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Scene 1
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Yanhua City, Ge-Fu
Capella Commonality, Capellan Confederation
November 2979
"We've been here for an awful long time, old man." Karl challenged, pointing with his chopsticks at his captor.
Mark didn't seem to care, though. He ignored the critique outright as he picked up and ate a shrimp dumpling. "It's vulgar to point with those, you know? When in Rome, do as the Romans do."
"You're being awfully calm about this." Karl huffed, lowering the things despite himself. Honestly, he couldn't really figure out how to use them properly yet. He didn't have the worldly breadth of experience that let the crazy old fuck walk into a dim sum place and eat like a natural - he'd admit that much. "Wouldn't you say your entire plan is going down the drain? We've got damned apartment in the Capellan Confederation now, Mark. Karl Simms and Mark Mars, immigrants to the runt of the litter!"
"Ah-ah-ah!" the old man chastened. "The lease on that apartment isn't under either of those names. You need to get used to it now - you're Paul Marquez, I'm Linus Stallman. And while I'm at it, do your share of the bloody chores, why don't you?"
Karl grimaced. "I'm amazed you finally figured out that reusing your own first name in your aliases wasn't a good idea."
Mark gave him a toothy smile. "How stupid do you think I am? I always knew that was a dumb idea. Well, it helped to keep it from being suspicious if I responded to the wrong name, of course, but there was a deeper meaning to it. Nobody expects me to pick a good alias, with the long record of bad ones that's written down."
Karl furrowed his brow, setting down the chopsticks and just eating a dumpling with his bare hands. "You haven't been fucking planning this since you were a young man, don't lie to me. What possible purpose would you have for making that sort of mistake on purpose while out on official business, just so you can swap it up later? The Blessed Order is the only people who even have a list like that!"
It was a very good thing for Mark that he'd already checked this private room for bugs, and that the restaurant in general was quite loud. Karl… was reluctantly pleased with that fact as well - he wanted to get caught by the ROM officers at the HPG station flat on the other side of the planet, not by the Maskirovka.
Slurping some noodles, the rogue Precentor of the Explorer Corps did his best to make Karl wait for the answer, by all appearances. "It just seemed like it might be useful some day, honestly. Particularly after my faith was broken, you see. Ah, as a young boy I may genuinely have been that stupid, but once the Word of Blake became so much wasted ink to me, I had the question planted in the back of my head - what if I'm the one who's set to get erased next?"
"...Well, I suppose that makes sense. One might just decide they need that contingency, when they've been made to liquidate their own beloved mentor. At least, if they had the capacity to have a beloved mentor to begin with - it was a mistake to let that sort of psych profile slip through into ROM." Karl mused out loud.
"Comstar makes lots of mistakes."
Massaging his forehead at the juvenile snipe, Karl let the conversation fall silent for a few minutes as he ate.
He wasn't particularly crazy about this kind of food, but he had to acknowledge the skillful craft of the lower class Capellans who made it, at least.
Eventually, though, he returned to the prior topic. "Now, let's not get off track again. You're not making yourself seem much more competent by just deflecting from the matter, you lunatic. Why are we still on Gei Fu? Why are we renting here? What the hell has happened to your plan to reach Alphard?"
Mark rested his wrinkled face in one hand - one of those hands that still bore much of the terrifying strength of his youth, as Karl had not too distantly been reminded of. "We'll need to disappear for a while to confuse the pursuit, Karl. We were never going to get all the way out there on that damned ship, not with the Order scrambled to track us down. After a few months, maybe years, Linus Stallman and Paul Marquez will expatriate from the Capellan Confederation using their abundant travel funds, alongside a number of friends - members of my handpicked crew, if you hadn't realized they were living in this city along with us - and charter a series of ships to go the rest of the way. That's how we're going to make it closer to the destination without getting tracked down by your successor's hunting dogs and silenced in an all-you-can-eat buffet's bathroom, or vented across the vastness of space."
"So, you've put some thought into this."
"It's all I've put any thought into."
