So because I’m an idiot I was playing BL3 these past few days instead of wrapping up the “prologue”. Now, I was tempted to push all this and the next two chapters into the first one but bleh. I’d like to think I was being clever but odds are it’s not and it’s all shit and I’m shit and…
Let’s not be depressing. Now for the incredible attempt to make space bureaucracy seem interesting.
Chapter 2: First Contacts
The “heroes” that were here a second ago, now are not, seemingly vanished into thin air. The meeting hall was now down 31 people.
The people left were king Heron Fillaine V., a dozen guards with more on the way and of course, the cause of all this fuss, the United Worlds, Special Forces Squad 3 agent SaiSa LeLe.
“Rescue successful.” he said, not paying any attention to his dumbstruck audience “Now, mister Fillaine, I must question you. Please call your ministers and send the soldiers away. Failure to comply will result in retaliation. This is your last warning.”
Those words broke the king out of his stupor “Y-You demon… You’ve already doomed this world, what more suffering must we endure before your sadistic urges are satisfied? Answer me!”
The king’s words conveyed a sense of hopelessness. This hopelessness seemed to have infected the soldiers as well as their vigor died down. Almost like they’ve already given up.
“Please stop calling me a demon mister Fillaine.” comes the reply “I’ve already stated my name and position twice now. My duty here begins by with rescue and ends with interrogation, so top interrupting me, dismiss your soldiers and call your ministers already. We have a lot to cover and I’d rather not have to repeat myself.”
The king takes a moment to ponder before issuing an order to the royal guards.
“…Do as he says.”
The shock in their eyes was clear to see even through their helmet visors.
“B-but your majesty-”
“Don’t question me!” the king shots down a guard that spoke out of line “What more damage can he do to us at this point anyways?”
Albeit reluctantly, the royal guard scurried off to find the ministers. It didn’t take long. Most of them were on alert because they heard the commotion.
“Now that we’re all gathered we can begin.” SaiSa started. Gathered before him were all the bigwigs of the kingdom.
“I’ll begin with the facts. Your kingdom has kidnapped 31 human beings from an uncontacted planet. This is normally a capital offense, however, given that your planet is classified as uncontacted as well, you can, and I suggest you do, use the defense of ignorance. Should you decide to defend yourself in that way doesn’t matter so much as what happens next.”
The people present could barely follow the conversation.
“You possess and have used a way to travel between worlds. This means you are no longer classified as uncontacted. Your only option now is to join the United Worlds or be left to the cosmic wolves. But that’s not why I’m here.”
That last sentence carried a bit of an edge to it and the chief general’s short fuse seems to have burned out.
“Kidnapping!? Uncontacted!? United Worlds!? What are you talking about!? You took our last hope and now you’re spouting nonsense!”
“Listen.” SaiSa’s stern tone causes the general to shrink back a little. “I am only giving you the bare bones explanation because this is not my job. Once I’m done here you will be visited by United World ambassadors and I’m sure they will be more than happy to go over every single detail for you.”
SaiSa turns his attention to the king yet again.
“My job is questioning so let’s begin. For a start, who showed you how to make a summoning circle?”
Several of the kingdoms representatives tensed up and the hall fell silent for a while before the grand bishop decided to answer.
“How do you know about-”
But SaiSa cut him off.
“Nevermind how I know, I ask the questions here. Your technology is too primitive to make one on your own, so someone must’ve taught you. Who was it?”
The hall fell silent once again. This time several of the kingdoms finest were glaring at the bishop and he felt it, so he tried to save his skin.
“Why should I reveal all our secrets to you? Where is your proof you really are who you say?”
SaiSa sighed and touched his badge/eye patch again.
The well decorated hall quickly turned into a lobby of some sort. The walls looked to be transparent, overlaying with the walls of the hall like a projection. Dotting it’s walls were countless stars and it didn’t appear to have a roof. In the middle of the wall dead ahead of them was a huge emblem of a shooting star, exactly like one on SaiSa’s eye patch.
