Chapter 29; What to Do About the War Lords
Arin sat to a quiet dinner with his family. He turned to his brother, “I fear future conflicts with the Council of Emperors.
His aunts turned to listen. “I have an idea. A new strategy.”
“A new plan, Sire?”
“My ladies, I have a plan that I need your help with.”
“Yes, Sire…what ever we can do.”
“Coming in this day, I looked about my flitter as we were arcing in for a landing this morning. I saw many hulks floating in space.”
“About Seventeen hundred ships, Sire.”
“Flight worthy..?”
“No, Sire.”
Pedra snapped her fingers, “I have been kicking something around that might be just the trick we need…”
“I am interested to hear your plans, Auntie…”
“I could create clusters of ships with some new magnetix we have just cooked up…”
As always, Lea finished her thought, “We paint and repair the hulks enough to make them look space worthy.”
“Right… I’ll put one of my new Wolf ships at the center of each cluster. In our newest experiments, we have expanded the virtual null field. With this break through, we can jump the clusters to locales and, once there, fly them all as if they were one ship. We mix the clusters in amongst our fighting ships as cover. We will triple the appearance of your fleet, Sire.”
Their father clapped his big hands together, “Let’s get to it, people.”
His aunts assigned the Tek Body to repairing the outside of every hulk of a ship that could be rounded up. Because of the battles in the last two months, space was littered with busted up war ships. With the new technology, Pedra jumped out to those old battle sites.
Lea immediately began assigning crews for the refit. They repaired the hulks strictly for looks. They put in enough electronics so they would have sufficient power to maintain steerage once Pedra jumped them to a location. Magnetix bound them to gether and kept them from bumping into each other. The Magnetix worked just as Pedra had said.
Pedra piloted the first flight. She hid a tiny, new ship in the center of a cluster and jumped them en mass. The newly enlarged null field acted as both a jump tube and a masking device that would both fly and hide all the ships at once.
During those crazy refit days, anyone who could space walk was commandeered into painting duty. Holes were repaired with metallic tape over the hole and repainted. In three weeks, they had added thousands of “new” ships. Training was held to create crews to operate the one working ship. The trick was driving a group of ships. Turning was wide and slow. After a week, the new pilots were ready to go out.
The next week, there was a scheduled rendezvous with the Council of Emperors to go after Keeth’;s last fleet, they gathered at the home world of Karron Zindar. High in space near the first moon, nearly five hundred War Lord ships were gathered. Suddenly, all around and above their fleet as far as they could see were Arin’s ships. Baraz had carefully placed the clusters of derelict vessels out at the far edges of his brother’s group. They only showed their ships for a tick and then jumped them out of scanning range.
It worked. What the War Lords saw were Royal vessels as far they could see. After this aerial display, Arin walked into Karron’s conference room all alone. This time, when he walked into the room, everything was different. For the first time, the War Lords were deferential to Arin. He walked slowly around the room, shaking each hand.
Also for the first time, Arin was offered and he took the chair at the head of the table. He looked around slowly, “My friends…I am proud to say that our war work is nearly done.” The heads around the table nodded grimly.
“The peace will not be so easy. I would like to remind you that we had an agreement in place regarding what we thought should happen next.” The War Lords stirred nervously in their chairs.
Karron spoke first, “And, Sir, how do you see that playing out?”
“We have spent these last few years together creating an unstoppable alliance. It was built strong for war. It appears that peace is just ahead. My Chief of Staff, who as you know, is also my little brother, tells me that we may have days or, at the longest, weeks left in this fourteen year war. When it ends, we face new territory, Peace…”
More nods of agreement.
He raised his cup of coffee, “My brothers, Let us drink to peace!.”
The others rose and lifted their drinks as well, “Peace!”
“I return to the question of how to manage the time of peace.”
Kirzon Delft stormed into the room, “Does your view of that time of peace one where you sit on a throne we built for you.”
“What?”
“You know…Is your vision of peace one where you are now simply able to waltz right back into your Menzi Palace to sleep in your Menzi bed…hmmm?”
Arin smiled grimly. He knew it would have been too easy for these pirates to just let go of their hard won territories and power. “Kirzon, old friend, how nice to see you again.”
“Areen… I heard you was dead.”
“Reports of my demise were premature.”
“Alive or dead, you are no better man than me. I have as many victories as you. I am not giving my hard won territory back to you simply because you asked me nicely.”
“Kirzon, Kirzon…I see your fleet.”
“Nice…isn’t it.”
“And you can just as easily see my fleet.”
“Aye.”
“The misunderstanding here is that I am not asking you nicely.”
Suddenly, Kirzon simply disappeared. It was then that Arin realized it had only been a well constructed holo image of Kirzon. All of Kirzon’s ships had disappeared as well.
Arin returned his attention to the other War Lords, “Are we going to give the vote back to the people in your territories?”
He looked from one to the next. They knew they were beaten. “Aye… aye … aye…” With a series of signs of vocal acquiescence, the Council agreed to disband itself once the two remaining problems were captured and nullified. The War Lords were not stupid. They knew their equipment was not the newest and the latest. They also knew that the Royal Tek Body had created a series of new tools that rendered their fleets obsolete. Their fleets would not last a week against the clearly superior speed and fire power of Arin’s forces. Now, that he had recaptured most of Keeth’s fleet, he was simply too much for them.
“Well…let’s not get ahead of ourselves. The future is a discussion for another day. We are not done with today’s problems yet. Both Keeth and Kirzon are still out there.”
Chasing the Jewelled Throne Page 29