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First Contact - Reeves - 04-07-2026
Cuisine Grounds; 1st Annual UMC Cultural Festival; Planet Gran Canaria
The Cuisine Grounds were loud in the way that good places always are, the kind of noise made not by volume alone but by the collision of dozens of conversations, the hiss of griddles, and the mingled smell of food from half a hundred different worlds. Over fifty vendors stretched across the outdoor market, and if any of them had ever heard of Synth Foods, they had the good taste not to mention it. Cuban sandwiches shared real estate with Kusari okonomiyaki, Bretonian curry with Vietnamese banh mi, and somewhere near the eastern end a Liberty ribeye was taking on smoke over a proper fire. It was the culinary heritage of mankind laid out across folding tables and open-air counters, and it asked nothing of the people passing through it except appetite.
Nodoka Hanamura had answered that ask with a plate stacked with okonomiyaki, the underlayer thick with sauce and scattered with aonori, bonito flakes, bacon, chicken and shrimp, the whole thing crowned with parmesan, smoked cheddar, cracked pepper and a generous line of kewpie. A large can of blueberry soda sat beside it. Her sister Nanami had been more restrained, an Italian portobello panini alongside a small bag of baked chips and a stuffed onion, her drink a honey-sweetened green tea. The two of them were unmistakably sisters, both bearing the particular grace of the Hanamura line, dark-haired and endowed as their late mother Ayane had been, though Nodoka's hair carried the deep purple that was the legacy of gene editing that had run in their family since the late 21st century, one of the first in that era to take that step.
They found Setsuna Kobayashi already seated at a round table in the middle of the market's bustle, her tray of lasagna, green beans and garlic bread sitting partially eaten as she spoke in low, deliberate tones to the Bretonian man standing over her. A quiet instruction, then a quiet dismissal. The man excused himself just as the sisters sat down.
Nodoka watched him go. "What was that about?"
Setsuna glanced at the poles spaced along the perimeter of the seating area. "Counter-intelligence. The poles are ultrasonic jammers. We have people watching and Jae-un is linked to the cameras. I'd rather not have Auxesians, or any Prometheans who might be here, listening in."
"I'm impressed."
"It was Kensington's idea." Setsuna paused. "My question is whether you're aware the Xenos have ties to the Cardamine trade."
Nodoka took a bite before answering. "I'm aware. We're not going to help them spread it. Unlike us, they don't have connections on Gran Canaria that could breathe life back into an old shell company after a decade and sort out transport licenses. They're a fledgling nation. They committed their sins getting on their feet just as we committed ours. They peddled Cardamine. We stole from Kishiro and leveled the city of Oita."
Nanami went quiet at that, eyes on her panini.
Setsuna exhaled. "I just wish we as a species never found that godforsaken planet."
"Who in their right mind doesn't," Nodoka said, and left it there.
Setsuna turned to Nanami. "Why did you bring your sister?"
"We couldn't bring Mieko. With the Gammu situation, people are particular about sentient AI even when we make them. I want to introduce her to Moretti and Bancroft eventually, but that needs time and preparation. She's coming up on the end of her transition period. I thought it would do her good to meet people who aren't from here."
Setsuna nodded and returned to her lasagna.
Nodoka glanced across the table. "The man's cute."
Setsuna looked up. "Who, Bancroft?"
"No, the carcass of Joshua Hunt. Yes, Bancroft."
Setsuna gave the snark exactly the attention it deserved. "Has Nanami seen what he looks like yet?"
"She hasn't. Send it."
A notification blinked quietly into Nanami's HUD, routed through her neural lace. She opened it without a word. A photograph of Oscar Bancroft. A slow smile crossed her face.
"He's dreamy."
Setsuna's composure cracked just enough to allow a brief giggle. "Maybe he's into thousand-year-old ice hags."
Nodoka rolled her eyes.
He arrived from the Gran Canaria evening wearing linen, open at the collar, trousers with a clean tailored line and a light jacket draped over one arm rather than worn, the kind of thing you carry in warm air rather than actually need. Nothing about him announced itself. He spotted the table before the host could intercept him, and something in his face shifted, easy and genuine.
"Ambassador."
He crossed the floor without hurrying.
Setsuna looked up with a quiet smile. The sisters followed her gaze, Nanami going somewhat still at the sight of him.
