CHAPTER 13

A massive passenger liner entered the system and the Prometheus intercepted her to check her intentions. The ship was named the Foxy Traveller and had 22,284 people seeking citizenship on Bruin IV and gear to establish a settlement. They had travelled 85 light years to get away from a probable attack of the celeopods. This might have seemed pretty simple. Bruin IV was only slightly larger than Earth and was 20% water, giving it large ranges of land. The population was only just edging near a million. However the planet was considered municipal of Barstow where 26 million people resided. The poor farm land on Barstow made the Bruin IV the primary producer of food for the inhabitants of Barstow. Technically everyone on Bruin IV was a citizen of Barstow. That is why all criminal cases were handled on Barstow.

Well the leader of this immigration, Fredrick Granger, was not interested in becoming a citizen of Barstow he wanted his nationality to be on Bruin IV and that was final. I pulled myself from the discussion and referred him to President Bryant on Barstow and told them to negotiate with him. In the mean time I let him disembark all of his civilians in MyCell. The citizens started building shops, light manufacturing and offering services. They filled in a lot of the gaps we had in our economy. I received a rather nasty communication from President Bryant. It said I was not permitted to allow the immigrants settlement opportunity until negotiations were over. I sent him back a message saying I had confidence he could figure something out.

My tantric skill completed and I set my next skill up, battlesuit. Once again it was off plan but I had so many of the things I really wanted to learn how to use them. Only 21 days for my new skill! I then noticed tantric was level 2 and not level 1. I had accidently tapped twice in the queue for the skill and had not noticed. Maybe is was a subconscious act because of my sexual frustration. For a regular player it would probably be considered a waste but for a FIP player this would be quite useful.

Another two weeks rolled by and things were becoming heated with Granger and Bryant. Both sides were trying to get the media on their side and things were turning ugly fast. The Foxy Traveller took on supplies from my station and had departed. Bryant was threating to imprison all the illegal immigrants on Bruin IV if they did not submit to citizenship on Barstow. It was a fine mess and not getting any better as Bryant was holding strong. Unbeknownst to me a movement had started on Bruin IV. The movement was called ‘Unchained’. With the recent incident the citizens of Bruin IV were rallying to break away from Barstow. I was a bit of a celebrity and also had the strongest ship in the system. A public election was being organized behind the scenes. The main reason is most of the taxes from Bruin IV went into the coffers of Barstow and were then utilized for improvements on Barstow or into the pocket of the Bryant family. It was the primary reason that Bruin IV had been underdeveloped for so long. It was an effective measure to hold the populace in check as well. I had severely upset the balance and with the trading station of the cats now on Bruin IV the economic pendulum was now in the middle and when my space station was finished it would swing into Bruin IV’s favor. I later learned my companions had played a fairly major roll in getting this vote to happen.

Ten days later the election became public and the next day voting was initiated. There were two items on the ballet. The first was to break from Barstow and become and independent and the second item was to name me planetary governor. The first measure passed with an 91% in favor and the second measure passed with a 96% favor. Now I had no idea this vote was going on. I was in my captains chair on my bridge with a dozen screens open working on a bunch of things at once. When the entire crew minus MD entered bridge wearing smiles I knew something was up. I had a high priority communication from President Bryant and ignored my crew to take it. On opening the vid the president’s face was red and livid, “You son of a bitch! How dare you take such measures against the populace of this system. You actions are an affront to the original settlers and my family. I demand that you…” I turned off the screen and slowly swiveled around in my chair to face my crew.

“Spill it. What did you do and what mess have you left me with to clean up?” My look was of neither anger or concern. I knew my position was stronger than Bryant no matter what they had done. Lina stepped forward to speak for the group.

“An election was held today and we were able to secure a vote by 98% of the population. The two ballot measures with the independence of Bruin IV and your taking over governship of Bruin IV. Both measures passed with over 90% affirmative!” She looked so pleased with herself. My thoughts were in turmoil. My first thought was Bryant would take military action but then I realized he thought the Prometheus was a warship and not a science vessel with more firepower than he could muster. Then I thought he would impose economic sanctions on Bruin IV and then I realized how dumb that would be since we supplied 75% of their food, he wouldn't starve his civilians to cripple our economy. Then I thought that he controlled all the shuttles in the system. But I could remedy that is a few months if needed. Wow this coup had placed me in a position of power. I opened the vid and calmly replied to a beet red president.