“Are you still going to be stubborn?” He asked in an irritable tone.
“What does this illusion show us? Nothing. You can’t pull the wool over our eyes.”
Yes. Seemed to have been their answer.
“Then how about this?”
SaiSa’s eye patch shone once again. This time the bishop recoiled and the sclera of his eye was colored like the night’s sky. Then he began emotionlessly speaking.
“It was the Goddess’ emissary. She showed told me a prophecy and taught me how to make the summoning circle. Once her mission was over she returned to our Goddess.”
SaiSa’s expression changed when he heard the word “prophecy”.
“What have you done to him? Pull yourself together Faletam!”
The king protested but SaiSa was having none of it.
“You shut up. The emissary and the prophecy. Tell me all about them. Word for word. Don’t skip any detail no matter how small.”
Quickly covering his confusion, the bishop went “She was beautiful. Eyes like deep blue lakes and long golden wavy hair.”
SaiSa had to fight the urge to roll his eyes as the bishop continued, his vigor returned even if only in a base form.
“She wore a thin, pristine white robe over her… Ehm, quite sensual body.”
His shame managed to override the emotional suppression, if only slightly.
“She appeared before me one day to say my prayers have been answered. That she would show me the way to save my race. After I wrote the circle under her instructions, she left in a beam of light that carried her towards the sky. As she ascended she told me the prophecy that went as such:”
One will answer the call
Two kings dancing on the palms of fate
Demons roots pulled
Will make the stars quake
“One will answer the call and yet you brought a group of 31?” SaiSa asked
“The Goddess works in mysterious ways.” the bishop meekly stated.
“Of course she does…” SaiSa dismissively responded. “When did this all happen?”
“Almost three months ago by now.”
SaiSa knew more about this Goddess than he let on. The God race is a frivolous race in the larger cosmos. While they’re definitively powerful on a planetary scale, going further they find themselves matched and outmatched by many other races, individuals and institutions. A gods favorite pastime seems to be to find a nice little uncontacted planet in the cosmic boonies and, well, play god.
There’s a whole legal process to obtaining permission for playing god on an uncontacted planet actually, yet most never bother with that. If they kept a low profile, chances are they wouldn’t get caught. Tracking crimes like that is fairly difficult after all.
Uma was one such planet except it’s Goddess seems to have abandoned it decades ago. Possibly because she got bored of it. Thing is, burdening the people present with this knowledge would cause more trouble than it’s worth for SaiSa and he would rather just let the ambassadors handle that.
All of those reasons made SaiSa highly suspicious of this Goddess’ emissary. From the bishops description, it seemed like it deliberately choose a form that conformed to the bishops view of the Goddess and it worked. Gullible fool swallowed it hook, line and sinker. He wasn’t even remotely suspicious of her.
Now the questions left are: Who, or more probably, what would do that and for what purpose?
“I see…” SaiSa finally spoke after a few moments of silence “I took the liberty of checking the summoning circle myself and with that, my questioning is over.”
This caused more of a commotion but it went ignored.
He said while walking towards the side wall of the hall.
“I will now leave you to our ambassadors. Thank you for your cooperation gentlemen.”
The moment he finished that sentence, a light shone from below his eye patch and the wall rearranged itself into a massive rectangular gate. Green lines reminiscent of computer circuitry spread out from it’s edges and instead of leading to the room next door, past it’s borders there was nothing but stars.
With a courteous bow to his recent interogatees, SaiSa was swallowed by the stars and in his place showed up a short woman with skin that glittered like rainbows and a robot that looked more like a stick man than an actual robot. Following them was an armed squad as a security detail.
“Well met. We’re the United Worlds ambassadorial delegation. I’m sure you have a lot of questions, so without delays, let’s begin.”
Did I pull off the worst prophecy delivery ever? Quite likely.
Kaelpie 