| The Great Aryyt't Play |
|
"No. We must end the war now" answered Tcsor stressfully. He looked at the Cabal members.
"On behalf of the Planetwide Government, I accept these terms. Do you confirm?" The Cabal members answered. "Reflected with the light are the words." "The next generation shall reflect it back." "Peace." "Harmony." The two slowly backed into the mists and disappeared. Tcsor turned to the emperor. "We have a treaty!" smiled Tcsor.
"So it would seem, Tcsor," Julianus smiled down at the Foreman warmly. "Hopefully in the future, this treaty will be open to be amended for the better should the need arise."
He looked over towards the 'window' and the mists beyond. "I am glad that this situation could be resolved relatively peacefully. Shall we return to the ship?" He motioned his talons towards the tunnel, his guards relaxed somewhat after the emissaries departed. <"It'll be good to see the sunlight again..."> <"Tell me about it, Brother. These tunnels really are fascinating... nay, beautiful! But it'll be good to get some fresh air while we can.">
"You helped them see the light! You helped us see the light!" Tcsor answered joyfully. "Now let us return to the ship and share the news!"
*** Governor Looth smiled sinisterly as he terminated the live link with the androids. He ordered the ship's captain to open the bay doors to let the emperor and Tcsor back aboard and rushed there to meet them. Now it was his turn to continue his part in the "play". *** Ensign Yooth had a final look at his uniform on a reflecting surface before entering. The dark blue uniform looked tidy enough, and it was important. He really did stand out on the RFS Vaan Candacteec, which was manned exclusively by personnel from the Remote Fleet and the Candact Mandate Fleet, all wearing green uniforms. Yooth normally worked with interpreting signals and encryption/decrytion at the Signal Office of the Authority for System Defence in the capital. He was exceptionally good at masking and unmasking hidden messages in other signals. This ability was a likely result of his so-called "Leem condition", an unusual defect of the muscles used when speaking. Despite low odds he learned how to speak and had gained a special "feel" for frequencies. The major in charge of the office had called it "an exceptional career chance" when Governor Looth personally had requested his help, and didn't take no for an answer. Satisfied with his uniform, Yooth entered the room where the Draconians from the Talon had been sent to aid Yaam's team analyse and decrypt the Aryyt't signals, as requested by Foreman Tcsor. The signals had in fact been designed by Yooth himself. A true masterpiece. He greeted Yaam's team and introduced himself to the Draconians. "How's it going" he asked. The question was directed to the Draconians. He smiled warmly.
One of the analysts, a Drakari with light green scales and amber eyes, turned her gaze towards the Treecuu and smiled warmly in turn, setting her datapad down on a nearby console.
"Not bad. Despite some initial missteps, primarily due to interface sizes, we are making good progress." One of the others sent from the Talon, a rather... nondescript Human, chuckled. "Good progress? Bit of an understatement, Nassana. If we keep this up, we'll have this transmission decrypted, re-encrypted, and returned to sender with a pretty little bow on top." The other analysts couldn't help but laugh at that comment, some of them taking a moment to catch their breath. *** As their shuttle returned from the surface, the Emperor could not help but give Looth a friendly smile. "Hail, Governor! I bring good news from the surface!"
"I'm glad to hear it. I told you, Yaam, that I would be superfluous" chuckled Yooth.
Well, of course, this is the Vaan Candacteec, not some System Fleet barge, Yaam thought. He had been highly offended when the governor had put Yooth in his group, even going as far as giving him the command of his group. "Not at all. We have been using your method and algorithms" answered Yaam, trying his best to hide his detestation. Yooth looked at the Draconian team. "Have you noted the special harmonics of the background noise? Subsurface crystalline structures almost insignificantly distort signals sent from Aryyt't cities. There will be a 'footprint in each signal, which can reveal where the source is located, if you match the frr-frequencies-cies..." Yooth cleared his throat. Yaam raised an eyebrow. The Leem condition, what an abomination, he thought. "Sorry. Frequencies" he continued, "with data from he geological survey. You can even discover new untouched places. Places for secret meetings. Or rebellions." If the Draconian universal translators were intelligent enough they would leave an automatic note in the error log that it had been unable to translate a word. And that was his mission. Overcoming the Leem condition had left Yooth with an exceptional ability to control the frequency of his speech. If the Draconians were paranoid enough, they would be logging everything in their meetings with the Treecuu. If they analysed the spectrum of his mispronunciation of the word 'frequency', they would find clues to a secret location. Or so the Alternative Way Movement hoped. "Frr-frequencies-cies" he said exactly like just before. "No 'Frequencies'. That's suprisingly hard to say..." blushed Yooth.
