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

[Laplace]

There's some things you never want to be in the position of, and among those things is the position of informing Empire Border Defense, Relative North Fleet, that pay is hereby suspended for an unknown period of time, owing to certain circumstances in Empire Administrative Centre, the Holiest of Holies. You can read between the lines, and even though the news is usually months old by the time the couriers get to you you keep up with it. The Archon dead, the big Dead, can't revive 'em, mobs in the most vaunted halls of state, shit like that. So they can't pay you, sorry. The courier- a light, fast vessel packed with transmission data and repeaters- buzzed past your citadel and sent you the unwelcome news. It's not too late to nuke that shit and see something good but that would land you in pretty hot water.

You are the Margrave-Admiral of the Empire. Below you is the common soldier. A sort of life form who have decided, with the infinite bounty of the stars and the bountiful engine of innovation open to them, to say to themselves, 'yes, I would like a life where I run the risk of being spaghetti'd into a multitude of lower energy states, and furthermore, I would like to live for nothing other than the chance to do it to the other bastard.' They are rowdy, perpetually high on the adolescent feeling of immortality, and given to doing really stupid shit. Above you is the Brass. A sort of life form who have decided, with the infinite wisdom of the ages and the clarity of vision by committee, to give the aforementioned common soldier access to weaponry, from the humble infantry omnikiller, a phasic chimera of manstopper, beamer, and mortar to the authorization codes for the planetcrackers on your flagship.

Between these two worlds with the collective intelligence of the microbes in your water is you. Therefore, by logical deduction, you are even more of a gigamoron then the above two. So what drives you? What ties you to this post? What makes you loyal to the Empire?

LOYALTY:
[]- INVIOLATE: TO CONSIDER BETRAYING THE EMPIRE WOULD BE AKIN TO RIPPING YOUR OWN HEART OUT. THOUGH THE BASTARDS IN CHARGE MAY BE *WRONG* AND THEY MAY BE *MISINFORMED OF THE SITUATION* THE EMPIRE WILL NEVER FALTER. AND IF IT DOES IT IS BECAUSE THE MAGNIFICENT EMPIRE HAS BEEN *BETRAYED* BY INTERNAL ELEMENTS, AND IT MAY-- HEAVENS FORBID-- FALL UPON YOU TO UNDERTAKE A RESTORATION TO THE GOOD OLD VALUES WHICH THE EMPIRE RESTS UPON..
[]- MERCENARY: YOU ARE AWARE OF THE COST BENEFIT ANALYSIS OF BEING A FRONTIER ADMIRAL VS *CIVVIE STREET.* AS A RANKING OFFICER OF THE EMPIRE YOU ARE ENTITLED TO A PENSION AND INDEPENDANT COMMAND OF A MILITARY FLEET. BLOODLESS LIZARD BANKERS AND OTHER OLIGARCHAL FORMS OF PARASITE MAY MAKE MORE THAN YOU BUT HOW MANY DIVISIONS DO THEY COMMAND? ZERO. YOU COMMAND FIFTY, AND WILL GLADLY REMIND THE BASTARDS IN CHARGE OF THAT WHEN THEY THINK ABOUT CUTTING PENSIONS THIS FISCAL YEAR AGAIN.
[]- WARMONGER: GOSH BUT YOU LOVE WAR. YOU LOVE WAR IN THE VOID, WAR IN THE ATMOSPHERE, AND WAR ON THE GROUND. YOU LOVE WAR IN ALL ITS FORMS AND CONSIDER THE WORDS *PEACE TALKS* AND *MAYBE WE SHOULD PUT SOME MILITARY MONEY TO HELPING ORPHANS* TO BE DEEPLY OFFENSIVE, ON PAR WITH VARIOUS FORMS OF RACIAL SLURS. YOU ARE A *POPULAR PERSONALITY* ON THE LATE NIGHT TALK SHOW WHERE YOU IMPLY THAT 'THEY' ARE COMING FOR THE EMPIRE. WHO 'THEY' ARE IS CONTINGENT ON HOW MUCH SPONSORSHIP MONEY YOU RECEIVE.

In any case, your loyalty is now no longer the issue. Now is an issue of logistics, for if your troops do not get their pay by the end of this fiscal quarter, it is you who will be quartered. You pop open a holoscreen and fiddle around with some sums and come out with the dismal prospect of somehow turning up a sum best expressed in scientific notation.

Balls, you think. What the fuck am I gonna do to get that?

Well, you do have a full warfleet. Fifty divisions, which means you have fifty divisions worth of destroyers. Of cruisers. Of carriers and battleships. And you have enough fuel and munitions to arm all those ships, which will sell for a pretty penny. And you have all that shit to feed your mouth-breathers (both non-commissioned and commissioned). Oh, and the swarms of 'public private partners' and 'military contractors' who dog your steps like dogs. And and and the most honored elements of your fleet, the-

THE MOST HONORED ELEMENTS OF THE FLEET
[]- COMPENSATORY OVERKILL SUPERWEAPONS - STRATEGIC DEVASTATION AUTHORIZATION CODES: In your possession, to be used entirely at your discretion, but with an end-of-year military tribunal, are ten Codes, the pinnacle of Empire esotechnology. Load it onto a laser, beam them into the sun, and bug out real fast. The fact that the pinnacle of esotechnology is apparently only good for turning suns (and anything else, come to think of it) into rotting lesions of ultraradioactive space via laser tightbeam is a philosophical matter regarding the nature of the Empire, AKA, useless for a simple soldier. Use these to bully the ENEMY and semi-aligned statelets to get your way in negotiations. Pray that you don't actually need to use them. Or just use them for fun!
[]- PSYCHOPATHIC MUTE SUPERSPACEFIGHTERS- DAS VOGELFREI: The Vogelfrei do not eat. The Vogelfrei do not sleep. The Vogelfrei do not breathe. The Vogelfrei exist only for the torture and the slaughter. These frankly terrifying exhuman auxilae, slaved with Empire loyalty codes operate and are their machines- a triptych of ultra-advanced construction with exotic material, capable of bouncing direct energy fire from battleships. Defensive energy coronae radiate from their hearts, spinning apart KKVs. They are armed with a laser capable of sawing apart even the thickest of starship armor, imploder missiles mounted on slip-drives that can ninja past shields and a brainkiller EMP pulse. Use these to assassinate dignitaries and high value targets. Pray they don't rethink their contract or get ordered to off you. Or just hire them out at a profit!
[]- SPACE MARINES MARINES OORAH- MARATHON INFANTRY REVIVAL/REINSITUATION PROTOCOLS: Groundpounders die in war. A lot. Ergo: dispense with costly augmentation systems that can turn anyone into a divine god of battle. Invest instead in equally costly quantum timeline/alternative reality breachers. Revive your dead soldiers, exploded tanks, and artillery parks ad infinium, or at least until the systems break with the strain. The possibility of one of your timeline ghosts being a hyperaugmented soldier-god that can singlehandedly win most conflicts for you is just a bonus. With the Marathon, you can press through most things with sheer weight of fire. Use these to win limited engagements without climbing up the escalation ladder. Pray your bullshit esotech doesn't break and summon evil versions of your troops that believe in not killing people for money. Or just use 'em to conquer everyone in range of a troop transport!

Oh, wait. You're not really awake, because if you were, you'd realize, that across this blasted waste of stars, barbarian statelets, overgunned tax evaders, pirates, really weird chillast religions, cold cruel exhuman monsters, and bleak howling fuck-all, is the ENEMY. Who has spies in your base. You know, because you have spies in theirs. The two of you usually swap the heads and other body parts of an unlucky spy to each other at year's end, as to justify a biiiiiig counterintel budget. Anyway, you don't want to think about the ENEMY now, because they're an alright chap for a drooling rapacious semi-evolved congenitally deficit barbarous gibbering foe of all that is good and holy and because you need to think up of a way to save your own ass from being fragged by your own troops.

Like these two, who've knocked, been told to enter, and are now entered.

