Chapter Text
It's been only six weeks since the aliens arrived. Six weeks of language learning, dancing around cultural differences, figuring out biological nuance, and trying to keep a handle on the entire process without going insane. Jermaine thinks he's done all right at it.
Since Feferi's royal reveal, they've gotten quite a bit done. The juvenile Trolls have kept mostly to themselves, popping in here and there but largely absent. He's not sure if this is in the interest of protecting other state secrets or some other internal orders but Ironclaw keeps things quiet on his side. It has at least given Jermaine's team time to catch up and handle the masses of information they've been given over the last weeks and form concrete plans for eventual presentation to the UN and the public at large.
"Preliminary reports?" Jermaine asks more from tradition rather than actual need.
"All good." Yui flips open the cover of her report. "So far, no human with contact to the aliens has reported any sort of illness and the pathologist report is clean. Trolls have a vicious immune system that suggests plenty of native virus and bacteria exposure at home but somehow their ship travel seems to be scrubbing them clean. Still following up on that but no cultures taken from skin swabs have grown into anything yet. All tests conducted within the lab have shown Trolls to be essentially immune to human borne illnesses. Either there is no reaction and the virus is passed harmlessly or an immune response begins quickly to eliminate it."
Well. There's at least one thing they don't have to worry about. As far as they know it, anyway. He keeps the possibility in mind so he can consider ways to counteract any political fallout if one of the Trolls becomes ill or somehow passes something to a human.
“I suppose our imperfect quarantine will have to do for proof of safety,” he mutters as he considers the report. He read it before the meeting started but he’ll be giving it a more thorough run through sometime after.
“You mean if things had gone to plan and they didn’t land before we had the site finished?” Sarah teases, shaking her head. “I’d say we got out of that pretty lucky.”
“When I explained it to Mr. Nitram, he seemed surprised that illness might even be a factor,” Yui says in a thoughtful tone. “Either Trolls never thought to care about it before or they’ve never had to. It makes me wonder if the microscopic life of their home planet even works like that.”
Jermaine admits that it’s a fairly interesting line of thought but they have other reasons to be here that need handling.
“The bottom line is that, as of now, broad human and Troll interaction has been deemed relatively safe,” he says to bring them back to the point. “Good work, Dr. Saito.”
She grins at him and then sits down as Sarah rises with a grunt and an audible pop as something in her back settles.
“We’ve got a working primer on the language. The kids call it Alternian but apparently the word sounds different when not spoken with magic powers-” Jermaine clears his throat and Sarah rolls her eyes a little before continuing. “It’s a beast of a thing but probably easier than English or Chinese, so at least it’s got that going for it. We’ve amassed a fairly large vocabulary and Mr. Captor worked with our local nerds to smooth out that translation software of his.”
“Nerds,” Jermaine deadpans with dismay because this is being recorded and that just makes Sarah smirk at him.
“I call it like I see it,” she snarks at him. “Anyway. We should be able to use the translator for any interactions with the Trolls once Miss Pyrope’s language dump fades”
“Once it what?” Did he hear that correctly-
“Mind your blood pressure,” Sarah says sweetly before dropping back into business. “You must have skimmed that report. The language dump isn’t permanent. It’s already fading. Miss Pyrope would have to keep reapplying it and there is apparently far more strain to the deed than we initially thought. She can’t just keep doing it. We’ve been getting as much important vocabulary down as possible and working on the translator for that reason.”
That was going to make things a lot more difficult, considering Ironclaw was one of the first to receive the language skill. He makes a note to speak with Ironclaw and Terezi about possibly reapplying the language dump at least to Ironclaw when it fades, if no one else. At least Ironclaw had a good amount of English language logistics down already. If the dump faded unexpectedly, they had something to fall back on.
“Thank you, Dr. Bradshaw. Please keep me informed,” he says for the sake of the meeting recording, reaching up to rub the beginning ache in his temple. “And you, Dr. Galea?”
Noe rises with a little yawn. “So far, with the exception of Softouch, there have been no serious threats posed by the Trolls. And Softouch’s are debatable as to seriousness. Probably just high caste postering. We see similar with Miss Serket, Mister Ampora, and Mister Makara. In any case, nothing that would threaten the proceedings as far as I can tell. Ironclaw has a good grasp on things. We will need to include Softouch in the presentation. By their social rules, it would be a grave insult not to in favor of Ironclaw and he’s not about to stand for that officially, much as he’s let it slide for now.”