The analysts nodded as they compiled the data as diligently as they could, even convincingly adjusting for 'background static'. Nassana in particular picked up her datapad and showed it to Yooth after discretely entering the recording of his mispronunciation.
"Indeed. Caverns are difficult even for the most advanced system. Like a natural jamming device, even if you removed interference from any crystalline structures." She would in turn smile at him gently, the tips of her teeth barely visible. "And there is no shame in your impediment, friend. It has not stopped you from accomplishing your tasks as a soldier, and in my opinion, it makes you all the stronger for it as a warrior."
Yooth could feel that he blushed again.
"That's a very nice thing to say, thank you." He smiled almost shyly. He looked at the datapad and nodded. "Excellent work, this looks exactly right. That's a traditional Cabal encryption pattern. And it looks like we have a possible location for the transmitting device." He picked up his own equivalent of the Drakari datapad and entered the real frequencies from her pad into the geological survey database. "Aha! We have a match. It's the Aryyt't capital, the market district." He showed Nassana a map of the planet and let a small dot mark the location. "It is very easy once you have isolated the right frequencies. I'll give you the geological database so you can try for yourself" he said proudly. He showed the map to the others in the room. "There you have it! Mission accomplished! Great work, everyone!" Epilogue After having a small "improvised" a ceremony in the Grand Observation Lounge, where both Tcsor and Looth expressed their "eternal gratitude" for the Emperor's help in resolving the civil war. Perhaps they would all meet again in the Treecuu capital when the Emperor would meet the Treecuu president? Tcsor was brought back to his home world where he rejoined his fellow Cabal leaders, hailed as a hero. He spent several days conducting various purification rituals to cleanse himself of the technology he had been exposed to. Looth continued his operations, rooting out the opposition against the Treecuu, receiving invaluable help from the Cabal in identifying key resistance people. After having received a medal from the governor, Yooth returned to the capital. He was given more covert missions from his major. The most important one was to set help set up at secret communications base orbiting an anomalous star for Alternative Way loyalists in the System Fleets. He wondered if he would ever see that friendly Draconian again, and if she did enter his frequencies from the "mispronunciation" into the geological database. Did she manage to extract the coordinates to the carefully prepared mystery cavern? If she did, it was possible that the Draconians would find the frequency hidden there. Just maybe one of their starships would intercept his signal.
Later that day
Nassana read over the coordinates Yooth had provided her and her team, and after many hours of careful movements across the planet, attained the information the man had provided. It wouldn't be until she returned to the Talon that she would bring it to the Emperor personally. Transmitting it would have entailed far too much risk while in the system. As the warship departed, vanishing into Warp Space as quickly as it had arrived, Julianus looked at the analyst's datapad with a concerned frown. The ordinarily gentle being paced back and forth on the bridge for what seemed like an eternity until calmly dismissing her to her station. He spent the remainder of the voyage in his cabin, mulling over this development for several days until he returned to his Palace. It didn't take long to summon his council. Even though the Senate was still divided on a proper response to the Aryyt't situation, it was agreed by members of government both civilian and military that the coordinates provided must be investigated as discreetly as possible. And there were a few that were best qualified for the task. By the time night had fallen over the Silver City nearly two weeks later, a black ship had silently departed the system, disappearing into the void. |
![[+]](/images/collapse_collapsed.png "[+]")
My roleplay nations![[Image: C5xhL3j.png]](https://i.imgur.com/C5xhL3j.png)
![[Image: xpCtQTW.png]](https://i.imgur.com/xpCtQTW.png)
![[Image: snqZrFA.png]](https://i.imgur.com/snqZrFA.png)
| Users browsing this thread: |
| 1 Guest(s) |