HOW TO TURN A PROFIT OUT OF CRISIS: A SF FRONTIER ADMIRAL QUEST

"I have every ounce of faith in you but you really should not be doing this sort of thing. "

You are currently saying this to Luca (who else) in a small antechamber leading to a boom. This boom is attached to Luca's personal swank-ship, which happens to be a decommissioned military frigate. Luca is straining to charge down the boom. She is being held back by Alessandro gens Idrine, who as a member of the same social class can lay hands on her without censure. Luca has also taken this opportunity to get in a few viscous elbows into Alessandro's ribs. Seubi is watching this with mild interest.

"Lemme at 'im!" Luca reasonably replies.

"I appreciate your bravery but I really need you back here."

"Let me take some PTO! I'll do it alone!"

"Oh for god's sake, Luca," you snap, patience similarly snapping, "you are not going to singlehandedly turn the tide of the operation by assisting the Gallu Fleet in a series of unlikely infantry engagements. I mean you're a bloody footslogger, they're doing a naval operation and they have quite decent marines on board!"

"Oh, prejudice, eh? Bloody interservice rivalry! Alessandro! Let me go or I'll feed you your bloody teeth!" It is obvious that this is a biomechanical improbability, given the hold Alessandro put her in, but she gives it a good go nevertheless. You have thought that she'd given up by now, but what she started this morning when she told you that she was heading over to Gallu Fleet to defeat the ENEMY in their lair. You have employed your vast powers of persuasion, but as the observer can see, it hasn't really worked.

You grab Seubi and throw him at her with a fix-this-for-me situation. Bugger's been taking this too easy. "Luca, are you doing this because you want to defeat the ENEMY-"

"-bloody well I do, I want to kill that smiling shit!"

"Or do you want to do this to get another medal?" He clicks his tongue. "Can you believe that, Alessandro?"

"M'fuckin'nose," he helpfully inputs.

"And you done and broke his nose, poor man," Seubi continues relentlessly. "Stacking infamy on infamy. Really! I thought better of you!"

Luca makes one last effort and shakes herself free. "Fineeeeee," she growls and stalks off. Alessandro begs off soon after, to fix his busted up face.

"Never knew you had kid wrangling in your repertoire. Not on your CV," you say, making some light conversation.

"First child, big family," Seubi waggles a hand. "Even if there were servants and shit around they still bothered me, the little shits. Anyway, now that we're alone, I've been meaning to ask you something?"

"Oh? 'Zit about the business?"

"Tangentially, tangentially." The two of you are walking through the corridors of the citadel. There's never enough room on these affairs, so the best the architects could do were one or two gardens for R and R. Otherwise you get space optimized corridors, aka, cramped. "It's about the Empire. Why'd you join the army?"

There's a hitch in your stride, but you hide that pretty well. "Money," you come back with.

"Damn, that's it?"

There's disappointment in his voice, but whatever. You've been dealing with this all your life. "That's it. Totality of my existence that is. Money. I don't want to die poor, I want to die rich. You know, once when I was… bit younger than you, actually, I actually believed in the Empire and all its crap. Then Old Ironguts, the old Marquis-Admiral, remember her? Well, she took me to her estate and said, 'kid, I brought all of this with graft money, so shut up about my side benefits. If you do that, this can all be yours'. 'Bout then, I was in too deep to quit for a nice plum consultancy job, you know? So I stuck to it."

"Hmm. So you're saying you don't really have any attachment to this?"

"Seubi, man, for a second I thought you were smart. Fuck yes I have an attachment-- this is my money making tree."

"No, I mean the Empire."

That stops you.

Okay, the question is, do you? Probably not. You're in the running for the most treasonous motherfucker to ever slime into a position of power in the Empire with your shenanigans. But can you imagine a life outside of the Empire? Think back. The conclusion is, not really. You don't care for it outside of what it can give you, which is becoming more and more meagre by day. But can you imagine a life outside of the Empire? No, not at all. Even the scenario you conjure of living in the ENEMY's territory as an exile looks much the same as you imagine what living in the Empire looks like.

