TA Chapter 12 Meeting
Luthor Dugavu(POV)
"The excitement of tonight was palpable! People everywhere had had their ears peeled, hanging on my every word! I should do such things more often!" barked Dan Mpologoma, head of the Mpologoma state as he pulled back his chair. The scraping sound as the legs dragged across the tiled floor made me wince, just like all the others.
"Is it too much to ask that you lift the damn chair?!" grumbled Chief Lutalo his palms pressed against his ears.
"Anyway, is there some other collection of words you would love to impart upon the people, yet don't have time to do it yourself?" asked Dan, his beady eyes staring straight at me with a hungry glint dancing within, after lowering himself into his seat.
I swallowed at his enthusiasm, "No, and thank you for doing it in my stead. I had some things to do."
"It's a pity. Though, there is something I have been meaning to announce..." his dulled expression brightened once again and he clapped his palms together, with the sound echoing among the walls of the room.
"Oh! It better be interesting or there might be a penalty for wasting our time." joked Ravena with a chuckle.
"Oh, it is exciting news!" Dan said, his eyes traveling from Chief Lutalo on his left, to Ravena, then Snow, and then, finally, his beady little eyes locked with mine... "My little Lily has finally been... Born!" he revealed dramatically, with a wide smile tugging at the corners of his lips.
"Hoh! Is she okay?" asked Ravena, leaning forward in her seat.
"I was worried for a moment since she had been silent, but everything turned out alright when she wailed! Believe me when I say this, she had the most beautiful cry I had ever heard!" Dan answered happily.
""Congratulations!""
I turned to Snow, upon our simultaneous blurt, giving her a small nod, which she returned.
"When are we finally getting to the important stuff? Are we going to spend the entire meeting following this buffoon's pace?"
"Buffoon?!" Dan roared, literally vibrating in his chair. He pointed at Chief Lutalo, his eyes filled with an unquenchable rage. "Do you want to taste my light blades, savage?!"
"Chief Lutalo, should we pass the motion to banish your entire state from our little group?" Snow asked, finally exposing her white, almost transparent pupils. They were cold, like snow.
"Since the both of you have been disrespectful so far, it would be wise to exclude you from the important stuff." I said slowly, gaining satisfaction as I watched their expressions shift in real time.
"I am the leader of one of the five states! That is impossible!" Chief Lutalo denied with a shake of his head, a mocking expression on his face as if we were joking.
"....Except for people, what did Lutalo state provide during the wars? What has it provided in the last five years to our alliance? Mmmmm? Please... Enlighten us!" pushed Ravena, eagerly leaning forward, her golden gaze sharply piercing through the Chief.
"It would be best then, that you stay quiet about things, Chief Lutalo." I said, my lips curved upwards in a victorious smile, after a few seconds had passed without the man saying anything.
"Madam Ravena! Where could the asteroid have landed?" asked a man spotting long dark strands of hair that cascaded down his face, hiding his features and expression. His voice was deep, yet had a drawl to it that made me envy him.
"Kisol! According to the calculations of its trajectory after altering course, the chances of it having landed on that continent are above 90%." she answered.
"Why would it forego Bantu in favor of Kisol? Judging by the moving images, it should be related to that civilisation! For it to opt for Kisol is puzzling." I aired out my doubts while caressing my chin. My gaze fell onto Ravena after my words since she had interests almost similar to mine. Besides, her daughter, Ril, had already shown me that she had a curious bone.
"I can't even begin to speculate the reason. Though, I do wonder where it could have originated from." Ravena shook her head before airing her own conundrum.
"What do you mean? I thought your observatory should have captured its flight trail?" asked Snow, her tone not accusatory, but curious.
"That's the thing. Before entering the planet's atmosphere, it was nonexistent! Can you imagine that?!" Ravena exclaimed while running a hand through her hair.
"It either popped into existence, maybe through the fabled teleportation, or..."
"-it had been under some sort of camouflage as it traveled through space, only exposing itself due to the atmospheric properties." I completed.
"Our technology is pretty primitive when compared to theirs. After all, those were moving images! How did they even come up with such a concept?" exclaimed an excited Dan.
"With what we saw up on the moving images, it is plausible that they created a craft capable of camouflaging itself from our primitive detection technology, but we must all consider the most important question, why did they come to our planet? And why show us all that?" I asked, my face a serious mask.
" An invasion, perhaps?" David said out loud, a glint of excitement in his eyes.
"The craft was just a few meters in diameter. And judging from what we observed within those moving images, it should have only been able to accommodate a single being." explained Ravena, with a sneer directed towards David, whose excitement dimmed and his expression transformed into that of a constipated person.
"It could be a scouting vessel. They must be here to ascertain whether the planet is habitable. That might also explain their choice of landing on Kisol, after all, there is lesser chance of retaliation from a primitive civilization like ours."
I gazed at Chief Lutalo with widened eyes, just like all the others. Was this the same savage man we had always known?! My eyes narrowed at the implications of his deep statement.
"That only leaves us with one choice. That of whether to head to Kisol and investigate, or leave sleeping dogs lie." said Dan, leaning back into his chair, fingers intertwined on the surface of the table.
That was an important choice. To go would mean stepping foot onto uncharted land, facing unknown threats, and most of all, the many unknowns. To stay would mean leaving everything to chance. But why wouldn't I go when I had just managed to get a glimpse of how humanity could keep up with the beasts? Even if everyone at this table decided to stay, I would still go on that expedition.
"I am in favor of going. Leaving things uncertain would only hurt us in the long run. Besides, we must step foot on Kisol to determine whether a beast of the same caliber as the dark snake-like thing in the moving images exists. If it's a landed beast, then that would be okay, but an avian...?"
Everyone gulped, or paled at Chief Lutalo's conjecture.
"Come on! You should just admit that you are searching, hoping, for another war!" scoffed Dan, his expression one of mild dissatisfaction.
"Yes, I love war. Why? Because that's the only time we in Lutalo state truly feel alive! Besides, it would have taken years before someone came along and discovered how to use dark energy!"
Chief Lutalo didn't bat an eye when uttering those words, his eyes locked into Dan's.
"Conflict hastens progress. Without it, we would probably still be in the dark ages. The beasts forced us! They put us under pressure and forced our minds to mature, to conjure ideas which eventually turned into the weapons that made us win the war! You speak of the previous five years as if everything has been developing faster, yet what I have seen is stagnation! Luthor Dugavu, it took you five whole years to test a new dark energy frequency, yet during the war, there was no such luxury!"
"I could still remember the time when dark energy weapons, those of the flame frequency exploded on a daily basis because they hadn't been tested before being handed out. In a mere month, all the flaws had been found and rectified, yet here we are, taking five long years to discover and put to use, a new frequency."
I was left speechless by his words. Not because they had been unexpected, unprecedented, or even untrue, but because they resonated with me.
I had been so focused on my personal project that everything else had been pushed aside with the excuse, 'we can afford to take it slow. An age of peace is upon us.'
I didn't agree with everything he had said, yet the truth within was too glaring to ignore. We had become complacent. I had become complacent. Dugavu was developing fast, yet not as fast as it should have been if I had been paying attention. Dangerous smog still lingered in Mazi city because we were taking too long in transitioning away from fossil fuels!
"War! Conflict, is cruel. How many lives have been sacrificed to reach this peace? How many more would we need to sacrifice to reach whatever image of true peace you have constructed in your mind?" asked Snow after a few moments of speechless silence.