Bral Ranyr chapter 3

         It was not quite right to say that the Thogos had brought all the Admirals that witnessed Bral’s Court. Rather, Thogos commanded the fleet of ships that belonged to those Admirals. The Imperial Fleet counted several billion personnel on its rosters, but barely five hundred Admirals among them. Three Captains could meet anywhere in the Empire without a great deal of comment, but three Admirals in the same system usually meant all sorts of meetings. Each Admiral caused the number of meetings and ceremonies to rise exponentially, and more still if there were sufficient rank.

         Grand Admirals brought their own level of importance with them on top of this, as they were the rarest of the rare. Holden’s presence in itself was enough to satiate those looking for any good rumors, and for ten cycles no word got around about the Emperor’s presence. The various staffs got together to discuss strategy and trade war stories among themselves, seeing who could one-up their counterparts. There were also feasts among the Echak personnel, who were intensely private about their racial traditions, and an impromptu concert was staged by the Inahin contingent, led by Admiral Ilaesu. The Taiad kept mostly to themselves, to all appearances, but they were even less forthcoming with their privacy than the Echak.

         Dauroodra was still working with Dauclodra on the mystery of the ships that the Trikin had disabled. After six rotations of study, its team produced a report, cross-checked with information provided by Admiral Reynolds. While her initial assumptions had proven incorrect, they led Dauroodra’s team to another conclusion. Warmaster Kurasawa confirmed what was quickly becoming a surprising theory: the recent surge in attacks was not the work of the Corporate Alliance at all.

         Any good officer in the Fleet had a mixed set of feelings regarding the Alliance, and nobody liked to admit it. After all, it made the officer corps uneasy to think about it, but that did not make it any less true: the Alliance caused hell for the Fleet, but the Fleet would not exist without them.

         Properly, the Alliance was a part of the Empire. In theory, they operated as the Imperial Advisory Board of Commerce, appointed by the Throne to oversee the commercial health of the Empire. It was a wise system, in theory: the most powerful corporations were officially recognized by the Emperor, and charged with regulating themselves and all other corporations that did business anywhere in the Empire. They set and enforced the rules by which all businesses were required to operate, in exchange for essentially funding the Imperial government.

         In practice, the system could not be much more corrupt. The Alliance was practically hegemonic in a large swath of Imperial space, and held significant influence in any system that boasted more than five billion citizens. The names on the Board might change from term to term, but the fifteen corporations that officially administered commercial affairs were chosen from the same pool of twenty-five, and even the ones that were not actively members of the Board were afforded those privileges with little more than a professional wink and nudge.

         The Alliance grew out of the Board, and quickly came to refer to all of the corporations that were vying for spots on the Board. Eventually the Board itself became irrelevant, and the Alliance replaced it in practice. In hindsight, it was no surprise that things would end up this way when the various executives realized that it was more profitable to work together than to work against each other. In short order, the Alliance took advantage of the self-enforcement policy, and developed its own Navy and Security Force.

         The Emperors found themselves in a predicament: dissolving the Alliance was practically impossible since the Imperial Government simply could not handle overseeing businesses in addition to everything else on its agenda. Even if an Emperor were willing, or crazy enough, to attempt dissolution, the economic ramifications were staggering. The Alliance paid for most of the Empire’s expenses, which prevented a direct tax on Imperial citizens. This alone was more important in keeping the peace than any other contributing factor.

         Bral had always thought himself lucky that he was assigned to the Expansion arm of the Fleet. He had spent the vast majority of his career out on one of the frontiers, always pushing the boundaries of the Empire further away from Naldel. He rarely had to deal with the Corporate Alliance Navy, unlike the Enforcement arm. He had heard all the stories from his former classmates and shipmates, about run-ins with Alliance Navy people who were little better than swashbuckling pirates. The Alliance Navy was supposedly charged with protecting commercial shipping throughout the Empire, but among Fleet personnel it seemed that an inordinate amount of time was spent protecting commercial shipping from the Alliance Navy.

         The evidence seemed to point toward the Alliance being behind the attack, but it was Admiral Kurasawa who noticed it. The Warmaster had been obsessively studying all the data available from the Trikin, running it against only he knew what sort of comparisons. He had taken to working with Lieutenant Commander Tonach, the Trikin’s tactical officer. The Warmaster had a reputation for ignoring anyone who did not wear a flag, but it turned out that he was willing to use any resources available to him. Bral had to admit to himself that he was impressed with the Admiral’s knowledge and insight.

         “Alliance ships,” Kurasawa said, pointing at the display. For now, they were back on the Trikin, holding an impromptu staff meeting in the ship’s gallery. Here, the Warmaster was in his element of teaching. “Alliance attack patterns. I imagine that if we were to trace the voice and fuel analyses back to their sources, they would no doubt originate in the Alliance. But look here,” he said, gesturing to one of the screens. “This is a portion of the records pulled from the Patrol Frigate Kelhin in Sector 14. Admiral Reynolds provided me with a copy of these records when it became obvious that there was a potential connection here. This raid happened two and a half cycles ago.

         “Note the pattern that the small craft assume when they enter the system. You will notice that it is the same as our recent incident. But if you look here, away from the incoming bandits, you will see that an Alliance gunboat seems to come out of nowhere. We are not yet sure how they are able to slip this craft in underneath our sensor net, but that is not at issue for the moment. The point is that this gunboat is the signature move of this tactic.

         He pointed back at the main screen. “This is our encounter. The bandits execute the same entry and formation, but the gunboat is expected to appear right…now, and it does not.”

         Tonach spoke up. “So that’s why you had me aim down their escape vector. You knew they were coming.” The Warmaster nodded. “So if they’re using Alliance tactics and Alliance technology, why don’t you think this was an Alliance op?”

         “Because they were missing the gunboat, for one. For another, rewind the sensor readout to just before the bandits appear. Lieutenant Sulild reported heavy mass readouts, what she assumed to be a pair of carriers. They were trying to bluff us.”

         Bral felt an insight coming to him at the same time Tonach said “They wanted us to think that they had big guns coming behind them to compensate. What’s a gunboat against two carriers?”

         “Yes, Commander. A good bluff, at that, but they forgot one thing.”

         Bral beat Tonach to it. “The Alliance would never send one carrier to the back end of nowhere, let alone two of them.”

         “Precisely, Admiral, though I think the residents of Back End would disagree with your assessment of their neighborhood.” That was the closest thing to a joke Bral had ever heard him say.

         Commander Cheuvor asked the next question on everyone’s mind. “So if it wasn’t the Alliance, then who was it?”

         Dauroodra began chirping a moment before its translator kicked in. “We can assign a point of origin to the craft we recovered judging by the contents of the onboard reactors. The degradation of the fuel indicates a transit time of two hours. We were able to extract a possible launch sequence from the recent activity log. The hull indicates that it was launched from a hangar instead of through an atmosphere. Given the entry vector, we think the bandits originated at these coordinates.” It tapped at its console, uploading a file to the display board. “It appears to be a deserted asteroid cluster roughly three hours at flank speed from the nearest inhabited planet.”

         “What do we know about the planet?”

         “The official entry in Imperial records gives a designation number and coordinates. Technological rating is third tier, so it is unlikely that they are supplying these bandits.”

         “Sir,” Bral said, “I would like to ask Admiral Santos for permission to investigate this further.”

         “You are a big boy now, Ranyr,” Kurasawa answered. “Do what you will.”