When I woke up the next morning, I felt like I was starting to adjust to my new surroundings. There were several things that I would’ve given a finger to enjoy again, after months stuck in the field. The air conditioning keeping me comfortable, not having bugs in my face all day, the true peace of being alone without having to stand watch, and standing under a warm shower to wash the grime out of my fur. The simmering food was enchanting after tasteless rations. Breakfast could be teleported to my room with the push of a button: how delightful!
I allowed myself to rub the soft towel against my face several times, sighing with contentment. “Those aliens are taking good care of us. Going out of their way, even. Now that my mind’s settled: shit, that’s the best night’s sleep and the most relaxing morning I’ve had since I shipped out!”
It was a more enjoyable experience than being out in the chaos of the battlefield. Sagua was right about how I’d prefer to spend a million tomorrows, yet I was working to get away from here and return to that hell. Then again, this station was crawling with Pelsyl who could grab alien tech before us, slaughter us and our loved ones, and be the reason the Watchers shuttered this “project.” No matter how nice the human was, we were at her mercy and helpless here.
We can’t return to the home we’d died for. It’s a joke to think I belong with all of these contraptions; I’m so far out of my depth. Aliens weren’t something I ever gave thought to, and now, I’m living in their gilded cage of portals, levitation bracelets, and blood-crawling nanobots. Fuck!
“Huh?” I flinched as I heard a knock on my door, and I wondered whether Keensty or Hrothl had somehow found me out of all of the chambers. Probably not. “Hello?”
Trying to muster up my courage, I flung open the door and raised my fists. A drone floating outside in the hallway, with a piece of paper attached to it; well, that was at least technology I recognized. After a few seconds of peering into the unsubtle camera eye, I decided to determine who the fuck the note sender was. The handwriting was in the Treysyl’s common language, but it was immaculate and downright pretty. I narrowed my eyes and peeled it away, reading what it had to say.
“Hi Lucren,
I was trying to figure out how to send you a message without scaring you, which is why I’m about to infodump for future reference. I hope the knock doesn’t startle you, but I thought warping the drone or the paper in by itself would scare you. I wanted it to be easily understandable what was going on.
Usually we communicate by telepathic messaging. Don’t worry, I cannot read your mind. Imagine if texting was directly linked to your brain? The nanobots just send my messages straight to your brain’s language center. Skips the middle man of having to read the words. I do like physically writing though, so I was happy to do this! I love your alphabet, it’s super cute. ❤️
Anyway, I’m rambling but I really don’t want to mess this up! Just wave at the drone if you’re okay with telepathic chatting and we can coordinate a time to meet.
~ Sagua”
I scrunched my nose, uncertain how to feel about the words I’d read. Our alphabet was “cute,” and there was some strange emoticon that had been shaded in red after that statement? It almost made me gloss over the fact that she’d written to inform me that she could send messages straight to my fucking mind. I supposed that explained how she’d shouted at all of us without speaking, back when she’d done the whole thundering chastisement thing. Her real voice didn’t sound like that.
Sagua said she’d meet with me again after she’d done some research into the Mainbeam incident. Maybe she’ll have come around! Whatever the case, I need to take her up on this offer immediately.
I waved at the drone, bracing myself with caution for the petrifying voice I’d heard in the lobby. “Like this?”
“Exactly!” came an enthusiastic reply inside of my head, which made me jump off the ground despite expecting it. “Sorry. I know it’s weird, but trust me, you get over weird things fast when they’re super convenient. How are you doing today? Did you sleep well?”
“I’m good?” I answered, trying to get my frills to lay flat. “Um. How do I reply?”
“Just think about augmented reality, and it’ll pull up the interface. Your messages will be visible and transcribed in the top right corner. You just focus on it, think about replying, and think your message as if you’re saying it. Like, you can literally add volume and inflection.”
Her instructions sounded far-fetched and too easy to use, but I tried to replicate exactly what she said. The augmented reality overlay came up when I let the thought crystallize in my mind. This was all a streamlined computer program that they’d made as accessible as possible. Sagua was right. The aliens just used nanobots to digitize their view of the world, and to enter commands with a thought. When she flipped the station gravity, it must’ve been that easy.
