Luckily, the ambassadors had short memories and tended to miss putting two and two together. Besides, their attention was drawn from thoughts of Varcanna towards this new name, Miknak. At last, one of the enemies they might face had a name.

"So this... Miknak," said Oaxaca. "Is he the biggest problem in the sector? It appeared as though more than one group was coming after the delegates today, which suggests there may be more motives at play beyond a radical group wanting to continue an old war."

"If trust is an issue," said Jargur, "then we can start with him. Does he have ships? Soldiers? Fortresses? If so, then we can lend aide against them." Jargur paused, midspeech, as a thought began to dawn upon him. "I realize that it may seem more than a little odd, us appearing out of the blue and promising a laundry list of bonuses and gifts, from soldiers willing to risk the line of fire to support and ships to secure your space. It sounds unfeasible for us to be able to do, as we have no special stake or interest in this sector that would especially justify the risk of life and limb to our people. Thus, it sounds equally unlikely that good and justice are our real reasons for turning up.

"We're more than willing to make the next step to establihs trust, admiral. You have the endorsement of the Wookies and the Trandoshans, so far as we can tell. Your people have not made any aggressive moves and we have no reason to believe you harbor any secret motives. If you trust us, and we trust you, then there is only one step left for this meeting."

Jargur rose, and extended a scaly hand to the admiral, to shake her by hand. "Shall we work together then? For the betterment of the system?"

Lavality was very shocked by this sudden proposal, it wasn't something she was expecting. She was expecting them to question her on her organization, about how they ran, instead she get's an offer of help.

She sat there for a few seconds, speechless, and the shock actually showed in her face. Before she stood up and stook Jargur's, um, hand. "T-thank you, we appriciate it." she said to him and then looked at the other ambassador before walking over to the window.

Lavality stood there for a few before looking out of the transperisteel window. "Miknak... is a dangerous person. He has some strange ability to control people, he's not a jedi that I know of nor a sith." she said to herself and recalled what happened back on Nar Shaada.

That was all Lavality needed to know. "Trying to find Miknak isn't all that easy, he seems to always be one step ahead of us." she said with clasped hands.

Trazu wasn't surprized at the Coalition's offer to help, having heard of their willingness to help those in need for some time now. Granted, when he first heard of this he was running around in a Dark Jedi cloak, so his opinion of them back then was negative. Not so now. He knew the Coalition will do anything it took to ensure peace came to this system.

"Miknak is cunning, resourceful, and a very sore loser." He said, recalling what happened on the medical asteriod. "He is willing to blow up whole stations in the attempt to kill just one person, even if his own minions are still on board."

"While Miknak is a major threat to the peace talks..." Asri added. "Factions within our own culture need to be watched as well."

"That is correct." Trazu said with a nod. "I know within T'Doshok culture there are many that are resistant to change and to joining you. When the Full Council occurs tomorrow we will know to what extent that resistance is. While the Councilors themselves will no doubt convince many of the doubters, there will be some that will outright refuse to go along with the alligance and it is those we have to be weary of.

"What they will do if we agree to joining you is unknown. They could do nothing but sulk and live with it or go as far as splitting from the government to form their own. Indeed the latter is what my mother was willing to do if she failed in convincing the populous as a whole, so I have little doubt they are considering a similar option."

"They could also join Miknak." Asri added with a tone of caution. "If they are not helping him already."

"There's also the chance there are wookiee factions that are considering the same." Trazu said. "Not as likely I don't think, but something to watch for, if only because some of them feel my people haven't been 'punished' enough for our crimes against them."

"I think we should be careful with what we say." Asri said quietly, Trazu noting a faint frown on her face. "We risk upstaging your mother."

Trazu flushed with embarrassedment as he realized they were starting to get carried away. Neither he or Asri were Speaker-Above-All, so they had legal right to take her position. It was fine they were giving what information they could on Miknak, but the moment he started talking about the Clans on the homeworld he was essentially taking Naosha's position in this meeting. Now he realized that Asri's tone of caution earlier wasn't regarding how dangerous Miknak was, but to him for starting to overstep his bounds.

"I apologize." He said. "Discussion on what the Clans may do is the realm of Speaker-Above-All Naosha, not mine."

"He's more like his mother then he believe he is." Asri added with a mischievous grin, to which Trazu flash her a glare.

Jargur and Oaxaca felt genuinely grim as they both nodded understanding to the words of their guests. "The Coalition is no stranger to political minefields," said Jargur. "We'll stick it out. You can count on us, wether it's Miknak or factions within your government or mutineers, we can help."

Oaxaca raised his furry self out of his chair and streched, saying "We've all had a long and difficult day, and nothing more can be done until the meeting of the Full Council. Depending on how that goes, we can meet again to continue negotiations as necessary tomorrow. Thank you for your time, admiral. And your two colleagues, as well. We will see you all safely back."