The Bloodcaste Brief is ten times the length of the Romance Brief. Jermaine hasn’t quite committed it to memory but he easily recalls several pertinent passages. While he’d like to keep Softouch as far away from everyone as he possibly can, it’s not a risk they can avoid.
“Coordinate with Ironclaw as to the best way to integrate her into the proceedings,” he says and Noe gives him a polite nod as he sits. There are other reports to listen to, from engineering to security to sundry others. By the time they finish hours later, Jermaine’s headache has spread across his forehead to pound on both sides. In a way, he’s almost relieved to feel it. Keeps him rooted in the real world where this is really happening, rather than entertaining the idea it might be a dream.
What really nags him as he gets to his quarters is the language issue. The rest is all very important but what could hamper things most is if Ironclaw loses his grip on English. Jermaine knows Sarah’s sent her primer to the Antecedent and that Antecedent herself is fluent, in some manner of it, but he still worries. They’ll handle it, he knows that. He just hadn’t considered the gift might not be permanent. He’s not even sure how the gift really worked in the first place.
Both the Trolls’ and children’s powers are still as much of a mystery as they were in the first place. They have made notes of things shown freely and spoken of in passing but the children react to direct questioning with a disappearing act if it isn’t dropped after the first denial. All questions about “god tier” are similarly ignored.
Jermaine spoke with Mr. Egbert about possible counselling for the children (and him) on Noe’s insistence but Mr. Egbert hadn’t agreed to anything as of yet. He skirted around why, deflecting in ways very obvious but still skillful enough that Jermaine has since let it slide. With so much else to concentrate on, he simply doesn’t have the patience to keep on it.
There has been a decision about not including Trolls with mind control abilities into the official first presentation, however. With the exception of Softouch, who must be in the party, the others with any mind altering abilities will be excused. He will not take that risk, doesn’t even much like that he had to with his team. There have been no incidents but he hopes to keep it that way.
Jermaine lays down on his bed and covers his eyes with both hands. They’re about to reach a turning point. He’s been able to handle everything mostly on his own terms until now but that’s going to change, he knows it will. It’s for the better, most likely, but he still worries how other influences will change things.
He picks up his phone and pulls up the latest messages from Léa, letting himself miss her and their children. They’re doing well, he doesn’t worry after them, but he will be so very relieved to see them again soon. With the final declaration of the safety on contact with the Trolls, he can visit home for a little while soon. It warms him to think about.
----
Softouch blinks even less than Ironclaw. Her purple eyed stare is steady and focused above the bright spots crossing the middle of her face and her wide, fanged mouth. She rarely stops smiling, sharp teeth edging out on both sides like a half considered warning. He’s not sure if it’s an actual threat or simply something she’s gotten so used to doing that she’s forgotten how not to.
Noe watches the hesitant way Terezi reaches for her. There’s no shake to her fingers but her body is coiled and ready to run. Her eyes are rimmed with greenish blue in a way he usually only observes from Karkat but has been told is stress and sleeplessness. He finds it interesting how like a human that is but it only cements home the vehemence that she only bestow the language gift sparingly. It’s already faded nearly completely in the non god tier juveniles and Ironclaw has refused it reapplied for now while he works with Sarah on learning more for himself. He’s getting passable, still shaky on some syntax but doing very well in the short amount of time he’s been studying.
Softouch has made absolutely no attempt to learn it, scorns the very idea of lowering herself to “the meat beast’s tongue” according to Tavros. They’re lucky she agreed to this, only because it’s temporary.
Softouch had to be sitting for Terezi to reach her head and still bends to be reached. It takes a moment, an awkward and uncomfortable moment, and then Terezi jerks away as if stung. She looks more tired but keeps herself standing solidly as she waits.
“Motherfucking wiggler stinks to fuck, get over yourself,” Softouch snickers out with a wider grin. “Ain’t enough meat all up on those bones for a snack.”
