Word: Esprit de Corps

 

esprit de corps

[ e-spree duh kawr ]

noun

1. a sense of unity and of common interests and responsibilities, as developed among a group of persons closely associated in a task, cause, enterprise, etc.

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General Zelzar was not having a good solar rotation cycle. He had had not had a good cycle since before the emperor said he wanted to own this tiny backwater planet. And, of course, Zelzar had agreed to do it. Why wouldn’t he? The sapients living there were downright primitive. They had trouble leaving their own atmosphere, for Delvar’s sake! And to make things even easier, they still had separate nations on the same planet. He should have been able to come in, blow up a city or two, and own the place in less time than it took to get to the place.  

And yet... 

“Sir?” Lieutenant Selvin said hesitantly. 

“What?” The general said, letting his exhaustion come through the word. 

“The, uh...the humans. They’ve, well...” 

“Oh just tell me what they blew up and be done with it.” 

Seriously, how were they doing this? All preliminary reports said they were damn near ready to start a war with themselves. But the moment Zelzar and his fleet showed up? It was like they had never even considered fighting each other. And apparently that was all they needed to be a massive pain in his rear support bundle. 

“It...it’s worse than that, sir. They, uh, they got into the third docking base.” 

“How is that...wait. They got in.” 

“Yes, sir.” 

“But they didn’t blow it up?” 

“No, sir.” 

Zelzar felt his ocular mound twitch. “Are you saying the humans are in possession of our ships? Ships that they can reverse engineer and build more of?” 

“Yes, sir. That is exactly what I’m saying.” The Lieutenant compressed his internal mass, making himself smaller. 

As if the universe was playing some horrible joke on him, Zelzar’s comm system alerted him about an incoming transmission. From the third docking base. He groaned and accepted the transmission. He might as well get it over with. The humans were too stubborn, and would no doubt keep trying to contact him if he refused. 

The human who answered was doing that annoying thing they do when they were happy. That thing they called a ‘smile.’ 

“Hey buddy!” The human said cheerfully. “Nice tech you got here. Our tech people are having a field day. Hell, these translator things alone will keep ‘em busy for months.” 

“Oh, spare me.” The general said. “Just tell me what you want.” 

“What do I want? Well, I want a supermodel girlfriend, one of those fancy mech suits your boys have and a plot of land on a tropical island to play with said mech. But if you’re asking what humanity in general wants, that’s easy. We want you off our planet. I’d have thought that was obvious.” 

“I would love nothing more.” Zelzar grumbled. “If it was up to me, I would be gone already. Unfortunately, my emperor says not to leave until I’ve conquered the planet to die.” 

“Ouch. That sucks. Trust me, I get it. We’ve had our share of dumbass leaders too. Sucks when the boys behind a desk don’t get when us guys on the ground say it’s not worth it, huh?” 

“It doesn’t seem like you have that problem these days.” 

“Yeah, well. We did until you guys showed up. The suits wanted to have a nice little chat. Even after you blew up New York. Then a bunch of internation politics happened, and then pretty much every military ever got fed up. Turns out a pen might be mightier than a sword, but a gun trumps pretty much everything else.” 

Zelzar was not sure why a writing implement was being compared to a crude bladed weapon, but he understood the general idea.  He just wished it was that easy on his end. 

“So yeah. Thanks to you guys coming in, we figured out how to put aside internation problems and function as a unified planet. So thanks for that.” 

“If you were really thankful, do you think you can give back my base to show it?” 

“Nice try, but no. Oh, but I hear the generals over me are willing to listen, one military man to another. Discuss a surrender, you know? Oh, maybe an unofficial one on your end. We can be pretty sympathetic to idiot politicians and bureaucrats telling the actually important people what to do.” 

“And this would entail...” 

“No idea. I am just a messenger. The details of what happens next are up to you and them. Or you can refuse the meeting. We’ll figure out your ships and then blow you all up. Seems like a pretty obvious choice to me.” 

Indeed it was. His military code and oaths to the emperor dictated that he should fight to the last man. But those oaths had put him in this position in the first place. He could do without those. 

“Fine. Tell your generals I accept their meeting. Let’s just get this damn foolish war over with already.” 

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Beware a unified humanity. It's a scary thing to think about for anyone who come knocking on our door with less than plesant inentions.