Karl sighed heavily. If it had been possible to dissuade this man from the absurd course he'd chosen to walk at any point, he would have diverted from his path by now. Unfortunately, Mark Mars was utterly mad, driven purely by his obsession and immune to all manner of reason. "You're an absurd man. A normal person would simply accept that they were living one of the best lives imaginable, for one of the best purposes imaginable, and accepted the quibbling doubts as they were rather than hyperfixating on one fatal quest."
Mark frowned. "Ah, yes, a normal person, with their endless capacity to gaslight themself. 'This is okay, this is what I wanted' - the refrain of those who are known as 'sane'. What makes me so crazy about deciding to actually do what's on my bucket list, rather than soldier on through to the retirement of the grave knowing I've left questions unanswered? The definition of sanity is compliance to societal expectations and norms, and in the kingdom of the mad, the one who knows themself and stays true to that knowledge is known as insane."
Karl frowned. "And Comstar is that kingdom to you?"
"What else could it be?" Mark asked, casting his arms out wide to further emphasize the vigorous rhetorical question. "I've got my own reading of the scriptures, Karl. The will of Jerome Blake was that Comstar should act as a reservoir of knowledge, to replenish the vigor of humanity in the possible future where the Carrion Lords destroyed the fundamentals of interstellar civilization completely and utterly. It was a time capsule for a future he hoped would not come - and it nearly did not come. Humanity drew back from the precipice of annihilation laid by the First Succession War in terror, knowing the repugnance of what their hands had fashioned. But…" he paused, for effect.
Karl frowned. He knew where this was going.
"Conrad Toyama saw it differently. He believed it inevitable that such a future would come to pass, and that when it did, Comstar would need to be powerful enough to assume control and reign forever as the masters of humanity." Mark declared with a contemptuous snort. "So he put all of the work Blake, the pacifist, had done to a new purpose - causing the Second Succession War, in all of its increased brutality. Were it not for that man, humanity might not have fallen at all - and were it not for the successor he chose, Raymond Karpov, humanity may very well have managed to stand back up by now. And yet, Comstar continues on that path, convinced of the incurable brutality of the Spheroid - their unquenchable thirst for annihilation - and the barbarism of the Periphery States, whose people truthfully simply wish to recover the better lives their ancestors had. The mission has shifted from preventing, or at least remedying, the destruction of civilization, to causing it and profiting from it. We have all committed the evil that we see in the House Lord, and we are the heirs to a tradition of wickedness as profound as any their hands have wrought. Would Jerome Blake have wished for us to harass and rob the Axumites? No, and my hands are stained by the act. Would he have wished for you to attempt the immediate annihilation of the Alphardians? Certainly not, and shame on you for trying it. Jerome Blake would have been delighted to know that somewhere beyond the violence of the Sphere, the resilient seeds of humanity still sprouted strong."
The former Precentor ROM's neck itched at the heretical swill being spewed before him, but he tamped down on it. "What, then? Do you, with your adorably naive view of the scripture, view yourself as the one true Blakist? Do you believe yourself to be the pebble that stops an avalanche?"
Mark smiled. "Goodness, no. I respect parts of Blake's philosophy a bit, but the man was a pretentious asshat - and besides that, certainly no manner of god. But I think you'll find that there are many, many pebbles who would gladly stop the avalanche of your madness if they only knew it existed. The ideals of Toyama and Karpov may have permeated the inner cloisters of the order, but I've always known the common Acolyte to love only Blake."
Karl frowned. "Well, yes. It makes them less likely to let on our great mission to the outside if they don't know about it. It's a matter of safety from the barbarism of the Inner Sphere that they are left ignorant."
"No, you pompous ass." Mark corrected, reaching out to pat Karl on the shoulder - an act the man flinched away from. "You leave them ignorant of your twisted mission - the mission I've done so much to further already - because you, in the back of your mind, know they would see the insanity in it if they heard about it. You know they would recoil from the First Circuit and its workings if they saw the true face of their leadership - but instead of reflecting on yourself, you blame the faithless. There is more beauty in the days work of one faithless child, though, than you have created in the sum totality of your life - as they would recognize it, and as I do as well."
