The Martial Unity

When Divine Mother ooo—o- opened the envelope to read the letter, she found herself reading a letter written in the common language of human civilization.

”Of. Course,” she clicked with irritation. ”They. Wouldn’t. Know. Our. Language.”

She fed the contents of the letter to the web intelligence of her home, running it through a translation program that they had formed for understanding common language. Even though it had only been days since they started observing human civilization, they had already deciphered the prominent languages used by the civilization.

A civilization of the scale of the Arakai Web Civilization had more than resources and information to accomplish a task as simple as decoding a language in a very short amount of time, especially when they had access to a wealth of information gathered from surveillance and espionage. Not to mention, they also had the information that -o- and —oo-oo— had sent to them before they had been ambushed.

The moment the letter was translated, she immediately dug into it.

[Esteemed Divine Mother ooo—o-,

I write to you as the Emperor of the Kandrian Empire and as the Chancellor of the Gaian Alliance in order to seek an opportunity to speak directly with you about the possibility of setting up a mutually beneficial transaction and relationship.]

She wasn’t even remotely surprised in the first place by that offer. This was not the first time she had colluded with outsiders to help her get closer to her goals. There had been numerous times in the past where the arakai would find some new small, but advanced alien civilization, which would eventually learn about the pluralist faction and assume that they would immediately sell out their own civilization.

Most of the time, they were deluded. While Divine Mother ooo—o- did indeed seek to have a pluralist civilization. And she had colluded with aliens to effect that goal, she had never done so if it didn’t bring a net positive to her civilization.

The only thing that surprised her was how the humans had managed to find out about the internal factional dynamics of the Arakai Web Civilization this quickly. Even if it had been three months since they killed Divine Mother o-o-o-o, a civilization that small couldn’t have possibly tracked the arakai civilization’s core territory that quickly. And they couldn’t have possibly gathered such information that quickly.

Perhaps they had managed to gather information from whatever ruins of the spaceships that the investigation team had taken to the Strehegeld Star System, but either way, they knew more about the arakai than she had given them credit for. She put the matter aside before continuing to read the letter.

[I believe that neither of us wants this war, and I believe that those who do are a common opponent to us, and I believe that there’s something we can do about that if we work together. What I have in mind will help you undercut your political opponents and potentially help you end all the wars that your civilization is drowning in.]

He had also laid out the time range in relation to the motion of the stars of the Milky Way and the place for the meeting. Clearly, whatever he had in mind was something that he wasn’t willing to communicate to her indirectly. That likely meant that it wasn’t a small arrangement, and it wasn’t something that was without risk for the humans.

She destroyed the letter before falling into thought with a mixed expression. On the one hand, humans were amazing, and she believed that her civilization would have something to gain by bringing them in as a part of the web of civilization. On the other hand, the humans had killed three Divine Mothers, and that was hard to overlook, even for the leader of the Pluralist Faction.

It would depend entirely on what he had to offer. She only hoped that it would be worth her time. Otherwise, it was very likely that human civilization would be eradicated.

Another part of her was concerned that the Emperor of Water was trying to ambush her. The method of communication that he had proposed was one that could potentially be a ploy to ambush her directly. After all, he had managed to ambush three other Divine Mothers and had successfully eliminated them.

Although she thought it was unlikely that he truly wanted to eliminate her, she couldn’t afford to take chances, so she intended to be airtight.

*****

Rui floated in the vacuum of empty space as he admired the star and the black hole of the Strehegeld Star System. His hair hovered weightlessly, while his exosuit didn’t float the frame of his body the way normal clothes did in outer space.

’It feels so weird to wear one of these. I wonder how Martial Artists get comfortable in these,’ he couldn’t help but think to himself.

He had set up the Strehegeld Star System as the venue for the meeting. Although it was risky to come back to a place where he had ambushed two Divine Mothers, the cleanup and the investigations from the arakai had been extremely swift this time. The star system had already been scrubbed clean.

Though that was partly why he had chosen the spot. Because he knew the Divine Mother would be paranoid about contacting him if it made her vulnerable, in case he set up an ambush. If the arakai had already swept the star system clean very recently, then it would be too difficult for him to set up an ambush immediately after without the difference being noticed.

Of course, there was also the possibility that he would get ambushed, but that was a possibility he was quite prepared for.

RUMBLE

He turned in one direction as he sensed ripples through space and time. In the distance, a small wormhole opened up, letting out a frigate that entered the Strehegeld Star System. Rui smiled when he recognized the arakaian web architecture. The fact that it was a small frigate and not an army was something he was grateful.

It meant that the Divine Mother had come to meet him.