Genrenauts: Season One

by Michael R. Underwood

  “How do we find it once we’re in the rings?” Roman asked.

  The man tapped his wrist screen. “The coordinates. But you keep me out of this, you hear? I don’t want any of this getting back to the Stars. You’re right, I got out for safety, for me and Fela. And I expect that finder’s fee in our account the minute you get the stuck-up noble back.

  “Your arrangements will be there by 1800. Now get out of here before I regret this and decide to piss in your flowers.”

  “Thank you, Zoor,” Roman said. “It’s not exaggerating to say that you may have saved the galaxy from war.”

  Zoor’s tone changed. It was softer, uncertain. “Where do you come from?”

  “The hell next door. Same shit, different quadrant.”

  “So what’s it like. To really leave it all behind?”

  “When I find out, I’ll let you know.” They walked out, and once they’d turned the corner, Roman leaned against the wall, took a moment.

  King raised a hand, set it gently on Roman’s shoulder. “Are you okay?” Pull it together, he told himself. We’re not done here.

  Roman stood. “I’m fine. Wasn’t sure how that one would go.”

  King squeezed Roman’s shoulder. “You did good. We’re on the right track.”

  “Get Shirin on the line. We’re going to need to call in some favors to get a ship. With guns. And a cloaking field.”

  * * *

  Shirin woke Leah at 0505 the next day, already decked out in her diplomatic robes, a mug of coffee wafting liquid wakefulness as she walked into the newbie’s room. Shirin had been up since 0430.

  One advantage of aging was she found she could get by on less and less sleep, especially if it

  was undisturbed by children jumping on her bed or the cat deciding that 3 a.m. was the time to flip out and run laps in the bedroom hall.

  “Is privacy not a thing on Ahura-3?” Leah croaked as she emerged from her room.

  “Not when the new kid on the block is late for her first day of diplomatic duty. Shower’s all yours, we need to be out of here and over to Laran’s offices at 0530.”

  “Give me that coffee and we’re square,” Leah said, shaky hand pointing at the mug.

  “It’s yours if you can get to the kitchen.” Shirin turned and left the room.

  Leah hopped to, padding into the kitchen fully dressed at 0523 as Shirin watched the clock, rewarding the newbie with the first pour from the fresh pot.

  The pair made the short walk from their apartments to Laran’s residence one level down, finding a small mob of robed and fineried aliens waiting in the hallway, talking among themselves in a dozen languages, gesturing with mandibles, multiplicitous arms, and so on. The mood was nervous, a bit impatient, but not panicked. The morning news feeds showed rumors of the ambassador’s health taking a turn for the worse, but the update from Do-Ethar dispelled those with Ethkar flair:

  “Rumors of the ambassador’s health fading are but the contrails of cowards adrift without her guiding hand.”

  Shirin waved her wrist-screen at the door. They moved past the sound of several complaints and into Do-Ethar’s quarters.

  In the foyer, standing arms crossed in front of her, today’s robes in red and yellow, stood the ambassador.

  “One minute early, as usual. Bright morning. May the light of truth guide us, and the wings of triumph lift us up so that we might pierce the guard of doubt and dissent to achieve unity.”

  Leah leaned over to Shirin, “She’s like a Lao Tzu MBA course.”

  Shirin held back the laugh that was building at the back of her throat. Even half-awake, the girl had a tongue on her. But it would be up to her to make sure the girl’s tongue didn’t get them spaced or tank the Alliance. This world had such a gigantic learning curve, with dozens of cultures and histories, alien technologies, and more. Shirin had gotten three months to study up on the world before she’d had to go on her first mission here. But a lot had changed in the Genrenauts’ world, and they had to play the hand they were dealt.

  Or find a way to sneak the ace out of their sleeve.

  “Good day, honored friend,” Shirin said. “We are at your disposal. How may we help?”

  The ambassador wasted no time putting them to work. There were fifty appointments scheduled for the day, and Laran could attend to twenty-four at most.

