Eyes of Tomorrow (Duchy of Terra Book 9), Glynn Stewart [reading well .TXT] 📗

Tidirok. There, they listened to the two insect-like aliens beat their heads against the same points of conflict again. And again. And again.

Rin had been there for over a month now. Tan!Shallegh had been there longer. The original need for the conference was clearly fulfilled—the two nations weren’t shooting at each other.

Now the conference was about the Infinite…but the Wendira continued to hold their position that the Laians had to compensate them for their losses to the provocateurs who’d tried to start a war.

Of course, they weren’t willing to compensate the Laians for the Republic’s losses from the Wendira part of those provocateurs. It was a simple point, one around which the two sides had been circling for weeks, and Rin Dunst was a student of history.

These kinds of deadlocks didn’t break without an outside force. He just wasn’t sure what that force was going to be.

“Have you reviewed the reports I forwarded you both about Squadron Lord Tan!Stalla’s encounter with the Infinite?” Tan!Shallegh asked once the formal niceties were done. “We now have a more detailed combat engagement than Defiance’s near-destruction.”

“We do,” Oxtashah agreed. “I must admit, I find these creatures far from as intimidating as you seem to. They are large, perhaps, but they failed to inflict any damage at all on the A!Tol force. Your ships are not Core Power vessels, and they survived the encounter unscathed.”

“And are now trapped in an empty stretch of void far from any warmth or shore,” Tan!Shallegh replied. “If they were to reenter hyperspace, they would be obliterated. The limitations of the Infinite’s range were expected, and Squadron Lord Tan!Stalla used them perfectly.

“It is what the Infinite had that we did not expect that concerns me.”

“They appear to be very efficient scavengers,” Tidirok observed. “Thirty-four cycles to study, adapt and integrate stolen hyper emitters into their own biology. Plus missiles. I will admit I did not expect either so quickly.”

“These beings terrified the Alava,” Rin said quietly. “We are reasonably sure this group of Infinite defeated the Alavan sector fleet the conspirators were hunting and sent its survivors fleeing into the Astoroko Nebula to hide.

“Like Alavan technology, much of their old weaponry is likely nonfunctional. But they have had fifty thousand years to work through that problem.”

“You are still trying to convince me that this danger is sufficient for us to lay aside our dead,” Oxtashah pointed out. “I am not convinced. My Queens have made their demands clear.”

“And the Grand Parliament has made their counteroffer,” Tidirok snapped. “We will compensate the Grand Hive for their losses if the Grand Hive compensates the Republic for ours.”

Rin figured that actually was a good compromise—though he also suspected any remotely honest accounting would result in something close to a wash. The provocateurs had been targeting both sides relatively evenly.

“The presence of a Laian mobile shipyard amongst the provocateurs suggests to us that the royal’s share of the blame lies with the Republic,” Oxtashah snapped. “We are not responsible for what happened along this border.”

“Enough,” Tan!Shallegh told them, his skin flashing dark in despair. “There is no purpose in swimming the waters again and again every single day. We must look to the reefs ahead before we all fall.”

Somehow, that was enough to bring both of them to a momentary quiet, and Rin sighed into it.

“You’ve already both committed not to attack each other until this is resolved,” he pointed out. “That means the fleet available to Oxtashah is not necessarily needed sitting at the border, glaring at us all.

“I know I’m not one of the diplomats or military officers here, but may I make a suggestion?”

“An academic’s perspective might be useful,” Tidirok said. “Princess?”

“You are here to speak of the Alava and the Infinite, not of our politics,” Oxtashah said coldly, but her wings flickered in agreement. “But as the Fleet Lord suggests, we circle the same pile for suns on end. Speak, Professor.”

Rin concealed a mental cringe as he realized what kind of pile the Wendira metaphor referred to, but he faced the three senior aliens levelly.

“You are not yet prepared to work together,” he told them. This wasn’t news to anyone. “But you aren’t going to stab each other in the back yet, either. The Eleventh Voice has already relied on this to send ships to support Squadron Lord Tan!Stalla.

“But the Laians and the Imperials can only blockade the portion of the Astoroko Nebula in the Dead Zone or in Republic space,” he noted. “They don’t even have the hulls to do that effectively—as I understand it, they are only blockading the route the provocateurs used to enter the Nebula and hoping they can intercept if the Infinite leave along an unexpected vector.

“But there is a section of the Nebula that is in Wendira territory, where the Laians would hesitate to send ships even if they did detect the hyperspace anomaly of the Infinite.”

He shrugged.

“The Laians have already drawn down their forces here. I suggest that Princess Oxtashah does the same and sends the ships in question to block the other exits from the Nebula.

“You do not need to ally with the Republic to secure your own borders against the threat we have found. We are all best served if the Infinite remain trapped in the Astoroko.”

And if the Infinite left the nebula into Wendira space, Princess Oxtashah would quickly be the one begging for Laian help. Unless, of course, the Infinite were far less of a threat than anyone anticipated.

“That…is a reasonable suggestion,” Oxtashah said slowly. “I will consult with the Commandants. I make no promises. I am a diplomat. I do not command the Dead Zone Fleet. But I believe we can spare a few carriers to secure our own borders.”

“We will all benefit, I think,” Tan!Shallegh replied. “If you are prepared to share their patrol patterns with my people, I will commit to making certain we have all vectors covered without informing the Republic of their location.”

Rin suspected that Tidirok wanted to object to that plan—but it wasn’t