Empire Ascendant

by Dietmar Wehr

  “Did he also confirm that the Shogunate has the Type 7 warhead technology and not the DE?”

  “He did, Your Majesty.”

  Trevor pondered that for several seconds before speaking. “So how are you supposed to convince me to accept Tanaka’s proposal?”

  Wellington grinned. “Nagumo didn’t have much to offer on that, but it was my idea to suggest that Your Majesty make certain demands of the Shogun in order to sweeten the deal: specifically, the recovery of the Three Sisters, plus a share in the spoils after the TCE is defeated and, in order to help accomplish that defeat, enough Type 7 warheads to equip every ship in Your Majesty’s Fleet. I should also tell Your Majesty that Ambassador Nagumo did warn me, and by extension warn Your Majesty, not to be too greedy, but he didn’t say that Tanaka would reject those demands outright. The impression I have is that the Shogun is likely willing to agree to those terms in principle, but the details of how many warheads and what portion of the TCE would become part of the Kingdom are likely to be what the negotiations will boil down to.”

  “Ah, so instead of explaining the strategic and political advantages that would accrue if I accepted the proposal, you figured that suggesting possible demands would benefit the Kingdom and also reassure Tanaka that you were doing your part of the bargain. I assume that there are some strategic or political advantages to accepting the proposal.”

  “There are, Your Majesty, and I’m confident that Your Majesty has already figured out what those advantages are.”

  “So, what is to prevent Tanaka from turning his Navy on us after the TCE is finished off?” asked Trevor.

  “Nothing at all, Your Majesty. I’m certain that that’s exactly what Tanaka has in mind, which is why I am recommending that your Navy turn on the Shogunate first. It’s imperative that Tanaka provide sufficient Type 7 warheads so that the Fleet will have enough left over to ambush Tanaka’s main offensive force if the opportunity presents itself.”

  Let’s assume that ambush is pulled off successfully. What would we do then?”

  “Then, Your Majesty, our Fleet heads for New Mount Fuji, bombards Tanaka’s palace with nukes and uses the resulting chaos in the Shogunate to carve out a piece that we’d be able to hold onto. As you know, my military intelligence analysts have theorized that Tanaka’s cult of personality is the only thing that is keeping the Shogunate from breaking up into multiple mini-states ruled by warlords. If that analysis is correct, then your Kingdom will be larger and more powerful than any of them.”

  “That all sounds very good, Admiral. I just have one more question. What will you be getting from Tanaka?”

  “Nagumo promised that I’d become independently wealthy, Your Majesty.”

  “And I suppose you’re hoping that I won’t object to that.” Wellington started to protest his innocence, but the King waved the protest away. “Oh, don’t worry, Admiral. If you suddenly refused to accept the bribe, Tanaka would suspect that you’re getting ready to double-cross him, and we don’t want that, so go ahead and collect your bribe. I’ll even let you keep it as a reward for coming to me with this information. And if the war with the Shogunate happens the way you’ve described, I’ll even add to your wealth myself. Any idea when Nagumo will deliver the proposal?”

  “No, Your Majesty. He didn’t say when.”

  “Very well then. Thank you for your quick thinking. You may go.”

  Tanaka Shogunate Capital (New Mount Fuji):

  Tanaka couldn’t decide if he admired King Trevor’s senior admiral or hated him. Managing to combine treason with looking out for the best interests of his kingdom at the same time was quite a feat.

  “How very clever he is, suggesting that his King make demands before accepting the treaty proposal. Letting King Trevor regain control of the Three Sisters is acceptable. He won’t be able to keep them for long. Letting him think he’ll get a piece of the Empire is also acceptable for the same reason. But supplying enough Type 7 warheads to equip his entire fleet? That is not acceptable.” Tanaka looked at his senior military and intelligence advisors. “I want to see if your thinking matches mine. What risk would we run if we supplied him with that many Type 7s? Admiral?”

  “The risk is that he’ll have enough left over to be tempted to use them against us, My Lord.”

  “Yes, precisely, although I don’t think tempted is the best way to describe it. I suspect that he’s already made up his mind to do exactly that. What surprises me is that he thinks a few thousand Type 7s would be enough to defeat my Fleet. That’s not possible is it, Admiral?”

  “The only strategy that might work would be if he sent his fleet directly here and bombarded the Capital, My Lord.”

  Tanaka was clearly surprised by that reply. “Hm. I hadn’t considered that possibility, but now that it has been put like that, it does seem to be the logical thing for him to try if he intends to stab me in the back. How do we make sure that strategy will fail?”

  “The only way to be certain would be to retain sufficient fleet assets here in planetary orbit, but that would weaken our frontline formations when we move against the Empire. That would be unfortunate, but I don’t see any way around it, My Lord.”

  “I’m not sure that solution is acceptable, Admiral. In fact, I’m sure it isn’t. On paper, the combined forces of my Shogunate and King Trevor’s Kingdom using Type 7-armed missiles looks as close to a sure thing as a war this large could be, but if you have to hold back a significant portion to guard against a double-cross, then the sure thing suddenly becomes a roll of the dice. What assurances can you give me that we’ll still defeat the Empire?”

