December 17th, 2267. 09:42 Vosture Prime – John’s Homestead

John took another drink as he watched the holographic display track the beautiful shuttle. While these Xenuivians were batshit crazy, in his quite humble opinion, they crafted a beautiful work of art in shuttle form that was very functional. He wished he could have spent more time in it, even flown it.

“Fauna and Milo, you killed them.”

“That was a couple of days after the debate that finalized the final two candidates, right?”

Elias nodded.

John then shook his head, “While I had been tracking Fauna earlier in the day, I was not responsible for their deaths. I believe the police laid the fault entirely on their taxi driver who drove through a red light. I’ve no qualms about accepting, even admitting, to the deaths that I am responsible for. But I played no part in that one.”

Elias was puzzled upon hearing the answer. He believed John’s answer, which alarmed him. His opponent was anything but a morally upstanding person, and yet up to this point in their odd conversation, there hadn’t been any signs of any lies or deception. It was as if he was bearing his soul and plans to Elias.

“Why are you telling me the truth? Why wouldn’t you try to deflect blame elsewhere?”

“And how exactly would that aid me?” John asked, “You have me at gunpoint. You are in effect my judge, jury, and executioner. Lying to you would only hasten my end, or at least that’s what I believe. I doubt very much you’re willing to pull that trigger at this time though, I have so much more intelligence you can ask about.”

“This must be a game of some sort that you are playing. Your position vexes me.”

John smiled, “Then you would find ample company with my wife. She is often found to be quite vexed with the decisions and actions I’ve taken.”

“Did you have anything to do with the woman from that debate not appearing?”

A low chuckle emanated from John. He turned to face Elias with a shit-eating grin on his face. Elias found the look to be most disturbing and was taken aback, again, by his hostage’s response.

“Well, I didn’t feel like murdering a retired schoolteacher. Even if I was cleared to do so. I did follow her when she left that afternoon to go to the debate.”

“And how did you orchestrate the accident?”

“At a low-speed corner, I deactivated her brakes remotely. She crept into the intersection and side-swiped a passing vehicle. Slow enough to do some damage to the vehicle and bang her up, but enough to delay, even prevent her, from going to the debate.”

“The medics on scene strongly suggested she go to the hospital, where she was delayed a couple of hours. By the time she was released, she was totally over any political bullshit that she meant to participate in.”

Elias sighed loudly. Then he thought back on the debate. William was almost preternaturally calm, a wild difference from the previous debate.

“How did you help William? Surely you intervened on his behalf.”

“I did. I was able to find a set of leaked questions that y’all sent to Dale. Also recommended William get seen by a doctor and get a prescription for an anti-anxiety medicine. Obviously, both helped him significantly,” John started to chuckle again, “William told me he hated the day after taking the medicine. I told him then he wouldn’t want to take that god-awful shit often. But every debate he used some, which was perfectly on the up-and-up, and his performance improved as a result.”

Elias shook his head, “Did those children ever find our headquarters?”

“No. They were a wonderful source though. At that point, I hadn’t been able to track down the headquarters. It wasn’t until early June that I found out where y’all were hiding, though that was done indirectly through indiscretions your team committed. Much later for me to actually discover your true plan.”

“You weren’t just sent here to stop us, but you needed to know why we were sent here,” Elias closed his eyes and sighed internally.

John nodded, “Yup. And to be frank, who the hell y’all were? I still didn’t know where you were from at that point.”

“Hold on, you said you were tracking Fauna the day she died, why were you doing that?”

“Well, I was planning on killing her. Bitch did a great job staying in public and around people. It would’ve been too damn messy and patently obvious that it was a targeted murder if I had murdered her in a group of people. At that point anyways.”

“Where was she?”

“Near an apartment building off Lexington and Sixth Street a block away from the red-light district,” John smiled, “My understanding is you never found out about that one. The girls, led by your now ex-fiancé, acquired an apartment to sexually liberate themselves. It was used quite often and was ultimately why I found your headquarters.”

