Near the Former British Isles
Just as the copilot of the Apollo fighter had taken pictures of the two Fireflies, the Fireflies had snapped off their own pictures of the Apollo.The Firefly pilots had taken note of and recorded the course the Apollo fighter had taken once it had peeled off, but otherwise paid no further notice to the Oceaon fighters.
The two Fireflies maintained their course set for where London had once stood. They took pictures of anything that looked even remotely like a settlement on their way there. As they neared their objective they noticed increasing air activity in the area, possibly in response to their incursion, but still the two Firefly fighters maintained their course.
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The landscape of the area had changed a lot. The King’s Islands had flooded severely when the seas rose, and now the villages that did dot the various isles and islands were small huddles of buildings save for a rare settlement that looked like more than a village. Oceos was sparsely populated and would be a strange sight indeed to any recon cameras… horses and oxen worked fields alongside strange steam and electric powered vehicles. Solar panels and wind turbines glittered in the sunlight, producing most of the electricity for the island nation. The roads they saw mostly were gravel or dirt and an extreme few were ever paved. In between the major isles, boats plied the inland waters for fish and other resources, and some were there maintaining submarine cables and other utilities.
The two strange airplanes were certainly causing issues, but there was nothing military yet. It was mostly airliners. It was a purely innocent mistake, of course, as there was no way for the Victoria to know where the airline lanes were. Still, several airliners had to jink and dive and jump out of the way as two strange objects zipped past them as black shapes. Wales control had a devil of a time with all of the complaints coming in. It was also a problem because the ATC radar could not pick up any fast moving objects in the air lanes, and as such these reports were impossible to act upon. Even the advanced early warning system defending Oceos could not pick up these two jets, as their stealth made it impossible to do so.
As such, it was not the radar that picked up the jets. The Aphrodite spotted them on radar likely because of its airborne position, and maybe because of a meteorological event. They were slightly South of New Sparta when a flight of four B-101Cs, on a ferry flight up to Mythos from Gaia, spotted the jets. The pilot of the lead ship, callsign Variable 1, was actually pretty bored at that point. He was watching the autopilot fly the big four-engine bomber at six thousand two hundred meters and he could actually hear his gunner snoring behind him. He wasn’t supposed to do that, but Hansen let it slide because they were over the mainland and within the reach of the Eos Early Warning System. There was no way anything could sneak in. This male was a coyote, with mottled tan fur and two glittering blue eyes, while his snoring partner was a weasel. An actual weasel, of course, not an insult.
Hansen idly inspected the new control yoke that came with this upgrade, along with four new engines that really howled and could push the bomber at a good clip. He liked the upgrade, overall. She was even more of a monster than before. His eyes made a quick pass over the new radar scope which showed nothing, as per usual. He then glanced up at the sky to watch as the big bomber wended its way through a cloud like some kind of flying whale only to almost soil himself as he saw two strange fighters screaming right for his face. He keyed his mic and screamed, “ALL AIRCRAFT, DUMP NOSE! DUMP NOSE!” Immediately all four bombers jerked towards the ground as their pilots all grabbed the yokes and wrenched them back into their chests. All eight of them felt tremendous G-forces and several cursed as their helmets smacked and crashed into various objects as the unprepared crew had mostly reacted to the call on a twitch reaction, and hadn’t really braced for it. Hansen himself felt his backseater’s head smack his seat and his shouted curse as the pilot yanked the big bomber out of its sudden dive. The second plane almost had its tailfin taken off and the first plane nearly lost a wing. While they were recovering and trying to reform the formation, Hanses made a very angry call to Wales Control.
