Even from just his recent, limited interactions with her, he could sense the sheer reverence this woman held for Lafier, so he braced himself to get shouted at for being too familiar when referring to royalty, but it seemed Sehrnye had the common sense not to push her preferences on others.
“I’m just glad Her Highness is okay. That is, if what you say is true. All the same, this is a matter of grave concern, is it not?”
“It’s just as you say,” said Samson sincerely. Now there was the possibility they couldn’t enter the Countdom of Hyde. In all likelihood, they’d end up getting stuck in the system right before Hyde, this “Vorlash Countdom” or some such. And wasting hours and days doing nothing would eat into their funds. If they didn’t play this right, even payments toward the salaries of the servant vassals would get affected.
Yet another job I don’t know my way around, huh, thought Samson, disheartened.
On the whole, late pay wasn’t a thing in the Star Forces. Even if it had happened, it would’ve been incumbent on Samson to stand for his NCC subordinates and denounce his superiors. This was different, though. Even as the head vassal, he didn’t have the heart to pillory Jint. He’d probably end up taking the brunt of the vassals’ slings and arrows defending him.
And how could he possibly get through it all without an occasional pint? Samson thrust his empty glass at Paveryua.
Sehrnye raised her eyebrows, but didn’t bring it up. “Shouldn’t we be raising our speed?” she asked.
“What for?” said Samson readily, having anticipated that question. “You’re not saying you want to rush toward Fïac Lartnér as fast as physically possible, are you?”
“I am,” she nodded.
What good would that do, he nearly said, but he bottled that up and left it at: “Either way, the flotilla is already sailing at max speed. We can’t fly any faster.”
“Then I suppose I have to bear it,” she said, looking truly crestfallen. “If only our ship had planar space navigation functionality, then I’d have liked to rush over right away.”
Sehnye, Ltd. owned a Lander-pilotable antimatter fuel tank inspection ship, also named “the Sehrnye,” but it, of course, lacked that functionality. That ship was packed somewhere in the hold of this ship, the Acrych Nata.
“Oh, I know!” she said, and Samson steeled himself for the needless toil that was sure to follow that statement. “How about we organize a guard garrison?”
“A guard garrison?” Samson was taken aback.
“In the domain I used to be part of, the vassals all received minimal military training. I mean, we were all women, but this flotilla has a lot of former soldiers, including you, sir...”
“Please, enough,” he said, promptly rejecting the notion. “According to our intel, the land army of the Three Nations Alliance is still on the planet of Martinh. A thrown-together unit isn’t going to help.”
Given how she’d asserted her own experience, he figured she might volunteer for the guard garrison herself; only, she’d want to organize a unit of guards specifically for the princess, not for the Countdom of Hyde. Sure enough...
“I’m not saying we gain total control over a landworld,” said Sehrnye, lips pouting. “I just want to protect Fïac Lartnér and Lonh-Dreur...”
“There’s already a guard unit for that.” It wasn’t a standing unit, but it would defend the facilities of the House of Hyde — which, for the foreseeable future, amounted to the Count’s Manor and the antimatter fuel factories.
“Wow,” she said, her face lighting up. “In that case, kindly add me to that unit. It’s our responsibility to protect Her Highness the Royal Princess.”
“I’m afraid we aren’t the ones in charge of guarding Fïac Lartnér,” he said, feeling weird every time he used that title. “We aren’t bodyguards. At the end of the day, we’re here to defend the facilities of the Count’s House.”
“I understand that. But as long as Fïac Lartnér is with Lonh-Dreur, is it not the duty of the Count’s House to safeguard Her Highness?”
“I guess that’s true.”
“In that case...”
Samson wondered how long this unproductive conversation would last, but at the same time, he was enjoying wrestling with this irrationality. It was a lifesaver on this otherwise boring voyage. There was also the fact that Sehrnye’s speech sounded rather like some fanciful background music — her Baronh had a lyrical, melodic accent to it. Her mother tongue must have been rich in intonation.
