by Jason Bourn
Once he was installed as ruler over all the planets in the sector, there were many perks he could give to Darian and these willing traitors from Torval 2. Little did the traitors know that if they were susceptible to taking bribes from him, that they were most likely going to take bribes from the next offeror as well. As they couldn’t be trusted, Garth planned on eliminating each traitor in turn. Not quickly enough that anyone would see a pattern though. He didn’t want any of them to switch allegiance back to Torval 2.
When the battle fleet returned to Torval 2, with or without children, the coup would be finalized and he would be the de facto ruler. He would eliminate the entire existing infrastructure, so there would be no going back to the way it was before – it simply wouldn’t exist. His minions would be instilled in all areas of the government of Torval 2, so when the battle fleet came back, it would be impossible for them to do anything about the already-accomplished-coup.
Now all he needed was to get the battle ship fleet to leave for Ramos. He wished he could have done this when the fleet had gone to Earth on their fool’s mission, but he had not had time to get everything in order. But now he was ready. The only issue was that Nadia had called a meeting with the major planetary leaders, which she insisted occur before the battle ship fleet was launched. In addition, she required that each of the leaders be physically present during this meeting.
Garth had attempted to avoid attending the meeting, but Nadia had remained firm and said that they would delay launch of the battle ship fleet until this meeting could be held. As Garth’s plans required that the battle ship fleet be gone, he finally agreed to support the meeting.
– – –
Nadia started the meeting. “I am happy to say that we have our entire fleet of brand-new battle ships, more than two hundred in all, armed and ready to make the jump to Ramos.”
Saul immediately interrupted, “It’s about time. What is holding us up from jumping right now? Why did we need to have this meeting first? The children are more important. I vote that we have the fleet jump right away.”
Nadia looked at her audience: Saul, Garth, Kadar and Giliad were all there listening. “There is only one main impediment holding us up.” She glanced at Garth. “Garth, as you know we have been focused on building and arming this new fleet of battle ships, as well as training the crews so they can fight effectively. We have all watched as you have run roughshod over all of your neighbors.”
Nadia thought she saw Garth elbowing Kadar – it was fortunate that they were all in the same room – there was no way she could have seen that if they had the meeting remotely. Kadar spoke, although his voice sounded somewhat forced, “Garth has not acted in any way outside the boundaries of acceptable protocol. His neighbors, myself included, have entered voluntarily into strategic economic treaties with Garth. I assure you, these treaties are mutually beneficial to all involved.”
Garth sat there nodding his head, smiling. He felt that having Kadar speak would be much more effective than saying anything himself.
Nadia smiled as well. “Excellent Garth. As you have shown that you are so good at negotiating treaties, I’m sure that you won’t have any trouble agreeing to come to Ramos with us.”
Garth’s smile wavered slightly as he wondered what she was up to, before brightening. “I would be happy to accompany you on such an important mission. However, I am sorry to say that I cannot do so at this time as I have very pressing matters to attend to within my Kingdom.”
Nadia said, “I am sorry to hear that. Surely you must have someone that could take your place. Perhaps Kadar could do so.”
Garth shook his head slowly, looking shrewdly at Nadia. Kadar was the last person that he would put in charge if he had to go away, Kadar might just try to mount a coup. “No, that just wouldn’t do. I am afraid that no one can fill in for me. Such are the trials and tribulations of leading such a large Kingdom such as mine.”
Nadia responded, “I’m afraid that I really must insist that you accompany us. We really can use you to help with the negotiations and frankly, I don’t trust that you will behave yourself once we leave with the fleet.” She sat back and wondered how Garth would respond to strong-arm tactics, since he was almost always on the side of the demander, not the demandee.
Garth sat back and pondered. He knew he needed to respond, but he had to respond carefully. He had only agreed to participate in this meeting in person because he couldn’t figure out any way to get the new battle fleet away long enough to set his plan in motion. Now his options were limited. Leaving the meeting was not a viable option: he felt sure he couldn’t strong-arm his way out of the meeting, as he had seen many guards all around the meeting room and this would not advance his long-range plan anyway. Yet he knew that if he went with the fleet, his plan to conquer Torval 2 would not work. He was sure he would be very closely guarded, so it would be impossible to get a message out to Darian. And even if he could get a message out, it would do no good to have Darian and his forces conquer Torval 2 while he was imprisoned. He didn’t want someone else to be the ruler – and he had no doubt that he would be a permanent hostage if Darian successfully overthrew the government. Making one last attempt, he said, “How about if I stay here on Torval 2 and have Kadar, my most trusted aid, go with you to Ramos?”
Nadia genuinely smiled and said, “Garth, it is really you we want with us.” Then with a great deal of smugness she continued, “We really must insist on this. As you may have surmised, there is an entire contingent of soldiers just outside this room that will ensure that you cooperate. We have let you have a free hand without restraints for far too long. You can either come peacefully or we can use force – it is your choice.”
