I didn't get to finish, because Princess Astra had thrown herself around my shoulders with a joyful cry. I couldn't stay on my feet and collapsed onto the sofa, bringing the girl, rollicking in joyful laughter, down with me. Astra got out of her clothes so quickly, I didn't even see, but I didn't do anything to stop her. The semi-transparent Alpha Iseyek Rosss appeared three feet from us, but immediately realized his master's life was not in danger, after which he decided to disappear, taking the rest of the bodyguards out of the room with him.
A little while later, satiated with affection and wiped out by the amorous frolicking, I fell onto my back. Astra, meanwhile, sat up next to me on the bed with a thoughtful smile on her face.
"Tomorrow I'll have to find Your Highness's new doctor. Otherwise, my sovereign will get a very interesting present for his fiftieth birthday..." said my favorite, referring to our shared carelessness.
"Come on, Astra, no need for that. I'd like any gift from you..." I said, in a very good-hearted mood and not wanting to fill my head with complicated issues.
Astra smiled thankfully and pressed her whole body against mine, like a little fluffy kitten seeking warmth and affection.
"Well, well, Georg... How easily you are prepared to betray our understandings. Tisk tisk. You That would not turn out well! It would mean I now have the legal right to rid myself of this new claimant"
Miya! There was the last person I was expecting to hear from. As far as I knew, the Red Queen had taken crystals after the successful return of my fleet to Unatari and was immersed in a deep sleep for a few days. That meant that the ruthless and very powerful Truth Seeker could converse with me even in her dream. All my relaxed good nature blew away like the wind. I distinctly sensed a set of icy fingers clenching around my heart, and at the same time saw an invisible blade hovering over Astra's head. I could hardly believe it was just my imagination. More likely, the Red Queen was showing me her abilities and letting me know that it was completely realistic for her to make these threats a reality.
But Miya surprised me:
"Alright, Georg, relax. You gave your daughter Deia a great present today in the form of the title Swarm Duchess, so me saving that life will be a certain type of compensation for the little girl. And, seeing how you like that airheaded doll so much, you can have a gift in return. The chance that you successfully conceived was just seventeen percent, but today everything will come up aces. In nine months, you'll have a strong and healthy son. I promise it as a Truth Seeker."
"But Miya, why are you doing that?" The Red Queen's behavior was totally uncharacteristic for her. I didn't understand my wife's motivation, which worried me.
"Alright, Georg, I'll be as frank as possible. Despite your exceptional abilities as a fleet leader, you're very inert on the political arena, and you need constant prodding. If not for my efforts, you'd simply have turned off the warp beacons around the perimeter of the two or three low-population star systems of the 'pirate dead-end' that you owned and sat like that with your legs crossed, thinking you'd achieved success. All these years, I've had to constantly push you, putting more and more new missions before you so you would keep moving forward. And now, the birth of a second son will force you into another choice."
"What choice?" It seemed I understood my wife's thoughts, but I still wanted to hear her say it.
"Either you leave the boy totally without rights like the first, and have to be ashamed to look your lover in the eye or you take the situation into your own hands and become the ruler of the Empire in order to get the ability to hand out Crown Prince titles and provide power and a dignified future for both of your sons. Meanwhile, I'll achieve a very old goal, which I put before you long ago, and which I've been methodically aiming towards for many years — scrape my way to the very height of power, become the only and irreplaceable wife of the Emperor and rule all humanity together with him. We will be the ideal ruling couple. My abilities as a Truth Seeker will help you find the right decisions and achieve greater and greater heights, while I can continue to grow and become more powerful with the limitless flow of adoration of all the Emperor's subjects. I will provide us both with immortality. We will rule forever. And as for Astra... you can give your favorite another ten butterflies, that's plenty to make her happy."
My wife finished speaking her mind and told me she was going away. But I was lying in bed until sunup, unable to fall asleep and thinking over what the Red Queen had said. Many historical events and political processes that seemed random and unconnected began to look much less simple than they'd seemed. And also, the mysterious beginning of the war with the Blue House, it seemed, had found its explanation.