“President Bryant. I am sorry to inform you the people have spoken in overwhelming majority.” I had to mute him to continue you speaking over his shouts, “The planet Bruin IV will now be called Chevalier and we will be an independent planet. We hope our two populations can continue to work in mutual cooperation. Anyone on Chevalier who wishes to return to Barstow will be allowed to. Anyone who stays will be granted citizenship on Chevalier. Our planet will also be open to any immigrants from Barstow who seek to become citizens of Chevalier. I will be preparing a mutual defense pact for you if you wish to unite against the threat of any outside invaders. We will talk again once you have calmed down.” I closed the window. My crew looked thrilled that I had embraced their efforts. My screen was noting that I had leveled up for conquering a planet and also ‘ruling’ over a million plus citizens. I assigned my stat point to education and was at 18. Two more points and I could reduce training time even more. But my mind wanders, I had to administer an entire planet!

I new tab was in my display and just like everything else in this game it was a micro managers wet dream. Taxes were set at 30%, 95% of which had been sent to Barstow before today. The annual tax income was estimated at 64.6 million credits. I had never noticed paying taxes before as they had been automatically deducted. The game estimated taxes by multiplying the population by 50 then multiplying by an industry modifier and then multiplying by a trading modifier. Our industry was food and my mining so it was pretty low. Some recent light industry was helping. The trading mod was based almost entirely on the Kilrathi trading post. Athena informed me it would increase once we established Barstow as a trading partner. Right now all trade had been halted. My first act as Planetary Governor was to reduce taxes to 25% everyone likes lower taxes! I did it over Athena’s objections. This reduced income to 53.8 million annually. Next step was the police/military budget. I set it to 5% which was 225,000 credits a month. This was more than triple what it had been when Barstow was in charge. I set civilian services and infrastructure to 50% of income. It had been a measly 250,000 credits for the entire planet before! I had Athena manage this account so there would be no shady dealings or skimming. Athena was in heaven she liked prioritizing and micro managing. The only directions I gave her was that I wanted three civilian universities to be built, I wanted to be overtly clean, and I wanted a very safe planet. I was a bit of a college sport geek and wanted to start intercollege competitions. I subsidized Black Fleet Academy with the income. I made it public knowledge but even though I owned the Academy the two years of service would be under the Chevalier Planetary Defense Force. It took a financial burden off me. I also added a standing planetary military force of 500 marines and a large base 200 miles west of Mycell. It would take about a year to staff the base and get the vehicles. The rest of the military budget was going to be applied to counter intelligence for now. I then allocated 10% to a planetary bank, which allowed recognition of the universal credit on the planet. There were a lot of other benefits, such as I could now purchase the four corvettes in advance on credit from the planetary bank. I set the banks interest rate at 2.5% for savings, 4% for borrowing and issued 10 year bonds at 7%. These rates were what Athena suggested for quickest economic growth. I received the 20 million-credit transfer from the future delivery of the corvettes. This was good because I had been operating in the red for the last month having overextended myself a bit. I knew there was going to be a bit of trouble since Barstow held my debt. But since the planetary bank of Chevalier now had universal credits I was able to quickly pay off my debt with the new credits. I also now had 19.5 million credits to spend! I expanded my academy by 160 cadets since it was now subsidized I didn't have to worry about the costs. I expanded Chevalier University by 1,000 students as well and reduced scholarships to 5%, which created a modest profit for the university. I took that profit and had it utilized for sport programs. In my head I was now racing Athena in developing my teams. When I established the athletic department I noticed the first match was slated already…did the game automatically set contests?…where they playing a university on Barstow?...maybe Athena had already set up her universities…it took me about 45 minutes to find the opponent, I guess the game didn't think this information was normally requested. The game was against Black Fleet Academy! Even though they had no athletics budget they were going to compete. I needed to correct this since I couldn't have my cadets lose. I was also torn as to who I would support more. Lets see…at current university size Chevalier athletic budget was 2,100 credits a month. I dropped a subsidy into Black Fleet Academy for 5,000 credits a month for athletics. That should allow them to complete against the university that was four times its size. I also had to select which sports or the game would auto select them. I choose American football, rowing, tennis, lacrosse, rifle, fencing (and other blades), track and field, gymnastics, wrestling, boxing, swimming and zero-g combat. Zero-g combat had teams of 5 or 7 against each other in an obstacle filled room that measured 50m x 50m x 50m. Players carried stun rifles and had special suits to implement ‘injuries’. It was like capture the flag that was played over the best of 5 rounds. I wasn't sure how the game would set up the competition fields for all these sports but right now I didn't care. I was just looking forward to watching the games! The first match? Was a rifle competition in 50 days time, Black Fleet better win this one!