Karl sat silently for a moment. "So, what of it, then? What does any of this have to do with your mad dash for a death at the hands of the bees I've kicked the hive of?"
Mark frowned. "Why, what doesn't it have to do it? Of course, I hope to learn the truth of the matter - to discover just what happened to the couple I once knew, but I'd also like to die with a clean conscience one day. So, when I get there I'll try my best to evaluate the situation - to judge the character of the people you've decided to call, of all things, damned insects - and if I'm convinced of their decency by what I've seen, I'll tell them everything I know - and everything you know, if I can manage it. I'll even help them to tell the rank and file of Comstar all of that, if they decide to try such a stunt. It's high time that someone consider doing what must be done to clean away the principal infection of civilization, such that the prior conditions it has aggravated for so many years can be treated."
Though a scalding response did come briefly to his mind, Karl instead seethed silently at that, picking at his food for the rest of the meal as the comparison of Comstar to a virus, a worm, a fungus, or any other kind of mere pathogen churned around in the back of his head. Who was Mark Mars, to question the words of prophets? Of saints? Who was he to indict those who had cleared the path he'd had the opportunity to walk?
A madman, fixated on finding a fitting grave. A heretic, fixated on destroying all the work of their predecessors. It was as simple as that.
There was no sense in talking with the man. He'd simply need to seek his opportunity to break away from him and call upon a more reasonable listener to intervene.
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Scene 2
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Hargeysa, Thala
Axumite Providence, Antispinward Periphery
March 2983
"Peace be upon you, as well as the mercy of god and his blessings." the councilman greeted, gesturing toward the table with a smile.
Returning the smile, Ambassador Pawol Jablonski gave the matched response before heeding the gesture. "And peace be upon you."
Councilman Aye Barre Mahad settled into his seat with a nod. "It is good, in these times of tumult, to host an ambassador conversant in our own tongue. It makes matters far more certain for one to whom the maintenance of dialogues has been delegated, such as myself.
"It is just as good to be hosted by friends." Pawol replied, his hands folded on his lap. As one of those in Marian lands who professed a religion not Prometheanism, he'd often encountered times on Alphard where things had, despite the mandate of religious tolerance, gone slightly outside of the range of comfort for him. Having the chance to act as ambassador to a country where his creed was - at the very least - mostly aligned with the local one was a rare treat.
The aged Axumite chuckled briefly. "I can only imagine. Now, I will of course offer hospitality, but before we share a meal I would ask you - apart from the simple formality of it, what has compelled you to request this meeting?"
Pawol pursed his lips. "Have you perhaps not received the package sent by your own ambassador yet? If so, I have mistimed this meeting."
"Ah." Aye grumbled, pinching his forehead. "I shall need to have a talk with those responsible for inspecting the cargo. You are of course entitled to the unhindered receipt of your own diplomatic bags, but why should those inbound from our own ambassador be held up in our system? Regardless, I would not be opposed to hearing about this matter from you first, since we have already sat down together."
The ambassador nodded. "As you wish. The short summary of what has occurred, to my understanding, is that the investigation into the identity of the brigands who have harassed your territory, and who assaulted our own in numbers, has been verified beyond the level of trusting their own words. Agents dispersed as merchants have reported back that Comstar, the interstellar telecommunications monopoly and religious organization which ties the Inner Sphere together and rules Terra, does indeed operate an 'Explorer Corps' which uses such ships as we have encountered with near exclusivity, apparently produced primarily for their usage and that of the rest of the fleet of the so-called 'Blessed Order'. As a successor to the Star League Ministry of Communications, it stands to reason that the cult would have elevated its hereditary terran supremacism to the level of religious credo, I suppose."
"Of course they would have, the damned savages." Aye huffed. "Even in our own recordings of history, the government of Terra was not to be trusted with anything of importance. To think, though, that they would craft a false god in the name of their ambitions. Have they advertised their role in this matter?"