Noe’d been warned that this bloodcaste tended to talk a certain way and has observed it with Gamzee. He’s not surprised but the way her words, even in English, seem to drip with amused threat and the subvocal rumble of violence still gets to him. The lizard part of his brain seizes and screams to run. He doesn’t.
“Thank you, Terezi,” he says instead, trying to ignore the uptick in his heartbeat. She smiles, tense and sharp, and then she’s gone the way the juveniles always are. Noe turns his gaze to Softouch and is resolutely not frightened of her.
“Now then, with the presentation coming up, we should-”
“Well damn, those mouth noises actually make some motherfucking sense!” Softouch laughs, a grinding noise that isn’t quite all vocal and seems to rumble in him in a way he’s extremely uncomfortable with. He wonders if this happen when Ironclaw laughs more than once. “Miracles.”
“We thought you might like being able to talk to us.”
Softouch snorts derisively and waves a sharply clawed hand. “Ain’t got much to say to your kind. I’m a motherfucking war negotiaterror.”
His curiosity piques. “I wasn’t aware there were different kinds of- how was it- yes, Ambassassin?”
The way her eyes crinkle, he’s pretty sure the translation isn’t quite right, missing some kind of nuance, but she accepts it well enough. “Sure, bro. There’s to being Ironclaw and then all us other fuckers.”
“Oh?” Noe gathered pretty quickly how strange Ironclaw must be, considering the way the juveniles and his own crew seem to be confused by him. He’s kind of relieved for confirmation.
“See, thirty sweeps ago, Ambassassination was all to being incitement and motherfucking sneaky plans, toppling all manner of troublesome rebels and axing out those what show to be annoying,” Softouch says with a shrug, slumping in her chair as she starts picking at one of her claw beds. “Then this motherfucker comes in and thinks, ‘Hey, maybe we can be all hatefriend-like’ and fuck if the uppers didn’t motherfucking let him.”
Spies. They’d been spies. Spies and assassins, guerilla forces set to destabilize rather than annihilate, to get a people ready for complete warfair pitched for the Trolls. That’s why the word seems so violent. Noe wonders why he’s not more surprised. Honestly, he’d been kind of waiting for some turn like that.
“And Ironclaw changed that,” he says.
“Motherfucker’s pale for the entire goddamn universe,” she agrees. “Thinks we ain’t got reason to subjuggulate them what’s beneath us, meatbeast and mineral alike.”
Lucky break for humanity. But it just reminds him that Ironclaw had mentioned being near the end of his lifespan. They might be safe now, but… If most of the Ambassassins were like Softouch, it likely wouldn’t be long.
“Your role as a… negotiaterror,” Noe murmurs finally, jotting down the term in his notebook. “Is this common for you to-”
“If’n they’s already shown they ain’t down for the safe talk,” she says as she sits up more proudly. “I get to go in all sneak like and give the riotous fear thoughts straight to their little pans, or steal the breath from their wigglers.”
Noe swallows thickly. Because that… “Under orders.”
“Not gonna roll over and show underbelly to those all up and in with the blood need.”
He wishes Ironclaw was here. Ironclaw didn’t make the sour burn rise in his throat.
The Trolls are militaristic, violent, and absolutely fatal as a species; a race of conquerors who had spent who knows how long smashing any civilization within their space under their heels. He keeps forgetting that because of how mild Ironclaw and most of the juveniles are. He keeps forgetting, likely because he wants to. He can’t do that.
“What is it you want from us?” he asks because he can’t not ask. They still don’t understand why the Trolls are being so friendly when it’s against their nature.
“Pain in the globes says jump, you motherfucking hit orbit,” Softouch replies. “Ain’t nothing doing, you go as what’s told. You do as what’s told. Empress wants to talk, we’re motherfucking talking. Ain’t in me to know why. Ain’t in me to care.”
Softouch rises and leans half over the table, her hands sliding across the wood to support her as she gets into his space, gets so close he catches the alien sour of her breath and can see the faintest indication of the edges of her pupils in the sea of purple and suddenly it’s like he’s going to drown in it and he can’t even hope to get away. He feels claws digging into his chest.
“All meat to me,” she whispers low and soft, the sound of it cloyingly gentle in a way that hits the back of his neck and tightens the muscle it finds. “Poor little treebeast, shivering like there ain’t enough motherfucking heat in the whole planet. Ain’t been so alone, huh? Motherfucking soft and tiny and on your lonesome.”
