"Lads." You close the door behind them, each very, very confused. This is a couple days later, when you found the time to sweep a room of bugs and disconnected it from the security grid. Not even a conference room, it's more like a conference closet. "So glad you found the time."
"What's this for, Marquis-Admiral?" Alessandro asks, squinting.
"You'll see. Turn on the light, will you?" Light goes on, ENEMY's revealed.
To little effect. You see them look at each other. "Sir, what's this warrant tech doing here?" Seubi asks.
"We'll get to her."
"Far as I can tell with you types, that's a man."
You roll your hand. Get on with it. They take seats, still unsure of themselves. You take a seat, right next to the ENEMY, who is certainly smug inside although impassive outside. Perfect poker player face. Poor Marquis-Admiral, your subordinates are thinking. Old boy's cracked. Let's pack uncle to the retirement home before they break their hip. "Alright. I thought about being clever and shit, but then I decided against it. So here." You drop a handpiece, a stout, ugly thing that goes completely against the style manual for officers. You're supposed to carry a very elegant piece, one that speaks to the erudition and civilization of Empire (that is, to be fair, still very good at making people dead). But you didn't think that would be dramatic enough. "There's a tradition where I come from, about conversations over a gun. Get me?"
"That won't actually kill me, sir," Luca points out. "I'm backed up because I'm still technically a ground pounder, and I haven't seen you disconnect me from MARATHON yet." You roll your eyes, but you see the other two gets it.
"I overheard you talking to Syr Livi, and I understand that Centre has devolved into civil war. Don't even bother hiding it, I can dig out the audio logs out of my cortex recorder this moment. So I want to ask you, what are you going to do about it?"
It is a miracle of social alchemy that transmute these three, kings almost unto themselves, into kids that got caught in the pickle jar. "I asked you a question. Surely you can make a response?"
Seubi gulps. Vascular throat tissue expands, then contracts. "Can we take a moment to confer?"
"Please do so."
A flurry of whispers ensue. As to not make it boring, you do not overcrank your audio implants. Also, Seubi's running a spoof. "How'd you figure it out?"
"Good question. Through my masterly acumen of the political arts." You nod at Alessandro. "No, it was by chance. Alright, come out with it."
By unspoken vote Alessandro takes the leading role. He looks right, he looks left. He perches on a precipice and…
Goes for the gun!
"Did you really think I would load it?" You ask him as his trigger finger works like all the hells. "This gun's loaded." You take out your backup backup piece and waggle it at him. "Now you just ballsed my trust, even though that's a pretty ballsy thing to do. I commend your bravery but condemn your risk-benefit analysis. Luca, you tell me."
She wrenches the gun out of Alessandro's hands first. Then she gives you her report. "We plan to extend United's ambit into the Empire. This way we will have forced you to take an interest in the affairs of the Empire. Many local magnates and federal appenages have agreed to sign on our project so we will be forced to defend their interests. In this way we will divert our strength from the ENEMY."
"Oho! But I thought that the bastion of the Empire should never interfere with the proper order of things!" You lean back with a smile. "Come now, Colonel, it's not good for us border thugs to wipe our boots in Centre. Our foe is the subevolved mongrel lizards of the ENEMY." All apologies to said lizard sitting besides you.
"Sir. Chaos at home portends to chaos abroad. Without the centrifugal pressures of Empire, we no longer have an Empire. If the Empire does not elevate the worthy, punish the wicked, and lead the heavens then it is dead. We can do none of those things if we do not have Centre's bureaucracy working."
"That's plum," you turn to the ENEMY. "You think they'll buy it?"
"I can see it on plaques already."
"Alright, that's the reason you'll tell everyone," you turn back. "The one history will record. Now gimmie the real one."
"Sir?"
You sigh. "Ideals," you proclaim, "are all well and good, but they're not the reason why anyone does anything. Self interest, Luca, self interest! How will you convince the fleets? What's the Empire to them? A paymaster. And, in case you've forgotten, I'm the paymaster now. Man cannot live on adulation alone. So lay it on me."
Luca is tongue tied. Alessandro is still dying of shame and probably wishing he could kill himself and start over. That leaves Seubi. "The vassal nations can take it over," he tells you. "I figure that many of 'em are fat enough that they can be strongarmed into a power sharing agreement, in return for letting United up on them. Also, they did get some extra territory, so they'll be happy."
"That's my fucking money growing wings and flying away but please continue."
"Many gens would be more than eager to see a shakeup of the Archonate. Out with the old, in with the new. Raise their families in the estimation of the Empire. This is confirmed, I'm sure of it."
"You can always rely on a gens to climb that cursus honorum."
"Finally, we reach the proles and the bouges. We can treat them like the gens. In disposing of the old order we will have many free fiefs and appenages that would need heads. Alternatively, we've discussed creating a new administrative regime with many posts with very nice opportunities for graft."
"Keep thinking on that," you urge him. "It's good to plan ahead. Now, I cannot help but feel you are ignoring that at our gates is the ENEMY."
"Oh, them!" Luca bursts out laughing. "We've been handing their asses ever since I can remember. I don't think we need to worry about 'em, you know."
"We can make nice with them. We've been kicking their ass so much that they have to know when to cut and loose. Well, sir, since you're here, do you have a plan for that?"
You wink at the ENEMY. "Certainly. Gentlemen, lady, may I introduce to you my opposite number? The subevolved ape we have all been fighting? General Officer of Border Affairs of the Hegemony… actually, what's your name?"
"It's classified," the ENEMY smiles.
The three of them sit there shocked and mute. Then they start thinking, and then they start talking. Well, Seubi and Alessandro do. Luca is trying her best to contain homicidal fury, good woman that. "So you say," Seubi the skeptic says, "how can we trust you."
"You can't. All you can hope is that your Marquis-Admiral hasn't cracked completely."
"What do you get out of this?" Alessandro.
"Political issues back home. I have a… prince, of sorts, hiding out with me. Succession issues and all. You can imagine how much their chances rise if you vouch for them."
Seubi looks at Alessandro. "Costs us nothing. I say we take it."
"Agreed. Luca?"
She's mastering herself. "It is a new world," she says more to herself. Then she brightens up. "You think we can tar someone as a traitor with her help? That bastard president whichever's been getting a real pain in the ass."
ABOUT ALESSANDRO…
[]- Don't give him another chance. Kill him! No one needs to ask. Send him on a suicide mission and scupper his ship.
[]- Bust him back down to Commadant. Being too close to him is hazardous for your health. And send him to the ass end of nowhere on top of that!
[]- Honestly, you like his spirit. Keep him! But find something for him to do, make him busy and more pissed off at whoever he has to deal with, like a local magnate or something.
a/n: what is real anyway