Resigned, Garth opted for the better of two evils. With a slight bow he said, “I would be honored to be a key member of the effort to bring the children back to us. Anything that I can do to help achieve this goal I would be more than happy to do.”
Nadia smiled. “Thank you, Garth, I knew we could count on you. You will be escorted onto the ship right away. You can let your personal escort know of any personal effects you need and we will do our best to accommodate.”
With that a highly decorated soldier walked up and stood at attention, right behind Garth.
Nadia smiled and announced, “This meeting has concluded. Thank you all for attending.”
The soldier walked out following closely behind Garth, whose face was grim, but resolute.
Saul, looking perplexed, didn’t know if he should be happy that no hostilities had broken out or upset at the threat of force that had been used. Finally, he got up to leave saying to Nadia, “I am glad that the use of force did not arise in your dealing with Garth. There is always a way to avoid hostilities. I wish you all the best in negotiating the release of our children.” With that, he left the meeting room.
Nadia was left with just Giliad in the room. She smiled at him and said, “Thank you for all your help. I am glad that we were able to avoid a messy confrontation. That was a good idea to get him into a meeting where his choices were limited, and none of them were military in nature. You are a true friend and a great strategist.”
With that they left the room, both intent upon the success of their long-awaited journey to free the children.
CHAPTER 21 – RETURN TO RAMOS
In the end they decided to use the same strategy for Ramos as they had attempted for Earth. Giliad was the chief strategist, but Admiral Peter Badstubner was the officer in charge. They again aligned all the ships to ensure, when they jumped, they would come in from all angles, this time directly towards Ramos.
Admiral Badstubner announced to all ships, “We are go for jump in five minutes, which will be at precisely 1200 hours, Torval 2 Standard Time. Remember, under no conditions are you to fire unless specifically authorized to do so. We are attempting to negotiate for the release of the children. Our negotiation should be helped considerably by the fact that we will have more than two hundred ships surrounding Ra
mos. However, I repeat that we do not want to initiate hostilities, no matter what you may see. I hope I have made myself clear.”
He looked around. He was surrounded by the very best personnel that Torval 2, the Kingdoms and the Periphery had to offer. They had trained endlessly together and it showed. He was proud of this group of men and women, and they looked proudly back at him.
He consulted the time and announced, “Slightly more than two minutes to go. Jump time is imminent. Please go to battle stations. I don’t need to remind you again that there is to be no use of arms unless specifically authorized by me or my direct chain of command. Good luck and may God speed and safety be with all of you.”
Nadia was in the admiral’s ship, as was Garth. Nadia was eagerly anticipating the impending confrontation. She noticed that Garth did not look nearly as happy, although perhaps she wouldn’t be as happy if she had an armed escort constantly overseeing her, as Garth had. She felt certain that this constant reminder of his involuntary incarceration was grating on Garth’s nerves. “Well, that’s just tough,” she thought, “It served him right after ignoring the rights of others for so long.”
Admiral Badstubner’s voice rang out, “Jump will commence in three, two, one … With that, the admiral saw the main display suddenly change from the familiar star system pattern to one that was totally foreign. Off to the side was a bright star, but much more prominent, and directly ahead of them, the admiral was relieved to see, was a large planet, presumably Ramos.
– – –
Dorial had been trying to decide how much to tell the children, but he hadn’t decided. Now that the meeting was only a day away, he had set up a side meeting with Rheana to discuss this topic.
He said, “I’m still not sure how much detail we should give to the children, or even how to go about it. Do we just tell them that they were abducted without any preamble?”
Rheana smiled and said, “That probably wouldn’t go over very well. I recommend a bit more subtlety in our approach. We should probably start off saying how proud we are of them and then ...”
Her words were cut off by the sight and sound of warning alerts going off on every platform that could support them. Their persas quickly informed them that a large fleet of battle ships had just appeared three day’s travel from Ramos. The tactical situation was not good, in that the planet was being converged upon by the ships from every direction – with more than two hundred ships total.
There were eight ship commanders that had been training for a day such as this – Dorial, Rheana, Grecian, Markus and four others. Each reported in and announced that they were ready for action. This was good news, since Dorial was not fully confident that, even with training, when push came to shove, at least one of the four others might have decided they were not interested in defending Ramos. In addition, they had four automated drones that had offensive capability.
Dorial’s persa assessed the apparent capabilities of the Torval 2 fleet and ran through battle options. The bottom line was that it looked like they were in trouble. Even with the superior capabilities that the Ramos ships had, including full integration with their body augmentation, the Torval 2 fleet had them outnumbered more than twenty-five to one. This numerical advantage more than made up for the Ramos’ augmentation advantage and the relatively negligible drones. Dorial’s persa gave the odds of Ramos winning a confrontation at less than five percent. Furthermore, in every case that Ramos “won”, Ramos itself was destroyed, along with everything on it, including the children.