THE AIDES [SELECT TWO USELESS BRAINLESS ADJUNCTS]
[]- THE PIRATE: This criminal was way too good at their job of stealing shit, killing shit, and ransoming VIPs back to the Empire. It got to the point that the Big Brains Upstairs decided that paying them off was cheaper than capturing Lyinsan Arpeggio. You turn to them when you need some more money and some deniable and sketchy jobs that need to be done. Okay, fine, maybe they demand that they get to loot and raid when you let 'em off the books, but fine. You don't need to comp them for that, even if eventually the auditors might want an explanation of why you're sheltering a criminal element so close to you.
[]- THE SCION: gens Abunco, a house rich and storied in tradition, has produced a useless gene squirt they've seen fit to fob off on you. Okay, fine. You were drinking buddies with their patriarch in officer college. Fine. The grandkid needed a job. Fine. But for all the money in the world, couldn't gens Abunco have find a tutor who could actually teach this young degenerate a skill? Luca gens Abunco is a midwit moron who thinks too highly of herself, a serial duelist, and an expert border/killer. The rabble likes her, her family (for some stupid reason) likes her, so you are pressured into liking her and hoping gens Abunco won't mire your career in scandal when Luca takes three bullets to the brain pan when she's boarding another vessel.
[]- THE STRIVER: From nothing, and by hook and crook and outright blackmail, a pedantic knowledge of protocol and which asses to kiss, Tszin has climbed up from a comfortably numb middle class existence to the heights of the Empire war machine. He sees a future rich off of consulting gigs in MIC companies, fat and corrupt. You don't mind it too much-- a man's got to eat (or retire wealthy) and his connections with the contractors who build and arm your ships are always appreciated. He's just actually arse at this 'military tactics and strategy' thing, and assigning actually talented aides to him only goes so far.
[]- THE PRINCE: Seubi vi Markoviz is the prince of the Serene Peace of the Hy-Quadi, which is a small and not particularly notable vassal nation of the Empire. From family connections Seubi received an Empire Military Visa, and rose up the ranks with more than a few bribes. Cultured, erudite, he is the summation of the good barbarian. You don't know if that eats at him or not, only that he does his job, which he does alright. His divisions specialize in lighter, barbarous builds, shittier than the ships of the line you use. But he's really good at making friends with the barbarian statelets. Everyone likes him, even if you want to smash his head against the wall after he writes off his drunken binges with the lads as job expenses.
[]- THE KILLER: What brains Chzy had was replaced long ago by a ferocious and terrible machine. Orders come down, she fulfills them. Target needs to be extracted, extracted. Enemy force needs to be destroyed, destroyed. Orphanages need to be mortared, mortared. Ethical judgment can be out contracted to the nearest highest ranking officer. She was promoted entirely on her personal competence, which is a rare thing indeed in this man's empire. At least you can trust her to do her job even if you might have to remind her that prisoners of war should not be fired out of a cannon and into the sun.

"What's the problem?" One of them asked. You forward the good news at their cortex-interfaces while you finish brushing your teeth. You've done your molars when they've finished collecting their brain cells to make a conclusion. "It's a big problem," Aide 1 says. "Shit, last time I was back at the capital things weren't that bad. I thought IntSec had a handle on things. Good to know they're as much of a fuck up as us- I mean, a mob breaking into the Archonate Ascension? Last time they did that… it was the bad old days, man."

"Thank you for stating the obvious." Now you're working on your tusks, which has always been a point of pride for you. Nice and ivory keen. "This is why I keep you around. The stars and the nothing know that I wouldn't manage to lift my own dick without you. Now think for real. What the fuck are we gonna do?"

"We could desert," Aide 2 raises.

"I'll space you if you keep that shit up. Give me a real suggestion. Actually, I'll do you one better. Have one of mine, and use your brains this time. Your real brains, and not the fucking autopilot you run though the day until you can get blackout drunk. Here-"

PLAN OF ACTION
[]- HONESTLY AND FORTHRIGHTLY ADMIT THAT THIS QUARTER'S PAY IS NONWITHCOMING FROM CENTRAL COMMAND AND DO NOTHING ELSE BUT TRUST IN THE COMMON SOLDIER'S LOVE OF EMPIRE. (Do not do this you will be fragged and you will have to do chargen again. And again. And again. Until you pick another vote.)
[]- SHAMELESSLY AND THRIFTILY SELL OFF RESERVE FUEL AND MUNITIONS TO THE HORDES OF CAPITALIST-VULTURES BUZZING AROUND YOU. HOPE TO GOD THAT THE enemy WILL NOT LAUNCH A REAL INVASION.
[]- THUGGISHLY AND BRUTALLY EXTORT FEES FROM THE STATELETS OF THE BORDER REGION. FUCK'EM, THEY'RE NOT REAL NATIONS. HOPE TO GOD THAT NONE OF THE BARBARIAN PRESIDENTS AND KINGS HAVE THE EAR OF THE SENATE.
[]- NOBLY AND IDIOTICALLY LAUNCH A FULL SCALE ATTACK TOWARDS THE enemy. MAKE UP PAY IN BATTLE LOOT. HOPE TO GOD THAT THE enemy IS NOT PAYING ATTENTION AND THAT YOUR TROOPS WON'T DEMAND HAZARD PAY.
[]- FAITHFULLY AND CONSCIENTIOUSLY SEND A POLITE DEMAND CONSISTING OF A DIVISION, WHICH IS NO WAY A THREAT. HOPE TO GOD THAT THE BRASS WILL NOT SEND YOU TWO DIVISIONS TO DRAG YOU BACK IN CHAINS FOR AN EXECUTION BY ELECTROCRUCIFICATION.

 

[Laplace]

10 people voted for space marines, 9 voted for super space fighter as while the main vote is tied at 7 there were two variants at 3 and 2 votes respectively

Click to shrink...

Ah, so it is. Gotta remember to look more closely, thanks for the save. Yeah, tiebreaker vote. Closing in two hours as of this post.

[]- MERCENARY: YOU ARE AWARE OF THE COST BENEFIT ANALYSIS OF BEING A FRONTIER ADMIRAL VS *CIVVIE STREET.* AS A RANKING OFFICER OF THE EMPIRE YOU ARE ENTITLED TO A PENSION AND INDEPENDANT COMMAND OF A MILITARY FLEET. BLOODLESS LIZARD BANKERS AND OTHER OLIGARCHAL FORMS OF PARASITE MAY MAKE MORE THAN YOU BUT HOW MANY DIVISIONS DO THEY COMMAND? ZERO. YOU COMMAND FIFTY, AND WILL GLADLY REMIND THE BASTARDS IN CHARGE OF THAT WHEN THEY THINK ABOUT CUTTING PENSIONS THIS FISCAL YEAR AGAIN.
[]- WARMONGER: GOSH BUT YOU LOVE WAR. YOU LOVE WAR IN THE VOID, WAR IN THE ATMOSPHERE, AND WAR ON THE GROUND. YOU LOVE WAR IN ALL ITS FORMS AND CONSIDER THE WORDS *PEACE TALKS* AND *MAYBE WE SHOULD PUT SOME MILITARY MONEY TO HELPING ORPHANS* TO BE DEEPLY OFFENSIVE, ON PAR WITH VARIOUS FORMS OF RACIAL SLURS. YOU ARE A *POPULAR PERSONALITY* ON THE LATE NIGHT TALK SHOW WHERE YOU IMPLY THAT 'THEY' ARE COMING FOR THE EMPIRE. WHO 'THEY' ARE IS CONTINGENT ON HOW MUCH SPONSORSHIP MONEY YOU RECEIVE.

 

[Laplace]

"-Luca, you take one of the divisions, head back to Port Calaay." Port Calaay is a hollowed out planetoid that also has the closest representative of the Empire's administrative mechanisms, aside from you. Except that Port Comptroller Khoulin actually has control over your budget-- you don't. Because if you had the authority to budget yourself money you'd turn your Front into even more of a petty kingdom and start getting funny ideas about your relative independance, a problem that the Empire has learned to deal with. "Ask Khoulin what the fuck's going on. And don't take no for an answer."

"Alright!" Luca cheers. "But uh, you don't think he'll take it poorly?"

You shrug. You think Khoulin's a paper pushing data entering twit who should have been left to die of exposure when he was born. "Find some of the crappier looking ones. Division Niner Niner went through that tussle with the ENEMY-"

"-fuckin' unevolved halfwit drooler-"

"-Thank you for your contribution, Lieutenant Admiral Luca. Anyway, take Div Niner Niner and fix 'em up at Calaay. We're going to have to make some cuts. What the hell is the Brass thinking?"

Seubi raises the bonsai shrubbery that his species calls a hand. "You know, we could just uh." He coughs, and Luca and you wave away the cloud of pollen from his lungs. "Sorry, sorry. But look, there's lots of states out here that are with the E- the other guy. And we do have an order from Central to teach those enemy-aligned statelets a harsh lesson."

Tempting, tempting. But… "No. That's a damned good idea, Seubi, and we might just have to turn to that soon," you say with absolutely no regret and more than a hint of longing. "I bet that prick across the stars is watching and listening. Luca, you get me my money no matter what."

She nods. "Can I open fire if it all goes wonky?" she asks.