Pawol shook his head. "A neutral and supposedly minimally militarized organization could hardly advertise such a thing openly, but they are the only credible sources for this violence. The Tramp class jumpship, let alone the modified variant we have encountered, was virtually extinct in the Inner Sphere until a few decades ago due to its design inconsistencies with the requirements of bulk trade, and a history of retooling yards equipped to build them for Star Lord class jumpships, which were far better suited to such. Furthermore, your first recorded encounters with the pirates matches closely with when the first - we suspect very heavily doctored - survey maps of the coreward-antispinward periphery began to be released for purchase, while our own encounter with them, though most likely precipitated by the prior unrelated attack on our territory, seems to have come so late due to their clockwise deployment, starting from that region of the periphery and moving 'right', by the conventional reckoning of Spheroid maps: the sector of space where Alphard is located would, by that standard, be the last area to be deeply probed."
The councilman hummed. "Then it is your conclusion, in essence, that this 'Explorer Corps', though advertised to the public as an ambitious step forward from the dark age of the Succession Wars into a more enlightened age, is in fact a search and destroy mission intended to cripple non-Spheroid civilizations?"
"If nothing else, such a mission is embedded in the Corps, and we have abundant reason to believe that it is a core principle of it." he agreed, popping his neck as one of those on staff brought in a pot of tea. "The attacks we know to have occurred began very nearly concurrently with the start of the Corps' operations, implying that Comstar had such intentions from the very beginning. We may surmise from this that they feel threatened by the existence of viable civilizations beyond the range of their monopoly - perhaps they fear that the Hyperpulse Generator will be reinvented by a distant rival and sold to their customers, or perhaps they have their own hidden ambitions of conquest over the former Star League. Either way, their enmity towards our nations cannot be denied, and it is the opinion of the Senate that they have declared war on both of our nations through their conduct."
Aye brought his hands together on the table as the tea was poured. "Of course, I recognize the sentiment, but does it not seem a bit infeasible for us to prosecute such a war from our current position? Your nation is still busied with its defensive preparations, while ours has a considerable military technical deficit to surmount. Allowing that we are at war, what do you propose?"
Pawol smiled, taking a sip of his tea - while it was still quite hot, that was just fine by his estimation - before responding. "The Joint Assembly of the Marian Union has authorized an additional transfer of technology to assist in the rearmament of the Axumite Providence and the strengthening of ties between our nations. You will receive documentation on the production, upkeep, and utilization of twenty-sixth century military equipment both heavy and light, to enable you to better defend your vessels and worlds from their depredations once you are able to establish production. You will also receive the technical documentation behind the production and operation of Hyperpulse Generators, in the hope that we will be able to collaborate on the establishment of a more rapid communication corridor between our nations."
"The Marian Union is excessively generous as always." the councilman observed, taking a sip of his own tea. "What would you expect in exchange for this transfer, then? Surely you do not believe that our industries will be ready to implement production of such advanced technologies in such a short timespan as to immediately commence construction. We will need to remilitarize using our own technologies before we can even consider integrating yours into an upgrade package, and I cannot imagine we will be able to swiftly establish production of these 'Hyperpulse Generator' communications devices - you would surely have built the communications line yourselves before we could even commence work."
Well, it was only natural to be suspicious under these circumstances. The original imbalanced trade had been an accident, after all - not like this one, where a generous technology transfer was being offered with full knowledge that there was nothing in particular to be exchanged. Pawol would have asked what the catch was too, in Aye's circumstances.
"On the one hand, we would like to purchase some jumpships from your fleet to compensate for the disruptions we've experienced, if you are able. Even using outdated drives with somewhat shorter ranges, we believe the ships may be viable along some routes in our borders as a stopgap measure to expand throughput." Pawol explained, glancing down into his tea. "However, that is not the primary hope as we extend this offer of mutual aid. Simply put, our expectation is for you to - as you continue your remilitarization - work to capture the Comstar vessels that enter your territory, and to scout out the locations of their own communications network. We have confirmed they've established production of acceleration-tolerant HPGs from our own experiences and come to the conclusion that the operations of the Explorer Corps couldn't work at all without the use of a communication satellite network branching into the Deep Periphery. It is our hope, while we work to establish our own scaled production of hyperpulse generators, that we can fill the space between us with units stolen from our enemies. We'll transfer all the passcodes we believe should be necessary to properly hijack them to you, of course. Aside from that, wasting their resources is the main goal - if they want to salt the earth of the periphery, it's better to ensure they bleed heavily for it than not."
