[right][sub][i](Starring: Abadi)[/i][/sub][/right]

"You are now Acting Liason of the ECU Meeting Place Diplomatic Staff," her holo-butler answers Abadi. "It is completely up to you what to do."

She nodded. There's no other answer you can expect when asking advice of a hologram, but sometimes you still want to try for a sounding board. "It's all so complicated."

"Shall I put on some music?" The butler asks, in a tone carefully balanced between decorum and helpfulness.

Abadi considers it. The Meeting Place is always so much quieter than New Hollywood. It's like a morgue. "Yeah," she answers, "let's hear some Led Zeppelin. As loud as you can make it."

Which turns out to be very, very loud. As Immigrant Song brings the steel, dead walls of the ECU segment back to life, she finally considers all the work in front of her. There's a lot of it.

[center][b]~~~~~~~~[/b][/center]
[right][sub][i](Starring: Yun)[/i][/sub][/right]

Yun is in a small room, sitting in a circle of chairs that don't match. Few things match on New Hollywood, of course, so neither him nor the others are surprised to see a plastic folding chair, a tree stump, an ottoman, and a small throne all together. The more shocking thing is the news they're hearing.

"They're really cutting us?" Bisonette asks, from the stump.

"So this is what we get?" asks Smith, from the throne. "After that nightmare on Zeta? We come home and, what, half of us lose our jobs?"

"More than half," Yun corrects him. He's the one in the folding chair.

"Bullshit," declares Bellin, proudly exhausting my means of describing which chair he's sitting in. (It's the ottoman, alright? Why did I do this to myself.) "It's just bullshit." With the clapping of hands and grunts of approval, all the other men agree. Yun is the leader of this group, but Bellin is always a strong second. Maybe too strong.

"But why are they doing it?" someone asks.

"We lost the war," Yun answers, shrugging, before Bellin can interject. "They blame us for not busting up the toasters. The people on the streets are all in a fuss about it, protestin' and stuff."

"Yeah, boss, that's why the need us!" one of the other protectors catches the moment. "We the ones who know how to put 'em all down." More sounds of general agreement from the gathering.

That is, except for Yun, who stays silent. He has been thinking about that exact question lately, and keeping up with the news for the first time in his life. And he has come up with a different answer. At last he says, dropping fully into the expected phrasing of a protector: "I dunno, boys. Those toasters hit us pretty hard. People are comin' back all messed up in the head, and the people have got used to not havin' us around, watchin' them at every corner. They don't want us back. Why would they?"

Nobody answers. In one way or another, they all know it's true. The people have gotten used to a greater feeling of freedom on New Hollywood, without the omnipresent threat of violent protectors. And with their very public failure at Zeta, the government is just itching for an opportunity to put all the blame on the 'incompetent' protector organizations. Soon, most of them will be out of work, and all of the rest will have their funding torn to scraps. It's the end for them.

"...come on, boys," Bellin says. "Break time's over. Let's get back to it."

[center][b]~~~~~~~~[/b][/center]
[right][sub][i](Addressing: [@Raylah])[/i][/sub][/right]
[right][sub][i](Starring: Abadi)[/i][/sub][/right]

Abadi, technically 'Acting Liaison Abadi' right now, starts with the Undefeated. She figures it's easier to get into work with a topic you already have an interest in, and she's come to consider Guardian Blackwood to be almost a friend.

Which does make all this a little disappointing. The Undefeated's recent announcement is soaked in that kind of flowery language other Oligarchs might appreciate, but Abadi can hear through it. The Undefeated want to stay in the galaxy's good graces, so they're leaving the ECU to keep fighting alone. Walking away.

Six months ago, she would have been more upset. But recent events have her thinking, and despite her own hand in starting this war, Abadi isn't as confident as she was when it began. The Zetans are strange, but they're one people among many, and could have been ignored. Maybe the ECU should have left well enough alone.

Still, they simply [i]have [/i]to respond to this. Allies or not, a borderline betrayal cannot go unnoticed. New Hollywood cannot develop a reputation for being walked over.

When Kelsie next checks her Meeting Place messages, she'll find a short word from Abadi:

[i]
Guardian Blackwood,

I was surprised to hear your Meeting Place announcement. In the interest of courtesy, I will say that I was glad to see someone defending our position. However, I was shocked to hear of your withdrawal from the war. We had not discussed this. I would have believed the Undefeated better than the retreat without a word.

In the future, I hope you will consider consulting with allies about decisions in joint military operations. If you wish to maintain alliances, that is.

In Memory of Earth,
Liason Abadi.
[/i]

[center][b]~~~~~~~~[/b][/center]
[right][sub][i](Addressing: [@Irredeemable] and [@Crusader Lord])[/i][/sub][/right]
[right][sub][i](Starring: Abadi and Tanaka)[/i][/sub][/right]

Tanaka's heartbeat is getting weaker, and weaker, and weaker. There's two bullets lodged in it, or so scans say. Nobody can look- there's no doctors. In a diplomatic installation with maybe a dozen people, it wasn't thought to bring one.

Holo-suites aren't fit for it, either. He's in one now, made up to look like a hospital room, but it's as artificial as any program. All it can do is monitor him. And today, that just amounts to giving Abadi continued updates on Tanaka's failing condition. Every heartbeats tears open the wounds again...

"Do you like the music box Christensen sent?" Abadi hasn't known how to talk to him since the event. She barely knew before.

"Yeah," says Tanaka, who has also not known how to talk since the event. He seems to keeps thinking of it all as a game that will end soon. Sitting up in his hospital bed, listening to holographic machines pretend to beep and whir all day- the sound of music must have been a welcome change. He insisted on sending an official-sounding 'thank you' note to Christensen for his concern and generosity.

The medicine they sent didn't help, however. Seemed better suited for that tougher Xandalian physiology; Tanaka's frail body could barely process it. One doses, and he was vomiting up his meals for an hour. It was safe to conclude that he wouldn't be getting any better that way.

Abadi sighs. "The New Hollywood Global Physician Organization finally responded to our request. They said it won't be possible to send a shuttle with a doctor in it for some time, and they said- that... they said based on your scans, by then, that..."

Tanaka put together what she was trying to say.

"So what do we do?" he asks at last. As if she can answer him. He's like a lost puppy. And he's stuck in Abadi's care.

"Well," she finally struggles out. "There are the Zetans."

The silence sits for a minute. "Yeah, ha-ha, they made that crazy offer to 'help' me..." Tanaka is prepared to play it off as a joke, but Abadi pushes on: "No, really. There are the Zetans."

He is at a loss for words.

"...the Zetans?"

"Yes."

"...the toasters?"

"That is what we call them."

"...the cyborg robots that we've been at war with? That we're still technically at war with?"

Abadi scratches her neck awkwardly, and tries not to look him in the eye.

"[i]Abadi[/i]," he says.

She continues to looks away. She's making a very good study of a spot on the wall.

"[i]Abadi[/i]," he says again, sitting up suddenly in his bed- a motion that makes him cry out, wheeze and gasp for air. That third bullet is in his lungs. He coughs, bringing a spew of blood up onto the white sheets, and this is too much for Abadi.

"Would you rather die?"

That evening, a reply of acceptance is sent back to the Zetan embassy.