  Shirin and the Ethkar divided the appointments. Which meant that Shirin and Leah were assigned to the guest room and given half of the queue, told to stall and dissemble, but most of all, to not let anyone leave angry.

  Their first appointment was a Yai merchant representative, the agent for a conglomerate that stood to make a great deal of money if the Alliance went through.

  Shirin wore her diplomacy face, placating but firm. “I assure you, Lord Reeve, the ambassador will be well in time to conclude negotiations and preside over the signing. In the meantime, pulling your contract would be disastrous for all involved. Merely the time rewriting contracts would cost your guild hundreds of thousands of credits.”

  The Reeve moved her hands, weaving wrists and fingers through the air like a dance, then speaking, as if she’d thought the matter through with movement, then responded.

  “But I have hundreds of ships across the system ready to begin trade, and without an alliance in place, I cannot guarantee their safety. With that many ships exposed, my pilots will revolt!”

  “What routes will they be taking where they did not already have protections and agreements in place?” Shirin asked.

  The Yai’s hands waved back and forth, then oscillated up and down like a conductor.

  “I … I don’t have that information in front of me. But this is an unprecedented commitment from my guild, and one that cannot be made on faith alone!”

  “But any alliance is about faith, is it not?” Shirin asked. “If I recall my Endera-Na, it says, ‘Two hands clasped fear not daggers, though they can see the hilts.’”

  “Well put, Ms. Shirin. But while faith may shield against doubt, it does precious little against lasercannon fire.”

  “The ambassador is receiving the best care the station can afford. Give her forty-eight hours. By your accounts, most of the shipments will not be ready to load out until then, anyway.”

  The Yai thought a bit more, wringing her hands, then nodded. “So it will be. Please pass on my best wishes to the ambassador for her recovery.

  “But of course. Thank you for your time, Honored Reeve.”

  The Yai stood, and the women traded bows, Shirin’s a shade deeper.

  Once the woman was out of the room, Shirin slumped back in her chair. “One down, twenty-five to go. Who’s up next?”

  “Ugn Fa, assistant to the Nbere ambassador. It looks like he’s complaining that his boss is being seated next to the Gaan. He says they stink.”

  “This one will at least be easy.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “I don’t give a crap about this complaint. He just wants to be heard.” “Got it,” Leah said, heading to the door to let the Nbere in.

  Chapter Six: Rescue Op

  It had taken five hours, three calls, and a generous transfer of cash, but by 1600, Roman and King were strapping in to a Fader-7 HX with an after-market pulse cannon and a thoroughly illegal Ethkar cloaking system.

  Commander Bugayeva pulled rank and got them jumped ahead in the flight schedule, cleared for departure at 1610.

  Roman loaded the coordinates they’d gotten from Zoor, setting the computer’s Navigation system to the task of plotting a course that would bring them to the hideout with minimal exposure and maximum speed.

  “How certain of this lead are you?” King asked as they squared the gear away.

  “It fits the region’s tale types, and presents a good, rounded story—we go and fight on the rescue op while Shirin and Leah cover. This type of world pulls on me differently than n the rest of you.

  We’ll each have a couple of twists along the way, but my gut tells me we’re o
n the right path.” King nodded. “Then we’re on the right path. Are we forgetting anything?”

  Roman tapped a few more controls, then left the pilot’s seat to grab one more crate from the docking area, dragging it inside.

  “Almost. This here’s our doorknocker.” Roman patted the crate. Gently.

  “That’s not what I think it is,” King said.

  “Unless you outright say what you think it is, we have plausible deniability. You can call me reckless once we’ve gotten in and secured the ambassador.”

  “I’ll call you reckless any damn time I want to. But if it works, it works.”

  “It’ll work,” Roman said. “I’ve had to lean into the Action Hero archetype, so let’s use it. Keep me from going overboard, and let’s sew this up quick.”

  King pinched the bridge of his nose, clearly not comfortable with the risks Roman was suggesting they take. “Finish up the start sequence. Let’s get this disaster on the road.”

