Chapter 11

A/N: The point of view of other characters beside Komand'r will be switched to 3rd pov.

Chapter 11

(Fury)

May 11th, 2010New YorkSHIELD HQ09:45 AM

Everything was on fire. The white house was not responding since that giant ship appeared over New Mexico while the town the Princess’ retinue had taken over was attacked by an unknown party. This caused a bad reaction from the aliens that turned them from good natured people to hostile and thoroughly competent soldiers. The change had been so sudden that the SHIELD agents in town were startled.

Without a doubt the President was now in a secure bunker to escape the alien princess' inevitable wrath. Fury began to think that the attack had been planned to just do that, create a reaction.

The media channels kept showing the ship over the desert town over and over. The troops deployed with their sleek and tall blue armor patrolling the main road of the town and the perimeter they had created in a matter of hours to surround the place, showed how efficient and well trained they were. The leader of the Royal Guard even gave an interview and explained why they are reacting this way, a nondescript force has attacked the town to steal their technology; Koldonn, if Fury remembered well the name of the alien in charge had stated that it was showing how fractured this country was if they had greedy and corrupt people that did that sort of thing, that this would never happen on their unified world.

Fury couldn’t talk back, he knew Koldonn was right. SHIELD could stop a lot of what’s going down around the world, but the WSC members who had stakes in making things worse for everyone on the planet had tied his hands. Humans didn’t learn from their mistakes, Fury could see everything sliding toward total war before the Tamaraneans appeared on Earth. His job was to put out fires, not tending to them!

Since it was revealed that half of his agents were Hydra plants, Fury had been testing some people to see who was loyal or who was a squid. While this all happened, the situation suddenly got worse with an unknown force attacking Puente Antiguo. “Not so unknown as some people with Navy and Army training were spotted on the CCTV network of the town.”

Pushing a button on his keyboard, Fury’s computer came back to life from standby and the screen focused on the team of men attacking important locations in the town; clearly a distraction for the sheriff’s and alien’s forces. They had technology leagues ahead of what the current SHIELD possessed and this was another wake up call for Fury.

He was pulled from his musings when a video call notification appeared on his main computer screen. Fury had no scheduled call, and this came through on his personal shield profile. It was important. Fury clicked on the answering button and he saw the video window open to show his favorite alien princess on screen.

She was clearly seated in a chair with a big airlock behind her. Everything shone with the luster of chrome. There were screens mounted around her chair that looked like a suite of computers; Tamaraneans were mingling around on the… bridge. Fury understood that Komand’r was her ship. The princess looked directly at Fury and raised a hand, she looked regal and graceful. “Greetings, Ô Furious one.”

Closing his eyes in frustration, Fury said between his teeth, “Princess…”

He leaned in his seat as he watched her expression and body language; his human instinct was telling him one thing, but as she was completely alien to him he couldn’t understand what was going through her head.

He didn’t see any anger on her face, where someone else would already be spitting threats. Fury couldn’t read her, but it wasn’t the same for her. She said as if to reassure him, “You have nothing to worry about, I don’t intend to do the destroying of your country for the slighting that some rogue elements have committed on my people and the town that they were doing the protecting at.”

Fury flinched, this was said in a truly matter of fact way that told him that she had had to debate about it. He realized that he needed more of a background on Komand'r to be able to profile her, being on the backfoot in each of their interactions has become tedious.

He slightly bowed his head. “I thank you for being straight with me and for not destroying my home.”

“It's not for you only. My girlfriend would hate me if I did the destroying of her home too. Anyway, I have several things to do the telling about.” Komand’r explained.

Darcy Lewis, 22 years old and a former student of political science at Culver University who became an intern for Erik Selvig and Jane Foster's assistant. Fury thanked God that Komand’r met the young lady as she was somehow softening her mood and temper.

Fury focused on the fact that the princess wanted to tell him something, there was some urgency in her tone as well. “What is it that you want to tell me?”

She pursed her lips, did some manipulation with her side computer screens. The princess’ face became darker and she refocused on Fury. “I want to do the telling but… This line is secure, but your office isn’t.”

Fury closed his eyes, anger bubbling up within him. Despite every means he had taken to clean the place, His enemies were still tapping him? Fury trusted the people around him, he even had compartmentalized his social circle and subordinates. It was a matter of hardware then, technology he wasn’t aware of was used against him.

