"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!