In Wales Control, the supervisor was called over to a radar console as a young human operator frowned and scribbled information down information, intently listening to her microphone and waving away her supervisor as he leaned his avian body over and glanced at the notepad the human had in front of her. Once she was done, she turned to him and with wide eyes and told him, “Sir, Variable One reports two strange aircraft, flying at dangerous altitudes and speeds just south of New Sparta, heading 151 degrees, roughly.” The goose tilted his head and asked, “Did they get a good look at them?” She simply shrugged and told him, “Two black planes shaped like arrowheads with white stars…” She was interrupted by her supervisor taking off at a sprint to his office to grab the red phone and call Trojan Air Base. The word had just arrived of the fighters from the past that were out and about, and they matched that description perfectly. As soon as the base commander of Trojan Air Base got the word, klaxons and horns went off.
Rosalie was a slight wolfess with fur like coal and two eyes that were like the sun and moon. Her right eye was silver, and her left gold. Both of those eyes were wide awake and open at the first call of the horn, a mournful, angry growling that permeated the air of her bunk room. A man began to scream over the PA, “SECTION TWO SCRAMBLE! SECTION TWO SCRAMBLE!” Then that damned horn began to go off again. Rosalie leaped out of bed and helped her wingman off from her bunk as well, who was a wolverine with the name of Annabel. They were both dressed in nothing but boy shorts and a bra at that point but that rapidly changed as they helped each other into their flight suits in barely a minute, as they had drilled endless times. Maybe a strange ritual but no one liked sleeping in their flight suits, even on alert, and it added only a negligible delay to takeoff. After they were both in their suits they went for a dash out of the room, into the hallway behind the Third and Fourth pilots of their section, and out onto the apron, where four NF-09 Dragonesses were awaiting them, already fueled, armed, and started by the ground crew.
Rosalie leaped into the cockpit of her own Dragoness and sat back against the seat as her vulpine crew chief strapped her into the ejector seat, gave her her helmet, and then gave her the thumbs up and swung the cockpit closed. The four jets taxied out and blasted to takeoff speed in formation, tearing through the skies with their afterburners blazing. Their briefing was given to them over the radio. It was still to be seen whether or not these jets could catch the intruders, however, as they could only breach nine hundred and twenty miles per hour in level flight in ideal weather. The four planes formed up in a finger four formation and strained against their own limits to catch these strange aircraft and either escort them out or down them. Rosalie secretly wondered if the Artemis missiles hung under the wings could even lock on to these bizarre jets, and if she would survive getting into cannon range.
The two unidentified jets had been traveling at speeds over twelve hundred miles since they had been first spotted, a feat that should have been impossible given modern technology. And yet as the four NF-09 Dragonesses came within radar range of the unidentified fighters in the skies over what had once been London they gave no sign of slowing down. The two jets flew over London, taking detailed photos of the area before turning around and taking another set of photos. This maneuver had allowed the Dragoness fighters to close the distance significantly, although the unidentified fighters still remained a fair distance outside of missiles range.
Suddenly the unidentified jets put on a burst of acceleration, jumping up to fifteen hundred miles per hour. The two jets performed a couple of hard banks and high-G rolls, maneuvers that any craft should have been hard pressed to perform, before slowing back down to twelve hundred miles per hour.
“Inbound aircraft, this is Saber Eight, we are on our way out. Request that you do not engage. Repeat. We request you do not engage.” An english voice said over all radio frequencies.
The Dragonesses had no hope to match those speeds. They just could not with their engine technology and with their aerodynamics. The Dragoness was a fighter, not an interceptor, and was built as a compromise between speed and maneuverability. If they had delta wings and pencil fuselages, then they might have matched the speeds of those other jets. That was not the situation, however. Rosalie growled into her oxygen masked and pressed the throttle lever all the way to the firewall, gripping her stick tightly and narrowing her eyes as she listened to the single-engine jet howl in agony as its pilot pushed it to the very limits. Rosalie could see the unidentified jets now, but she was way out of IR missile range and not anywhere near cannon range. By sheer luck the radio frequencies matched, but there was a problem in that none of the four Oceon pilots spoke English.