"Greetings, Adjutant Bancroft. I hope the festival has been treating you well. Please, sit."
He took the offered seat with the easy grace of someone who had learned not to make a production of small things, draping his jacket over the back of the chair before settling in. His eyes moved briefly around the table, acknowledging each of them in turn, before returning to Setsuna.
She gestured to the two women beside her. "I believe you know Miss Hanamura. This is her sister, Nanami."
Nodoka offered her hand first. "Pleasure to meet you."
"Hello," Nanami said, a beat quieter than she had intended.
He shook each hand in turn, firm and unperformative, with a warmth that asked nothing of them in return.
"A true honor to meet you both."
He held Nanami's hand a beat longer than strictly necessary.
Conversation settled into its natural rhythm. Nodoka clarified, when Nanami asked, that Bancroft was Liberty-born, but from a breakaway state in the Ontario system, glancing at him mid-sentence to invite correction.
"Close enough. Ontario system, yes. The Liberty Free Republic."
He said it without weight. Just the fact of it.
"We're young, as nations go. Still figuring out what we are, some days."
He listened while Nodoka explained Nanami's situation, the pallative care, the transition period, the years that had passed in ways neither sister had planned for. He did not rush it or press it. When she finished, he glanced at Nanami directly, his tone carrying no obligation in it.
"The black has a way of doing that. Settling things, I mean. There's something about the scale of it that puts everything back into proportion."
A small pause.
"No rush on any of it. Sirius isn't going anywhere."
Setsuna's eyes moved to the bubble tea tent some distance away. She asked Nanami, pleasantly enough, if she wouldn't mind fetching drinks, specifying a honey green tea, and telling her she would relay what Mr. Bancroft would like. Nanami obliged without question, picking up her drink and heading for the line. The moment she was out of earshot, the tone at the table shifted.
"For the record, we've taken advanced counter-intelligence measures. We're not being listened to."
She passed a tablet across to Bancroft. It held a read-only dossier on a vessel designated HFC Memento Mori, a Hel-class cruiser that had until the 29th of the previous month been flying under Promethean colors. He took it with both hands and read in silence for a long moment, his expression recalibrating from warmth into something more focused without ever becoming visibly tense.
"Yoruha."
He said the name quietly, more to himself than anyone.
"I know of her. Not well, but enough."
Something tightened briefly in his jaw.
"Leaving a compliant captain to die in the Badlands. Dross."
He leaned back slightly, thinking.
"You said two friends of the head of state. Yoruha is one. Who's the other, and what's their status?"
"Struikas," Nodoka said.
She laid it out plainly. Yoruha had been their operative, left to watch Sirius while the Abdicant Seraphine attempted a series of slipspace maneuvers in a bid to move the fleet from the Sigmas to the Taus. The maneuver had gone wrong during the Blackout, disabling the ship light years from any human-charted space. They had scuttled her, put the fleet into cryo, and what was supposed to be a few months had stretched into the better part of a decade. Yoruha had waited. When she came to, most of the people she had known were dead, gone, or unable to help. She had turned to Joshua Hunt, someone she and Nodoka had both known and trusted. Except Hunt had died in her absence, and what she had found in his place was a replica engram, constructed by someone in Auxesia's upper echelons.
Not knowing this, Yoruha had joined their ranks. She had worked her way into the Serpentis and found herself neglected, out of place, until Struikas, already embedded in the Prometheans, had reached out. He had been the mentor figure she had expected Hunt to be. An official joint station followed. Eventually a proper transfer to Task Force Prometheus.
Setsuna picked up from there. She opened additional tabs on the tablet, pulling up imagery from Yoruha's own EOTS footage, dated July 6th, 825. A snubcraft with crystalline nomadic material protruding from the cockpit, designated Nibwaakaawin. Caught on patrol in Vespucci, talking with senior Promethean personnel, including names that carried weight: Yukiko Hideyoshi, Bellamy Crowe, and an operator known only as Locksmith. She forwarded the full communication archive from the now-destroyed Return to Sender, along with a fleet-wide memo originating from Lord Stratarch Megiddo himself, its origin signature matching Promethean intranet infrastructure. Bancroft received both without comment, reading with the careful economy of someone who knew how to find the weight in a document quickly.
"This is good intelligence. It corroborates what the Commander authorized Royce to share on that wide-band militant comm."
