Re-Awakened :I Ascend as an SSS-Ranked Dragon Summoner Chapter 716: A Mass Genocide

The one in the center spoke first.

The translator in Diana’s ear caught most of it. Not all. The sixty percent vocabulary coverage Kelvin had warned her about meant that some of what came through was approximation, the device filling gaps with the closest available equivalent and flagging the uncertain parts with a tone she had learned to recognize.

What came through was clear enough.

"What threat do you speak of. And why do humans concern themselves with threats on our world."

Diana looked at the twelve Vel’ai surrounding her. At the weapons still pointed at her. At Shade behind her, fully visible now, the pale amber eyes moving across the room with the unhurried attention of something that had already decided the geometry of the space and what it would do in it, what chaos it would bring to it.

She thought about how to answer that.

’They don’t know,’ she realized. ’They genuinely don’t know what’s been living on their planet for two years.’

The realization landed with a specific feeling. Not relief exactly. Something more complicated than relief. If the Vel’ai didn’t know Kruel was here then Kruel hadn’t engaged them. Hadn’t made himself known to the planet’s population. Which meant he hadn’t met resistance. Which meant he hadn’t been pushed.

’Harbingers evolve under pressure,’ she thought. ’That’s the mechanism. Near death, extreme situations, something in their biology that responds to being pushed to the edge and comes back from it different. Kruel went from three horn to four horn on Sirius Prime because Storm almost killed him. Almost. And almost was enough to trigger the next stage.’

’If he’s been on this planet for two years without the Vel’ai even knowing he exists, without any resistance, without anything pushing him...’

’He hasn’t evolved. He couldn’t have. There was nothing to evolve from.’

She almost said it out loud. Stopped herself.

’That’s the first good news we’ve had since Calder told us what Le’anna was.’

She looked at the center Vel’ai. At the single large eye, the iris catching the room’s light. "There is a being on your planet," she said carefully, watching the translator device on her wrist process and broadcast. "It has been here for two years. It’s not one of your people. It arrived from outside your system."

The translator rendered it.

The council exchanged looks. Not the look of people receiving new information. Something else.

"We know of the presence," the center one said.

Diana kept her face still. "You know."

"It does not interfere with our people," the center one said. "It exists in the southern territories. We have observed it. We have chosen not to engage it." The eye directed at her steadily. "The same choice we have made regarding your kind. You arrive on our world without permission or announcement. You move through our city in the dark. You enter this building uninvited." The weapons hadn’t moved. "Tell me. What is the difference between you and the thing in the south."

’There it is,’ Diana thought. ’The Conclave position. Humans and Harbingers, same category, same threat assessment. They’ve had two years to watch something sit in their southern territories and not touch them and they’ve concluded that non-interference is the safe position.’

"The difference," Diana said, "is that I’m talking to you."

"And if we prefer you didn’t," the center one said.

The weapons came up slightly. A collective shift in posture across all twelve of them, the tripedal bodies redistributing weight in a way she was reading as preparation for something.

Behind her, Shade’s chest began to glow.

She felt the heat of it against her back. The corroding burst building in his throat, the acid compound warming, the pressure of it mounting. He wasn’t going to wait much longer.

"Shade," she said quietly. "Hold."

The glow dimmed slightly. But didn’t go out.

The center Vel’ai looked at Shade. At the glow. At Diana.

"You have thirty seconds," the center one said, "to explain why we should not remove you from this building."

Diana looked at them.

Looked at the weapons.

Looked at the twelve beings who had spent two years deciding that the thing living in their southern territories wasn’t worth engaging with and had arrived at a functional peace with that decision.

And something in her snapped.

Not dramatically. Not loudly. Just the internal sound of a person who had been patient for as long as patience was useful and had reached the end of it.

"Fuck this," Diana said.

She stepped forward.

The weapons tracked her. She kept walking. Right up to the center Vel’ai until she was close enough that the weapon pointed at her was a problem for both of them if it went off. The Vel’ai didn’t move back. She hadn’t expected it to.

"You want to know what that thing in your south is?" Diana said. Her voice was level but her teeth were together on the last word. "It’s called a Harbinger. But I’m guessing since you belong to the same school of thought as the conclave, you probably figured that one out. What you may not deem significant however is that, he’s a Four horn," Diana said still gritting her teeth.