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The remaining 20% of the tax revenue would go into a trust in the bank, first to repay the bank for the 20 million credit loan then to accrue until it could purchase more large scale defense items. I noticed that Athena was a lot quieter than normal. The new task was taking up her time!

I had spent the better part of two days going through everything and setting things up. Then I got the call that the corvette commanded by captain Jericho was on approach. Great, the shit was about to hit the fan. I had hoped President Bryant would just lay down and not do anything but it made sense that since Barstow have just lost a massive amount of income he would be forced to do something to keep his job. Athena had calculated an estimate that the Bryant family was skimming about 2 million credits a month. I hated dirty politicians. I went to the bridge and intercepted the corvette two hours out from Chevalier. I hailed him, “Captain Jericho, how are we doing today. What can I do for you?”

The image of the captain appeared on the screen. It looked like he had not slept in days. Her visage was stern, “Captain Knight, I am here to demand your surrender and you are to hand over the planetary governship to Winston Garnet.” Winston Garnet? Who the hell…oh yes Mr Garnet from my first day playing. That man was a snake if I had ever met one. I didn't have any intention of folding anyway.

“I am sorry captain, but Chevalier is now an independent planet. I would advise you not to engage the Prometheus. Your ship would not last long. You should turn around and return home.” I said with finality.

Jericho changed his facial expression and I could see his age, “Unfortunately I do not have a choice in this matter.” This could mean a number of things. Was he being pressured, did the Bryant’s have his family hostage? Madeline sent me a message that the comm had just been made private and encoded, “Things are not going well on Barstow. The economy is falling apart at the seams. The massive salaries of the government officials will completely drain reserves in a few weeks. No one is willing to give up their piece of the pie and infighting is starting to develop. My crew is split into I don't know how many factions. Things are a mess. Bryant thought I could barge in and reset things but we both know I don't stand a chance. I ask that you disable my corvette and rescue the crew. Most of them are good folk.” He was pleading in his voice. I had to think fast.

“I think your main generator is about to fail and need to be ejected captain.” He immediately took the hint. Without the generator he could only manage weak shields and his weapons would be at partial power, no that his weapons could penetrate my shields anyway. We had some fun circling while Jericho laid into my ship for 5 minutes. I choose not fire and just broadcast an order for him to surrender. Then an energy surge and his fusion core was ejected. He came on screen a few minutes later, “These old ships. Damn you Knight. We cant fight in this condition! Did you do something to my primary reactor! I have to surrender!” He acted sufficiently angry. And cut the broadcast. I escorted him back to Chevalier and had him abandon his ship in orbit. He had a crew of 47 and I didn't have enough space for them in the prison! I had Athena expand it to 400 cells. The ship was locked down. I sent a message to Barstow saying they had committed an act of war but I was willing to overlook it only if they recognized out independence. No response but the news networks had major fighting breaking out. There was a coup attempt from a rival faction trying to seize power from the Bryant family! I was worried that thousands may die. All the shuttles had pulled out so all I had were my two personal one and I couldn't save the entire planet. I would need to let this play out. I would however continue to ship food so the population wouldn't starve.

I decided to use the Prometheus to ship the food since I didn't want my shuttles being attacked or seized. The next three months I made many trips and dropped off food. At first I was attacked by a dozen installations but their weapons couldn't do damage through my shields. As the months wore on the number attacking me diminished. I had done my best to manage my property and the planet was doing well. Athena had established two universities, Oxford and Harvard. I had done a lot of micro managing on my end. The main focus was on Barstow and any relief effort we could manage. Eventually the victor was the People’s Army. The rich elite had battled each other for the first two months doing major damage to each other. Once they were weakened the population rose up and took control. The People’s Army had already set its new government up. It consisted on the Council of Three, and elected group that governed the planet and the First General who commanded the military forces on behalf of the Council. A representative was being sent by the CoT to meet with me in a week’s time. This person would negotiate a peace treaty and mutual defense pact.