Luca gens Abunco, you give to the world. You refuse her request even though it sounds like a jolly good one. She leaves for Port Calaay soon later.

Now consider the area of your Front. You garrison a three dimensional area of thousands upon thousands of parsecs, where control is a suggestion instead of ironclad law. Your fifty divisions are scattered in this area, some deployed closer to the front as tripwires, but most to the rear as quick response forces. Your command citadel, an artificial gigaship bigger than some moons, is located somewhere in the middle of this whole affair. FTL communications is possible, but if you can transmit information FTL then you might as well do it to matter, so you do have a small fleet of FTL courierships to carry out secure transmissions.

Okay, other good news is that most of these divisions won't actually know that they can't be paid. Some of them might get waspy overdraft notices from their credit card companies when a private courier zooms by the end of the next fiscal quarter but you can keep this on the down low for quite a while.

Except you really shouldn't. These things you should let everyone know, because if you don't trust the idiots under you, they won't trust you. Public hysteria is a… political affair. A convenient semi-truth, heh.

Okay, now sketch out the consequences.

Some of your guys will desert- well, not desert, per say, but a good chunk of your guys won't bother to renew their contracts and head to greener pastures. You're fairly certain that some of the divisions will start charging the states where they're based on rent. You've got to put out a coherent policy soon, while fending off the ENEMY. At least you can hope that their tottering edifice of repressive horror cocks up as bad as your noble Empire does.

By 1230 you've called all representatives of the Divisions, your staff, and all officers on deck for a military plebiscite. Not the grunts, they don't count. And also, if you stuffed all of the grunts into the forum they wouldn't fit and also you want their officers to tell them what's coming next. If a L.T. or a sergeant asked why your answer would be that you want the person they know and trust giving them the bad news. But the truth is that shit rolls downhill and you want them to experience the same suffering you will shortly experience.

They come in a slow trickle. A lot of these are sensor techs and other technical officers, and they need to make sure their shifts won't cause a runaway criticality event when their asshole boss drags them away from their work.

There's a couple thousand in the forum when you step onto the stage, the ceremonial fasces in your arm. It's a stupid, beastly heavy anachronism, but you can't really argue with tradition. You can drop it with a thunk that the speakers broadcast the moment you get to the podium, though.

"Friends. Comrades. Citizens," you start, cribbing from the greats. "My apologies for the disruption. Many of you are no doubt wondering why I have elected to call you here. That is because I have received news from Central." You take a breath. This isn't going to be easy. "Owing to certain disturbances in the Capitol, Central is currently withholding pay until such time the chaos is sorted out."

You wait until the chaos in the forum is sorted out. A lot of these people are augmented beyond physical capability, so they can shout themselves hoarse for a long long while. You wait until the noise is all gone. "Firstly, I want to make it clear that at no point are we to simply sit and take it." This goes over better. "Many of you have no doubt wondered why Division Niner Niner has left for Port Calaay for repairs when this citadel has a perfectly functional dock. That's because Lieutenant Admiral Luca gens Abunco is making it clear, in no uncertain terms, that we will get our payslips signed and the money transferred."

Okay, so it's not the Great General Resheniye's Your life is not enough. I won't be satisfied until I have drunk your blood and eaten your brains.' Especially since the honored Great General, Protector and Martyr of the State, followed it up by actually doing it to the ENEMY, but you make do with what you have. "But," you continue, "I am aware that relying on the bureaucrats to sort things out is a bit… dicey. So I will straightaway pen a plan of funding and budgeting for the next fiscal quarter should the monies not be forthcoming. So I ask you to please remain at your stations until such a time. I remind you that should we leaven the Northern Front deserted, the ENEMY will sweep down, conquer Port Calaay, snatch up the Bandersnatch Stretch, and have the perfect staging ground to invade, insult, and otherwise inconvenience the Imperial Centre."

You see some faces constrict in unthinking patriotism. Others are shrugging it off. "And, of course, in such a scenario, I would imagine that we would be executed for dereliction of duty. The standard implement, by the way, being crucifixion while an electric current runs through you. So no matter what, we will do our duty. Understood? Dismissed."

No replying cheers answer you, but on the other hand you don't get rotten produce thrown at you either. You'll call that a win. At the very least they're only grumbling a bit. The toffs will stay for love of Empire, the mercs (such as you) will stay for fear of punishment, and everyone else will stay for lack of anywhere else to go. At least until the contract ends.

"What'd you think?" you ask Seubi. "And do you know when Luca's going to be back?"

"Ah, you did great. And in two months, according to the last courier. There's orbital congestion, if you believe it. Turns out a full division doesn't do good thinks to Port Calaay's port control authorities."

"Kiss ass. Get me a report on the-

THE ENEMY THE ENEMY THE ENEMY (WHAT'RE THEY UP TO?)
[]- HEY BUDDY BRO CHECK OUT MY NEW DIGS: While you weren't looking, the ENEMY has deployed pre-fab fortresses closer to the front- new ones, with wormhole hearts that can vomit conquering fleets right into your lines from staging grounds deep into their own territory.
[]- I HOPE YOU LIKED NOT HAVING THOSE CLIENT STATES: You've received like several dozen comminiques from client states that you thought were friendly to the Empire. Nah, somehow the ENEMY subverted them. You count eight regime changes, nine sudden natural deaths in ruling families, and four stock buy-outs.
[]- THIS MOVE I DO TO CAUSE YOU PAIN: Shit shit shit shit invasion fleet coming right for your ass. Okay, on one hand, shit, everyone knows they can't be paid. On the other hand, fuck yeah, clear and present enemy to make everyone forget about it.

 

[Laplace]

Afternoon, in the planning room. Holograms of star-maps, some yet uncharted by a starfaring empire millennia old, flickering on the walls. Complex realms of data fed into oracular AI. Simulation upon simulation of possible futures flicker on the screens. Somewhere someone curses at their Excel app.

You are the Margrave-Admiral of the Empire and with all the world shaking decision-making technology at your fingertips you are instead choosing to use plain old bias instead.

"Mengan-mouke… yeah I ain't like 'em. Hit 'em for six," your aide, Suebi vi Markoviz mutters, putting a name tag in an in-box marked INVADE. Gathered around him are other officers from the vassal nations, higher ranking scions of the upper crust, sending their spares off to the great Empire for an education and a trade. "Hm… State of the Serene Lidanshin. Aren't you from there?"

Master Technician, Warrant Officer Dzingseo nods and flips through a brief. "Eh, it's fine. The ENEMY put the Laurel Party in charge. Not a constituent of them, it's fine."

"Schweet." Into the invade box the State of the Serene Lidanshin goes.

"Oh, shit, it's the Republic Solari here. They're pretty tough, aren't they? And looks like the ENEMY went and handed some milware for free."

"We can do it live. No worries."

This process continues for some time. At the end, you've volunteered about two thirds of the prospective states to be invaded. You hand it off to a data-entryist and have a cup of tea. It's your favorite blend, a somewhat salty drink made from the leaves of a saltwater plant that was driven to extinction by resource extraction efforts in their native lagoons that you oversaw. You saved a couple of plants and have them growing in your hydroponics but it's just not the same, really. Your officers are following your example, breaking up into clumps of gossip and malicious oversight of the scribes and analysts that are tasked with plotting out possible invasion routes.

It has been two weeks since the Affair, which has become a notable feature of barracks room gossip. Mostly the common soldiery have stayed the course, and the outer divisions haven't done a going rogue. Ironically, the ENEMY has helped you out here-- a casus belli with a target rich environment of fairly prosperous barbarian statelets. Many of them can fund at least one division, and everyone's pretty pumped at the thought of taking payment in kind. The Empire has pretty stringent looting policies, not because of anything like concern for the civvies, but because it would imply that the generous (ha!) compensation packages are not enough, so it's an insult to the Empire, which is two steps and a hop to slander of the state.

Seubi sidles up to you. "I haven't got any reports from Luca," he says to you in a low tone. "Did you check your inbox?"

You shrug. "No. She probably forgot." Truth to be told, you don't like fucking around with micromanagement. For one it generates useless paperwork that you have to fill out and you like to promote an agile move-fast-break-things methodology and you are terminally lazy. "Why're you worried? She's gens, they can't touch her."

"It's been a while, you know."

"So she's slacking off. I'll give her a speaking to when she's back." You pat Suebi on his shoulder. "Just think of the richest barbarians out there. And if you need to make a gift to any of your relations."

He shakes the shrubbery he calls a head. "I don't even want to think about that. You think there's a space yacht anywhere?"

"The Republic has a shipbuilding industry. That'll do."

