First Contact

Chapter 507

Nakteti used one thumb to scroll down the display, looking at the changes that had been applied to New Tnvaru over the last six months since the majority of the refugees from Lost Tnvaru had arrived on the new planet.

Nanoforges and creation engines, something that permeated Terran Confederate worlds, had been restricted to government oversight and only preferred manufacturers. Nutriforges had been restricted following a declaration of a board of inquiry to determine if it was safe for the Tnvaru to eat what the nutriforge produces.

Despite the fact that every single member species of the Confederacy used nutriforges tailored to their biology and tastes.

There had been some private ownership of vehicles, usually run off from one of the massive industrial creation engines. However, four months ago, private ownership was banned, citing 'safety concerns' and 'public responsibility', with mass-transit being mandated for everyone.

Nakteti had envisioned New Tnvaru as a sprawled out world, hundreds, thousands of small communities tied together by high speed maglev rail, private vehicle highways, and digital communications. She had set aside vast swaths of property for automated farms to provide luxury food for those who preferred to eat 'real' food rather than food from a nutriforge.

She had done her best to outline a society fueled and sustained by automation, with plenty of luxuries, relaxation activities, education, and private ownership.

It had all been wiped away.

She opened another window and scrolled backwards in the timeline.

Nakteti had envisioned elections for the planetary leader, once every ten years, with every five leader for the area representatives, with education eventually providing judges to assist the Confederate digital sentiences and Terran lawyers currently handling legal issues.

But the Confederacy's mantra of "Do whatever you want on your planet as long as you follow some basic rules" had looped back around to bite Nakteti's on her backside and ruin her plans.

There had been no election. The heads of five trading consortiums, all of them now defunct as they were no longer trading in Lanaktallan space and had been ejected from Council Space, had taken over the government and elected one of their own number to the position of Planetary Director, with Consortium and Corporate boardroom rules for electing the Planetary Director.

The first thing they had done was restrict and then eliminate access to the creation engines and nanoforges by the public.

The second they had done was had construction systems build cities and ordered people to relocate to the cities.

With the loss of Tnvaru Prime, the people had been in shock. They had been grateful for leadership, for someone to make decisions in a dark time. When the refugee Tnvaru had left Terra and arrived at New Tnvaru with stories of seeing Tnvaru Prime burn, the people had been despondent. No Tnvaru had been lost, they had all been rescued, as had tens of thousands of other species, but the planet itself was gone.

She looked over the decisions by the Planetary Director and the Planetary Board of Directors, and had to admit what they had done had been clever.

Artificial shortages of materials, resources, and goods, including food. Limited entertainment, constant reminders of the loss of Tnvaru Prime and the colony. Trading away rights for safety.

The Tnvaru making up the Planetary Board of Directors had been very careful not to break any of the Confederacy's laws.

Nakteti had seen how it was legal to run a horrible despotism full of grinding poverty and terrible conditions, as long as the majority consented.

They had come close to breaking a rule. At one point they had tried to mandate that the only people who could vote were those who owned a certain amount of property and had tried to establish a Tnvaru System Currency.

The Terran lawyers had landed on that with both feet.

One being. One vote.

No secondary currencies or multi-layered economic shells. Confederate credits or barter, that was it.

The Planetary Board of Directors had tried to claim that the people were not used to voting, so they needed time to get used to even the idea of voting.

The Terran lawyers had warned that Confederate forces would occupy the planet, depose the government, and establish a direct representative military republic if the Planetary Board of Directors attempted to strip voting rights away.

They had then attempted to place a fee on voting.

The Terran lawyers had tapped the 'one being one vote' part and cleared their throat.

The Planetary Board of Directors had attempted to point at Dystopia Worlds and LARP worlds where corrupt politicians did whatever they wanted to despite the population's wishes.

The Terran lawyers had tapped "one being one vote" again and just stared.

With the cold black emotionless eyes of a lawyer.

They had cancelled the mandatory schooling, something which made Nakteti clench her teeth. She had modeled the school system after what was being done on Leebaw, which many were calling the Leebaw Education Model, which meant ensuring that people not only gained knowledge, but skills.

She noted that the first classes canceled were those related to the creation engines and nanoforges.

Nakteti stopped and looked at another section, her eyes narrowing.

The Planetary Board of Directors had attempted to censor vast swaths of StellarNet and SolNet. Attempting to put up a massive firewall between the public and those digital information networks that would have prevented the Tnvaru from accessing any information the Planetary Board of Directors wanted to restrict.

