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The original was posted on /r/hfy by /u/Lanzen_Jars on 2024-10-29 23:12:58+00:00.

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Chapter 191 – Who better to do it?

“Oooooh, this is so exciting!” Nichola nearly squealed and bounced in place for a moment – a gesture that everyone around her now knew had a core of genuineness to it while also being hammed up a lot for the camera that was filming her.

Simon kept a good distance and made sure that she was in frame at all times, even as he gradually circled around the group with his equipment to show off a bit more of the scale of the event he was capturing to the audience.

Together with Nichola, a good part of the allied running mates in the ongoing election had gathered together in front of a large air-lock’s door, waiting for their opportunity to welcome a new guest of honor.

And around them, a large, protective bubble of soldiers – both local and human – had formed, constantly busy and at attention in order to manage the multiple crowds of people who had come together in order to also observe what was the beginning of yet another one of the slowly increasing number of truly historic events for the Galactic Community.

Naturally, people had come here with very different expectations for and feelings about the event itself.

In recent times, many of them – but James especially – had quite often found themselves in front of large crowds sending very mixed signals, of course. However…this was on a different scale. Even when compared to James’ inauguration, which by all rational measures was absolutely the far bigger deal, this gathering of people somehow completely overshadowed it in magnitude.

It had gotten to the point where some of the local organizational authorities had some very serious doubts about the capacities of the Council Station itself – especially in case of something emergent happening during the event. To combat the issue, what equated to a small fleet of medical and material support ships had been called in from the surrounding coreworlds, which were now standing by, ready to provide assistance in case something with the enormous crowd should indeed go awry.

The massive outcome of people baffled most, and everyone could only assume that it had to do with the people who had been whipped into a frenzy by…certain parties in the meantime, which had led to what the media generously called ‘increased political mobility’.

And, well, ‘mobility’ was right in a way. As he looked around, following Simon with his gaze as he circled around the group, James could see the difference between the crowd that had been there for his ascendance to the Council and the one that had flooded onto the station now with his own two eyes.

Previously, the crowds had been generally made up of the locals keeping the station running as well as the people hailing from close by planets just taking a day-vacation in order to witness his speech firsthand, with only very few people coming from further away if they could afford it time and money wise.

But now, it almost seemed like any ‘geographical’ borders had been erased, leaving the Community Station as a home for what was well and truly the most intermixed population of people James had ever witnessed.

No matter if standard-, core-, or deathworld; its population could be found among the crowd. In fact, James was actually sure that he had seen at least one person hailing from each of the high-class deathworlds among the crowd at this point.

Another difference was that, back after his own arrival, the local security had still refrained from separating the people of different orientations within the crowd, trusting civility to win out in this place dedicated to peaceful politics where other spots in the galaxy had long started keeping different factions in the crowd apart in order to avoid chaos.

However that, too, had all gone out the window now, and the securing forces were very hard at work to make sure the different political camps stayed within their dedicated areas. And those different camps didn’t just consist of ‘the people with them, the ones against them, and neutral ones’ this time.

Instead, many different, dedicated groups could be readily identified almost at a glance now, all bringing their own thoughts, biases and ideologies with them.

The ones who had been physically separated the furthest from each other were the people who had rallied around the Acting-Councilman Cashelngas, who didn’t seem to leave the house without signs or other indicators proclaiming their ‘fear the predators’ rhetoric anymore – and the resisting movement which had seemingly been founded specifically to combat them on the battlefield of ideas. The members of that one were even easier to make out, of course, as they all had their faces splattered with – luckily rather unconvincing – fake blood.

James still cringed a bit at that specific choice of expressing their gripes.

However, although those two groups had to be kept the furthest away from each other, they were by far not the only ideologies which had found themselves observing the occasion. Others James could spot based on signs or snippets of speeches he heard from their leading figures included, but were likely not limited to:

Those who believed that predators and deathworlders were welcome in the galaxy, but drew the line at ‘unnaturals’.

Their exact opposites, who believed people should give augmented individuals a chance and understood the want to be relieved of serious ailments through unorthodox procedures – who however very much thought that predators and deathworlders needed to be controlled.

Some people who appeared convinced that the entire conflict was merely a fabrication for the press while James and those he allegedly opposed were actually colluding behind closed doors and only putting on this whole act to try and make the large political changes they planned easier to stomach for the general populous.

And a rather colorful group of people who used the ongoing conflict as fuel to lobby for their ideas to blow off the election and disband the Council and Community entirely, leaving the galaxy in a free for all that would decide the new leadership and rules based on the right of might.

The oddest part about that group was that it strangely did not appear to be populated with high-class deathworlders or otherwise dominant species who one would expect to come out victorious in such a scenario, leaving James to wonder just where exactly the appeal behind it was for them.

In the meantime, Simon had finished his slow, panning circle around the group standing isolated at the center of the enormous crowd, and James could see how the young man fully zoomed in towards Nichola once more, just in time to film her slightly cheekily waving at the camera teams of other news-organizations, which of course all had to wait behind the protective line of soldiers.

She certainly enjoyed having the first privilege to be directly on the scene, and she had absolutely no qualms about showing it – even if she did keep an absolutely sweet expression on her face as she did.

Besides the two influencers, James’ accompaniment for today of course consisted of the usual suspects, who obviously were all just as eager to meet Curi again as he was. Also present were Fynn, who expressed great interest in finally meeting the mysterious cyborg; Admiral Krieger, who saw it as her duty to welcome the long lost refugee – and also secretly had a couple of private matters to discuss with them sooner rather than later; Ajaxjier, who came as an obvious choice, considering she was the other Council-Candidate with obvious augmentations; and finally Mougth, who was always right there standing by whenever an emotional rock to lean on might be needed.

Suddenly, his gaze was caught by an indicator-light above the airlock. The last few minutes, it had shone with a large, very intentionally obvious indication of danger. However now, that light extinguished, leaving the indicator dull and lifeless.

The atmosphere in the dock had been reinstated. Which meant the shuttle could now be safely disembarked from.

James’ jaw clenched slightly out of unexpected nervousness. He really didn’t know why he suddenly felt so tense about Curi coming through that door. After all, it was just Curi. Not exactly someone he was worried about meeting. Yet somehow, it still felt so…weighty.

His head snapped up a little bit as a more physical weight suddenly pressed against his shoulder, and just a slight shift of his gaze immediately informed him that Shida had allowed her body to drop and lean against him ever so gently, her ear closest to him twitching lightly as she, too, stared at the now extinguished light.

The expression on her face was forcibly neutral, however with how close they were standing to each other, James could very much see her lower lip subtly trembling as she tried to suppress expressing further emotions.

It seemed that, wherever that weight he felt may have come from, he was at least not alone in feeling it.

To comfort both her and himself, he wrapped his arm around hers and took her hand in his, as they more or less patiently waited for the door to finally open.

Meanwhile, the sign th…

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