  “Given what we’ve learned about where Empress Brandenburg’s fleet is deployed, I’m quite confident that we can arrange to achieve local superiority when we need it, My Lord. The difficulty will be in the timing. It would be ideal to be able to hit them everywhere at more or less the same time. Rather than weaken all our forces to find the ships to protect the Capital, I would prefer to divert one of the assault formations here and modify the operations plan so that other formations redeploy to the remaining target quickly enough to get there before the target can be warned. It’s the co-ordination that’s the risky part. I believe my planning staff can come up with a workable plan, but as I’m sure My Lord knows, plans don’t always get executed the way they’re supposed to.”

  Tanaka looked at his admiral with a pained expression. “I know that only too well. I’d even go further and say that plans seldom get executed the way they’re supposed to. You haven’t allayed my fears, Admiral. Perhaps my Intelligence Chief can do so. Is there something your department can do to improve the odds if we go to war with the Empire?”

  “To do that would involve covert action, My Lord. I only have one agent embedded in the Empire’s capital city. This agent has proven quite useful in gathering intelligence data for us. He hasn’t been trained to do anything else. Right now, he has limited access to Empress Brandenburg’s Palace.”

  Tanaka jumped in before the man could continue. “Can he get close enough to the Empress to do something?”

  The Intelligence Chief hesitated. “That would depend on what that something was, My Lord. Getting close enough to fire a weapon at Empress Brandenburg has a virtually zero chance of success. Her security people are quite proficient. Planting an explosive device would be equally unlikely. A chemical or biological attack has a marginally higher chance of success once the delivery device is in place, but the risk to the agent of an accidental release would be considerable, and the agent might simply refuse the assignment.”

  “I want you to explore all possible options and present the most viable ones to me within forty-eight hours,” said Tanaka. “And I want you, Admiral, to proceed with the planning for the redeployment that you’ve suggested. If I decide to give the go-ahead for that plan, I want it ready to execute. In the meantime, our ambassador will be instructed to present the mutual military assistance proposal to King Trevor and let the negotiations begin. You bo
th are dismissed.”

  Delisani Empire Capital (New Danzig):

  Delisani read the latest Intelligence Section report with dismay. Not only had his scheme to engineer a war between Atlantia and the Shogunate failed, Tanaka and King Trevor were now negotiating the terms of a mutual defense alliance! And to make matters worse, his new ambassador to the Kingdom had still not been allowed to present his credentials to the King’s Foreign Minister. The report did not contain any specific data on who Tanaka and Trevor might use their alliance against, but Delisani was certain that they were going to combine their resources and move against him. If he waited for that attack, they might be able to overwhelm his forces; therefore, he needed to move first. That decision triggered a memory of another recent Intel report. He quickly found it and checked. Yes, 90% of Trevor’s navy was still concentrated in his Capital system. That report had suggested that the concentration was a defensive move, but now with these negotiations, Delisani was more inclined to think it was a preparatory move in anticipation of a major attack against his empire. If that fleet could be destroyed before the military alliance was signed and sealed, then he just might be able to nip this threat in the bud. He told his electronic avatar to demand that his senior naval officer report to his office immediately.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Kingdom of Atlantia Capital (Avalon):

  Wellington was only half listening to Ambassador Nagumo as he presented the latest response from Tanaka to King Trevor’s demands. The negotiations were taking longer than he had expected, but progress was being made. What was holding things up was the issue of how many Type 7 warheads the Shogunate would supply. Atlantia wanted 15,000 of them. That would be enough to equip every ship in the fleet twice over. Neither he nor the King expected Tanaka to agree to that, but they were hoping he’d agree to half as many. Tanaka’s first counter-offer was only 3,750 and, at Wellington’s suggestion, the King had countered that with 12,000. Nagumo had just revealed Tanaka’s comeback of 5,000 and was in the process of explaining why the Shogun could not possibly supply more when Wellington’s neural implant signaled an emergency alert from Fleet Command.

  “Your Majesty! I’ve just been made aware of an emergency alert at Fleet Command!”

  Both Trevor and Nagumo looked shocked. To his credit, Trevor recovered almost immediately.

  “Get Fleet Command on the wall display, Admiral. Let’s find out what’s happening.” As Wellington used his implant to arrange the connection, Trevor glared at Nagumo, who still seemed to be caught off guard. It only took a few seconds for the wall display to activate with the image of the one-star flag officer currently on duty at the deep underground Fleet Command.

  “What’s happening, Rollins?” asked Wellington.

  “We’ve detected massive gravity wake emissions coming from sector nine, Admiral! The computers say we’re looking at a minimum of thirty-four ships, with a high probability that it’s actually more than that. Decel is right on five thousand Gs. ETA for Avalon orbit is estimated to be roughly sixty-four minutes, but we’ll be able to pin that down more precisely when we see their Cherenkov Radiation bursts.”

  “Did you say sector nine, Rollins?” asked Wellington.

  “Affirmative.”

