From the command nucleus of his prime warliner, Adar Kori’nh, supreme admiral of the Ildiran Solar Navy, contemplated the humans’ folly.
Though the outcome of this preposterous test would have a significant bearing on future relations between the Ildiran Empire and the Terran Hanseatic League, the Adar had brought only a septa, a group of seven warliners. The Mage-Imperator had instructed him not to display too much interest in the event. No Ildiran should be too impressed by any action from these upstarts.
Even so, Kori’nh had refitted his battleships as a matter of pride, painting sigils on their hulls and adding dazzling illumination strips as primary markings. His warliners looked like ornate deep-sea creatures preparing for an outrageous mating display. The Solar Navy understood pageantry and military spectacles far better than the humans did.
The Hansa Chairman had invited Kori’nh to come aboard the observation platform where he could watch the artificial ignition of the gas giant. Instead, the Adar had chosen to remain here, aloof, inside the command nucleus. For now. Once the actual test began, he would arrive with politically acceptable tardiness.
Kori’nh was a lean-faced half-breed between noble and soldier kith, like all important officers in the Solar Navy. His face was smooth, with humanlike features, because the higher kiths resembled the single breed of human. Despite their physical similarities, though, Ildirans were fundamentally different from Terrans, especially in their hearts and minds.
Kori’nh’s skin had a grayish tone; his head was smooth except for the lush topknot folded back across his crown, a symbol of his rank. The Adar’s single-piece uniform was a long tunic made from layered gray-and-blue scales, belted about his waist.
To emphasize the low importance of this mission, he had refused to pin on his numerous military decorations, but the humans would never notice the subtlety when he met them face-to-face. He watched the bustling scientific activities with a mixture of condescending amusement and concern.
Though the Ildirans had assisted the fledgling race many times in the past two centuries, they still considered humans to be impatient and ill-behaved. Cultural children, adoptive wards. Perhaps their race needed a godlike, all-powerful leader such as the Mage-Imperator. The golden age of the Ildiran Empire had already lasted for millennia. Humans could learn much from the elder race if they bothered to pay attention, rather than insisting on making their own mistakes.
Kori’nh could not comprehend why the brash and overly ambitious race was so eager to create more worlds to terraform and settle. Why go to all the trouble of creating a new sun out of a gas planet? Why make a few rugged moons habitable when there were so many acceptable worlds that were, by any civilized standard, nowhere near crowded enough? Humans seemed intent on spreading everywhere.
The Adar sighed as he stared out the front viewing screen of his lead warliner. Disposable planets and disposable suns… how very Terran.
But he would not have missed this event for all the commendations the Mage-Imperator had left to give. In ancient times the Solar Navy had fought against the terrible and mysterious Shana Rei, and the military force had been required to fight against other deluded Ildirans in a heart-rending civil war two thousand years ago, but since that time, the fleet had been mainly for show, used for occasional rescue or civil missions.
With no enemies and no interplanetary strife in the Ildiran Empire, Kori’nh had spent his career in the Solar Navy managing ornate ceremony-driven groupings. He had little experience in the area of battle or tactics, except to read about them in the Saga. But it wasn’t the same.
The Mage-Imperator had dispatched him to Oncier as the Empire’s official representative, and he had obeyed his god and leader’s commands. Through his faint telepathic link with all of his subjects, the Mage-Imperator would watch through Kori’nh’s eyes.
No matter what he thought of it, though, this bold human attempt would make an interesting addition to the Ildiran historical epic, The Saga of Seven Suns. This day, and probably even Kori’nh’s name, would become part of both history and legend. No Ildiran could aspire to more than that.