His eyes zeroed in on the alien princess. “Can you do something about it?”

Komand’r pushed a button on her chair and… a blue light flashed behind Fury who swivelled his chair to see a cylinder appear on the ground next to the one way panoramic window; it unfolded and multiple silver rods sprouted from it. It cracked with blue arcs of  electricity on each rod. Then it happened, a pulse of energy spread in the entire room, covering furniture, the computers and the walls. Light flared from the cylinders and muted explosions could be heard from the walls, the paintings and some shelves; even from the ceiling and a bit of smoke could be smelled.

The Cylinder retracted the rods and closed itself off and in another flash of light disappeared. Fury's eyebrows reached his forehead as he looked at the bug killer, it sort of scanned the room and destroyed the listening devices that he couldn't find. He licked his lips, trying to not show that he wanted that doodad for himself to the princess and said, “Thank you.”

She nodded and stood up from her chair; somehow the camera moved with her and Fury could see more of the bridge and the people working there. “Let me do the speaking frankly.”

“Shoot.” Fury said with trepidation, he didn’t like the cold and madened look in her expression.

She folded her arms under her chest, her purple and black leotard reflected the lighting. “I already know who did it, and you need that Hydra cult gone, they are becoming a problem and attacked my people to do the stealing of my technology. They thirst for what doesn’t belong to them, and thus, I cannot have any diplomatic ties with your world if those terrorists still exist.”

Fury closed his eyes, he could understand her; Hydra, they taint everything they touch.

Fury asked himself how she became aware of them, sure she knew that SHIELD had been infiltrated, but how did she know? Were there systems more than compromised by the princess? Or did human tech suck that much?

Sighing, Fury tried to explain himself. “Believe me, I want them gone too, Princess. But I don’t know how far their reach is in my own organization or the government.”

“I can find out for you, Furious one and I already did the searching of your foes.” Said Komand’r as a solid holographic window appeared in her hand.

This was news to him, but he wasn’t surprised that she was already ahead of the curve. “Can I have this information?”

She looked up from the window in her hands, she swiped left and it disappeared like it came. For the first time in this video communication, Princess Komand’r showed visible emotion. “Normally, I would have done the accepting of a partnership to take care of things, Furious one; instead I want you to get to safety, while I do the cleaning for you.”

“What? Why?!” Fury’s lone eye opened like a large saucer.

Komand’r turned her back on him and strode toward her command chair, she sat and crossed her legs. Fury didn’t understand, normally she was the epitome of cooperation, was their relationship so damaged already because of the attack?

The princess looked at him and Fury saw that she was… dare he say it? Furious. He couldn’t believe that he did that pun in his heart...

“I’m going to do the killing of all of them, that’s why.” She answered matter of factly.

He could see that anger had clouded her expression and that she wasn’t thinking clearly. This must be why Tamaranean are called the ‘passionate people’ in the report that Komand’r had shared with Earth’s government.

Leaning forward, Fury hurriedly tried to make her see reason. “Princess, some measures and protocols need to be taken, we can’t just… kill them without a trial.”

Komand’r eyes shone with a lilac colored glow. “Kufpla the dealing of your protocols! If this had been done on a Kree general, this planet would already be dust; worse, if it was the Shi’ar! The enslavement of the women and men would be happening.”

She slammed her right fist on the arm of the command chair. “To their trespass, here I pass this final sentence; There will be no forgiveness, no mercy.”

“Ah…”

Before Fury could say anything and remark on her suddenly good English, an alarm rang on the bridge whose lighting went from white to red. The Tamaraneans in the background scrambled to their post around the Princess. Fury looked impotently at what was happening.

~/.\~

(Komand’r/Blackfire)

HyperdimensionMain Bridge

“INCOMING OBJECT DETECTED!!” TALI’s voice rang into the bridge with urgency.

The bridge changed configuration as it entered into combat mode, the Captain’s chair and the Tamaranean on the Tactical console were put forward while the other consoles with their officers moved around on each side of them. The Majority of the ship’s interior has been augmented with programmable smart matter, allowing for rapid reconfiguration of its layout. The bridge was modular and changed configurations depending on the situation.

