Collection 46 (Patreon)

Collection

Chapter 46

-VB-

Maximilian Liao

Sian, Capellan Confederation

3004 November 8

In a private meeting between just five people (one of whom was managing this call over the HPG), a holovid came to an end. 

“This holovid has been circulating for some time. Is this true?” Maximilian asked after watching the full length of the holovid. 

“Yes, I was there, chancellor,” Kuran Liao replied with his hands clasped together under the large sleeves of his contemporary yisa, a traditional attire for the confederation’s diplomats. He was the only one not physically present, being on Victoria II to use its HPG station. “He scorched the surface of the moon in less than the length of the holovid.”

“... And the ship? You have been inside of at least one of the ships.”

“I have, chancellor.”

“How thick do you reckon those armors are?” 

“Thick enough that you could bury three men on top of each other and still have room left over.”

“That thick?” Strategic Military Director Pavel Ridzik asked with a frown. The orange haired white man looked troubled by the sight of the warship in action. “Then the armor on the … dreadnought … must be even thicker.”

“Would nuclear weapons be powerful enough to end those two ships?” Max asked his faithful director, the man who had helped him get the chancellorship. 

“If nothing stops it, then our heaviest nuclear weapons can,” Ridzik hummed. “But the problem is not the weapon but the delivery. The holovid of Battle of Coromodir shows the numerous fighters the warship carrier fields. The sheer amount of metal would drown out anything we can deploy right now.”

Max gritted his teeth. 

The Battle of Coromodir, as it was being called within the confederation but more derisively as “Capellan Massacre at Coromodir” elsewhere, was a humiliating defeat. It alone should have been responded to with the full force of the CCAF, but by the time they were ready to even consider deployment, the damn Leaguers and Fedrats had pounced on the advertised destruction of so much of CCAF lift capacity.

If they deployed nuclear weapons, they still should have had a chance to win. 

But now… that was not an option. 

The appearance of the much larger and far deadlier warship - which Ridzik called dreadnought - narrowed their options down to just one. 

And Max, despite the fact that he knew he would eventually have to agree to it, hated it. 

The Free Worlds League had routed more than ten regiments from the Lyran border to strike at their antispinward flank while the Davions threw even more men and metal into their current push. With those two forces bearing down on him and the confederation, he couldn’t respond to the Arlaoskas Fleet. And if he didn’t respond, then that bastard was sure to carry out his threat of not only occupying even more systems and cutting the confederation completely off from the rimward periphery but also start destroying even more jumpships that fail to surrender.

But it was a show of weakness to give into demands. 

He took a deep breath in.

“Recite to me what the terms are.”

Kuran grimaced. “... In summary, we would be ceding the rimwardmost fourth of Sian Commonality except for the six spinwardmost of those systems.”

“And those systems are…?”

“Currently, it is Pojos, Zanzibar, Corodiz, Rollis, Yuris, and Jacson.”

Max closed his eyes. 

“And the Davions are preparing to push into those systems right this instant.”

“Yes, chancellor.”

In essence, the confederation was about to lose a fourth of the Sian Commonality because he listened to ComStar. It was obvious what ComStar had wanted in hindsight; they wanted the confederation and the fleet to ruin each other. But obviously, ComStar also miscalculated, because there was no way that anyone knew about the fleet’s capabilities. Until now. 

“When did he want the surrender by?”

Ridzik grimaced and didn’t argue. Others in the room also wanted to argue but … in the face of warships, their disagreements had less power than a pistol bullet.

“He did not state any date or hint to one, but if we take too long, then he may expand the occupation zone. And along with it, what he expects from the confederation is sure to rise.”

But what Edward Arlaoskas asked for was a big ask.

Victoria alone was a powerful asset for the confederation with multiple military factories, research stations, and other supporting factories. With over a billion people, it was worth more than some periphery worlds the confederation burned in the Aurigan Coalition. It was also a strategically powerful system due to where it was situated right at the crossroads of four different stellar nations without being directly in the path of any invasion route. 