Aye closed his eyes and breathed out heavily. "An understandable goal, but… surely you must realize how odd it is for you to casually state that you will transfer to us what must, assuredly, have been state secrets of the Star League era in exchange for us acting in what amounts to our own self interest. What I hope you will answer for me is this: how have you even managed to accumulate such passcodes to begin with? What backdoors in their systems can you actually claim to control?"
Pawol shrugged. "While the Promethean Order is, of course, wrong to make a religious creed of mere secular knowledge, I have been adequately convinced over the years that they are the inheritors to the full intellectual and technological legacy of the Star League through some or another means. I do not intend to interrogate the matter too deeply, but if Comstar is an heir of the Star League which seeks to replicate its evils, I would image the Prometheans as heirs to the Star League who have made the opposite commitment, and seek to make reparations for its history of wrongdoings."
Perhaps, just perhaps, that extended so far as to motivate the technology transfers in its own right - separate from all matters of bolstering the war effort or tying their states together, perhaps the plan was simply to gradually drip feed the sum totality of their knowledge to Axum, to cast a torch into the deep periphery where it would continue to burn even if the Promethean flame was extinguished forever in the brewing conflict. Where the Terran Hegemony had worked so hard to conceal knowledge and to act as a single point of failure, the Order had - after all - opted instead to make it as abundantly available in the Union's borders as was feasible, by all accounts.
Perhaps, to be more concise, they'd quietly nominated Axum as the heir to their mission to restore humanity's technological legacy to the world in the event of their own annihilation, and simply not told anyone outside of the Joint Assembly building. The thought made Pawol's mouth feel a bit dry. It was somehow both reassuring in its own way and utterly uncomfortable to consider.
He wondered if Aye had picked up on the possibility.
The councilman pinched his forehead and let out a heavy sigh. "I will present this matter to the council as a whole, of course. However, I cannot guarantee any particular response or level of comprehension from them. I myself can barely comprehend how your nation functions, let alone what string of absurdities may have created it. I do suspect the call of your technology will eventually win over the discussion, but… shall we retire to more relaxing discourse and activities before I suffer an aneurysm?"
"I would have no objections to that."
Truthfully, Pawol was of the group who accepted as probable truth the rumor that the Claytons were actually descendants of the last First Lords of the Star League despite the long maintained official story that their occasional use of the 'Cameron' name was just a coincidence, but he certainly didn't consider it a certain enough thing to spread around thoughtlessly, nor did he consider it compatible with his duties to risk becoming the source of an info leak of that magnitude, if it was true. Even for a friend, even for an ally, he'd keep silent about that belief.
It was still one of the most credible explanations he could think of for how the Promethean Order ended up knowing so much, though. Who else but the literal heirs to the Star League would be endowed with so much information? The supposed god they worshiped was simply a vast database dressed up in ritual and prayer - it had no actual discretion with which to deliver a revelation to them. The only alternative was that they were genuinely just lucky enough to dig it up somewhere, which seemed about a thousand times less likely than them getting it through some legitimate means. If millions of people had been looking for it for two centuries without any more visible discoveries in the Inner Sphere, he was fairly sure the Prometheus Archive was something that couldn't simply be stumbled upon through luck and pluck.
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Fast Corvette Castle O'Reilly, Alphard System
Marian Union, Antispinward Periphery
July 2986
Commodore - no, it was Rear Admiral now, wasn't it? - Brancis ran her hand across the armrest of the flag seat, glancing around the bridge of the vessel slowly, the momentum transfer of the gesture neutralized by the tether holding her in place. All around, sleek screens illuminated the space as hundreds of cameras collected the image of the yards outside. "I've never seen a bridge where you'd need to shout to be heard before, sir."
Behind her, the Vice Admiral chuckled loudly, her voice rich with amusement. "Oh, no shouting will be necessary, Admiral Brancis. There are intercoms between all the significant sections to ease matters. Of course, it's always reassuring to have the mark one as a fallback in case of equipment failures."
