“Did you have a good meeting with the Vrekan king?” Rethias asked as the High General waltzed in and threw himself into one of the oversized sofas.
“Yes, I did actually,” Elkay smiled. “Perhaps a little too much. It is rude to reject alcohol if a Vrekan offers it to you, yes?”
Rethais tutted. “Are you methyied?”
“No,” Elkay immediately snapped back, sitting up straight. “But you dragged me to your office for a reason. Out with it.”
“Very well…” Rethais knew better than to throw accusations around. He knew that Elkay never really drank alcohol anyway. “We had another transmission come in from outside the Maza systems. Another race wanting in. Trade and protection.”
“From Temthans, I assume?” There was a hint of anger in Elkay’s voice. “We… We can’t keep on accepting these communications.”
“Why not?”
Elkay sighed, then slumped in his seat. “The Temthans will come back.”
“They won’t.”
“They will!”
“You are worrying over no-”
“They WILL. This is us fucking with their stuff! The whole point of the agreement I made with the Temthans was that we leave each other alone!”
“But we’re not bothering the Temthans,” Rethais tried to explain. “We’re helping races that are decidedly not Temthans.”
“But they may be part of the Temthan empire!” Elkay got up from his seat and stormed towards Rethais. “You do not understand. There are one billion Rethans, approximately. There are billions more Temthans. We may be the most powerful race in the Maza system but we are nothing compared to the Temthan empire.”
Rethais leaned back, so that Elkay wasn’t so in his face. “We are strong though.”
“Not that fucking strong. One planet-destroying bomb and that is it. We are GONE. We may have our own secret bomb facilities, but we have nothing compared to the Temthans. A handful of planets. Friendly relationships with a handful of other races. That is nothing compared to the swathes of the galaxy the Temthans own! We ARE nothing!”
“We are not nothing…” Rethais tutted.
“To them, we are. The first time round, they wanted us as slaves. We somehow stopped that. But the next time, we might just be enemies. And you really think the Temthans will send an army? No, they’ll send a bomb. That is what Photeianos would have done. It is what a lot of Rethans, a lot of beings, would have done in such a position of power…”
Elkay took a deep breath and returned to his seat, pausing only to get a glass of water from a jug on Rethais’s desk.
“And to think you came in with such a smile on your face…” Rethais muttered. “I thought you were the altruistic one. Always caring for others.”
“Don’t you fucking dare guilt me like this! DON’T YOU FUCKING DARE!” The High General very nearly threw his glass in anger. “You don’t think I want to create a huge, happy place where any race can come together and live and trace peacefully? Of course I do. But we’re… We can’t. We can’t. Not right now. Not like this…”
Elkay finished his drink and slammed the glass on the table, perhaps harder than he had intended. The glass luckily didn’t break, but it still made both Rethais and Elkay more alert. The High General and the Vice General sat in silence,
“So… what do you want to do?” Rethais finally asked.
The High General thought for a moment. “Hm… While us interfering directly would be a problem, maybe the Temthans would ignore these transmissions if they were sent to another… Temthan-y race… Forward the transmissions, anonymously, to Aesop’s government. Maybe the Cassids can arrange something…”