A brief pause.
"If a copy of this conversation is available, it would be of immense value for us to have access to it."
Setsuna had already messaged Kensington. The transfer went through.
Nodoka pushed her tray away slightly, appetite temporarily overruled by frustration. "To be blunt, I'm so goddamn done with Auxesia it isn't even funny. The revelations from the Caliban ordeal alone were enough, but..." She rested the side of her head on her hand, not finishing the sentence.
"I'm sorry to have led the conversation in such a way that's put you off your meal."
A soft smile, a slight embarrassment to it.
"We have associates who would be extremely interested in proof of this caliber. Would you be uncomfortable with us forwarding it to them also?"
Setsuna and Nodoka both shook their heads. "Not at all. We doubt Megiddo will do anything beyond siccing its men alongside the Wendigos against our forces in Liberty. Though I imagine we could call on the Alliance if it comes to that."
"I'm quite sure our associates would also be inclined to help in that position."
Nodoka pulled her tray back toward her. Before eating, she put the next question on the table.
"We do have to ask. What is your disposition toward Malta and the Cardamine trade? The Xenos have a considerable hand in its distribution in Liberty. Where does the LFR find itself on this?"
His lips tightened for a moment.
"I anticipated this would come up."
He glanced around, and would have welcomed that tea right about now.
"Any rebellion needs financing. In Liberty, the largest market, albeit illegal, is Cardamine. A self-fulfilling prophecy of vice funded by the ruling elite. In the Commander's words, we are buying the chains with which to hang our oppressors. Indulgence in the substance is strictly prohibited within the cause, punishable by death. Malta is a begrudging business partner. Not a friend. Not an ally."
Setsuna let it settle. The logic of it reminded her, not pleasantly, of the Shuuban plan, of standing at the bridge of the Mendicant Didact while fleet warfare was explained to her in a crash course that had largely gone over her head. Of what had been stolen from Kishiro, what had been burned in Oita, what had been sacrificed to build the bedrock beneath the Utsunomiya Commonwealth's current prosperity. She had come up from nothing, from a destitution that she did not often speak of directly, and had been given her gift for words and diplomacy as though to make use of it in exactly moments like this one.
In the end, Nodoka Hanamura was no different from Damien Moretti. And she herself, in some ways, was no different from Oscar Bancroft. Time, as it always had, proved to be a flat circle.
"I suppose that is only fair," she murmured.
Nodoka looked at her with quiet concern. "She has a difficult history with the drug. She has to rely on it medically to this day, thanks to her friends in the GC, years ago."
Bancroft's head bowed, slow and deliberate. Not a nod. Something with more weight behind it.
"Our decision is rooted in a sole logical determination. That we would rather see our people live to see another hundred years, than endure another three hundred. Three hundred years of pain, imprisonment, and slavery for the sake of personal virtue is no virtue at all. It is the pitfall of pride, dressed in the garb of morality. To consign generation after generation to suffering, so that we might sleep easy."
A mild clench of his jaw.
"Better that it be us who lose sleep. Us whose motives are questioned, whose hands are scrutinized, who are hated for what we have done and what we have had to become. So that those masses yearning to breathe free, those not yet born into this fight, can simply be free."
He let it sit without softening it.
Setsuna found herself moved by it in a way she had not anticipated.
"A society grows great when those of yore plant trees and seed fruit of which they will know neither the shade nor the taste."
Nodoka nodded. Bancroft smiled, and said nothing further, content to let the conversation find its own next direction.
It was Nodoka who nudged it there.
"There is still the matter of Erie. We both have a mutual interest there, and I think the elephant has been patient enough."
She glanced toward the tea tent. Nanami was still in line.
"My concern is that we lack any coherent game plan for liberation, let alone a joint command. The Prometheans are doing whatever pleases them with little actual focus beyond antagonizing Liberty, and the Zoner cells in Pennsylvania are too scattered for effective force projection. Which leaves the Alliance, us, and three other Zoner collectives, the PLF, Clarion, and New Dawn, the last of which I haven't heard from since the reformation. There was talk of a strike on the storage depot near the New York gate with New Dawn's leader, Siara. It never went further than vague planning."
Bancroft placed a hand flat on the table, tapping quietly to an unheard rhythm.