Sasmon would’ve liked to see whether the background music Sehrnye was providing him went well with his drink, but alas, his wristgear chose that time to beep.
“Sorry, just a sec,” he said, tasting both relief and disappointment. “This is Samson speaking.”
“Flotilla Lessee,” came the voice of the Drociac Borr (Flotilla Communications Officer). “A conveyance ship is approaching.”
It was an oft-heard notification. While the volume of traffic was low, this was the only major space route in the Ileesh Monarchy.
“Do we know what it belongs to?”
“To the raid ship Flicaubh of Trample-Blitz Squadron 1, sir. It seems they’re currently engaged in the task of advanced coordination.”
“Raid ship? Trample-Blitz Squadron 1? When’d they come out with those?”
“I don’t know either, sir. All we know is the squadron it belongs to. The conveyance ship will merge with this ship’s space-time in ninety-two minutes, so we’ll learn more then...”
“Looking forward to it.” Samson dropped the call. Now I can make her go away. “Did you hear that? It appears a mighty Star Forces armada is headed towards the Countdom of Hyde, shrouded though it is in clouds of darkness. We’re just a collective of engineers. We’d be hard-pressed to be the heroes of some adventure story. As long as the Empire’s on the job, then there’s no place for us to intervene.”
“Yes, of course,” she bowed, frowning for some reason. “Sorry for intruding. Please, don’t let me put a hamper on your little drinking party.”
After she left, Samson put the question to Paveryua. “Did I offend her somehow?”
“Inspector Supervisor,” he said icily, (despite drinking more himself). “Whenever you say stuff you don’t mean, your acting is always so overblown. You could stand to take it down a notch — or at least, drop all the mighty modifiers.”
“They’re here,” said Lafier.
“And right on time, huh,” said Jint, staring at the video of the outside. No need to squint; the Baucbiruch just so happened to plunge into 3-space head-on from their perspective.
The two were on an intrastellar ship borrowed from the House of Vorlash. Dereuzz had tried to give them a steerer as well, but Lafier had shot the suggestion down. She would equip the control gauntlet herself.
As for why they were going out of their way to go meet the Baucbiruch, they wanted to see its damage status for themselves, and as soon as they could. They’d heard from the conveyance ship that had returned a little while earlier that the damage was minimal, but nonetheless, they couldn’t help feeling worried.
Lafier steered near the Baucbiruch; focusing on her frocragh, she closed her eyes and made several rounds around it. “Where did it get hit? I can’t tell,” she said.
“Well, if you don’t know, then I definitely don’t.” He was looking at the interstellar ship through the video of the outside, but spotted no sign of damage by fire anywhere on it.
Yet the fact remained it had been shot at. And that fact was nothing to scoff at.
“Oh well. We’re going in.” Lafier pulled up communications with the bridge of the Baucbiruch.
Yestesh came to greet them on the arrival deck. Hurriedly, they exchanged the formal salutations, and then the two stepped aboard a personal transporter headed for the conference room.
“The attack was so feeble as to leave something to be desired,” said Yestesh. “No harm was done to our navigation capabilities, and we managed to enact all repairs on our own.
”
“Did you do the repairs while in planar space?” asked Jint.
“No. We did them while in orbit over the landworld of Martinh.”
“Why did you have to do that? Wasn’t it dangerous?” Is this Abh sarcasm? he wondered.
“Needless to say, we paid due attention to remaining safe. We slightly raised our orbital altitude.”
“But if there was no impediment to the ship’s navigation, then...”
Yestesh gave Jint a puzzled look. Lafier, too, stared at him searchingly.
“Did I, uh, say something dumb, or...?” he asked the Royal Princess.
Lafier let out a little sigh. “Don’t you see? If they’d entered the portal as soon as they got shot, it would appear as though they were fleeing.”
“Sure, it might be misconstrued as such, but...” Jint was confused. He’d thought the Abh wouldn’t hesitate to circumvent avoidable adversity. “I know the Star Forces aren’t afraid to retreat. Plus, this ship’s almost unarmed.”
