Firebrand

His tone wasn't confrontational, he had the air of someone who recognized that arguing was a waste of his time. If he wasn't in the Navy, and he was under no suspicion of any crime, then Moralez couldn't compel him to do much of anything. The man knew that all too well, judging by his aloofness.

"It sounds to me like you've had similar conversations before," Moralez muttered. "I'd bet that you could quote the regs if you needed to, couldn't you?"

"Security Chief," the Polar began, making her way around the nose of the parked vessel. She had a Russian accent, more pronounced than most. Her tone was warm and diplomatic, but Moralez lived with a Polar, he had learned to recognize when they were laying on the charm. "We have our instructions, and you have yours. Let us not butt heads, we are all working towards the same goal here."

Moralez met her gaze for a moment, then turned back towards his men.

"I don't get on well with people who keep secrets," he said, leading the procession towards the access door from which they had entered. "You'll find that a difficult proposition on the Pinwheel."

***

They marched through the service tunnels in silence, keeping the Bug under guard, the passageways just wide enough that two Marines could flank it. Harry took up the rear, wanting to keep an eye on the thing, and the Chief seemed to have the same idea.

"What do you make of her?" Moralez asked, the sound of his footsteps alternating between the polymer of his prosthetic and the rubber of his boot. He kept his voice low, not wanting to be overheard by their guest.

"Her?" Harry repeated, confused.

"Yeah, look at her," Moralez added with a gesture of his hand.

She did indeed have several choice female qualities that set her apart from the other Bugs that Harry had seen. He had a good view of her rear from this angle, which was completely unarmored beneath her skirt-like wings, the two ample globes of flesh rolling as she walked on her dainty feet. The flesh was a deep pink in color that bordered on red, but it wasn't raw. There was some kind of skin over it, smooth and shiny, catching the light as she moved.

"Yeah, I guess it does look like a female," Harry muttered.

"Too much like a female," Moralez grumbled. "You and me, we've done our share of fighting, we've probably killed enough Bugs between us to make a hive. You ever seen anything remotely like this before?"

"Can't say that I have," Harry replied. "Drones are pretty uniform, and while there are some more unusual castes, they all share the same basic features. I mean, this one does too. It has the legs, the four arms, the horn. But...I get what you're saying, Chief. Something about it looks too...human."

"How are you feeling about your assignment?" Moralez added. "Are you and Blackjack still up to the task?"

"You can count on us, Chief."

"Good, because there's something else that I want you to do for me," he whispered. "Keep an eye on the thing, and report back to me. I want to know everything that she does, everything that she says, make a note of anything out of the ordinary. I want to find out as much about this thing as possible."

"Got it, Chief. Where are we keeping her?"

"These tunnels run throughout the entire station," Moralez said, waving a prosthetic hand at the mess of pipes and wires that cluttered the ceiling. "It's a long walk, but we can get to the residential quarter from here and come out directly into one of the apartments. We'll stick her in there, keep her under guard. I'll have guys that I trust on rotation at the door, and I want you and BJ sticking to her like glue at all times. Don't let her out of your sight, even for a moment."

"Roger."

***

The maintenance panel came away from the wall, opening a doorway into one of the upscale apartments. The exposed metal and wiring gave way to matte white walls and faux-wood flooring, the naked bulbs of the tunnels replaced by soft, interior lighting. Harry followed a couple of the Marines through, checking the open-plan space, ensuring that it was safe to bring in the Bug. When he gave the all-clear, she stepped cautiously into the room, the warm glow of the lamps that were built into the ceiling reflecting off her pearl-like carapace.

Moralez came through after her, brushing himself off, Blackjack squeezing through the narrow opening with considerable difficulty. He had to turn sideways and crouch down, popping out into the apartment like a cork from a champagne bottle. After a few moments, the apartment was packed with Marines, they looked so out of place in this domestic environment.