"I have to disappoint you on this particular subject. I hadn't come with a brief on it, and truthfully it falls under Royce's portfolio, or better yet, the Commander's. His intent at the summit on Akabat is to raise this issue, develop a plan of action to improve the current strategic outlook of the militants, and consolidate opposition to the Prometheans."
"I understand. Best not to step on their toes. It was an opening to vent the frustration more than anything."
She took another bite before continuing.
"Our broader question is what to do about the Prometheans as a whole. They're the largest player at the table outside of the Alliance, and between what we've shared today, hopefully there is enough to oust them from the Pennsylvania front entirely. ELINT reports have them flying with Pinnacle Militant IFF squawks following the move out of Valravn, which raises concerns about an infestation risk. It makes me thankful we have Tochigi in the region for smaller craft, because how loosely things run at Pinnacle is not reassuring."
She paused, then continued more carefully.
"That said, Struikas was clear that there are decent people in those ranks. Locksmith and Yukiko, at least, he vouched for, and given Yoruha's own cached communiques, she wasn't exactly pleased with how things were going either. Coercion seems the more likely explanation for some of those still flying Promethean colors."
Bancroft exhaled.
"I'm afraid I have nothing reassuring to say on that specific matter. We can only hope that when the time comes, those people choose to break their shackles rather than cling to their would-be masters for safety. We can't forcibly convince them to see things our way. Nor can we stay our hand given what's at risk."
"Shikata ga nai, huh."
Nodoka leaned back and looked up into the orange sky above the market.
"All we can do is pray then."
"All we really can do."
Setsuna worked through the last of her lasagna. "Would you like anything? Our treat."
"A mint tea, please."
A warm smile came with it.
Nodoka was still looking up at the sky.
"You know, I remember skies like this back home. Staring up into the stars, wondering when dad would come home. Wondering when I'd get my chance to take to them. Other life in other star systems, other galaxies. Dreams of adventures in space."
A quiet beat.
"Imagine little ten-year-old Nodoka's shock that twelve years later she'd end up doing exactly that, and absolutely loathe part of it."
"Don't let the reality of things steal away the majesty of what we've accomplished as a civilization."
A weak smile, self-aware enough to know the words were slightly naive, and offered anyway.
"And of what's yet to come."
Bancroft set down his PDA for a moment, his expression returning to that careful, measured register.
"I feel a responsibility to warn you that once I transfer this data home, it's very possible the Commander will act on it immediately. You understand these implications and wish to proceed anyway?"
Nodoka and Setsuna exchanged a look, a brief neural lace call flickering between them. The exchange lasted only seconds.
Nodoka turned back to him. "Yes."
She cleared whatever had been on her face a moment before.
"My primary personal concern is Yoruha, and to a lesser extent Struikas, but both are accounted for. Our Navy will signal Tochigi to go to high alert for any false flag or retribution from Prometheus and treat any ships squawking a malformed IFF as high-probability hostile."
"If assurances of their safety are required, I can patch in with ALLCOM and have the Commander address it directly."
He initiated the transfer from his PDA, a loading screen opening as data made its way across the relay to Ontario. There was no telling, from where they sat in the warm evening air of Gran Canaria, what would follow from it.
"For what it's worth, I do think this is the right decision."
"The Prometheans are compromised, plain and simple. Hopefully others follow Struikas and Yoruha's example. In the end, we cannot afford to allow Prometheus to continue operating freely in Pennsylvania. Priority should be the destruction of the Megiddo AI. With the intelligence we have, it is likely operating out of Valravn, out of Ismara on Elgin, or connected directly to ICN Firestorm through the data infrastructure of the HFB Incursus."
"I can raise him at the nearest relay terminal with a holo-projector. May I ask you to show me there once you've finished your meals?"
He inclined his head, genuinely deferring to the fact that they were eating, and that a festival of this scale had not left much time in the day for something as simple as a proper meal.
Nanami returned with the drinks just as the silence settled into something comfortable. She apologized for the wait, passed Setsuna her honey green tea, and set a mint tea in front of Bancroft before reclaiming her seat and the final portion of her panini.
Setsuna looked out across the market, then back to the table, steering things gently toward less laden ground.
"I hope you've been able to take in the festival in between your oversight of the orchestra. A stunning performance, by the way."
"I've thoroughly enjoyed my stay so far."
He smiled, taking no personal credit for it, but clearly pleased it had landed well.