“God dammit. If only I had found out about the separate account,” Elias spat out.

John turned and continued to watch the viewscreen, “They had a secret skimming fund, didn’t they?”

“They did. Daphne did this on her own volition. From the very beginning I, no we, were played by her.”

“Probably should’ve taken Constantine’s advice. When you’re in an op like this and someone’s effectively a cancer, eliminating them isn’t the worst idea ever. Does make a mess though.”

“Spoken like that’s an easy thing to do.”

John shook his head, “It is easy to make the decision, though it does require a degree of conviction that few have and an absolute belief in your mission.”

“You’ve murdered your own allies before?”

John nodded, “Twice. Once was quite easy; they were reckless to the point of almost blowing our cover. The second was much more difficult, but they were made and extrication or going underground wasn’t an option.”

“Has anyone told you that you are a monster?”

John once again nodded.

Elias sighed, “Are all Confederate soldiers as ruthless as you?”

“Not likely,” John chuckled, “But based on what I know of you and your military, I don’t doubt that we’d go to lengths that you lot would never approach. By the way, is your cavalry arriving through that ring thing or the standard way?”

“The standard way, but they will engage the gate. Then your whole world will change, of course, you won’t be there to see it.”

“I don’t suppose you’d indulge me in explaining more about this slip gate thing you built?”

“Before I do, why didn’t you try to sabotage our industrial efforts?”

“You pulled a fast one on me. I didn’t know that you had changed anything until it was far too late to do anything.”

Elias smiled, “And there were those who thought my more conservative plan would lead to failure.”

“There’s an irony found somewhere in there. I’m sure you’ll use that in future assignments,” John retorted, “Now what is a slip gate? Beyond the obvious of course, I presume that it’s a device to create a stable wormhole into slips space.”

“I am sure you were made aware of how unusually calm slip space is around this space?”

John nodded, “The briefing said it was preternaturally calm. We know of two other systems like that in Alliance and Mercantilist space.”

“One of our new colonies was founded in a system with a calm slip space like this one. Our scientists theorized that we could build a pair of gates and create a tunnel through slip space connecting the two systems and dramatically shortening the time it takes to travel from one system to another.”

If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

“A rather ballsy approach to take without confirming if that theory is true.”

“We did successfully prove that technology exists and can function as expected.”

John turned to face Elias. While he was no engineer, he was learned enough to understand the basic concepts of what he was saying. Confederate scientists tried a similar experiment fifty years ago but failed spectacularly in trying.

“How did you avoid the massive feedback that Hellscape sent back through the gate?” John asked.

“We tested it by building both gates on solar systems that were five light years apart. That area of slip space was calmer than normal,” Elias said, “The first activation failed but realized we didn’t send enough power into the device, and the capacitors were ill-equipped for the feedback.”

“So, you beefed the hell out of your system to generate a tunneling wormhole and be capable of handling any feedback that goes back to the gate.”

Elias nodded, “The energy is pointed in the correct direction, the wormhole is formed, then tunnels through slip space creating a bubble of utterly still void to fly through.”

“How much faster do you travel?”

“That’s where it’s theoretical, but two to four hundred light years could take one to two days, depending on the relative calmness of the space,” Elias said, “We’re estimating reinforcements can make the trip in six to eight hours.”

“And that’s not originating it in a system like this,” John said, “You could make a trek from your core worlds to our space with this system as the foothold in…” There was a brief pause as John realized the problem they were facing, “Good lord, you’ll have this system crawling with fleets in hours meanwhile it’ll take us weeks to get here.”

Elias’ face beamed with pride as he smiled, “It’ll be more difficult to build the gates in the other systems you mentioned, but by the time we’re ready to do that the Confederacy will be no more and the number of worlds allied to the Union of Xenu will have grown exponentially.”

John shook his head, “You may control the void, but you’ll never control the planets. Our people will turn on any turncoats and you can bet your ass that they will fight you no matter the cost.”

“Might makes right, doesn’t it?” Elias grinned evilly, “Or does that only apply when you’re in charge?”