Harry hadn't ever had a reason to visit this part of the station before, and he'd never seen the interior of one of these residences. It looked like an apartment that one might find on Earth or one of the more developed colony planets, tastefully decorated. There was a properly furnished kitchen in the open-plan space, complete with cupboards, counters, and a dining table. The living area had a couch and a coffee table, and there was a large monitor mounted on the far wall. He couldn't see the bedroom or the bathroom, they were walled off, but they were probably just as fancy. It sure beat the barracks, where all you got was a cot and a locker. Or in Blackjack's case, a locker and a bowl-shaped hole in the ground. The Krell preferred to sleep in recesses that were lined with cushions.

For the first time since her arrival, Moralez turned to address the Bug directly. She was standing in the middle of the laminated wood floor beside the kitchen, looking nonplussed as she kept her hands neatly clasped in front of her corset-like torso armor.

"These will be your accommodations during your stay on the station," he said, the alien's antennae twitching as she listened. "You are not to leave this area alone under any circumstances. All exits will be locked and guarded at all times, there is no way in or out. This is Sergeant Hayes," he added, gesturing to Harry. "He will remain here, along with a Krell guard. They will be responsible for your safety. If you have any questions or concerns, if you need anything that has not been provided to you, you are to go through the Sergeant. Do you understand?"

"Perfectly, Security Chief," she replied. Her voice was feminine, almost girlish, and she had what sounded to Harry like an English accent. The Bugs that he was familiar with didn't even have vocal cords, so he couldn't begin to guess how she was producing the sounds. Her small, red lips moved, but not enough to match her speech.

"Good," Moralez said, looking a little lost for words. He was probably still trying to decide how to address her, and what level of respect to afford her. She might be a Bug, but she was also a dignitary. The only certainty was that she wasn't what anyone had been expecting.

"I would like to express my gratitude for the level of comfort that you have afforded me, Security Chief," she continued. She kept her lower pair of hands clasped as she gestured to her surroundings with the upper pair. "These accommodations are spacious and lavish."

As opposed to throwing my roach ass in a cell, she neglected to add, but her meaning was obvious enough.

"Yes, well," Moralez replied uncomfortably. "We house all of our visiting dignitaries in similar suites. The Coalition recognizes and appreciates your willingness to...begin diplomatic proceedings, and our intention is not to make you a prisoner here. But you must understand that, due to the relationship between our peoples being somewhat..." There was a long silence as the Chief tried to find the right word, being polite to the critter made him look like he was trying to perform superlight calculations in his head. "...strained," he finally added, "there is some danger of reprisals if we give you free run of the station."

"I understand, of course," she said with a deferential bow of her horned head. "There is no apology I can give that would make amends for your treatment at the hands of our cousins, but know that we share no allegiance with them. Each hive acts alone, entirely independent of the rest, often coming into conflict in much the same way. My Queen now recognizes that cooperation, not conflict, is in the colony's best interests. I am here to negotiate the terms of that relationship."

"Indeed," Moralez said, looking like he would rather be anywhere else. "Well, we'll leave you to get settled in. You won't be permitted to use any of the station's computer equipment, so we'll have someone send for you when the council meeting is ready to begin. Harry, Blackjack?"

Harry returned his nod, the Chief leading his men to the door, Blackjack turning his long snout to watch them as they stepped out onto the torus. The door slid shut with a whoosh, granting Harry a brief glimpse at a few leafy trees, and the two Marines who had been posted as guards.

He turned to see the Bug staring at him with her large, pink eyes. The three of them were alone in the apartment now. He shifted his weight, feeling as uncomfortable as the Chief had looked.

"So...what should I call you?" Harry asked.

"Ambassador would be customary, Sergeant," she replied. "But my father calls me Holly."

"Holly?" he repeated skeptically. "I wasn't aware that Bugs had fathers."

"It's short for Hollyhock, in reference to my coloration," she added. "He is an avid naturalist."

"Alright," Harry muttered, glancing at Blackjack. The big lizard was as cool as ever, just standing there, watching their interaction with his yellow eyes.

"As the Chief said, I'm Sergeant Hayes, and this is Blackjack. He's a Krell, so he doesn't talk much, but he's about the best bodyguard on the station. We'll be staying with you to make sure that nothing happens to you while you're here."

"Tell me, Sergeant Hayes," she said as she walked over to the dining table. She reached out with her lower pair of arms, lifting a potted plant and turning it over as she examined it, touching a fleshy finger against one of the yellow flowers experimentally. "Is there such hatred for my kind that I cannot even step outside for fear of an angry mob?"