“Where did it come from?!” I asked urgently, not that I was worried by anything that Earth could field with the shielding systems online. It wasn’t funny how advanced this ship was.

“The Pacific, Ma’am.” The navigator informed me.

This was obviously a nuke and this must be retaliation for the bugs I destroyed in Fury’s room. Hydra was blind now, and someone panicked. Or some other snarx shit was going on there, you never knew with humans.

“TALI.” I intoned.

Her holographic form appeared before me. Fury looked from the screen as a double of myself with orange hair appeared. “Use the seeded satellites and drones to see who launched it!” I commanded.

“Complying.” Multiple holographic windows manifested around TALI, all focusing on that area of the pacific between Hawaii and North America.

There was no way that any submersibles or sea vessels could escape the powerful scanners targeted at the ocean. The drones and satellites that were seeded when I decided to do research on the planet and networked themselves to combine their efforts. The holographic windows all gathered into a sphere and meshed together, replaying the last five minutes of what happened.

A submarine surfaced and then launched an ICBM… prediction program calculated it’s destination. I wasn’t surprised that it was for the state of New Mexico and the location of the Hyperdimension. I laughed at the futility of such an action.

Fury, who was still on screen, couldn’t even guess at what was happening. “What’s happening, Princess?!”

I turned to him and added a bit of heat to my glare. “Furious one, someone just did the launching of a nuclear missile toward my ship, were you aware of this?”

“No, please, tell me that you are joking?! That this is a misunderstanding, that they didn’t do it. I… I need proof.”

I looked at TALI who anticipated my request and she sent the report to Fury’s computers. He received a ringing notification that informed him that he received mail. “Oh yes they did, I just sent you proof. I will get back to you soon.”

Fury simply said, “Very well.”

But the video call didn’t cut and I decided to give him a show. I turned to the Tamaranean on tactical, and commanded, “Deploy NJF.”

“Deploying Neutron Jamming Field.”

The NJF is a field that inhibits free neutron motion, thereby suppressing nuclear fission. As a result, all nuclear weapons and nuclear power plants are rendered useless inside the field.   As a side effect, the Neutron Jamming Field also disrupts radio waves, so it can be used as a jamming device to neutralize radar, communications, and precision-guided weapons. This was a technology used to disrupt pre-FTL civilization and render them powerless; Warmongers, privateers and slavers loved it.

On the tactical computer’s holo-tank, I could see seven locations in New Mexico that dealt with fissile materials. As the NJF deployed to cover the entire state those locations suddenly went dark and incidentally so are the communications in New Mexico. The missile that was en route was coming at a fast pace, already crossing California and entering Arizona.

I watched as Fury received a call on his phone, and confirmed what was happening. The call had come from NORAD, as they had detected a missile coming toward American soil and raised their defense readiness condition level to 1. I had so many ways to handle such a little thing, I could have sent a wing of fighter drones, or used the point defense system accurately named Subspace Filament Control or intercepted it with my own missiles.

TALI stopped me from doing it as the nuke would have exploded in the atmosphere and spread radioactivity everywhere. It wasn’t good for the people, nor the environment, the planet was already polluted, why fuck it over more? Once more this showed that Hydra was no good. They did this shit in the movies when the Chitauri invaded, I wasn’t surprised that they did it now too.

The ICBM finally was in view on Radar, it's engine quickly bringing it toward the ship. The crew and I watched as it fearlessly rushed to us. I rolled my eyes and simply ordered, “Deploy EMP array.”

The hologram of a panel on the ship sliding to reveal an aperture covered by a gem-like depression fired a sky blue beam directly at the missile at a sufficient percentage of the speed of light. The EMP beam’s goal wasn’t to destroy the missile, but to kill the electronics and engine powering the projectile. It was a staple to any space faring civilization with enough developed military power; developing weapons to neutralize ships harmlessly and boarding them with space marines was a typical tactic. That’s what the EMP array was, a non-lethal weapon.

“Yes, ma'am.” The bridge officer complied.

When the missile was hit, it lost altitude and face planted in the desert, ten kilometers from Puente Antiguo; imagery focused on it and it showed the buried projectile fizzling and kicking up some dust. I commanded TALI to send the video of the action to Fury through thoughts.

“Situation resolved, proceed to normal operation.” I said as the room lighting switched color from red to white.