John then flipped a control and switched the holographic display into two. The new half of the screen was focused on the shiny gate hanging in the void. A thought then ran through John’s mind.

“The ship you are waiting for contains the last elements to make this thing operational, right?” John inquired, “There doesn’t seem to be a power source or sufficient capacitor storage built into that thing.”

“As you have correctly surmised, there were some things we weren’t able to do ourselves in this system. Regarding the raw construction materials, we presumed there were sufficient industrial facilities to construct the ring itself. The power system we brought from our world.”

“You modified the plans accordingly because you were keen to notice that my Navy was an absent partner in this world,” John sighed.

“We did take notice of that. I presume you can finish your train of thought.”

“A foreign battleship jumping into the system would be a surprise, but there’d be fuck all the locals could do about it. If they even wanted to do anything about it, for that matter,” John said, “So your reinforcements pop in, finish the gate, then out shits reinforcements on a regular interval. In hours you have a heavily reinforced beachhead that we can’t take back or drive you away from.”

John stood up and walked over to the window and looked out it. What a terrifying invention their enemies had discovered. He was upset that they had discovered something that his nation hadn’t. The irony is that he couldn’t help but be impressed by the foreigner’s gumption to start a war like this.

“How does it feel being beaten at your own game?”

“Less than stellar, but job well done nonetheless,” John looked at Elias and grinned, “Not that my compliments mean much.”

“Quite the contrary, my leaders will be quite happy to hear that my team, depleted as it was, defeated their best agent. What hope do you have now?”

John smiled warmly, “Elias, there is always hope to be found, you just have to know where to look for it.”

“You have hope of walking out of here alive?” Elias looked confused when he asked the question.

“Well, I’d be lying to you if I wanted to die here, I would prefer to walk out of this house a free man. I suppose my more pessimistic worldview has been trampled on by my wife,” John chuckled, “For good measure I suppose.”

“Why shouldn’t I kill you right now?”

“Oh, you could, after all, you are the one in control here,” John took a deep breath before turning and sitting back down in his chair, “You’d be missing out on several months of my activities. And I know you have many, many more questions for me.”

The room was deathly quiet at that point, aside from an analog clock hung on the wall to Elias’ right. Each second a distinct tick could be heard. Nothing else though.

Elias was lost in thought for that moment. Killing him now meant he could move on, but he didn’t know so many things. Obviously, John was the root cause of so many issues they had, but they had no clue how he had done that. Getting the answers, and ultimately understanding, how that was accomplished could be a good thing. His superiors would demand answers, answers that he didn’t have at the moment.

He gripped the pistol more tightly and could feel the muscles in his right arm tense up. ‘Kill him!’, he thought once again. ‘Be done with him!’, another voice in his head said. Every fiber of his being was telling him to kill this man right here, right now.

Except the bureaucratic side of him. That side begged for answers, no it demanded answers. His reports needed those answers to explain their failures. That side of him knew they were no match for the one-man wrecking ball that John was, then again very few would be given that John was given overly broad and downright immoral and unethical latitude in how he conducted his campaign against them.

The seconds ticked by before Elias finally made a decision. John’s execution would be stayed, if only momentarily. It was still assured that he’d be ended this day. Then Elias thought and smiled to himself, it’s better for him to see the Force of Will himself before he’s killed. Why not use psychological warfare against him?

“How many ships do your eggheads think they can send in each pulse?” John interrupted Elias’ introspection.

“That is a good question…” Elias trailed off as he tried to think about the reports he had read, “Depends on the ship class, so obviously far more frigates than destroyers and so on.”

“Wait, y’all classify destroyers as larger than frigates?”

Elias was taken aback by the seemingly dumb question, “Yes, why?”

John grinned, “Our militaries here do not. Destroyers are the first line ships in the Navy,” John shook his head, “To answer your next question why, it’s because some high-ranking, and influential, politician looked and sounded like a dumbass and then changed our classifications so that he was right.”

“That somehow doesn’t surprise me. The justification that is.”

