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"Well," Fleet Admiral Nibnumber sighed as he studied the strategic indicator board, "they're dead. The moment we leave, that shipyard belongs to the Reavers." He looked hopefully to Commander Fremount. "Has my request gone through, Sally?"
She nodded gently with a frown. "It has, sir... and the response is 'No, you can't mine or scuttle the Thaurian shipyard.' Signed, Supreme Emperor J'hsen."
"Is she still on the line?"
"Yes, sir."
"Keep her there." Phillip jogged out to his office and the secure line it held.
"I said no, Fleet Admiral."
"If we don't, ma'am, the Reavers will take it faster than a neophyte loses his virginity in a Tantric temple. I've sacrificed too many of my troopers to just--"
"Let me put it to you this way," the Supreme Emperor grumbled, "we are not going to burn bridges and fields behind us."
"It worked for the Red Army and it worked for us five hundred years ago."
"Rephrase: We are not going to scorch the earth behind us when it is not ours to scorch."
"I figure the Thaurians technically ceded it to us when they decided that it was more important to bash their bony heads together than defend it from external invasion. We protect it, it's ours in reality if not technicality. They don't want to expend the resources to protect it, tough."
"Admiral..."
"I mean, honestly, ma'am. We've gotten no military support. No industrial support. No intelligence support, although that's not a great surprise anymore. All we've gotten is use of the shipyard, and that's a pittance compared to how much they could provide if they really meant it. If we take out this shipyard, we can delay the Reavers getting a permanent foothold in the galaxy for a few months."
"No, Admiral. While I quite honestly agree with you," she grimaced, "it is not something we do. When we've protected singular worlds in the past, we've never expressed dominance over them. Our protection usually paid off in that they became politically aligned with us, certainly, but sometimes it didn't. We didn't just raze their planets just because the Reavers were going to get them."
"Yes, ma'am. We razed their planets after the Reavers got them."
"A technicality, but an important one. It allows us to at least claim moral superiority, which is vital for keeping up a conflict in a liberal state. At the first sign of abuse of a military-industrial establishment, it gets knocked down, reduced, kneecapped, hamstrung. Then it's a simple matter of the Reavers walking all over us and us not having the strength to repel them because the people are more afraid of their own defenders than what is increasingly being seen as a nonthreat after five hundred years of abuse. Agreed?"
The man on the screen sighed. "Acknowledged and reluctantly agreed, ma'am."
"Argue with the Thaurians to destroy their shipyard. Not me."
"Acknowledged."
"Incoming transmission from Master-Cleric Imcedi," Fremount announced.
"Oh goody, just who I wanted to talk to." Nibnumber grinned humorlessly. "Put him on."
An auxilliary viewer crackled into life, Odegi on the Dias. "Fleet Admiral, we must--"
"Blow up your shipyard, Master-Cleric," the brown-haired man replied bluntly.
"What?"
"We're leaving. There's a very large and very mean Reaver armada which will use your shipyard to make you bend over even further. Blow it up and you buy yourself a few months to get over your little tiff and kick them out of your galaxy."
Very very far away, Odegi sighed. The human has a point. His eyes flickered over to the Grand Inquisitor lurking in the shadows. However, the Inquisitor is insane. Another sigh. Enough of this.
"I'm afraid we can't do that. Just as you have political realities necessitating you leaving, I have political realities which prevent me from doing what you ask of me."
"Jeebus H. Hyskos, man," Nibnumber exploded, "just order me, ask me, use the mild innuendo you've learned from all your years of practice providing sucking chest wounds from behind and I'll blow up the damned thing if I have to strap on a hardsuit and lay charges myself. You can blame me, I can blame you, and the historians can make themselves rich arguing amongst themselves who's really in the wrong."
"While described much more bluntly than I'd put it, that idea has credit," Odegi pondered aloud. There was a clatter offscreen and then the grey-robed inquisitor stepped forward. "You will not do any such thing!"
Nibnumber folded his arms. "Who the hell are you, lady?"
"I am Grand Inquisitor Chreeti of the--"
"Oh good." Phillip grinned much too broadly. "I've wanted to talk to you, actually."
Chreeti stopped short yet failed to show her suprise, covering well. "Yes, Fleet Admiral?"
"I have a message from the entire Weirdo Zone to you, personally."
The Thaurian arches a brow. "And that would be?"
"Fuck you, bitch." Nodding curtly, the connection closed and the admiral sighed before turning back to return to his console.
"Well, that wasn't up to your usual standards of harangue," Val said with a chuckle.
"It was short, sweet, to the point, and proved why I'm not a diplomat. Liogas, get us the hell out of here. It's their problem now."
"So he said that, hmm?"
The pale Thaurian female on the other end of the line huffed. "Yes! I demand that you take disciplinary action against that disrespectful cur!"
"Well, he did overstep his authority in giving you a message on behalf of the entire Weirdo Zone, which is arguably my job." The old Mobile Infantrywoman grinned much too broadly. "So, on behalf of the entire Weirdo Zone... fuck you, bitch."
Cackling at the Thaurian's wide-eyed apoplectic fit, J'hsen cut the connection.
"Well," Wantanabe said with a chuckle, "at least you find some enjoyment in of your job."
"Sometimes, 'Nabe, sometimes."
Imcedi sighed. This was not good. Not good at all. "Well, that could have gone better."
The look Chreeti flashed him made him wish he'd kept his lips firmly sealed.