But Arlaoskas was demanded so much more than just Victoria. All of the worlds that his fleet occupied boasted a significant population and lesser industries like consumer electronics, mining operations, and chemical plants. Losing them all would result in at least ten billion people. That’s a whole percent of the entire population of the Capellan Confederation that Arlaoskas was demanding without so much as engaging the confederation in any sort of protracted battle. 

‘Maybe he demanded such believing that I won’t agree to it.’

On a normal day in the Inner Sphere, Maximilian Liao, the Chancellor of the Capellan Confederation, would never have agreed to this.

However, these recent days were anything but normal. Warships not even in the hands of ComStar but a defected Leaguer? Rapid construction of unusual ship designs and warships? No ground battles but a dominating space presence? 

Had this been a response from another house lord, he would have refused. 

Edward Arlaoskas, however, was not a house lord. 

‘Could the man’s response be truly a retaliation for what we did to the Aurigan Coalition?’ he asked himself. 

If that was the case, then he couldn’t allow himself to continue this three front war. Better to make peace with the one force who wouldn’t attack as soon as the truce period ran out instead of continuing to fight a near unstoppable fleet. 

“Can we hold the occupied systems if Arlaoskas backs off for whatever reason?” Max asked Ridzik, looking at the man directly in the eyes. 

Ridzik… grimaced. 

“We cannot,” he replied honestly. “The loss of dropships and jumpships are too numerous for us to even try to hold all of our worlds, never mind supply them properly to keep the economy running.”

Max sighed.

The confederation had a choice. 

Either fight a three way war and surely die … or try to hold back the tide against its two traditional enemies while making peace with the third. 

When he put it like that, he didn’t have a real choice, did he? 

… Yes, he would let go of those systems for now, but as soon as the Federated Suns and the Free Worlds League were beaten back, he would come back for the Arlaoskas Fleet. 

There were many ways other than violence to harm someone, after all. 

-VB-

Edward Arlaoskas

Victoria System

3004 November 15

I blinked. 

Mad Max actually accepted that ridiculous demand?

I leaned back. “I see. I accept. From here on out, the systems that I have occupied will be part of my new domain and the four systems closest to the Aurigan Coalition will be handed over to the Aurigans as part of this treaty,” I declared while looking at the ambassador, who’d come back to The Maw in person with an electronic signature of the Capellan chancellor. 

I thought that Chancellor Liao would have opposed the deal and pushed on recklessly, but I see now that he was … wiser than he was made out to be. He saw a losing battle, and instead of letting sunk-cost fallacy take hold of him, he cut his losses and moved to fight battles where he could still win. 

But what I did to him was going to be a sticking point for the entire confederation as long as the Arlaoskas name lived. 

I stepped forward and one of my AI maids stepped up with a pen. I took it and signed it on both copies of the treaty. 

“Then on behalf of the Chancellor of the Capellan Confederation,” Ambassador Kuran Liao declared to our small audience of my family, his own retinue, and Victoria’s own representative, who looked horrified by the proceedings. “I hereby declare the enforcement of the Victoria Accords. May only those foolish enough to oppose the Capellan Confederation and the Arlaoskas Fleet seek to break it.”

He gave me a bow and left with his retinue. 

But not the Victoria representative, a young man who was supposedly the Duke of Victoria II. 

“... Duke Michael O’Hanlon, was it?” I said as I turned to face the noble. “It seems there is much to discuss between I, you, and your peers in the fleet’s new worlds.”

To the side, mom looked faint while dad looked … proud? 

I supposed that even my pastor father couldn’t hold back the pride of seeing me do well as I had. I’ll have to ask him later. He could be proud for a whole different reason, and I didn’t like being misunderstood or misunderstanding other people. 

Right now, I had a job to do as the new lord of … many, many people. 

“Y-Yes, fleemaster…?” he hesitated with my title. 