“We retreat when we absolutely have to,” said Lafier. “If there isn’t any impediment to navigation after sustaining a surprise attack, there isn’t any need to flee, either.”
“But you don’t know that for sure, do you? It could’ve just been a warning of more to come. There’s no telling if a full-scale assault is coming for you later.”
“You are correct. I simply made a judgment call,” said Yestesh.
“What judgment did you make?”
“I figured that if we retreated after taking such a small attack, we might be giving the enemy a false indication. And if they underestimate us, then the situation might deteriorate.”
“What do you mean...?”
“I know you understand the Star Forces’ maxims of conduct, Lonh-Dreur. You are a member of our armed forces, after all, and have aided us in battle. If the mistaken notion that the Star Forces flee at the meagerest provocation takes root, what consequences do you think will result?”
Jint understood what Yestesh was getting at. The maxims of conduct of the Star Forces were extremely simple. In short, they aimed to repay all damage received ten times over. The Abh were a mercantile race, but this was the one instance they spared no expense, the one instance they didn’t consider profit margins. Jint had always thought this lust for revenge quite childish of the Abh, but it wasn’t about to change. It had been this way since the founding of the Empire — no, since before then, when the Abh were itinerant spacefarers. Moreover, upon some consideration, there was a logic to it. It was not uncommon for Abh ships to become isolated, in times of war and in times of peace. The Empire needed only put up with their reputation as savages, and regard their gruesome and dazzling orgies of vengeance as an unfortunate obligation, to dramatically elevate the safety levels for all lone Abhs everywhere. Or at least, that was the Empire’s take on the matter.
“I don’t mean to be rude, but might it be the case that the fine people of Your Excellency’s home world don’t well know how the Star Forces behave?” asked Yestesh, dealing the final blow.
“That’s... that’s maybe true,” Jint acknowledged reluctantly.
It was known throughout the galaxy how the Empire behaved. Otherwise, the safety of Abhs in places the Empire’s tentacles didn’t reach couldn’t be safeguarded. As it stood, it was deemed a fool’s endeavor to take an aggressive attitude against Abh ships without resolving to go to all-out war. However, it was highly questionable whether the Martinese, who hadn’t even known of the existence of the Empire until a mere decade prior, knew any of that. In fact, if they had known, they wouldn’t have attacked the Baucbiruch.
“So, were there any casualties among the crew?” asked Jint, changing the subject.
“None whatsoever. Ninety percent of the crew didn’t even realize we had gotten attacked to begin with.”
“That’s a relief,” he replied, though his self-esteem as a Martinese did get wounded. “Did you get attacked out of nowhere?”
“Yes, we did. They gave us no warning.”
“Why in heavens did they go and...”
“Perhaps they found our continual low-orbit revolutions trying for negotiations objectionable,” said Yestesh calmly. “We were attacked from the surface.”
Jint had already been informed of this through the report he’d read. He reckoned this was a half-baked state of affairs — if the attack had come from a force up in space, then they would’ve riled the ire of the Star Forces, which would then attempt to eradicate all hidden enemy fleets. An attack from the surface, however, wasn’t liable to change anything at all.
“Even if that’s the case, I still don’t get it,” said Jint. “Don’t they know attacking a ship from the surface isn’t going to have any effect...?”
“I was secretly hoping you would be able to explain it to me, Lonh-Dreur.” Yestesh’s tone was dripping with low-key disappointment.
“I’m sorry I couldn’t live up to your expectations.”
The transporter arrived at the conference room. They moved to the table in the center, and listened to the official report.
Above the flower garden that extended across the room, the map of Martinh was suspended in the air.
“The numbers of hostile forces on the surface is estimated at around twenty thousand,” began Yestesh. “They are principally composed of the Ma’tye 12th Division of the People’s Sovereign Stellar Union.”