"It's a little more complicated than that," Harry began, struggling to explain the unusual situation. "Right now, nobody knows that you're on the station. Well, the higher-ups do, but not the general population. I don't think the other ambassadors do either. I don't have the clearance to know for sure, but if I had to guess, I'd say that the Admiralty wants to wait and see how the meeting goes before they announce anything."

"Then, in the event that our application to the Coalition is rejected, they can deny ever having considered it in order to avoid outrage. I see. It is a logical standpoint for someone in their position."

"Yeah, probably," he continued. "A lot of people on the station hold a grudge against the Betelgeusians, that's an understatement. The Coalition's primary mission is to fight Bugs, pretty much everyone stationed here has lost friends in the war, some have lost a whole lot more. It wouldn't be a good idea for you to go outside, even under heavy guard. We wouldn't be able to guarantee your safety."

"Do you feel that their anger is justified?" the ambassador asked, setting the flower pot back down on the table.

"Listen," he sighed, "we're here because the Chief trusts us to do our jobs. Whatever's going on with you, and the colony, and the Admiralty...that's all above my pay grade. I'm here to make sure that you get to and from the security council meeting safely, my opinions don't factor into it."

"Then at least I have been granted an impartial guardian," she said, running a finger along the kitchen counter as she walked beside it. She paused to examine a coffee machine, her antennae waving in the air, Harry watching her curiously.

She found the microwave, and opened the door, examining the numeric keypad and turning the rotating plate within. When she was done with that, she reached up to the cupboards, opening one of them and sifting through the food items therein.

"What are you doing?" Harry asked, taking a seat on the armrest of the couch as he watched her.

"Exploring," she replied.

"Have you never seen a kitchen before?"

"Not like this. I've seen my father cook, but that is all."

He removed his helmet and shook out his hair, placing it on the couch. It didn't look like he'd be needing it any time soon, and having BJ nearby was better protection than any helmet could provide.

"What do you eat?" Harry asked. "The same stuff we do?"

"To an extent," she replied, not elaborating further as she withdrew a can of coffee grounds from the cupboard and shook it. She felt around the lid, figuring out how it worked in no time, lifting it off and peering inside. The way that she used her hands to investigate her surroundings reminded him of a video that he had seen on the station's intranet of an octopus figuring out how to uncork of a bottle to get at a sardine.

"That's coffee," he explained, "I don't think you'll like it."

"I can read the label," she replied, setting it back down and closing the cupboard door. "The Chief of Security forbade me from using any of the computers, I assume because he does not wish for me to communicate illicitly, or to learn more about the UNN than is deemed appropriate. Does that include the large monitor on the wall over there?"

"Yeah," Harry said with a nod.

"Would it be permissible for you to select files for me to watch, as long as I do not operate the controls myself?"

"The Chief said no computers," Harry replied, crossing his arms.

"Very well," she sighed, sounding somewhat deflated. "May I explore the other rooms in the suite?"

"Yeah, but keep the doors open," he said, "I don't want you doing any...weird Bug stuff."

"I have no means of communicating with anyone outside of this building if that is what worries you," she said, planting her lower pair of hands on her wide hips.

"And you probably wouldn't tell me if you did," Harry added. "Besides, don't Betelgeusians have a hive mind or something?"

"Social insects are not psychic," she said, a touch of irritation creeping into her voice. "We communicate through pheromone signals."

"But you can talk, and you can hear me?"

"I can speak because I was created for the purpose of interacting with humans. All of my kind can hear, we sense vibrations through our exoskeletons."

"Alright, but still, keep the doors open."

"As you wish," she conceded, walking over to the bathroom door. She slid it open and poked her head inside, her feathery antennae twitching. Harry rose from his seat, making sure that he could see what she was doing. She was playing with the faucets, letting the water run over her hands, and then he heard the flush of a toilet.

"What is this for?" she asked, stepping inside the glass shower cubicle and reaching up to examine the showerhead. She was so tactile, always touching everything.