"I'll happily convey how well received their performance was. They work hard."
The evening continued to cool around them, the market as loud and alive as ever, and for a little while the weight of everything they had just handed each other belonged to relay terminals and encrypted transfers and people in other rooms. Here there was okonomiyaki, and mint tea, and the orange sky of Gran Canaria going slowly dark at the edges.
Nodoka Hanamura had answered that ask with a plate stacked with okonomiyaki, the underlayer thick with sauce and scattered with aonori, bonito flakes, bacon, chicken and shrimp, the whole thing crowned with parmesan, smoked cheddar, cracked pepper and a generous line of kewpie. A large can of blueberry soda sat beside it. Her sister Nanami had been more restrained, an Italian portobello panini alongside a small bag of baked chips and a stuffed onion, her drink a honey-sweetened green tea. The two of them were unmistakably sisters, both bearing the particular grace of the Hanamura line, dark-haired and endowed as their late mother Ayane had been, though Nodoka's hair carried the deep purple that was the legacy of gene editing that had run in their family since the late 21st century, one of the first in that era to take that step.
They found Setsuna Kobayashi already seated at a round table in the middle of the market's bustle, her tray of lasagna, green beans and garlic bread sitting partially eaten as she spoke in low, deliberate tones to the Bretonian man standing over her. A quiet instruction, then a quiet dismissal. The man excused himself just as the sisters sat down.
Nodoka watched him go. "What was that about?"
Setsuna glanced at the poles spaced along the perimeter of the seating area. "Counter-intelligence. The poles are ultrasonic jammers. We have people watching and Jae-un is linked to the cameras. I'd rather not have Auxesians, or any Prometheans who might be here, listening in."
"I'm impressed."
"It was Kensington's idea." Setsuna paused. "My question is whether you're aware the Xenos have ties to the Cardamine trade."
Nodoka took a bite before answering. "I'm aware. We're not going to help them spread it. Unlike us, they don't have connections on Gran Canaria that could breathe life back into an old shell company after a decade and sort out transport licenses. They're a fledgling nation. They committed their sins getting on their feet just as we committed ours. They peddled Cardamine. We stole from Kishiro and leveled the city of Oita."
Nanami went quiet at that, eyes on her panini.
Setsuna exhaled. "I just wish we as a species never found that godforsaken planet."
"Who in their right mind doesn't," Nodoka said, and left it there.
Setsuna turned to Nanami. "Why did you bring your sister?"
"We couldn't bring Mieko. With the Gammu situation, people are particular about sentient AI even when we make them. I want to introduce her to Moretti and Bancroft eventually, but that needs time and preparation. She's coming up on the end of her transition period. I thought it would do her good to meet people who aren't from here."
Setsuna nodded and returned to her lasagna.
Nodoka glanced across the table. "The man's cute."
Setsuna looked up. "Who, Bancroft?"
"No, the carcass of Joshua Hunt. Yes, Bancroft."
Setsuna gave the snark exactly the attention it deserved. "Has Nanami seen what he looks like yet?"
"She hasn't. Send it."
A notification blinked quietly into Nanami's HUD, routed through her neural lace. She opened it without a word. A photograph of Oscar Bancroft. A slow smile crossed her face.
"He's dreamy."
Setsuna's composure cracked just enough to allow a brief giggle. "Maybe he's into thousand-year-old ice hags."
Nodoka rolled her eyes.
He arrived from the Gran Canaria evening wearing linen, open at the collar, trousers with a clean tailored line and a light jacket draped over one arm rather than worn, the kind of thing you carry in warm air rather than actually need. Nothing about him announced itself. He spotted the table before the host could intercept him, and something in his face shifted, easy and genuine.
"Ambassador."
He crossed the floor without hurrying.
Setsuna looked up with a quiet smile. The sisters followed her gaze, Nanami going somewhat still at the sight of him.
"Greetings, Adjutant Bancroft. I hope the festival has been treating you well. Please, sit."
He took the offered seat with the easy grace of someone who had learned not to make a production of small things, draping his jacket over the back of the chair before settling in. His eyes moved briefly around the table, acknowledging each of them in turn, before returning to Setsuna.
She gestured to the two women beside her. "I believe you know Miss Hanamura. This is her sister, Nanami."
Nodoka offered her hand first. "Pleasure to meet you."
