Allana, Capital City of the Eleani Sovereignty
Offices of the Senate House
June 2nd, 2176 A.D.
“It seems as if you were right, Nimto. The referendum results are in, and 78% of the Eleani electorate has voted yes to the proposal to join the Republic of Humanity. I have no choice but to present the results to the Senate and let them decide the future of our people.”
Nimto eyed the Premier, who sounded almost relieved to pass the issue onto the Senate and let them deal with the potential political ramifications of the referendum. The premier looked exhausted, the last two years of office aging her by what looked like a decacycle at least.
“I tried to warn you, Liala. I told you not to let the pro-Republic faction trap you into bringing this to a vote. The people love our cousin-kin, and they voted with their hearts, not their minds.” Nimto gently reminded her as he glanced down at the vote tally on the desk screen before looking back up at her.
The Premier gave him a decidedly unfriendly stare before replying to him.
“Yes, you did, Nimto. I do not need to be reminded of that. What I do need is for you to help me figure out a way out of this mess. President Sarix is on his way here after I informed him of the results, as are Chief Minister Ollo of the Jaleeni, Princess Liria of the V’rni, and First Consul Jalit of the Xenxin. So, Nimto, what should I do when our esteemed guests finally arrive?”
Nimto fidgeted, pulling on his ambassadorial stash as he tried to answer the Premier without making her angrier. He decided the truth would be the least likely to incur her wrath, and he answered her question.
“I truly do not know, Liala. I was expecting this issue to be dealt with after the coming war. I was hoping our successors would be the ones to figure this out after we won. And if we don’t win, then it really doesn’t matter, does it?”
Liala eyed him with a baleful glance before slamming her hand down on the desk controls, the holowave screen turning off and the referendum results blinking out as she continued to stare at him.
Wrong answer, he thought to himself as she slowly stood up from her seat and stalked around the desk to stand right in front of him. Bending down until their eyes were level, she sneered at him, her face less than three hands away from his own as she spoke again.
“Not the answer I was looking for, Nimto. What do you think President Lopez’s reaction to this will be? How will the Republic Senate respond to our people's request to join the Republic?”
Nimto could smell the zinta fruit she had been eating before as her warm, berry-scented breath hit his face. Unwilling to be intimidated by her, Nimto remained still and refused to lean back or look away from her glaring eyes as he answered the question.
“Both President Lopez and the Republic Senate are of the opinion the Eleani Sovereignty should preferentially stay within the Commonwealth or become an independent power if we choose to leave. They feel like we should be allowed to make our own way in the galaxy for a time and know what it is to be free again before committing to joining the Republic.”
Liala rapidly puffed her cheeks out twice, clearly unhappy with his answer, before asking him another question.
“And the Republic citizens? What do you think they will say when they find out their cousin-kin want to join with them? We didn’t even think to ask them for help when our end was upon us, and when they heard our desperate pleas in the great void, they answered.
They came to save us when no one else would, and they willingly fought and died for us. To show our thanks, we fought with them against the Insectoids, and have remained at their side, fighting and dying with them in the Dead Zone to take back the worlds of our departed friends.
Like Admiral Thompson said, our bond has been consecrated by blood; we are no longer just cousin-kin, we are now blood-kin, and our fate is forever intertwined with theirs as is right and true.
Do you think the humans will allow their government to deny our people’s desire to no longer be cousin-kin, but their brothers and sisters in all the ways that truly matter after the sacrifices we have made for each other? I think not, Nimto. This is going to have severe repercussions not only for us but for them as well.”
Liala stood back up and walked around the desk before resuming her seat across the desk from him. Nimto knew she was right, and he knew the political fallout from the referendum was going to severely disrupt efforts to create a unified alliance to confront the coming enemy.
“Liala, we are going to have to leverage every favor, every relationship, and every possible promise to get our Senate allies to put off the referendum vote till after the war. Same for the senators of the opposing collective. As for your most vocal opponents within the pro-Republic faction, you will have to use all means at your disposal to get them to agree to put it off.
