The Princess and the Human

With a sound of relief, Silgvani sank into the soft chair in her room. Even if it had gone over comparatively quickly considering how politically charged this case was, it had still been quite exhausting for her. Her recovery wasn’t nearly at the point she would’ve liked, but she knew it was unrealistic to expect that after just a couple of days. According to the doctor, the fact that she could already walk a bit was above expectation. Just how long would it take until she could operate at full capacity again, she didn't know.

The good news was that Kykla had admitted that she and her henchman had done the deed by themselves, so unless her government would appeal the sentence, the political fallout would be minimal. A formal apology from the council and a few concessions, and that would be it. It actually put Hohmiy in a favorable position, which she could use to finally find out what the Tystrie were hiding. Lastly, her parents had someone they could direct their anger at and wouldn’t do anything rash. If the whole ordeal had been backed by the High Council… better not think about it.

What had actually shocked her was the spy network Kykla’s servant had established right under their noses. None of those spies had been directly in any of the Three Palaces, but that didn’t put them out of their sphere of influence. Like the one in the medical administration who had faked the order done with Doctor Githaiy’s license. Or the one working for their food supplier, who had noticed their greatly increased demand for guthra fruits and correctly assumed that they were for Nadine. No nobles were among them, most were the type of people you could easily overlook or forget they were even there. Which had probably been the point.

According to the guards’ reports, this “Qeylo” had recruited his spies through a mixture of bribes and coercion over secrets he had somehow found out about them. The sheer number had been quite impressive considering he would’ve only had the chance to do so during the diplomatic visits. Although, according to the interrogations, none of the spies worked permanently for him, it was more of a “one-time favor” kind of deal, all of which had been cashed in by now. Since all of them said the same thing independently from each other, it was likely true. Not that it made much of a difference for them. Treason was still treason, meaning they were about to have a mass execution she was absolutely not looking forward to.

Silgvani leaned back, enjoying the soothing rest she was finally able to get, but also earning concerned looks from her company.

“While I think that I’ve more or less understood your legal system by now,” Nadine stated with audible annoyance, “I still don’t get why you had to be there in person.”

“Don’t worry. It was exhausting, yes, but it wasn’t that bad.”

“Right, you are only recovering from a severe poisoning that almost killed you and half your arms are broken - which, not gonna lie, feels really weird to say,” she quipped sarcastically. “Why couldn’t you just hold the trial remotely? Works fine on Earth.”

“That would indeed have been better for her,” Doctor Githaiy agreed while doing a quick check-up, “but it, unfortunately, would’ve gone against our traditions.”

“Tsk. Tradition is the corpse of wisdom,” the small alien grumbled and crossed her arms in a way that looked quite adorable. The phrase itself was interesting, though. Silgvani would make sure to remember and later spend some thought on it.

“I appreciate your concern, I really do”, she assured the human, “but there is no one I could delegate my work to. Kiyrtin would be too young and inexperienced even if he wasn’t hospitalized, and you know why I can’t give it to my parents.”

“Speaking of, we already got a number of requests to meet Lady Nadine, a rather impressive one considering the trial ended not even an inva ago,” Mhita finally chimed in, making Silgvani shake her head.

“Is there an easy way to say no to this?” the girl in question asked the princess sheepishly, her demeanor taking a sharp turn from the previous conversation.

“For now, we’ll say that you can’t make any promises until you’ve met with the king and queen. Which is actually true, my parents will want to meet her sooner or later, so we must give them priority.” Despite everything else, they still were the king and queen, after all.

Mhita nodded and exited the room, and after confirming her condition was as good as it could be, the doctor followed shortly after. Only the princess and the human were left.

“You know, I won’t push for the meeting and wait until they contact us, which will give you some time; but even if you can’t discuss anything of political value, you won’t get around meeting at least some of the nobles sooner or later. And as much as I want to and will support you, socializing with other influential people would still be good for you now that you are a public figure. Even if you don’t have any real influence among your kind, your actions could still greatly help them once we inevitably make first contact properly. Not to mention the award ceremony, we shouldn’t wait too long with that either.”

Nadine swallowed but nodded eventually.

“I know, it’s just… just the thought of me messing up during such gathering with all those old houses… I don’t want to cause trouble for you.”

“Your clan is actually older than any you would find on Hohmiy.”

“Really?”

“Yes, at least by years. If we count by generations it might be a close call. Save for a few exceptions, most modern clans were only formed after the unification war, with rank and territory depending on the contribution during the war. Especially clan Mirvani, whose founder is said to have been a decisive factor to Kiyron’s victory.”

Silgvani sighed.

“It is probably a strange concept for a human. Unfortunately, not every species is as peace-loving as yours.”

To that, the small alien perked up.

