War on a Thousand Fronts

by M. D. Cooper

  The Nietzschean functionary said something in greeting, and Garza nodded absently, still lost in thought as he considered his best options for bolstering the region against Tanis and her fleet of invincible ships.

  His best option was to go wide. Hit hundreds, maybe even thousands of systems at once. Never concentrate forces, never give Tanis a target she could strike.

  He’d learned that lesson twice now. Once at New Canaan, and again at Silstrand. It wouldn’t happen a third time.

  “General?” the Nietzschean functionary asked, his tone making it apparent he was repeating himself.

  “What is it?” Garza snapped as they turned onto the main pathway leading to Valhalla’s gates.

  “I was just letting you know that the emperor will be seeing you in the garden today.”

  Garza waved his hand. “That is fine. Wherever he wants, so long as he doesn’t keep me waiting.”

  “Of course not,” the liveried servant said, ducking his head obsequiously before guiding Garza through Valhalla’s gates and along a shrouded pathway leading around the main cluster of spires toward what Garza assumed to be Constantine’s private garden.

  The walk was just over half a kilometer, and Garza was beginning to wonder if the emperor had spent so much money on trappings that he couldn’t afford a groundcar, when they finally reached a pair of gleaming gates.

  As the servant guiding Garza approached, the gates opened, revealing an idyllic meadow beyond. Trees ringed the perimeter, and a small stream flowed through the center. On the far side of the stream was an ancient oak, its large boughs spreading across a quarter of the meadow.

  Beneath the tree’s thick branches, reclining on a chaise, was Emperor Constantine.

  The man wore a simple white robe, chewing languidly on grapes he was plucking from a bunch hanging on a pole. On either side of him were naked servants—both men and women—who were fanning him as though he were some ancient Terran king.

  The servants surrounding the emperor were the finest specimens of humanity a person could imagine. They embodied a perfected physical—and likely mental—form; all completely natural.

  In a manner of speaking.

  Constantine, and those he surrounded himself with, were entirely unmodded. They were, however, genetically engineered in every way.

  Normally, the setting Garza approached would likely lead to debauchery before long, but he knew that not to be the case with Constantine.

  The emperor purported to be celibate—something that every source at Garza’s disposal confirmed. For whatever reason, the man seemed to enjoy proving to everyone that he was immune to any desires of the flesh by surrounding himself with carnal temptations.

  Nietzscheans, Garza thought in derision. In their effort to become the purest humans they can be, they’ve forgotten what humanity is all about: Multiply and fill the heavens. Fulfill our manifest destiny.

  The functionary led Garza across a series of flat-topped stones placed in the stream, and then stood silently before the emperor, hands clasped behind his back.

  Garza resisted the urge to roll his eyes as they waited a full minute for Constantine to acknowledge their presence.

  Finally the man spoke, his voice a deep baritone. “General.”

  Constantine didn’t look up from the grapes he held in his hand, and Garza waited for five long seconds before replying.

  “Emperor Constantine. It is good to see you again.”

  The emperor finally looked up and nodded to Garza before glancing at the servant and flicking his hand, gesturing for the functionary to leave.

  Without a word, the man left, and Garza took it upon himself to sit in one of the chairs next to the emperor’s chaise.

  A look of annoyance flickered across the emperor’s face, but he didn’t make an issue of Garza’s presumptive action.

  “To what do I owe this pleasure, General Garza?” the emperor asked, as though they hadn’t already exchanged a host of messages.

  “I’m here to review the strategy for the assault on Septhia, as we’d discussed in our communications. I understand you have amassed a force capable of striking every Septhian star at once.”

  “Have I?” the emperor arched a brow. “I suppose I have. However, I recently enacted another plan.”

  Garza’s brow pinched together, and he resisted the urge to reach out and slap the grapes out of Constantine’s hand. Instead, all he said was, “Oh?”

  “Yes. It turns out that Tanis Richards and her ancient colony ship have been flitting around the edges of my empire, looking for someone.”

  “Really?” Garza had no idea why Tanis would do such a thing. “Who?”

  “A rather odious man, a thorn in my side. General Mill of the Marauders.”

