Chapter 7
Emperor Richard Newcastle was addressing the Assembly and the House of Commons. When the emperor had set up his government, he realized the need for balance, and representation across the board. While he had ennobled a lot of people, that did not necessarily equate to common sense or political knowledge.
Originally he just had a House of Lords. But that proved unsatisfactory. The House of Lords tried to make laws beneficial for the lords, and was not really beneficial to the whole. He squashed that quickly, and divided the government into the House of Commons, and the Assembly of Lords. In a carry over, for some reason, a lot of people still referred to the assembly as the house. He had changed that form of government over 280 years ago.
He had wanted term limits, but realized he would be loosing politically astute people if he did that. So reluctantly he permitted both the lords and the commons to have 'career' politicians, as much as he hated that. That was what had contributed to the collapse of the old Terran Federation.
So to offset that possibility, he had kept broad powers for the crown. It was a pyramid of power and it had worked well for the last 280 years. Sometimes the commons moved to limit the emperor's powers, and sometimes it was the lords. Richard was himself politically astute after living for so long, and easily fought off those thrusts into his powers.
"My Lords of the Assembly. Ladies and Gentleman of the House. I come before you this day to notify you and request your support in pursuing war with the alien, Shas'vsaz, as they call themselves. So far, we have had a total of two confrontational battles with these beings.
"The first was when they followed an allies ship into the Lantree system. After we intercepted their attempt at killing or capturing an unarmed scientific vessel, they immediately fired on us. It was their misfortune it happened to be the HMS Dragon Rising they fired at. The captain of the Dragon Rising took exception and destroyed three alien ships, capturing one, and damaging the 5th ship, causing it to leave rather quickly." Richard paused for the chuckles and laughter.
"So far attempts to communicate with the aliens have failed. All messenger probes were transmitting messages, in their language I might add, and they were destroyed. I do not see any reasonable way to avoid this war. We must unite, and quickly resolve this problem with the Shas'vsaz.
"So My Lords, Ladies and Gentleman, I leave you to deliberate. I request funding for extending war operations until such time as we have won the war, or peace has been reached." Having said that, the emperor stepped back three paces, and bowed slightly from the waist.
[I thought that was well done, Richard] The symbiot said.
<Well, it seemed like begging to me. It should be obvious to all we need to deal with this problem swiftly> Richard grumbled back silently.
[Ah, the joys of freedom. Now aren't you glad I told you to keep those powers you said you didn't want? Just think of the mess if you had nothing except a name and no power.] Replied the symbiot.
<You're right. I AM glad I have what power I do. Those liberal idiots in both the House and the Lords would have had us as a third rate power under someone's thumb by now.> Snorted Richard.
[Speaking of being under someone's thumb, you have stopped training. A day off now and then is fine. It has been two weeks since you last trained in anything. Richard, I can't begin to stress the importance of your training. A time will come when you need it.] The symbiot finished solomnly.
Richard sighed and promised silently to start again that very evening. In the meantime he made his way to his offices at the Castle City Palace. It was a show place really, but it had everything he needed to run his Empire. It was also defended to the hilt.
He silently reached out for his computer and instructed it to contact the Caliphate Ambassador as well as the Terran Republic Ambassador. He wanted to see if support could be had from these two powerful allies. It should be a given that support would come, but politics had a strange way of obfuscating what appeared to be strait forward treaties into complicated documents of uncertainty.
Terran Republic Ambassador, Bradley Fox had been in conference with his deputies when he had fielded the call from the Emperor. He now called his deputies back together and told them the topic of his conversation.
"Well. He finally got around to officially notifying us, has he?" Queried the deputy ambassador, Fredrick Carlton.
"Oh yes. He was most insistent. I pointed out that his government has not yet declared any war or even hostilities. He just looked at me. That man scares me. Even over the vid." Bradley said with a slight shiver.
"Yes, he has that effect on most people. I saw him stare at someone at a reception once. The person was in opposition to one of his policies, and it was such a look of contempt. From what I understand, that person is no longer active in politics." Said Rebeca Taylor, Director of Information.
"Well I have a problem here. The emperor has asked for help according to section 3 of the treaty. I really don't see how I can deny him. I told him I would notify the government of his request. Section 3 is pretty specific. It's a mutual defense pact. He has honored it with us 3 times in the last 100 years with help when we needed it. This is the first time he has asked our help. I am unsure how to proceed. The political climate at home is not very supportive of the emperor and his empire right now." The ambassador said.
"That's not our problem. We will send the request forward. It's all we can do. The emperor can't hold us responsible for something our bosses do, can he?" Fredrick asked tentatively.
"Alright. Let's get the message out. Both with FTL and by message drone. I want this settled and put to bed by dinner time tonight. If we can say we have forwarded his message, then he will have to be satisfied with that." Bradley pushed a button on his desk and his secretary answered. "Get me the emperor at his palace please." Bradley asked her. She acknowledged and he returned his attention to his deputies.
"Ok. That's all we can do. I just hope the politicos back home don't screw this up. You're all dismissed to your duties." Bradley finished.
"Your call to the palace is ready Ambassador." His secretary informed him.
"Ambassador Fox for the emperor. Yes, I will hold. Your majesty? I want you to know I have expedited your request to my government. I am sending it both by FTL transmission and by messenger drone. They should have your request no later than 8 days from now." Ambassador Fox said. He listened.