“Peace-loving? No offense, Sil, but… what the hell made you think that is a term that accurately describes humans? I mean, don’t get me wrong, war is a tragedy no matter how big or small, but humans aren’t… or, well, I guess humans are, but as much as I hate the fact, humanity is anything but.”

“But... didn’t you say your kind didn’t have any major wars? That you didn’t have any big warships because you didn’t need them?” Silgvani certainly still remembered the girl’s reaction upon seeing the Unifier for the first time.

“No, I said we didn’t have any major wars since we reached the space-faring age. And one time, we got REALLY close. But don’t forget, you live on a unified planet, we don’t. We had quite a number of wars in the past.”

“Really? How many?”

Since she was no historian, Silgvani only knew about those wars in their history that had cultural significance - in other words, the Unification War and the Alliance War. But that didn’t mean she didn’t have a rough overview of their previous history. As Nadine had said, on a non-unified planet, where your potential adversary was right next to you, tensions could escalate much quicker. And before the unification, there had unfortunately been a fair share of wars that tainted Hohmiy’s history. If the humans came close to that, it was understandable that Nadine would refuse such a title as “peace-loving”.

“Err, phew, you can ask questions.”

“Just the big ones.” Counting every short dispute as a war would hardly be fair to her people.

“Um, okay, there are probably many I myself never heard of, but let’s see how many I can scratch together from history class. If we ignore all the civil wars, we had the Persian Conquests and the resulting wars, the Chinese Warring States, the Crusades, the Samnite Wars, the conquest of Alexander the Great, the Punic Wars, the Three Kingdoms War… and the other Three Kingdoms Wars, the Conquests of the New World, the Reconquista, um… the Gallic Wars, the Napoleonic Wars, the War of Roses, everything with the Timurid Empire, no idea how many the Ottoman Empire was involved in, the Mediterranean War, the Austro-Hungarian War… not sure if all the independence wars count as civil wars… the Russo-Japanese War, everything caused by the rise of the USAG, the two World Wars of course… what else was there?”

Despite her usual composed demeanor, Silgvani couldn’t stop herself from gawking as Nadine’s list got longer and longer. Just how many were there? Also, was that a translation error, or why did so many of the names use the plural form? And what did she mean by “Civil War”?

“Oh, right, there was of course the Thirty Years War-”

“Thirty years?!”

With the last sentence, she couldn’t stop herself from interrupting. Thirty. Even the Unification War, whose six cycles had made it one of the longest wars in their history, no, not even the devastating alliance war had lasted nearly that long.

I get that humans live longer, but… ignoring the insane costs of such a war, what dispute would be worth fighting for thirty cycles? How can a war even last that long without one side losing?

“Well, not exactly thirty years, that’s a rounded number,” Nadine clarified.

Okay, but still, even if it was just twenty-seven or so, that is still absolutely insane! Also, Earth’s years are longer than our solar cycles, so that is… how much?! How is that even-

“Or was that the Eighty Years War?”

“…the what now?”

“No, wait, it was the Hundred Years War. I think. Was it? One of those three was rounded and the other two were exactly that long, but I always forget which was which. But it should be… yeah. Yeah, it was the Hundred Years War that was rounded… down? Err… right, yes, that was it. It was actually closer to a hundred and fifteen years.”

“… uhuh.”

“Are you alright?” the small alien asked concerned.

No. “I… I… and… how did you achieve peace in the end?”

“Well… peace is a big word. It actually ties into your other question, regarding not needing big warships. I didn’t word that one very well. I didn’t mean that we would have no use for them. If our technological development had gone in that direction, I guarantee you Earth’s space would be cluttered with those things, even in relative peacetime. No, we just have a weapon that makes them pointless. As impressive as this huge carrier you showed me is, a human ship the size of a shuttle could blast that thing into oblivion before you even saw the attack coming.”

A ship... the size of a shuttle?!

Silgvani didn’t understand much about engineering, but she knew that the Unifier was basically the current pinnacle of military technology, not just for the Vanaery, but the entire alliance, and close to undefeatable unless massively outnumbered. Were humans really that much more advanced technology-wise? But there had been many things normal for the Vanaery that Nadine had been surprised by. Was it just this weapon she had mentioned that made such a massive difference?

“Yes.”

“I apologize, what did you say?” Silgvani asked as she got pulled out of her thoughts.

“Ah, sorry, I thought you said that out loud intentionally.”

I did? First Ones, is she making me lose my composure that much?

“But you’re right, it’s mainly this weapon that makes the difference.”

She leaned back in her chair and took a deep breath.

“Sil… have you ever heard of the “Equilibrium of Terror”? Or, um, what was the other term for it? Ah, right, “Mutually Assured Destruction”.”