"Don't play with those dials unless you want to get wet," he warned. "It's a shower, we use it for bathing. Do Betelgeusians not take showers?"

"I take issue with you referring to me in that manner," she replied, emerging from the bathroom and closing the door behind her.

"What?" he asked, "Betelgeusian?"

"Yes. I am not from the Betelgeuse star system, nor is it the birthplace of my species. I am from Jarilo, and our original homeworld is a mystery. Bug, at least, is descriptive."

"I don't think rebranding is going to do you much good at this point," he chuckled. "What would you have me call you instead? A Jarilian? Jarilese?"

"Perhaps Jarilan?" she suggested. "I have given it considerable thought."

"I'll just call you Ambassador, how about that?"

She made her way over to the bedroom, emerging a few moments later, her pink eyes scanning the room. She seemed nervous, like she was trying to occupy herself while she waited for the meeting. Could Bugs get nervous?

"Just sit down and be quiet," Harry muttered, gesturing to the couch. "Makes my job easier. They'll send for you when they're ready."

She shot him a displeased glance, then made her way over to the couch, sitting on the leftmost side. She clasped her lower pair of hands neatly in her lap, crossing the upper pair over her chest piece. He was amused to see her cross her legs, which only seemed possible due to the lack of carapace on her inner thighs, one of her two-toed feet bobbing in the air impatiently. She was sitting on the gossamer wings that hung behind her like long coattails, which didn't seem to cause her any discomfort, and the two antennae that came down from the back of her head like pigtails were just long enough to brush the faux-leather.

Harry set his helmet down on the coffee table, then took a seat opposite her, the couch wide enough to seat three. He wasn't about to cozy up to the thing. Blackjack lay down on the strip of wood flooring that separated the kitchen area from the living space, stretching out like a giant dog and closing his eyes. So much for guard duty, he must not think that the Bug posed any threat.

After maybe fifteen minutes of silence, the boredom began to eat at him, and he decided to engage the alien in conversation.

"You keep mentioning your father," he said, the Bug turning her head to look at him from across the couch. "Why do I get the impression that he wasn't a Betelgeusian? Sorry, a Jarilan," he added somewhat sarcastically.

"You would be correct," she replied. "My father raised me, he taught me to speak, instructed me in the ways of your people so that I might better fulfill my purpose. We spent a great deal of time together wandering the forests of Jarilo, searching for new organisms to catalog. He is a lover of nature," she added with a fond smile. Her face was made from rigid chitin, and so it was the interlocking plates around her mouth that shifted to create the effect, rather than muscles in her cheeks. "He has made it his life's work to name its flora and fauna. The majority of the planet's surface has been colonized by a dominant species of tree, not unlike the genera Sequoia of Earth's Pacific Northwest."

"You know a lot about Earth?" he asked.

"It is a subject that fascinates me, my father speaks of it often. I would dearly like to visit the planet of his birth one day."

"That's optimistic," Harry scoffed, "we usually do our best to keep Bugs off Earth. So did your father adopt you? Was he a human colonist?"

"He was a UNN Marine," she replied, "but fate had something else in store for him. He now spends most of his time in the colony."

"The human colony?" Harry asked warily.

"No, our colony, of course."

"He lives in a Bug hive? How?"

"I should explain," she continued. "While the man that I call my father is not my biological father as you would understand it, I do carry his DNA. I am, in a sense, his offspring. He has always treated me as though that were the case, which I appreciate very much."

"How does something like that come about?" Harry asked warily, not knowing if her answer was going to make him lose his breakfast.

"When a hive is defeated, the victor will sometimes absorb the loser into their ranks, assuming that they are deemed valuable. In this manner, their genome and their unique adaptations become a part of the victor's genetic library, and the losing hive's bloodline need not be entirely extinguished. When the Coalition defeated my mother, the Queen, she made a plea of surrender with the expectation that her hive would be assimilated in the same way. Having never encountered humans before, she had no reason to believe that your people did things any differently. It took some time for her intent to be communicated successfully due to the language barrier, but she was eventually able to incorporate human DNA into subsequent generations of her offspring. In doing so, they would instinctively see humans as members of their own hive, and they would be subservient to my father in the manner that such a surrender requires."