Steinschmatz

High Treason Afterparty

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The entire cave felt hot, unnervingly hot. The Dypopedes liked it warm but Frank had the sneaking suspicion it might be stress-related as he was on trial for high treason. He was sat in his pond, surrounded by his defense, a timid grey Sarlak – quite literally surrounded as they were akin to an eel and tended to curl around random objects under heavy thinking. On a high ledge above him throned the Royal Dypoped Accusator, an elderly specimen slowly drying out and turning blue from age instead of the youthful brownish color of Frank’s own slippery skin.

But there were more, so many more. Frank could not remember when he had last seen so many specimens of his species come together with all the other allies of the Dypopedes in their Grand Unified Primary Alliance, commonly referred to as the GUPA and lacking a better name since the most influential species were unable to find terms that sounded pleasant in all of their languages so they agreed that a true compromise was only reached if everyone suffered.

It was packed, definitely. It seemed like the scandal of the failed invasion of Earth had garnered a lot of attention – and rightfully so, as it was the first time the GUPA had lost against a dry-skinned race. Even more so, the primates on Earth had not only annihilated the invading wetships, they had also taken a substantial number of prisoners. The GUPA forces had simply been unable to hide in Earth’s oceans due to the horrible pollution making it impossible for any GUPA species to stay there for long. And now, these horrible swimmers were asking A LOT of questions of said prisoners – imagine the human’s surprise to not only find out that there are other intelligent races in the universe but also that these are water-based races AND pretty easy to beat. The humans were already secretly thinking of how to make it to the top of this food chain – finally united behind a common evil goal.

And it was all Frank’s fault. His defense denied this but both they as well as Frank, the press, Frank’s family, the Accusator and even the observers had little doubt – he really screwed up.

“Are you even mentally present?”

With this, the Accusator pulled Frank’s attention back to the hellish heat of the cave. Frank wished to just be back on Earth, for he had had an amazing time on that planet.

“I am fully present, Accusator” is what Frank wanted to reply but a very large waterworm slipped off his head and over his face while speaking so his answer, transmitted to 1578 planets was “I am fu-buarr ffffh Accusator”. The varying shapes above the defendant exchanged a few glances but since this whole affair was already a huge embarrassment for the Dypopedes as one of the primary pillars of GUPA, they pretended to have understood him.

“Do you know what you’re accused of?”

“Yes, I do, Accusator.”

His Sarlak defense attorney slapped Frank with a tailbone because he sounded so resigned in his response that he was pretty convincing in admitting his guilt already.

“Have you been informed that you are bound to the truth in this hallowed cave?”

Frank was very much aware of the Spinnfissker attached to the back of his spine and that it would immediately shake its tail and screech if it detected dishonesty, but Dypopedes liked to pretend this cave was something special (on a world entirely made of wet cave systems no less) so he confirmed his understanding of the proceeding.

“What led to the events now known as the Disgrace of Earth?”

Frank was feeling quite overwhelmed with this question, as there were a multitude of things that led to this whole thing and he was absolutely incapable of picking a starting point – he had expected to get more direct questions and then just be hung to dry.

“Your honorable Accusator, my defendant does not have the mental capacity to explain intricate workings of GUPA, he has barely grown his second legs!”

Frank was not sure what to think about the Sarlak’s defense but also didn’t want to be slapped by another tailbone so he tried his best to make an unknowing facial expression.

“What was your mission on Earth?”

The Accusator hastily crossed out several questions on his lap, trying to simplify the hearing. If the other species of GUPA had the impression the Dypopedes sent a complete drybrain on an important fact-finding mission, it would diminish their status even more.

“Well, so, I was sent there looking like a human to check their defenses and what they are capable of.”

“And did you do any of these things?”

The Accusator almost sounded friendly, like a patient teacher with a difficult child, but that was not enough to relax Frank since when he even started to think of an answer other than no, the Spinnfissker already started tapping his neck, therefore he quickly yelled :

„None, esteemed Accusator. ”

“Can you explain to the assembled high cave what actually happened?”

“You mean like what I did?”

“Yes, what did you do after your drop-off at Earth?”

“Well, so… they dropped me off in a city called Berlin because they said my not-so-great disguise as a human would not stand out as much there as in other places.”

“We are aware of that, how did you go about your mission then?”

“I needed a place to live, so I took the documents and money and everything and tried to find a place but it turned out that they don’t really have that there, they have a system where most people don’t have a home and about 200 of their species compete for one habitation. I never quite saw the fights but they were tense and kind of threatening and kept asking me if I work in a Startup and I said I know what a “Star” is but I’m not sure about what a “tup” is and then some of them laughed and said to have a beverage with them and invited me over at a day called “sometime”.

“Did you gather any intelligence about them at this point?”

“So… no, but I found a habitat – humans can spend limited time in water but have to leave when they start to dissolve to hibernate each rotation of their planet so their water basins are always empty for a few hours.”

“Good for you. But about your mission…”

The Accusator had some hope to make the whole trial look semi-professional, since their agent had apparently started at least to observe human behavior so there might be hope it was all a tragic mishap and definitely not the fault of Dypopede intelligence.

“Yeah I was pretty tired after the first day so I was resting in the water still when some humans came for a gathering around my basin. They asked me who I was and what I was doing in their water so I explained to them that I had tried to find a habitation in Berlin but had failed and decided to take a rest in the water. To my utter surprise, the humans related to this somehow and they invited me to take part in their social gathering and gave me some bottles.”

“A chemical weapon?”

“No, they consume it at leisure and it makes them more social and enables them to breed.”

The next part „High on Treason“ will appear on Steinschmatz soon, after I’ve written / uploaded some other content.

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