"Duchess Katerina has already digested her sorrow and returned to her normal calm state," came the voice of Florianna, ringing out in my head. "Now, she is just pretending to mourn and, if not for the risk of a negative reaction, she'd have changed this stylish black suit for a bright glamorous dress."
Maybe that was so, but I wasn't going to judge my cousin for leaving her many-day depression and her currently good mood. Quite the opposite. I considered it my debt to support her renewed interest in life and actively supported conversation.
"What are you thinking of doing with all that cash, Georg? Are you gonna start building combat ships for your fleets again?" my cousin wondered after she'd finished laughing.
Yes, that was probably exactly what I'd do. Order two new Quasar-class carriers at the Fia and Unatari docks. In seven months, they'd be ready and substantially increase the power of the Unatari First Fleet.
Duchess Katerina ton Unatari winced and got a dismayed look on her face:
"It’ll take too long. I'm fairly certain all the big political events will be long over by then."
"Then, it's probably better to invest in battleships," I suggested. "Fifty Tyrants with the most advanced weaponry. The first of them could enter formation in just four or five months. Although... that’s no good either... The Throne World won’t be allowing me to buy high power laser cannons anyway. And getting enough warp drives for all those heavy ships would also cause complications."
"A few combat ships in six months is too long and will do nothing to help in the war with the Blue House. I have a totally different idea, Georg!" Katerina leaned toward me and said with a predatory smile. "Give me that money, and I'll find it a much more effective application."
At first, I thought my second cousin was making a joke that didn't quite land, but Katerina remained absolutely serious.
"Cousin, you're accustomed to behaving in a forthright manner and getting what you need just by brute force. But, victory can be achieved by other methods as well. Many military leaders, viceroys and governors can be bought. And that's especially relevant now, when the Blue House is being shaken by the most serious internal and external problems, and people are totally unsure of their future. Thirty billion credits could mean dozens off star systems joining your side without firing a single shot, even clearing a path to the very capital of the Blue House. It would be a blow to the political body of the Blue House, which will fall after that like a house of cards."
Katerina was speaking very convincingly and managed to get my interest with her original suggestion. I thought hard. She was right. A few additional ships six months from now would not significantly alter the balance of forces on the military or political map and would do nothing at all to help in the current war. If my cousin's suggestion did work... anything could happen, right? What if I really did manage to take a few Blue House star systems without fighting? Overall, I gave my theoretical agreement, just asked my cousin what kind of accounting she'd be using for the money. Katerina made an impossibly surprised face, then laughed:
"Georg, I don't really understand what you're on about. What do you want in the end? You need receipts from the viceroys and old officers of the Blue House for bribes with concrete sums and dates? Or do you want the civil servants we've bought off to pay taxes on graft?"
"Don't play the fool, Katerina," I frowned, as my cousin's jocular manner was absolutely inappropriate. "You understand perfectly that such a colossal sum requires a bit of financial oversight. This way, it won't seem like we just got a couple of decommissioned wash basins and backwater planetoids with five inhabitants, while thirty billion credits just went missing mysteriously..."
"Alright, Georg," my cousin immediately grew more serious. "I can provide you with a list of the Blue House aristocrats, civil servants and military leaders I'm planning to work with. I'll compose it myself. The list will contain concrete maximum sums that can be reasonably spent on this or that person, depending on their importance and title. If it ends up cheaper — great, but it definitely won't be more, don't worry about that. And I'll also need a certain amount to shore up media coverage. After all, we'll have to explain all the influential Blue House politicians and aristocrats joining our side. This way, it will be seen as yet another success of our diplomacy, and not just be blamed on our deep, open pockets."
"My Prince, for some time I have been unable fully check Duchess Katerina ton Unatari, so I am not certain if she is personally financially interested. I cannot say where such a powerful psionic block to mind reading is coming from. It wasn't there before. Now, I can sense only her general emotional condition — the Duchess is overwhelmed with elation, along with anticipation and impatience."
"As for the mental block, don't worry. That's all according to plan," I thought, mentally answering my little Truth Seeker. "I asked Miya to make a reliable defense against mind reading for all participants of my private secret conferences. And as for Katerina's personal interest... sure, I hear what you're saying and will check the list and suggested sums. If I find her suggestions basically fine, then I don't see anything disgraceful in my cousin trying to skim a bit of money from a few of the transactions for personal profit. She's a beautiful woman, and also a Duchess. She needs lots of money for the dresses, jewelry and servants that befit her station. Let my cousin get the funds she needs so she won't be vulnerable to bribery by my enemies."
"My Prince, you are a wise ruler, and it's not for me to judge your actions and decisions. Although, I'll admit, I don't like that I cannot check the loyalty of the people closest to you."
"I suspect, Georg, that your extended silence can only mean one thing, you are currently checking my sincerity with the help of your Truth Seekers," Katerina stated with a crafty smile, and it took me a lot of effort to not shudder at how accurate her guess was.