Creation Engine, nano-forge, and nutriforge templates and how to design them were the first priority.

She noted, with some surprise, that her SolNet Site where she sold Tnvaru plushies and models of Tnvaru ships and vehicles, was a high priority exclusion that a Tnvaru could be fined or punished for viewing.

Scrolling quickly she saw that her epic Tri-Vee drama documentary of the It Tastes Sweet and the destruction of the colony and the discovery of the Confederacy had only been shown twice before the Planetary Board of Directors had placed the eight hour long Tri-Vee mini-series on the restricted list.

The more she saw, the angrier she became.

She had envisioned as close to paradise as she could make it. Not for the rich, not for the powerful, not for the uber-wealthy to whom rich would be abject poverty, not for government workers.

But for the youngest child to the most elderly.

She had envisioned parks, recreational areas, luxury, and leisure, all backed by the automation of the Confederacy. She had purchased Mantid automation systems, the best in the Confederacy. He had hired Digital Sentiences from the DASS to oversee things that her people had not been trained to handle, had hired them to teach her people to be self-sufficient. Nakteti had talked with experts, examined educational systems, and settled on the Leebaw Educational Model.

All of it had been wiped away to pack the Tnvaru people into a dozen cities. The towns and hamlets had been wiped away, factories surrounded the cities, and the highways and maglev were used only to transport goods from farms and factories.

Nakteti opened another window, using her personal code to gain access to the data.

93% of the Tnvaru people existed on the Basic Subsistence Allowance. 5% had 'management' positions and lower government positions. 1.5% had 'upper management' and 'mid-level government' positions. The last .499% were rich, with a final 0.001% being wealthy.

She cross referenced the names with those who had owned vast economic consortiums prior to the evacuation and loss of Tnvaru Prime.

The names matched across the board, with the exception of her own family, which was down to herself, her mother Sangbre, and a single cousin. The others had all been absorbed by other families or had been killed when the colony had been destroyed, although there was a bare handful that might still be alive further in Lanaktallan Space.

She shut the windows and moved over to a chair, sitting down.

Fury licked at her soul as she considered what she had seen in the last month since she had been home.

Her people jammed back into housing blocks, with sleeping cubes, nutripaste with only basic flavors, factories where Tnvaru worked that could have been nearly fully automated, and the majority of the schools let go.

As if they had never left Council Space.

You can't take the Burger out of the Burgerlander, she thought. You can't make the Treana'ad stop smoking, take the glass from the Great Glass Sea, and you can't make the Mantid engineer give up emojis.

"You are vexed," one of her escorts, a daughter of the Duchess, said softly, running a whetstone along the edge of her engraved and inlaid nanite-infused blade, aligning the atoms of the nearly monomolecular edge.

Nakteti nodded, clenching her fists. She reached out and picked up her gripping stick, clenching her hands around it till her forearms ached.

"They strip your gifts from your people," one of the sons of the Duchess said from where he was drinking a heavy pewter mug of thick rich ale.

Nakteti nodded again.

"Will you fight them or will you die like a insect beneath their boot?" the male Terran asked. He took a drink and wiped his mouth. "Is the iron my mother saw inside of you tempered into steel by your fury, or has it rusted to nothing?"

Nakteti squeezed her stick, opening her mouth to answer when her implant pinged her.

The news had mentioned her.

She twisted her hand to bring up the remote holocontrols and brought up the planetary news network that had replaced the entertainment channel she had put in place.

"...board had no choice but to find Captain Nakteti guilty on all of counts," the Tri-Vee announcer stated solemnly, staring out from the hologram. "Sources within the government say that an arrest warrant for the disgraced former captain will be issued withing hours."

Nakteti turned off the Tri-Vee, sitting back in her chair. She wanted to shiver, she wanted to curl up into a ball and make it go away, she wanted to hide her eyes and wait for them to come and take her away.

Instead, she lifted her upper lip in a snarl.

Make me into the fall guy for all of this? she thought, standing up slowly, clenching all four of her fists. Her gripping stick was off to the side. Try to lay the blame for the loss of our colony, our world, try to blame the entire Precursor War on me?

The sound of a whetstrone running along the edge of a 'steel' sword was no longer aggravating, but a sound that went along perfectly with how she felt.

"What will you do?" one of the Terrans sitting in her relaxation parlor asked mildly, not looking up from where she was retying her heavy boots.

"Remind them," Nakteti snarled. She pointed at the window. "Remind them that we no longer live in Lanaktallan space, that we are no longer part of the Unified Council," she put all four hands on her hips. "Remind them that they are squatting in positions unearned, positions that vanished with Tnvaru Prime, and remind them that they live here at my sufferance."

