Captain Aveli was uncertain how Lillian had been convinced to take a shuttle instead of docking directly to the station, though if she ever found out, there would be an imperial medal for whoever had managed it.

Looking at the “shuttle” the captain was less impressed with the feat than when she had been told about it, rather than a sleek diplomatic shuttle she was looking at an 800 metre cargo ship with a sub-capital rail gun welded between the planetary landing skids and a slight purple glow to the armor plates… Did that moron add cordite plates to a cargo shuttle?

The red haired moron came strolling towards her from the shuttle. She was wearing a dress rather than armour at least. Even if her guards appeared to be wearing Cordite plated power armour. The six Itris marines around Lillian stood between 2.3 and 2.8 metres, each wearing a suit of purple, faintly glowing power armour. In their hands were laser rifles, and on their hips what looked like purple axes. Lillian had brought an honour guard, thankfully one that while impressive, wasn’t insultingly large.

“AVS!” The human called as she ran towards Aveli, her guards jogging to keep up

Aveli waved and waited for the human to arrive, married or not. She was a princess on a diplomatic mission, shouting across a 200 metre gap simply wasn’t acceptable.

“Lillian, I have to ask, who managed to convince you to take both a shuttle AND a reasonable honour guard?” Aveli asked the human having finally arrived

“Persephone used her veto” The human replied

“The ship’s AI has a veto?” Aveli questioned

“I mean, I wouldn’t phrase it like that. My second in command has a veto though yes”

Of course Persephone was given a rank and the right to argue with Lillian, the human had probably even given it citizenship in the fleet.

“So plans for food?” Lillian asked, grabbing hold of Aveli’s hand.

“At the meeting, I arranged for the meeting to be at a restaurant.” Aveli explained, staring down at the 1.8 metre human, Aveli herself was on the short side of Itris nobility so it was weird to be 30 cm taller than her wife. Still the treaty with Earth had to be sealed with marriage and the woman that had taken control of an imperial battle cruiser after escaping a prison cell on board was far from the worst choice politically. Though it had taken some work to get the nobility to accept that the now renamed UNSS Athena belonged to the UN planetary defense corps.

After a few moments Aveli’s guard captain signaled that the two guard squads had sorted themselves out and the group set off towards the meeting,

Arriving at the meeting Aveli was surprised to see two Etrani, 1.6-1.7m birdmen with a wide array of colouration patterns on their wings, wearing a pin showing a diving bird of prey, normally the Etrani only sent one fully ranked negotiator. Seeing the two diplomats Lillian let go of her hand bowed slightly,

“Admiral Hiran, I was under the impression our meeting was to be later, and on a different station” Lillian stated questioningly.

“Unfortunately some of the information from your sensors has changed that plan.” The taller of the two Etrani with a blue and grey spotted feather pattern replied

“I see you two have been planning negotiations, should the council be worried?” The shorter of the two, with a nearly full black color pattern asked

“Nah, from what I’ve been told everyone involved is happy to let the current system stand. I just wanted to make sure Persephone and her crew didn’t have to worry about a railgun to the back” Lillian replied. Getting a small snort from the Admiral

“Very well” said the shorter diplomat “let’s get to our table, I’m sure given the Princess’ insistence on food being involved you’re keen to sample our cuisine”

With that the four and the now four guard squads moved to an isolated and empty section of the restaurant, their respective guards settling into chairs and blockade lines around them.

A troupe of waiters with plates and bowls full of food arrived, Aveli’s food scanner warning her that most of the dishes contained dangerous levels of capsaicin, though Lillian’s scanner seemed to have a much higher tolerance as it took issue almost exclusively with the salads.

As the four of them ate their fill of what their species could safely have, the conversation was mostly about the Etrani’s strange dual government. The council controlled trade and diplomacy while the “pirates” locally known as the Fleet, or the Admiralty handled system security and naval affairs. Both were legally separate entities and had full rights to enforce laws in each other’s areas and simply, didn’t. The admiralty was happy to fly ships around, maintain the warp lanes, and get their share of taxes, and the council was happy to maintain the roads and education systems, and not have to fund a navy. For a three system species it was a surprisingly complex system, but it seemed to quell the worst of their rebellions since if you didn’t like the council you could freely move to the fleet, and vice versa.

The Fleet being responsible for security also explained why they weren’t insulted by the sensors, the Etrani knew their system was unusual and having a diplomatic fleet send out sensor probes, especially being honest about them, was on the calm end of responses. Though eventually the topic of what had shown up that forced the meeting to be with both factions came up, where it was revealed that the sensors had shown reports of raiders in bound from Niera, they had about two weeks to prepare so while the meeting was able to happen, it had to be fast tracked.

Lillian of course asked about the raiders to be informed that the Nieran’s had a tendency to raid smaller powers and take slaves to work their mines and factories. It took no time at all for Lillian to volunteer the Persephone to help drive them off.

“Of course the Emperor Chutan is also willing to help the Empire’s trading partners” Aveli chimed in.

“The council has no issues accepting the trade offer as it stands, we simply wished to verify the Empire considered us equal enough to warrant true diplomatic effort” The smaller Etrani, now known as Councillor Martri replied

“The fleet will accept any level of assistance that can be provided, While we can likely handle this on our own we lack true anti-capital defenses for the transport freighter the Neirans are bringing” The Admiral said, accepting the aid.

“Well that settles it, let’s beat up some slavers!” Lillian cheerfully summarized.

After a bit more discussion and a couple of drinks of each attendees preferred intoxicant the meeting was wrapped up, after splitting ways Captain Aveli and Lillian both headed back to the royal quarters on board Persephone for the night, there would be work to do in the morning finalizing the agreements but for now some rest had been earned.