Alex stood at attention in the audience chamber aboard the NHR Day of Reckoning, to his right stood Captain Henry Thompson, to his left stood Greg. This was not his first meeting with the New Human Republic council. It was a civilian branch of the government that oversaw both the navy and army branches of the NHR military. He had thought this a strange way of doing things, why not setup one branch to handle policing and military like the Imperium had done for over half a millennia?

The late Admiral Benton was the one to answer him with a long forgotten quote from old Terra, “There’s a reason you separate the military and the police. One fights the enemies of the state. The other serves and protects the people. When the military becomes both, the the enemies of the state tend to become the people. There is one council setup for the military, and one for policing, we only report to the military council, which is made up of retired officers with no less than thirty years of experience.” He now stood in front of that council as the most senior officer with Admiral Benton now gone.

Councilor Jordan rang the brass bell on the ornate wooden table the five members of the council sat behind. This was a formal affair, all members of the council wore dress whites, even though they were no longer officers, but civilians, it was done as matter of tradition. His entourage, of course wore their dress whites to this occassion. Strangely, Councilor Jordan was the only member that was not an Admiral or General, but a Master Chief Petty Officer. “I bring this one thousand one hundred and thirty third meeting of the military council to order in the year eighty two of new founding. Today’s agenda shall pertain to the situation of leadership of our forces within the Alandran system with the loss of Admiral Benton to terrorist activity planet-side.”

Alex let his mind wander as Councilor Jordan droned on about today agenda for the record keepers, for both biological and AI to create the transcripts that would be filtered to the general population, as this information was not deemed sensitive. The Imperium would never have allowed such freedom of information, the average civilian knew nothing about who their military commanders were, as most military matters were shrouded in secrecy.

He thought about how difficult this council meeting was from a logistical standpoint. All task forces required logistics ships, and Admiral Bentons was no exception. While the task force’s fighting arm was one battleship, two heavy cruisers, four light cruisers, and twelve destroyers. It’s logistical arm consisted of two repair vessels, two communications vessels, and four massive equipment haulers which resupplied the fleet with everything from ammunition to food. What made this difficult was the encrypting, sending and decoding the holographic data from New Hope all the way to the Alandran system and back.

He knew for a fact that the communications vessels were stressed every time a council meeting came about. They had to route and encrypt all traffic within the fleet except during combat, where the flagship bore the brunt of that communication, but this stressed their computer systems to the very limit. Jenny and Todd were the resident AI’s aboard those vessels, and like most of the logistics fleet, they didn’t seem apt to join the rest of the artificials in the pub environment. Greg was working towards bringing them all together but they were extremely anti-social for no reason he could see. Jenny had confided in him that she worried tirelessly over these meetings because there was barely enough bandwidth to work with.

She seemed relieved beyond belief when Monty brought the new string network online and gave her hardware keys to set aside bandwidth for internal fleet comms inside the Alandran system, freeing up considerable bandwidth for events like this. Of course, the rather ancient computer systems on board still struggled with the holo-matrix that showed the council chamber as if he were standing within it on New Hope. Perhaps he should talk to Monty about some computer upgrades on that end, he’d add it to the ever growing to-do list in his strategy corner on the ever more stripped down Missive.

“And that brings us to our topic today.” Jordan finished, Alex frame-jacked slightly to ensure he didn’t miss anything important, which he did not. “The council has deliberated at length for far too long in my opinion as to Commodore Smyth’s official place in the NHR Navy. While Admiral Benton had openly requested the formal commission be pushed through, other members of the council were hesitant. For one, the rank of Commodore was never established with the formation of the new Navy, requiring rewrites to all naval training and modification to long nap protocols. For two, there has never been a non-biological command officer within the ranks of this navy, and there are no procedures in place for one to become commissioned.”

Looking briefly to the two Admirals to his left before continuing, “With the unexpected loss of Admiral Benton there is an immediate need to place someone in charge of the task group in the Alandran system, and after exhaustive hours in private meetings we have come to what I see as the only conclusion. As of now, Commodore Alex Smyth of the former Imperial Rebellion shall be officially commissioned as an officer of rank Admiral. Furthermore your current orders by the military council of the New Human Republic are to manage your task force in Alandran space to the best of your ability with the limited resources you have available.” He stated reading from notes.

“Furthermore you shall use whatever means necessary to ensure the smooth transition of colonists and military personnel into the Alandran system and onto the planet. You have blanket authority to use whatever methods you deem fit to carry out these orders. For the record Admiral Smyth, the council has been extremely impressed with your performance since arriving in this universe, but protocols must be observed, and tradition kept. The loss of Admiral Benton has forced our hand to take these drastic measures and overlook long established ways of doing things. As of now you will report only to this council, the two other vessels once under your command shall be brought into the NHR navy and its crew commissioned. Do you have any questions Admiral Smyth?” Councilor Jordan asked.

