[I hope we can get along, Gunnery Commander Alex.]
Closely monitoring his surroundings, Mike still had his hand firmly planted on his pistol as he extended a courtesy to the beastwoman in front of him before switching language and moving to a close comm channel.
"No need to overload the reactor, come on out."
[Rog.]
[While we did meet in unfortunate circumstances, as the leader of the group I am ready to move on from the subject as long as my group is compensated appropriately, our ship was not only first class and outfitted for extremely long endurance missions, but also a formidable fighter… We'll need a replacement for it to be able to complete our current mission.]
As the visitor from another world started negotiating he was joined by 3 others, 2 female and 1 male, and although only two of them were armed Alex's combat experience told her they were dangerous in a fight.
[What our leader means is that we want blood, I am fully prepared to see this entire ship burn over this, who attacked us even after we signalled we were friendlies?]
Before Alex knew what was happening, the conversation took a very unexpected turn as one of the arriving outsiders called for blood and made Alex's subordinates stir.
"Excuse me?"
Giving the outsiders a chance to back down, Alex hoped the other parties would de-escalate, but instead, they doubled down.
[You heard me fur ears.]
Putting a hand on her sidearm, the outsider quickly transformed the first contact event into a standoff.
"What the!-"
"STAND DOWN!"
Keeping her subordinates from escalating, Alex took a step forward as she tried to calm down the outsiders.
"The person who disregarded your contact effort will be punished, they've been problematic for years now and I've been looking for an opportunity to dishonourably discharge them for as long as I've been in command. When I drag him out of here by his hair I'll arrange for all of you to be present."
[That's all well and good, but we're not taking your word for it.]
As the conversations came to a standstill, Alex started thinking about the possible fallout of a firefight but stopped when she heard something seemingly impossible.
[You really haven't changed since last I saw you Alex, I'm guessing it's that moron Jesper having his ego running out of control again?]
Even though the voice was heavily modulated, Alex immediately recognised the other female's voice the seconds she spoke up.
"W-wait… I-it can't be…"
At a loss for words, Alex teared up as she completely forgot about her current mission and started walking over towards the outsider in pure disbelief. Removing her helmet, Jessica slowed a slight smile as she said hello to an old friend.
"I'm back, Alex."
"My lady! You've finally returned!"
Moving to her private office for a more private setting, Alex took a moment to collect herself before broaching the subject.
"My lady, how did you… You were missing for so long."
Understandably beside herself as she had long since accepted that Jessica was dead, Alex was now beside herself as she saw her old friend alive and well, having returned from another world.
"It would be easier for Mike to explain that… you can take that helmet off now by the way Mike, this one isn't going to gas you."
Turning to Mike, who still had a hand on his sidearm and helmet on, Jessica was initially met with silence, but after a few seconds of prolonged staring, Mike eventually relented.
"Fine."
Taking off his helmet, Mike watched Alex's surprise at seeing his features before he attached his helmet to the hip of his suit and started talking.
"Jessica was the sole survivor of a crystal lifeform attack, due to interference from what was most likely a precursor, a chunk of the war form she served on was translocated into a different galaxy and placed near a pulsar."
"... The spear of Ra'si lost to crystalline lifeforms? I find that very unlikely."
As her and her people had been dealing with the crystal lifeforms for almost a decade by now, Alex found it highly unlikely that a warform specifically designed to counter that very threat would be defeated by it.
"Those crystals weren't anything like the ones we faced before, they entirely bypassed our exclusion field and moved and fiercer than anything I've ever seen before… It was like all the other campaigns they had launched before were just for practice."
Recalling the battle where a large part of her friends and associates died, leaving her as the only survivor left Jessica with mixed feelings, on one part she still had a strong survivor's guilt, but on the other, she was thankful that they had saved her.
"This is partly why we're here, now that the gateway network is activating it will draw crystal lifeforms even stronger than the one that tore the spear of Ra'si apart into conflict with not only this galaxy, but all organic life in this local galaxy cluster. These creatures are a threat to all organic life, and without cooperation, there's no way anyone can survive against them."
Revealing one of the reasons he as to why he was travelling, Mike didn't miss the sheer amount of disbelief visible on Alex's face, but even as she didn't want to believe the words of an alien outsider it was true that the crystalline lifeforms had been increasing the frequency of attacks over the past year.
"Of course, I don't expect you to believe me… My own kind didn't even believe me until they were already under attack, at that point when preventing casualties was already a distant dream they finally started listening."
Even as logical as it was not to believe the random crazy person saying the world was going to end out of nowhere, Mike was still getting tired of not being heard all the time.
"Welp, nothing we can do about that for now, so let's focus on something we can actually solve… That subordinate of yours, do you need help getting him out of your hair?"
Even when she knew she shouldn't, Alex was honestly intrigued when an outsider offered to help her get rid of Jesper, intrigued enough to bite.
"How would you do that exactly? Even if he isn't that important as a person his father is friends with multiple council members, any kind of complaint filed against him would only get buried."
"Me? I wouldn't do shit, but given that he tried to kill Jessica here I imagine she could do something about it."
Ever since Mike heard Jessica's explanation for how she ended up as the sole survivor of her ship he knew she was more important than she was letting on, otherwise, there was no reason her superior had gone to such great lengths to protect her.
(Why else would a ship Captain go out of their way to protect a mere ensign?)
"Why exactly are you helping me?"
Seeing Mike extending an olive branch without any real reason to do so, Alex immediately got suspicious of his reason for doing so, although when Mike didn't answer her question she eventually agreed to his scheme.