I sucked in a sharp breath, pulling up our conversation and concentrating. “Testing? Can you hear me, over?”
A laugh somehow floated into my mind, though I had no idea how she did that. “Yep! You’re getting the hang of it. I hope that makes it less bad and not so scary. A peek behind the curtain. Anyway, I looked into the Mainbeam incident, and I wanted to share what I found with you. Is there a time that’d work best for you to have a chat with me?”
“I’m good to do now if it works for you. The truth is eye-opening, I’m sure, but it’s okay. There are better Aratas than those fucking Pelsyl. We can start looking at real solutions to the problems here, together. I want to help, and I knew you could see reason!”
There was a long pause. “I did learn some things that were unpleasant, but I’d prefer to have this conversation in person. I can show you exactly what happened. May I teleport you to the control center now?”
“Sure! I’m ready.”
With stunning ease, I found myself standing in front of the Watcher. Sagua looked pensive as I greeted her, like she was about to be the bearer of bad news. The human took a deep breath and gestured to the couch; I got the impression that whatever she was about to say, she didn’t want to. She started twirling her hair around her finger with a nervous energy afoot, which left me to wonder why she wasn’t at ease. Her black eyes narrowed like she’d realized something, and she warped two glasses of water in.
“Good. You’ll want to be sitting for this,” Sagua sighed. “I think you deserve the truth, even if it’ll be unpleasant to hear. Can you promise to try to accept…at least, that I believe this to be the unequivocal truth of what happened on the Mainbeam?”
“I beg your pardon?!” Uh-oh. She can’t defend the terrorist incident that killed my dad. If that doesn’t make her realize, I mean, what the actual fuck? I thought she had empathy! “What exactly is it? You can’t go and justify the Pelsyl’s actions.”
“I’m not. The Mainbeam was a cruise liner with civilians on it, and the loss of life was an absolute tragedy. However, it wasn’t as cut-and-dry as the public narrative suggests. Look, I can access the most highly-classified files of the Treysyl government, and I discovered a Project Oceanhop. Do you want to hear more? I don’t want to upset you.”
I eyed her with curiosity, uncertain where she was going. I have to hear her out. “Go on.”
The human grimaced. “The long and short of it is that your government smuggled explosives and heavy munitions across the ocean, hiding them onboard civilian ships.”
“What? We wouldn’t do that. We don’t operate so cheaply. If that’s what the Pelsyl told you, it’s because they’d do it themselves.”
“Lucren, I told you I got it from the Treysyl’s confidential files. It was a black ops project, and I’m afraid I’m not scratching the worst of it. I feared you wouldn’t believe me, but perhaps a look at the files will tell you it’s real.” Sagua projected holograms of documents and dossiers in front of me, and I stared at them in disbelief and denial. “The Mainbeam was one such ship that had hidden arms aboard, but it was the one that got shot.”
Rage surged through my chest, and I leapt to my feet. “Damn you! You trample over my father’s memory with these…these frauds, these forgeries, this slander of my entire people! I see whose side you’re on. I fucking thought you were nice, but you’re just—”
“Sit down. I’m not done.” Her voice became more stern, a warning in it that reminded me of how effortlessly she subdued me in our first meeting. I bared my teeth at her and growled, before backing down with distaste. “What reason do I have to lie, Lucren? I have no stakes in your people’s…inane war! I want you to like me, and I know this’ll just turn you against me. You’re the only person that’s been nice to me in months!”
Tears streamed from my eyes, thinking about what the Pelsyl did to my family. “They took my father! You…GAH! I don’t accept these lies, but let’s pretend I did. Does it even matter, when they blew up a fucking cruise ship?”
“The first thing I said was that it didn’t excuse killing civilians. It just wasn’t the squeaky clean target that it seemed. Aw shit, if that pissed you off so much, you’re gonna blow your top when I tell you what the Oceanhop weapons were used for.”
I scowled at her. “What are you talking about?”
Sagua pursed her lips, sighing. “I have video evidence of them doing this part. Please, try to trust that I’ll always tell you the truth, even if it isn’t easy. I wouldn’t state this as fact if I wasn’t sure.”