The small industry on Chevalier had been firmly established during the civil war on Barstow. This was mostly small easily produced consumer goods. Small production facilities sprung up outside the growing cities. Athena had focused her efforts on growing five major population centers, Mycell, Knighton, London, Boston, Dakota City and Athens. It struck my how little originality she possessed. She had asked me a few months ago to name the new population centers and I had said I would be happy with whatever she came up with. They were not bad names but lacked panache. The cities were spread out over the planet in the center of the largest farming industries. As Athena built up civilian services in each of the cities it drew in a small migration from the tiny towns and farms. The biggest addition was the moderate production facility for the farmer mechs. Prior to this factory being built all mechs had been purchased from Barstow. The factory was government owned and sold the mechs for a reduced cost to citizens. Every mech put into service freed up half dozen men from the fields. Athena balanced this by giving free two year retraining degrees at the new colleges being formed. During the civil war I had trained my battle suit skill to 2, pilot to 4 and administration to 3. I never really had much free time to fool around in the battle suits but I at least I could use them if the need arose. I would need to learn the heavy plasma rifle eventually to become an effective fighter in the suit.

One thing I tried to accomplish in the three months was to attract excellent candidates to my university. I opened the scholarships to ‘open’ in terms of citizenship. This basically opened an application to anyone in the known galaxy. This created about 250 thousand applications for 20 full scholarships each year! This included a 5000 credit stipend to travel to the Capsulite system which I had set from the university profits. It took me a while playing with the settings to increase the population of the university to 3,000 and set scholarships to 40%. This gave 300 annual scholarships but eliminated all profits again. It also chewed up my most of my recently acquired credits. My thoughts were if I could attract some of the brightest minds within 100 light years I could quickly grow the technology side of the Capsulite system. Athena was not happy with my huge investment in Chevalier University. She said something about me ‘cheating’. I ignored her and focused on my projects. I also opened Black Fleet Academy to ‘open’ enrollment with the qualification that if accepted the individual would be required to accept citizenship to Chevalier as well. This brought another wave of applications for Athena to sort through. She accused me of trying to distract her. She had established the final two universities, Yale and Cambridge. I checked and all four of her colleges were at the only two were functioning at 500 students. The two newer ones only had land allocated as of right now. I smirked to myself.

This brought me to the idea of creating a university planet. I know not many PCs invested in developing universities because of the high cost and minimal return. We currently had 6 higher education establishments. If I could double the number of universities and get each population up to 50,000 students…it might work. Athena had set her colleges to a modest fee. At this point we had accumulated a surplus of military funds since the corvettes were not yet in operation and I decided to tweak Athena a little more. I added 40 cadets to Black Fleet Academy. Since taking over I had to reevaluate our military. To defend the system I wanted ten corvettes down the road to operate in pairs for system patrols. I wanted a planetary military of 2,500 heavy infantry. I wanted a military station in orbit with 100 defensive heavy fighters and crew rotations for the corvettes. And lastly I wanted a pair of battleships and four cruisers. Yeah I know I dream big. Well, minus the battleships and cruisers for now I needed about 4,500 personnel. That meant my academy would have to graduate 2,250 annual. I knew not everyone would leave after their two years of service so I set the goal for 1,200 annual graduates meaning I would need Black Fleet to grow to about 4,800 cadets. So a little over 65 million credits to grow the academy to the required size! I could take some short cuts like building a dedicated fighter school for a million credits but I had aspirations of a united military force. I knew there were currently only about twenty PC corporations in game who would be able to match my projected fleet. Rose had finished her smaller mining ship the size of a corvette. It was a completely unorthodox design. The vessel worked at about 80% the speed of the larger mining ship and packaged the valuable minerals into blocks it spaced for pickup by a hauler. This allowed for its smaller size and good maneuverability. The ship had the same number of crew as the larger vessel and almost the same living quarters. I also learned that the mining ship I had sold the Bryant family had fought off two attempts of a takeover and Lina had taken it upon herself to nationalize it to the Chevalier flag after the Bryants were overthrown. The ship was renamed The Right Side. The other mining ships in the system had remained loyal to Barstow after the war finished. I set Rose’s next project. A 10 meter heavy fighter. The fighter was to be atmospheric compatible and designed for operating off a carrier. It was to have at least one heavy weapon and the capability of firing a missile. Rose took what I had said and got to work. I could see on her tablet she had about two dozen design projects going on currently but wasn't upset about the new directive.

The representative from Barstow had arrived on a shuttle. I was waiting in my offices in Mycell for the arrival going over projections for economic growth and immigration. The person who walked through the door surprised me. It was Marie Valentine, and she was very pregnant! She had a bright smile on her face and I quickly returned it. We spent two hours catching up and her telling me of her role as a resistance fighter during the war. I felt a little stupid that I had not tried to go in and pull her out. If only she contacted me and asked I would have come to her rescue especially since she had been pregnant. She didn't require an apology and we got down to business.