"Nice try getting me to reveal treason, Seubi," you say cheerfully as the two of you reach an elevator. Seubi slows, he has things to do and is begging your leave soon. "My estimation of you is going up and up. I, as anyone will tell you, love the Empire with all my heart."

He snorts. "Good one." The elevator dings open. "But what should I think? I'm asking my workplace senior here. And if I go and welch to someone, you can just have me shot for sowing dissent."

You consider your words.

[]- "Stick to it. It's the only think you've got."
[]- "Fuck them. See a way out, take it."

Now imagine that you are Krazny di Aramac. You are a half barbarian, a descendant of runaway debtor slaves and the barbarians near the front. You are fiercely loyal to the idea of Empire, which is why you've joined the North Defense Fleet. The fact that the Marquis-Admiral is some sort of minor ethnicity that historically is still looked down on made you leap with joy. The very fact that they have managed to rise to the hallowed ranks of a Marquis-Admiral proves that the values of Empire are still alive. Meritocracy. Grace. Incorruptible offices.

You, too have proved it. With the help of the Marquis-Admiral smoothing some things over, you know, the general thing where toffs get in your face and start shouting about your station, you have managed to rise to the hallowed rank of the Commandant of the Gallu Fleet.

The Gallu Fleet!

Imagine, some shitkid, rising to command such a storied roll of heroes! When you asked the Marquis-Admiral why they shrugged and made a carry on motion, muttering something about, fuck the rest. Since that obviously proves your ability you have privately sworn to never let him down.

(The Marquis-Admiral looked vaguely disbelieving when you said as such to them in their office. "See that you do," he replied in obvious approval.)

In any case you are currently on the chivalric path, which consists of duty, obedience, fidelity, and bravery in the face of the Empire's foes. The duties of the path include killing everything with an IFF not registered with the Empire, of which you have wracked up a decent head count. From your ultradread, a superheavy slab of armor, engine, and guns, you have personally shattered a score and more of barbarian armadas and defensive installations. Imagine such a thing. Flanked by a defensive retinue of screeners, ewar vessels, and missile cruisers, diving through packets of resistance. Lasers and plasma fire had inscribed superficial decatory scars on your ultradread's armor plating. None of it has helped. They are still dead and expanding gas. You are barely chipped.

You are currently some eight hundred and extra light years in ENEMY territory (you turn to spit in disgust at the mere thought of the parasitic virii that dares to encroach on the fair Empire's borders. Your spittle lands on the cheek of some sub lieutenant of some thing or the other, who wipes off his superior officer's bodily fluids with stoic heroism.), orbiting a rather nice looking star. It's very blue, which is a color you have always appreciated in a star. Gold and other warm colors are rather overplayed, in your opinion. Strands of celestial dust envelop the Gallu Fleet like velvet around diamonds. You are considering your next move, as in the entirety of your excursion you have not actually fought the ENEMY, which of course, is only natural for those cowardly cheating bastards.

(Please ignore the many incidents where the ENEMY, with mastery of operational art and signals intelligence, managed to bushwack multiple Empire fleets while they were still wondering what the funny shapeson their sensors array were.)

"We should stop here," your staff officer of intelligence, Marco gens Who-Cares tells you. "The Marquis-Admiral was quite clear that our operational goal is solely to cause as much havoc and disruption amongst the ENEMY's client states, not a headfirst rush into their actual territory."

"I don't know what they're thinking," the Fleet Admiral of Gallu Subdivision 09 shrugs, who's currently cooling her heels in your bridge, seeing as her squadron doesn't have anything else to do. "Okay, that's a lie. I know what they're thinking. They want to get more money for United and ergo us. I'm fine with that. Still, we ought to give the ENEMY what for- they don't give a flying crap about their pet states, so we need to apply pain more directly into their home territories if we want ours to be safe."