That means you will have to threaten to expose every secret they have that could turn into a political scandal and cause them to lose their positions and status. The humans have a term for it: playing dirty. You are going to have to play dirty to make this go away.”
Liala put her head in her hands, her face pointed down at the desk as she quietly replied to him.
“Exactly what I vowed not to do when I ran for this office. I started from the roots, Nimto. I saw all the deals, promises, coercions, and barely legal compromises my Senate colleagues would make with each other as they sought to climb higher up the trunk and increase their status.
I prided myself on not being like them and for reaching the crown of the tree without having to sacrifice my integrity and self-respect like many of my former Senate colleagues have done. When I became Premier, I did so without owning a single thing to any of them, and I still had my honor.
And now I will have to sully myself and play dirty, as you say, to get what I want from the Senate. I will have to give up the honor and integrity I value more than my life itself to do what I think is best for our people.
I do not know if I have it within me to do this, Nimto. I will be forced to hide my face and my soul in shame when my time comes to stand in front of the Maker and be judged if I debase myself like so.”
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He could hear the anguish in her voice as she expressed her worst fear to him: being forced to turn into the type of politician she despised with all her being. His heart went out to her, and he made a silent vow to do whatever was necessary to allow her to maintain her integrity.
Even if that meant debasing himself like she was afraid to do and becoming involved in the shitflinging cesspool that was the Senate house. She was his premier, and he believed in her. He would sacrifice his own honor to preserve hers, if that’s what it took.
As Liala began discussing the coming meeting with the soon-to-be arriving dignitaries, Nimto began mentally creating a list of names and all the favors he had accrued during his time in both the military and the government.
He had over thirty cycles of hard-earned political capital to spend, and now it was time to trade it in.
CWS Ancestor's Glory-Flagship of the Neo-Commonwealth Navy
En route to Eleania
Sarix brooded in the admiral’s office adjoining the main bridge, staring at the Eleani referendum results for what seemed like the hundredth time since he received the results.
He departed Nekul Prime less than two hours after receiving the transmission, ordering his much slower civilian governmental staff to follow him in another ship as he boarded the Ancestor’s Glory in orbit.
The Commonwealth staff was still struggling to adapt to the military efficiency he employed in his decision-making processes and actions. They were used to the agonizingly slow procedures of the old Commonwealth government, never realizing just how much the corruption and bloat had weighed the government down.
He wanted to fire the civilian staff and replace them with competent and vastly more efficient military staffers, but he refrained from doing so on the advice of his most trusted advisors.
What remained of the Commonwealth was constantly on the verge of collapsing, and he had to be careful not to make it seem like he was trying to install a military dictatorship by doing things like replacing civilian officials with the military.
Now, he was en route to Eleania to try to salvage the situation and prevent the Eleani Sovereignty from seceding and leaving the fragile Commonwealth he was trying to rebuild. The departure of the Eleani would trigger a cascade within the Neo-Commonwealth; it would not be able to survive the loss of such a respected member.
The Xenxin would follow the Eleani and officially secede as well, though unofficially, they were already considered as having done so in the eyes of the Commonwealth leadership.
They had not remitted any taxes since their rebellion against the old government, and they had ignored repeated inquiries as to when they would begin to contribute resources and ships to help bolster the army and naval forces.
Additionally, the Neo-Commonwealth had been forced to purchase refined nenchite from the Xenxin at 70% of the market price, further straining the Neo-Commonwealth’s severely depleted coffers.
The new refineries being built in the reclaimed Dead Zone will take at least another cycle to come online, and it would take at least another cycle until output would be enough to meet the quotas and allow self-sufficiency.
Sarix had made the executive decision to engage in technology transfers with the Republic not only because he truly believed they would be honorable allies, but to also garner goodwill and show them that the new Commonwealth was worth investing in.
The Republic had repaid his good intentions threefold, allowing him to secure loans at low interest rates and enact favorable trade concessions that kept the economy afloat, and they graciously provided the floundering Neo-Commonwealth with raw ores and minerals at cost from their insanely efficient automated mining networks.
