The Tinnar leader looked confused, with his flat nasal opening that extended up his face fluttering open and closed as he tilted his head and seemed to lose focus on the room.
Max could tell he was deep in thought about the possibility that humans and the Knife Ears weren't actually working together. But he couldn't determine why the region's second great evil hadn't attacked them.
Then, he had a moment of inspiration. "You said they were like your species nanny in a way if they had actually raised humanity through your early development. Is it possible that they're just indulging your urge to attack their enemies? If they're really treating humans as children in some twisted way, they might be willing to indulge them until their curiosity is sated."
The Koleska actually looked more horrified about that than the chances that the two species were working together.
"What if they're treating the Humans as pets?" The lead bureaucrat finally asked.
"How so?" Max asked, though he already knew what the man was thinking.
"If they're intending to raise the humans as attack dogs now that they're beginning to grow up as a species and have mastered the technology clues left behind for them to such a degree, it would be a disaster for this entire region. Forget simply protecting the Anomaly. If the humans sent a million more teams like these two through to our region, they would be capable of wiping out species faster than the Arisen.
The only reason that the Knife Ears aren't the greatest threat to the region is because they're so rarely seen and never in large numbers. But humans have millions of planets. Even if each planet sent one team here, the Arisen wouldn't dare to enter any territory that they chose to occupy."
The Koleska all had thoughts of being enslaved and overrun by human overlords in Mecha with exotic weapons that could destroy anything they could field in a single shot, but the Tinnar were overjoyed.
They saw a benevolent military force who were spread all over the region and were able to gather to drive back the Arisen wherever they might appear.
"Our agreement with the Koleska is that we won't send more forces through than are necessary to hold the region around the Anomalies which lead to our home region of space.
Somewhere else in this region, there is a second species from near us doing the same thing, holding a foothold at an anomaly to keep the Arisen at bay. They are relatively close to us in the universe, and if they begin to falter, we will send them reinforcements as allies, but we have neither the intention nor the manpower to fight wars in a region we can't even locate on a map of the universe." Max assured them.
That was only a little concerning to them. If they were so far away that they hadn't heard of a second anomaly with an alien species' arrival, it was too far away to affect their battle against the Arisen. The only important part to the Koleska bureaucrats was their continued survival and the end of the Arisen threat.
The Koleska and Tinnar groups went silent for a while as they considered what to do in this situation. The Knife Ears might be back, or they might not, but if they did, the wise thing to do was to stay on defence and let the humans engage.
They hadn't attacked the Koleska at all so far, only focused on the Arisen, and because the Koleska had retreated from the fight between the two powerhouses, they hadn't suffered any casualties, but it didn't make them feel any better about another hostile species in the area.
Add to that the concern that humans might actually be just as bad as the Knife Ears if they weren't allied by an agreement, and the Koleska were in a panic about how the future would pan out.
They weren't well suited for uncertainty, especially in politics, and this was nearly enough to cause a full breakdown in their comfort level with Max and Nico.
Max spoke up again to assure them of future alliance actions. "We might have had a link to them a million years ago, but a lot has changed in that time. We are not them, and the Reavers take agreements especially seriously, even among the human factions.
We have allied with the Koleska to defend the Anomaly, and there is no chance that we will be the ones to break that agreement or to start any other hostile action in this region."
The Tinnar delegation leader smiled at Max and extended his hand. "As our people don't have an agreement, might we get that in writing? We came here because we heard about the situation, and it would greatly assure our people if there was a written agreement that the humans would not attack any of the nations where we have taken shelter."
Max nodded. "We can agree that we will not attack first, but we cannot guarantee that we will not annihilate any species that attacks us, regardless of their alliances."
The Tinnar flinched at that, but a braver member of his delegation, their military representative, spoke up.
"Do the humans really think they are capable of what the Arisen struggle to do?" He asked.
Nico smiled at the man in a way that sent a shudder up his spine.
"Have you seen the combat videos of our Mecha?"
The man nodded, and she continued. "If it comes down to it, we can field a hundred million of them at a time. When it comes down to it, we are fully capable of overtaking civilized species empires in a single day, and we have done it before to pacify violent neighbours."
The Tinnar leader was giving his military advisor a look that promised violence for having asked that question, but the man's curiosity was honest. He really did want to know if the humans were all hot air or if they could back up their words. If she had said a thousand or ten thousand, he would have brushed off her bragging. But against a hundred million? No species could withstand that sort of firepower, no matter how advanced their military might be.
"How would you organize that many?" Commander Yuri asked curiously, thinking of the defence of his own Station in an emergency.
"We have an Alliance, broken up into independently operating Companies. If you attack one of us, you attack all of us. That is our way and our law. So, if we are attacked, we will form a military council for the battle that organizes where every Company will send their troops, and we will attack as one. I can send a data feed of the one time we actually had to do it if you like." Nico offered.
"Oh yes, please do. But tell me, what happened to that species afterward?" Commander Yuri asked.
"We killed all their political leaders, and our allies appointed a mediator to run their Empire on our behalf to ensure impartiality. They are a bit of a laughingstock for having lost their Empire in less than two days, but ninety-nine percent of them are alive and well, still living their lives as normal, with an added tax to pay reparations for the damage their leaders caused." She explained.
That made Commander Yuri and the junior delegates much happier about working with the humans. But at the same time, it made the bureaucrats much more nervous about doing anything that might be construed as an act of war against humans.
The Tinnar definitely didn't want to make that mistake, especially after Nico sent them an abridged version of the invasion, with hundreds of thousands or millions of Mecha descending on every planet at the same time.
Visit freewe𝑏nov(e)l.𝗰𝐨𝐦 for the 𝑏est n𝘰vel reading experience