ReDawn (Skyward #2.2)(16)

“It’s because of Cobb, I think,” Kimmalyn said. “Some of the people on the assembly say he’s not fit to make these decisions.”

“Are they really saying that?” Rig asked.

“They are,” Arturo said. “The assembly has been in conflict with the DDF for years, wanting more say in operations. They were too afraid to take power from Ironsides when the war was so close to the surface, but now that the fighting is farther away, people aren’t as scared—even though our situation is worse. The assembly is starting to think about how to take power away from the DDF, trying to find other ways to deal with the Superiority, now that we know more about them.”

“Are all of your assembly dealings so public?” I asked.

“No,” FM said. “He knows because his girlfriend’s mother is a National Assembly Leader.”

Arturo suddenly looked uncomfortable, but he didn’t deny it. The pin translated “girlfriend” as “potential mate.” I wondered if humans got embarrassed discussing such pairings before they were finalized. Some did on ReDawn. It depended on what tree you were from.

    “I went home to see my father a couple of days ago,” he said. “But neither of my parents would listen to me. They think I’ve been spending too much time with Cobb.”

“They do have a point about the Superiority,” FM said. “Finding other methods to deal with them seems like a good idea. It’s not healthy for us to think of everything that moves as a target to shoot at.” She looked at me like she already knew I would argue.

She wasn’t wrong. It must be tempting to think that way after years of fighting, but that was the same attitude that led my people right into the Superiority’s trap. The humans’ military had experience we on ReDawn could only read about in books. But it was useless without the will to fight. If they fell for the Superiority’s lies, then I couldn’t rely on them to help pull ReDawn out.

“Some forces can’t be reasoned with,” I said. “They can only be opposed.”

“The DDF would agree with you,” Arturo said. “But the assembly is starting to think otherwise.”

“Otherwise,” his taynix said.

“Which is why I don’t know who’s right,” Jorgen said. “You say we shouldn’t talk to the Superiority, but I see the appeal. If we could strike an accord with them, lives could be saved.”

“It depends on what you mean by saved,” I said. “If you live, but give away your autonomy, your ability to make decisions for yourselves, to be treated as equals…”

    “Do we have autonomy if all we can ever do is fight for our lives?” Arturo asked. “No one from the Superiority has ever treated us like equals. They treat us like insects.”

“They’re afraid of us,” FM said. “And the assembly wants to convince them that they don’t need to be, but the DDF keeps doing things that escalate the situation.”

“Like turning on the shield,” Rig said. “And developing hyperdrives. The better we get at defending ourselves, the more we convince them they’d better bring everything they have to destroy us.”

“But if you don’t do those things, they will enslave you,” I said.

“Is that what it’s like for your people?” FM asked. “You’re slaves to the Superiority?”

I hesitated. There were so many on ReDawn who didn’t see it that way. “No,” I said. “Because we have maintained our autonomy. Instead of killing us, they isolated us, denying us hyperdrives and mostly leaving us alone.”

The humans all stared at me.

“That must be nice,” Kimmalyn said finally.

I looked down at the table. These people had been on the front lines, fighting people who wanted them dead. Our squabbles on ReDawn must look so easy to them by comparison. “I’m not trying to compare our situations,” I said carefully. “But the Superiority keeps us all in cages of different kinds. They control us and call it peace, but it isn’t peace when we don’t have a choice.”

“That’s fair,” FM said, but none of the humans would quite meet my eyes. This all clearly weighed heavily on them.

    I’d misjudged them, I realized. It wasn’t that the humans couldn’t think for themselves. It was that they had fought for so long with so few resources—but only for survival, not for any particular ideal.

They were desperate and confused, so they were striking around in the dark making confused, desperate decisions.

That was something I could offer them, I realized. Hope. A goal beyond mere survival.

“Our peoples were both autonomous once,” I said. “And Jeshua Weight is right. We lost that war together. But before that we worked together for centuries. Cytonics from my planet made contact with yours long before either of us were spacefaring. You inspired myths that we still treasure, and your people wrote about mine in their own mythology. One of your ancient writers even preserved bits of our language, so that when we began to travel across the universe, some of your people could speak to mine.” I’d never read the book, though now I wished I had. There were still a few copies on ReDawn. Something about a ring. “We don’t have to let the Superiority tell us we’re lesser species. We can return to our ancestors’ fight. We can pick up our old alliances. We can remind the Superiority why they were so afraid of us to begin with, and maybe this time we could win.”