If it wasn’t for the Republic, the Neo-Commonwealth would have collapsed already, and Sarix made sure to never forget that as he tried his best to keep the over 400-cycle-old organization alive.
Like most long-lived empires and governments, the old Commonwealth had become corrupt, bloated, and more concerned with maintaining and expanding their wealth and power than the welfare of its citizens.
Despite this, Sarix believed the scales tipped more for the good the old Commonwealth had done rather than the bad. They did not embark on wars, and citizens had guaranteed housing, medical care, and income with the freedom to follow their own religious beliefs and determine their life paths.
It wasn’t until after almost half their membership had been exterminated that the Commonwealth pivoted to a more totalitarian way of governance. The loss of those powerful and wise members created a void that allowed the Ominians to seize the government and prey on the fears of the terrified survivors.
Sarix wanted to restore the Commonwealth to its former glory, but more importantly, he wanted to return it to what it was originally envisioned as by the founding members: a force for good and prosperity that cared for its citizens and stabilized the quadrant.
He had already made major changes to the government, rooting out the endemic corruption and restoring the safety and rights of the citizens. The bureaucracy had been reduced by 42%, and despite the smaller size of the government, the latest reports confirmed that overall government efficiency had increased by a staggering 31%.
This proved the recently fired bureaucrats, who had arrogantly predicted dire consequences for such actions, profoundly wrong, and Sarix relished the public humiliation they suffered as they stopped appearing on the holo news channels and the Commonwealth moved on without them.
The door alert chime snapped him out of his musings, and he turned off the floating hologram displaying the referendum results before pressing on the door control interface on the desktop.
The door slid into its recess, and his clutch daughter Verixa stepped into the office and walked over to the desk before saluting him. Sarix stood up and returned it, extremely proud of the perfectly executed homage Verixa had gifted him.
Unlike other high-ranking officers, Verixa maintained her sharp military bearing and conduct, not allowing her lofty position to make her sloppy and lose her edge. Gesturing for her to take a seat, Sarix sat down first, knowing she would not take the proffered seat until he had done so, as was proper.
As soon as she had taken her seat, she began to speak.
“Father, what are we going to do about this? If the Eleani secede from the Commonwealth, the Xenxin will surely follow, officially confirming their status as an independent power instead of the troublesome, non-compliant members we have been pretending they are.
I fear others will follow. The terrible civil war and all the suffering and death borne by the true patriots who fought to save the Commonwealth will all have been for naught. We cannot allow that to happen; far too much blood has been shed to allow their sacrifices to have been in vain.”
Sarix eyed Verixa, easily able to see the anguish behind the stone mask his clutch daughter was wearing on her face. He was her father, and he remembered the first time he saw her true heart as he watched her struggle to break through her egg. She stubbornly refused to give up, and she claimed her right to live and be his clutch daughter.
Just as then, he saw her true heart now, and he understood the emotional turmoil she was facing. The worst thing that could happen to her as clan leader is for the many thousands of injuries and deaths suffered under her command to be rendered meaningless.
“Verixa, I feel as you do, and your worries are also mine. I can only hope my recently acquired skills of statesmanship will be sufficient to the task of convincing the Eleani to remain loyal to the Neo-Commonwealth and help us rebuild it.
I intended to open a communication channel to speak with President Lopez and Admiral Thompson when we reached Eleania, but since you are here, perhaps I will do so now. You can help me make my case when I ask them what the Republic’s intentions are and for their assistance in trying to convince the Eleani to stay.
I will divert the ship to the nearest Republic null space relay; I believe there is one thirty-six light years off our current course. Unless you have more pressing matters, I would like you to stay.”
Verixa gazed at him, the same obstinacy that made her stay and fight the massive Insectoid fleet in the Jaleeni system evident within her eyes. Sarix smiled for the first time in weeks, baring all his fangs in true happiness as she remained seated.
With his clutch daughter at his side, perhaps they had a real chance of saving the Commonwealth they have been fighting so hard to keep alive. Sarix called the bridge to order the course change, steeling himself for what he now considered the most crucial battle of his life and his career.