The Lost Queen Book 2 - Kehlani

67. Nopinus

I sit on the couch alone. "Can you show me what's attacking you? In color please."

It's a little thing. It's got white skin and about 3 feet tall. It's quite skinny. White spikey hair. 2 big eyes. Little mouth. Walks on 2 legs, but it's hunched over. It has long arms and hands with 5 fingers each. Then I realize it has weird sacks on its feet... Shoes. This is intelligent life.

"Show me it live."

1 of them comes over and kicks a brain. The brain doesn't budge.

"They seem to have no weapons, ma'am."

"I noticed. Can I talk through the brain?"

"Yes ma'am."

"Do that." The brain turns green. I stare at it with an eyebrow up. Then I watch the little thing still kicking, "What are you doing?"

He looks up so quickly he falls on his ass. "What are you doing?"

"Mining ore. Do you have a leader I can speak with?" They glance around at each other. "We are only mining. I will not hurt you or your home. I only want to speak with your leader. We will negotiate." This seems to be what they wanted to hear. 1 of them leads the brain off.

I stay with that brain and little thing. We go up to a fire. There seems to be more of them around here and some little children. We're at the base of a mountain. I think they live in caves on it. I see a cave entrance.

"This is our leader, Maulk."

"Hello sir."

"Hello. What are you?" He plops down on his ass from standing.

"Put me there in color please."

"Yes ma'am."

I appear standing beside the fire. "I am High Queen Kehlani. We need a certain ore and found it on your planet. We began mining not knowing the planet is habituated by humanoids."

"Humanoids?"

"Human like. Or intelligent life."

"Yes. We are intelligent."

"I can see that. May I continue mining? It will not hurt your planet or people. And I apologize for not asking earlier. I would have asked before we began if I knew you were there."

"Of course. You have another planet like mine?"

"I have a few. I'm a high queen. I rule multiple planets and help them with technologies and defenses as I can."

"Baby, we're going down. We can't figure this out." Alden stares at me with the little thing. "After, we sit on the couch." Him and Elek come in and sit on the couch.

I smile. "What do you call yourselves? We call ourselves people or humans. Do you have a name?"

"We are nopinus."

"Does your planet have a name?"

"Nopino."

"I'm from a planet named Terros. It's far from here."

"How did you get here?"

"I'm in space above your planet. I have a big ship up here. We travel through space."

"You can help with technology?"

"Maybe. I don't know what technology you have now. We may not be able to help much."

"We have fire."

"We have that too."

"Do you have a way where we don't have to sleep in dirt?"

"Yea, we can fix that."

"We wish to submit to you High Queen Kehlani."

"Summon the boys." I focus on the little thing. "I will find a king for your planet. Give me a second."

"Of course."

Alkawn comes in first, he must have been down the hall. "Did you want to rule a planet?"

"Not currently."

"Ok."

He steps out of the way and the assholes fall in.

"Can either of you take another planet now?"

Victor scratches his head, "Sure, my planet's in a rest time anyways."

"I still need an empty planet."

"Come here, Victor. This is planet leader Maulk. He leads the planet Nopino. His people are the nopinus. They have fire, but wish for a way not to sleep in the dirt. And other technologies."

"How many are there?"

"Population of Nopinus 74,000."

"I can show you shelter, beds, blankets. We'll have to come down and see where you live now."

"That will be fine."

I smile at the Maulk. "This is King Victor. He will be the king you are submitting to. He will be helping your planet with technology and blankets."

"Of course, ma'am. We welcome you to visit King Victor."

Victor scratches his head and the boys walk out the door. "They are on their way down, sir. They will be with you shortly."

"Thank you ma'am."

"Of course." I motion to the brain to cut it off. "Tell them to let me know when the planet submits and I will send the brains down for it."

"Yes ma'am."

"What am I mining here anyway?"

"Steel ore."

"Does this planet have gold?"

"Yes, and diamonds. Enough for 1 diamond mine and 3 gold mines."

"Go ahead and send down the 4 mining teams for that then."

"Yes ma'am."

"Alden said they submitted."

"Send 25,000 brains down to them. Victor can sort out what to do with them."

"Yes ma'am."

"Did anyone stay on the ship?"

"No ma'am."

"Stop saying ma'am."

"Of course."