The captain's voice sputtered on to the comms again, saying "Security's been tightened after all the incidents, we'll have a security escort ready for you back to your ships."

As Lavality, Trazu, and Asri were all escorted back to the hangar, Jargur let out a gasp and leaned back in his chair. "Think it worked?"

"I hope so," said Oaxaca. "Diplomacy's hard work. Still, she seemed in control and proffessional for someone very young, I think she'll listen."

"Maybe..." murmured Jargur. "I feel like we've been up for two days. Let's get some sleep until the council thing gets rolling, I don't think there's anything left to do."

The two ambassadors made it to the bridge, where the captain seemed equally tired, fidgeting around in his chair. "Catching some sleep? Sounds like a good idea. Things seem to have calmed down, I think we can afford to put the ship on "Night Shift", we've been running overtime as it is..." the captain reached over and lifted his comm up to his mouth. "All right everyone, we're switching on to Night Shift effective immediately, catch a bit of sleep before we're next up."

As most of the crew began filing off the bridge, Jargur and Oaxaca approached the captain. Jargur nodded and said "We haven't got any assigned quarters, where are we supposed to sleep?"

The captain paused, and smiled. "You know what? I think I've got just the place for you two. There's a spare bunk in the bridge supply closet over here..."



"When he said a bunk, I assumed he meant, y'know, a bunk bed."

"Shut up Oaxaca, and stop hogging all the quilt..." murmured Jargur, as he clung to his side of the little bunk set up in the breakroom. "I understand the Coalition's trying to unite our two races, but this is ridiculous..."

Lavality, along with her guests, boarded the shuttle. The pilot didn't even notice her boarding the ship, mostly since he was reading a book. She stood there leaning up against the cockpit doorway, just tapping her foot on the ground and glancing at her watch.

When her watch clicked '5' she got up. "You know... slacking off like this will get you shot one of these days...." she said in a very scary and harsh tone. The pilot threw his book up in the air and grabbed the stick and turned the engines on, the girl smiled as she left the cockpit, the book that he was reading landed in her hand which she placed on the console before actually leaving.

The shuttle lifted off the deck and flew out of the hanger bay; on course for her flagship. "That was hair raising, I'm surprised they didn't ask me more personel or straight forward questions." She said while tapping her foot on the deck. "Still...." she lifted up her data-pad. "There help will be appriciated when the time comes." she said and put her datapad down.

She stretched and asked the pilot how long it would take, he commented that it would take thirty minutes for them to get back to the flag ship. "Guess I'll just relax and get some rest until we dock." with that she laid her head back and soon fell asleep.

Asri and Trazu took a shuttle home soon after they docked with the Seren ship, leaving a message for Lavality that stated that they’ll be on the K’Satikur Grounds should she require their assistance again in the near future. Once home they debriefed with Naosha and Rissonik, with what they could reveal anyway for obvious reasons. The kids were happy to see their father and Asri again and everyone wanted to know how Silonik was doing. They didn’t spend too much time exchanging events however, as it had been a very long day for everyone and with the Full Council in the morning it was sure to be a long day tomorrow as well. So everyone hit the sack early that night, hoping and praying the meeting won’t turn violent.

Surprisingly the meeting went well: though any Full Council that didn’t degrade into some form of bloodshed was considered to have gone well. Naturally there were concerns on what the Coalition’s intentions were, which Naosha was able to clarify. The more sticky concern regarded the Serens, as now just about everyone on the planet knew of their existence thanks to the incident a couple days ago. The best Naosha could do was assure them that the core of the Seren group was dedicated to the same goal as the Coalition.

Then came the issue on economics, which was always a tense thing to discuss. The merchant clan reps as a whole were favorable toward joining the Coalition, as the allegiance would no doubt open up new avenues of trade for them. The few that disliked the idea expressed the opinion that they would be better off remaining an independent government, free from any external restrictions this allegiance would ultimately place on them. Naosha suspected that those Clans had smuggling operations under their belts, but knew they would deny it if asked.

The Science and Medical Clan reps were more divided, since many of them profit more when there was fighting going on. Naosha did worry about the Sykir, whose rep was conspicuously absent, knowing they were no doubt up to no good somewhere on the planet: Rissonik had mentioned they had been suspiciously quiet as of late recently. Opinions that they would be better off joining the New Order started being expressed at this time. Naosha and the other Councilors countered these by reminding them that the New Order was raciest and that they would never get equal rights under that government.

“They treated us alright during the Old Empire.” One had remarked.

“Only because we were ‘useful’ to them then.” Naosha had replied. “We would be little more then tools and pawns to them. Once we had served our purpose or outlived our usefulness we would have been eliminated. If they came here they would be interested in only one thing: the resources our planet would provide them. We would be expendable.”