"Very true," Suebi concedes. "In any case, what happens when the money's not enough?"

"Then we go out and conquer some more. In the Northern Front there's north of five hundreds petty statelets, and treble that in substate actors." You look around. You're pretty sure everyone else is busy, but you can't be sure, because you're talking in a hushed tone and that makes the subordinate curious. At least most of these people are barbarians-- if a true son/daughter of the Empire got wind of what you were planning they'd object. "That's another source of revenue- the friendly and the neutral states. And when that's done, we start our own business. Shakedowns, taxes. The whole nine miles. We might as well go corporate as well, you know?"

Suebi whistles. "You've thought this out."

"Shit, yeah." You shake your head, taking another sip of your tea. "I thought the Empire would last longer. I thought I'd get a full return on my pension. Now that's no sure thing, is it?" Suebi nods. "You have to think about your future. Have something to drink."

"Oh, I don't eat floral matter."

After that the conversation turns to trivialities. The meeting is adjourned for the stragitcal staff to come up with a plan, which appears in your inbox the next day. Along with another thing from Luca, which you purposefully do not look at until you've checked out the plan and written down some cutting remarks on obvious deficiencies.

THE PLAN
[]- REGIME CHANGE CHANGE: Restore the natural mandate! Find the deposed rightful rulers (aka toadies) and put them back into power! Demand a hefty fine, as well as more privileged special relationships (extortion). In addition, refuse to report this to the Brass, since those gangsters in the C-Suite want their cut as well. Fuck'em. Even though they'll be super mad about it.
[]- UNNING THEIR INDEPENDANCE: Fuck it- direct rule time. Crack open a government-in-a-can, task some division commanders into running a government on some of the more recalcitrant states that you've been meaning to lesson for quite some time. Take control of their incomes and pay your soldiers and hope to god that no one starts talking about 'seperatism.'
[]- SUSTAINABLE TAX FARMING: Lmao why stay? Just smash and grab. Ram fleets into crucial hardpoints, send your troops to seize financial centers, and repossess high value assets you can sell off to interested parties. Let your soldiers run wild. They can be a despoiling barbarian swarm, as a treat. And then do it again at a later date.

You nod with satisfaction. That ought to do it. For the first time in a while you see something good on the horizon, a sun behind the stormcloud. It is a change, it is to your profit, and most importantly, it is a real, concrete plan.

And then you click open Luca's message and it all goes to shite.

THE SHITE
[]- "Port Calaay is under attack by agents of the ENEMY. Holding off but cannot hold for much longer. Send help."
[]- "You have been ordered to Port Calaay to speak to a recently arrived member of Empire Internal Auditing."
[]- "I have been detained for treason under false pretenses by corrupt ministers. Send help."

 

[Laplace]

"I have to go immediately," you tell Seubi as you hurry down to the hangar bays. He follows along, groggy and not quite awake. "You'll have to run the show for a while, I'm afraid. Can you spare ten for rearguard defense?"

"What? Why for?"

"Contingencies," you reply calmly. That's true. Seubi probably think it's because of the ENEMY's ghost fleets, the ones that probably did all those sudden regime changes without you getting wind of 'em until they were a done deal. A ghost fleet showing up in your rear echelon is going to be a headache and a half. Faked IFF, auth-codes, and suchlike. They could look just like a fleet from Central. Coincidentally, you are heading into a situation where there would be a non zero chance of a fleet from Central arriving at your citadel to arrest your staff for complicity in treason.

Convenient, eh?

"I'm gone, Luca's gone, and no one's getting paid. Perfect time for the ENEMY to launch a sneak attack," you continue. "Don't let anything pass the final defense line. Go get'em."

He salutes and leaves off. You take your squadron of marines and board a rapidtrans shuttle and jet off for Port Calaay. You wanted to bring another division, but on the balance that would be overdoing it. And besides, at this stage of the thing you're not sure which way the troops would jump if you said right and they said left.

Wait. At this stage?
Get it together, you remind yourself. You're not planning a rebellion, you're trying to stay paid and not die of poor. If the Empire wants to audit you, let them! You frankly are not paid enough to contemplate rebellion, because that's called self-employment, which is the most risky of pension plans!

You belt on a handgun nevertheless.

Port Calaay becomes first a speck on black when the rapidtrans exits the solar warp. Impotent solar radiation lashes at the shuttle, radiation, mixed with the afterwash of the powerful energies needed to slingshot tons of metal and air across parsecs of distance, fuzzes the sensors. Only for a moment. "Aaah, man," you mutter to yourself, pacing the room with the nice wall to floor display. "I should have taken some stomach medicine."

"Take mine," one of your guards offer, slacking around.

You go through the motions. Of greeting Khoulin, who looks really happy now that you're in the shit. Shaking hands, greeting the garrison. You've found Luca, who looks like she's been harangued by an army of ten thousand cloned grandmothers. Shaken and beaten, like a dog. At least your division is fixed, save for the division flagship, Xakoro, who's damage can't be patched up by Port Calaay's facilities anyways.

And now to face the piper.

"Marquis-Admiral! Good to see you. Thanks for taking your time out of your busy schedule, the ENEMY's always about, eh?"

The inspector is a thin, conservatively dressed man. Sensible shoes. Sober pinstripe jacket. A face that's just south of memorable and a resume that involves a lot of deniably named positions in various organs of the Imperial State. This is Inspector-General Ploskiy Tan, and behind him are the enforcer mechanisms of Empire.

"First, let me tender the most sincere apologies on behalf of the revenue service," he says as the two of you sit down in one of the boardrooms in Khoulin's command spire. "It's a mess back there, the proles are rioting and the gens are finding every reason to withhold their taxes for their own private militia." He makes a twirling gesture with his hands.

"Inspector-General," you remark, leaning back on the chair, "I hope the very next words out of your mouth is, 'so I've found you your pay.' Because in periods of chaos, frontier soldiers devoid of pay turn to--"

"--We are all grown men here, Marquis-Admiral," he forstalls you. "You'll threaten rebellion, following the natural laws of history and psychology. Well, you are right. I have in my convoy what money your allies and the bureaucratic protocol-sticklers could scrape up. It should tide you over for the foreseeable future-- that is, one months."

"A piddling sum," you note. "Is this the extent of the ruin? A single month-- inspector, the military pay periods are yearly!"

Inspector-General Ploskiy Tan puts both his elbows on the table. "Correct." All pleasantries are gone now. "You are not running an independent fiefdom, admiral. You are a border guard, nothing more, nothing less. Furthermore, the Centre wishes to convey to you that no campaigns against the ENEMY are to be carried out, because we do not wish to see any grand defeats or budget sucking forever wars."

It is at this moment that an aide-de-camp rushes in and salutes. "Sir!" he states. "Reports of invasion amongst the entire northern front! The North Relative Fleet is engaging in a massive invasion across the board!" The aide retires, looking a bit silly since he was talking to the one that ordered it.

But fuck fuck fuck. "Well?" Inspector-General Ploskiy Tan says in tones acidic. "What does the Honored Margrave-Admiral have to say for himself?"

You sigh. "Firstly, my dear Inspector-General, as I had no way of knowing you would carry such an order, I did what I had to do. Secondly, those nations were recently on our side, and it was the ENEMY's petty scheme that saw them flipped. Under new management. An authoritarian junta that rose to take power in the chaos. And so--"

"And you admit that you could not prevent this?"

"Thirdly, I am the one doing the talking and you will let me finish, you bureaucratic dogsbody. It was an invasion of our sphere. Chaos in heaven! Oh, to be the fly on the wall when you break it into the populares that the ENEMY is at our doorstep!"

He scoffs. "They don't care about that-- they never have. It's entertainment to them, Admiral! Nothing more than a form of sports, to cheer, to jeer, and to spectate on! What they care about is that their pensions are missing and that their stocks are plummeting. Any two bit gens with a linage dating back to their grandfather can tell them to bend over and get fucked, and they will get fucked! A simple two story duplex costs as much as a private space station! You, who know nothing but war, bring war like a stench wherever you go!"

You click your teeth in irritation. "You will continue to fund my army-- that's non-negotiable."

"It may yet be impossible," Ploskiy Tan shrugs. "Wrap up your campaign and do it fast. The Centre doesn't need any upsets."

You snort. Man proposes. God disposes.