“Fleetmaster is my preferred title,” I hummed. “Now, I will alert all of the ruling lords and ladies of each of the worlds I am now in charge of and send them a copy of this treaty so that they know who their de facto and dejure lord is.” I also knew that I needed to alert the Aurigans to their new “compensation.” “They will arrive within two weeks at most, and I intend to hold a meeting here on The Maw. You will, of course, be part of this meeting.”

The young man gulped. He was younger than I was at 15 years old, and was only the duke because his mother had passed away due to old age and all of his older siblings died due to either battle or courtly intrigues. 

“And… what will the meeting be about?”

“How to organize this new nation, of course!” I nodded. Then I turned to my family. “And I will obviously want someone else who isn’t just me to represent the people of my fleet. Two people, in fact. One for the flesh and blood and the other for the metal and electricity.”

That gave my family a surprised jolt as did some of my AI servants. 

I just chuckled at their reaction. 

Why wouldn’t I give my family more power and wealth when I had the chance to do so? 

-VB-

High Lord Tamati II Arano

Coromodir, Aurigan Coalition

3004 November 16

Santiago and Tamati both looked at the message with open mouths. 

“Weldry, Hurik, Muridox, and Larsha have been ceded to us?” Tamati muttered in a horrified glee. 

The treaty had come to them - and also forwarded to everyone else in the Inner Sphere and the Periphery - and came with multiple verifiable information, including ComStar’s authentication, though the message itself came through the now ubiquitous, much easier to fix, simpler to operate, and much more powerful FTL Comm Buoys, or FCBs. 

“... Aside from the fact that he, once again, put us in the cross-hairs of a successor state, he gave us far more than we lost,” Santiago muttered as he leaned back into his armchair. 

“But this time, the Capellan Confederation will not be directly across the border except in a small region which the Federated Suns will definitely seek to capture,” Tamati argued. “Arlaoskas will be putting himself in the front, being a buffer state between us and the confederation. So aside from potential assassination as reprisal for being an ally of Arlaoskas…”

“You believe we have gained much for a lot of our people’s suffering. Enough that we can look over Arlaoskas’s indiscretions.”

“... Yes.”

Santiago leaned back, and it was obvious what his brother-in-law was thinking. 

The technology and “help” Edward Arlaoskas offered the Aurigan Coalition was substantial. It was only weeks after the FTL Comm Buoys had been installed without their permission, but the instantaneous communication between all member worlds of the Aurigan Coalition was a boon unlike any other, especially since they didn’t have to pay an exorbitant fee for each data transmission. It didn’t change the fact that Arlaoskas ignored the coalition’s sovereignty, which was a big problem. 

But Tamati had ignored it because they have been too useful in rebuilding the damaged worlds. 

And now, they were getting four worlds as compensation, and what a boon those worlds would be. Despite being near periphery worlds, the worlds of Weldry, Hurik, Muridox, and Larsha were proper confederation worlds with hundreds of millions of people and industries ranging from simple agriculture and mining to high end manufacturing and even a factory for Hunchback chassis. 

In fact, the population of the Aurigan Coalition rose by 25% from those four worlds despite the losses they suffered from the Capellan rampage en route to Coromodir. 

They couldn’t afford to deny this offer and hurt their tenuous alliance with the Arlaoskas Fleet, not when the Capellans would care. To them, the Aurigna Coalition already stood against them once, and once was enough to be on their book of grudges forever. 

“So?”

“We accept these worlds, obviously,” Tamati replied. “And we bring the houses of the coalition together to see how we can improve our military. And we should start buying up everything the Corlaos Shipyard is willing to sell to us. If the Fleet-Confederation War taught us anything, then it is that space assets still dictate the path of warfare.” 

-VB-

Excerpt from The Periphery Revolution, Chapter 3: The Fleet-Confederation War

One cannot talk about the Arlaoskas Fleet without talking about the Fleet-Confederation War, which became the impetus by which the Arlaoskas Fleet felt the need to fully exercise the military power they had been gathering and hiding up to that point. 