Rosalie had to pause at the sound of the voice, however. She could hear that it was a passive voice, and perhaps even a peaceful one. She leveled off and circled around the other fighters as best as she could with her three other jets in close formation, waggling her wings at the unidentified jets and speaking into her own radio, “Unidentified aircraft, be advised, we did not understand.” She was taking a shot in the dark at that point, as it was equally unlikely they spoke the mismash of languages that was Oceon. The closest thing any of them spoke to ancient languages was Greek in Rosalie’s case, and Number Four could speak Icelandic, but that was it. The four butterfly tailed jet fighters awaited a response with their weapons unarmed as of yet, clearly trying to maintain following distance while not antagonizing the bogies.
There was a long moment of silence as if the pilots of the unidentified aircraft didn’t know how to respond. They maintained their course, only slightly raising their elevation and reducing their speed to around one thousand miles per hour. Finally the unidentified pilot from before responded over the same frequency that Rosalie had used.
“Pacem. Tenere ignis.” It said with quite a degree of uncertainty obvious. The pilot repeated the words before saying “Eiríni. Anamoní fotiá.” With an equal amount of uncertainty. Finally the pilot said “Peace. Hold fire.” In what was obviously his native language of English.
Rosalie strained her canine ears to catch the words. Her ears perked and twisted against her helmet in the effort but she managed to understand them, even as she was dolphin-diving with her fighter to match the speed of the intruders. The Dragoness could reach a thousand only in a dive. She replied much more fluently in Greek, “Be advised, our weapons are not armed, and we are not in range anyways. However, you are passing through several air corridors and have nearly caused several mid-air collisions.” She stopped her transmission and then spoke in Oceon to the rest of her flight, “Three and Four, break off and try to keep up with the second jet. Me and Two will keep up with this first one. Try to close to within range of Artemis missiles but do NOT engage unless fired on or on my explicit order.” Four mic clicks, two from each of the tail end birds, and then Three and Four broke off and rolled over the top of Two and One.
The two unidentified fighters continued to climb in altitude gradually. The two veered south, away from an Oceon airliner that they might have otherwise come close to. It was hard to miss that they left no contrails in their wake as they turned and banked, almost as if the aircraft themselves were mere illusions.
“Weapons… safe.” The unidentified pilot responded in Greek. “Re...recus...requesting…” He was quite clearly struggling with the Greek words and the more he spoke the more it sounded like he was trying to repeat something that he was reading or that someone else was saying to him. Requesting…. Heading… airspace…”
Rosalie was half listening and halfway worrying about her jet. She was eying her instrument panel and watching all kinds of bad readouts come in from the strain of maintaining maximum throttle for so long. She replies to the other fighter pilot, “Unidentified aircraft, request you slow your speed and allow us to escort you out. Our ground radar can not track you.” If the other jet pilots could see the Oceon fighters, it would be obvious how big of a gap there was in technology. The Oceon fighters had slim waistlines that betrayed the turbojet technology within, and they all trailed thin streams of black smoke from the combustion within their tails. Rosalie was very concerned about the health of her Dragoness, as an engine running at this level for so long would be under a lot of stress.
“Roger…. Speed…. Six hundred.” The pair of unidentified fighters cut back on their thrust, coming down to six hundred miles per hour as said.
That was a lot easier for the Oceon fighters to match. Rosalie let out a little sigh of relief as she backed down on her throttle and slowly overtook the other jets, flying out in front and slightly above them. The finger four formation reformed and the first jet again waggled its wings as they led the far more advanced fighters North. ATC cleared the air in front of them, and with the radar tracks from the Dragonesses, they could better guess where the unidentified jets are.
Rosalie wasn’t too worried about giving the bogeys her flight’s six o clock. It would put them in a very vulnerable position, but she was an experienced jet pilot and had learned to put trust in some things. Besides, if they did destroy the Oceon jets, every Polestar, Dragoness, and Apollo within range would scramble and come in with weapons hot. So, Rosalie just led the other jets along at a leisurely pace, at a slightly different heading and right over Wales. Once they were off the Northern point of the Kings Islands and were approaching Faroe Island, the four jets broke off one by one, each one waggling its wings before departing and flying South back towards their home roost.