And my future looked utterly cloudy to me. Yes, her words about the eternal ruling couple of a unified Empire sounded tempting. Too tempting even, and I sensed a potential hidden agenda. After all, if I thought about it, the big war would end sooner or later, and the need for me as a fleet leader would fall away. Meanwhile, absolute power over the Empire was not the kind of trophy that could be shared with someone else. Miya had shown several times that, as a Truth Seeker, she was capable of surviving the death of a master fairly easily. So would a one or two year drop in her psionic abilities really stop her, if what was riding on that horse was absolute power? All my life experience was telling me that it absolutely would not. What was more, my wife had already killed me once and had certain experience in that matter.
Beyond that, in her Truth Seeker arsenal, there would be not only simple murder, but also violently forcing me to resign, or replacing the consciousness in my body with a more pliant and unassuming substitute. What wouldn't the Red Queen do in order to become sole Empress? And of course, the White Queen did not exist in her plans. What need did an Empress have for competition? Today, Miya had spared Astra's life out of her own selfish interests but, in the future, such humanity would be nowhere to be found.
There was too much that had to be thought through. It was very hard to resist a woman capable of reading your thoughts with ease. Miya was obviously on guard, if she had discovered my preparations for opposition. What was more, it was possible I was wrong in considering my wife selfish, and it was actually my actions provoking the worst of all possible scenarios. The reaction of the Truth Seeker, whose reputation was so dark, would be extremely harsh.
But it couldn't go on that way. I still felt that there was a set of cold fingers clenching around my heart. Miya could hardly have wanted my death at that moment, because she still needed me. But the Red Queen had let me know distinctly that my life was hanging by a hair and could be ended at any moment. As could Princess Astra's.
Meanwhile, my wonderful favorite, not suspecting how miraculously close she’d just come to death, was embracing me and smiling idyllically in her sleep...
A Search for Answers
THIS MEETING had been planned for a long time but, with the sudden flare up of war with the Blue House, then the movement of Unatari State ships to Sector Seven, it had been delayed several times. Meanwhile, all twenty-two nonhuman races answered the call of the Swarm Ruler and sent representatives to the Dekeye capital system. I suspect that this was exactly what the Dark Mother was afraid of: that, after the strengthening of the Swarm, all these space-faring races, many of which had had conflicts with humanity in the past, would not join that war as our allies.
There were just a few members of the A-ali race in Dekeye orbit, reminiscent of bubbles of glowing gas, the diameter of which could vary a huge amount — from sixty feet in the vacuum of space, to utterly microscopic dimensions at the bottom of the sea. Thin, but surprisingly strong, resistant to temperature and pressure changes, the skin of these spherical nonhumanoids allowed them to exist both in a vacuum and under water at a great depth. But the oxygen-rich atmosphere of the Iseyek homeworld was deadly to the A-ali, so they had opted to listen to a broadcast of my speech from orbit.
But even without them, there were plenty of unusual and exotic races: unhurried Crystallids, an organic sili
con form of life; Pterans, the last timid and even skittish individuals of a race of intelligent flying creatures, which had practically been destroyed by humanity; Gygosians, huge and deliberate creatures that resembled walruses with disproportionally large heads and fantastic mathematical abilities; and Umibots, cyber-organic creatures reminiscent of small octopuses at one and a half feet long. They had resisted a human invasion for almost thirty years in their star system, but at the end of the day, they were subjugated and forced to sign a humiliating treaty with massive indemnities...
Accompanied by my foreign politics advisor Duchess Katerina ton Unatari, I looked through the pane of one-directional glass at all the diplomats who had gathered to hear out the Swarm Ruler. My advisor gave detailed commentary on every group of nonhumanoids, describing their abilities, strong and weak points, and also telling me the history of their relationship with mankind. In the majority of cases, my cousin's opinion of the race was disparaging and even pejorative. According to her, before us were either hopelessly technologically backward species, or the pitiful remnants of a once populous and strong race, left alive by humanity simply because they no longer represented a threat.
