The ambassador peeled himself slowly from the cavity he had just made in the wall, possible broken ribs, and he was sure that his arm should not bend in that direction.
"That was an act of belligerence, that was war! Earth Central will put our fleets on alert. We cannot stand this insult!" The (heavily armoured) diplomatic drone fluttered nearby.
"Oh, be quiet drone!" the Emperor's voice echoed in his head. He still wasn't sure how the drone heard it, but it fluttered backwards, aviding the tentacle the zoomed past it's front.It was learning to avoid these blows, after, what was it, sixth new chassis? The Auran Emperor, resplendent in a newly fabbed tank of seawater, floated where at least two stories of the embassy had once stood. "I was only patting the Ambassador on the back for his fine decision!"
Once, long ago, actually about half-an-hour and a wall ago, the Ambassador had been soundly asleep, but had, again, been roused from his slumber by the nautaloid behemoth demanding his presence. This was done by his leg being grabbed by a tentacle, wrenched out of bed, and throwing his human form across the room, ia the ceiling and the floor, twice. He was glad he had packed all surfaces with instantly activating crash foam after the last encounter. He had also learned, since the last time this had happened, to sleep in coveralls. The Emperor obviously did not hold the normal convention of diplomatic privilege to heart. The last half-hour had seen the back wall ripped out of the complex, and construction workers hastily build and fill a warm, saline, tank for the Emperor where a dining room and several offices had once stood. Several of the Emperor's tentacles fluttered with what the Ambassador had assumed represented excitement.
"I brought entertainment and something to dine on." The Emperor had indeed brought food, thankfully not the Ambassador himself, as at least one of his predecessors had become. Much to the Ambassador's shock, it was what the Emperor assumed was human food. It was a fair approximation, like trying to rebuild a Roman feast from half a cookbook. It looked much like Early Twenty-First Century cinema food, including popped kernals of something that might be corn, what might have been burgers, but some were still squeltching off the tray, and some kind of liquids in paper cups.
"Again, His Imperial Majesty has breached diplomatic protocol and has breached our sovereign territory!" The droid fluttered, "and he is trying to posion you with that muck!"
"Shut up mechanoid! The only reason you have not been reduced to customary scrap is that we need three factor authentication for this event."
'What event?' the Ambassador thought though a bleary head. Maybe he needed to add concussion to his injury list?
Maybe he should not have thought this with a psionic shellfish and a mind-reading robot in the room.
"As I said, three factor autorisation needed to view the event, me, you, and unfortunately, your machine." The Emperor gloated.
"How will we do that?" The droid quizzed with a supeior tone.
The Ambassador picked up his cup, and sniffed. Maybe some kind of lactose based cold drink, he suspected it was meant to be banana flavoured, but the Auran's had instead added some kind of mini-fruit to the liquid, bright yellow anad about two centimeters long. Maybe they could have peeled them too? He slurped thoughtfully through the proided strraw as the cup glowed around his hand.
"We already have two factors, mine, the Ambassador has given us his DNA from the cup. If we could just have an oil sample from you..."
"How am I supposed to give my life sustaining fluid..." A tentacle riped through the drone, spraying one wall of the appartment with internal fluids.
"That will do nicely," as two parts of the drone had clanked to the floor.
The Ambassador could hear the fabricator in the basement spring into life, a new shell for the drone was being printed as they stood there.
"We can now settle back and enjoy the show!" The Emperor announced with glee.
"What show?" The replacement drone fluttered up a service vent.
"The Yanpalo have entered McAndrew Corporation space, which we know borders your territories. Our observations have sent back footage of their encounter. Let's all settle down for the show."
"Observations, you mean you have tapped our drones feeds?" the drone settled into a cup-like niche in the floor.
The McAndrew fleet had massed near a series of asteroids, waiting for the Yanpalo. 
That at least explained why a huge multimillion tank of water had been attached to the embassy, it was the equivalent of the Aurean's pulling up their own sofa for a movie!
"We have been tracking their two fleets, and estimated a 65.72% chance of a hostile encounter between the two. Shall we see the result? Droid, I am impressed you have a bed you can lie in?" This was a huge insult to the A.I., but thankfully it stayed quiet, pouting if drones could do that.
