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The original was posted on /r/hfy by /u/Psychronia on 2025-11-05 11:10:33+00:00.
Pealy / John Doe POV - Hungry Opportunists
Council member Pealy Kauti strided through the halls with excitement in his step.
[THIS ISN'T A SHOW. GET LOST!]
He fucking got them!
Up until now, the Terrans have mostly been civil.
There was also that one incident on the S.S Kalen, but there was no way to establish that one's connection to it without exposing methods quite a few members of the Elder Council relied on as well. For some reason, he seems to have prepared a dead man's message confessing all of his involvement as well as the means he used.
Many of them need to gradually phase out of their method of accepting respect first, or it would be like kicking over a stone to expose an insect nest to the birds. They should probably do it anyway, if humans were deceitful enough for a random citizen to think of it.
He had their team remotely delete that message, but then automated accounts created 83051 more of them. It's the same identification number as the Coalition's Assembly Station, so it was practically a sarcastic message and threat.
These simians are frustratingly clever at times. That one in particular liked using a combination of technology and social leverage.
But no matter. The Elder Council had an appropriate public example they could use now. Now, they could finally fight this newcomer's influence off on two fronts.
A Terran was visibly and audibly snarling at passing shoppers in defense of an oversized scale sack that just savagely tore apart a table in an unprovoked outburst of violence.
There was certainly no way to explain this one.
Pealy and his associates had been pushing for a reevaluation of the Terrans' Aggression Index for months now, but the clever newcomers kept their ruse up far too well. They were relentlessly polite, always eager to discuss and negotiate peace even between feuding species, and were endlessly enthusiastic to learn about the other races.
And then there was their huge show of charity for the reptiles. It was utterly ridiculous to waste your standing in the Aggression Index just to purchase a garden world and modify it specifically to suit another species.
So ridiculous, in fact, that it was all the harder to accuse them of concealing their true natures.
He sighed once he was in the privacy of his office.
He remembered feeling like a raving lunatic struggling to convince the other Elder Race council members of the threat. Only five of the nine seemed to even feel a modicum of urgency when they bonded that well with the brutes. At the time of that first video with the ambassador, the Terrans were merely an amusing novelty to them.
Pealy suspected that the others...were getting too comfortable reaping profits. They didn't properly appreciate how delicate the systems built by their ancestors were, or how they needed adapt it to changing times.
He took his seat and accessed his computer. For now, it would start as an innocent proposal for the rest of the Gisali Council by...the Vensnil councilwoman. It was a delicate theater of impartial and opposing opinions between the Elder Council races, and it wouldn't do for him to be considered suspicious.
Canik like him were a "peaceful, diplomatic and trusting people", after all.
While the proposal made its rounds, he and the other original races could work out their roles to sway opinion. He would likely play the Terran's greatest advocate that acquiesced to the aggressive Kenia councilwoman's push for rigorous recordkeeping. Perhaps they could bring up the Terrans' interest in weaponry that seemed to frequently come up in their negotiations.
...
It had been a while since he last chat with Elder Councilwoman Pak'l, actually. Perhaps he should invite her to that new performance by the Horizon Troupe. She loved their work, if he recalled.
Late into the night, a nameless shadow slipped through the streets into the dock of the new up-and-coming shipping company, Mott's Shell.
With 400 employees and 127 shipping vessels, it was a modestly scaled operation within this sector of space, but it did incredibly well for itself considering it only recently broke off from its parent company.
The shadow slipped into the offices, where computers and documents lay.
For businesses with over 200 employees, it wasn't unusual for there to be a diurnal and nocturnal species-focused shift, but it was dead silent in the yard for this particular one because its staff were dominated by two races.
Terrans and Uvei.
In fact, they employed a good number of the Uvei on Kalen Station. While this did seem to scare off some clients, the benefits seemed to outweigh the costs.
It probably helped that there were a large number of the famously friendly Terrans who could deal with those people, but Mott's Shell mainly did business with Terrans happy to interact with and support Uvei anyway.
The shadow dug through the documents in the office until he found records of a specific shipment and memorized its contents.
Soon after, it slipped through the docks and went searching for that particular shipment.
Along the way, he observed the...extensive firepower built into various delivery shuttles. Surely, that was Uven influence?
The other unexpected benefit to employing many people from a warrior species was the sense of protection it brought.
This company was not shy about sending its cargo into dangerous territory. In fact, it almost seemed to boldly and deliberately venture into space pirate territory.
The company had been operating for 7 months now. During this time, it had overcome three attacks and initiated two of its own in retaliation. It also was successfully "plundered" once, but that turned out to be a trap.
All in all, Mott's Shell was practically just as much a bounty hunting business as it was a shipping company.
Anyone would think that this was the militaristic Uvei at work, but the intruder's client insisted that the Terrans themselves were likely leading these skirmishes.
Vessel A-83, the shadow's target came into view.
After double-checking his surroundings to ensure it was secure, he slipped into delivery shuttle.
Inside this shuttle were large, empty crates. It had just finished a run to Nysis providing food aid and would restock to make yet another run tomorrow.
The infiltrator went straight to the engine and started changing out some parts. As his client would have it, this vessel had completed its last run on this day. Tomorrow, its engine would overheat due to a manufacturing error and rupture, ruining all the cargo aboard.
The first part of his job complete, the shadow slipped out and headed to the security room.
Destroying this one supply might end up causing one or two Uvei families to go hungry, but it was a drop in the bucket compared to the larger Terran-Uven effort.
Inside the security room, there were two sleeping Terran guards-the only two on the roster for tonight. Their drinks had been laced with a knockout drug earlier in preparation for this.
The saboteur quietly walked past them and to the security computers. They hooked up their own device to it before scanning through for any and all traces of their presence. It must all be purged.
Their digital tool flickered and the missing data was soon replaced with doctored footage.
He personally had nothing against the large reptiles. It just so happened that the highest bidder, for some reason, did. Unfortunately for these new friends, Hate was simply good business.
The shadow quietly returned to its own ship, occasionally checking their surroundings to ensure they weren't followed.
The path back had an intense odor, but the less people around to witness signs he existed at all, the better.
Finally, he arrived on his compact and innocuous base, where he promptly plopped down in the captain's chair and made a report on his computer.
"Send message: [The job is complete. Moving on to the next assignment in one week.]"
....
[Message recieved: Payment to be rendered upon the explosion reaching the news.]
"I guess it's only natural that you don't actually have your client's name written anywhere."
"!?"
An unfamiliar voice sounded behind him snapped him to attention just as he'd begun to relax.
When he spun around, a Terran came into view. He had a roundish body and an almost blank stare. It was one of the executives of Mott's Shell.
"So, what's your name?"
Just as the saboteur reached for a weapon...he fell over, captain's seat and all. Did...did this Terran unscrew it and add adhesives to the seat?
"Let's call you John Doe."
"Guh-!"
John pulled his pistol out and pointed it at the new intruder. Before he could pull the trigger, however, a large looming shadow dropped from above and crushed his gun underfoot.
It was an Uven, and it was panting with fury. He dragged his claws down the walls and grasped John's tail, lifting him off the ground. The talons dug into his tail painfully, but he suppressed the yelp.
"Is it true?!" Gretal snapped. His tail slammed the ground with emotion.
Jacey interjected as he walked past John to start typing on his computer. "He's asking about my s...
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