SHAPE OF THE CAMPAIGN
[]- NEBULA STORM: Look, it's been a huge success. Why stop here? Why aim for the status quo, for mediocrity? Strike forth! Into the ENEMY and their pet barbarians! Finish the whole affair once and for all! Who cares about the increasingly furious missives from Centre asking what the hell are you doing?
[]- THE HOLDOUT: You need to input some personal attention. They formed a confederation resisting you, Seubi reports, with all the diehards left cooped up on a system called the Rock Defiant. Since that's a fairly badass fortified system, he wants you to take over, since you're both experienced and you'll take the blame.
[]- AH CRAP: Oh dear. Oh my. Looks like they've even managed to push you back out of the rebellious territories. Dear Centre, if you don't want to keep on eating shit please fund me. Or else. Hint. Hint.

 

[Laplace]

Imagine what it feels to be immortal.

You advance through halls alien and barbaric. The dead piling up at your feet. Charred flesh floats by your feet on a sloshing river of blood. You acquire a target, you kill a target. You smash through walls on your cybernetic war-shell, enclosed around your augmented birth body. In your hands is an omnikiller. It spews death bright and piercing and death hot and clinging and death in hypervelocity micromunitions. Its growl is the most singularly pleasant thing you can imagine.

The enemy falls to you. You are a singular engine of violence. They lure you into traps, vent the atmosphere, spike you with hard radiation, force you to run through mines, but all of these are petty distractions.

You advance with your squad of immortals.

And then--

Bam. You're dead.

Just like that. Stray bullet. Hypervelocity shrapnel. Who knows what? Who cares? It was a good death.

And then you're back where you started. You don't remember what just happened, but you don't need to remember. All you need to do is advance. You strike forth once again with your squad of immortals, pausing only to strip the ammunition from your own corpse. You tread on the bodies that came before. And then-

Bam. You're dead.

And then it happens again. And again. And again. Until the enemy runs out of bullets.

You young gods, immortal and adolescent, cannot imagine dying. The MARATHON gives you the legs to sprint through the unknown country, from times and existences sideways to each other.

You have died tens of thousands of times and the lesson never sticks. It passes through your mind. You ignore the experience, or you do not bother to remember it. You are running a marathon sprint, through timelines, through worlds, and thus, you are immortal.

You are Luca gens Abunco, and you are just about having the best time of your life right now. The bureaucratic bitchwork of the whole damned thing is a faded memory. No more worrying about chaos in Centre! No more squabbling about payslips! What joy. What merriment.

"Colonel," your com buzzes. "We're aiming a devastator shot to get you through three layers. Standby."

"Understood," you reply. The ground shakes under your boots. The Rock Defiant is shaking like leaves in rain. This last standout, this last redoubt, of the fools that were brave enough to dare. You salute them-- you honor bravery. A skull breaks under your boot. It goes splat like a watermelon.

Hellish varicolored unlight washes against your shield-screens, flickering with the effort of holding matter unspooled into unmatter and exotic radiation. You catch a couple of screams, and then you go forth once again, munitions fire plinking off of you. Soon you will reach the heart. Soon you will crush this hope underfoot, to show that no matter how brave you are, no matter how defiant, no matter what kind of help the ENEMY has given you, the mailed fist of Empire will still find you. Will still break you. And you are their spearpoint.

"Advance!" You howl. "Kill. Kill! KILL!"

You are now the Marquis-Admiral, supervising the commando operation to clean out the guts of the Rock Defiant. The feed on your screen is that of Luca gens Abunco, who has died a total of nine thousand eight hundred and seventy three times. She appears to be aiming for the Big Grand.

"Oh," Suebi says, at your side. "I think I knew that guy. He was the bodyguard-captain of my… cousin? I think cousin."

"What's he doing here, then? That was a sweet gig," you have to ask. A bodyguard-captain is both ripe for abuse and your employers will generally fete you because they don't want their guy selling them out for a plummer job.

Suebi gives you a careless shrug. "My cousin never liked the Empire."

Two weeks ago you brought Division Niner Niner and eight others, the heaviest, the assault divisions, out of sunwarp in the Rock Defiant system. You smashed through the defense net around the sun, you converted the small planet nearest the sun into a rapidly expanding gas cloud before it's defenders could blink, you killed your way on a tidal wave of blood to the final defensive installation, fleets shattering against your might, the titular Rock Defiant, spinning on the furthest orbit. Losses are… okay, you've lost more than you would have liked. They've killed almost all of your screener vessels, leaving only the superheavy capitals.

That is a bigger loss than what you would have liked. It exposes you to undue risk. You have no ships fit for garrison. Well, that's a lie, you do. Your superheavies can do it, in that thousands of tonnage and firepower covereth a multitude of sins. But then you can't defeat the Rock Defiant, with hellwhips scouring the orbits around it. You can't survive the grav-warps, you can't survive the attendant fleets.

So you gathered all of your heavies, your cruisers, your hunter/killers, your dreads and your carriers, and told them to give you the Rock Defiant by the end of the month. If a reinforcement arrives, you think, you have ample time. You can detach a squadron to kill them, or finish up your business at the Rock and finish the reinforcements as well. That was your role as the Marquis-Admiral. Another bureaucratic dogsbody. The pay is good (ha!) if irregular (ha! ha!), but you are too important a person to handle everything. Your role is that of a whip. By your presence you spur your underlings to work harder.

…You hope Luca doesn't deposit a bunch of heads at your feet during the post-battle briefing. Like some kind of hellacious space cat.

The Rock Defiant dies slow. Their fleets are already gone, attrited to nothing. What remains lurk in the eaves under the crust, armored hardpoints that only leave to launch desperate sallies against your pickets. The surface weapon installations have all been burned to ash. The world is cracked and peeling. But all it has done is reveal a second layer of defensive embattlements and bastions. And then, a third, with the same amount of bastions and defenders prepared to die. And then another, and so on, and so forth. Like some sort of psycho onion.

You have landed legions of your marines. You check a counter and discover to your interest that you roughly three trillion have died, out of a total of one billion marines you have brought. Thank god (or the Empire, heh) for MARATHON.

"Colonel Luca, progress," you order.

"I-"

Splat.

You politely wait for a Luca to pop back out of MARATHON and give you her report. "Good progress. We're ninety clicks deep." Seubi brings up a report that states everyone else is forty clicks. How risky. "Working off of field generated data. We're hooking us a big fish."

You nod. "Hold fast," you order. "Wait for the front to shift towards you."

"Marquis-Admiral, I must refuse that order. The fish is right in front of me. If I can capture it this front will collapse. This is the nexus of command here. I do this, friendlies come to me. I-" another rumble. You thought this was something from Luca's end, but another look around reveals that it's on your end.

WHAT THE FUCK?
[]- AY YO WHAT UP: The ENEMY is here, the smug giggler, the self satisfied smirker. At the head of one of their Ghost Fleets! Personally taunting you, the bastard! About turn and kill him! Before they do the same to you!
[]- HOLY SHIT IT'S GODZILLA: Shrugging off the slag of the planetoid is one of the ludicrous hyper-compensatory ultradreads that people build every so often. It might be a penile aide but it's more than capable of killing you.
[]- BOW TO YOUR NEW GOD: It's one person, you want to scream. One! But it's not just one enemy soldier. It's Death Itself, dancing on the edge of possibility, killing everything it sees with 99.999% impossible shots.

 

[Laplace]

You are eating sour grapes, sour sour lemons, and a lot of bitter shit today. Death Itself-- where did the coalition manage to find an Exalt Frame, huh? Hoh, yes, that's an E-Frame, one of your advisors nods sagely. Telltale sign of entropic distortion. It's not their training that's the issue, as you get a very nice kill feed of Tango Actual blowing out Luca's brain (why is it always Luca, you wonder) for the eightieth time, it's just that they literally physically can't win.

"Okay, so how does that help us now?" Knowing your enemy is all well and good, but you've reached the point where you'd just like to know that somewhere is a trans-dimensional citadel beaming power to this thing, and if you can run some bullshit dimension metric hack you can cut off the power and then Tango Actual will trip on its own dick and promptly explode and then die.

"Er, that was the beta version," that aide said nervously.

"The beta version?"

"Yeah, the board decided that that was too risky so they pared down some of the features and added in-field power gen slash scavenging."

You nod. You also calculate how fast you can run to the escape pods. The answer is pretty. You then proceed to say, "well, don't just stand there. Let us plan how to kill this thing."

On the screen Luca died another time.

"Pull the infantry back," Seubi suggested. "If it's getting power in field, then that means its cracking open power cores in the dead. Or siphoning power from friendly installations. We can make the fleet do the big work."

A shake of the head. "Unlikely," Technical Warrent Officer Lishin says. "It's got enough power to tough through something as imprecise as a bombardment."

"But it'll still waste power, and we were planning on turning the Rock into a pile of free floating atoms anyway."