“The PSSU, huh,” said Jint, a little surprised. He was aware that the Empire’s enemy was the Three Nations Alliance, which included the PSSU. But he always ended up chalking up the nations besides the United Humankind as the UH’s second bananas. Plus, it would have been less surprising if they’d been troops from the Greater Alkont Republic.
Each of the interstellar powers found securing the loyalty of their constituents a significant challenge. The Humankind Empire of Abh alone was totally unconcerned, expecting no loyalty out of the landworld citizens of its star systems. On the contrary, they wanted the land peoples under their rule to spend no time thinking about the world beyond their planets, and to focus on making their respective landworlds as wealthy as possible. Those oddballs who did care about worlds beyond had a place in the Empire as imperial citizens.
Unlike the Empire, the other four nations did worry themselves over questions of nationalist loyalty, each trying to solve the issue in their own ways. The UH was the most zealous, as they were expending almost poignant amounts of effort attempting to homogenize the culture of all the planetary societies under them. Then again, only outside observers were so prone to deem such efforts moving. There were many among the direct recipients of the zeal of the UH’s interstellar government who cringed and recoiled. Various currents of strife and dissension existed, especially in the star systems that joined the UH in recent times.
By comparison, the Greater Alkont Republic was a rather more compact nation, yet even they had not succeeded in painting all their systems in a single stroke of homogenization. They were only barely managing to maintain interstellar hegemony through the prominence of the politics, economics, culture, and sheer population of its main star system (named “Alkont”).
The landworlds of the Hania Federation were made up of settlers from the Sumei Star System and their descendants. They didn’t need to put in much effort for cultural homogeneity to persist. They did, however, have a small number of systems with heterogeneous cultures, and moreover, the localism of each star system was on the rise as of late, chipping into the overall homogeneity.
Finally, there was the People’s Sovereign Stellar Union, which had given up on arousing patriotic sentiment toward the interstellar government among the general public. In other words, they were the Lander interstellar power that ran things under the most Abh-like philosophy. Each star system had great autonomy, and the coalition was a loose one. Each star system even maintained its own army. The PSSU was, in essence, a mere mish-mash of affiliated systems. Of course, this made its confederate-style military less cost-effectiv
e than a single overarching military force would be, but it seemed they put up with that as part and parcel of the concept of a federation.
From what Jint’s wristgear was telling him, the Ma’tye 12th Division was officially the “Ma’tye Star System Land Army 12th Division.” He also learned that Ma’tye was a run-of-the-mill system of around two hundred million.
According to Star Forces analyses, the PSSU was the most lacking in enthusiasm for the war. It looked as though they were only participating because they felt the UH more of a threat than the Empire. If they’d refused to enter the fray alongside the UH, they were risking war against the UH.
In any case, it was incomparable in terms of strength. It would’ve gotten crushed as a side note in the war, if the UH weren’t doing most of the fighting. If the UH were to win this war even without the help of the PSSU, then the UH would at some point wage battle against the PSSU due to breach of treaty, which would inevitably lead to the PSSU’s defeat and forced homogenization. On the other hand, if they lost the war against the Empire fighting alongside the UH, the lives of ordinary people across all of its various landworlds would remain unchanged. And while war was a detestable institution, if they had to fight someone no matter what, they decided they’d rather face off against the Empire.
Given all that, Jint couldn’t grasp why a stranded PSSU division wouldn’t surrender. Of course, this didn’t mean that the PSSU had officially made that tough decision. This was based on one-sided speculation on the part of the Empire. Even if it ended up being true, it was just the general opinion. Upon reflection, it was comical to assume that every single soldier was weary of war. It wouldn’t be outlandish to assume the opposite — that the Ma’tye 12th Division was composed almost entirely of troops who saw the value in fighting the Empire. It would certainly make sense of the desperation of their struggles.
“I don’t know how seriously to take the possibility, but perhaps the administration is in effect under military occupation,” said Yestesh.
“Is it the enemy commander who’s speaking on behalf of the planet?”
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