The Yenpalo had put their heavy assets on the right, a section of heavy frigates and to their left heavy destroyers. A flight of reconnaissance fighters also was in the area. On the left, light corvettes and bombers were investigating a dust cloud. The McAndrew Corportaion fleet was notionally heavier with two heavyunits, an elite and two light units. 
"Bet you two Earth currencies the McAndrews tear them apart." The Nautaloid Emperor chuckled.
"Not really a fair bet, but okay." The Ambassador held out a hand to shake, and instantly regretted it as a bone-crunching slap hit it. Almost instantly, the Yenpalo reconnaissance fighters became glitter as they were sliced to pieces by the heavy weaponry of the McAndrew elite ships group. 
The Yenpalo instantly lost a destroyer (it had been captured from Tigerians, so no real loss), but four of the light ships of the McAndrew Corporation on the Yenpalo right were also disintergarted by the Yenpalo heavy frigates, the final ship turned tail and jumped away. On the left, light bombers exchanged blows with light ships too. 
"Heavy on heavy firefights there, nasty!" The Drone quiped, sneaking a manipulator full of bolts and crunching them as one of the McAndrew heavies was evaporated.
"Now he makes me laugh, I may not shred him yet!" The Emperor's thoughts entered the Ambassador's mind.
.
The Ambassador shuddered inwardly as the Heavy Destroyers of the Yenpalo were torn apart by co-ordinated McAndrew fire, and he wondered how many souls he was seeing perish in the hard vacuum of space, and if he had any small changeto pay the bet.
McAndrew heavies gunned down with armour piercing shots and heavy weapons a flight of Yenpalo Light corvettes, after evaporating their bomber force too.
"This is wonderful sight!" the Emperor's thoughts penetrated his mind, "Both your enemies scattered to atoms."
"I will drink to that!" The drone raised a can of oil. It appeared, for once, the diplomatic drone was enjoying the spectacle. A flight of heavy McAndrew ships was despatched by combined firepower of
the heavy frigates, but it was not enough.
Shortly after, two Yenpalo heavy frigates, the only surviving ships, engaged faster than light drives and flitted out of the area, leaving the McAndrew Corporation firmly in charge of the volume of space and doubly victorious after removing the Yenpalo command ship.
"We have another encounter on file," The Emperor wriggled in his tank with excitement, "Double or nothing?"
"Done!" the droid cried, much to the Ambassador's shock, maybe the oil had gone to it's CPU?
This was another brutal affair, over in moments. A temporary cease fire had failed when the McAndrew corporation had fired on a flight of Yenpalo fighters, again evaporating them with alacrity. They had taken apart the Yenpalo support cruiser with ease before it could damage the McAndrew elites, and demolished a flight of heavy frigates with only losing a flight of lights in return. Very soon, the only remaining forces were a flight of light corvettes going to ground by hiding in and around the reactivated sheilds of an abandoned spacestation.
Despite taking numerous losses, the corvettes had held on until an approaching relief force had driven the McAndrews out of that volume of space, despite holding many objective points, the McAndrew's breach of the ceasefire had cost them dearly..
Hence why the Ambassador had found himself smashed into the wall. The Emperor had taken the human gesture of a slap on the back one step too far. He had just been enjoying the sport of the show, and had become over exuberent. He turned round as the Emperor picked up his waiting entorage and departed.
"He didn't say a word, did we upset him?" The Ambassador enquired.
"I have no idea, I am assuming the fact we are not smeared across the rugs (in my case again), means we are okay/" The droid pondered. "In fact, I would say..."
KERCHING! A noise like a mueseum cash register spilt the air, and both parties looked at each other as a message decoded into their brains. "Of course I'm not upset with you! Two fights and your reactions were some of the greatest fun I've had in millenia. I just have an empire to run. A bet is a bet though."
"Sir, we appear to have just gained four M-class planets on our Auran border area. Control has been ceeded directly to us, immediately and forthwith for all eternity."
"Oh, when he said Earth currency, he wasn't talking coins, he was meaning Earth like planets!"
"Good thing you won that second bet Your Excellency!"
Comments
Post a Comment