Looking up at Rheana’s stoic face, Dorial could see that her persa had supplied her with the same information. The other ship commanders also quickly sent queries to Dorial, asking for orders.
Dorial’s shoulders slumped, as much as his exoskeleton and artificial musculature would allow, and he sighed. Directing a transmission to all the ship commanders, he said, “Our persas show that our situation is very poor. Do any of you have any creative ideas that might flip the odds?”
No one said anything for a long time. As the silence continued to stretch on, Dorial knew that Ramos was in trouble.
– – –
Admiral Badstubner looked at the tactical situation again. He had been doing that every ten minutes since they had jumped. “There is still no sign of hostile actions.” Scratching his head, he considered the situation, then said to the crew in an authoritative voice, “Continue the slow approach to the planet, but make sure you continuously monitor the sensors for any sign of activity.” Turning, he then spoke to the small group of people assembled nearby, “I’d also like to send off the transmission asking for the return of the children. Have you completed the exact wording?”
A war council of sorts had been convened when it had become apparent that the planet was not going to respond militarily – at least not immediately. The council consisted of Nadia, Garth, the admiral and Giliad. The council’s first task was to decide upon the transmission’s wording. They were getting close – currently it read:
“People of Ramos. We have arrived at your planet in force, just like you used force to abduct our children. We demand the release of our children. If you return all the children to us within twenty-four hours, then hostilities will be avoided.” This was signed, “Representatives of Torval 2.”
Giliad nodded his head saying, “This sets the tone correctly to ensure they know that we have a far superior force and that it is in their best interests to avoid war. It also gives them a specific time frame to act by – otherwise they know we will use force.” He paused, then continued, “Notice that we did not specify how much force we were going to use. This is important, since that would have limited our options. With the current wording, we have all of our flexibility and they get to use their imagination in determining what the worst thing that we can do to them.”
Garth laughed, at which point everyone looked at him – this is not what was expected under such dire circumstances. Garth, still smiling, said, “Giliad, I’m glad I don’t have to fight against you. You are quite good at this. I couldn’t have worded it any better.”
Admiral Badstubner then looked at Nadia saying, “Nadia, any other changes with this, or are you all right?”
She responded, “I’m good with this. I’m just nervous that either they will respond negatively, or they will not respond at all. The latter approach scares me the most, since that is the tact that they took last time. What do we do if they don’t respond?”
The admiral responded, “We will cross that bridge if and when we come to it. I personally think that this situation is much different than when they were taking the children. They were the aggressors there. Here we are the aggressors and we are slowly encroaching in on their space, closing the noose as it were. It is not in their best interests to play mute under these circumstances, and the situation gets worse, not better, as time continues to march on.”
Giliad nodded, “I concur. I do not believe they will stay mute. In fact, I believe they will respond quite quickly to our transmission.”
The admiral looked around waiting for any other comments. “OK, if there is nothing else, I am going to send the transmission.” When no one else responded, he turned and ordered the transmission to be sent.
Now, they just had to wait for a response.
– – –
Dorial and Rheana were strategizing when the “Ultimatum” about the children was received. Dorial knew that they had to respond quickly, as there was nothing good to be gained by delaying and plenty to lose.
“Rheana, I don’t see any good way out of this. If we give them their children, then everything was for naught. But if we don’t, in all likelihood Ramos will be destroyed. Either way is a loss for us. Do you have any insights that I am not thinking of?”
Rheana looked thoughtful for a considerable time. Dorial didn’t know if he should be upset that she couldn’t come up with anything, or if he should be heartened that she might have an approach that she was trying to finalize.
; After several minutes she said, “I agree that the two approaches that you came up with are untenable for us. I searched my mind for a better alternative, and I could only come up with one. That is simply to tell the children the truth. That we took them as children and provided body augmentation to them. I propose we then let the invaders talk to their children and let the children decide.”
Dorial responded, “That is certainly a risky approach, but I haven’t been able to come up with anything better.”
Rheana said, “In order to improve our odds, I propose we move forward our talk with the children and tell them everything. This way we can shape the discussion the way we want it to go.”
Dorial nodded, “Something like a preemptive strike, defusing any inflammatory sentiment that might occur if they were blindsided. This way we can do damage control and answer any questions before the Torvalians get a chance to influence them at all.”
Rheana said, “Yes, I’m not sure how good it will turn out, but I believe it is the best that we can do. I am hopeful that it will be enough.”
– – –
The war council reconvened when they received the response from Ramos, after less than one hour had elapsed from when the “Ultimatum” was sent.
“We will provide a video feed so you can talk with any or all of your children. You can present your case to them and let them decide. They are all over the age of consent, well over twenty-one years old. They are old enough to make their own decisions. If you can convince them to return with you, then we will not stop them. We will arrange for this video feed in twenty-three hours’ time, so that this will fit within your original twenty-four-hour deadline.”