Crossing my legs and leaning in my command chair I watched the human spy’s expression change as he watched the battlelog translated in his own language and adapted to a standard that he could understand.

“Furious one…” I was about to speak when something I didn’t anticipate happened. I felt an urgent feeling coming from behind me, my command chair’s smartmatter pedestal swivelling toward the airlock.

Swish. The airlock to the bridge opened, revealing Darcy and Natalia in black and grey bodysuit. “What’s the matter now?”

~/.\~

(Natalia Alianovna Romanova )

When Natalia put her eyes on Komand'r she could see in her eyes that she currently possessed an uncontrollable desire to kill or maim others. She had seen it before in the eye of her crazed sisters in the black widow program. To her, Komand’r felt lethal, on the verge of frenzy.

There was a word to describe the princess' state of mind; Bloodlust – the disease that makes people the monsters they are known to be; it is what wipes away the last of our inner restraint. It didn't suit the beautiful face of the orange skinned beauty. But Natalia couldn't judge the non-human female before her by the standard of her society and species.

From her brief stint in the computer and her own research, Natalia knew that Tamaraneans were… a passionate people. She also learned about the personal background of who owned this ship and she would be worried for her planet if Komand’r wasn’t more preoccupied with bedding her and adding her to her harem of beauties. The woman stalked her everywhere…

But seeing the happy go lucky woman give in to her rage, a rage to which she gave herself knowingly was jarring. There was a darkness in her that threatened to suck up everyone around her. Natalia didn’t know how she knew it, how she knew that Blackfire’s could be so pure, elemental in its purpose and unencumbered by compassion or horror or pity. This was more than mere rage, someone had attacked her people and the town of the woman she professed to love.

TALI had been right, the princess was about to ruin her own image; she couldn’t allow herself to give into her negative emotions. After being warned about the princess' mood by TALI who had given them the difficult mission to help her calm down Komand’r and the start of what she called her warmongering thoughts, Darcy and her who didn't know each other had joined forces.

Natalia saw as the darkness in Komand’r’s eyes slowly dissipated as she put her eyes on them; she looked somewhat surprised to see them. “Darcy-love, Friend Nat? What are you doing on the bridge?”

The princess frowned at them, knowing that they shouldn’t be on the bridge in the middle of an action. Darcy walked forward and said with a serious expression on her face, “We need to stop you from making a mistake, Fire. Can we talk?”

Natalia looked at Komand’r fight with herself to refuse, it was on her face as she said weakly to the brunette who had a hand on her arm, “We are currently having a situation.”

Darcy smiled, nodded and put her naked hand on Komand’r’s cheek. “Yeah, I know Fire… but… you need to cool off your jets.”

You could hear a pin drop on the bridge, everyone seemed to tense as they heard Darcy. The princess’ face was full of shock and her tone became harsh when she asked the love of her life, “Excuse me?”

The tension was cut through when the still online Fury made himself heard. “Romanov, is that you?”

Natalia turned her head toward the holographic window showing the bald black head of her employer projected by the holo-tank that was on the forward bridge. It was a three-dimensional visual projection area resembling a small amphitheater. The holo-tank was completely circular and recessed below the level of the floor.

Advancing forward, Natalia looked at the window and smiled wryly at her boss. “Good morning, sir. I hope it’s not too late to report.”

Everything had changed about her, her height, her body, how she carried herself as well; she was sharper than before.

“You look…” Fury started to say. “Like a new girl.”

Natalia put her fist on her hips and posed. “Yes, fresh out of the package; I know that I look different. Sir, can we call you back? With the situation as it is now, we need to have cooler heads to resolve it.”

Komand’r interrupted with, “My head is cool enough, Friend Natalia. The climate control is excellent on the ship.”

“Damn, she’s cute when she misunderstands us.” Darcy unhelpfully added and quickly kissed Komand’r who grinned at her.

Natalia coughed to stop the two lovebirds from derailing the current situation. “A power you were negotiating with just attacked you and your people, I think you aren’t in a situation to think things through carefully.”

The air in the bridge shifted to two degrees as the princess’s eyes blazed with light. “Nothing that can’t be done the cleaning of.”

*And here she proves me right.* Natalia thought that the alien princess was so easily riled up. This made Natalia aware that the princess had issues, unresolved one; it must be because of her parents and siblings or her people who badly treated her.