"Capital," you break in. "Draw up an ordinance plan and make it so." Then you break for tea and watch Luca smash through eight walls, omnikiller blazing with an active plasma ram towards Tango Actual. You get a good eyeful of the chassis its packing before it hip throws Luca, steps on her, and blasts off your aide's head with a quasar-beam flash. "Colonel Luca. Stop and pull back. We're dialing heavy artillery on Tango Actual."

"Sir you know that won't work and you're just wasting munitions," Luca chatters through her teeth. "I can kill this fucker I'm immortal the fucker is not and I can touch it before it just killed me as soon as it saw me let me eat its fucking brains and crack its bones."


"Thank you for your input now fall back." Command cracks through your every syllable. You don't doubt that Luca's having an easier time now-- it's true, she can almost hit Tango Actual now. It's true that her commando shell is a bespoke affair, top of the line, that only a gens family can pay for. It might even give her a chance. But why bother with chances when you have enough ordnance to break open the gates of heaven?

She assents with ill grace. Especially since you gave up beating sense into her and ordered one of your artillery platforms to fire some bunker buster nukes danger close to Luca's squadron. Heaven and Imperium save you! It was not on purpose. You were simply so eager to see this rock cracked that you took personal attention. The death and revival of a scion to a reknowned house is happenstance, see? Heh.

Feeds feed you the audiovisual data. Kilos and kilos of rock and armor plating destroyed. Reactors bleeding radiation into the void. Ejecta geysering in sprays of debris. All this to kill one guy, you think to yourself. You're going to have fun writing the post-action report. The Budget Office is going to love this one.

The tea is hot and somewhat bitter. The sub-liutenant ballsed it, you think.

The bombardment keeps up for a full cycle-- eight hours. You give Luca the all clear to brave the rubble, floating chunks of fortress, aaaand---

Splat.

She's dead.

Again.

And she charges out once again, sniffing like hounds for Tango Actual, bounding between rubble with some sort of high energy single shot anti-vehicle/heavy borg weapon. Pirouetting in zero-g. Here one moment, gone the next.

Black sodding damn. Artillery didn't work, Tango Actual had enough sheilding to survive incidentals. Okay, you need to come up with

PLAN B
[]- GLORIOUS DEATH: Fuck it, let Luca do it. Let her have her fun. Give her complete command over the infantry divisions and tell her to give you the head of Tango Actual, and damn the costs. You can trade time, and you'd rather have this probability altering demigod dead than proceed with the risk.
[]- BALLS TO IT: You know what Tango Actual, at the end of the day, is? An infantry platform. Continue your assault and accept losses. What the fuck is it going to do with cold, impersonal bombardment and waves upon waves of room clearers that all respawn anyway? Some of you may die, you tell your troops, but that is a risk I am willing to take.
[]- BULLSHIT DIMENSIONAL METRIC HACK: Look, it's a probability field. MARATHON is a cousin to it. Crack open MARATHON and make Tango Actual trip on its own dick and die. Pros: You can get the Exalt Form after it's got no more power. Cons: May blow up MARATHON and make your guys trip over themselves and then die.

And of course, the Rock Defiant (kinda looks like a half cooked egg now). It's got another thing up it's sleeves, while you were pounding away at it like a mason. Well, it's got

A BARBARIAN TRICK
[]- SUICIDE RUN: Tango Actual has hijacked a fighter and is gunning directly for your command ship. Shiiiiiiiiiit.
[]- UPSET VICTORY: Bases are loaded, it's the ninth inning, and the other team has suddenly started playing well. They're pushing you back, lead by Tango Actual.
[]- WARP CANNON: They've found the biggest power core that draws power from a leashed singularity and they've cracked open the shielding and pointed it at you. (May interfere with MARATHON)

 

[Laplace]

Point: The most beautiful strike you can make in war is decapitation.

Counterpoint: So plan for it, dummy.

Point: If you mass a strong enough force you can push through basically anything.

Counterpoint: Defenses, static, layered, and active will denude any real attempt into nothing.

Conclusion: Tango Actual's suicide run isn't actually effective but holy shit are you crapping your pants right now.

You've tracked Tango Actual's progress with clenched fingers. "Corporal gens Abunco," you told her, "you've got full command. Bring me their head."

"Hell yeah!" Luca cheered. "Hear that, boys? Let's go kill a motherfucker! Fireteams! Beta! Charlie! And Foxtrot! You're all on me. The rest of you, keep at it!" Cheers, again, the heat headed celebration of the adolescent immortal. They howl in joy like the dogs they are and lope after their prey. Through fronts they chase them, through palisades of lasers and through hedges of plasma fire. O'er hill and o'er bastion they chase Tango Actual, exchanging fire for bodies. Mostly theirs. All their's, in fact. But they have the Empire and MARATHON, and when one dies it is only a short sprint back to the teeming fray.

And Tango Actual is weakening. Slowly. Surely. Like carving canyons by erosion. When once it used its entropic alteration cloak now it relies on redundant construction and multilayer shield-fields.

They engage in flickers of violence measured in milliseconds. Beamers flash and munitions turn walls into rubble. It is one man, quick and strong and with probability (or fate, or destiny) on its side, against a cold, unfeeling machine composed of the best and the bravest and the Empire, frothing over with mad battle-lust and virile heroism. It is winning, though. Or at least not dying. Which, hey, means you're up on points!

It drags its way to the hangars. Small fighter-craft explode as Luca and her braves search for Tango Actual. Except it's too late-- the entire hanger goes up in smoke, just as a feed from a sweeper-fighter catches a single fighter leaving the terminal.

Now.

Death Itself, under the name Tango Actual, rockets towards you on wings of rippled space. It flies through webs of lasers. It slides past chasing globs of plasma. Behind its path lies the paltry amount of screeners, broken to bits. Chasing after it is Colonel Luca on similarly commandeered vessels. It flies through ships, laser carvers somehow finding the bit in the armor that's the weakest, and isn't that just the most unfair bullshit, even more than naked numerical superiority.

It is eating up the distance. You are doing your best not to worry. And the damned thing is, you've set your trap-- a corridor, of sorts, of heavy ships with the best point defense, around your citadel. It's the most come-at-me-bro formation you can think of, and Tango Actual either doesn't care or thinks it can kill you faster than you can kill it.

Fifty clicks, then twenty five, then ten, and now Tango Actual is entering its apogee of its suicide run. Behind it is Luca's squadron-- wait, it's more than a squadron now. You look back to the feed, and another aide whispers to you, "she's bullied eight regiments to go after Tango Actual."

"What the fuck?" you scowl. "That's eight regiments that could go to the front. What's she thinking?"

"She's probably thinking, if the Margrave-Admiral dies that would surely be a great slur on Empire, so let's go and preserve your life."

"Licking her ass won't get you an appointment with the gens Abunco." You give her a half hearted go-away clout and--

Where did it go? "Where's Tango Actual?" you ask a sensor tech. "I can't see it."

"Neither do we. It disappeared a couple secs ago, in that wreck over there." He points at a shattered destroyer, a small ship packed full of guns and engines. "Tango Actual engaged Destroyer 11A-Ceta, and after the reactor blew we lost it. We-"

"Get to it," you snap. "Find me the Captain of Security!"

He materializes at your elbow. "Here, sir." A thoroughly stoic man. You've met full conversion borgs with more emotional capability than him-- he's a bioaut.

"All hands on deck," you order. "Tango Actual could be here any second."

The Captain nods and leaves. You find a seat and fiddle with your fingers and wait. Progress on the Rock is proceeding apace, it's being blasted into a pebble. Tango Actual is still missing, and Luca's snarling on the lines and frightening several poor ECM captains to give it an update on Tango Actual's location.

Three minutes later, you know. This is because Tango Actual has crashed its fighter from a vertical axis on an ascending vector. It is in your base and killing your troops.

"Colonel Luca!" you roar, teeth almost chewing the mic. "You will take your detachment and return to the Master Citadel now!"

"What? Why? Tango Actual-"

"Is here! Hurry your ass back here before you get a superior officer killed in the line of duty!"

"Sir yes sir! Hey, you scum!" she shouts to her own troops. "Double time, Master Citadel! Go go go!"

Time draws out like a knife. You wait as Tango Actual kills its way up to the HQ. You wait as Luca and her commandos land, blazing up on the ruin their prey has made. You can do nothing as death fights its way to you, so you fix yourself one last cup of tea. If it gets to you, you muse to yourself, should you try to shoot it? Or should you shoot yourself, properly demonstrate the stoic virtues that the online pundits would just love.

