"Great, girl, you’re learning quick!" I commended the captain. "And now, everyone together, kill that bastard!"
"My Prince, the enemy is surrendering on the common channel. They're requesting mercy," said Admiral Kiro Sabuto.
"Here on the Tria, I don't have access to the common channel, only to our fleet one. The enemy attacked and killed our landing troops. Is there even a single reason that we should spare his life?"
"The captain of the enemy frigate says that the head of the Brotherhood of the Stars, King Janis the First, is on board the cloaked ship. In exchange for saving the life of Janis the First, he will order his subjects to put down their weapons."
"A pirate King? How interesting. Well, let's see how much the subjects love their ruler. Send a message to the Ghost: if the station defenders fire even one shot, their monarch will be learning to breathe in a vacuum."
Trump Card Dead End
I'm so tired... Five hours of uninterrupted negotiating is enough to leave anyone feeling beaten down. I would gladly put this work on someone else's shoulders, but many of the issues required me to be present: subjugating the Brotherhood of the Stars to the structures of the Orange House, the rights to the Hnelle system, the further fate of the space station, placing a contingent of guards at the warp beacon (what do you know, you need to take the errors of the past into account), etc. I got a lot of help from space lawyer Gleb ton Veyer, who was discovered among the staff of Queen of Sin. Without him, I definitely would not have been able to navigate the infinite possible collisions and submerged rocks that make up the sea of Imperial law. At long last, the final version of the agreement was decided on, and I placed my personal seal on the document.
Sovereignty Change
The Hnelle system has been placed under the jurisdiction of the Orange House
Crown Princess Likanna royl Georg ton Mesfelle-Kyle shall become sovereign of the Hnelle system
And, with a five second delay, some messages came in about me:
Global fame increase. Current value +7
Global standing increase. Current value -22
The hard business was finished. I picked myself up sleepily, preparing to return to Queen of Sin. My bodyguards and the local soldiers, still having yet to change their black-green uniforms out for orange ones, formed a single escort group. Popori de Cacha cantankerously corrected the positioning of a pair of soldiers in the escort, but did not speak out against the presence of the Brotherhood of the Stars soldiers. And I also was already feeling like the locals were my close allies.
My initial plans were to deal with those who took part in the long-ago mutiny and those party to piracy. They broke on reality. The people of the station met the coming of Imperial forces with joy as true liberators. It quickly became clear that the population of the Hnelle station was at least two-thirds captured crewmembers from ships looted by pirates. Some of the captives had spent more than forty years here in the Hnelle system, long ago assimilated, found themselves work on the station, started new families, had children, and were not at all preparing to return to some historical homeland. There turned out to be no pirates or participants in the military coup at the station. Most of the pirates were on their ships during the battle; the others were taking a vacation from interstellar flights on the planet Unatari-VII, which is a huge ocean with a scattering of islands and archipelagos.
It was the Unatari system, the warp beacon of which was reachable from the Hnelle system, that was the base, the so called "capital" system of the Brotherhood of the Stars. It was a planet with a population of eight million, orbital docks for building and repairing ships, and luxurious palaces built for the pirate captains on the shores of the warm sea. I was slightly worried that the pirates would find out about the incursion of Imperial forces into their territory and turn off the warp beacon in the Unatari system, but I was reassured by the fact that it was quite unlikely. Risking treason from their own, not-too-reliable allies, the "council of the four Kings of the Brotherhood of the Stars" made the Unatari warp beacon totally automated and well defended, capable of withstanding multiple days of heavy-ship bombardment.