Without waiting for any sort of answer, my cousin continued:
"Well, I totally understand your fears and am ready to give you a full account of every outgoing transaction. But now, cousin, if you're not opposed, I'd like to speak about something else entirely. It has already been several hours since Duchess Ovella's speech, but I still don't see any signs of activity from the Gold, Green or Purple Houses. No confirmations of the young Blue House ruler's words have arrived, but there have also been no denials. Georg, you are fairly close with the head of the Purple House Duke Takuro royl Andor, after all. Could you maybe carefully sound out the situation with the old man? We don’t know what to expect from the Purple House. Maybe he'll answer you honestly."
My cousin had once again guessed what was worrying me with surprising accuracy. It was the lack of any reaction from the Purple House that was worrying me most of all. Two times that morning, I tried to get ahold of Duke Takuro, but both times the secretary of the Purple House Head told me his boss was very busy and couldn't speak with me. And that was very strange.
I grew gloomy, stood from the chair and, placing my hands behind my back, walked over to the viewport. I looked in silence for some time at the dark side of the planet Uvi-IV, a lifeless desert.
Should I try to speak with the Purple House ruler again? Such importunity on my part was bordering on barbarity. If Duke Takuro refused to speak with me two times, that meant he had no desire. Nevertheless, I called the communications officer yet again and asked him to put me through with the head of the Purple House.
Nothing happened for a long time, and I had already decided that it wouldn't even go through this time. But suddenly the screen lit up, and I saw a very old Duke Takuro surrounded by a group of bodyguards. Right away, I noticed that his face looked tortured with exhaustion, and was marked with deeply sagging eyes. Only after that did I notice the Duke was wearing a light spacesuit. Then I noticed his backdrop — a metal wall, a viewport and the blackness of space beyond it.
"How glad I am at the chance to finally negotiate with someone not mixed up in the bloody chaos of the last few days!" Duke Takuro royl Andor said, greeting me with a brief nod. "Crown P
rince Georg, before we get disconnected again, I beg you to shelter my granddaughter the Crown Princess Joan royl Reyekh in your Unatari State and provide reliable protection for her!"
That caught me completely off guard, and I turned to my advisor Katerina, but she just shrugged her shoulders in surprise — she also didn't know what was going on. I asked the old man to tell me more.
"There's no time for a long conversation, Crown Prince Georg! The conspirators are blocking all my attempts to communicate with the outside world, and now are just about to find where I escaped to from their bell jar. My ship cannot escape this star system, so this is the end for me. And because of that, I repeat my final desperate plea — Crown Prince, I beg you to rescue my granddaughter Joan. She is now locat..."
The screen suddenly went blank and the sound shut off. But I had already managed to figure out that something was amiss in the Purple house. The phrases: "bloody chaos," "conspirators," and "I beg you to rescue my granddaughter," didn't leave any doubts about the Duke having been deposed.
"Katerina, get our diplomat in the Purple House on the line this instant, and also call the Purple House ambassador to Unatari. I need to know right now what kind of mess is going on there!"
"Yes, I would also like to know," my cousin said, placing an empty juice glass on the table and walking out of the berth at a quick pace.
* * *
Just after the doors closed behind Katerina, one of the usually silent guards standing at the door drew my attention, calling me by name, then took a few steps in my direction. Instantly, my chameleon bodyguards and the Alpha Iseyek Rosss appeared from invisibility, a semi-transparent barely noticeable shadow flittering before me.
"My Prince, that is an Arite. He has absolutely no bad intentions," Florianna informed me.
The soldier stopped all on his own and, changing form from the brawny guard to Princess Astra in a pair of fluffy white pajamas and showing everyone his empty hands. I had always wondered where Arites’ old clothes went after changing shape, and whether their laser pistols could actually shoot, or were just mere decoration. But my Arite Iseyek subjects always shrunk from answering these questions and asked me to respect the secrets of their race. I didn't raise this topic this time, showing my guards to relax with a gesture and letting the Arite through to me.
False Astra, absolutely indistinguishable from the real one, got up and sat with her legs crossed in a deep leather armchair, adjusting her disheveled purplish pink hair with her hand. To be honest, seeing my favorite like that knocked me off track and I ordered the Arite to pick a different appearance. A few seconds later, the ever-vigilant chameleon Popori de Cacha was sitting in the armchair opposite me.
"Tuki-tuka-de-sa, is this better?" my bodyguard wondered, and I gave my consent. "Your Highness probably doesn't know this, but when the cruisers One-Eyed Python and Emperor August exploded in the Forepost-22 system, eight Arite Iseyek perished. Their bodies, for obvious reasons, were not found — nothing remains of us in a vacuum. Nevertheless, this is the largest single loss our race has sustained in the last three thousand or so years..."
"I really didn't know that, but I sincerely mourn your dead," I assured the extraterrestrial being. "Now, I will do everything in my power so the Blue House won't escape responsibility for their treacherous attack."
The chameleon bowed to me and started speaking in a barely audible whisper:
"In view of the extreme nature of the situation, the Arite Iseyek have conducted our own careful study of that tragic event. Yes, the Blue House was behind the attack on the ships docked on the station, but both of the bombs that destroyed the starship had been on the cruisers long before that."