“State affiliation” The unidentified pilot requested as the two jets began to fly away. “Status… Britain? Know… speak… English?” The jets cut back on their speed just a bit, seeming to want to linger in the area for just a bit longer before returning from whence they came.
Rosalie noticed in the mirror above the forward cockpit brace that the jets were lingering. She also heard the questions. In Oceon, she told Three and Four to RTB, and then turned around and entered a holding pattern near the two intruders. The Dragoness was doing a lot better now that the throttle was not at the firewall. Number Two, Annabel, did not speak anything but Oceon, so Rosalie had to do all the talking. She replied patiently, “I am a wolfess of Oceon. Britain is now the region of Kings’ Islands within Oceos. English is not spoken or taught.” She clicked her mic twice to signal the end of her transmission, and was starting to speak slower and clearer as it became obvious he was not very well versed in Greek.
“Desire….. Meeting.” The unidentified pilot said. “Three” Catching himself say the number in English, he repeated it in Greek. “Days. Request…. Location.” As he spoke the two jets banked towards the north, traveled for a few minutes, and then banked back towards the south.
This was one part that was over Rosalie’s head. She told the other jets to stand by, and then spoke in Oceon to the ATC for a little while. After a lot of words went flying back and forth, she finally replied in Greek, telling them the location of Moreau and its airstrip. She also advised them that they were not going to encounter many English speakers in Greenland and should bring some Greek or Greenlandic speakers along, just in case. The two Dragonesses kept distance the entire time as this conversation happened, just winding and weaving their way about in the air almost lazily.
“Copy…. Thanks… Escort” The unidentified pilot said before the odd pair of fighters turned towards the West and took off at a neck breaking speed of twelve hundred miles per hour.
The two Air Force jets went their own way and headed South, back to Trojan, with Rosalie trying to calm the butterflies in her stomach. She realized just then how that was probably the most important thing she had ever done in her career.
Three days had passed since that first encounter between the Victorian and Oceoan fighters, during which the officers of the
USS Vicotoria had scrambled to find anyone who could speak Greek fluently. Surprisingly they had actually had a number of crewmembers on board who knew Greek as a second language, one of which was even a pilot.
In retrospect the Victorian leadership knew that they had made a few blunders, namely not setting up a specific time for the meeting with these ‘Oceans’ and not establishing a specific call sign or identifying phrase. Even so they were confident that the Oceans would recognize who they were once they made contact.
The Victoria deployed four Firefly fighters and three AH-5 Tiger ‘helicopters’ to Greenland. The Fireflies stayed well outside of what one would consider Greenlandic airspace, although it would take them minutes at best to reach land if they wanted to, while the three AH-5 Tigers flew towards Moreau at speeds averaging five hundred miles per hour.
“Moreau control, this is Blue Star” one of the Tigers’ pilots said in fluent Greek, “requesting permission to come in for landing.” The officers of the
Victoria had hoped that the Oceans would link the reference of a blue star back to them, although they realized it was something of a longshot.
Three days later, in Moreau, three helipads were suddenly closed off to outside traffic. Police rode in on horses and a couple on ATVs and cordoned off the area before simply resting and waiting. There were no humans in that group, and the ambassador chosen was not human either. Rather, he was a reindeer. He was put on standby and a meeting room cleared out and reserved for the Victorian ambassadors whenever they arrived. The President or someone else would have met them, but those important folks were busy with the whole Cascadia situation, so Panos was picked. He was a very good ambassador, but this was going to be his most important situation yet.