"It's a bit of a shame that there's no way to do that through the vacuum of space." Allison shot back, a light grin slipping onto her face despite her own intentions. "It's a beautiful ship, though. Really, I'm amazed to see it this far along."
The technology, she'd been assured over and over, was extremely conservative - everywhere, she'd had allowances made for later refits as mass production of advanced Star League weapons, armor, and internal components reached desired levels of output, consistency, and quality pointed out to her. So much of this ship aside from the jump core - the novel technology in which had been exhaustively tested on smaller demonstration models, and would be subjected to repeated additional tests before the full crew ever stepped onboard - was designed around the principle that a simple patrol vessel that launched today and ran reliably was better than one that launched in two years and needed constant babying. Even so, even half finished, she hadn't seen anything more incredible since she went to her kid brother's wedding three years back.
It was a truly incredible thing, she felt, that the Marian Union had built something like this - that it was building things like this. It was a great accomplishment.
Admiral Vlasik floated over to brace against the same chair with a nod. "It beggars the scale of everything we've laid into the black so far, that's for certain. It's not the largest WarShip to ever kiss the vacuum, and it's not even remotely the most advanced, Quick Jump or no, but it's the first of a new era in the Navy."
Allison smiled sadly, giving the seat another quick rub. "If only I'd done a little bit better back in '79, maybe this fellow would have launched sooner."
She choked a moment later as she received a firm slap on the back. "None of that self pity shit, RearAd. If it wasn't for you this ship might not be under construction at all. The only personal name I think of when I ask myself why we don't have a squadron of these things already is Precentor Jeff Jonnels. The fuckers in Comstar are the ones behind the flyby. You're just the one who kicked their asses back into the primordial dust from which they came."
Admiral Brancis closed her eyes and sighed. "You can say that all you like, but the thought isn't so easy to chase off. We lost a hell of a lot of good crew that day and failed at what we set out to do all the same - we let some of those green motherfuckers through the blockade. I still wake up yelling about it sometimes."
"You were outnumbered and out teched." the Vice Admiral reassured. "The top of the ladder wouldn't have promoted you, nor weighed your chest down with so many ornaments, if they didn't feel you'd gone above and beyond. You proved yourself in that engagement, and anyone who says otherwise needs to reevaluate their sense of scale. There is nobody in this nation with more experience coordinating a naval battle than you've got. Plain and simple, nobody. The battle you fought makes the previous invasion look utterly adorable, and that's the feather in the cap of a good few of your senior officers. When you've got your time in rank, I'd expect an immediate promotion in your future."
"There's absolutely no way this kind of pep talk is reg." Allison huffed, turning her head away. "I know you wanted the atmosphere of a casual chat here, but there's absolutely no room in a disciplined military for teaching a junior officer that they're better than the rest. What if I start ignoring orders because I think I know better?"
Her superior shot her a wry grin. "Oh, there's absolutely no way you're going to do that and you know it. I'm just saying - there might come a day when I'm the one calling you sir."
Allison snorted, shrugging off the hand on her shoulder. "No there won't. It'd take longer for me to get promoted twice on any sane and realistic timescale than you'd ever be allowed to keep your current rank. How many years are you allowed to stagnate before mandatory retirement, again?"
Jennifer Vlasik slapped her on the back again. "Brancis, when I get an honorable discharge, I'll call you 'Sir' when I'm back in civilian life. I don't need a regulation to tell me to do that much, the way you, apparently, do to tell you to accept a compliment."
The Rear Admiral sighed again. "Want to make it an order?"
"Might be an illegal order, but sure. You are officially ordered to accept the damned compliment."
"Sir, yes sir. Compliment accepted, sir." Allison mumbled, her gaze fixed forward. "By the way, what are we doing here, exactly? It can't have been easy to get clearance to go onboard a ship that's not finished yet, let alone one you aren't assigned to, let alone to bring along a guest."
Admiral Vlasik chuckled, rubbing the back of her neck as she pulled herself around the seat. "Who's not assigned? It may just be by virtue of being your commanding officer at the time, but I received my transfer orders to helm up the First Patrol Squadron along with my promotion. I'm not actually your commanding officer anymore, as it stands. Admiral Marinkovich is still in command of the overall jump point garrison."