  * * *

  Ten hours in, Leah wanted to throttle someone. Many someones. Gray people, green people, brainsin-jars people, and four-armed contrarian people.

  Every meeting, Leah had to digest another lump of background information, political history, cultural context, species dimorphism, and beyond.

  Possibly worse than the information overload were the dinners. So. Many. Dinners.

  At 1500, they’d moved from Laran’s apartment to a nearby restaurant, where they’d taken five back-to-back dinner meetings, each running around 45 minutes.

  “Sharing a meal is a powerful social adhesive, not just for humans,” Shirin had said when their partners for dinner number three walked into the restaurant.

  Now, hustling to another restaurant for dinner number six, Leah’s stomach sloshed like she was an overfull water cooler. Thankfully, one of the dinners had been nothing but tea (Nai), and another — the one with the Xenei guildmaster — just involved little fish being dumped into the guildmaster’s fishbowl, whereupon the brain opened up a fleshy maw and gobbled the fish up.

  Leah’d excused herself to the restroom, but managed to keep her three dinners down.

  Tolerance, Leah, she told herself. Chances were, the Xenei would think human eating was just as disgusting.

  “Can I just have water at the next one?” Leah asked, as plaintive as she could manage while keeping her food down.

  “Of course not,” Shirin said. “This next meeting is with a Gaan prelate, and he notices everything.”

  “Can we at least explain that this is our sixth dinner, and that when I say I really couldn’t have another appetizer, it’s not politeness, but physiological reality?”

  “No.”

  “Also, how are you keeping up without hurling? Aren’t metabolisms supposed to slow down when you get older?”

  Leah was a half step behind Shirin, but she could see the older woman’s smile move her hair. “I didn’t eat anything for breakfast.”

  “You told me I needed to get my strength!”

  Shirin turned the corner and stopped. “Yes, and you did. I’ve learned to portion out my strength. Plus, I dealt with this a lot growing up. You should see the dinner parties I went to as a teen. Five hours, twelve courses, and pots of tea so caffeinated you could practically see through time.”

  Leah caught up to Shirin and saw the new restaurant, which looked like a wallow. Actually, it was a wallow. A wallow with flattened stone disks beside muddy pools, Gaan servers carrying platters on their noses.

  “Really?” Leah asked.

  “Hey, at least here we get to recline. It’ll be good for your digestion.”

  “But the mud! And none of that looks like food?”

  “Keep your voice down. We don’t want to offend. The prelate is there, third from the left. And don’t comment on his size.”

  When in Rome, Leah recited to herself, putting on her polite smile as she followed Shirin through the less-muddy parts of the artificial wallow, making their way to the prelate, already on his side, covered in mud.

  “Prelate!” Shirin said, throwing her arms open wide. “It’s been too long.”

  The prelate snorted in response, trunk rising and waving in a more-than-passable imitation of a diplomatic wave.

  It’s just another improv sketch, she told herself, trying to stay cool as she sat down (in mud) to converse at length with a talking, nude, and self-bathing elephant-lizard-person.

  Like you do.

  * * *

  The artificial floor only looked muddy. So while she was still lying prone beside a mud pit, the prelate half in the pit and still bathing himself, she was not herself asked to bathe herself or sit in dampness.

  Luckily, Shirin was even more at home, charging ahead conversationally.

  “But Prelate, certainly you can’t be thinking of rescinding your endorsement. You and I both know what happened to the last prelate who stepped back on a treaty.”

  The prelate lifted a strip of barely cooked meat with his trunk and dropped it into his mouth. He spoke while chewing (which her wrist-screen said was a mark of trust and respect and should not be met with grimaces, despite teeth).

  “Prelate Mevk’s failures are his own, his time is his own. The broken promise here is Reed’s, not mine. I will support a healthy alliance, but the Terran has let a simple illness waylay her from this historic agreement. How are we to partner with a people so delicate? How can I entrust Gaan lives with such fragile Terrans ?”