  Garza delved into his data on the region and pulled up the information on the Marauders—a group of mercenaries consisting of Genevians who had banded together after their people’s conquest by the Nietzscheans.

  “What did she want with Mill?” Garza asked.

  “I don’t know, but I expect to find out. My moles within the Septhian government have orders to attack them when they finally meet. Chances are that it will be somewhere in Thebes or the Politica. I’ve massed a fleet of over seventy thousand ships, that should see to my enemy’s capture, and the destruction of whatever escort they possess.”

  Garza felt heat rise in his face as he fixed the emperor with a penetrating stare. “Tell me this isn’t the fleet we were going to use in our attack on Septhia.”

  “General Garza. Do not presume to instruct me as to what to tell you. We are in Nietzschea here, not your Orion Freedom Alliance.”

  Garza drew in a deep breath and schooled his expression before inclining his head. “I ask your forgiveness. But tell me, did your ships attack?”

  “We are some distance from Praesepe,” Constantine replied, his tone arch, as though he were going out of his way to forgive Garza for his verbal faux pas. “But I did just receive word that the attack is being readied. At Albany, no less. I rather like the symmetry of it. And yes, we committed the force we’d built up for the attack on Septhia. Once they’ve captured Tanis Richards and her ship, they can proceed with that mission as planned.”

  “Doubtful. They’re likely lost,” Garza said simply.

  “What is? Our prey?” Constantine asked, his serene expression cracking for the first time.

  “No. Your fleet,” the general clarified. “I imagine it’s gone.”

  Constantine dropped his grapes and swung his legs over the edge of his chaise, sitting up and fixing Garza with a penetrating stare. The indolent emperor was gone, now replaced with a power-hungry man determined to seize anything his thoughts settled on.

  “I sent seventy thousand ships. The accounts I have tell me she was travelling with a few dozen escort craft. Even her vaunted Intrepid cannot stand up to a force the size I sent.”

  “I2,” Garza corrected.

  “What?” Constantine snapped.

  “The ISS I2. The Intrepid has been upgraded. Now the ship likely has firepower equal to a quarter of the fleet you sent against it, just on its own. It houses a hundred thousand fighters, all with stasis shields. You sent your fleet to its death.”

  “It’s not possible,” Constantine whispered. “I will have captured Tanis Richards!”

  “No,” Garza hissed. “You squandered your opportunity to divide your enemy’s forces. If you mass, she will strike you and decimate your fleet. Tanis Richards is a bleeding heart. Your best offense is to attack everywhere at once, destroy worlds, decimate entire star systems. Create mass humanitarian crises that will slow her down and divide her forces. That is how you defeat her! You wear her down to a nub.”

  The emperor had paled as Garza’s voice rose in volume, but then he seemed to remember himself, and rose before Garza.

  “You’ll do well to remember your place, General. I am emperor in Nietzschea, you—”

  Garza rose and took a step toward the emperor, movin
g within arm’s reach of the insufferable man.

  In an instant, Constantine’s naked servants held a host of weapons from blades to pistols. All aimed or leveled at Garza.

  Constantine smirked. “Sit.”

  Garza lifted a hand. Slowly, as though he were bored with the situation. He snapped his fingers, and the naked men and women surrounding him fell to the ground.

  “Do not think I would come here unprepared, Constantine. I have means at my disposal you can only imagine.”

  The emperor’s face paled as he realized he was completely at Garza’s mercy. “How?” he whispered. “I have countermeasures….”

  “There is much I have not shared with you…yet,” Garza said, sitting once more, and gesturing for Constantine to follow suit. “I was going to share jump gate tech with you, but first you’ll need to build a new fleet. I want Septhia gone within the year.”

  Constantine sat as directed, a look of utter confusion on his face. “I need more resources, I’ve lost much, protecting the empire, our borders are vast—”

  Garza held up a hand. “You have the resources. You have worlds, moons, more than enough to build millions of ships. Yes, you have debts you owe, you’ve spent much in your conquests. But frankly, Emperor Constantine, I don’t give a fuck.