It began when the Capellan Confederation invaded the Aurigan Coalition with the intent to gain ownership of the Corlaos Shipyard, which had been recently built by the Arlaoskas Fleet as a symbol of friendship and cooperation with the fledgling periphery power. Their secondary goal was also to conquer the entirety of the Aurigan Coalition so that those worlds could be exploited for the sake of the entire Capellan Confederation, and in this bid for conquest, they looted, raped, and pillaged their way across the entire coalition under the directive of “military subjugation.” It is also now widely known that many ComStar HPG stations in these worlds cooperated with the new temporary rulers.

But when they arrived at the Coromodir system, they found not a system and shipyard shaking in their boots but a shipyard defiant to their arrival and invasion. 

Where did the confidence come from? It came from the shipyard’s some manned but mostly unmanned defense infrastructure and fleet. And it also came from the fact that the Arlaoskas Fleet was on their way to defend the system.

And just a day away en route to launching their attack on the shipyard, the Capellan Confederation navy came face to face with The Maw and its escorts, the Mule-class Exploration Warships. 

The CCAF and CCN were not filled with idiots. It was why they had attacked the Aurigans when they had confirmation that the Arlaoskas Fleet and The Maw was flying over Jamestown in the heart of the Taurian Concordat. The sudden arrival of The Maw shook the wider Inner Sphere’s expectations about the Fleet’s FTL drives; the Arlaoskas Fleet operated with an alternate FTL drive, which is now known as the Warp Drive. 

It was now known at the time that Segerica was a fortress system already at the outbreak of the war and from where the Arlaoskas Fleet had built their massive fleet of agile warships. How did the Successor States not anticipate the outflow of an entire fleet? The cause for this lack of anticipation was simple: Segerica had been an abandoned system for over a hundred years at that point. 

For Arlaoskas Fleet, this was the perfect place to set up one of their machine-built and operated shipyards: abandoned and out of sight, populated but not enough to bother anyone with power, and within the Inner Sphere but far enough from any powerful powerful militaries who might use the system as a stopover in their raids and invasions. The system also holds many worlds, both rocky and gaseous, from which the fleet’s autonomous mining ships can harvest the needed materials to create even more ships. 

And when the war broke out, the Arlaoskas Fleet struck into the Capellan Confederation not through the Aurgian Coalition but from Segerica. Not only did this move catch the confederation off-guard, they were wholly unprepared for the dozens of warships, whose numbers could be amassed into a Star League fleet squadron, something that the Inner Sphere hadn’t seen in over one hundred fifty years.

The confederation, already severely weakened from loss of many regiments wholesale as well as their dropships and jumpships, were unprepared to fight an enemy who possessed warships and didn’t care for ground battles at all. And an enemy who paid no respect to the unspoken rules of war concerning the sanctity of jumpships. It is estimated that the Capellan Confederation lost anywhere from fifteen to thirty jumpships with an average of three dropship collars for each jumpships. 

And this loss of so many jumpships may be one of the key reasons why the Capellan Confederation was so quick to capitulate to the Arlaoskas Fleet. Fighting Arlaoskas meant that more jumpships would be inevitably lost while the Free Worlds League and the Federated Suns would respect the sanctity of jumpships. With their heavy losses already making defense of other theaters dangerously weak, the Capellans chose the strategically correct option to back away.

However, they chose to do so knowing fully well that the worlds Arlaoskas conquered would be Capellan in mind, body, and spirit. That, unlike the other successor states, Arlaoskas lacked the backing of tradition, the population, and government  needed to integrate those worlds, whose cumulative population was barely under 8 billion. They counted on the Capellans of those conquered worlds to rise up when Edward Arlaoskas showed their un-Capellan nature. 

What Chancellor Liao and the Capellan Confederation didn’t realize was that Edward Arlaoskas had no desire to rule directly… and had much to offer to the former Capellan worlds.