Darcy was still smiling as she said, “And now she’s less cute.”

A rich laugh escaped Komand’r throat. “You are the cutest, Darcy-love.”

“Aww.” Darcy moved toward the princess and was about to kiss her when Natalia placed herself between them.

Komand’r glared at Natalia for interrupting her fun. Fury watched his best agent play with fire and… control the entire conversation. Already, he hoped that he could count on the spy to be able to make Komand’r change track.

“Please, can you at least hear us out? And I know what you’re doing, stop distracting us.” Natalia asked when she noticed the princess’ glare and the almost smile on her face.

Natalia had a flat look as she looked at the princess, Darcy giggled as looked between them. For once, it wasn’t the human who cracked first, Komand’r gave in by pouting and folding her arms under her impressive chest. “X’hal, fine, okay.”

“Come with us to your cabin.” Natalia said as she took the princess’s arm and pulled her out of her chair.

Komand’r chuckled and said with a seductive purr in her voice, “If you are doing the hitting on me, this isn’t the moment; but I’m flattered.”

Natalia rolled her eyes and didn’t answer. Before leaving, Komand’r ordered something in Tamaranean, a language that Natalia swore that she needed to learn if she was to stay on the ship. As they left the bridge, Natalia saw as Darcy jumped into Komand’r’s arms in a princess carry position. They used a teleporter and a turbo-lift to reach the Captain’s cabin.

It’s when they arrived and Komand'r let go of Darcy who still held onto her that Natalia began with, “So, what’s your endgame there, Princess? You threatening Fury doesn’t solve anything-”

“I want to protect Fury.” Komand’r interrupted her.

“Huh?” Natalia didn’t anticipate that and was about to lay into the woman when said that, surprising her.

Komand’r snatched Darcy’s arm and led her to the living room space of her cabin, Natalia following them; while they moved the princess continued to speak. “If I force his hand, the blaming will lay on me; and your people will do the learning of a lesson in humility.”

“That’s…”  As Darcy and Komand’r sat on the ultra soft sofa Natalia stopped before them, shocked by the train of thought of the Tamaranean.

Darcy looked worriedly at her paramour and passed an arm around her waist.

Natalia raised an eyebrow and continued her sentence. “...Illogical. You are going to make yourself enemies this way.”

She simply shrugged at that. “Sure, it’s not like this will change.”

Komand’r acted as if she was used to being hated and despised; this was concerning to Natalia. She didn’t know how Tamaraneans hated but for humans, hatred tends to emerge as a learned emotion that flourishes in the absence of compassion. In some cases, people who experience bullying or abuse may grow to hate the person who harmed them.

Natalia could see how this princess had been treated. She showed all the signs of someone who had been abused, she showed low self-esteem and disproportionate actions when someone is considered an enemy. Coping with hatred can be difficult, especially when there’s no apparent cause for the hatred. You may wonder how someone can have such deep, negative feelings toward you. Believing someone hates you can affect your mood, mental health, and self-esteem.

The light in the cabin became softer, responding to Komand’r’s mood; Darcy frowned at her girlfriend’s reaction. “Fire, it’s not good, can’t you think of another way? To make everything alright?”

Komand’r shifted under the gaze of both women and stubbornly said, “This is the most expedient solution at my disposal, kill all the Hydra members on the planet.”

“This isn’t you, you can’t do this, due process is a thing.” Darcy became adamant about this suddenly.

Natalia understood that she was giving her civilian point of view about this conflict, but she was being too naive. Due process is a requirement that legal matters be resolved according to established rules and principles, and that individuals be treated fairly. Due process applies to both civil and criminal matters.

The Due Process Clause guarantees “due process of law” before the government may deprive someone of “life, liberty, or property.” In other words, the Clause does not prohibit the government from depriving someone of “substantive” rights such as life, liberty, or property; all of those can be ignored by the system when a government doesn’t care. But when an authoritarian paramilitary-subversive terrorist organization bent on world domination infiltrates your country of adoption at every level? Due Process and laws become guidelines.

The Princess seemed to understand this; she put her hand on Darcy’s cheek and educated her. “I… want to do the protecting of you Darcy, if I didn’t do the leaving of a Royal Guard contingent in this town, they would have either do the capturing of you or used you against me or worse, kill you.”