  “You claim master morality? Well, use it. Seize what you want and build a fleet to end your enemies. Build that fleet by whatever means necessary, and I’ll facilitate you with jump gates to deliver it to the doorsteps of every star system that opposes you.”

  Garza rose once more, and looked down at the emperor in disgust.

  “I’ve implanted my nano inside your body. You have a year. If I’m not satisfied with what you’ve done by then, you’ll die. There’s nothing you can do about it. My nano is undetectable by your medical science.”

  “Garza…” The word came out in a choke.

  The Orion general let a laugh escape his lips as he began to walk away, stopping at the stream to look over his shoulder.

  “One year, Emperor. And remember. I own you. I own all of Nietzschea now.”

  The emperor sputtered something, but Garza ignored him as he stepped across the stones in the stream then strode back through the meadow.

  Of course, he’d done nothing to the emperor, but the man would go to his medics nonetheless. Their inability to find anything would cement his belief that Garza did indeed leave something within his body that would kill, come a year.

  Garza decided that he would stay near the Capitol System for a few weeks—long enough to be sure that the emperor would do as he’d been told. Or, should Constantine disobey, to see that the man was replaced.

  Following that, Garza would meet back up with the clone he sent to Praetor Kirkland and see how much longer that man would last in his position.

  INNER EMPIRE

  STELLAR DATE: 08.31.8949 (Adjusted Years)

  LOCATION: Bridge Conference Room, ISS I2

  REGION: Pyra, Albany System, Thebes, Septhian Alliance

  “Here’s the deal,” Tangel spoke slowly, sweeping her gaze across the four people in front of her. “I like Thebes. You’re a good people who got dealt a bad hand. I don’t think that becoming a part of Septhia is good for you; they’re just treating you like a buffer between themselves and Nietzschea.”

  At her words, the men and women nodded soberly.

  General Andre spoke up first in his gravelly voice. “I won’t argue with that, but we’re still staring at Nietzschea across a thirty-light year stretch of systems that are just waiting for the Niets to roll across them. From what you’ve said, your fleet can’t stay here forever. With all that in mind, Septhia is the best option we have.”

  As the general spoke, the woman to his left, Governor Herra, began to shake her head. “No, Andre, that’s just a delaying tactic. Septhia is trying to build a new empire to stand against the Niets, but they’re doing it on the backs of everyone around them. In the end, they’ll be no different from the Nietzscheans.”

  Admiral Kally snorted. “Except they’re inept. The Septhians can’t hope to pull off what the Niets have done—they’re not ruthless enough.”

  “Which we should consider a blessing,” Herra said, catching Kally’s eye.

  “I see that we’re all on the same page, then,” Tangel said, turning to the fourth visitor, a man named Kendrik. He pursed his lips, then nodded.

  “I am. Assuming you have some sort of plan that’s more than just a way to call for you to come save us when the Niets attack again—because they will attack again.”

  Tangel nodded as she considered Kendrik. He was the person she needed onboard the most, but he was also the one with the most to lose.

  As a businessman who had corporate interests across Thebes and much of Septhia, backing Theban independence from Septhia would put his broader business operations at risk from retaliation.

  However, he was the one with the skill and the contacts to manage what Tangel wanted to build in Thebes.

  “I can’t make guarantees that Septhia won’t act…in a manner contrary to their best interests, but I will do everything in my power to bring them in line with what’s best for Praesepe at large.”

  “Which is your way of saying that you’ll make them promise not to seize my businesses in Septhia, right?” Kendrik asked, his unblinking eyes boring into Tangel’s.

  This is where Angela would say something like, ‘wow, he’s got a set of balls on him’, Tangel thought with a mental smirk.

  But straight talk is what Kendrik needed to hear.

  “There is verbiage in the Alliance treaty which precludes them from taking action that can be considered retaliatory against citizens of other allied nations who operate businesses in both jurisdictions. There are also, however,” Tangel’s eyes grew serious as she held Kendrik’s gaze, “provisions against war profiteering.”

  Kendrik didn’t reply for a moment, but Tangel couldn’t help but notice how wide Kally’s eyes grew. Then the man gave a short nod.