“Stop it,” he manages to edge out only to have her coo at him.
“Shush, shush, soft and motherfucking quiet now,” she says and it’s like molasses in his brain. He can’t- His thoughts are muddy and slow. “See this? This ain’t nothing. This ain’t shit. Empress’s motherfucking gifts be all up in your senses, be in your bloodpusher. You don’t motherfucking see it, ain’t got the knowing it’s happening, but she’s there. And you ain’t getting her out til she says or you’re a stain on the motherfucking ground.”
She straightens and the spell breaks as quickly as it came over him. Noe sucks in a hard breath, belatedly realizing his cheeks are wet and he’s so sick in his guts, twisted farther than he has been in a long time. He stares at her, sees the pleased twist of her lips and the satisfaction in every single inch of her.
“Point motherfucking made?” she asks idly.
“Point made,” he croaks and then ends the meeting so he can relieve his stomach of it’s contents.
He didn’t expect Ironclaw to be waiting when he finally makes it out of the bathroom. Noe’s strung too tight and he absolutely does not have the composure to do this right now. His hands are shaking and he’s not sure he’ll ever be warm again.
“I can’t-” he starts and Ironclaw sighs softly.
“You say and do nothing,” he murmurs, lips curling over the words with more finesse than yesterday. “You me come- You come with me. Yes?”
“Ironclaw…”
“It is better,” Ironclaw insists, pressing his hand to the back of Noe’s arm to lead him away from the bathroom and Noe goes because he’s still pretty messed up right now. Ironclaw doesn’t ask him for anything, says nothing as they walk until they’re out of the building and in the sunlight. And Noe finally sucks in a full breath. He half collapses into the bench Ironclaw directs him to, grabbing his knees to make his hands stop shaking.
For long minutes, they sit in a silence that for once doesn’t seem expectant or uncomfortable. Ironclaw stares out over the well manicured grounds and over the security fencing to the tall, far off buildings they can just make out of the city.
“She wants to kill us all,” Noe says finally. His voice is too high, cracking.
“Yes,” Ironclaw says without a trace of guile. He tilts his head, good eye focusing and now that Noe knows how to differentiate the pupil, he sees the red side doesn’t have one. He doesn’t know why he fixates on that. “Softouch is… hungry? For not food. For fighting.”
Noe finds himself laughing a little. “Understatement. She’s… Is your Empress really worse?”
Ironclaw considers that. He looks out towards the city again, folding his hands in his lap and tucking his claws in harmlessly. He’s always so careful about that kind of thing.
“She is very old,” he says finally. “She sees- She has seen many things, knows many things. She makes her word law. Sometimes by saying it in the mind. She has… I do not know the word.”
“It’s okay.” Noe closes his eyes and presses his palms tight over them for several seconds. “She’s more powerful than Softouch.”
“Yes.”
“But she sent you.”
Ironclaw hums softly, a rattle deep in his chest but Noe doesn’t get any danger sense from it.
The Empress could make her followers do whatever she liked and what she wants right now is Ironclaw here, talking with them. It could have been Softouch on point here, could have been some other Ambassassin, but instead it was Ironclaw. A diversion or a statement? Who knew.
“I’m going to be glad when this is someone else’s job,” he sighs out.
Ironclaw just snorts, his lips quirking on one side and they stay there until Noe’s heart stops racing.
----
It’s not often she sees Jermaine soften up, but she doesn’t begrudge him a bit the way he sweeps his wife up into his arms the moment he sees her glide into the room like a queen. Sarah grins instead and gives a wave to the twins, both rolling their eyes like they’ve seen something utterly inappropriate. She hadn’t thought they were due for another few hours but the look of shock and happy relief on Jermaine’s face is plenty to soothe over interrupting their meeting.
“Oh,” Ironclaw says softly from his seat beside her. (Not quite “oh” so much as a half vocal inner chest exhalation, fascinating...) There’s a thoughtfulness to his face as he watches Jermaine brush a chaste kiss to the corner of Léa’s mouth.
“I know your people do kissing,” Sarah says and Ironclaw’s scarred brow twitches a bit. Like he’s embarrassed getting caught, aww.
