Chapter 12

Preliator sat down at the end of the conference table in the primary meeting room of the Acer One. About fifteen Liodammian delegates were already seated.

"Okay," Preliator started, "no diplomatic niceties for now, if you don't mind. I need the facts, as this is highly... unexpected."

The tallest Liodammian there smiled, evidently their leader. "We will endeavor to answer any and all questions you may possess."

"Okay, to start off with... why were you planning on invading Earth? I was captured by one of your little invasion study teams, and put through a dream world where Earth was placed under siege by Liodammian forces. You were also shown in a very bad light in this dream world; you looked a hell of a lot more like an invader than the I.D.L., and we didn't give you any provocation to attack. Also, one other thing: why not take your fleet back to Liodammian space if you need refuge?"

"Ah," the leader replied, frowning slightly. "I have to apologize for that. First, you should know that we were just worried about Earth joining the I.D.L. against us. Our resources are stretched incredibly thin as it is, and we don't need any further enemies to deal with. Which is why we are here: what we really need is a place close to I.D.L. space to gather our forces for a decisive strike. Earth fits the bill. As to how we looked to you in the dream world, that is not our doing; your mind fills in the missing details that we don't supply. We basically just tell the simulations to figure out what would happen if we were to engage in combat with a certain planet, and let it go from there. Would you happen to be the non-human that we received a transmission about?"

Preliator nodded. "I'm a Quevian- most likely you've never heard of us before. If you answer all of my questions satisfactorily, I'll answer any questions you have about my species. Also, you'll get the crew we captured from your ship back... but not the ship. Sorry, but we've put too much new experimental technology into it to turn it over."

"No matter, the ship is of no import to us; it's one of our oldest cruisers." The Liodammian stopped for a moment, sighing mentally. "And I already know what your next question would most likely be. Why is the I.D.L. hunting the Liodammians if the Liodammians have done nothing wrong? To start, you need to know the true history of our people. The Liodammian Empire was formed when a group of three hundred Ghalerans were exiled from Ghalera for performing genetic experimentations on themselves; they had been trying to better themselves, to make the entire species superior to what it was. They only had the best interests of the Ghaleran people at heart. So, they formed their own species, after completely re-writing the Ghaleran gene code. All of that is in the textbooks, of course. But there is a lot more that isn't."

The Liodammian leader supported himself against the table, a couple of small tears running down his face. "The Ghalerans found our new home world. We were declared an aberration, a species that had no value and that was a public menace. The Ghalerans did not want us anywhere close to their world, they were so infuriated by our mere presence. So they ordered us to pack up all sixty-eight million Liodammians and move from our own world only a millennia after we had settled there. They wanted us to traverse the distance to another galaxy, and to never return. We, of course, refused. But we never thought that they would go to war just to rid themselves of us. They came in the middle of the night. Four thousand Ghaleran atmospheric fighters were dropped from a fleet of carriers. They bombed us for more than three days straight. When the attack was over, there were less than a million Liodammians left. So we turned up the cloning facilities to full production, and changed our factories over from producing innocent computers to destructive machines. Within a week, we had a small fleet. We're quite efficient. The Ghalerans did not believe we had the capability for interstellar flight after their attack- that was their big mistake, underestimating us. We struck them as hard as they had struck us. We entered the solar system undetected, launching ten long range nuclear devices against major Ghaleran cities before we retreated. We killed at least as many of them as they had killed of us. They took the case to a few other species, claiming that we had launched an unprovoked attack! They circulated the video of the attack, and drew sympathy. No one would believe us after that. So we mobilized for war... and for the last fifty years we have been fighting the good fight. No doubt many of the species in the I.D.L. are completely innocent, including some of the ones we have destroyed during this conflict. But it is their own fault; we were merely defending ourselves. We do, however, regret that we are forced to take such drastic measures."

Preliator nodded. "There is a reason I was selected to interrogate you. Quevians have a psychic ability somewhat beyond that of the Liodammians. If you don't mind, I'd like to confirm your story."

He had walked to the Liodammian's side as he talked. He placed two fingers from each hand at key points along the Liodammian's neck, directly over his spine. He remembered a little line from Star Trek. "My mind to your mind..."

A lifetime of memories flashed before Preliator's eyes in seconds. He fell backwards, gasping for breath. He had become drenched in sweat in the blink of an eye, and his face had gone pale.

"My god... Senator Ris, I apologize for not believing you..." Preliator slowly stood up, wiping a tear from his eye. "I didn't realize... I'm so sorry. Your wife... you miss her terribly."

Senator Ris nodded slowly, tears now freely flowing down his cheeks. "There was no way you could have known."

Preliator pulled himself together, sitting back down at the end of the table. "Your crew will be released immediately. It will be my recommendation to the United Nations that the Earth should officially ally itself with the Liodammian Empire as soon as possible. The Ghalerans will not get away with their crimes."

Senator Ris nodded. "Thank you. I still am interested in you, you know. You haven't told me your story yet."

Preliator smiled. "It really isn't all that interesting. Quevians are an ancient species that are, in their natural form, a non-corporeal energy based life-form. We can transform into anything within a certain mass limit. The larger you want to be, the more energy it requires to transform. We have pretty well developed psychic abilities, as you just discovered. In our early days of space travel, we had no technology. We would just launch ourselves off towards various solar systems, taking millennia if not more to arrive. Then other species began nearing the planets we had colonized, with massive ships that could cut our journey times drastically... so we pretended to be long last members of whatever species neared us, hitching rides to civilized areas of space. The Acer family arrived on Earth about five hundred years ago. I myself was born just a little over a century ago. The Fervens family is the only other family of Quevians on this planet. Auctorita Fervens, my fiancée, is native to Earth just as I am. We also live a lot like most humans; we have jobs and everything. Sort of. We have been responsible for setting up a few companies around the world, letting others take credit for founding them. Still wish I hadn't turned over one of my damned software companies to that arrogant little shit, Gates; his little programmers screwed up everything... erm, anyway..."