When the Tigers arrived over Moreau, they were met by a pair of Dragonesses, but the Dragonesses had clean wings and waggled their wings in a friendly hello. Moreau ATC cleared them to land, and then radioed the police to set up flares on the snow-dusted pad. An arctic fox awoke from his nap in the saddle of his draft mare to the sound of the portable radio, rolled off of the saddle, and roused the rest of the half dozen cops to go to work. Soon enough four or five flares burned brightly on the concrete pad and another flare was fired into the air as ATC gave the choppers exact coordinates and landmarks for the helipad. Panos was dispatched in a steam limousine escorted by three cops on ATVs and arrived in minutes, clad in a thick winter coat that was a dark grey color. It was rather chilly in Moreau that day, and there was a thin layer of snow on the ground. Panos stepped out of the blocky black limousine and stood off to one side of the helipad and awaited the arrival of the choppers patiently, with the cops fanning out and watching from a distance atop their horses. It would be a bizarre sight to the newcomers, seeing all of these different anthropomorphized animals atop horses and ATVs wearing winter clothes and awaiting their arrival.
The Tiger helicopters slowly approached the helipads. It was apparent to any observer that they were not outfitted for a fight, the hardpoints on their wings noticeably empty, although each one still packed a railgun under its nose. As one of the Tiger’s descended towards the center helipad the other two slowly circled around the area, seeming to be on watch for anything suspicious. Then, after the first had touched down, the other two came in for a landing as well. Off in the distance the four Firefly fighters turned towards the south to return back to the
VictoriaAfter all three of the helicopters had touched down the first’s hatch opened and an individual outfitted in power armor stepped out. If mention of power armor caused one to immediately think of the NAU’s power armor, then catching sight of this particular set would immediately convince an individual that this came from a very different source. It was smaller than its NAU counterpart, but this difference in size didn’t make it appear weak. It was sleeker and something about it seemed to radiate more power than what was found in the NAU. And where this power armor was sleek and almost elegant, the NAU’s armor seemed blocky in comparison.
The individual in power armor held his arms to the side, with no apparent weapons on his person, as he slowly approached the Oceans. He gave the group of assorted anthropomorphized animals a good look before singling Panos out as the leader of the group. Turning towards Panos the armored man said “I am Lieutenant Williams of the
USS Victoria. I thank you for meeting with me.”
All of the Oceons watched solemnly as the chopper landed. A couple of the cops eyed the helicopters in the air, but all eyes turned back to the chopper on the ground as a man in power armor stepped out. Even the well-disciplined and genetically enhanced mares of the Moreauean Police Corps nickered and shied away with their tails swishing. The policemen atop them soon got them under control. All of those cops wore the standard dark grey uniform with an armored vest and a pistol at their hips, but the pistols remained holstered and the cops looked on with idle interest. Panos held up his hands too to show he was unarmed, and then approached the man, “Greetings, Lieutenant. I am Panos Megalos of the great Oceos. It is my honor and my pleasure to meet you.” He gave a small bow to the armored man, then stood up again and awaited a response.
“The pleasure is mine” Williams responded. He paused for a moment before adding “I ask that you forgive me for this” He indicated his armored form, “but this is for your protection as much as mine.” His head shifted slightly away from Panos and towards one of the cops before returning back to Panos. “I presume you have someplace else arranged for us to speak? Is there any procedure that we must go through before we can talk in earnest?”
Panos nodded slowly and turned his head to look at the armor. He looked back up after a moment, “It is an impressive suit. Unless you want to bludgeon me to death, I doubt we’ll have issues with it. Though, it will stop you from fitting in the limousine, so to speak in earnest we’ll have to walk up the road a ways.” Panos paused for a second, “I have a meeting room reserved… does that armor bolster your speed in any way, Lieutenant Williams?”
“A little” Williams answered. “But it was not designed to keep up with a car. Well I suppose a little exercise won’t hurt.” He seemed to eye the cops for a moment before shrugging. “I suppose I’ll meet you there.” He started off down the road, making fairly good time despite what appeared to be a leisurely pace. When the two met again Williams asked “What exactly is your position in the government?”
