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She stared out the viewport at the starlines and fluctuating colors of hyperspace.
Mek Muv Meq was back on Gevana Ruk Ruv Ruq’s starship. Together with Vek Vuv Veq, they were traveling to meet the Navarch at a shipyard.
Mek Muv Meq was alone for the moment in her quarters. Vek Vuv Veq was attending to a matter with several of the other delegates the Gavana had invited along, and she was off duty.
One of the biggest advantages in her role as aide-de-camp to the Gavana was being in the know. Far beyond where she had been in her previous service, Mek Muv Meq knew intricate details of what was happening.
Based on multiple factors, the IITA believed they had a bead on just where the Ditufgne would next strike. While she knew the precise target had yet to be identified, given the number of worlds of the races under threat, it was impressive that they had anything at all.
Mek Muv Meq was not aware of the specifics, nor how the IITA had gotten the information that they did, save that it had something to do with the CSA and independent shippers.
There were, of course, several issues to be considered. Both Narvach Dromm and the Gavana agreed that all discussions on the potential target area needed to be kept from being transmitted. Even by secure transmission.
This was why they were en route to the Navarch. Any discussions - even at the highest levels - were being done in person. Since they knew the Ditufgne could receive transmissions – but they had been unresponsive to any – they were being cautious. It was possible that the Ditufgne might be able to break the encryptions of secure comms and glean whatever info they liked.
Though the precise where was still not known, the four worlds under threat and the area where the Ditufgne forward element had been spotted were being monitored by the Xorcerizts.
Mek Muv Meq knew that while traveling faster-than-light via warp, as the Xorcerizts did, they could still monitor normal space without being detected. Monitoring normal space from hyperspace was impossible.
The Xorcerizts were also quite certain that when in transit via wormhole, the Ditufgne could not monitor normal space.
Given how many starships needed to be moved to face the terrible Ditufgne superweapon and its planet-shifting technology, they wanted to have the best possible intel. The more they knew of the specifics of the Ditufgne attack, the Gavana reasoned, the easier to meet them and hopefully stop that weapon from another deployment.
It was not yet public knowledge that communications with the banished world of Kamatsa had been reestablished. A microscopically small portal remained open between where Kamatsa had been in the Cailin sector of the Zarahn Empire and where the planet was now, in the void between galaxies.
The portal was too small to send anything save transmissions but allowed them to be instantaneous. The planet was in orbit of a sun not too dissimilar to its own and was stable again.
But the death toll from the transit had been catastrophic, numbering in the millions.
Yet the world survived and would continue to do so. Unfortunately, they were alone in the void and had no way of returning back to the galaxy.
The ability to communicate back to where Kamatsa had been, the IITA leaders in the know agreed, might be judged worse than mourning the loss of the world. It was considered a form of torture to allow the people of Kamatsa to call out to home but never again see it.
Mek Muv Meq was no scientist, but she understood that no matter where in the void between galaxies they were, no known form of travel could bring people to or from Kamata in a lifetime.
But they lived. And that was a small consolation.
Mek Muv Meq understood that the next fight, if all went even close to according to plan, would either end the new IITA or the Ditufgne threat. There would be a lot of pieces in motion from many different places, all attempting to reach the same point. One group was going to take the world in question and send it to the void, while the other was hell-bent on stopping them.
The window for destroying the Ditufgne superweapon was small. Once powered up fully, its destruction would potentially take out the local solar system or multiple systems. Thus, if it reached that point, they could not strike until another planet was banished.
Neither the Gavana nor the Nevarch were ready to sacrifice a whole solar system to stop the Ditufgne. At least, not yet. They and the various military leaders and Xorcerizts agreed that that knowledge was a deterrent on the part of the Ditufgne.
But after the loss of another world, if they could not stop the superweapon, it may be the final choice. All agreed destroying it when fully charged would be easiest. But the consequence of that decision made it unappealing.
Mek Muv Meq continued to stare out into hyperspace. It calmed her. That hadn’t always been true. When she first signed on to the Zathru Marine Corps, it terrified her.
Space was big enough. The vastness of space, to a young woman who had lived on just one small world before signing up, was intimidating. Hyperspace and all its unknown properties were even more so.
Mek Muv Meq had not been that naïve new marine for a long time now. But that still left her feeling conflicted.
Even after suffering major injuries as one of the first survivors of early Ditufgne attacks, her sense of duty remained. Now, as aide-de-camp to the Gavana of the IITO, she was removed from combat.
As an advisor to the former External Waziri, she’d still been a soldier. But when he gave up his affiliation as a government representative of the Zathru, she chose to stay by his side but in a new role.
The gavana and new representative to the IITO governing body would not be in combat. And Mek Muv Meq was not sure how to feel about that.
Being in danger was not fun. Combat was scary. But was she still doing her duty serving the Gavana while others were on the front-line, facing the greatest enemy any spacefaring race had yet known?
She was unsure. And she didn’t like how that was making her feel.
Mek Muv Meq knew, deep down, that she was not abandoning her post. Nor was she abandoning her fellow soldiers facing the coming combat against the unpredictable Ditufgne.
But that didn’t change how she was feeling. Mek Muv Meq still played a role that served her people. But it was much bigger than the former marine gunner ever anticipated it being. And it was far removed from the life of a soldier.
Maybe, she pondered, Vek Vuv Vek would understand. He’d been a soldier before becoming an aide-de-camp to the former External Waziri.
But he’d been an officer and came from a far more affluent life than hers had been. His family didn’t subsist on the ZIBI as hers had for generations.
She sighed. He was her partner. She knew if she told him how she was feeling, he’d understand.
Mek Muv Meq knew she’d been fortunate to survive. And while she did not crave a return to combat, neither did she like feeling like a coward, knowing it was not expected of her.
It was an internal conflict she knew that she alone must contend with. She just hoped her instincts would allow her to be in the right place at the right time.
And her instincts, she knew, were good. That was why she’d been the lone survivor at the start of the Ditufgne incursion.