You nod. That's very reasonable. "We have fueling and supply matters to think about. Conservative estimates gives us three months of raiding capability, less if we get into an actual fight. Whatever we do, we ought to secure a line of supply first," offers your logistics guy.

You turn to the projected map of this sector. To your rear, three jumps away, lie an especially well fortified barbarian system, that you note has a booming shipbuilding industry as well as earning stacks of cash on their exotic-matter energy sales. This is what your Marquis-Admiral, if they were here, would like you to take. If only it didn't make a big deal out of being technically neutral, but you figure that playing both sides ought to be classified as fraud and consorting with the ENEMY, so....

Now past a tributary of Isthmus glares a fortress system of the ENEMY. Actually, multiple fortress systems, a defense in depth across a stunningly vast frontage. You're beyond certain that you can take a single system, then two, before you get pecked apart by cowards. But if luck is on your side, luck and planning, once they're gone, that's all the ENEMY presence in this sector gone. Boom! Marquis-Admiral's happy, you've got a feather in your cap for taking on the ENEMY, ENEMY is crying tears of furious rage.

Okay. Mark that down. However, you have always thought that the best things come in threes, so here's the third. Fall like lightning on the home territories of the ENEMY. Do unto them what they did unto you. They're too busy fucking up the Empire, which is just a stupid thing to do now that the Gallu Fleet is here knocking at their doorsteps. Burn, slaughter, and kill, move fast, break things, until you've burned a score of planets and return home triumphant!

So.

WHAT'S THE PLAN?
[]- "Let's turn around and invade that system, lads."
[]- "We gotta wipe out that fortress."
[]- "Plan a course through the ENEMY's territory."

Your headache's coming on again.

You are currently in your office, having a nice cuppa, when a report from the Gallu Fleet came through your inbox. You opened it suspecting nothing, Krazny likes to outdo himself, after all. And this time, he really outdid himself. He's sent back a smug little communique about his successful counterraid into the ENEMY's heartland. Fair's fair, you're not going to cry over it. But what really galls you (heh, galls, Gallu) is that he turned over multiple perfectly fine choices to expand your racket. Is money not good enough for him? Maybe it's good that you sent him into ENEMY territory. He can die and get out of your hair.

Wait, shit, if that happens you're going to be censured for getting the Gallu Fleet killed. Thanks, Commandant. You fervently send a prayer hoping he eats shit, and another one hoping that ineffable fate is currently on a literalist bent.

"Marquis-Admiral. Lieutenant-Admiral Alessandro reporting, sir."

"Come in."

Promotion has buffed up Alessandro. No to ways around it. He gleams, these days, sort of like how brass gets shinier after you buff it up with a sleeve. It's the self satisfaction. "Got a communique from back home. They want help."

"Who's back home?" You lean backwards and watch as he takes a seat uninvited.

"Not Centre," he clarifies. "Just a bunch of magnates, you know, people who own the private flotillas and probably the officers of the sys-def forces."

"Ahhh. Let me employ my powers of prediction. They want my divisions."

"Got it in one. Be straight with me, Marquis, let me in on the enormity of your plots. Elucidate to me how you have seen the eighteen narrow roads out of this treacherous mountain terrain, unworthy as I may be."

You wait with an elegantly cocked eyebrow, until Alessandro feels embarrassed. However, the bastard has long evolved a sense of shame out of his system as an evolutionary throwback. "It's nothing. I simply have every ounce of faith in them to defeat the ENEMY, who are slinking bastards who cannot put up a fight. And in any case, prevailing wisdom holds that the best way to get OPFOR out of your undefended territories is to counterraid their territories."

"I read those books too," Alessandro agrees. "However, pure operational science often fails to predict the various confounding factors in an actual strategic situation. For instance, you being strung up and quartered for deserting the defense of the Empire."

"Perspacious fellow."

"I have, throughout the course of my life, always sought to iterate on my insight and foresight."