"Hello," Nanami said, a beat quieter than she had intended.
He shook each hand in turn, firm and unperformative, with a warmth that asked nothing of them in return.
"A true honor to meet you both."
He held Nanami's hand a beat longer than strictly necessary.
Conversation settled into its natural rhythm. Nodoka clarified, when Nanami asked, that Bancroft was Liberty-born, but from a breakaway state in the Ontario system, glancing at him mid-sentence to invite correction.
"Close enough. Ontario system, yes. The Liberty Free Republic."
He said it without weight. Just the fact of it.
"We're young, as nations go. Still figuring out what we are, some days."
He listened while Nodoka explained Nanami's situation, the pallative care, the transition period, the years that had passed in ways neither sister had planned for. He did not rush it or press it. When she finished, he glanced at Nanami directly, his tone carrying no obligation in it.
"The black has a way of doing that. Settling things, I mean. There's something about the scale of it that puts everything back into proportion."
A small pause.
"No rush on any of it. Sirius isn't going anywhere."
Setsuna's eyes moved to the bubble tea tent some distance away. She asked Nanami, pleasantly enough, if she wouldn't mind fetching drinks, specifying a honey green tea, and telling her she would relay what Mr. Bancroft would like. Nanami obliged without question, picking up her drink and heading for the line. The moment she was out of earshot, the tone at the table shifted.
"For the record, we've taken advanced counter-intelligence measures. We're not being listened to."
She passed a tablet across to Bancroft. It held a read-only dossier on a vessel designated HFC Memento Mori, a Hel-class cruiser that had until the 29th of the previous month been flying under Promethean colors. He took it with both hands and read in silence for a long moment, his expression recalibrating from warmth into something more focused without ever becoming visibly tense.
"Yoruha."
He said the name quietly, more to himself than anyone.
"I know of her. Not well, but enough."
Something tightened briefly in his jaw.
"Leaving a compliant captain to die in the Badlands. Dross."
He leaned back slightly, thinking.
"You said two friends of the head of state. Yoruha is one. Who's the other, and what's their status?"
"Struikas," Nodoka said.
She laid it out plainly. Yoruha had been their operative, left to watch Sirius while the Abdicant Seraphine attempted a series of slipspace maneuvers in a bid to move the fleet from the Sigmas to the Taus. The maneuver had gone wrong during the Blackout, disabling the ship light years from any human-charted space. They had scuttled her, put the fleet into cryo, and what was supposed to be a few months had stretched into the better part of a decade. Yoruha had waited. When she came to, most of the people she had known were dead, gone, or unable to help. She had turned to Joshua Hunt, someone she and Nodoka had both known and trusted. Except Hunt had died in her absence, and what she had found in his place was a replica engram, constructed by someone in Auxesia's upper echelons.
Not knowing this, Yoruha had joined their ranks. She had worked her way into the Serpentis and found herself neglected, out of place, until Struikas, already embedded in the Prometheans, had reached out. He had been the mentor figure she had expected Hunt to be. An official joint station followed. Eventually a proper transfer to Task Force Prometheus.
Setsuna picked up from there. She opened additional tabs on the tablet, pulling up imagery from Yoruha's own EOTS footage, dated July 6th, 825. A snubcraft with crystalline nomadic material protruding from the cockpit, designated Nibwaakaawin. Caught on patrol in Vespucci, talking with senior Promethean personnel, including names that carried weight: Yukiko Hideyoshi, Bellamy Crowe, and an operator known only as Locksmith. She forwarded the full communication archive from the now-destroyed Return to Sender, along with a fleet-wide memo originating from Lord Stratarch Megiddo himself, its origin signature matching Promethean intranet infrastructure. Bancroft received both without comment, reading with the careful economy of someone who knew how to find the weight in a document quickly.
"This is good intelligence. It corroborates what the Commander authorized Royce to share on that wide-band militant comm."
A brief pause.
"If a copy of this conversation is available, it would be of immense value for us to have access to it."
Setsuna had already messaged Kensington. The transfer went through.
![[+]](/forums/images/collapse_collapsed.png "[+]")
NibwaakaawinNodoka pushed her tray away slightly, appetite temporarily overruled by frustration. "To be blunt, I'm so goddamn done with Auxesia it isn't even funny. The revelations from the Caliban ordeal alone were enough, but..." She rested the side of her head on her hand, not finishing the sentence.
