Waterstrider

Otan, Tseludia Station, Pantheonic Territory, Fifthmonth, 1634 PTS

Jihan had never interacted much with Celans, as they were less numerous in the region of the Pantheonic Territory where the Lee Clan currently resided. He found himself uncertain about the task he had been asked to perform. Still, it was not too much to ask, and was also certainly something within his means.

Traversing Otan was inevitably odd as well, though unlike the Celans, Jihan had interacted plenty with the Exid in the past. Given how territorial Exid Queens were, they inevitably spread out as much as they could, or were forced away from the stations and planets they were located on. In fact, the Exid district on Estrivel Station, where the Lee Clan was located, was also commonly referred to as Otan. It seemed that the Exid were able to maintain their culture even across the celestial expanse.

Having walked through many such districts, Jihan even knew the trick for making one’s way through the endless tide of Exid workers roving their way between factories. One simply forced their way through, and the drones would maneuver around, taking care not to be crushed by the powerful legs of a martial artist.

It didn’t take long to find the alleyway, located to no surprise within the Sikreis Queendom. Jihan drew the symbol into the screen on the hatch as he had been directed to. There was a lengthy pause before it began to shift.

As the hatch slid out of the way, Jihan was met with the arachnid-like form of a Korlove, whose far too humanoid-looking eyes peered at Jihan as if to discern whether or not he was a threat. After a moment, it led him down a short hallway. At its end was an ordinary living room, turning into a kitchen at the far corner. Stationed around the room were Korlove and Jobu soldiers. Each of them had firearms in their hands, and were watching him very carefully. It seemed that these ‘allies’ were just as apprehensive as he was. He found this to be a good sign. If this had been a trap, he suspected that a technologically advanced race such as the Celans would not have gone about it in such a way.

Seated at the table was a man far less muscular than Jihan would have expected from a humanoid Celan. His blue hair was odd as well, and the yellow blindfold which covered his eyes made him seem even odder as he turned to face Jihan with a smile.

“You’re Elder Lee, correct?” he asked, his pronunciation of the seiyin words perfect, albeit lightly accented.

Jihan nodded.

“Would you be the one in charge of affairs in the district?” he asked.

The man shrugged.

“Celan affairs, at least. My name is Triezal. Come, sit. Let’s discuss our plans.”

He waved his hands, beckoning Jihan over, and Jihan slowly approached, warily eying the guards standing around the room. He glanced back at his squad and gave some quick hand signals to indicate that they enter behind him, yet remain on their guards. Jihan was still not quite confident that these ‘allies’ could be trusted. Just a few weeks back, they had tried to assassinate Cyrus. In his experience, grudges did not disappear quite so quickly.

As Jihan sat down at the table, Triezal began talking animatedly. It was an oddly mundane piece of furniture, a cheap work metal and ceramic of the sort which could be found in almost any habitation around Tseludia, or really any of the Staiven constructed space habitats. It felt at odds with the grim atmosphere of the meeting.

“The Queendom we were thinking of taking this time is the Iskrise. It’s conveniently located by our current territory, which we can leverage to defend the two jointly. This should help us weather the pressure from the skirmishing.”

“I was thinking that perhaps we should take the Heissix Queendom,” Jihan replied.

Triezal smirked at him.

“Yes, I’m sure you would. But the Heissix Queendom is fairly far from here, and it would be difficult to protect both of them. In addition, it would reduce our gains as we wouldn’t be able to integrate operations.”

In fact, Rachel had told Jihan that they had already agreed to go for Iskrise like the Celans would want to, but acting as if they were compromising by insisting on Heissix would give them a slight advantage in the ongoing negotiations.

“What makes Iskrise so convenient?” he asked.

Triezal shrugged, leaning back on his seat.

“Of all the Queendoms adjacent to Sikreis, Queen Iskrise has dedicated the highest percentage of her forces to attacking us. According to our intelligence, she should be skimping on her internal defenses. If we can skip her front line using an aero, we should be able to take her fairly easily using our respective skills. “

“I see. In that case,” Jihan said, “let’s take the Iskrise Queendom.”

Triezal smiled again.

“Good. If there’s one thing I appreciate about martial artists, it’s that you tend to be very decisive.” He leaned forward, resting his arms on the table. “Now, how about we discuss more specific tactics?”

“Do you have a map of their hive’s interior?” asked Jihan.

His smile once more turned into a smirk.

“Of course we do.”

A few scrawled glyphs on his pad caused an illusion to manifest itself above the table. It was a three dimensional model of a structure whose rooms were a mix of normal humanoid accommodations and the tubular corridors and caverns that the Exid preferred. Small images marking doors and Queen Iskrise herself popped up afterwards, marked with different colors from the translucent gray of the architecture.

Jihan inspected the image closely, committing it all to memory. He noticed that some of the small tunnels designed for worker Exid stretched out to connect to various different levels of the stack. He reached out a finger and traced one of the paths which led down from a higher layer of the stack. As he moved his hand, from the corner of his eye he saw the guns of the Celan guards shift upwards for a second before shifting back down after realizing he was merely pointing.

“If we’re arriving via aero, coming down from a higher level like this would seem efficient.”

He glanced over at Triezal, who gave him a lazy smile, and motioned to his blindfold. Jihan paused, realizing. Was the man blind? Why would they have chosen to put a blind man in charge of such types of planning? Then, he lazily removed the blindfold, revealing a pair of bright eyes, and met Jihan’s gaze.

“Apologies, Mister Lee, I can’t see well with this on.”

Jihan was dumbfounded. Was this Celan training with sensory deprivation? He was still pointing at the tunnel, and Triezal quickly inspected it.

“This seems reasonable, but the tunnel is quite thin. It would restrict our use of armor. A more direct approach would allow us to carry more with us.”

He directed Jihan’s gaze towards another tunnel, one used to deliver food to the queen and her hatchlings. The tunnel was very well guarded, however.

“You won’t need armor. We were promised that you had explosives and ranged weapons. That will be all you need. I and my squad can keep the bugs off of you.”

Triezal frowned, peering back at the tunnel Jihan had pointed out.

“This is a risk,” he said.

“One we can manage. I am a spirit refiner.”

“...That you are, Elder. Fine, then, I’ll take your word on this. I’ll communicate with the Queen, you just need to threaten her.”

Jihan shrugged.

“So long as the contract she signs is the one our organizations both agreed to, there will be no problems.”

“By our honor, there will be none. Few organizations who know the true foundation of the Redwater Clan would dare to betray you.”

Triezal had a knowing smile, and Jihan couldn’t help but frown. Just what was he implying? He wasn’t aware of any backers. Did this relate to Rachel’s origins, and the reverence that the Reth felt towards her? He hadn’t even known about the Terrans until he had spoken with Irid and the others. He shrugged, acting like the Celan’s words had not gotten under his skin, and returned the man’s smile.

“You would do well to not be lying about that.”

“We understand the power of mutual interest. There’s no need to be so overly concerned,” replied the odd Celan.

Jihan got the feeling that he would not enjoy getting along with this alien very much.

Humanity: [According to the official species database of all major forces, if there is a record of a race known as 'Humanity' at all, it is clear on one point: Humanity is a race native to the Quarantined Territory who colonized several star systems but went extinct prior to being encountered by Osine forces. They are notable in that they have morphological similarities to various races such as the Celans, Seiyal, Reth, and Staiven, which implies they were created by a deity, but due to their homeworld's location within the Quarantined area, no forces have chosen to investigate, due to fears of infection.]