Panos shook his head, “You won’t need too! Davis, may I borrow Dipper for a moment?” An arctic hare on the back of a sandy-colored clydesdale mare just nodded and hopped off. The mare approached Panos. The reindeer patted her flank before hopping up and scrabbling before seating himself in the saddle atop her broad back, asking her, “Are you okay with the power armor?” She glanced back and answered in her strange accent, “Yes. Just naturally skittish, and that thing was a lil’ startling.” He nodded, patting her back, before setting off at a trot and keeping pace with him. The mare did most of the navigating although Panos did help her a bit. After some time, they were at a large lodge on the edge of town. The reindeer hopped down from her back and motioned for the Victorian to follow him, where they went around back and found a rather large garage. Panos opened the garage door and stepped inside, answering, “I am First Aide to the Foreign Relations Advisor. Not too high ranking but about midway up the ladder. Sorry if it’s a little plain, but you won’t fit into the cabin in that suit.” A couple of cops followed them and now filed in behind them. The floor of the steel structure was concrete and the lighting was provided by bare light bulbs, with natural light coming in through windows. It was a little chilly, but there was an electric heater taking the edge off.
Williams followed Panos into the garage with a nod of his head, his gaze shifting around the entirety of the room before refocusing on Panos. “Well then mister First Aide. Is that the proper way to address you?” He didn’t wait for Panos to respond. “I’m sure your government has a few questions it would like answered. Shall we get those out of the way first?”
Panos nodded as he shed his coat and was soon in just a fancy suit and tie. He straightened his tie as he asked, “What is your affiliation? I have no knowledge of a ship named Victoria and those fighters you sent our way… we took some photographs and had an old AI of ours identify them. She said they were F-41 Fireflys, but those served under the US Navy, hundreds of years ago. Where’d you find those, and how did you get them flying again?”
“Well” Williams said “I can answer all of those questions with one statement, though I’m sure that will only lead to more questions. Would you believe me if I told you that I am a member of the United States Navy? The same navy that used the F-41 Firefly some fifteen hundred years ago.” Williams watched Panos intently, waiting to see how he responded to that bombshell.
Panos blinked a few times and tilted his head a little, although that was greatly exaggerated by his antlers. He frowned a little and said, “We have talking horses and steam powered ornithopters here, Lieutenant Williams, but that is a little hard for me to swallow. How.. how does that work, exactly?” The reindeer looked a tad skeptical at the moment.
“How does what work?”
Panos said, “Well, you look awfully young for being a thousand and odd years old, Lieutenant Williams. And the United States was incinerated in the atomic fire along with all of her military assets.”
“Ah yes. Our leadership had, for centuries, feared a nuclear war.” Williams answered. “And so each branch of the military took measures to ensure we had some capacity to operate should the worst come to be. The
USS Victoria was the Navy’s contribution. We were…. Put to sleep when the first nuclear missiles were launched, supposedly to wake up a decade later. Unfortunately something went wrong and we awoke recently instead.”
Panos listened and nodded a little. He waited for a few seconds to think, and then he responded with, “We have a couple of supercomputers from before the Day of the Last Signal… they say that the USS Victoria was missing according to the last status update they received, and presumed destroyed by the Chinese. I guess… she’s not quite that bad off then? That is pretty incredible that she lasted that long.” He drew in a deep breath, then sighed, “Its rather hard for me to believe but… I have no evidence to contradict your statement, and a lot of evidence to support it.”
“Indeed. Our operating orders were to submerge immediately should we detect any nuclear launches and wait under the arctic ice caps. Apparently we did an adequate job playing dead.” He walked over to a nearby wall and leaned against it. “Well if your computers have info about Victoria then it should have some info about the top secret program by the name of ‘Project Pandora’. And it should also know that Victoria’s captain is Shawn Taylor and that its XO is Commander Lyssa McCarthy. If THAT isn’t enough evidence that I am what I claim to be I don’t know what is.” He shrugged before adding “Anything else you want to ask?”
Panos again nodded in response to all of this information. He told them, “We do have information on that project, but our computers think that all ships in it were either never finished or destroyed. Are there any other ghosts from the past hanging around out there? Since we are so close to the Arctic I think it would be good for us to know so we don’t all panic the next time a jet goes overhead at Mach Three.