Another Terran nodded, making one long swipe down the blade with the whetstone before tucking it away and standing up. The Terran, one of the many children of her former host, cocked her head slightly.

"Grav-Lift is coming up," they said softly.

"They will try to take you now," another warned, her features stating louder than words that she was a sibling of the other two.

The one that spoke first stood up, tapping one toe against the floor to ensure their boot was properly set. The male Terran swigged down the last of his ale, belching loudly as he stood up and hooked a thumb in his belt.

"Try not to slaughter them," Nakteti said softly. She reached out and grabbed the vest and belt that Lady Khoonkeenadee had given her. She tapped the engraved runes on the copper shoulder plates, whispering the command words to activate the nanotech inside. She felt her ears tingle and the slight taste of lemons on her tongue as the personal protective shield activated.

The doors opened and a group of six Tnvaru in riot control armor stood in the elevator, clustered around an official looking bureaucrat with a dataslate in his hand.

"Former Captain Nakteti, I have a warrant for your arrest," the bureaucrat said, looking at the dataslate. "Come along quietly or face the consequences."

Nakteti moved up in between two of the Terrans, both of whom were standing relaxed. The male opened and closed his hands slowly, his sister on the other side smiling gently with a closed mouth.

"And if I refuse? If I refuse to recognize the authority of squatters upon my property?" Nakteti asked.

The bureaucrat gaped at her for moment.

"You see, I own everything in this system," Nakteti said. "You and your bosses are squatters, guests who are attempting to take over my household."

One of the riot gear clad sociopolice stepped forward, unholstering a neural pistol. "That's enough out of you," he said.

The male Terran moved.

Nakteti had seen Terrans move, had seen them fight, practice hand to hand combat, but the speed and precision took even her breath away.

The brown skinned male, wearing nothing but real leather clothing and some jewelry, took a single step forward, his hand flicked out, twisted, and came back. The human stepped back before the gathered Tnvaru's visual cortex could completely process what they had just witnessed.

The Terran held the neural pistol in his hand.

As they watched he closed his hand. His forearm muscles bulged and there was a crunching noise. He opened his hand as he tilted his hand.

Crushed pieces of the pistol fell from his hand onto the carpet.

"As you can see, you cannot force me to go..." Nakteti started to say.

"SHOOT THEM!" the bureaucrat shrieked.

"NO KILLING!" Nakteti yelled.

The Tnvaru grabbed for their weapons. The two humans on either side of her blurred into motion. The two with swords stepped out from where they had been blocked by the walls, their swords smoothly unsheathing, to step in front of Nakteti. Another of Lady Khoonkeenadee's daughters stood in front of Nakteti, moving her hands and whispering commands as glowing nanites flowed from her hands.

There was smacking sounds, crunching sounds, two Tnvaru screamed in fear.

Lady Khoonkeenadee's children snatched the weapons from the Tnvaru sociopolice secmen's hands, crushing the weapons, then pulled the helmets off of the Tnvaru's heads in one smooth motion, moving from one to the other before they could even get their weapons into play.

They finished by grabbing the dataslate and stepping back.

The daughter murmuring to herself released the built up power.

All seven Tnvaru found themselves pushed into the elevator, hard, sending them stumbling against the back. The elevator binged and the doors closed as the brown skinned Terran woman panted, trying to mitigate the heat buildup.

"I think, Lady Nakteti, that it may be time to take your presence among your people," the 'sorceress' said softly.

Nakteti nodded, lifting her chin. Her implant was alerting her that already Tnvaru were gathering, protesting the Planetary Board of Director's support of the findings of the "board of inquiry" that the public felt had been a witch hunt.

"I need to get somewhere public, somewhere people can see and hear me," Nakteti said. She moved over and grabbed one of the safety belts. She buckled it around her waist and moved toward the balcony, swallowing her fear.

She refused to show fear in front of the children of Lady Khoonkeenadee.

"We'll take the scenic route to the ground," she said as her escorts grabbed Icarus Landing System belts of their own.

She paused for a moment on the balcony as one of her escorts moved the table and chair, then helped her up onto the table.

The Planetary Director and the Planetary Board of Directors would regret moving everyone into the big cities.

She'd be able to hide easier, able to gather support quicker, and her words would spread faster.

Ignoring the fear and panic in her stomach, holding tight to her fury, she stepped into mid-air.

He who dares, who risks the most, gains the most, she thought to herself as she plummeted through the air.