As a counterpoint, you'd quite like to live and only die of excessive wealth. But shit, what are you going to do? Sweet fuck all.

The sounds are closer and closer. You discover that the level of panic in your command room is inversely proportional with the distance Tango Actual has to get you. You realize Tango Actual has arrived when one of your analysts puts a service weapon between their teeth and blows their brains out.

Goddamn, you crossly think, that was my way out. Now if I did that shit I'll just be a copycat show. Damn the man.

You turn around and behold Death Itself.

…it's a letdown.

Well, actually, that's false. Its quite terrifying and it's only because you're a contrarian ass and you've seen worse that you're not pissing your pants right now. Its an average looking cybernetic death machine with perfectly average looking glowing angry red cyclops optics holding a perfectly average omnikiller with white hot barrels with perfectly average blinking bits of people's organs and perfectly ordinary stains of people's body fluids splattered all over it. All in all, a strikingly ordinary killer death cyborg.

Actually, you blink, this looks just like one of the mooks Luca and your infantry splattered in job lots. If MARATHON spat out a killer cyborg god for the other team you're going to be pretty steamed. "Do you need anything?" you ask, which is an absurd thing to do.

Tango Actual kills another aide, gibbering from fear and aiming a shot at it, and says, "I dunno. I thought a lot about what I'd say to you, you lizard scum. But now that we're face to face its--"

"It is a bit silly," you nod and scratch your nose.

"You're damn right, you fuckin' subevolved macaque!" someone shouts. "It doesn't matter what you do! Because even if you kill us the Empire is immortal! We'll crash down on your shitty Rock like waves! You--"

It absently saws off the lower half of the officer and turns back to you, leaving a noble officer of Empire in the lurch for a couple hours in reconstructive surgery and roughly the same amount of time in hideous pain. "Anyway, I guess, what I wanted to ask you is, why?"

"What, the invasion?"

"No, no, I get the uh, operational reason for it. We accepted the hand of the Hegemony, so you had to fuck us up. Reasonable enough. But I want to know why you're doing all of this. Invading, killing, warmongering. Not like you have anything to lose."

You nod, composing your thoughts. First of all, you can hear Luca storming up the walkway. At least you hope it's Luca. Second of all, you can see a trigger finger tapping on the omnikiller. Lastly, you have realized that if you want to come out of this thing alive you had better bullshit up a good enough reason so that your aides won't frag you afterwards.

YOUR GLORIOUS SERVICE TO EMPIRE
[2.0x]- "Well," you say honestly, "it's just a job, you know?"
[]- "Look, you bloody robot, you're here to kill me so bloody well do it and stop asking for quotes like a journalist."
[]- "If I tell you that I just love killing people and destroying nations for money will you make it quick?"

 

[Laplace]

"Well," you say honestly, "it's just a job, you know?"

To your surprise, Tango Actual nods. "I get it," it says laconically. "I don't like it, but I get it."

"I mean, I get a pension and an independent command of fifty divisions."

"That's pretty sweet," it agrees. "I don't get that on my pay."

"Not even a pension?"

"Nah, I just have the one for everyone. I've got tax credits for cybernetic surgery, though."

"Wait, tax credits for basic healthcare? That's more insulting than just telling you to pay for that shit yourself."

"I know! It's so condescending!" The barrel of the omnikiller drifts towards the ground. "What a pack of shit," it complains soldierly, "eight years in service and all I get is standard pay. I didn't even get Hegemony shells for this, you know that? And once this is over I bet the brass won't even let me keep this, because they'll same some shit about subversion risk, and, security checks, and they won't even recomp me, because this is still my shell, you know that?"

"Wait, that's still… whatever barbarian construction you were issued with, right? You didn't get like an Exalt Frame."

"Huh!" it sneers with feeling. "An Exalt Frame? On me? Perish the thought. If they handed out Exalts on the basis of competence rather than on preserving the skins of varied failsons and faildaughters we'd kick your ass all the way to the heart of your shitty Empire. Also what the fuck does this have to do with anything?"

You feel a headache coming on. "It's MARATHON-"

"-Yeah, that cheating ass shit you pull on top of your cheating ass crushing qualitative and quantitative superiority-"

"-yes, that." You like this guy. Its bitter, furious cynicism speaks to your bitter, furious cynicism. You can imagine a career with this guy at your side snidely commenting on every dumbass that crosses your path. Seubi is great but he's too much of a party animal and fundamentally optimistic for you and Luca's just straight up a moron who'll either never get it or report you for treason in thought. "It's a probability alteration matrix. It has to be, to function as a chronoclone machine. So the backwash landed on you, and turned you to a god. So in a way, we made you."

"So?" Tango Actual is not very impressed. "This here omni is Empire manufacture. And look--" just to punctuate its point, however gauche its expression, it shoots the arm off of the sand legless heap that is the officer it shot. "See?"

"Okay yeah but can you only shoot me from now on? I have to pay for these people's medical bills."

"Yeah, that's fair. Anyway, what was that shit about?"

"Since we made you," you say, confident in your spearpoint thrust of conversational reason, "you should come over to our side."

Tango Actual tilts its head. A pistol shot pings off of its armor and ricochets into the one armed limp pile of flesh. He screams. "I don't see how that tracks," Tango Actual concludes. "You'll have to sell this better."

Yes! Its indicating its got a price, and that's the first step to any reasonable negotiation. "Alright," you agree. "Let's set some base axioms, alright? You fundamentally will not turn the tide of this battle if you kill me and blow up this citadel, because as mentioned, all the lower level officers will go psycho and attempt to conquer this here Rock. Firstly, because it's more than likely that whatever idiot manages it first will get my position. Secondly, because if they quite the field now it's a round of executions for the failures. Following me?"

Tango Actual nods. "So far. So what's it in it for me, and what's stopping you from ordering me to the chop when this is all done and over with?"

"You've got your bullshit cheating probability alteration powers," you dismiss. "If I catch you it's because you wanted to be caught. Otherwise I'd be ventilated and you'd be across the border. Anyway, owing to your skills we'd put you on the front. You wouldn't have to deal with anyone that annoys you too much. All you need to do is kill and watch the number in your bank account grow larger."

"Mmhm, mmhm. I want to start at triple digits and I want political protection."

"Done," you say without blinking. Triple digits was big, okay, yeah, but compared to the costs of running your front it's nothing. "If you have family we'll move them over at our first convenient--"

Time, you wanted to say, except Luca bursted out of a nearby wall and pointed at Tango Actual. "You!" she shouts, before a hellish unlight blazed from the strange gun in her hands, turning Tango Actual's head into a puff of atoms. Eyes flashing, she ignored the room to strut peacock like to the corpse and with a hand bloody reach into the chest cavity and dig out the heart of Tango Actual.

Whereupon she ate it.

"What are you looking at me for?" she asks you, spitting out blood mixed with circuitry. "I defeated that shitter. What?"

The headache's back. "Goddamnit, Luca."

---

While the mop up is happening, and the last holdouts are broadcasting white flag protocols, and your troops are sometimes accepting them and sometimes not, you have a moment to catch up with Luca. "Oh, the gun?" she shrugs. "I took it off an egghead manning a MARATHON station. Blabbled some gobledegook about quantum."

"I see." Well, alls well that ends well, you suppose. Shame you don't have Tango Actual on your payroll, but you imagine you'll feel less bitter about it.

"Anyway, your plan wouldn't have worked," Luca points out to you, propping her head up on her medipod. "It killed a bunch of us."

"Most of you came back."

"Yeah, so? Its still a bitter thing to swallow. We'd try to grief it and then it's a friendly fire incident. 'Sides, some of us didn't come back. Never gonna work." She blinks at the ceiling. "Oh, and the political shit. You're usually on top of these things."

"Look, lots of the Empire's heroes have been killing each other. Who cares."
"Yeah but then they rode to the Centre with the approval of History and made themselves heroes, state sanctioned."

You smile, thin and blank. "Your education's good for something." You stand up. "I should go now. There's forms to sign and orders to give."

"Hey, better you than me."

FORMS TO SIGN
[]- FORM N-94 EMPIRE STANDARD ACCOLADES REQUEST: War (this one, at least)'s over. That means medals. And attached with medals comes fat stacks of moolah, plum positions in politics and corporate life, and land grants. Of course, since you are the superior officer, you get to choose who you get to promote into important posts relating to things such as 'milcorp liaison' and 'border inspector' and suchlike.
[]- FORM Z-40 EMPIRE STANDARD EXPLOITATION REQUEST: Bring out the vultures! Bring out the crows! Unleash the carrion dogs! You don't have the people to restructure the economies of the nations, so you can get 'em from Centre. Best of all, since you're so close to the ENEMY, you can shake down the bloodless corpos with strategic denials and approvals of protection!
[]- FORM 00-A EMPIRE STANDARD REQUEST FOR ENOFFMENT: Alright, you need to fund your men for bravery. You need to control a vast frontage of space. The solutions are found in these two problems. Get your men enoffed as provincial administrators. Let'em do what they want and when the natives complain cough and remind them who has the war fleets here.

