The hivemind is conquering for me?

Planet Hecury (Contested world)

Fighting had ceased between the Coalition and Spartari forces as their leaders both descended onto the planet, neither with guards, to a location on no man’s land.

When Sigismund arrived, feeling an utter fool outside of his war gear, The lady Seer was already waiting for him. A table and chair made of pure white marble, a focal point in this destroyed environment, was waiting for him and sat at another chair was the disgusting alien responsible for so much death and destruction for as long as there were records on Spartari.

Aeletha.

Sigismund took a deep breath, the unique concoction of stimulants and downers in his system after hastily confiding in Jocasta was keeping him in a rational state. Though the thought of just grabbing the Proto Starforged and squeezing until there was nothing but mush remaining did enter his mind a few times as he approached.

Though he was still cautious despite these thoughts. The female before him. The reports were not lying. Had the capability of ascending to godhood. That thought troubled him greatly as he knew he was strong when he raged out, but he had never fought a god before. Until he knew he could kill one, he had to stay on alert.

As that thought entered his mind, the blind Seer turned and looked in his direction. A smile on her lips. She then stood up and spoke in Spartari dialect. ”King Sigismund, welcome. Thank you for coming to meet with me in this horrid place. I also thank you for not wielding your sword, but a datapad and notebooks. It shows your honour as a king.”

”Do not speak to me of honour, alien. Your kind has none to spare.” Sigismund snarled, his hair becoming dishevelled already.

”Oh really?” Aeletha asked, amused. ”Forgive my memory, I am very old after all, which side recently ended our multi-decade peace? Killing their own kind via decimation in the process? I know well enough that it was not the Coalition. So who?”

Sigismund’s left hand balled into a fist. The alien’s tongue was quick. Annoyingly so. Sigismund then covered the rest of the ground quickly and took his seat before the Seer. ”Let’s just get this peace talk over with.” He grumbled before setting out his documents and pulling out some reading glasses.

Aeletha smiled seeing that before also taking her seat when I thought came to her. ”You know? The last time we had peace talks was with your predecessor, Lysander.”

Sigismund looked up from what he was doing at the mention of Lysander.

Aeltha then continued. ”Yes, I hadn’t seen him for a few decades before our last talk. He had aged considerably. We joked about him being weary of war quite ironically considering his position in your empire. He was a good man... I bring this up in hopes of memory bringing about another decent, honest peace between us as we no longer have just one common enemy, but two.”

Sigismund could say a lot of bad things about a lot of good people, but not Lysander. The man was a hero. So he simply got into the thing he dreaded most about his job. Politics

”We keep the worlds we have liberated from your tyrannical control, this one included, and you pull back two star systems worth of distance as the new buffer zone. Do we have peace?”

Aeletha sighed, ready for a headache. ”No, that is not an option, Sigismund.”

”Then these talks are over.” Sigismund declared, standing up.

Aeletha sat back and smiled. ”Fine, but you are now being attacked on all sides. I will begrudgingly admit, your species holds its own in war as it does now, but we both know with another front you will be drawn too thin.

Think about what happens then? We don’t just return to the previous borders, you begin to shrink. The hunger, sorry, the Swarm have reappeared in numbers greater than we have ever seen. I am in no doubt you have heard what happened on bastion? They beat us and had the opportunity to continue their assault on nearby worlds, but they pulled back. Something they had never done prior.

We had billions of soldiers on that planet, not civilians. Soldiers. And we lost. Now imagine your eastern front. With numbers even greater than we had to deal with. Your Civilians. You are looking at losses so abhorrent King Sigismund... Think of your people and be reasonable.

Not to mention the new wave of forces from the Drakoshi. We both know how tedious they are. We both agree that aliens, and I mean extra galactic in this stance, have to go. They threaten our way of life. So please, ruler to ruler. Sit back down and let us draw up a peace.”

Sigismund looked at the alien, his thoughts his own for a moment before sighing. He then sat back down and opened his documents.

”Fine, how about all except this world? I consider that fair.”

Aeletha pinched her glabella and rubbed tightly.

’This is going to be tedious.

...

Sixteen hours later

Aeletha had miraculously convinced the mongrel to pull back a great distance. He would keep 30% of the territory gained and a notarised nonaggression pact of five years was signed, which if he broke, by Spartari laws he was honourbound to abdicate his throne.

However, she didn’t care about that. Peace was good, naturally, but the next part was the icing on the cake. ”Now, If I bring your attention back to subsection 301- headline diplomatic party. We need to set up the formerly abolished position of the Coalition diplomat.”

Sigismund sighed as he pulled out a syringe before administering it to his neck. ”I am not having my nobles wander into your territory. They won’t do it, too much bad blood. And I wouldn’t be able to cut a deal fairly if an incident occurred.

Aeletha nodded along, humming in agreement. ”That is true. Most nobles wouldn’t do that, plus you would need to hire someone of Archon status. Someone loyal to Spartari. That has holdings so you know defection is out of the question.”

Sigismund nodded at that, the first thing the two of them agreed on in hours.

Aeletha then suppressed a smirk. It was all coming together. ”Then how about we go a rank higher? Sentinel.”

Sigismund raised an eyebrow hearing that. ”A sentinel? It might be a higher position, but it’s not the next step above. Sentinels are rare, Seer. It’s not guaranteed one would agree to this. They have autonomy to do what they think is for the betterment of the empire for a reason. I suppose I can have a chat with Dickon for him to appoint a new Sentinel just for this job? Would that be adequate enough?”

Aeletha shook her head. ”No, that won’t suffice, that being said. Through my contacts I have found out that a new sentinel position was just issued. I don’t mind fresh meat, but not what you suggested.”

Sigismund ignored the hole in the information network again, he was going to have serious words with Dickon about it when he got back after this with all the shit he had heard from this alien’s mouth...

He then began to search his datapad for internal knowledge on sentinels. All the names in order from longest running. Thirty thousand years, to the newest. The moment he saw who it was he looked up and declared.

”Absolutely not! Lambdason is a Psionic asset who has already entered your space to aid you before. Though we know it was not at your behest. Besides, from our intel on the man, he would despise being put in this sort of role. He is a very laid back person.”

Aeletha then leaned forward. ”Precisely. But he is also a war hero. Not just on your side, besting my own troops at Decima, but also my side at Bastion. Though I doubt he meant it, the man saved my and many others that day. So in the spotlight it won’t be him front lining the diplomacy, it will be the hero of bastion. Think of the PR you can spin on your side if questions ever arise.”

Sigismund leaned forward in thought, murmuring. ”If the public gets wind of the diplomatic position, we have a war hero that ’had’ to go and help your weak forces from a greater threat because he hates them more than he does you and sees you as expendable resources... Yes I can work with that, the public will eat that right up...”

He then frowned upon a different problem. ”But with that said, there are still two problems. First, I have no jurisdiction over Archon Apollo. He’s a good lad from the short time I have spent with him, but he is Psionic. And in training at the College of Psionics. Not even I have permission to rip someone out of there and even if I did, I wouldn’t do it to him. Second, he would have to agree wholeheartedly. I will not force this position onto anyone. I would tell him everything he needed to know about the position and the Coalition beforehand.”

Aeletha nodded her head stoically. ”Very well.” But inside she was utterly delighted at the turn of events.

Archon, no, Sentinel Apollo was now coming to her. She could try and find the pattern. Find the mystery. More Chapters of her tale with the handsome human were just waiting to be unlocked...