My interest was, of course, piqued by the personalities of these four space pirate "Kings." One of them, Janis the First, was in a prison cell on Queen of Sin, but who are the other three? It quickly became clear that the second of the "Kings" had been commanding Happy Sloth during the recent battle and had surely died in the reactor explosion. The third owned Scalp Collector, one of the two heavy cruisers brought to me, but in the last battle it was being commanded by his assistant, as the "King" himself was in a crystal-induced sleep in his palace on Unatari-VII. The fourth "King," it turns out, I already knew. He was the former captain of the Payoff, Velesh ton Rayf, or Velesh the First, as he called himself. I remembered how I had promised him a million credits and full freedom for his assistance. So what now? It was just a million. Money comes with time. But releasing that bloodthirsty pirate unpunished... I pondered the difficult choice for some time: either release this flagrant criminal or break the Prince's word before Admiral Kiro Sabuto, who was accompanying me, asks about it. From the admiral's point of view, there was no choice. A nobleman's word was considered inviolable, and breaking it threatened the most severe consequences, up to the point of losing one’s title...
I experienced true elation when I saw the local star maps, which confirmed even my boldest suppositions. The Hnelle system could potentially be an extremely important transportation hub. It had five connections to other warp beacons. Quite a rare thing! From here you could reach Himora, Tesse, Forepost-11, Tialla and Unatari. It was precisely as a transportation hub that I should plan the development of the station here. It would need more docks, new space links for recharging ships, freight terminals, cavernous hangars, new residential areas... But everything I described required huge amounts of money to pour in and two to three years to build. The average estimate for how long it would take for all this to pay for itself, according to the optimistic estimates of local economists, was around fifteen years.
The station's coffers were empty. The station had never harbored huge amounts of funds, and also King Janis the First had transferred everything to the last cent to his personal account right after the unsuccessful battle. And though some of the local inhabitants were burning with enthusiasm to beat banking information out of the criminal "King," the rest advised us not to put too much hope into that option – this "King's" brain also had a psionic block in it. Both groups looked at me with pleading eyes, as if they were looking at the only one who really was capable of paying for the development of their station. And I did seriously get hung up on that.
I was supposed to spend the money on developing the station now from my own in-no-way bottomless funds while all the "goodies" from spending the money would only come after my contract, and would be left for Mr. G. I. It was my consciousness of such blatant injustice that became one of the reasons why I placed the Hnelle system under my daughter, Likanna. Maybe she was being played by a kid I didn't know, but that kid was doing a masterful job of playing the role of an eleven-year-old Princess. Also, I had another potential scenario in mind: that everything happening here wasn't a game at all, no matter how much Mr. G. I. tried to convince me it was. The world around me was just too realistic, the characters reacted in a way that was too lifelike. And if that was so, then let Crown Princess Likanna receive a nice holding before she comes of age, one that she won't have to be ashamed of before the best suitors in the universe.
One hundred seven million credits... That's two cutting-edge, heavy assault cruisers for my fleet. Or thirty light cruisers. Or three hundred destroyers. Parting with the money left me in tears but, all the same, I made the payment. The people around me were exultant, and I heard joyful shouts in support of the Orange House and me personally. I tried to hold the proper smile on my face but inside cats were scratching. The fleet had grown, and upkeep had also become more expensive, but instead of more income, I kept accumulatin
g new expenses...
Though, the hope remained that I could fully cover all my losses in the other Brotherhood of the Stars systems. Above all else, I was interested in the capital of the pirate region, Unatari-VII, with its luxurious palaces, many of which were built with dirty money from the sale of stolen goods or drug trafficking, up to the point of trafficking the strictly forbidden crystals. Basically, all the industry on the planet was piracy-based – entertainment complexes on tropical islands with servants captured in slave raids, banks that launder money of questionable origin, and firms for selling stolen goods. The profits of the criminal business on Unatari-VII numbered in the billions, and I was hoping to put an end to that by confiscating the assets of the criminal Kings and their circles.
