Oh, Spensa would really have loved this.
“Scudballs,” I heard Arturo say.
“Oh dear,” Cuna said. “Such aggression.”
I couldn’t argue with that. The kitsen swiftly marched across the sand. More of my flightmates climbed back into their ships. Since we were currently being flanked by what amounted to rats with rifles, I didn’t blame them. I supposed I should give orders to my flight, but I didn’t have any better idea what to do in this situation than they did.
FM stayed by my side, Alanik and Cuna a step behind.
Kauri rotated her platform to float between us and the oncoming kitsen, though her other people mostly seemed to be getting out of the way. Since they were both unarmed and unarmored, I didn’t blame them either.
“Goro,” Kauri said. “What are you doing?”
“We intercepted your transmission, traitor!” Goro said. “You invited these treacherous giants onto our planet. Bad enough that any of their kind are being permitted to sully our sands. We should have blown them out of the sky when they first appeared.”
“No one is getting blown out of the sky!” Kauri said. “These are friends of a friend.” She looked over her shoulder at me. “Aren’t you?”
“Um, yes,” I said.
“Other kitsen!” FM said. “I am a diplomatic representative from our people.” I barely heard her add “apparently” under her breath. “We’re here to collect our lost friends and discuss an alliance. We’re not…invading anything, and we don’t mean to…sully your sands.”
“This is heresy!” Goro shouted, pointing a furry finger at me. He had quite a loud voice for such a small creature. “We will not be fooled by your gilded words! The Den of Everlasting Light Which Laps Gently upon the Shores of Time has seen the last of your tyranny and we will not suffer it again!”
“I’m sorry about him,” said a voice near my feet, and I looked down to see that one of Kauri’s people had scurried over to join us. “Goro has…a tendency toward the dramatic.”
“It’s understandable,” Cuna said. “Your culture is not yet advanced enough to move beyond these aggressions.”
FM sighed and ignored Cuna, addressing the kitsen at my feet. She had little white tufts at the ends of her ears and a brownish one at the end of her bushy white tail. “What’s your name?” she asked.
“Hana,” the kitsen said.
“Hi, Hana,” FM said. “I’m FM. Your people have interacted with humans before?”
“When the first wave of humans conquered the galaxy, they started with us,” Hana told her. “Our ancestors fought bravely, but they were no match for human technology. And it didn’t help that at first they welcomed the humans to our shores—the kindly giants straight out of legend! The tales of our early interactions through the nowhere had been passed down for generations.”
Goro’s soldiers had stopped about three meters from Kauri, but their tiny kitsen leader floated his platform up until he stood toe to toe with her. “I demand that you step aside,” he said.
“I will not,” Kauri said. “I contacted the humans so they could collect their lost people. They aren’t invading, and there is no need for all of…this.” She gestured at the kitsen soldiers, whose power armor hummed ominously. The kitsen hummed with it. It was probably meant to seem intimidating.
It was working.
“Very well,” Goro said. “If they claim to come in peace, they must prove it by the sword.”
A sword? I supposed that might be preferable to being shot at by many tiny rifles, but…why?
“Send forth one of your people,” Goro continued, “and they may duel my champion in honorable combat.”
“Champion?” I said.
A single warrior stepped out of the mass of kitsen. Her power armor was decorated by a tiny skirt, and her helmet curved into two wicked points underneath her chin. She was carrying a sword slightly longer than a dinner knife, which made it taller than she was.
I looked at FM, but she was staring at the kitsen champion. Cuna was watching us all with wide eyes, like they couldn’t believe they had deigned to be present for so much barbarity.
On this particular point I had to agree, though it wasn’t the barbarity that alarmed me so much as the practical concerns.
A sword? Really? “We’re not fighting that,” I said. “No way.”
“I’ll fight it!” Nedd called from behind me, and FM shot him a withering look.