“The God-Queen is a fierce woman. She can level cities and obliterate armies, all without even leaving her Kingdom. She is also prudent and merciful. She does not kill indiscriminately, even if it seems that way to the unfaithful. Her plans span centuries. Those plans safeguard the future of humanity from the torrents of time and the nadir of nature. But those plans do not always involve the taking of life; sometimes it involves the sparing of life."
The Singular spoke to the camera with a gentle care that was usually reserved for a parent explaining a harsh truth to a young child. The three members of RED-1 whose disguises lacked the rank of officer sat within The Toto Inn's cushy penthouse suite with Mela. Wadaw, Lorias, Srell and the other people within the Officer's Club sat in the silence of the warm, wooden room upon teak chairs with green padding. Each of them were transfixed by the image of Gusa Sela on the monitors they stared at. They all knew that whatever he had to say would directly impact their lives in one way or another.
"This war against the heretics cannot continue and it cannot escalate. Our God-Queen has commanded me to accept a small delegation from abroad to discuss our conflict with the heretics. We will hold our talks within the sacred meeting hall of the Ewada, and we will include the heretics in these talks."
The officers in the club looked around at each other with so much shock that Wadaw almost laughed out loud. He managed to temper his own response to maintain the illusion that he'd already knew Gusa's plans. Lorias, who sat to the right of Wadaw, closed his eyes as he ran over the implications of the new development in his calculating mind. Srell, who sat to the left of Wadaw, leaned back in his padded chair and crossed his legs. He'd hoped to have a shot at Gusa and was disappointed by the anticlimax of the entire war ending in a peace summit forced upon them by ?ba's most dangerous person. Up in the penthouse, Ursun and Prism had similar feelings to Srell.
"We must restore the stability of our Holy State even if we must rely on the aid of outside powers. The threat of a larger war breaking out so close the borders of the Kingdom will not be tolerated. As I said, the God-Queen is a fierce woman. She will not allow her most faithful nation to fall into bloodshed and chaos. All of you know the consequences of directly opposing the Third Coming of Eizavoba. To visit her wrath upon us all will mean the end of all that we know and love. Let us all respect her wishes and welcome the possibility of peace into our hearts. Let us all lay down our doubts and worship the only truth upon our vicious, brutal world; The Queen is God and her power is absolute."
It was then that Prism finally understood the religion that so many Sguvans believed in. "This is how they cope with their powerlessness against her," thought the human-looking alien as he observed the bewildered faces of the other three in the room. The transmission ended as abruptly as it had begun. Only a silent screen that showed the symbol of the Singular, a light-brown silhouette of a muscular man sitting cross-legged with his hands raised high, was left on a dark green background.
Ursun got up from the recliner beside Prism and walked over to the balcony. Though he was in his disguise, he'd stripped down to his underclothes so that he could sleep as soon as the speech was over. His mind wound up tighter and tighter as it ran scenario after scenario regarding the supposed peace talks. He groaned and pinched the bridge of his nose while Prism, Leanna, and Mela watched him from the middle of the blue-carpeted living room.
"Could this be a ploy to give Gusa's forces more time to pull back to the capital?" Leanna asked over their shared telepathic link.
"No, I think this is real. He wouldn't invoke the Queen like this if she hadn't actually spoken to him," Mela answered. She'd been added to the link two hours earlier by Prism.
"I don't trust a thing this slimy freak says. " Srell interjected.
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"The one thing you can trust about Gusa is that he wouldn't misrepresent the Queen. He's not stupid; he knows that she can unmake him just as easily as she made him." Wadaw shared.
He saw several of the officers within the club staring at him expectantly, waiting for him to make some sort of comment about the speech. As the only Royalist in the room, he was the highest ranking member there. From chatter Wadaw had heard earlier, many of the officers believed him to be on a secret assignment given to him by the Singular himself.
"Probably best not to indulge them. They'll only want more from you." Lorias shared privately to Wadaw.
The guerilla leader looked back at Lorias, intrigued by the advice. "Point taken, friend. However, it's always best to use the ignorance of others for one's own ends."
Lorias nodded to Wadaw and said nothing further. Srell noticed the silent exchange and furrowed his brow at the two men.
"Are we still going to Zazi in the morning?" Leanna asked, directing her question to Ursun.
"Even if these peace talks are actually happening, it's still important for the True Twins to show their power. Otherwise, they won't have any negotiating power," shared Ursun. He paused briefly to watch Mela's response to his words. She closed her eyes and nodded her agreement with his sentiment. "Yes, we'll proceed with our original plan. We sleep, then we take the boat to Zazi in six hours."
"Perhaps I'm missing something, but why doesn't the Queen just stop this civil war herself if she sees it as a threat to her Kingdom? When we talked about this before at the mission briefing back at Pack HQ, the Queen hadn't shown that she cared about this war one way or another. That's apparently changed." Prism asked.
"Since the Quaking, the only times the Queen has used force is when her Decrees are broken." Leanna said as if she was reciting something from memory. "Civil war isn't on that list."
"You always say that like its a law of nature or a religion, even. The Queen is a person, not a god. You of all people should know that," said Prism, sounding more irritable than he meant to.
"Scientifically speaking, the Queen hasn't broken this pattern. I'm simply using the evidence we have on her behavior. There's nothing "religious" about it." Leanna responded defensively. She couldn't really understand how absurd her words sounded to an outsider like Prism. To her and nearly everyone else on ?ba, the Queen was a universal constant. That was why so few ?bans actively fought against the Queen.
"Prism is a walking violation of those Decrees. He threatens everything the Queen stands for, and yet she still lets him walk free upon our world." Wadaw shared as he raised his hand to begin addressing the officers.
"That's why he gives us all hope." Mela shared.
She smiled down warmly at Prism as she sat on a pink-cushioned couch. He looked over at her from his seat on the carpet and thanked her for her kindness.
"You'll give him a big head." Leanna warned Mela, making the two of them laugh as they momentarily distracted themselves from all that had happened.
The uniformed men and women within the Officer's Club eagerly watched the disguised Wadaw. They all stopped speaking among themselves to give the man they believed to be a high-ranking Royalist their undivided attention. To them, his words were the closest thing to an official explanation to Gusa's speech that they were ever going to get.
"If the God-Queen wills it, then it will happen. If the God-Queen wants peace in our Holy State of Sguvi, then it will happen." Wadaw stated plainly. He slowly looked around the room at each face that sat within it, getting a feel for the crowd. "Peace within our nation is vital to securing a greater peace across all of ?ba. Through us, our world will come to know the grace of Eizavoba. Through her, all things are possible."
Wadaw's statements moved the group, making them nod quietly in faithful deference. The Sguvan military was known for its ascetic nature. Its soldiers lived more like monks than the rowdy stereotypes that were more common amongst the Conjunction's forces. Wadaw knew that they'd appreciate any religiosity he added to his speech.
"Do not be mistaken; there are still numerous forces committed to undermining our God and our Singular. We must be ever-vigilant in these dark times. We must face any opposition to these attempts at peace, for Eizavoba helps those who help themselves."
When Wadaw uttered the last phrase, many of the officers began nodding their heads vigorously. It was a statement that echoed some of the distortions of Ewa's teachings found in the Gwit, a book written centuries earlier by powerful men who wanted to codify their power. Nevertheless, those words lived on in the modern era where they were still blindly believed by the masses of the warring theocracy.