"I'm sorry to have led the conversation in such a way that's put you off your meal."
A soft smile, a slight embarrassment to it.
"We have associates who would be extremely interested in proof of this caliber. Would you be uncomfortable with us forwarding it to them also?"
Setsuna and Nodoka both shook their heads. "Not at all. We doubt Megiddo will do anything beyond siccing its men alongside the Wendigos against our forces in Liberty. Though I imagine we could call on the Alliance if it comes to that."
"I'm quite sure our associates would also be inclined to help in that position."
Nodoka pulled her tray back toward her. Before eating, she put the next question on the table.
"We do have to ask. What is your disposition toward Malta and the Cardamine trade? The Xenos have a considerable hand in its distribution in Liberty. Where does the LFR find itself on this?"
His lips tightened for a moment.
"I anticipated this would come up."
He glanced around, and would have welcomed that tea right about now.
"Any rebellion needs financing. In Liberty, the largest market, albeit illegal, is Cardamine. A self-fulfilling prophecy of vice funded by the ruling elite. In the Commander's words, we are buying the chains with which to hang our oppressors. Indulgence in the substance is strictly prohibited within the cause, punishable by death. Malta is a begrudging business partner. Not a friend. Not an ally."
Setsuna let it settle. The logic of it reminded her, not pleasantly, of the Shuuban plan, of standing at the bridge of the Mendicant Didact while fleet warfare was explained to her in a crash course that had largely gone over her head. Of what had been stolen from Kishiro, what had been burned in Oita, what had been sacrificed to build the bedrock beneath the Utsunomiya Commonwealth's current prosperity. She had come up from nothing, from a destitution that she did not often speak of directly, and had been given her gift for words and diplomacy as though to make use of it in exactly moments like this one.
In the end, Nodoka Hanamura was no different from Damien Moretti. And she herself, in some ways, was no different from Oscar Bancroft. Time, as it always had, proved to be a flat circle.
"I suppose that is only fair," she murmured.
Nodoka looked at her with quiet concern. "She has a difficult history with the drug. She has to rely on it medically to this day, thanks to her friends in the GC, years ago."
Bancroft's head bowed, slow and deliberate. Not a nod. Something with more weight behind it.
"Our decision is rooted in a sole logical determination. That we would rather see our people live to see another hundred years, than endure another three hundred. Three hundred years of pain, imprisonment, and slavery for the sake of personal virtue is no virtue at all. It is the pitfall of pride, dressed in the garb of morality. To consign generation after generation to suffering, so that we might sleep easy."
A mild clench of his jaw.
"Better that it be us who lose sleep. Us whose motives are questioned, whose hands are scrutinized, who are hated for what we have done and what we have had to become. So that those masses yearning to breathe free, those not yet born into this fight, can simply be free."
He let it sit without softening it.
Setsuna found herself moved by it in a way she had not anticipated.
"A society grows great when those of yore plant trees and seed fruit of which they will know neither the shade nor the taste."
Nodoka nodded. Bancroft smiled, and said nothing further, content to let the conversation find its own next direction.
It was Nodoka who nudged it there.
"There is still the matter of Erie. We both have a mutual interest there, and I think the elephant has been patient enough."
She glanced toward the tea tent. Nanami was still in line.
"My concern is that we lack any coherent game plan for liberation, let alone a joint command. The Prometheans are doing whatever pleases them with little actual focus beyond antagonizing Liberty, and the Zoner cells in Pennsylvania are too scattered for effective force projection. Which leaves the Alliance, us, and three other Zoner collectives, the PLF, Clarion, and New Dawn, the last of which I haven't heard from since the reformation. There was talk of a strike on the storage depot near the New York gate with New Dawn's leader, Siara. It never went further than vague planning."
Bancroft placed a hand flat on the table, tapping quietly to an unheard rhythm.
"I have to disappoint you on this particular subject. I hadn't come with a brief on it, and truthfully it falls under Royce's portfolio, or better yet, the Commander's. His intent at the summit on Akabat is to raise this issue, develop a plan of action to improve the current strategic outlook of the militants, and consolidate opposition to the Prometheans."
"I understand. Best not to step on their toes. It was an opening to vent the frustration more than anything."
She took another bite before continuing.