Williams seemed to be moving his head as if speaking despite no sounds being emitted from his helmet. After a moment he tilted his head to the side as if listening to someone. “The Victoria was not the only ship being built under Project Pandora.” He said after a moment. But whether any of those other ships survived the war is… unknown. We find it highly unlikely that any others would make themselves known after all of this time anyways. In all likelihood they were either destroyed, began operations a decade after the war as planned, or their entire crews died while sleeping.” He shrugged again. “Personally I’d put money on them being destroyed during the first few minutes of the war. We ourselves had just left port a few days prior to the war. Not sure if I can say we were lucky or unlucky” He muttered. “As for what the other branches of the military had planned. Well we simply don’t know. All of the projects were top secret and highly compartmentalized. For all we know Project Pandora was the only one that got past the concept phase.”
Panos scuffled his feet then. He slowly began to say, “Did you ever hear about Project Moreau? US Army thing, if I remember rightly. Pandora is something us Oceons read about during our studies of the Atomic Fire, but this is going to put one heck of a new twist on it.”
Williams remained silent for a moment before answering “No. We are not aware of Project Moreau. Army project? What was it? Some sort of bunker system or something?”
Panos shook his head, “No, it wasn’t. It was an experiment to produce better Arctic soldiers. They were expecting trouble with Russia, I guess… Oceos, this town of Moreau, it was the site of the original Moreau Colony. Bunch of grungy ‘volunteers’ with nowhere else to go were genetically modified to turn them… well, mostly animal, but with human traits like speech and thumbs. When the war happened, we call it the Day of the Last Signal, we decided to try and unify Greenland. A few years later, and we ruled over Greenland, Iceland, Britain, and a few smaller islands… turns out those modifications could be passed down through generations, so that's why everyone here has fur and looks like an animal. I guess we share some common roots.” He grins a little, chuckling.
“I see.” Williams tone almost seemed devoid of emotion. “I suppose that would make us your ancestors.” He let out a snort, finally finding some amusement out of the idea. “If you know any Williams let them know that you might have met their great great grand uncle.” He let out a short chuckle before changing gears. “Now that I’ve answered your questions perhaps you could help me understand the political landscape of North America.”
Panos huffed and sniggered slightly before rubbing over the top of his head and telling the armored man, “I will, Lieutenant Williams. The landscape of that continent? A total mess. To the East, you have the NAU. They kind of tried to keep the old America alive… they are fairly friendly. To the West, you have… Cascadia.” He spat the word like it left a bad taste in his mouth. He visibly had to collect himself before he continued, “Hateful people, and narrow minded. Our president would have been here to meet you but he is trying to save the crew of a cargo ship from their ‘justice system’ for ‘inhumans’.” He sighed and squeezed his eyes shut for a brief moment. Then he continues, “In the middle is the United Plains Coalition. We call it the badlands because the government fell apart, and now it is just a mess of skirmishing and stalemate fighting between a handful of factions. I… don’t recommend getting involved. There are horrible things there. It is like World War One, but with superhuman mutants and modern weaponry. Nothing good.” Panos paused to drift over and look out the window, and then pull a chair out from under a table and sit himself down in it. He smiles, “I hope you do not mind.”
“Of course. Make yourself comfortable.” Williams said with a nod. “You have been kind enough to allow me to wear this armor after all. Now you said the NAU are friendly. Are they a democracy? What about Cascadia? Is it a dictatorship?” He cursed under his breath in English before quickly adding “Or perhaps they are also some sort of democracy as well?” He shifted his weight onto his left leg and, after a short pause, added “For that matter you mentioned you had a president. Is he your head of the government or does he answer to someone else?”
Panos shook his head quickly and told him, “Both Cascadia and the NAU are constitutional monarchies, sort of like old Britain and sort of like old America. Democratic but not with a President, instead with a ruling Monarch. The NAU is definitely the more free of the two, but we don’t know much about Cascadia beyond that we do not get along well. Our country is a sort of Confederacy system. President Rasp is the leader when it comes to foreign affairs but he doesn’t have much control over the inner regions. Oceos is more a collective of semi-autonomous regions with a common people and culture. Rasp answers to the Council of Speakers, and his own advisors.”