  “Is that significant, Admiral Wellington?” asked Trevor.

  “I think it is!” said Wellington as he turned to stare at Nagumo. “Admiral Rollins, please show His Majesty the strategic star map showing the likely point of origin of these ships.”

  Rollins face was replaced by a star map that showed the star systems belonging to the Kingdom with a red line emerging from the Avalon system. The image zoomed out and rotated at the same time. Someone—Wellington couldn’t tell if it was the King or Nagumo—gasped when the red line penetrated the area that was identified as the Tanaka Shogunate.

  “Ships coming from the Shogunate would arrive here in sector nine, Your Majesty. These ships would seem to be a Shogunate fleet!” said Wellington.

  Trevor, his face now red with rage, turned to look at Nagumo. “I knew I couldn’t trust your back-stabbing boss! He was dragging out these negotiations to give his fleet time to get here! Guards!”

  The two armed guards who were standing on the other side of the door burst in. Trevor pointed at Nagumo.

  “TAKE THIS TREACHEROUS PIECE OF SHIT OUT INTO THE COURTYARD AND SHOOT HIM!”

  Nagumo, who had just started to explain that those ships couldn’t be Shogunate, began shouting that the King was making a terrible mistake. His protestations could still be heard even after the guards dragged him out of the room. Trevor pounded his right armrest in rage.

  “Now that I’ve dealt with that irritant, let’s deal with those ships. Who’s in overall command of my Fleet?”

  Wellington started blinking fast as he suddenly remembered that no one had been assigned to the position yet. In hindsight, it was a serious blunder.

  “I’ve assumed temporary command while I continue to evaluate officers for the permanent slot, Your Majesty.”

  Trevor didn’t respond right away. He’s lying. I can tell by the sudden increase in blinking. He hasn’t assigned that responsibility to anyone yet. Well, guess what, Admiral? You’re about to earn the generous salary I’ve been paying you, and god help you if you fuck this up.

  “I would not dream of insulting you by demanding that you turn command over to a junior flag officer, Admiral Wellington. Therefore, I’ll let you get to your flagship without further delay. You may go.”

  Wellington’s mind was close to panic as he left his King’s presence. He had risen to the top military position as a result of his skill in navigating the treacherous waters of internal politics. He’d never commanded a ship in combat, let alone a group of ships, and the Navy’s Flag Officers’ Combat course had been created after he was already too far up the chain of command to have to worry about ever needing it.

  As he quickly walked through the courtyard, he suddenly realized that Nagumo’s body was still on the ground, his torso slumped against the wall. The guards who had shot him were gone, but no one had yet come to take the body away. Wellington approached the body and stopped to look at it. He’d never seen someone who’d been shot to death before. He jumped in surprise when Nagumo’s left arm moved. The man wasn’t dead! When Nagumo slowly turned his head to look at Wellington, the Admiral actually felt fear, even though there was no possible way that Nagumo could be a threat to him. Nagumo’s lips moved and Wellington thought he heard sound coming out, but couldn’t make out the words. He knew he should get to the spaceport and up to the fleet as quickly as possible, but he couldn’t resist crouching down and leaning closer.

  “What did you say?” he asked.

  “Not…ours…false…flag…again.” Nagumo seemed to slump even more and stopped moving. Wellington looked closely but couldn’t see any signs of breathing. He shook his head and stood up. The man now really did look dead. Wellington took one last look at him and then hurried off.

  He spent the time in the air-limo ride to the spaceport in contact with Admiral Rollins at Fleet Command. After consulting with Rollins, Wellington decided that he would make Intransigent his flagship and ordered Rollins to make sure that Captain Ortega and the entire fleet was notified of the new command situation and put on high alert.

  It wasn’t until he was on his way up in the shuttle that he had a chance to consider what Nagumo had said. The meaning was clear enough. Even on the verge of death, Nagumo was still trying to convince him that the incoming fleet belonged to someone other than his Shogun. There were only two possibilities if that was the case. It was either the Empress or Delisani, and Delisani had pulled off a false flag attack once before, against Admiral Owens at Sheffield. That precedent proved that he was capable of doing it. The Empress, on the other hand, could be behind the attack as payback for the ambush on her battlecruiser. How likely was it to actually be Tanaka? Nagumo’s reaction to the news of the attack seemed one of genuine surprise, but that didn’t pro
ve Tanaka didn’t send those ships, only that Nagumo hadn’t known about them. It took a particularly cold-blooded leader, though, to knowingly put his own ambassador in danger by keeping him in the dark about an attack, especially given that King Trevor was known to have a mean temper and to react impulsively. And the literal death bed declaration by Nagumo wasn’t conclusive either. His sense of duty could be so high that even if he did know about the attack in advance, he might still try to confuse Wellington by claiming it was someone else. Overall, the possibility that the Shogunate was not behind this attack was plausible enough that Wellington felt he had to try to either verify or disprove that it was indeed them who were attacking, but how? He still didn’t have an answer to that question by the time the shuttle came to a stop in Intransigent’s hangar deck. Ortega greeted him as he disembarked.