  “Very well, I believe it should not be an issue for me to abide by the alliance treaty. So what do you need from me? I don’t have any military power to back a re-formed Theban Alliance”

  “True,” Tangel said, a smile playing at the corners of her lips. “But how do you feel about operating the largest shipyard this side of Sol?”

  “Admiral Richards,” General Andre grunted. “Speak plainly, please. What is it that you’re proposing?”

  “Very simply put, we’re at a disadvantage against many of our enemies. They have the ability to bring larger fleets to bear than we do. When they mass, we can meet them and crush them, but there are millions of star systems out there, and we can’t police them all; there are just too many fronts to this war. What we need are strong, dedicated allies to create bastions of strength that the enemy cannot roll over, allies that also strengthen those around them.

  “That’s a very generic strategy, though. More specifically, what I want to do is turn Thebes into a fleet building powerhouse. We’ll take the Albany system and make it the economic center of the Praesepe cluster.”

  “That’s…ambitious,” Governor Herra said, breaking the silence that had settled on the room after Tangel’s statement. “I’m certain you’ve noticed how the Albany System is in ruin. Pyra is all but an unlivable wasteland, and estimates are that it’ll take three years to find all the survivors that jettisoned in pods when their ships and stations were destroyed by the Niets.”

  “And that’s the optimistic view,” Andre added.

  “I think we can do it,” Kendrik said, his concerned expression countering the optimism in his words. “But we’ll make ourselves into an even bigger target than we are now. The Niets will come back.”

  Tangel leant back in her chair. “Ladies and gentlemen, you said it yourselves. The Niets are coming back no matter what—the only way to stop them from eventually crushing Thebes is to defeat them. Thebes will be the engine of that destruction.”

  Admi
ral Kally shook her head, sighing as her eyes narrowed. “If your allied fleet hadn’t just done what it did here, I’d believe you to be a lunatic, but you’ve already proven your abilities to us. How will we do this?”

  Tangel brought up a view of Pyra, the planet shrouded in dark clouds and storms, a result of the destruction the fleeing Nietzschean ships had rained down on the world.

  “This is a two-pronged approach. The first is to deal with the ruin that is Pyra, and the economic issues you’re going to face in the wake of this destruction. No one is going to want to invest in Thebes—especially the Pyra System. And by ‘invest’, I mean time more than money. We need to make this system a shining beacon in the night. To do—”

  The door slid open, and Finaeus rushed into the room. “Sorry I’m late, I was wrangling with Gunther. That man did not want to give up his Peter.”

  “Sorry?” Governor Herra asked.

  “Allow me to introduce Finaeus Tomlinson,” Tangel said as Finaeus took a seat. “He’s going to kick off this project.”

  “Good to meet you folks,” Finaeus said as he reached for the pitcher of lemonade on the table and poured himself a glass, glancing at Tanis as he did. “Gonna be a hell of a job to break the Peter down, but with the I-Class gates, we can get it through without too much trouble. Be a lot faster than building from scratch. Right size for Pyra, too. Give us a good grav-ring.”

  “Pardon?” General Andre asked, while Kendrik whispered, wide-eyed, “A grav ring?”

  Finaeus gave Tangel an apologetic look. “Sorry, Tanis, I guess I jumped the gun, there.”

  Tangel shook her head, a forgiving smile on her lips. “Far be it from me to quell your enthusiasm, Finaeus. Carry on.”

  “Right,” he said, then took a quick sip of his lemonade. “What we’re going to do is take a Peter—that’s a device we use to cool planets after we make or move them—and use its base support structure to build a ring around Pyra. Probably situate it about two hundred and forty klicks above the surface. We use particle pressure to support the ring, run an accelerator around the whole planet, and then the ring rests on that. You get a bit lower gravity than on the surface, but not much. We can probably build a structure capable of supporting a few billion people at least. Plus, the whole purpose of a Peter is to manage temperature on a planet—it usually cools them, but Gunther’s can run both ways. We’ll stabilize Pyra, manage its sunlight with collector arrays on the ring, and get your world back in pristine condition in a decade, tops.”