Allison turned to her, eyes wide. "Congratulations, sir!"
For all the honors the garrison fleet had covered itself in throughout its years of maintaining postings all throughout the Union, it was nevertheless impossible to lie to oneself and say that commanding it was in any way more prestigious than commanding the first WarShip formation in the history of the nation. The garrison station network would grow and harden, to be certain, as would the escort forces of the Merchant Marine, but in every navy in the history of charted space, the WarShip fleets had been the senior-most postings. Getting one's foot in here was a shoe-in to commanding a proper cruiser task force or full integrated fleet, when the shipyards matured enough to build a more varied fleet.
The admiral shot her back a thin smile. "I'm holding onto a request for the Bureau of Assignments, Rear Admiral. I can send it any time, and I'm sure they'll approve it."
"Er, what?"
Allison's train of thought was completely thrown off by that apparent non-sequitur, her brain locking up as she started to analyze the statement for any deeper meaning that wasn't completely absurd.
"They're your transfer orders." Vlasik clarified, settling into the seat and testing the buckles on the harness out. "I want you as my chief staff officer, genius. I can mail them off at any time, and they'll get approved regardless of your desires, but I want you to agree to it first."
Allison choked, her eyes going wide. "E-excuse me, sir? I'm not sure I understand. You want me…"
"To be my second in command." the Vice Admiral confirmed. "I'm not worth the posting I've been given, Brancis. I haven't commanded anything that moves in years - the nature of my job was that I was never near the battles and never gave real time commands. Your experience in pitched combat engagements is something I want to cultivate and promote, so that our WarShip doctrine will be something worth a damn when the time comes for it. Besides, it's the only conceivable way I'll ever look good in this posting."
Allison threw her hands up. "Wait, though! I haven't been stationed on anything that moves in years either!"
"And?" came the reply, paired with a glance back over the Vice Admiral's shoulders. "You commanded a dropship fleet that moved in real time. It's not as though the flag officer of the fleet directly commands the ship they're on - the captain of the ship is the one in charge of executing the squadron or fleet level orders through the ship. My job, in theory, is to put forward the tactical level orders needed to maneuver the squadron in line with the strategy from on-high, problem being that my previous billet was mostly administrative, with minimal strategy involved and no tactics. Better you come up with everything than me."
"Admiral!" Allison cried, grasping at her forehead. "Are you honestly saying your plan for this posting is just… to have me ghostwrite all the battle tactics for you to deliver to the fleet?"
"Ghostwrite?" the admiral asked, her eyes narrow. "No, I don't think so. What I'd do is boldly admit to the top brass that I haven't come up with a single idea since I took my post and you were the one actually doing everything, so they'd replace me with you as soon as possible. There's no need for absurd political appointments like myself to be covered in honors and shifted outside of our areas of confidence. I'd much rather have been left in the garrison branch, you know?"
Admiral Brancis grasped her forehead more firmly. "The chain of command is crumbling as we speak. What the hell is my life?"
"So, how's about it?" the Vice Admiral asked, reaching up backwards to pat her floating comrade on the shoulder. "You wanna be my subordinate again and see the inside of this bridge while it's under actual acceleration? Because honestly, I've got no idea what else to do if I can't get you for this. Maybe I could go through the list of dropship squadrons and pick out a good captain or commodore there, but… Look, I need to submit my list of preferred staff officers before this thing launches."
Allison sighed, clearing her mind. There was no sense in fixating on the absurdity of this situation when the much more important part was that it was actually happening. She had a responsibility to fill here, clearly. "Mail the damned orders. I'll sooner be hanged than let you crash the first WarShip formation in the Navy into an asteroid and lose all vessels on a pirate hunting shakedown cruise."
"That's what I've been waiting to hear!"
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I'm currently keeping things relatively open ended so if I get the inspiration for one or two unplanned chapters, I can push the ending of this story back a bit, but it'll otherwise be ready to end more or less on the previously stated schedule.