“I know not red or pale.”
Sarah snorts. “Not quite cut and dried with humans.”
“Mm. Yes.”
“Alien!” the kid with shorter hair shouts abruptly, her whole body going stiff.
“Sylvie,” Jermaine hisses sharply and his daughter’s shoulders hunch, but then Ironclaw’s giving a quiet laugh, rumbling and odd but not unpleasant. A bit like a well tuned engine.
“Hello,” Ironclaw says, mouth twisting into an almost fond smile. “I speak with you, yes?”
He’s getting better with the inflections, Sarah’s pleased to note.
“That’s not-” Jermaine starts but both kids perk up and start over to the table undeterred. Léa pats his arm as his mouth twists with defeat and Sarah shifts her attention to the twins sliding into empty seats across from them.
“I’ve never met an alien,” Sylvie says, a little slow as she moves over a language she’s not entirely secure with.
“I meet many aliens,” Ironclaw tells her. “I am Ironclaw. Your name is?”
Sylvie wets her lip and then gives her name politely. The other child joins in with a quieter “Lucas” and Ironclaw nods to them both.
“It’s nice to meet you,” Ironclaw says from rote, one of the many stock phrases they’d penned down and practiced so that his unfamiliarity wouldn’t cause too much offense in mixed company.
“Are you going to take over the planet?” Sylvie blurts abruptly and Sarah can’t stop a bark of ugly laughter when Jermaine looks skyward like he’s regretting every turn in his entire life that led him to this moment.
“No.”
“The moon?” Lucas adds hesitantly with a quick glance to his sister.
“No.” That one makes Ironclaw smile again, though.
Sylvie squints her eyes a bit. “Eat us?”
“No.”
“Choose a wife to have your alien babies?!” Lucus cries suddenly, unable to contain himself.
“Arrête ça,” Jermaine grumbles. They all ignore him.
“What is wife?” Ironclaw asks instead of answering and that just kicks off the kids asking all sorts of questions about Ironclaw’s family, which it turns out there is none of because Trolls don’t do that, and the kids are absolutely flabbergasted by how his parent was apparently a giant, partially sentient animal. He doesn’t have the words to really describe it but Sarah shoots a text to Noe and Yui about it for future study.
Jermaine eventually puts his foot down and bullies the kids out of the meeting room while they babble excitedly about making their dog being a ‘lusus’. Léa hangs back a moment, clearly amused by the whole thing. She slides her gaze over to the table and gives Ironclaw a polite nod that he returns easily.
“Thank you for coming peacefully,” Léa murmurs with a softer smile. “It’s a bit of a dream for me. I’ve read a lot of stories about… Well. In any case, thank you.”
She glides away after to join her family (Sarah swears the woman looks like she’s dancing at all times, it’s almost ridiculous) and Ironclaw looks after her thoughtfully. He murmurs something in Alternian and Sarah catches something about old and that one word for silly that has ten different connotations depending on the articles attached to it, but it’s far more difficult the parse spoken Alternian than written. There’s so many layers to it.
“They’re a handful but those kids sure liven a place up,” Sarah says, resting her head on one hand. “Hope that didn’t startle you too much.”
“No. The juveniles are pleasant.” He’s been soaking more flowery vocabulary lately, pouring over the dictionary she’d lent him eagerly. Suits him.
“Yeah, they’re pretty good kids.” Sarah stretches her arms, sighing as a stitch of knotted muscle finally unravels between her shoulders.
They’d been going over the speeches before the interruption, getting ready for presentation to the UN at large. Jermaine’s speech writer team had a perfectly workable draft, but Ironclaw has definite ideas about what’s appropriate and the draft is littered in blue marks, both English and Alternian. She’ll have to annotate Ironclaw’s characters later but most of them are small additions and substitutions. It’s been a long time since she had such grueling discussions over specific syntax.
Softouch had taken one look at the Alternian translated copy of her own speech, as proofed by Karkat, and laughed for about five minutes straight before declaring them all to be “fragile ass grubs all to needing shooshing niceties” but Ironclaw’d gotten her to agree to using it with a few small changes. She seemed happy enough not taking point, finding the whole business boring. Sarah’s kind of relieved about that.