Hoping for these allies to give us any even moderately useful help in the upcoming war was simply naive. Especially if I considered the fact that many of the diplomats came from planets under control of the Empire or the Grand Duchy, so they simply would be unable to join my side because doing so would threaten their species with complete extinction.
"And what race is she?" I asked, pointing to a semi-transparent green-haired girl no taller than one foot, dressed in a short bright crimson dress with miniature slippers. Pretty, lithe and fragile, simply a doll come to life, she was the dream of any human girl. But for some reason, I couldn't remember anything about them.
"You don't recognize them? She's an Elvinian, refugees from Perimeter Sector Fifteen. But don't pay any mind to the fact that she looks humanlike, that’s just for you. The Elvinians are a form of plasticine gel and can take any form they wish. They were discovered very recently on a Sector Fifteen planet. Initially, they were totally savage. But, in the fifteen years we've known them, the Elvinians have figured out the best way to look to catch humankind’s fancy. The Elvinians are totally non-aggressive and live well in human company, especially that of teenagers and children. Red House aristocrats used to keep them in their palaces as servants and living dolls. Not long after their discovery, there were Elvinian populations on six different Sector Fifteen planets. Still, calling them a space-faring race is technically incorrect. They do not and never did have their own starships, people found them and brought them to new worlds."
"That's a sneaky strategy to settle the cosmos," Florianna stated. "Elvinians are very smart and learn quickly. Their style is to not make a conflict with the leadership, but to use the stronger race for transport and protection, obtaining new knowledge and technology along the way. Just a year ago, it was impossible to see Elvinians outside of a few systems in the Red House. But they foresaw the threat of Alien invasion into Sector Fifteen and took measures in advance, including warning their masters and making sure the human refugees wouldn't forget to take them with."
An interesting form of coexistence. A small race, openly taking advantage of a stronger one in their own interests, but it still was not parasitism, more like a kind of symbiosis, with both sides benefiting. Then Duchess Katerina continued:
"I heard that, in the last year, there has been a popular trend for such pets in the Imperial Core. Children simply adore them. But getting your hands on one is quite the difficult task. Elvinians are very cantankerous and even capricious in their choice of master. And by the way, if you want, give this little Elvinian girl to Deia. I’m sure she won’t refuse. Elvinians think that getting work with an aristocrat's child is the most respectable thing there is and, if that aristocrat is a ruler, all the more so. I'm sure your daughter will appreciate the living doll."
"No, Georg. I don't agree." This time, it was Miya jumping mentally into my conversation. "I don't like the idea of an unfamiliar, crafty and guileful creature being near my daughter. Maybe the Elvinians are considered safe, but physical harm isn't the only thing I'm worried about. She might spy on Deia or control the yielding mind of my girl, inspiring freakish ideas and breaking the girl's value system."
Wait a second! There was something to that... something very important. I raised a finger, asking Katerina to be quiet and not bother me. My cousin had said that, in the Imperial Core, there was now a trend for Elvinian servants... And a significant number of them served as living, talking dolls, mainly for children of quite highly placed parents...
"Cousin, how many Elvinians are now embedded in high-society and influential human families, having become the best friends of their children? Totally approximate, just tell me an order of magnitude."
Katerina shrugged her shoulders unconfidently and threw out a guess of a few thousand, perhaps even a few tens of thousands.
"Sure, let's say that. And now let's suppose that these living dolls are capable of communicating between one another and exchanging information. In fact, that is probably the case. After all, Elvinians are sending their valuable experience to one another somehow, sharing successful appearances and behavior, thus also allowing their brothers and sisters to better fit in to human society. That means we have before us a network of agents already in place, which can be used for all kinds of different purposes. All we have to do is get control over it and use it to our advantage!"