“State what?!”
“That the Treysyl used those Oceanhop weapons to conduct false flag attacks against your own diplomatic outposts abroad.”
What?! How dare she claim something so fucking preposterous? She is with the enemy! She is the enemy!
The human placed two hands on my head and turned it toward the screen, the extra strength she had in her back pocket coming in handy. I cast a blank stare at the video footage. It proved nothing at all; Sagua could do anything. Faking all of this with her alien tech would be rudimentary! Treysyl diplomatic staff were evacuating a building, while others lined the interior walls with explosives. A handful of Pelsyl and Treysyl were writhing, tied near the payloads for reasons Sagua couldn’t begin to elucidate.
“What, so you’re telling me the casualties were staged?” I sneered.
Sagua offered a reluctant nod. “Treysyl traitors, Pelsyl asylum seekers that weren’t worth the trouble of integrating, and a few corpses for good measure. It’s hard to tell who’s who when you’re digging through charred rubble, but it left something to find.”
“Why the fuck did you concoct this? Is this some test to see if you can turn me against my own people? Never. I am LOYAL! I know my people, and we would never!”
“I…think it’s easy to see only the horrible things your enemy does. You want to believe you’re pure and just, but real life isn’t that cut and dry.” Sagua met my blistering glare with eyes that dared to be sorrowful, before she waved a finger in front of the Project Oceanhop orders. “You already know the one who signed off on this. Look at the signature, Lucren.”
I scoffed, reading the name. “General Becimi Hrothl. Yeah, right. Nice try. You just know he’s taken command up here, and you hate it because it takes power from you!”
“I couldn’t care less about my authority, but I imagine it’s easier to blame me than the people you’ve followed your entire life. If you’re so certain he didn’t do it? Ask him. Just heed one word of advice: tell him you already know with anger. If it never happened, he’ll have no idea what you’re talking about and deny it, right?”
“I shouldn’t even dignify this falsehood by acting out a ruse!” My bravado wavered for a moment as the weary-eyed Watcher stared back at me. She sounded so certain that the general orchestrated this…malignant plot. Fuck, I’d always have that seed of doubt in my mind if I didn’t exorcise it. “Fine, I’ll question Hrothl, just so you can cut the fucking crap. We have nothing else to talk about, alien.”
Sagua arched her eyebrows. “You’re right. You’re only going to lash out at me because I’m unraveling everything you believe. I am sorry, but we can’t have a productive conversation like this. Come and talk to me when you’re willing to hear the truth, which I suspect will be after Hrothl tries to justify all of this.”
“Just teleport me away already! You’ve shoved your propaganda at me enough!”
“If that’s what you need to believe happened here. Remember, you only need to say two words: Project Oceanhop. He’ll know the rest.”
Sagua didn’t give me a chance to respond before whisking me back to my bedroom. I howled and slammed my fist into the wall; numbness danced across my knuckles, as the nanobots started to heal my hand. I couldn’t believe I’d begun to trust that xeno, and that I’d looked forward to speaking to her again. Keensty had been right that I’d practically idolized her as some flawless, transcendent immortal, but she had betrayed me long before I ever got the chance to turn on her.
That conversation hadn’t gone at all like I expected, since Sagua had made it quite clear which side she was helping. She could kiss any positive interactions with me goodbye. I despised her so much in this moment that words didn’t begin to describe it; I’d poured out my heart to her about my father, and she weaponized the incident against me to insult my entire race’s character? That Watcher shouldn’t have bothered to resurrect us Treysyl, if that’s how low she thought of us!
I grumbled to myself and scoffed at the delusional yarn she’d spun. I should go “confront” General Hrothl so that any semblance of actuality would crumble, and we could get back to work reshaping our plan on how to take Sagua out of the picture.
A/N - 6! Sagua reveals the truth about the Mainbeam, with how it was used to smuggle weapons that were used in false flag attacks, and Lucren explodes with denial. She tries to persuade him to ask Hrothl about the project, since if it’s false, he’d be clueless. What do you think our narrator would do if he realized that his government was not so innocuous? Is exposing these kinds of lies enough to save Aratakind?
As always, thank you for reading and supporting!