Mohamed and Adanna come by just when Sarah’s sure they’ve been lost to the ether. Mohamed gives her a small, apologetic smile while Adanna lugs in a huge binder of old speeches from previous presentations and older historical meetups. Ironclaw could have had his Helmsman look it all up but he’d deferred to only looking at what they’d prefer him to see. Sarah finds it pretty comforting that he continually lets them take the lead.
“This should start you out pretty well,” Adanna says as she sets the binder down on the table for Ironclaw to flip through. “We ran out of paper but someone’s off to fetch more.”
“Thank you.” Ironclaw’s words are absent, already absorbed in the documents. He’s thorough. Sarah can appreciate that.
“Did they get us a date yet?” Mohamed asks as he sets down his shoulder bag.
“Next month,” Sarah’s kind of relieved to have a definite, even if it’s, “on the ides.”
Mohamed’s lips twitch. “That’s not ominous at all.”
“I doubt they’re making a statement,” Sarah snorts, shaking her head. They all settle down and help Ironclaw go through the logs, explaining any turns of phrase that don’t make sense for non-native speakers and adding little sections he likes to a growing resource library for him. Jermaine joins them soon after, having gotten his family settled, and they spend the next few hours working pleasantly.
That all changes when someone calls Jermaine out into the hallway, posture screaming barely contained terror. Sarah’s immediately on guard. She shares a look with Adanna and then gets up to go after him. Her suspicions immediately twist to Softouch, wondering what the hell she might have done-
Jermaine jerks the door open again before she can get there and then absolutely ignores her to round on Ironclaw. “You did not inform us of any incoming contingents.”
Ironclaw’s brows jerk up. “I am aware of one not.”
“There is a large object heading this way. Our sensors picked it up passing Jupiter and at the current speed, it will likely arrive within days. Considering the direct nature of it, we are sure it’s artificial. A ship,” Jermaine reports to him, sharp and tight and not at all happy.
“I must speak to Helmsman.” Ironclaw rises, expression tightening and just upset as Jermaine’s own.
“I’ll accompany you.”
As the two of them leave, stormy and dramatic, Sarah drops back into her chair and rubs her head.
“This was going so well, too,” Adanna mutters with a roll of her eyes.
“More Trolls?” Mohamed wonders aloud.
Sarah snorts. “Let’s hope so. If it’s anyone else, we’re probably fucked.”
----
The human images of the object aren’t very conclusive. Ironclaw volunteers his ship’s systems to get a better look. The object that the Helmsman projects for them on one of the strange, pulsing walls is not a Troll ship. It’s larger than Ironclaw’s ship and more smoothly shaped, elegant in it’s design. Large, dark divots mark the surface, matching too closely to be anything other than deliberate. Jermaine’s a little impressed by the clarity the Helmsman gets, even if he’s less impressed by her commentary.
“-coming here in my space without even a by-your-leave, RUDE. And that bitchass navigator’s making no sense, what a dweeb,” she grumbles so seamlessly in the middle that Jermaine almost misses what she’s just said.
“Navigator? You’ve made contact?” he demands when he does realize it and the Helmsman cackles.
“‘Course I made contact. What do you take me for, a fucking amatuer? Asshole didn’t even say hi before entering the system. Lucky I didn’t totally ruin him.”
Ironclaw sighs a little and mutters something sharp in Alternian. The glow in the Helmsman’s eyes sharpens and goes bright as something replaces the ship projection. Alternian characters, long strings of them. Ironclaw studies the projection closely and then, “Sound.”
Jermaine frowns as something crackling and distorted begins to play over the speakers. High pitched interference punctuates long stretches of clicking. He thinks something must be wrong with them before realizing there are irregular drops in sounds that aren’t so random to be distortions so much as-
“That’s- I think that’s speech,” he murmurs, mostly for himself. It’s even less like a human language than Alternian. “Ironclaw, do you-”
“I know this speech not.” And he doesn’t look happy about that either. Eyes narrow and hardened, he drops a few orders for the Helmsman. If Ironclaw isn’t familiar with the language or the ship, it’s a good bet this isn’t a species the Trolls are allied with but also not likely one they’ve had bad relations with. This could go very well or very badly, depending on the ship’s intentions.