ORDERS TO GIVE
[]- WAR (MORE PLEASE): The initiative is on your side! You won't stop until the ENEMY feels the same as you. You will marshal the least mauled fleets and conquer as much of the ENEMY's constellation of satellites and vassals as you can, just to rub it in.
[]- SHAKEDOWN (MORE PLEASE): Now it's time to remind the ones on your side that breaking faith will lead to very very very bad consequences. You can't send back your prisoners, the political extremists who think their statelets deserve sovereignty, but you can invite their relations and delegations over to the heart of your power to reassure them. And threaten them. Subtly.
[]- ENTRENCHMENT (MORE PLEASE): Alright, you need to prepare for contingencies. Plop some fortresses down on the systems that went over to the ENEMY. This will stop the ape from launching an invasion. The fact that the fortified systems would constitute a defense from both the ENEMY and forces arriving from your rear is immaterial-- after all, the ENEMY has ghost fleets that can ninja an attack from behind.

 

[Laplace]

"Hello?"

"Yeah, I can hear you."

"Alright, now we're just waiting for-- there he is."

Inspector General Ploskiy Tan has made his return like a carrion bird. It's not a face to face so you're currently within a solar ansible-- a spike that's just caught between a stable and degenerating orbit. On the top is the pinhead, a globular module that contains milspec standard comms module. Full body holoproj. Pretty decent bandwidth. Comfort and ergonomics of a brick, used to club someone over the head at length. You get dreadful headaches when you have to use it so you had your techs change it to icon-only so you can unevolve your spine on a comfortable armchair. You are also kicking from one wall of the cylindrical room to the other in childish boredom. You are also throwing a rubber ball and catching it on the rebound.

The ghosts are with you this day. Glowing blue dense wireframes of people. "Marquis-Admiral, I don't see a video feed--"

"--Connection's crap," you lie, sliding around. "Lots of data coming in. I thought I might preserve it."

"Alright, fine," Ploskiy Tan sighs. He snaps and data representations spring up around you. You ignore all of them. You have already seen them in your pre-briefing, a bunch of crap about proposals, budget outlines, and begging from the pestilant public-private corpo swarm. "We have some others joining us today."

They do. You swivel on your chair, spinning in circles. There's an Administrator of some department or another, in the depressingly normal named Institute of Economic Planning, a Rezhor Revil. Another suit creeps against the walls in blue light, this time a public security servant with only an alphanumeric designation-- BIK-919. Voiceless wallflowers crowd the chat, a mob of muted ghosts. "I see," you nod. "Thank you for joining me today. Inspector General, what's on the agenda?"

Ploskiy Tan hums. "Right, here. I have a statement of intent from your staff indicating that you intend to place the exiled and otherwise couped governments back in place. However, you've also sent a request for economic assistance to drastically restructure their economies. Please justify."

You throw the ball at the recorder. Your icon fuzzes. Your eye sweeps over the crowd. "I shouldn't like to waste a crisis," you reply laconic. "In any case, our offensive caused grievous economic and infrastructural harm to their nations. Since we broke it, we might as well fix it."

"Hmmmm." The wait is unbearable. "Mr. Revil, could you take over."

"Certainly." Gah, what a voice. This is going to be a hell. "Marquis-Admiral, I speak for the Institute--"

You throw the ball hard and it hits you on the forehead on the rebound. Luckily, you're muted for now. "--and certain other interest groups."
"I know," you say. Your teeth are gritting between words. "An impressive list. Starship manufacture, reagent speculators, and stock market wizzes. Congratulations." The platitudes come out robotic. You're more interested if you can get the ball to ricochet between floor and ceiling perfectly vertical.

"Thank you, thank you. Now, I'll be brief. Capital is not forthcoming."

"Really?" You raise an eyebrow. You're dangling plum fruit for these sharks. There'd be a feeding frenzy right about now. In any other time they'd be pulling knives on each other. "This is a big opportunity! Your sort of people have been asking me to do this for a while by now."

"There's unforeseen market stabilities back home," Mr. Revil says buttery smooth. Sad there's not enough definition to read an expression but you're pretty sure his face will be blank as fresh paper. "We have local affiliates that can do some of the heavy lifting, so it's not like it's impossible."

"Mm. Mmmm." Three point toss. "BIK-919?"

Silence.

"You there? I think your connection--"

A spray of static. Then it resolves. "Yeah. Yeah, it's back." BIK-919… this guy's a spook for sure. If its not you'll do something very humiliating and biological.

"Glad you've got that sorted out. Anyway, you're public security. Give me the low down on back home. I haven't been briefed in a while."

"It's under control," the spook replies. "Please, let's focus on the ENEMY now. I see you're beginning to build stellar citadels on formerly 'sovereign territory.'"

Its going to skate around your questions. You scowl. "What of it? If they want to complain, let them. This is going to be the new normal, starting forward. I'm moving my HQ closer to the front as well." You add that on the spur of the moment. "Most of my forces are deployed there, stands to reason."

"Yes, yes, yes. These are all reasonable requests. I have noted them down. I will transmit these actions to the Brass."

You're going to needle it. "If you are here, please inform the Brass to bring me my fucking money. We're still husbanding resources from the honorable Inspector General's last convoy."

"Profanity," BIK-919 drones. "How soldierly. I'll be off now. I know that Mr. Revil and the Inspector General have some matters of finance to discuss with you." Bip bop bip and its representation goes offline.

Ploskiy Tan exhales. "Whew. Never'll get used to those types. Now, why don't we discuss how the revenue will get to Centre?"

You raise an eyebrow. "It may be difficult." You try to keep your tone even. "We have the ENEMY's ghost fleets to deal with, on top of their regular fleets. Getting the revenue there may be somewhat difficult, but I'll send a ship with the numbers so you can update the books."

"Hmmmm." Sounds like you won't, goes unsaid. "Well, I'm satisfied. Mr. Revil?"

"Good on this end. Now, let's get down to the…"

ORGAN GRINDER
[]- MILITARY ORGANS: A bit unimaginative, but you'd like to see the ENEMY start an insurgency with sticks and stones and political pamphlets. You propose to strip valuable military-industrial enterprises of all their material and forcibly incorporate what talent remains into a EMPIRE-affiliated privately run corporation that just so happens to be largely staffed by your officers, who're holding down double billets. Sad to say, though, a lot of these people's miltech is just clearing houses from EMPIRE and ENEMY hand me downs. Still.
[]- SOCIAL ORGANS: You will have the clout. Well, not really-- the social media and regular media networks will be largely kept in their original owner's hands, except you'll make a front that owns a controlling stake in these companies. What you'll assume full control off is the hardware backbone, that will also greatly increase your C2 capability across the Front. On top of earning you nice stacks of cash from the wireheads and just about the entire population except for really hardcore ultraprim hermits.
[]- TRANSPORT ORGANS: If there's one thing an admiral can never get enough of it's tonnage. Sheer move-things capability. You're always looking at your payrolls and grimacing at how much your logistics tail costs you. So you're going to take over the states' shipbuilding, shipping, and any industry with ship in its name and incorporate them as an EMPIRE military contracter. Of course, if the statelets want spacebourne capability they can pay you.

"Alright, let's just take that off the agenda," Ploskiy Tan mutters. "I've held you for long enough. Let's call this meeting at a close." With that, people trickle away until it's just you and him. "Alright, off the record, Marquis-Admiral."

"Why, is this corruption? I haven't thought you able!"

"Look, I haven't been paid either. It's all in arrears. I just want to know, how much are you actually planning to send back? I'm for the chop if I can't--" apostrophes slide down like court ordered sanctions-- "'tame' the rebellious north."

You smile. "Why, I'll send--"

THE MONEY BACK
[]- GREASY PIG: Oh, you're sending money back. To the pockets of the lizard bastards in charge, so they won't take a good look at what you're getting up to here.
[]- JUST THE TIP: You got a month of back pay from the bastards in the Brass, so you're going to send them the exact same amount.
[]- NOT AT ALL: Sod them, that's what you say. Taste of their own medicine. Just fob them off with, aha, oho, I would dearly love to but circumstances are not favorable. Very sad!