  The Gaan were very proud of their toughness, they valorized it. Her dossier included a halfdozen Gaan sagas and when she’d glossed over the summaries, it seemed like they were all about persevering, stoicism, and the like.

  She jumped in, tired of holding her tongue. “But doesn’t that mean that Terrans know all too well the value of life? We live on a razor’s edge, and so we empathize, we come together and gather friends so that if we fall, someone is there to pick us up. And we don’t forget those that help us.”

  The Gaan snorted a huffing exhale. Leah couldn’t tell if it was dismissive or something else.

  “Well said, child.”

  Shirin jumped right in and took the conversational reins.

  “Terrans’ mortality is one of the major reasons we build alliances. We seek out those who complement our skills. We have many trade hubs, but a marketplace without goods is a crossroads without carts.”

  The Gaan chuffed again. Which meant he was still angry, or these were positive expressions.

  “Of course, but surely you know this illness is just a cover for the ambassador’s kidnapping. An illness is one thing, but if the crown jewel of the Terran’s trade hubs is not secure, how am I to entrust my people to you?”

  Boom goes the dynamite.

  Leah snuck a look to Shirin, and that bomb shook even her still-as-deep-waters poker face.

  There was no way they could have kept it all under wraps, but if the prelate knew, then word would be getting around. This wouldn’t be the last they’d hear about it. And things would deteriorate quickly.

  Leah wished she had enough room in her stomach for a drink.

  To her massive credit, Shirin recovered. “And isn’t it an indication of the potential of the

  Alliance that someone would go to the audacious lengths of kidnapping a Terran ambassador off a

  Terran station? That kind of boldness comes only from great fear.”

  This snort was clearly a dismissive one. “Or from great confidence. To know your target so weak that you can strike without reprisal.”

  “Without reprisal?” Shirin asked, waving a dismissive hand. “By initial reports, at least three of the attackers were killed in the attempt. And I have heard from Commander Bugayeva herself that she has her top agents hunting down the kidnappers even now. They will be brought to justice, and the Alliance sealed. When the story of this mighty Alliance is sung, do you wish to be the reluctant prelate without vision who was won over after his doubts, or the resolute leader of a proud people whose resolve never
wavered?”

  “Ever the optimist, Shirin. The galaxy could use more with your vision and your boundless hope. But my responsibilities are deep, and wading through them is far less comfortable than this fine wallow.”

  The prelate gestured to the pool around him with his trunk. “For now, I will stand by. The Xenei have said they will give the Terrans two days. That is enough time for your agents to retrieve the ambassador and show that they can protect their own people.”

  Two days to find the ambassador, get her out of the mercs’ hands, and back onto the base. Leah hadn’t gotten to the information about space travel yet, didn’t know how fast ships could really move if they needed to get somewhere yesterday. She tapped out a note on her wrist-screen, another question to ask later. Her list was up to thirty-eight such questions. She’d have to do triage since their schedule showed no signs of letting up.

  Shirin kept up niceties for a few minutes more, then the senior Genrenaut excused the pair and they departed, leaving the prelate to his luxurious wallow.

  “Now off to a dinner party. They’ll just have appetizers there, you’ll be safe.”

  “Thank God,” Leah said. “Two days? Is that viable? And what if the word gets out to everyone else? Will we be facing riots and shit?”

  “Two days will have to be enough time. It has to be. The mercs only had about an eighteen-hour lead on Roman and King, and our informant said that the hideout was only a twelve-hour burn away.

  The timing should line up.”

  “Which dinner party is this, again? There were like three.”

  “We start with the Xenei, then the shipwright’s guild, and then we round the day out at Laran’s small soiree for Alliance die-hards. At least we get to end the day with a friendly crowd.”

  “Remind me to pick up a stim habit before we come here next time. This is insane. My feet are going to fall off any minute.”

  “At least we’re not making you wear heels,” Shirin said.