Well, this was a surprise. There had been quite a bit of talk during pub meetings as to what the holdup was in commissioning the rebel fleet, I guess the simplistic answer was pomp and circumstance within the ranks of the council. What he did not expect was to be made Admiral over the task group, rather to be commissioned a Captain under someone else the council had favored more. It seemed that Captain Thompson was not in the runnings, he could see the way the other two Admirals practically bristled at his appearance in the meeting. All this took place in his mind in milliseconds, to the councilors, they wouldn’t even notice a hesitation in speech.

“I do, how does the council stand on the AI known as Monty and her mad-lab orbiting the first planet of this system? I do not feel that she should be commissioned into the formal military structure, as I feel it could limit her creativity.” Alex questioned.

This actually brought a few grins to the otherwise stone faced councilors. Looking to his left and right at the nods, Councilor Jordan answered. “We felt it best to leave such matters to you, we have given you blanket authority to do whatever is necessary to see to it that Humanity smoothly transitions from New Hope space to Alandra. Monty has been the topic of many of our internal conversations, she has proven to be an excellent asset to both you and Admiral Benton. If you feel you should continue to use her in the contractor role, we will abide by your decision.”

Nodding, Alex continued, “Will the Day of Reckoning remain the task force’s flagship under my command? I remind you that we are currently constructing another heavy cruiser in shipyard three to replace the aging Missive of Dissent. While this heavy cruiser will not be a massive battleship like the Reckoning, it will be considerably more advanced.”

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This caused the council to mute as they conferred. It was kind of a strange sight as the hologram in front of them blurred, as though it were some ancient form of censorship. After almost a minute the image cleared. “This is one point I am afraid must be considered a direct order from this council. The Day of Reckoning has been deemed flagship of task force three, and while she is an older vessel you are free to make any upgrades you feel are necessary with your limited resources to make her more combat ready, however, we do not give you authorization to transfer to another flagship unless the Day of Reckoning is deemed unable to fulfill that duty.”

“Pomp and circumstance.” Popped into his mind as he nodded in understanding, if not agreement. The rebellion often made its flagships vessels other than battleships for the more than reasonable assumption that they were often targeted first in a battle. One rebel Admiral’s flagship was aboard a stealth frigate to ensure they could not be taken out of the fight due to concentrated fire that even a battleship couldn’t withstand. “Understood Councilor Jordan, I will begin planning to have both mine and Kara’s matrices brought aboard the Day of Reckoning. I will commission the new heavy cruiser to my task force after making the necessary modification for biological crew.”

“This brings me to my final question. Manpower will be short within my task force, I cannot pull crew from current ships to the new vessel, nor can I afford to mothball one of my current heavy cruisers with the threat looming over this system. What is the councils position in recruiting Alandran crew members?” Alex asked.

Councilor Jordan nodded, he saw the problem and evidently had an answer ready. “Alas, this is another order we as the council must give. While the New Human Republic does have a formal alliance with the Imperial Alandran Government, we do not have the right nor authority to recruit from their ranks. Their parliament was quite clear with the wording of this in our agreements. Due to this restriction and with the manpower shortages, you will continue to construct the vessel as non-biological and will clone new officers as you did with previous crews.”

Internally he shuddered, thinking to himself, “Kara isn’t going to like that.“ Neither of them were too keen on cloning, but Kara was particularly against the practice. None of this showed on his face as he nodded once more if not in agreement, but in understanding. “Understood, I have no further questions for the council at this time.”

Councilor Jordan nodded, “Very well, begin whatever procedures are necessary for your formal transfer to the NHR Day of Reckoning as task group three’s Fleet Admiral, Captain Thompson will remain your Captain and Greg will remain as ship AI. Kara will be considered your aid-de-camp or flag aide, whichever moniker you decide upon. General Hightower will report to you from this point forward once his forces arrive with the convoy fleet. This adjourns the one thousand one hundred and thirty third meeting of the military council of the New Human Republic to a close.”

And with that, he rang the brass bell and the holo-gram of the council chamber faded away. He turned to look at Thompson and Greg. “Well, that went better than we expected. No major changes in leadership roles.”

Greg nodded, “There was some scuttlebutt I received from Todd about the council being pushed towards more leniency due to the circumstances from the senate. I suppose this has worked in our favor, I for one did not look forward to receiving orders from an Admiral back in New Hope who had no idea what the situation was here.”

