TFS Proxima, the SCIF.

Thats everything we discussed, Sir, Ayaka said, ending her report to the fleet admiral.

He took a moment to consider the information; the meeting had gone in a direction he couldnt possibly have expected. Initially, hed expected the worst, given the early hostilities between the trees and humans, and had thought there would be some misunderstandings or ideological differences between the species. But though there were indeed misunderstandings and ideological differences, the misunderstandings had been cleared up and the ideological differences resolved through the brilliant policy of it doesnt matter.

Joon-hos experiences with them had already indicated that the trees were a tolerant, forgiving, and compassionate species, but as a lifelong military man, Fleet Admiral Bianchi had a decided pessimistic bent to his thought process. And now that he had heard Ayakas report, his skepticism was beginning to wane and he was feeling rather... optimistic, a state of mind he wasnt all that used to.

Whats your take on their request, Captain? he asked after a few minutes of thought. He had rearranged his decision-making process to fit the reality of the interspecies dialogue and was willing to entertain Ayakas input into his upcoming plans, should it make sense.

Theres nothing to lose and everything to gain, Sir. No matter what the reasons are behind the trees request, everything will be beneficial to the empire whether they hold up their end of the bargain or not. If they do hold up their end, then great, everythings worked out for the best. And if they dont hold up their end of the bargain, theyll find their children leaning rather far toward humanity instead of the trees. Ayaka had already considered the matter from every angle she could think of, so she didnt even have to consider her response for a moment; the question was one she had anticipated, anyway.

In her mind, it wouldnt matter if the trees held up their end of the agreement. No matter what, they would have an overwhelming amount of data on the five species, as well as hundreds of millions, if not billions, of new citizens for the empire. The only thing that would change would be whether or not those new citizens were initially willing to join the empire on a permanent basis. If everything worked as planned, they would willingly join the empire. And if the trees proved untrustworthy, well... humanity would simply wipe Proxima Centauri b from the galaxy and brainwash the new species into compliance.

It wouldnt be the first time humanity would be required to be trickier than others, nor would it be the last. It wouldnt even be the first time the Terran Empire as a polity would be using their technology to brainwash people... or at least she thought that was the case, anyway. All throughout history, the militaries of various countries hadnt even bothered trying to hide the fact that they brainwashed their members, and Ayaka had a sinking suspicion that the diaspora would include heavy levels of brainwashing the people aboard their cold-sleep generation ships as they sailed across the galaxy looking for new planets to plant their inhabitants on.

But something about brainwashing the newborn species still bothered her quite a bit, though she shoved that feeling into a box and would examine it later, when she had a moment. Her duty to the Terran Empire came first, then her duty to her family, then her duty to her species.... Her duty to herself was far down on her list of priorities, if in fact it was on that list at all in the first place.

If it were up to you, how would you go about it? the admiral asked.

I have a basic idea, Sir.

Whats the elevator pitch?

(Ed note: An elevator pitch is a concept from Hollywood, where screenwriters submit, or pitch, their ideas to producers and financiers in presentations that last about as long as an elevator ride. For example, the elevator pitch for the movie Inception would be something along the lines of A gang of thieves enter peoples dreams to steal information and plant ideas.)

We need to put all of them into VR before they even wake up, and increase the time dilation to as much as they can handle. While theyre in VR, well teach them everything they need to function and let them live out a normal life without further interference.

And how would you suggest we go about that, Captain?

We bought ourselves another E-month, which should be just enough time to manufacture all the pods well need for the children. Once we have them all in VR, we can build an artificial moon filled with enough quantum superclusters to increase time dilation in our VR simulation to the maximum amount they can handle. And by doing it in that order, well be able to avoid waste by bringing the dilation up incrementally....

Ayaka spoke for the next ten minutes, adding details to her plan as she went. Once she started taking longer breaks to think of things to add to it, the admiral interrupted her.

Excellent, Captain. I think we can call it for today, he said, deciding not to waste any more of either of their time.

Ayaka stood to attention and saluted the admiral, then exited the SCIF, leaving the admiral behind to continue his own work. A small smile played across her face as she headed to the boat bay, where she would board a gig and head out to the protostellar forge. They had a lot of work coming their way, and all of it would be backed by a deadline that was, by anyones standards, brutally short.

But she understood that some people lived for that kind of high-stakes, high-stress environment. And engineers, she had foundespecially FLEET engineerswere all among that small group of people who enjoyed impossible challenges. Their motto, in fact, had been directly taken from the old United States Army Corps of Engineers: The difficult, we do immediately; the impossible just takes a little bit longer.

Well, Ayaka was about to drop a workload on them that would prove that motto. And the thought of the engineers reaction was giving her a lot of amusement already.