"Espionage?" my cousin suggested.
"Yes, espionage is the first thing that came to my mind, but that isn't all. Public relations! It's one thing for us to deliver our point of view via data screens. Everyone is used to that, so it isn't very effective. But it is another thing entirely if the dear children of highly placed parents tell their parents, for example, that the Emperor is bad. Let them say he's decrepit, a mad old bat and at war with the good guys. What's more, lots of children of upper military, aristocrats and other influential figures have the implants to express their own opinion of various people and factions practically from birth. So, if their favorite toy, which they trust implicitly, explains in detail what they should do,what points of the internal menu to choose, what buttons to press..."
Katerina's eyes started glowing with a joyous flame, her lips stretching into a smile. My cousin was clearly imagining the possibilities of such an informational attack.
"Georg, you're a genius! But I have one idea for how to increase the effectiveness. Have you already seen the new season of Jeanne the Star Traveler? It's season forty-three. The first episode is particularly relevant."
"I haven't even seen the last forty-two seasons," I admitted, not totally understanding what my cousin was hinting at.
"It doesn't matter. Well, it's the first episode the animation studio produced with its new owner, Princess Astra ton Veyerde."
What?! I gave a drawn-out moan and covered my face with my hands. Why was I being punished like this?! Was the story of Astra's address to her subjects not enough...?
"Cheer up, Georg. You've got the wrong idea!" Katerina rushed to reassure me. "The quality of the new seasons is very high, and the plot is unusual: the traveling pink frog Jeanne comes into the real world. Being intelligent, she sees a threat to everything alive: the overwhelming horde of ghastly Aliens. She immediately joins the ranks of the glorious heroes fighting bravely against the invaders. Overall, it's very naive and predictable, but children are sure to like it. The episode hasn't aired yet, but tens of billions of young viewers are clamoring for its release. My idea is this — what if we make a few little adjustments to the plot?"
"How do you mean adjustments?" I asked, not getting my advisor's idea.
Duchess Katerina explained readily:
"Let the brave heroes, who the main character Jeanne joins up with, be led into battle by the indefatigable Crown Prince Georg. And let the ultimate leader of mankind be an old, greedy and lazy g
uy, who puts a stick in the spokes of the heroes to keep his grasp on power. Such a character would make children feel a wild disgust, and the connection with the real political figure will be understood by everyone except infants. We can have the Elvinians and android servants give the children a very timely hint about how to punish the nasty villain from the cartoon and help their beloved pink frog Jeanne! Georg, if the Emperor's standing doesn't fall into the negative after such an informational attack, you can fire me as your advisor for incompetence!"
The plan my cousin had suggested looked not only realistic, but in fact guaranteed to succeed. I chuckled in satisfaction:
"Well then, Katerina, didn't you just say that all these races were totally useless? Brute force isn't the only thing we need..."
"That's exactly right!" Katerina cut me off, hurrying to say her fill and looking very animated. "If these pipsqueaks and androids loyal to Bionica kill the Emperor's standing, they will do more damage than a whole fleet of combat starships. Lowering the ruler's standing would mean reducing the flow of his subjects' admiration, which would weaken his Truth Seekers, who would then no longer have enough strength to monitor the situation in the whole Empire, or maintain the health of the three-hundred-year-old August... Georg, catch my meaning, this will not be just an ordinary informational attack. This will be something much bigger, never-before seen in history. Everything in the Empire that seemed to have a solid foundation may collapse!"
I wouldn't have made such categorical assertions, or hurried with the certain predictions. At the end of the day, one old ruler is quite far from the Empire as a whole. What was more, the number of star systems under Imperial control wouldn't fall with August's standing, and neither would the number of ships in his fleets. But still, I didn't scold my cousin, appreciating her sincere enthusiasm and desire to quickly implement the plan.
A Game With No Rules (Perimeter Defense Book #4) LitRPG Series Page 29