I go to my apartment and eat. Then I take a nap. I wake up and there's still nobody here, so I go to the planet too. I come face to face with a very huge animal. It's massive. Bigger than an elephant. But it's covered in scales and dark brown in color. Its skin is armor. It walks by me slowly and eats a bush.

I shake my head and watch a brain. It seems they're making little houses. Or showing the nopinus how to make little houses out of the trees. That makes me happy. At least they'll be off the ground. Another brain makes something that appears to be a bed frame. Other brains make liquid of some kind. A brain carries a huge tank by me and I scratch my head. "Ok, what is going on?"

Tobias laughs. "They are building a village for them. Get them housing with running water. Beds, blankets, better clothes and shoes. The brains are building it, but they're showing the nopinus how to do it as well. They know how to trap and cook on the fire. So they're teaching them how to fish and plant vegetables."

Alden nods. "Making them more comfortable. We can send in more upgrades later, but at least get them comfortable for now. It'll give Victor some time to think. Victor was explaining to Maulk how to get a hold of him. When he's done, we'll go up and eat dinner. I think everyone's getting hungry."

"I've got a diamond mine and 3 gold mines here. And then my steel ore mines."

"I'll do the negotiating then." He gives me a head kiss.

We get up to the ship an hour later. Me and the kings end up back in his office eating dinner. Elek takes off again and searches for more mining areas for me.

Alden stands up, "Here is the deal. The mines are controlled by me and Kehlani. We use our ships to collect the ore. We use our brains to mine it. From this point forward, if a planet submits to you, you will get 2% of the resources or 2% of the value of the resources we are mining from it. Anything you want to add?"

"Yea, about 3 more percent." Tobias shoves food in his mouth. "And the ability to pick whether it's resources or the value of them we're getting."

Alden starts laughing, "Without us, you wouldn't get anything. We're giving it to be nice."

"Still our planets. Without our permission, you can't be mining on it."

"He's got a point."

"You're supposed to be on my side, Alkawn."

"I really think I'm on their side."

I sit up, "I'm ok with the 5%. We're still getting 95%."

"5% is too much. They are doing nothing."

"What else do you want?"

"Back to 2%. 5% is too much."

"I'm mining steel ore from Victors planet. Am I supposed to give him 5% of that? What the hell does he want it for? I'm the person who needs it."

"I don't want that ore. I would pick the value."

"I'm not paying them for mining ore they don't even want."

"Let's go with that." Alkawn gets a paper out. "4% of all gold, silver, and gems mined out of submitted planets. However, you don't pay us for anything else. We get no resources or money for it. You still have to inform us you are on the planet and mining. But we don't get anything. Would you deal with 4% then?"

"3%."

Tobias laughs, "3.5%. And my planet is not affected by this change."

"Fine."

I motion for the brain, "Add that to the vows for rank 1. I'm not negotiating that for every planet... or ever again. All submitted planets me and Alden mine from, the king of said planet will receive 3.5% of all gold, silver, and precious gems mined off it. They will receive no benefits from other mines. Tobias's first planet is unaffected by this change."

"Of course."

"There that's done."

"What's your first planet at?"

"5%."

"What the hell?"

"He negotiated with Kehlani. Kehlani is no longer allowed to negotiate anything."

The 3 of them laugh.

"Why does this matter now?"

"The queen put 3 gold mines and a diamond mine on Victor's new planet. Figured we should agree, she's going to keep doing it."

"f**k. I'm rich."

Alden cracks up laughing. "It's not all at once, Victor. You'll get your 3.5% as we get it off the planet. We're not going to pay you for what we don't have yet."

Alkawn crosses his arms. "What ores does this include?"

"All of them. I don't even know them to list them. I'm sure there's a million and 99% I will never need or mine."

"Yea, that's true."

"There is 1 that we know of." I give Alden a dirty look. "This information doesn't leave this room ever. Do not talk about it anywhere else. Do not say it or bring it up. Nobody else has this knowledge." They nod. "It's called black ore. It's the ore that runs our hyperspace drives. We have to have it. We will mine it wherever we find it. We will fight for it. We will defend it. We will not give anyone a percent. But we will keep your ships going. Black ore does not get listed anywhere, and it's considered 1 of the ores we don't know about and will probably never need. Questions?"

"None sir." Alkawn smiles. "I knew there was something. And our lovely queen is so secretive about her mining planet."

They laugh again.

I stretch. "I think I'm done for the day."

"Yea, let's call it a day." Alden helps me up.