Book 4: Chapter 1: Frenemies
Jacques
November 2331
New Pav
The planet hung below, all blues and greens and twinkling lights of nascent cities. New Pav, we called it. The Pav’s name for their new home planet was slightly more poetic, but would still sound like a bunch of spitting and hissing to a human ear.
The population had boomed in the seventy years or so since they’d been resettled here, and they now boasted cities on several continents. It looked like the species would survive.
Whether they’d still be talking to us or not was another matter.
I received a signal from the cargo drone containing my manny, informing me that it had landed. With a mental sigh, I prepared to leave VR for what would probably be an uncomfortable meeting with the Pav representative.
I connected to the manny—a remotely operated android—over the SCUT channel and transferred my personal POV into it. As internal systems powered up, I took a mil to glance around the now-familiar cargo hold, then extracted myself from the support rack. The cargo doors opened automatically to reveal my usual Pav military escort, rifles at the ready, probably with safeties off. A gaggle of six-foot-tall meerkats, without the cute. I hadn’t visited in a couple of decades, mostly because the last time had been what you might call tense.
Just to see how they’d react, I smiled, careful not to show my teeth, and gave them the Vulcan salute. The squad leader showed me his teeth—not a gesture of friendship from a Pav—and returned the salute with three fewer fingers.