(Another perfect day… As if, that fucking bitch seriously needs an ego check one of these days!)
Sitting in his office with both feet up on his desk, Jesper spent his time on a self-imposed ego trip instead of filling out the reports that he was supposed to. As Gunnery Captain this CIC was his own personal kingdom where he ruled with an iron fist, in here, no one could tell him what to do, except for a few of his incompetent superiors of course.
(One of these days my worth will finally be recognised, and then I'll be able-)
"Sir, you have a visitor."
Forcefully dragged out of his pleasant daydreams, Jesper was annoyed by the knock on his door, but he calmed himself by realising that he was the only competent person around.
As long as he educated his subordinates and continued to ignore his incompetent superiors everything would be okay - or so Jesper believed.
"Right, send them in."
Overlooking his rude subordinate, Jesper didn't bother to correct his posture before receiving his visitor.
"I see you're still as useless as ever, Jesper, I'm glad nothing has changed around here."
"WHA!- How are you still alive!?"
Waltzing into the room like she owned it (because she kind of did) Jessica hardly cared for Jesper's flustered outburst as she walked past his desk and right up to him.
(He really is as incompetent as ever… Well, for once that works to my advantage.)
"You almost killed me, you fucking moron!"
Using the back of her hand, Jessica slapped Jesper so hard in the face that he fell out of his chair, and when he was finally beneath her as he should be, Jessica stated the reason for her visit.
"As you tried to take my life, ignoring all attempts at communication while forsaking the duties you've sworn to do, I hereby challenge you to trial by combat. You have 10 minutes to bring your affairs in order."
Even with his close personal contacts to the council, nothing could save him from the attempted murder of an heir to a council seat, it was only because of Jessica's outright sadistic tendencies she challenged him to trial by combat instead of straight up banishing him.
Granted, it would be a bit before Jesper realised this.
-
"Do you really think he'll come by himself?"
Standing outside the CIC building and waiting for Jesper, Mike asked Alex as he waited with the others and a growing group of onlookers. Although the shard of Ra'si was a ship capable of moving about on its own, the inside seemed more like a space station at a glance, with districts (such as the defence district Mike and the others currently found themselves in) being fully featured with parks, administrative and office buildings in addition to a large amount of military and defence installations throughout the shard.
"Yeah, he's far too proud to try and run away."
As if on Alex's queue, a brown-haired beastkin dressed in a staff officer's uniform finally appeared looking extremely pissed off as he parted the onlookers and arrived at the plaza Jessica had designated as his execution grounds.
"Here I am Jessica, you requested a trial by combat, so step forward!"
Having regained a bit of his confidence in the time he had been left alone, Jesper seemed to misunderstand something as he expected Jessica to fight against him.
"Wait, what's going on?"
Speaking the Eden language, Dan, who still wore his vacuum suit didn't quite seem to keep up with the current situation, so he asked Mike for a tl;dr.
"That dude is the one who destroyed the Wyrm, Jessica has changed him to a trial by combat, it's a simple hand-to-hand fight, and the loser gets banished."
"I see…"
Glancing at Jesper, who was far better built than Jessica while standing a head taller than her, Dan gave Jessica a half-spirited pat on the shoulder after evaluating her odds.
"It was nice knowing you twerp."
"As if. Watch this."
Brushing Dan off for the moment, Jessica stepped forward and addressed Jesper who was already in the process of buttoning down his dress shirt, clearly confident in his odds he made sure he would look good in victory.
"You're 2 minutes late Jesper, let's get to it before you waste even more of my time."
"Ha! Fucking typical! Come get some lady, I'll teach you not to mess with me ever again!"
With his optimistic confidence in his chances having transformed into full-on blind pride and narcissism, Jesper failed to notice Jessica's smug smile.
"... It seems like you misunderstand, I'm not your opponent, she is."
Pointing to her side, Jessica no longer cared about hiding her smile as she introduced Jesper to River who had stripped out of her vacuum suit and was now barefooted, wearing a pair of training shorts and a loose-fitting t-shirt over a sports bra, putting her enhanced body on full display as she cracked her knuckles.
"Nice to meet you, pretty boy~ You're going to regret messing up my ship."
"Wait what!? How is that-"
"As an heir to the council it is fully within my right to appoint a champion to fight for me as long as I still share in the punishment for losing, did you forget that?"
"... FINE! Let's get this over with!"
Loosening his tie with an annoyed huff, Jesper prepared to fight as River had finally finished warming up.
"Don't kill him now."
As Mike joined in on the cheering in a half-serious manner, River moved to her starting position with a lazy wave.
"I'll try not to, but no promises~"
Needless to say, the fight was an outright bloodbath, well, not exactly as River did hold back enough to not outright kill Jesper, but still, what followed wasn't pretty. Having moved faster than her opponent could anticipate, River easily avoided the feeble, panicked defence and knocked all air out of Jesper's lungs with a well-placed kick to the side, from there she quickly mounted the fallen opponent before he could regain enough breath to surrender.
"Sto!- ARG! P-plea- OUGH!- I-I'm- ARGH!"
Seemingly in an attempt to keep the sorry state of a beastkin beneath her from surrendering, River would hit him in the face with just enough force to not knock him out every time he tried to call out, leading to a very sorry excuse for a fight which quickly threatened to evolve into a public execution.
"... Mike, if you would please."
When she became satisfied with the number of beatings Jesper had received, Jessica decided to let Mike handle the rest.
Only the person in question didn't seem to want to corporate.
"Hm? What now?"
"Mike."
"What?"
"Before this becomes a diplomatic incident."
"Fiiine… River, he's had enough!"