Birthright: Battle for the Confederation- Turmoil (3 page)

He found himself
having to choose to root for either the conquest-hungry alien horde or the
people who would most likely be his undoing if they managed to keep Confed
free.  It was enough to give him heartburn.

Chapter Two

Commander Tash sat
at the small dining table in his quarters on Callidor, finishing the remains of
a light breakfast.  He'd ordered Callidor heavily fortified once he'd chosen it
as his new base, and construction had been going non-stop since then.  His
engineers had built reinforced bunkers, blanketed the planet in anti-aircraft
defenses, and he'd kept an entire fleet tethered to the Callidor system and his
own uses.  While the Primans were busily reforming the Enkarran Empire's former
planets to their own specifications, he'd chosen to make his formal
headquarters closer to the front lines, on the first planet they'd claimed on
that first triumphant day of emergence.

He dabbed the
corners of his mouth with the fine linen napkin that had come with the meal. 
He'd grown to enjoy the perks that went with the office of Commander, moreso
since he'd integrated some of the benefits and niceties the local population
had to offer.  It was decidedly un-Priman to be so caught up in material
things, considering his people had learned to live without for generations
while beyond the last habitable planets of the galaxy.

He got up and
strolled to the large picture window of his suite.  The new Priman building
housed the government and administration offices, so his quarters along with
other high ranking personnel were located in the building as well.  The
building stood one hundred fifty stories tall and was defended by military grade
shields.  He felt as safe as anywhere else he could be right now.

A soft chime from
the door to his quarters signaled the beginning of the workday.  He confidently
approached the door and hit the tab to open it, revealing his new
Representative.  She was of middle age, standing tall and proud as befitted her
rank.  Commander Tash had taken an abnormally long time to reorganize his
Representatives, breaking with Priman tradition.  He had a few unique problems
that accompanied the situation.  Normally, there was a Commander and a handful
of Representatives, two of which were crucial to the Priman chain of
succession.  The senior Representative was the former Commander, while the
junior Representative would be the next Commander in line.  The idea was that
the Representatives would do their best to wisely advice the Commander, the
elder offering experience from his or her own time on the job, the junior one
learning on the job before taking the mantle someday.

The previous
Commander, the now-Representative Velk, had been kidnapped by a Confederation
strike team well inside the Priman lines.  This presented Tash with a unique
opportunity to hand-pick a replacement senior Representative, and he'd gone
straight to Terir.  Terir had himself once been a Representative, among the
small and very elite cadre of Primans who had the ear of the Commander at all
times and were trusted to issue orders as if they came from the Commander
himself.

Terir had helped
Tash come to power in the first place, well ahead of schedule.  It was
Representative Terir who had secretly struck a bargain with the Council to oust
Velk and raise Tash to the status of Commander early, and Tash wanted the other
Priman on his staff, both as a way to return the favor of his help as well as
so they could converse in the clear and not have to play those silly
cloak-and-dagger games of clandestine meetings.

Now, his new junior
Representative, destined to someday become Commander after the Council had
decided he'd met the objectives set forth for him to accomplish, stood before
him.

"Ah,
Representative Ravine," Tash said as he beckoned her to enter.  She
breezed in as if she owned the place, something Tash saw as both confident and
perhaps a bit arrogant.  Both attributes would be acceptable to him; he had
plenty of practice in manipulating people, both Priman and otherwise.

"Commander,"
she replied neutrally. 

"I suppose
you're wondering why I asked you to meet me here your first day on the job as
junior Representative."  It was more statement than question, and she
assumed he was being rhetorical so said nothing in reply.

"Your family is
next in line to rule, and in accordance with our customs have offered you.  The
Council approved, and here you are."  He grabbed a few data chips from a
table and offered them to her.

She took them and
waited for an explanation. 