"You probably saw the horns when you observed it and decided it was some kind of local fauna. It is not local fauna." She held the eye contact. "It is the thing that killed two million people on my planet in seventeen hours. With our full military deployed against it. With every awakened soldier my species could put in the field. Two million people in seventeen hours and it walked away."

The translator was working. She could see it landing.

"It has been on your planet for two years," she continued. "In your southern territories. Not interfering with your people because it doesn’t need to yet. Because it came here for something in your planet’s bed and it has been taking its time with that and you and your four hundred million people have been living your lives completely unaware that the most dangerous thing in this sector of the galaxy has been your neighbor for two years."

The room was quiet.

"We have a fleet in orbit," Diana said. "With enough firepower to end the Harbinger problem on your world from altitude." She paused. "We could do that right now. Call it in, hit the southern territories, and be done with it."

She let that sit.

She didn’t say what hitting the southern territories from orbit would do to everything surrounding the southern territories. She didn’t say that Aurelius hadn’t sanctioned anything remotely like that and she had no idea if he would. She didn’t say that the whole reason they were standing in this room at this hour on this planet was specifically to avoid doing exactly what she was describing.

She let the Vel’ai fill those gaps themselves.

"Or," she said, and her teeth came together on the word, "you help us do this properly. You get your people to safety before the fight starts. You let us coordinate a real operation instead of something that solves one problem and creates seventeen others." She held the eye contact. "We are doing this. We are doing it in the next thirty hours. You choose what role your people play in it."

Then a purple light folded in on itself in the corner of the room and Noah stepped through it and looked at the scene in front of him. Twelve Vel’ai with weapons. Diana in the center of the circle. Shade with a glow in his chest that had not fully gone out.

Noah stepped through the portal and read the room in two seconds.

’She told them we’d hit the planet from orbit,’ he thought.

He looked at Diana’s face. At the jaw. At the expression of someone who had made a call and was standing behind it.

’The fleet can do it,’ he thought. ’That part is true. The Eternal Pyre’s weapons systems are fifty years of Ares engineering. If Aurelius gave the order the southern territories would cease to exist within the hour.’ He looked at the twelve Vel’ai with their weapons lowered and their single eyes moving between Diana and Shade and himself. ’What she didn’t tell them is that the southern territories share a planet with four hundred million people and orbital bombardment at that scale doesn’t ask questions about who’s standing where. And she didn’t tell them that Aurelius hasn’t made that call. That nobody has made that call. That we came here specifically because we didn’t want to make that call.’

’But they don’t know where Aurelius’s line is.’

’And right now that uncertainty is the only thing keeping this room from becoming something we can’t recover from.’

He looked at Diana.

She looked back at him with the expression of someone who knew exactly what she had done and was waiting to see if it held.

’It held,’ he thought. ’For now it held.’

’She made a call. It cost us something. It was probably still the right call.’

He looked at the center Vel’ai.

The center Vel’ai looked back at him.

Then at Diana.

Then at Shade, who was still glowing.

"Your companion," the center one said, to Diana. "It will stand down."

"When your people lower their weapons," Diana said.

A pause that lasted four seconds and contained a significant amount of unspoken communication between twelve beings who had governing authority and were making a collective decision in real time.

The weapons lowered.

"Shade," Diana said.

The glow went out.

Noah exhaled slowly through his nose. ’Good,’ he thought. ’We’re still in this.’

The center Vel’ai moved back to the configuration they had been in before Diana walked into the room. The others followed. The arrangement that meant council rather than confrontation.

"The thing in the south," the center one said. "You say it killed two million of your kind."

"In seventeen hours," Diana said. "Yes."

"And you came here to fight it."

"We came here to stop it," Noah said. "There’s a difference."

The center one looked at him. "You are the leader."

"Yes," Noah said.

"Your companion speaks for you."

"Always," Noah said.

The center one was quiet for a moment. The eye moved between them. "You say four hundred million of our people are at risk."

"If the Harbinger decides to engage your population," Diana said, "yes. Based on what it did on our planet with our defenses active, your population has no viable response."

"Our defenses are considerable," another council member said, from the left of the configuration. The translator flagged the tone as something between offended and uncertain.

"I’m sure they are," Diana said. "Against things you’ve encountered before." She looked at them. "You haven’t encountered this before."