"What do you mean?! Where did you get this information?" I asked, starting to squirm because, if someone had managed to place bombs on my ships long before entering Blue House territory, the issue was turned completely on its head.
"Crown Prince Georg, one of the special powers of my race is that we have the natural ability to detect electronic or energy systems at a fairly great distance. At the border station, two Arite Iseyek technicians servicing the docked starship noticed the very high-power bombs hooked into the electrical systems of the cruisers. But the technicians didn't think it very important and didn't raise the alarm, because they thought the bombs to be an element of defense for the diplomatic ships, to prevent their capture."
I frowned. That meant that both of the bombs had already been planted while the ships were in my space. I wondered who did it… The picture being painted was really very nasty. Someone knew exactly which ships were going on the diplomatic mission, and had sabotaged them in advance. The Arite then judged my silence and gloomy appearance to mean I didn’t believe what he was saying and tried to convince me:
"Your Highness, do you really think the assault divisions from Forepost-22 were able to get through all your defenders to the cruiser reactors, opening several armored doors on the way, then carry in the bombs, take down whatever automatic security was on the starships, hook the bombs into the power system and set countdown timers, all in just a few minutes?"
"I have no idea, Arite. I have never blown up a starship from the inside, so I have no idea how much time it would take to do so. But it wouldn't be too hard to figure it out by asking specialists or doing a real-life test. Alright, I'll take your important information into consideration and will be sure to figure out where the bomb on my starship came from. Are there any other questions for me?"
False Popori de Cacha nodded his disproportionally large chameleon head with an important look and stated:
"Crown Prince Georg royl Inoky ton Mesfelle, I have been vested with the authority to make an official proposal on behalf of my entire species. The Arites request that you allow us to disappear forever, dissolving into the human race."
To be honest, that was the last thing I was expecting, so I was totally thrown off.
"Explain why you want that," I demanded and the chameleon answered readily:
"Your Highness, as a matter of fact, there are very few members of my race and we are already on the verge of complete extinction. Two hundred years of war with the Swarm reduced the Arite population to a critically low figure. There are less than three hundred of us left. So, the death of eight Arites at once was a catastrophic loss. After a long discussion, we came to the conclusion that the most reliable method of protecting our species would be to dissolve into your very numerous and strong race, becoming absolutely indistinguishable from the rest. In return for this protection, we are prepared to give up all our territories to humanity — sixteen star systems, containing four human-inhabitable planets with oxygen atmosphere."
I threw myself back thoughtfully into the armchair, nervously drumming my knuckles on the armrest, then voiced my decision:
"Well, I’d be losing a valuable reconnaissance tool... But alright, Arite. I understand your critical condition, take into consideration the invaluable aid your race has provided me, and am prepared to give my agreement. You can dissolve among the people of Unatari, but only after the Arite Iseyek delegation sent to the Green House returns!"
* * *
My fleet did not encounter any resistance in the Ukravi system. In fact, we didn't detect any enemy ships at all. There were no inhabitable planets in the system, while the space station had surrendered to the Unatari State without a fight, along with a couple dozen orbital factories for extracting rare-earth metals from asteroids. However, what seemed very surprising to me was that the next warp beacon in our path stayed lit as if nothing had happened. The enemy was not trying to stop my ships from getting through. So, right after restoring my starships' energy, we went onward, splitting up into three big fleets of one thousand starships each.
By the middle of the day, I finally managed to get some information about the events in the Purple House. The official channel of the Purple House was saying that the grandson of the Duke, Perimeter Sector Five Fleet Commander Khayt royl Andor ton Reyekh, had died suddenly. Th
ey stated that the heir to the Imperial throne had died in an accident. The Crown Prince had his own space menagerie with the most dangerous beasts from all kinds of planets, and preferred feeding them by hand for the thrill of it. The official story was that the Crown Prince lost vigilance and got too close to one of the dangerous beasts, which ended up killing him.
In the same broadcast, they said that the head of the Purple House, Duke Takuro and his two sons had abandoned all affairs and immediately headed to Perimeter Sector Five for their family member’s funeral. The absence of the Purple House Head was explained as him mourning his late son in the capital, and the same explanation was given for his unavailability.
"The official version doesn't line up all that well with what we heard from the Duke himself," my cousin Katerina snickered untrustingly when she brought me a tablet with lists of visible Blue House figures.
But we didn't have any additional information. The Unatari State Ambassador to the Purple House also didn't have any additional news, although he had noticed an elevated activity level among Purple House military and Security Services. I couldn't get in touch with Marat ton Mesfelle, Perimeter Sector Seven Fleet Commander, either. My cousin then informed me that all her acquaintances from the Purple House were also silent. And they could not establish the location of Crown Princess Joan royl Reyekh, who Duke Takuro had asked me to keep safe.
Duchess Katerina was in my bunk when a pair of system messages came in suddenly:
The Blue House has lost sovereignty over the Kiva system
A Game With No Rules (Perimeter Defense Book #4) LitRPG Series Page 11