“Well at least democratic values aren’t entirely dead” Williams added after a long pause. He shifted his weight back to his right foot as he let his gaze shift towards a window. “Oh. And before I forget. When you have the opportunity, would you mind asking that computer of yours whether it feels there is a danger of us transmitting any diseases or anything? I’d hate to pick up any new bugs that might have developed since the bombs dropped.”
Panos solemnly nodded, “Democracy is an on and off thing in this new world, Lieutenant Williams. I’ll have to get someone to run and talk to Destiny or Beowulf. We have to be in their chambers to speak to them… we don’t want to risk having them connected to the outside world.” The reindeer beckoned over one of the cops, an otter, and spoke to him a moment. Afterwards, the cop ran outside and was seen talking on his mobile radio. Panos settled back in his chair, “I don’t know if you’d be in any danger from us, Lieutenant, considering our genetic diversity, but I am just a politician, not a scientist.”
“Yes, well it wouldn’t be funny if we caught some sort of super small pox from you. Or if our common cold turned out to be the latest version of polio.” Williams commented dryly. “And seeing as how it's been over a thousand years we feel that we do have good cause to be cautious. Hence this.” He indicated his armored form. “Now then. If there is nothing else you feel we need to discuss…”
“Well, I want to know what your Captain is planning to do now that his ship is awake and wielding weapons vastly better than almost anything on this planet at the moment. You scared a lot of people when those jets of yours showed up. Also, please know that we are willing to provide what aid we can, but our technology is far behind yours, and we don’t want to get involved in too many far away conflicts. Oceons are simple and like uncomplicated lives, Lieutenant.” He rose from his chair and smiled tiredly, “Thank you for making this first contact peaceful, Lieutenant Williams.” The cop came back, “Sir. Beowulf and Destiny disciples report that there are diseases that can be bad to humans from that long ago but we have vaccines and treatments for them. Their viruses shouldn’t be able to hurt anthromorphs, and our humans should be alright because we still have treatments for that kind of stuff.” Panos thanked him, and then turned to William, “Did you hear that? If we do have problems with diseases our medical sector ought to be able to handle it.”
“I shall let my superiors know then. As for our intentions. Well for now we are simply trying to get an understanding of what has become of the world. We’ll figure out what we want to do specifically later. And I am sure that the captain will be grateful for your offers of future aid. Perhaps we could have a mutually beneficial relationship. And with that in mind…” Williams remained silent for a moment before adding “We have prepared a long distance radio that should be able to reach us should we remain in the Atlantic. It's already been set to a frequency that we will be watching and has military grade encryption. I’ll provide it to you before I leave. Just… don’t try to disassemble it.”
Panos laughed a little and held up a hand, “We will not! Even if did I don’t think we could recreate it. I hope we will. Anything you need, we will see if we can give it. You probably saw on your photographs that our nation is not the most advanced or well developed, but we are friendly and generous. Is there anything you wish to see around town? This is our Capital, after all.”
“Unfortunately I’ll have to pass on visiting the town.” Williams said. “The pilots have informed me that if we don’t head back soon
Victoria will sail out of our flight range.” He shrugged as he started towards the exit. “Now if you and your posse of guards would care to escort me back I would be more than happy to hand you that radio I mentioned.”
Panos gave the traditional Oceos goodbye and showed the man out. Then he and his guards mounted up again and showed the armored man back to the helipad and a hasty but not too intense pace, so as not to tire him. The radio was given to two cops on an ATV and taken to the Capitol building of Oceos, and Panos stood by to see the helicopters off. They were again escorted out, this time by a pair of AF-70 Polestars. Panos did begin to ponder the implications of this meeting after the choppers left. This may well have been the beginning of a paradigm shift unlike anything he had seen… what would the people from the past look like? What kind of ideas and ambitions did they foster? He was chewing that over in the limousine on the way back to the Capitol Building.