"These will get
you up to speed, Representative," Tash continued.  "You'll have much
to learn, from Representative Velk's kidnapping to our DNA virus and other
weapons programs.  You'll be expected to
learn
more than to offer
advice, but I will call upon you to see what you're thinking and to see how you
analyze the situations we find ourselves in.  The first thing you will do is
oversee a small project that needs to be handled."  He stared at her
intently, as if looking for something about her that would tell him if she was
up to the task.  Finally, he continued.  "There are a number of planets,
systems, and loose coalitions that need to be dealt with.  For every large and
capable body like the Confederation of Systems or the Talaran Collection, there
are a dozen smaller, weaker systems that need to be absorbed or eliminated. 
We've let some of these weaker parties have a pass as it were, since they were
in no way capable of offering meaningful resistance to us.  Now that we've
pushed through the Talaran Collection and stalemated the Confederation, it's
time to address these smaller groups."

"Are bargains
to be made?" she asked, "or do I just offer surrender or
destruction?"

Tash actually
chuckled at that.  "I like your way of thinking, Representative."  He
was silent for a few beats, then continued.  "We may have led some of them
on as to our final intent, but in the end there are only the two options you've
just mentioned."

"Then it's time
for me to start studying," Ravine replied.

"Let's
introduce you to the rest of the administrative staff at the morning
briefing," Commander Tash continued, and waved her through the door back
into the hallway.  

As much as everyone
would have liked the festivities to run for a week, the next morning most of
Avenger's crew was back aboard to finish putting her back together.  Captain
Elco was in his cabin when he received an incoming message from Fleet Admiral
Privac aboard his flagship, the Sabre class fleet carrier Thunderbird.

Elco quickly tugged
at his uniform and sat down at the desk, then tapped the button to receive the
call.

"Captain
Elco," Fleet Admiral Privac said with a gracious smile.  "Good to see
you."

"Likewise,
Admiral," Elco replied.

"I heard some
of your people got married yesterday," Privac continued.  "It's nice
to see the lighter side of things once in a while, wouldn't you say?"

"Definitely,"
Elco replied with a smile of his own.  "The gift opening isn't for another
few hours; if you're anywhere near, you could probably still make it."

"Well, I have a
gift of sorts for Avenger, but I'm not sure what you'll think of it."

Now Elco's curiosity
was piqued.  He hadn't expected any personal interaction when it came to
getting orders.  He would usually just look at his message buffer, see new
directives for his ship and plan accordingly.  Captains of ships that operated
so far away from the support of home were given wide latitude to exercise their
missions as they saw fit, and a briefing from a Fleet Admiral was uncommon. 
"I tremble with anticipation, Admiral," Elco said with a straight
face.

Privac grinned even
if Elco wasn't going to.  "I received a directive from Delos regarding
certain ships and crews that were deemed overworked."

Elco didn't know how
to respond to that, so he simply waited for Privac to continue.

"Supposedly
this came from Senator Dennix himself," Privac was saying, and the look on
Elco's face must have said it all.  "It's not all bad, Captain," the
admiral said in a consoling manner.

"We'll
see," Elco grumbled.

"Short version:
you're being given a milk run for your first mission back on front-line
status.  You'll go with the battleship Majestic and cruiser Cobalt, both from
the Ninth Fleet and recently returning from extensive yard work just like you. 
You're going to do a 'show the flag' to an out-of-the-way system that the
Primans have bypassed.  The planet's named Lemuria, and it was colonized by a
breakaway Drisk contingent a few hundred years ago.  It's a single star system,
not aligned with anyone else.  Their claim to fame is high end computing
systems, boards and components built out of exotic elements found on the planet
that can actually reconfigure themselves on the fly while in use.  It's as
close to artificial intelligence as the law allows, and they're damn good at
it."

"And the
Primans never wanted that tech for themselves?" Elco asked.

"You'd think
they would, but we also have to assume their intel was pretty sparse when they
arrived on the scene; they probably didn't know or couldn't afford to target
them in the opening days of the invasion.  Anyway," Privac continued as he
absent-mindedly played with a small data card with his fingers, "it looks
like the Primans are starting to shore up their flanks now that they've broken
through the Talaran Collection.  Your tasking is mainly a diplomatic one; go
there and say 'hi', and try to impress upon them the fact that the Primans will
come calling sooner or later."

