head as if she couldn’t quite believe what she had seen. “You Voors feel deeply. You should have been poets, Khoth. Now back to what I was saying!”
“I did what was prudent.” Khoth straightened again and said, “If you were thought to be my friend you would be suspect of harboring anti-Alliance thoughts and--”
“Something must be pretty damned bad for you to consider exiling yourself, Khoth!” she snapped. “Something dishonorable. Something like we just saw. That everybody just saw! I’m surprised the general and your parents aren’t in here, Jace--”
“The Osiris has kept them in a meeting room for now,” Jace said. Dealing with Khoth’s understandable emotional distress had been hard enough. The general’s glee and his parents’ fears would have been too much to handle.
“They’ll all be mad as a nest of hornets,” she said with a slight laugh. “But I understand why you did it.” Her head snapped back to Khoth then. “But what you did made no sense at all! Do you think I would remain in the Alliance after your mother’s actions? Threatening to fire on civilians?”
“It’s actually worse,” Jace murmured, thinking of Nova’s grand plan to make them fall in love.
“What? How?” Thammah cried.
“It doesn’t matter.” Jace would not be telling her about the love plot. “What does is what you want to do now, Thammah.”
“I want to join your damned crew! I’m done with the Alliance,” she said. “I think you’re the best shot we’ve got of ending this war with the Khul. So tell me where to sign up!”
“Well, great, because I want you to be part of the crew,” Jace said. “You and my dad are going to have a blast together.”
“Jack has left the US military?” At first Thammah’s eyebrows were lifted in surprise, but then she shook herself. “Actually that makes total sense. Of course he would be with you.”
“You’ll get to really teach him how to fly,” Jace told her.
“Can’t wait! What about your mom though?” she asked.
“She’s staying on representing humanity, which I think is a good thing.
She’s a moderating force on General Intoshkin,” Jace said.
Here he had criticized the Osiris for having a personality profile on Khoth, but he definitely had one on the general.
“This is going to be hard. Even harder than what we just saw. Khoth, you don’t have to be a part of this--”
“I am the Commander of the Osiris, am I not?” Khoth’s chin was tilted up.
“Of course!”
“You will be dealing with my mother. I know her better than anyone.” Khoth paused, and Jace guessed that he was wondering if that was really true after what they had witnessed her do that day.
But, on the other hand, he was the one to recognize that she was emotionally compromised before anyone else did, Jace thought.
“I wish to be a part of this process. My… former relationship with her will not cause me to perform with anything less than optimally,” Khoth answered with a stiff bow.
“Ah, didn’t we just establish that Thaf’ell, even very superior ones, can have understandable emotional breaks?” Jace asked quietly. “You’ve gone through many of the same things your mother has and a lot more.”
Khoth rolled his lips together before opening and closing them several times. The discomfort he was feeling made Jace want to go over there and embrace him, but he knew that Khoth would not welcome this intimate touch at that moment.
“I must do this, Jace,” Khoth finally said.
“For the honor of my family. Whatever the Council will say or do outwardly, you are right that my… that High Councillor Voor has fully dishonored us in a way that even my exile. I need to show that a Voor can be reasonable, logical, trusted and on the right side of this.”
Jace slowly nodded. “Of course. I do need you there. I do trust you, Khoth. And there’s honestly, no one more honorable I know than you.”
Khoth made another of those awkward bows. Even Thammah’s anger at him seemed deflated as she observed him. Pity was written across her face, before she quickly hid it.
“Do you intend to meet High Councillor Voor in the hangar bay?” Khoth asked.
Jace nodded. “And then we’ll go to a meeting room the Osiris has prepared.”
“If there is time, I must attend to a personal matter.” Khoth’s hands rose up to the beads in his hair. “I would have these removed before facing the delegation.”
“You’re not going to cut all your hair off, are you?” Jace had not meant to sound so distressed at the thought.
“What? No, just the beads. Nothing else,” Khoth answered softly and, for a moment, there was a flash of something in his eyes that had Jace’s heart pitter-pattering.
He knows you find his hair beautiful! Gehenna gushed.
Yeah, I do, among many of his other traits, Jace admitted.
“Then I will join you in the hangar bay, Pilot,” Khoth said, bowing once more, and strode purposefully from the room.
They were all silent until it was clear he had left. Jace turned to Thammah.
“He really cares about you, Thammah. He was worried that your position with the Alliance would be imperiled,” Jace assured her.
She was studying him though very carefully. “I don’t think I’m the only one that Commander Voor cares about.”
Jace tried not to blush. “I just hope our friendship can survive this thing with his mother.”
Thammah let out a dry laugh. “Commander Voor is all about honor and doing what’s right, Jace. I am sure that whatever you do will be both.”