Incipience

Chapter 13

"Mali, you can't keep this up for long."

"No, but I'll do it for as long as I can."

"Be reasonable! I'm sure if we talk to someone they can—"

"Yeah, I'd stop while you're still in the clear, B'," Diane interrupts. "You don't even want to know what she's thinking right now."

"I'm sure everyone knows what she's thinking," Chloé comments. "She's been pretty vocal about it, as she should be. This entire situation is messed up."

McCormick sighs, "Look, I'm not saying that all of this isn't messed up, I'm just saying that if you were to—oh I don't know—talk to the Inovarians instead of fighting every soldier that you see, we might be able to find a way to make this situation better."

"On sight is on sight," I shoot back. "If they didn't want me to fight my way out of every problem I encounter then they shouldn't've been training me with that mentality for the past three months. They made me awfully militant for a people who want me to 'further Inovarian society through the next generation.'"

McCormick looks to Diane and Chloé for help. Chloé offers him a shrug while Diane tries and fails to stop her snickering. I don't need Diane's abilities to understand what's going on here. Even if they haven't outright said it, these three are here to convince me to act right. Just as McCormick said, I've been getting into scuffles with the Inovarians on a daily basis, mostly when they try to propagandize being one of their Xinxis.

True to my promise, I've been nothing but problematic since arriving at Inova. I raised as much hell as I could between bouts of being sedated on my first day, so it makes sense that they didn't want me there for the cadets' welcoming parade yesterday. Had I been in attendance, I would've done my absolute best to ruin what I could. I'm ordinarily not the petty type, but on the rare occasions where I do divulge in it, I go all out. After all, my mother always says, "If you're going to do something, do it well," and I have no intentions of straying from her philosophy now.

I'm more than aware that my newfound disruptive and destructive tendencies are going to come back to haunt me at some point, but the satisfaction of being able to serve as such an irritant to the Inovarians is currently priceless.

"Look, I know  that the Inovarians sent you guys up here to get me to agree to this whole 'honorable Xinxi' thing, but I'm not going to just roll over on my back on this—literally or figuratively."

This time it's Chloé that gives a tired sigh, "Mali, we're not trying to get you to do anything but to leave the ship right now. They brought us here to escort you to the surface for your ceremony because they know that we're the only ones you're not going to Krav Maga after hearing something that you don't like, that's it."

"You sure about that?"

"Yes," Chloé says, waving off my challenging tone."You only have three friends on this ship—planet, actually— and I know you're not going to break our bones because we're reluctantly following orders. We all talked about this before we left for the surface, so you know that we don't want to make you go but we have to."

"I don't know, making me do something that I'm against seems like a pretty good reason to start a fight to me."

McCormick drags his hands down his face with an exasperated huff. "Charlotte, can you just take a second to hear us out? Yes, this situation is wrong on so many levels, and yes I hate this for you and I know these two do, too, but take a step back and look at the big picture. The Inovarians are going to force you off this ship one way or another. You may be a better fighter than the majority of them, but they outnumber you, especially now that we're on their home planet."

Diane nods in agreement, "He has a point, even with what he was saying earlier about—hey, don't think at me like that, you know we're right! You're stuck in a crappy situation no matter what, but there's a chance that we can bargain with them if we at least cooperate during the ceremony. I know I'm about to sound really selfish right now, but if that's not enough motivation for you, can you do it for us? After the cadet parade yesterday, General Bagzah called us in and promised us hell if we couldn't get you to peacefully attend the ceremony. Mali, we're all trapped on this planet whether we like it or not, so please don't make it harder for us than it has to be."

I silently cross my arms and wait for her to continue.

Some of the tension in her posture visibly fades. "Today they're taking the other human women to the surface for their citizenship ceremony. They're all still shaking off their post-stasis haze, so they haven't been told much more than you have at this point. The purpose of the ceremony is to present you all to Inovarian society and to explain to you all what roles you're going to play besides the obvious.

"When General Bagzah was giving us the run down, I was able to read his mind. I obviously couldn't understand everything, but his thoughts included images. He was telling the truth. The ceremony is just that: a ceremony. True to his word, it starts out with a greeting, an explanation of what's going on and then you'll be given your certificate of citizenship, assigned living arrangements and you're good to go. We're not putting you in any danger, Mali, so please meet us halfway and we'll keep doing everything we can for you."

I let out a long, low and deep sigh. If General Bagzah is anything like his children, his threats are promises and I'd hate to make them see how far the apples fell from the tree.

"Okay, so what all do I have to do?"

...

This chapter is way too short for this to be all I'm posting for the week, so Chapter 13 pt 2 is coming within the next 48 hours! It's been an uncharacteristically busy week even though I'm off/on vacation, so I haven't gotten as much writing done as I would've liked, but I didn't want to just not post anything at all so here ya go. 

See you in a few,

Kristin