"Our broader question is what to do about the Prometheans as a whole. They're the largest player at the table outside of the Alliance, and between what we've shared today, hopefully there is enough to oust them from the Pennsylvania front entirely. ELINT reports have them flying with Pinnacle Militant IFF squawks following the move out of Valravn, which raises concerns about an infestation risk. It makes me thankful we have Tochigi in the region for smaller craft, because how loosely things run at Pinnacle is not reassuring."
She paused, then continued more carefully.
"That said, Struikas was clear that there are decent people in those ranks. Locksmith and Yukiko, at least, he vouched for, and given Yoruha's own cached communiques, she wasn't exactly pleased with how things were going either. Coercion seems the more likely explanation for some of those still flying Promethean colors."
Bancroft exhaled.
"I'm afraid I have nothing reassuring to say on that specific matter. We can only hope that when the time comes, those people choose to break their shackles rather than cling to their would-be masters for safety. We can't forcibly convince them to see things our way. Nor can we stay our hand given what's at risk."
"Shikata ga nai, huh."
Nodoka leaned back and looked up into the orange sky above the market.
"All we can do is pray then."
"All we really can do."
Setsuna worked through the last of her lasagna. "Would you like anything? Our treat."
"A mint tea, please."
A warm smile came with it.
Nodoka was still looking up at the sky.
"You know, I remember skies like this back home. Staring up into the stars, wondering when dad would come home. Wondering when I'd get my chance to take to them. Other life in other star systems, other galaxies. Dreams of adventures in space."
A quiet beat.
"Imagine little ten-year-old Nodoka's shock that twelve years later she'd end up doing exactly that, and absolutely loathe part of it."
"Don't let the reality of things steal away the majesty of what we've accomplished as a civilization."
A weak smile, self-aware enough to know the words were slightly naive, and offered anyway.
"And of what's yet to come."
Bancroft set down his PDA for a moment, his expression returning to that careful, measured register.
"I feel a responsibility to warn you that once I transfer this data home, it's very possible the Commander will act on it immediately. You understand these implications and wish to proceed anyway?"
Nodoka and Setsuna exchanged a look, a brief neural lace call flickering between them. The exchange lasted only seconds.
Nodoka turned back to him. "Yes."
She cleared whatever had been on her face a moment before.
"My primary personal concern is Yoruha, and to a lesser extent Struikas, but both are accounted for. Our Navy will signal Tochigi to go to high alert for any false flag or retribution from Prometheus and treat any ships squawking a malformed IFF as high-probability hostile."
"If assurances of their safety are required, I can patch in with ALLCOM and have the Commander address it directly."
He initiated the transfer from his PDA, a loading screen opening as data made its way across the relay to Ontario. There was no telling, from where they sat in the warm evening air of Gran Canaria, what would follow from it.
"For what it's worth, I do think this is the right decision."
"The Prometheans are compromised, plain and simple. Hopefully others follow Struikas and Yoruha's example. In the end, we cannot afford to allow Prometheus to continue operating freely in Pennsylvania. Priority should be the destruction of the Megiddo AI. With the intelligence we have, it is likely operating out of Valravn, out of Ismara on Elgin, or connected directly to ICN Firestorm through the data infrastructure of the HFB Incursus."
"I can raise him at the nearest relay terminal with a holo-projector. May I ask you to show me there once you've finished your meals?"
He inclined his head, genuinely deferring to the fact that they were eating, and that a festival of this scale had not left much time in the day for something as simple as a proper meal.
Nanami returned with the drinks just as the silence settled into something comfortable. She apologized for the wait, passed Setsuna her honey green tea, and set a mint tea in front of Bancroft before reclaiming her seat and the final portion of her panini.
Setsuna looked out across the market, then back to the table, steering things gently toward less laden ground.
"I hope you've been able to take in the festival in between your oversight of the orchestra. A stunning performance, by the way."
"I've thoroughly enjoyed my stay so far."
He smiled, taking no personal credit for it, but clearly pleased it had landed well.
"I'll happily convey how well received their performance was. They work hard."
The evening continued to cool around them, the market as loud and alive as ever, and for a little while the weight of everything they had just handed each other belonged to relay terminals and encrypted transfers and people in other rooms. Here there was okonomiyaki, and mint tea, and the orange sky of Gran Canaria going slowly dark at the edges.