It was the Warrior Clans that where the hardest to sooth, as both Naosha and Rissonik predicted. Rissonik did his part by helping the Elder Councilors explain to the other warrior reps that there would always be a place for warriors, for hunters, even in the Coalition. He remarked that he was sure the Coalition had battles going on right now with which they would appreciate the assistance of their people, their fighting prowess well known across the galaxy. This seemed to satisfy many, but there were a good number that still seemed unconvinced, if not stubbornly refusing to be convinced at all.

When the time for the vote came, the Council got the healthy majority needed to go ahead with the allegiance. To this Naosha was very pleased and soon after the meeting was adjourned she went let the Coalition know the good news.

~~~

Late that night

Three figures huddled around a campfire, discussing the events of that day, most notably the vote to join the Coalition.

“So…” A gruff voice growled from one of the figures around the campfire. “Our lovely homeworld is now a part of the Coaltion…”

“So I’ve heard.” Another voice said. “What an insult to our pride. Looks like our proud hunting traditions are going to die out.”

“Fool.” Said a third. “There is already movement about a number of folk that are like minded to us assembling to do something about this. Started when those weakling Coaltion fools first entered our space.”

“And what do they intend to do about it? Do what that brainless new Speaker-Above-All did and start a revolution?” The first asked.

“Nah, go one further. Leave the planet completely and start our own government elsewhere, where we can remain independent and keep our warrior’s pride.”

“I doubt they will stand for that.” Said the second.

“By the time they realize what’s happening it will be too late.” The third growled happily. “It will be T’Doshok like us that will keep reminding this galaxy that we are to be feared and those with the Coalition will cease to be true T’Doshok in our eyes.”

“To hunt whatever we want again…” The first said dreamily. “To have a challenge again…”

“You will have it…” The third said, his sharp teeth glinting in the firelight. “Miknak and his partner have promised us this much…and more…”

“I heard the Sykir are up to something. Something that had to do with a new leader for us…a true leader.” The second said idly.

“I’ve heard this as well.” The third said. “I heard Miknak is ‘helping’ with some aspects of the project as well, seemed he was a scientist at some point.”

“Never got that sciency stuff, but as long as we can keep our pride and our hunters traditions I don’t care.” There was a brief pause. “So how many have signed up for this?”

“Most of the ones that nay voted at the Council. With more no doubt signing up as the word spreads.”

“Well then…where do I sign up?”

"Well, boys, it's been an honour," said the captain, who grinned over their shoulders as the council's vote came in. "Looks like I won't be needed for much longer around here. Probably get posted somewhere less complicated, like the center of the Rishi maze or half-way down the Kessel Run. What have you two got to look forwards to?"

"Why, ambassadorships, of course." said Jargur, smiling. "Our own consulates on our respective worlds, all the cultural delicacies we can eat, a spare seat at public dinners, the works."

Oaxaca laughed, and span around in his chair to look at the captain. "It's a lot like being a hunter, being an ambassador. If you want to make a decent living you have to go out there and bag yourself a planet. The only difference is that you don't get to stuff the planet and mount it over your mantlepiece."

"Sounds like a pretty sweet deal," said the captain wistfully.

"It's the best," said Jargur. "Diplomatic immunity! No taxes! Most of the time the top politicians don't even remember the planet exists, much less the representatives they sent there."

"Funny," said the captain, "I can't help thinking the half-dozen factions who didn't want us here will remember you exist. They probably won't care much about diplomatic immunity, but they might notice the Coalition's link to the planet has its' address publically listed for anyone to visit."

Silence filled the bridge. A whimper from Oaxaca was translated to "I think I just wet myself a little."

Jargur had gone an interesting pale green shade, and said "But we'll be sending a big peace-keeping detatchment, right?"

"Oh sure, in space we will, but there's no reason to deploy great big armies all over the ground, is there?" The captain's grin shone with glinting starlight. "Don't worry, I'm sure you'll be fine. Besides..."

The captain turned to face out the front viewport, taking in at once the various ships and planets that were their cause for being out there at all. "...I have a feeling the hard part of our job'll be over real soon."

Tzhali smiled as he got the news he had been waiting for, several days of talking to the various tribes on his planet and most had agree'd, some didn't want any part in the alliance and had seperated and gone into hiding somewhere else on the planet.

However the wookie's in general had had enough of the constant wars and most just wanted it to end. "Send the news to the Coalition." Tzhali said as he slumped back down into the command chair. "This is.... indeed a great day." he said as he closed his eyes, over three days without sleep, he could finally take a nap"

Deep in space

A vessel moved amongst the blackness of space, briefly revealing itself, then moved off before jumping to hyperspace