"And maybe try
to convince them to come to our side, help with the war effort, that sort of
thing?" Elco finished the Admiral's thought.

"I doubt you'll
have much luck, Sirian, but it's worth a try.  The Lemurians are fiercely
independent, and have turned down offers of diplomatic relations from us and
the Talarans several times.  If they're on the Priman target list, though, they
might reconsider."

Elco hated that he
needed to ask the next question, but he did it anyway.  "And could we
actually do anything for them if they asked us?"

Fleet Admiral
Privac's silence spoke volumes.  "It would be hard to offer much," he
admitted.  "Certainly not much militarily.  Maybe we could offer some lift
in the form of transports if they wanted to start an evacuation, but even that
would take some doing.  I wouldn't go around town making promises, but you're
not there to sign a treaty; just let them know Confed is checking in with
them."

"How long are
we supposed to stay there?"

"The order was
to run some exercises in the area; give it a couple weeks before packing it
in."

"A couple
weeks?" Elco couldn't manage to contain the outburst.  "Why would we
waste the ships for that long?  I could understand a few days, but we shouldn't
be tying up valuable resources for weeks on end!"

"I feel your
pain, Captain," Privac admitted, "but it was a directive to the navy
from the Senator's office, so we don't have much room to bargain on
this."  Privac couldn't admit to Elco that he felt the exact same way;
that it was a shame and downright idiotic to keep three valuable hulls out of
the fight, but he wasn't in charge of the Confederation.  "For what it's
worth, Admiral Bak wants to talk to you about the assignment as well.  He'll be
coming over in a few hours."

Elco nodded in
understanding.  Admiral Nodam Bak, under house arrest for his part in leaking
information that the Primans used in the first days of their invasion, was the
person Fleet Admiral Privac had secretly tasked with running the more covert
ops in his fleet.  Admiral Bak would take any blame for a failed operation and
he was a patriot, dedicated to nothing more than the safety of the
Confederation.  If Fleet Admiral Privac was sending Admiral Bak over, then
there must be more to the story and the Fleet Admiral didn't want to have to
admit knowledge of anything else that might happen.

"I'll be ready
to greet him," Elco replied.

Admiral Bak arrived
two hours later and made his way to the briefing room attached to C3 below the
bridge.  Elco was waiting for him with Loren at his side.

"Captain,
Commander," Admiral Bak said, shaking each of their hands in lieu of a
salute and then taking a seat at one of the tables.  He took a sip of water
from the glass in front of him and then got right to it.

"Gentlemen, I
don't have too much time, so I'll get going right away."  He took a breath
and then continued.  "Senator Dennix sending you on this tour of the
backwater worlds of this part of the galaxy is a sham.  We're not sure why, but
he's ordered a small number of ships out of the line of fire.  Coincidentally,
these ships happen to have the best combat records against the Primans."

Loren and Captain
Elco both raised an eyebrow at that but said nothing, so Bak continued. 
"Some would say that he's trying to get the most weary crews a breather. 
Others would say he's trying to sideline our best units.  It's up to you to
decide which theory you subscribe to."

Loren almost choked
on the sip of water he'd been taking.  Was the Admiral really talking about the
idea of the Senator and his Governing Committee having ulterior motives?

Admiral Bak chuckled
at Loren.  "I almost made you spit that water back out, didn't I?" he
asked.  "I'll have to try harder next time.  Look, here's the situation in
a nutshell.  The Governing Committee has been making some truly irrational
decisions.  We know the Senator has recently exchanged several of his inner
circle of staffers.  And now he, as head of the Governing Committee, which
makes him the de facto ruler of the Confederation, is marginalizing our best
units.  He's quietly rewriting rules and laws, gathering power to his office. 
Does that seem like an alarming trend?"

"Are you
advocating something, Admiral?" Loren dared to ask.