You nod. "Very good. Then, my Lieutenant-Admiral, advise me on a course." Alessandro nods. "At this time, Gallu Fleet has plotted a course through ENEMY territory, killing and burning. We are advancing steadily with the bulk of our forces after Gallu Fleet. Many of our divisions are light year upon light year from their home ports. In essence, by weakening our home front, we are expanding our frontiers. Let us hear your observation from this."

Alessandro nods once more. He taps his fingers on your desk, looking up at the ceiling. "First of all, on a purely short term notice, we have no home front. That is to say, Centre and the provinces thereof are not actually supplying us. Ever since you created United we have been taking fuel, ammunition, and other supplies directly from this Front. By the way, I want to congratulate you on such a logistical endeavour."

"Your congratulations are accepted, as are your observations." You steeple your fingers and give him the Number 3 Look: I Want To Intimidate You But I May Also Have Vision Issues. "Continue."

"On one point of view, the thing most beneficial to the fleet is to let these guys hang. Handle their own affairs. They do keep complaining that we're the thugs of the Archon, here to bully honest men about."

"We are all members of the great society, Alessandro," you remind him absentmindedly. "Please do not impugn the honor of your fellows."

He snorts. He doesn't believe it, you don't believe it, but you have to keep up appearances, even in private. Also, you're still suspicious of this guy. Dollars to doughnuts he's planning on selling you out to the next highest bidder. That would have been the ENEMY, but you got there first, haha. "On another point of view, the Empire is the axis that the world revolves around. Frontier duty has long been treated as somewhat of an exile. It may not pan out like that in practice, but that is the view. Therefore, you ride in, a conquering hero, haloed by an aura of grace."

"Or get stuck in endless troop deployment arguments."

"Indeed."

"What do you think I should do?"

"You're the Marquis-Admiral. You tell me."

"As one of my liutenants you have a similarly large role in the decisionmaking of the front. Besides, I'm a diversity hire, I'm from the proles, and I'm practically half a barbarian and I've been investigated for corruption. Do you want me to make the decision? You're gens, enlighten me."

Gens to the bone, this boy. Centuries of breeding and social expectations overrode good sense, and he said--

HERE'S WHAT WE SHOULD DO
[]- "We should send a request to Centre for a fleet to reinforce us, and therefore these people. We're well within our rights, and this way we can finally figure out what's going on back there."
[]- "With how things are going with Gallu Fleet and their associated divisions, we can ease up on the raid and conduct a more active defense. Send a couple divisions over, enough to take control over things."
[]- "I don't think helping them out will strengthen our position, but we need to do something to keep up appearances. Why don't you offer United' logistical services, pro bono, to them? That's the hardest part of keeping a fleet intact.

"Capital," you tell him. "Make it so." You stand up, ignoring his surprised expression. "Alessandro, through all my life, I have considered my crowning work the defense of the Northern Front." What pap. It was the achievement of the position, and he knows it. "With the gates secured, the city has nothing to fear. But they have ever sought to undermine the defense. Frankly, I have better things to do. I need to plan a war, sustain an army, and grow our buisness. Lucky for me that you came along, eh?" You clap a hand on his shoulder.

---

You are now Krazny di Armagnac once again. You are currently deeply enjoying your life, even if you have a funny hollow feeling in your gut because you haven't actually smashed any ENEMY fleets proper. As a matter of doctrine you've caught multiple freight transports, smashed up some orbital stations, and reduced a couple planets into bombed out husks. But no actual fleet. You're getting nervous.

"Perhaps they're all at Isthmus." One of your staff suggests. "That would explain it."

"If they're all at Isthmus that makes our job easier. Pass it back, let the other fleets handle it while we do our own thing."

"We're the heaviest," another points out. "We should do this, not them. They're just back there, cooling their heels, while we're doing all the dirty work. Fuck'em."

You feel that. You really do. Heroism, or duty?

[]- DEEPER: Let the second stringers handle the rest. You'll give something for the ENEMY to worry about.
[]- ISTHMUS: Alright fine let's do the tactically and strategically sound thing. Turn for Isthmus, ruin their staging areas.