Captain Thompson sighed, “I’m just happy I still have a job, there are those in the old guard who still want to hang me out to dry. Mostly due to their scapegoating not going to plan, I suppose canning me after Admiral Benton’s death would look bad for them.”

Alex patted the Captain on the shoulder, “Glad to still have you around, especially since you know your ship better than anyone, well, other than Greg of course. Speaking of which, your first official order. Prep two armored cores with escape pod capabilities into the Reckoning. Greg, work with him to figure on the optimal placement to keep us protected but also able to eject should the worst come to pass.”

“Aye aye sir!” Thompson and Greg both echoed as they saluted crisply.

Alex grinned, “Dismissed. Now I have to find a way to break all this to Kara.”

As the two other officers left he heard Thompson mutter, “Good luck with that.”

_____________________________

“For fucks sake, are you kidding me Kel’Taraan?” Empress Shi’Lana all but shrieked in astonishment.

This outburst didn’t rattle the old Spy-Mistress at all, much to the chagrin of the Captain of the Guard Mon’Kelron. Who stood at the Empress’s right hand side and looked much better for wear since last weeks assault on the Imperial ballroom. Her armor was still dented from the impact of the bolt that hit it, but the scorching had been polished out, which was a considerable accomplishment considering it was warsteel.

“I am not kidding your majesty, Mara’Shila was on the guest registry, and appears to be arriving on our internal camera network before they were hijacked and put on loop. She does not appear at any point within the ballroom. I have six different camera angles and viewpoints of that night from Human cameras that were not compromised.” Kel’Taraan stated.

With one of her arms still in a sling she placed her other hand on the desk in front of her. “You think that the leading candidate in the next election cycle for Empress of the entire Alandran population is part of the Redeemers?”

Kel’Taraan nodded, passing the Empress a tablet of Human manufacture, as the Alandran industry was still bootstrapping up to their level of technology with auto-factories and forges provided in the alliance agreement. “Feel free to parse the camera feeds, I even used Monty to check behind me, she never stepped foot into the ballroom, nor even the alcove before it.”

“This is not good, if it is true then we are looking at a governmental coup in the near future if she looses the election. If she wins it and is a Redeemer she could ram through anti-human polices and drive a wedge into the alliance.” Mon’Kelron stated.

The Empress sighed, “It’s even worse than that, the Shila family is powerful and have been politically connected for generations. She was brought up from childhood as a politician and they have taken great pains to keep her free of scandal. This isn’t enough evidence to even bring her in to question under current law, and if we did it would be used as a spin tactic by critics as the progressive party is already calling for you as their candidate. It would look as though you were framing her for your own ambitions.”

“I am well aware of that your majesty, which is why I am bringing it to your attention. We cannot treat this as a normal case for the ministry of secrets, I’m sure they planned this at some point to try to have a candidate that would be untouchable. However, there are other ways to catch someone with their hand in the cookie jar as the Human’s would say.” Kel’Taraan cackled.

Mon’Kelron crossed her rather large arms, “I take it you have come up with a rather sneaky strategy to do this?”

Kel’Taraan was well aware that the Captain didn’t approve of her methods, she was more of a straight forward kind of woman. She took on problems head on, but Kel’Taraan did not, she preferred to attack a problem side-ways, and from an angle the opponent never saw coming. “I’ve been working with Monty on some new equipment. New technology that even the rest of Humanity doesn’t know about. She has come up with a new form of spy drone that is a thousand times smaller than the one we first saw when Alex arrived in orbit above our planet.”

This got the Empress’s attention, “When that first drone faded into existence I nearly had a heart attack as Nar’Vala stepped in front of me. A thousand times smaller and still able to stealth itself?”

Kel’Taraan nodded, “There is actually one in the room with us now, see if either of you can find it now that you know it is here.”

There was no doubt Mon’Kelron was outraged that the Spy-Mistress would bring a recording device into the private office of the Empress, but she also noted what was possibly approval of getting her point across. After searching for a few moments she turned to the Empress and shook her head. “I cannot find it your majesty.”

Kel’Taraan raised her hand and a tiny silver dot faded into existence, barely bigger than a pinhead and nearly invisible itself due to its small size. “I will begin deployment of these drones to keep Mara’Shila and any associated with her under constant surveillance, they’ll be with her all day everyday and they will tail anyone and everyone associated with her. She won’t get to take a crap without me knowing about it.”

Nodding her head the Empress asked, “How many of those will you deploy? With the amount of technology it must take forever to build them.”

Kel’Taraan cackled in mirth, “Oh not too many your majesty, only a few thousand. Just enough to get the job done. And when I catch her in the act, I’ll have the whole of the ministry of secrets waiting to deal with her.”