It also wasn't a good idea to forget about the two recently discovered systems, access to which had been found by scout ships during the Brotherhood of the Stars period. In the Tivalle star system, there were vast ice asteroid fields, rich in tritium and other rare isotopes. Also, the Brotherhood of the Stars had already begun mining them and smuggling them into Sector Eight through shell companies. Thinking about ice mining, I was immediately reminded of my sister, Crown Princess Violetta royl Inoky ton Mesfelle-Damir. Our father gave Violetta the Damir system, famed for the endless ice rings around its planets. It was there that the largest space ice processing facilities in the Empire were located. Tritium, helium-3, lithium-8, nitrogen-12... Thermonuclear reactors in the whole known Universe needed these rare isotopes in huge quantities, and a large share of the reactor fuel was mined, as it were, at my sister's facilities. It wasn't for nothing that Violetta had acquired the nickname "the Ice Princess." I supposed that my sister would doubtlessly be interested in the Tivalle system and would be willing to spend quite a bit to drown out potential competition before it even got off the ground. It isn't right to divide up the pelt of a bear that hasn't been killed yet, but I had already decided for myself that I wouldn't be selling my concession for ice mining in the Tivalle system for less than eight hundred million credits.
And, finally, the Sigur system. The warp beacon there was only activated eleven years ago. There was extremely little known about the system, though there probably was some reason for building a warp beacon there. It was as if the Sigur star system didn't exist – there was a warp beacon, but I was not able to find any information about it in the system. No one was able to explain me the reason for such secrecy. Well, alright, we'll figure it out when we get there, as they say.
"All ships at the ready in ten minutes!" The time had come to take all these hypothetical pirate riches in my own hands. "Fleet, begin acceleration toward the Unatari system. Captains, set the pre-warp settings to two thousand miles from beacon. We have reason to believe that the beacon has defense systems installed, and I think we can all agree those are best avoided. Our target is the seventh planet and its orbital docks. Serious resistance is not expected, but all the same, everyone should stay on their guard. General Savasss Jach, we'll need a terrestrial operation: capture a few small islands, and strategic locations – cliffs and thick forest, non-defensive structures. So, wake your soldiers up as soon as possible..."
"Unknown ships in system!" the officer's scream interrupted my speech.
"Sound the combat alert!"
Everyone began scurrying around. The officers took their seats hurriedly. After that, messages started coming as if from a cornucopia.
"Group of targets, distance: 900 miles. Around eighty ships."
"Big dot! A battleship! I repeat, the enemy has a battleship! And several heavy cruisers!"
"I got the right answer from the friend-foe system!"
"The fleet is identifying itself as Orange House forces. It's the Tesse fleet!"
Everyone grew silent, waiting for my reaction. I shrugged:
"What's to ask? Cancel the combat alert! That's my brother’s fleet. Well, to be more accurate, half of his fleet. Just one thing I don't get: what did they come out here for?"
"As a matter of fact, we invited them by turning on the Hnelle beacon," answered the admiral.
Ah, ok. That probably was what happened. My allies knew that my fleet was on its way to a battle with pirates in the Hnelle system. The turning on of the warp beacon after so many decades meant that I had won. And now the allies were rushing to the already finished battle to divide up the pirate treasure. What a shmuck I am! What was the point of first beating the pirates and declaring the conquered systems mine, only to turn on the warp beacon in this little pirate dead end?!
A video call invitation came in.
"Crown Prince Georg royl Inoky, glad to meet you! I am Admiral Nill ton Amsted, fleet commander for Crown Prince Roben royl Inoky. We came to help you clear out this pirate nest!"
I tried to hide my annoyance and answered the uninvited guest politely:
"Admiral, thank you for the concern, but we've already taken care of the enemies. The pirate fleet has been totally destroyed. Three of the four ringleaders of that criminal underworld have already been either killed or captured."
"But the Unatari system is left. We would gladly participate in its liberation!"
"Admiral, I repeat: there is no need for your participation. My fleet is preparing to warp to Unatari this very moment. You've caught us by surprise, in fact. There are no enemy ships there, so liberating Unatari is not a difficult mission. Your fleet still needs a few hours to recharge for the next warp jump, but my ships are completely ready to go right now. So you can give my thanks to my brother Roben for his concern, but in this case it was unnecessary."