"Errr... I guess I had better be going on a walk now." Coughing quietly and avoiding eye contact, the sallow Thaurian slipped off the Dais and quickly tottered off, leaving the Grand Inquisitor to her angry hissing. The carefully kept gardens of the First Basilica simply did not bring joy, their intricate patterning only reminding Odegi of the machinations he found himself in whenever he bothered to look at them. This was simply the shortest path to the Marshall's office. Slinking in through the door, he skittered his hand across the desk in the windowless room. Paladin Marshal Sphet nodded. "It's clean, sir."
"Good. Were you listening in on the communications to the Dais?"
Sphet nodded again. "I did, sir. Gotta keep an eye on you... and it looks bad."
"It is bad, Sphet. How are our forces doing?"
"Not well enough. We're fully engaged as is bringing neutrals into alignment and dealing with Garbog raids. We can't repel the Reavers ourselves, not while there's a civil war going on."
Odegi grimaced. Not news, to be sure, but still not welcome nevertheless. "We need the Zoners?"
Sphet sighed. "Yes, sir."
"And that bitch... oh, brilliant job on her part. I very much doubt she's as idealistic as she makes herself out to be; there's just no line of succession to her if she puts me under and she thinks I make a useful puppet. Marshal," he said quietly, "I'll need you to keep a backdoor priority line to the Zone. I want it kept more secure than a nun's underwear... understand?"
The marshal giggles a little. "Sure, sir. I can do that."
"Good. Request my presence for tea when it's ready."
The bulky marshal nods.
The Zone evacuation efforts moved quickly; mines were recollected and stores restocked from shipyard resources while the blocky yard and its crews performed final repairs on the ships of Task Force GLAIVE. Deep inside the armored hull of Ares, Nibnumber folded his arms and glared at nothing at particular--this wasn't the right thing to do. Not after so much.
"We can't even bloody mine the system. The Reavers get to walk in unopposed."
Ka-Ri shrugged eloquently, almost a human gesture as he leaned over his console. "There is the Thaurian garrison..."
Phillip nodded, looking up at the strategic indicator board and glaring at it for a few minutes. "Yes. The Reavers get to walk in unopposed."
"Hrrr... true." The Kzroth sighed. "You're not the only angry one, boss. Even the ships are irate at this turn. The fight's just not politically viable at this rate, and we need to pull out."
"And leave a half-assed job when we do," the fleet admiral scoffed as he sat down heavily at his console, wadding up the paper copy of GLAIVE's orders from the welded inbox and throwing the resulting wood-pulp projectile through the holographic indicator. "Might as well never have come--less dead that way, at least. It's a dark day for the Military Services, 'Ri... we always see things through. At least, until now."
"The fight just can't be won with the resources allocated at the moment while keeping down losses," the rear admiral explained patiently, "and there's no political reason back home to allocate more resources. Let's face it, our military policy is defensive to the point of paranoia. Pessimistically so; wherever we remove forces is exactly where we'll be struck next."
"Yah, well, a five-century war tends to elicit that kind of response. I know full well why we're ceding the field; I just have an unnatural need to vent at the moment. FleetCom, what's our status?"
"Task force is ready to move, sir," the fleet command officer rapidly reported.
"Right. Helm, FleetCom, coordinate jump back to Failsafe Kilo, ten minutes past next hour, mission-clock."
Liogas glanced momentarily at Nibnumber, eyebrow slightly raised. "Kilo, sir?"
"Certainly. We need a place in the middle of nowhere where we can organize and repair while still maintaining readiness until the formal disbandment orders arrive. Don't you agree?"
The helmsman chuckled, shaking his head. "Of course, sir."
"This is going to hit the fan," Phillip said simply, "and we'd best be ready to prosecute it when it does... as ready as we can be, at least. Comms, compose a parting message to the fleetyards. Thank them for their hospitality and service, and exhort them not to surrender."
"The Zone task force has jumped out of the shipyards," Xonmik reported to Pikbuuv in the cramped command center of the superbattleship Vengeance, hastily renamed at the behest of its new commanding officer.
"Outstanding," the Reaver general replied with a yawn, eyes closing momentarily... then snapping back open to avoid the horrors behind the eyelids. They come for you in your sleep, when you idly put back your head... can't let them get you. Must keep the eyes open. Wide open, to see to it that they don't appear outside your eyelids. They could do that too, if you're not careful. "What is the status of our fleet?"
Xonmik grimaced slightly to himself--something about his old friend worried him, but he couldn't quite tell what. "Well, they've managed to cut our total strength by six-fifteenths. Appreciable, but not critical. It should be enough to secure current vital holdings in the galaxy, especially the fleetyards."
"Secure, yes... what of the enemy fleet?"
"It has jumped out, like I said."
"Where to?"
Xonmik blinked slowly. "Back to their home. The Zone. They're certainly well across the demilitarized zone now."
"That won't do..." Pikbuuv mused quietly to himself. "Still, can worry about it later. Prepare for shipyard attack, using previous plan... weapons orders are to target to disable. I want the Thaurian ships intact."
The fleet appeared, dispersed formations, casually firing energy-disruption weapons towards the four Thaurian cruisers already moving to intercept them. These older cruisers, lacking standoff-range weaponry, quickly succumbed without firing a shot as their power distribution systems simply failed to cart around the massive energies required to operate a warship. Massive bursts of radiation followed from the Reaver ships, broiling the Thaurians alive in their own ships before sweeping over the fleetyards. Those few that survived surrendered helplessly.
The galaxy belonged to the Reavers.
Thoughts of this much-needed victory resounding in her head, the Ancient One settled back into her cushions, visibly pleased. Resources and time enough, as long as she did not press the Nebulous Galaxy front too hard. There certainly was a weakness to the Zone, and that was if one played by their rules... but played to win.