“I am a warship, you know. I do have functional laser cannons,” the Helmsman says oh-so-helpfully and Jermaine shoots Ironclaw a dirty look because laser cannons?
“No,” Ironclaw says in english, for Jermaine’s benefit no doubt. “We talk first. Kill later, maybe.”
The Helmsman looks disappointed. Then she perks up and warns about an incoming visitor. Well, of an “incoming naked monkey”. It’s… close enough. Ironclaw gives permission for boarding and within minutes, one of the semi-adults is leading a messenger to report that the Egbert children are on base.
Finally a break. This is precisely what Jermaine needs right now. “Please send the audio recording to us. We’ll have the children listen and interpret if they can.”
The Helmsman cracks wise about it but Ironclaw seconds the order and follows as Jermaine goes with the messenger to greet the Egberts. He doesn’t know why they’re here but it is absolutely second in importance to the current threat.
Humanity is vastly outclassed by Trolls. Who knows how much worse these new aliens might be?
What Jermaine isn’t expecting is to see all of the Egbert children at once, along with all of the juvenile Trolls. They barely fit in the conference room and a quarter of them have to stand from lack of chairs. The random side conversations stop as he and Ironclaw step inside.
“I don’t know why you’ve all come but it will have to wait,” Jermaine says immediately and then ignores a few eye rolls. “There is a second ship heading this way. It’s not Troll made.”
They have the audacity not to be surprised. Except John, who’s surprise is so over the top that it cannot be anything but a farce. He grips his chest, eyes wide as he gasps out, “No! Really?”
Jermaine reminds himself that he cannot incarcerate a child for lacking situationally appropriate gravitas, no matter how much he’d like to. He settles for glaring until John stops pretending to be having a heart attack.
“Antecedent has received footage of a ship and confirmed it not to be of any species Trolls have had contact with,” Jermaine continues as if he hadn’t been interrupted at all. “An attempt at contact has failed but audio was recorded from it. We’re unsure if it’s merely interference or some kind of transmitted speech.”
“Oh hell yes, this is my time to shine,” Dave immediately pipes up only to have Terezi shove him half out of his chair.
“I think it’s mine. I’m the language mystic right now, coolkid,” she says with a smirk that doesn’t quite hide how tired she still looks.
“I’m so not doing it,” Vriska chimes in, folding her arms behind her head. “Booooooooring.”
The children mostly degenerate into trying to delegate helpfulness between themselves, the way Jermaine absolutely did not need right now when they only had days to figure out what the new aliens wanted and how to proceed. Ironclaw is apparently at the same level because he makes a sharp, guttural sound that seems to rattle Jermaine’s very bones like a concussive force. The children go silent, staring at him, and the juvenile Trolls in particular have shrunk back as if Ironclaw were Softouch instead.
Ironclaw runs narrowed eyes over each one of them. “You all will listen.”
Jermaine has the audio clip run through the conference room speakers. For the first thirty seconds of it, there’s nothing. Then Dave stands up so fast that he knocks his chair over, slamming his hands against the top of the table.
“The Mayor!” he hisses with utter reverence.
The children fall into a loud mix of chaotic celebration and relief. Roxy bursts into elated tears as she moans out another name and Karkat surrenders to it with her while various others comfort them, trade high fives, and are generally filled with absolute mirth.
Jermaine has no idea what this means, except… The children understand. They understand and they aren’t afraid. He trades a look with Ironclaw and recognizes a similar realization. More aliens, perhaps, but more that are apparently friendly. It’s… better than it could have been.
“I saw this possibility,” Rose says as she steps away from her laughing, hugging siblings and friends. She gives Jermaine a softer, simply happy look. “I’m glad it took hold.”
“I take this to be more friends of yours,” he says.
“Oh, yes. Different than the Trolls but still very much friends.” Her smile brightens even more. “The last pieces of our little crew.”
“I don’t suppose you would be willing to translate the message for me, just for clarity’s sake.”
“I would be happy to,” she assures him. “‘Hello, friends! I apologise for how long it took to get here. Calliope had to wake up first.’”
Jermaine glances to Ironclaw to see if the name has any significance but it appears not to. Well. He’d already done one first contact. He supposes another can’t be any more difficult.