When Natalia heard the emphasis she doubted that anything would have stopped Komand’r if that had happened. The spy continued to listen to Komand’r.

“Sometimes working within the laws doesn’t work because bad people exploit or manipulate them, making the concept of due process moot. They launched a nuke at me and at the town under the ship, this is a war crime. Civilian justice wouldn’t be enough.” The princess said in clear English, those moments of speech clarity from her were becoming more numerous lately. Current theory on the ship was that because of heightened emotions she gained clarity of speech.

Something finally hit Natalia; Komand’r had said that it was the fastest solution at her disposal, but what was the slowest? Was it more human? Looming over the princess, Natalia asked, “You said this was the quick way, what’s the longest one?”

Folding her arms under her chest defensively, Komand’r simply said, “I don’t want to do it.”

Natalia massaged her nose with her fingers, frustrated by the behavior of the alien princess;  she acted so childishly sometimes, she knew it was a sign that she somewhat trusted her… but it was like handling Tony Stark sometimes. “What is it?”

“Yes, you can tell us, Fire. Maybe we can help refine your plan. That reminds me that my stuff is still down there, in the town; I’m thinking of taking a sabbatical and coming with you to space.”

Komand’r beamed in happiness and like a cat purred as she hugged Darcy. The tension in the air was cut through like a knife. *Normally I consider myself an atheist, but… God bless that woman. She’s playing the princess like a fine instrument and keeping her from exploding.*

Darcy looked smugly at Natalia and gave her a nod. Komand’r stopped hugging Darcy and sighed, “I have a stasis crypt on the ship. It can store hundreds of thousands of people, but we will have to teleport everyone inside the pods and interrogate them. Problem is that we return to Asgard in a week.”

Natalia immediately took her PADD from her utility belt and looked at the systems on the ship she had access to. The Stasis Crypt was a part of the ship held under spatial compression constructed with the purpose of housing hundreds of thousands of individuals, kept perfectly within stasis pods. A plan formed in Natalia’s mind as she switched to the teleportarium technology inside the ship; she used her experience as a spy and an assassin to see what she could do and it made her smile.

Darcy and Komand’r stayed silent and looked at her. Looking up from the PADD, Natalia began to say,  “I have an idea.”

~/.\~

(Tony Stark)

Tony’s houseBasement workshop

This day couldn’t get any worse. Blackfire and her people had gone silent; and Tony didn’t like that one bit. He still had access to the communication with his PADD, but TALI told him that her Captain was indisposed. He was working on his PADD that he had connected to the computer system and private servers in his house. It was filled with basic technological knowledge hundreds of years more advanced than Earth’s. It was a gift from Blackfire, who had decided to use him as a conduit for uplift.

Yes, Tony was aware that she was using him. It was like she trusted him to develop the tech at a good pace. After studying for a week, Tony had looked at everything he had achieved and saw how primitive it was. He also felt like an idiot compared to his father, he had finally found the new element that he had come up with, even synthetized it. It was Vibranium, but he saw that the arc reactor was an obsolete technology already. Still he updated his reactors with the vibranium element to replace the palladium.

He had so much to do.

Already, Tony was about to publish a scientific paper in conjunction with Erik Selvig and Jane Foster that were now on his payroll. He came up with a fabricator that could recycle material and he was going to go into the energy business as well. He had many plans to become the most powerful corporation in the world to be able to force changes. His new dream was to go to space with his own ship and maybe find a planet outside the solar system suitable for colonization.

As he mused over how to implement all those plans, the TV that was streaming a movie suddenly stilled and something else appeared. What was shown on screen was the solar system, showing each planet rushing by until the view stopped on Earth framing the blue and green sphere. In a flash of light a Tamaranean female appeared over the screen, she was black haired with blue eyes and the tight ornate body suit she wore shimmered like stars on a black sky with complex artistic lines.

She looked perfect and gorgeous. “Hello humanity! My name is Xenil, one of Princess Blackfire’s aids with an important message for all your people.”

Tony stopped what he was doing and walked to the sofa in the lounge connected to his workshop and sat, focusing on the screen.

