"Eyes on a Foreign World"

[Guest Sar'vek t'Jhiin]

It'd been a balmy summer's night when she'd left Tomed. One night's travel, a few scattered minutes of sleep, and a frighteningly somber flight to ch'Rihan later and it was cool, more than a bit sultry.

 

Rihan herself cried for Earth, Sar'vek t'Jhiin noted grimly. Rain was coming down in sheets, though without it being a thunderstorm, it was soothing, melancholy. Not unusual for springtime in i-Ramnau, but nonetheless... apropos.

 

And it was eerie -- despite any variation in political sentiment, from the bleeding-heart responses of those advocating aid to the quiet rumblings of would-be vultures, the landing ports were almost silent. Ie, the attack had ripples reaching far and long.

 

"Hush, for the y'ya hear all". It was almost cliche, more often than na uttered when some less than favorable commentary on a deceased politician was offered, but its more... literal... overtones seemed to be being taken to heart here today.

 

Sar'vek had somehow known she'd chosen a bad time to go off-world. But there was only so long one could go between visits home to see to one's affairs and estate, and it had seemed... quiet. An election would never stagnate entirely, but it did seem stable enough that she could make a trip without things going completely to chaos in the meantime.

 

Thus, she ignored the small voice in the back of her head that had told her to delay, and had spent exactly four hours on Tomed before the newsfeeds had come in. Exactly four hours and three minutes after arriving home, she'd had the fastest vessel capable of passenger transport booked back to the Rihan homeworld.

 

She had a feeling she was hardly overreacting. This sort of near-cataclysmic event so late in an election cycle? To say it would have marked influence on the results of the next polls would be the understatement of the decade.

 

T'Jhiin mulled the most recent data in her mind as her flitter came to a standstill outside the headquarters for N'Dak's campaign. In the months she'd been serving as an advisor, the margin between Donatra and N'Dak had been narrowing considerably. Weighing the two praetorian candidates' plans for foreign policy in her mind, she could easily see Senator Donatra's lead slip away altogether. And it had been what... only a few points away in their last internal poll, anyway...

 

To say things would be getting very interesting would also be a grand understatement. To say that the election would be in any way "stable" from here on would be equally so.

 

The Rihannsu people would soon make their choice. And by all the Elements, she hoped they would chose wisely.