The council communicated between themselves. Not loudly. The physical component of their language doing most of the work, the tripedal bodies shifting, the eyes moving, something passing between twelve beings who had been making collective decisions together for long enough that the process was abbreviated and efficient.

Noah watched the council communicate between themselves and thought about what Diana had told them.

’She threatened orbital bombardment,’ he thought. ’And the Eternal Pyre can deliver it. That’s not the question. Aurelius has weapons systems on that fleet that have been refined over fifty years of deep space travel and the Ares family didn’t survive out here by being underprepared.’ He looked at the twelve Vel’ai working through their collective decision. ’The question is whether Aurelius sanctions hitting a populated planet to kill one Harbinger. Whether he draws that line. Whether any of us draw that line.’ He thought about four hundred million people going about their morning somewhere beyond the walls of this building. ’Diana didn’t tell them that part. She told them we have the capability and let them assume the rest.’

’And the Vel’ai are part of the Conclave. Or adjacent to it. Which means the moment they send word that a human fleet is in their system we have a twelve hour window before Conclave response forces arrive in our rear.’

’Diana just told them we’d bomb their planet if they didn’t cooperate.’

’That is either the thing that saves this operation or the thing that ends it in the next sixty seconds.’

He kept his face still and waited to find out which one.

The center Vel’ai looked at Noah.

"If we agree to cooperate," the center one said. "How do you intend to move our people to safety. Our population is spread across seventeen colonies on this world. The work of coordinating that movement across seventeen separate governing bodies would take weeks under normal circumstances."

"It won’t take weeks," Noah said.

"You have a faster method of communication than we do?"

"I have a faster method of movement than you do," Noah said.

The council looked at each other.

"My people are already on your world," Noah said. "Right now. As we’re speaking. They’ve been inserting across your planet’s surface for the last several hours." He watched their faces receive that. "Every major population center has Eclipse and task force personnel either in position or moving into position. When you send a transmission to your colonies telling them to cooperate with the evacuation, my people will already be there to facilitate it."

The silence that followed had a different quality from the previous silences. This one was the silence of people recalibrating their understanding of what had already happened without their knowledge.

"You are already here," the center one said slowly. "Across our world."

"Yes," Noah said.

"Without our permission."

"Yes," Noah said. "I know. I’m telling you now."

Another exchange between the twelve. Longer this time. The physical language more pronounced, the bodies moving in ways she was starting to read as disagreement being worked through rather than agreement being confirmed.

Then the center one looked at Noah.

"You said you would move our people to safety," it said. "Where."

"My domain," Noah said. "It’s a space I control. Large enough. Safe. Your people go in, the fight happens, your people come back out after."

"You want to put four hundred million of our people inside something you control," the center one said.

"Yes," Noah said.

"That requires a level of trust we have not established."

"I know," Noah said. "Which is why you’ll send your transmission to your colonies first. Your leaders tell your people to cooperate. My people on the ground facilitate the movement. You watch the whole thing happen and you can stop it at any point if you decide you don’t trust me." He looked at the center one. "I’m not asking you to hand me your civilization. I’m asking you to let me borrow it for a few days while I deal with something that will end it if I don’t."

The center one looked at him for a long time.

’This is the moment,’ Noah thought. ’Either they say yes or they say no and if they say no we go to the bombardment option which we can’t fully execute and the whole plan restructures around a much harder problem.’

’Four hundred million people,’ he thought. ’Mrs Harper would have said something useful right now. She always knew what to say when the thing you needed someone to say wasn’t obvious.’

’She’d probably say stop thinking and listen to what they actually need to hear.’

He looked at the center Vel’ai. At the single large eye. At the being that had been governing its people through two years of having something terrible living in its southern territories and had been making decisions about that every day without enough information to make good ones.

"You’ve been trying to solve this on your own," Noah said. "For two years. You observed it. You made the non-interference call. You’ve been hoping it would leave or that it would stay contained or that something would change." He looked at the council. "Nothing changed. Which is why when a room full of humans showed up uninvited you didn’t immediately throw us out. Because you’ve been waiting for something to change and you know it."

The room was very still.

"Let this be what changes," Noah said.

The center Vel’ai looked at the rest of the council. Back at Noah. At Diana. At Shade standing quietly in the corner with those amber eyes moving across everything and registering all of it.

"What happens," the center one said, "after the evacuation."

Noah looked at it.

"War," he said.