“Earlier this morning, we were attacked by an unknown organization while some of her Highness Blackfire’s royal guards were on American soil and guarding our force field generator. That generator was defending the town of Puente Antiguo from an Asgardian Destroyer that had been wreaking havoc outside the town’s border.” Xenil began explaining as another video showing a suit of armor firing golden beams at a town in New Mexico was linked.

Tony’s eyes opened wide. “So that’s why communications have gone dark.”

Xenil raised her hand and looked rather sad as the video from a submarine raising to the surface and launching a missile appeared. “That wasn’t the worst of it. There’s also the fact that a nuclear device was fired at our ship.”

Tony thought that it was over for humanity, now. Blackfire wasn’t the forgiving type, was she about to launch an assault on Earth? Tony could already see her plan; a series of decapitation strikes to take out every government, with her teleportation technology it was possible. She just had to teleport bombs in their office or bunkers.

The Tamaranean woman’s expression shifted to a haughty one. “Her highness Komand’r was truly sad that such a thing happened and felt so humiliated that such an ineffective and primitive weapon had been used that she sent me to educate you about why Nuclear weapons aren’t used by spacefaring nations. Linked to this video is documentation about why we don’t use them, hosted on Stark Industries servers as usual.”

Tony laughed at that, his alien friends were doing advertisements for him?! That was genius. Xenil sighed and looked as if she was explaining something simple to a bunch of coeds. “No one uses nukes because they are arguably too destructive to use on the planet, safeguarding a planet's ecology is taken really seriously. Bombardment of garden worlds such as Terra from orbit is not seen in a good light or outright considered a war crime. Some planets have been confiscated by other powers from their rightful owner because they used such weapons and destroyed their environment. I wouldn’t be surprised that the Kree Empire who already visited your planet plan to petition the extragalactic council about legally enslaving you all for it.”

This wasn’t good news; people from other species coming to their planet and taking it? Humanity would fight them. Tony was sure of that but the next segment of the video told him that they would lose.

“That is why advanced species have developed ways to completely neutralize nuclear weapons or technology derived from fission.” Xenil moved her hand and another video played.

Footage of a field being deployed around the humongous alien ship appeared in the background and what surprised Tony is how they literally shot down the missile by killing the electronics in it with a beam of energy. This showed some serious technological advances in energy and material science. They literally showed that they could make fissile material inert.

“Some species see the dangers of using it and refuse to implement it, we were very surprised to see that humanity was being that witless. We had thought that since Lord Anthony Stark used his cold fusion reactor technology that it was the norm on the planet, but it clearly isn’t. But after the attack we did more thorough research on your planet and it’s activities. The radioactivity over all the planet tells us that you aren’t being responsible with your world, you haven't even expanded in your solar system yet and you are poisoning your homeworld as if you had another.”

The raven haired Tamaranean beauty stood there and smiled, and in the background the amazon being deforested and put on fire appeared, then pictures of africa being exploited, poisoned and mined, the ice in the poles melting, the detritus floating in the oceans. “Our computer simulation showed that you have one hundred and fifty years to live either by drowning or asphyxiation. Congratulations, like those in the USA say, you're fucked.”

The orange skinned beauty seemed to be a bit embarrassed as she said this. “Oh pardon me for using such language, but the Princess said that you humans understand things more when the speaker is blunt.”

She became more serious, and the video links that were floating around her disappeared, the background showed earth again. “This video is also a warning to whoever attacked us; the princess is informing you that the next time such an act of aggression happens, we will formally declare war on humanity. In the meanwhile, after some deliberation, Princess Komand’r and her advisors have decided that with humanity being too young and primitive, we will stop having official relations with your race and will be leaving within a week. Thank you for your welcome.” Xenil finished politely.

She showed her teeth in a beautiful grin and slightly bowed. “This has been a message from your local Tamaranean Princess, Komand’r, peace out.”

Tony looked at the screen and understood perfectly the message Komand’r had politely given humanity, it basically boiled down to ‘I won’t bother seeking revenge on you. You are already dead.’ He hoped that everyone else got the point of this video as well. The princess was his friend, but he liked his world, this was the kick in the ass he needed to prove her wrong, that Humanity could live on.

Tony took the PADD and composed a message on it to send to Komand’r saying, ‘Challenge Accepted.’

A/N: This chapter was super hard to write somehow because of the politics involved, and I’m not good at politics lol.

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