Humans are weird: New Carthage Fleet
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“I hate dealing with humans.”
Lemar suppressed a sigh but could not help but roll his eyes as once again the ambassador voiced his displeasure with their current situation.
Three rotations ago the High Council of Mimar dispatched their most prestigious ambassador, Dunal Vek, to conduct a series of trade negotiations with the various human domains scattered across the stars. They had at one time been united under a single banner, but had since torn themselves apart and formed pocket kingdoms of various sizes ranging from a single planet to twelve systems.
To further confound matters given the variety of cultures and societal differences between the different pocket empires they dispatched a second ambassador, mainly himself, to ensure each meeting could be handled from a variable of different avenues.
Lemar had jumped at the opportunity to get out of the office and see the galaxy, yet having spent the last two rotations trapped in an ambassador cutter going to their first point of contact with ambassador Dunal’s stentch he was beginning to miss the comfort of hiss fragrant desk.
“I would advise against expressing such tact once we are within their domain.” Lemar cautioned. “We do not know what type of listening capabilities they have; biological or mechanical.”
Dunal scoffed. “Hairless primatives who’ve barely mastered space travel and you expect me to kowtow myself before them?”
In truth Lemar would have picked Dunal last for such a sensitive mission. In his eyes he bore many of the ill-favored symptoms of his people to be an ambassador. His vanity and pride would not allow him to see any other species as his kind’s equal. He was brash, unapologetic, and consumed by the notion that our people were the pinnacle of development amongst the stars and therefore all others should feel nothing but joy at even the smallest interaction with them.
Humans were the latest in a long line of new species discovering space travel and seeding themselves across the stars. Lemar’s people had kept communications with their former government short but cordial so to promote peaceful negotiations, but that had been almost twenty human years ago and now new talks were needed.
“Please prepare, we are about to reach our destination.”
The pair of ambassadors took their seats and braced themselves as the cutter exited the jump. Even the most advanced ships were unable to fully mitigate the natural forces applied to vessels when exiting a jump so a danger still persisted. Larger ships were more durable and could sustain multiple gravity displacers that allow the ship to mitigate the exit transfer, but the downside was that their mass increased travel times substantially. Smaller craft, like their diplomatic cutter, could make faster jumps but risked increased damage upon exiting.
With a semi-violent shudder the cutter craft exited the jump and the lights flickered. This turbulence lasted several minutes before the ship began to calm and then the vibrations finally ceased. One by one the shutters protecting the viewports retracted and the ambassadors were able to look outside at the system they had arrived in.
What looked back was a giant eye the size of a five story building.
“What in the farnap!?!” Dunal screamed as he fell over himself as he retreated from the window.
Not missing a step Lemar pushed over his colleague and into the cockpit. Unlike the ambassadors, the pilot was unexpectedly calm and composed as the giant eye continued past the window.
“What is going on?!” Lemar demanded.
The pilot looked up from their controls then back at the eyeball.
“First time seeing a Void Beast I take it?” they chuckled.
Lemar wanted to rebuke the pilot for his disregard of status, yet stopped himself as they were an experienced pilot and were completely calm.
Lemar leaned closer to the cockpit window and saw the rest of the giant creature. It’s flesh was a pale pink, a sharp contrast against the black void of space. Tentacles as long as continents drifted lazily behind it while a mouth that stretch on into the horizon came in and out of view.
As the massive creature continued drifting in space Lemar caught sight of a small metal series of structures near the creature’s cranium along what looked like a crudely painted flag of some kind across a wide portion of its skin.
It bore the colors of their host they were to meet with today, New Carthage.
“Since when were Void Beasts able to be controlled outside of the swarm?” Lemar asked the pilot.
They shrugged. “As far as I’ve heard this is the only one. They obtained it after the swarm drifted into their domain about ten years ago.”
“How do you know of such things but not I?”
“It was all in the information packet you were given.” The pilot remarked dryly as he began steering the cutter around the void beast.
“What pack-“ Lemar cut himself off as realization hit him.
Lemar stormed back into the passenger quarters to find Dunal having composed himself and now sipping from a golden chalice.
“What is it?” he stammered between sips.
“We were given an information packet and you did not share it?” Lemar demanded. Dunal looked unamused and continued drinking.
“I threw both of those away. What trifling information we know of humans is enough without the ink peddlers stretching it out.”
Lemar grabbed hold of Dunal’s seat and spun it so he was facing the window as the Void Beast’ mouth went past.
“They control a void beast and you did not think that information we should know!?”
Dunal’s mouth twitched in shock for a moment before returning to his natural disinterested look. He said nothing else as the cutter craft powered sublight engines and began progressing to their meeting point.
Once beyond the view of the void beast Lemar was astounded to see that the system was bustling with all manner of craft. There was a large metallic collection of boxes of the Jemri, the knife like vessels of the Hampara, and even a swarm collective of three dozen Yulton’s whose ship enlarge or decreased in with the amount of drones docking and undocking.
Lemar returned to the cockpit and watched each of these strange vessels come and go. He was struck by the fact that despite each ship being from a different species, they all bore the mark of New Carthage.
“How can they have so many ships?” he pondered out loud.
“They’re trophies.” The pilot remarked calmly as he continued with the controls.
“Trophies.” They repeated. “The humans don’t fully destroy ships of their enemies; they take the wrecks and incorporate them into their own fleet.”
Lemar’s eyes went across the vast fleet of ships again.
“Something to do with their heritage as traders and merchants back on their homeworld; they never liked to waste what they could put to work.”
Lemar was now reevaluating not just the trade factor of their mission, but the now very present military threat level these humans presented. With these many ships of such variety there was no telling what composition of weaponry they held. What could they do if they deployed their void beast alongside a flotilla of fast moving Hampara ships?
The variety of ships offered compliments for what each species naturally lacked, and built upon the strengths of the others.
What was even more troubling was what would happen if the humans started sharing the technology between multiple ships? There was no telling if they left the initial hardware in place or upgraded it by mass producing and equipping each ship with multiple species technology.
Hells, what if the void beast alone was equipped with Jemri shielding units? It would negate the weakness of long range fire against it instantly forcing brutal close quarters combat; the very thing that the creatures excelled at.
“Twenty minutes to destination.” The pilot chipped as the orbital spaceport started to creep into view.
Lemar took several gulps and returned to his quarters hoping that at the very least they didn’t upset these humans, or else they might face total annihilation.
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