John snorted, “Fucking politicians. Can only trust them to cover their asses, enrich themselves at our expense, and be fucking idiots,” John snorted, “Still the best way to govern though.”

“Sadly, for you that will all change soon.”

“You know, you seem so confident that you’ll win,” John said, “Given the timeframes we’re dealing with your overall population is a percentage of the Confederacies. It’s probably smaller than the Mercantilists, and they are the smallest power in this part of space.”

“We more than makeup for it in our technological advances,” Elias spat back quickly.

The second screen then switched to current generation Xenuvian Naval ships. First the destroyers, then a few frigates appeared onscreen. Elias was surprised to see this technical information on screen. John then turned to look at him.

“Those are well-constructed ships. The armor is unique, but not indestructible. Your electronic warfare systems are substandard, at least compared to ours. Your target tracking and acquisition systems also fall into that category. The power of your railguns is similar to ours though I’ll admit the slugs you use are better than the ones we use. The potential damage is effectively the same since we run ours at a higher power curve.”

John paused and brought up a pair of frigates and destroyers onscreen, “The engagements won’t be as one-sided as you suspect. Any battle fought at extreme range will be lost by you lot. Closing the distance is where your ship’s strengths will shine, the problem I see is that our cruiser class railguns are going to fucking shred your smaller capitol ships.”

“You overestimate…”

“It’s physics Elias,” John said calmly, “Your central cores don’t output enough energy to power kinetic shields to a degree that will stop or deflect cruiser class rail rounds. There isn’t enough power to be diverted to the dozens of kinetic arrays that would be required to do so. Our Navy isn’t stupid, if our battleships aren’t useful in a battle they won’t be there. Your tracking systems suffer trying to defend against smaller vessels.”

“Problems that will be overcome. The ‘shortcomings’ as you call it are not as dire as you suspect,” Elias said defensively.

“I know it’s a matter of a few hours to bring a new ship into our space. How fast can you construct new ships? How about man them with a competent crew?” John asked, “Logistics wins wars, not new-fangled technology.”

There was no doubt in Elias’ mind. The Union would be victorious. Such statements were absurd, their ships were technological marvels.

A battleship rail round likely would be the end of a cruiser, even Elias had to admit to that. But cruiser rounds? No, John was mistaken there. He clearly didn’t understand the situation at large. Nor was he a high-ranking officer in the Navy, he wouldn’t be in charge of dictating battles.

“On this topic, we will have to agree to disagree.”

“Fair enough, but I’d be more careful if I were you. Just saying,” John said, “How the hell did y’all navigate the waters after that car accident killed your fellows?”

“Before we get into that, one thing has been gnawing at me since I arrived. You confirmed that you killed Paulus. The police arrested, and the local authorities tried and jailed him.”

“Yes, you are correct.”

Elias looked exasperated, “You weren’t going to let the police know about their mistake?”

“No, fuck that guy,” John said calmly as he finished his drink.

“You are prepared to let an innocent man rot in jail for a crime you committed.”

“First off, that man is anything but innocent. He was innocent of this crime specifically, sure, but he wasn’t innocent. Secondly, I was serious when I said fuck that guy.”

Elias couldn’t believe what he was hearing.

John continued, “He was a drug addict who was a dreg of society. He was guilty of numerous break-ins, thefts, assaults, and drug sales. His favorite clientele was children. When I say fuck that guy, I mean that in the most literal sense imaginable. He can, and will, rot in jail for the remainder of his life. In fact, he’s pretty fucking lucky I didn’t just dome him. If I somehow survive this mission I may go to the jail and have a go at sniping the motherfucker.”

“You targeted him.”

“I may have told him that the second floor of the building had a drug stash under some old clothes. Dumbass went there while the police were still in the area and saw him lurking about.”

“With a build similar to yours and him wearing those clothes…”

John smiled, “Pretty good plan, everyone bought it hook, line, and sinker. So anyways, how did you guys handle the extra scrutiny from the police after the accident?”