"Yes your majesty. I will be glad to send a courier as well. Thank you for offering the services of a ship. I will have him ready for departure when you give the word. Yes your majesty. Tomorrow morning at Castle City Port will do nicely. My messenger will be waiting." Bradley Fox found himself looking with relief at the blank vid phone. Yes, that man scared the hell out of him for some reason.
Emperor Richard Newcastle rose as the Caliphate Ambassador entered the room. He had not been expecting him at all.
"Ambassador! Welcome to my home." Richard said warmly.
"Thank you for seeing me on such sort notice, Your Majesty." Ambassador Momud Habdobi replied.
"So, what brings you here this day?" Richard asked.
"It concerns your request for help. I am afraid the Caliphate cannot honor your request at this time." The ambassador replied.
"You are turning me down? After all the help I have given the Caliphate in the past?" Richard asked softly.
"Understand me, your majesty. The Caliphate cannot involve itself in a dispute between you and this new alien race over imagined insults or misunderstanding. We sympathize, but can do nothing at this time." Responded the ambassador.
Richard went over to his desk and got a thick packet of papers and handed them to the ambassador, who glanced at them.
"You recognize what you hold in your hands?" Richard asked.
"It appears to be a copy of the treaty between your majesty's government and the Caliphate." Answered the ambassador.
"Does it bear the Caliph's signature?" Richard asked.
After thumbing through it, the ambassador allowed as to how it was the Caliph's signature.
"After verifying that this is a legal document, you still wish to tell me that the Caliph refuses to honor the this treaty?" Richard asked.
"It says we entered into an agreement with your government. You are separate from your government, Your Majesty." Responded the ambassador.
"Actually, my government works for me. When you insult me, you insult my government. We are tied closely. If you refuse to honor this treaty, just say so, and I will have you and your embassy ejected from my world. If you wish, you may try me. Your government will not thank you for your actions though." Richard said with finality.
The Caliphate Ambassador actually sneered. "You are a figure head whose time has gone. You just don't realize it yet."
"You will return to your embassy, and letters of expulsion will be on your desk in two hours. I hope you have a good relationship with the caliph. Go." Richard commanded, and the ambassador found himself leaving for no apparent reason.
Reinforcements had arrived at Lantree. The Battlesphere was once again at full missile capacity. Admiral Sethon now commanded a force that was close to fleet level. He worked long and hard, poring over the sensor logs of all the ships involved in the aborted invasion of system Alpha.
An official vote of war had been declared by the emperor's government several weeks ago, and funding was already going into place. A diplomatic insult to his majesty had resulted in the expulsion of the Caliphate ambassador. Ten days later a special courier had arrived from the Caliphate with a letter of apology and a new ambassador. The new ambassador had stated that the Caliphate was prepared to help as much as possible, but that they too had borders to guard.
The reply from the Terran Republic had been more vague. While they wished to honor the letter of the treaty, due to cut backs of funding, the Republic found it's resources stretched and were unable to offer more than token help. However, they did send a squadron of ten Heavy cruisers. A Terran Republic heavy Cruiser was about the same strength and size as an Imperial Cruiser. However the emperor was requested to supply all needs for the Cruisers.
Caliphate cruiser, Dancer was on patrol at the northern edge of the Caliphate's sector of claimed space when it received a distress call. It was from a freighter that made regular runs from the Caliphate to the Barton Defense League. The freighter had a passenger capacity of 40 and had a good cargo space.
The captain of the cruiser pulled up all it had on the freighter while ordering his ship to respond with all speed to the coordinates that the freighter sent. He also sent a response. They were not to far away, just two hours. The BDL as the league was known, was a small group of twelve planets that were loosely joined together in a mutual pact of protection. It had a navy, but that was very small indeed. It was mostly commerce that powered the league.
When Dancer broke out of hyper, it was to see three strangely configured ships of unknown origin surrounding the freighter. Two ships immediately started on an intercept course for Dancer. The captain of the Dancer took no chances. He immediately opened fire on the two strange ships coming his way.
The ships were out of position and it took time to turn their broadsides towards Dancer. However, Dancer was almost three times larger than the all ships present with the exception of the freighter. Dancer's missiles took out the first ship with it's first broadside. However the second ship was now firing all it's weapons as fast as it could. Dancer's anti missile defense was more than equal to the task.
The third ship started to move, but in the opposite direction. It was fleeing. The captain of the dancer ordered 4 missiles fired at it, then forgot about it as this last ship was definitely a problem. Despite firing more than three broadsides of 24 missiles at a time, Dancer was having trouble with this last ship. Finally something got through, because the alien blew most satisfactorily into it's component atoms.
The captain then turned his attention to both the freighter and the third ship. He was astonished at what he saw. The third ship had gotten hit by one of his missiles and it had actually broken in half. Both halves were tumbling in the direction they had been traveling.
The freighter reported that they had been forced out of hyper and that their hyper generators were in need of repair. Other than that, the captain had arrived in time and they gave their thanks. The captain offered the help of his engineering team, for which the freighter captain was grateful.
In the meantime, the captain ordered his marines to capture and take
prisoner those left alive in the tumbling halves of what used to be a
star ship. So for two days, the Caliphate ship, Dancer stayed and
helped in the repairs of the freighter, Blythe.