"This has nothing to do with your brother... Crown Prince Roben was unavailable, so this whole operation of moving the Tesse fleet was entirely my and my captains' idea. My people were starting to stagnate without anything to do. They've spent many years cooped up on Tesse. The military officers thirst for battle. They want to fight with pirates! And though my fleet is much larger than yours, I'm prepared to split the loot and pirate captives down the middle."
So that’s what the hell! As I suspected, they really were hurrying to split up loot that I already considered my own. I don't know how it would have ended, but Nicole Savoia's heart-rending half-scream half-yelp interrupted the conversation:
"ALIENS IN SYSTEM!!!"
* * *
"Sound the combat alert!" the siren wailed gratingly, and the relaxed officers threw themselves into their seats.
"The alien Hermit destroyer is six hundred miles out! And..." Nicole's voice cracked from worry. "And with them is a Sledgehammer cruiser!"
Now it's serious. I suppose no alien ship could cause such a panic among my people as a Sledgehammer. The powerful starship could take out any ship smaller than a heavy cruiser in just one volley, guaranteed. Yes, and heavy cruisers wouldn't make it much longer – two or three volleys from the Sledgehammer's cannons is all it would take.
I rushed to take my position leading the fleet:
"Soldiers, the time has finally come for your first test! Not quite as many aliens as I would have liked, but at least we'll be able to check if you've been learning anything these last couple days! We'll split up the alien ships and draw them away from each other. Pyro-1 is first receiver. Pyro-2 is second. Safa-1 and Safa-2, make two more receivers. Tria, go away toward the sun. Both Tusks, protect the Tria."
"Prince Georg, what should we do?" came the voice of Admiral Nill ton Amsted over the common channel.
Come right on! What's he getting himself into?! He's not ready for an encounter with the aliens and would lose a lot of ships if he entered the battle!
"Nill, I don't want to have to justify to my brother why I lost his ships! So your job is just not to get in the way! If you want to help, use your whole fleet to guard the huge praying mantis landing ship. I've only got one, and I can't afford to lose it. And do not allow your ships to come closer than 300 miles from the skirmish!"
"The enemy has begun maneuvers! The Hermit is going on the approach to Pyro-2! The Sledgehamm
er is lagging behind, but it is also closing the gap!"
"Good, they're splitting up! Pyro-2 and Safa-2, blast off toward the heavies! Bring the alien support ships out to our big guns! Heavies, form a single group, check your connections! Destroyers and light cruisers, go forty miles out, take cover behind the heavy cruisers. Pyro-3 and 4, make a wide arc from different sides of the fleet and make me another second receiver to replace the ships that leave. Other frigates, warp to the first receiver."
"The Hermit has locked on Legash-3. It's releasing drones!"
"Anti-support, reduce distance to forty miles and mow those drones down! Remember, there's twenty of them. As soon as you're done, tell me. Heavies, focus on that beast!”
A well-orchestrated volley from the cannons of five cruisers had no effect whatsoever on the enemy ship. Too high a speed, too unpredictable a trajectory. The volley just sailed by.
"This is Pyro-3, receiver in position."
"Great, now we're really playing! Pyros, the Sledgehammer is presently 200 miles behind the Hermit. Your mission is to not allow it to come any closer to the battle site! Stasis webs and warp disruptors must be on the cruiser constantly. If there is even a tiny risk, get out to the receiver! Just hold it in place while we deal with the support!"
The conveyor belt began rolling – one after another the little Pyros jumped into the battle, took the cruiser and held it before passing the baton to the next frigate. I watched this carousel of ships and became convinced that the enemy would not be able to target the nimble Pyros, and so I turned my attention to the second alien ship.
"All twenty drones are down!" came one of the destroyer captains.
"Great! All anti-support, focus on the Hermit. Light cruisers, approach to thirty miles from the heavies, get your electronics firing on all cylinders. Release drones. Heavies, do the same. All four Warhawks, warp to the Hermit at zero, place your webs and take point. Stop that bastard for me, even if it's just for a couple seconds! Destroyers, you approach too. I need stasis webs on it. Lots of webs!”
Sector Eight (Perimeter Defense: Book #1) Page 22