The World Still Turns (3)
Even if part of the overseas intelligence network Arto had painstakingly built had collapsed…
That didn’t mean they could just sit back and watch with their hands folded.
“The Minister will be back by tomorrow or the day after at the latest, so we have to get as much ready as possible before then, yeah.”
“Understood, Advisor Riel.”
Riel began fully exercising the authority of the Minister of the Foreign Executive Ministry, doing everything she could to respond to the current situation.
“First off, Zeltec only fell less than a month ago… start by gathering intel on why they collapsed so fast, yeah.”
“As it happens, information just arrived from the northeastern intelligence network a moment ago.”
Receiving the timely report, she learned exactly how events had unfolded…
The instant Riel saw it, she felt the exact phrase Arto so often used come flying out of her own mouth.
“What the hell is this complete load of crap, yeah.”
And for good reason—the process of Zeltec’s destruction had been an absolute, comprehensive disaster.
“The Warlord’s fleet… this is truly a precious thing.”
“Agreed.”
Even though Zeltec had, by sheer luck, absorbed the Warlord’s fleet strength, there was one critical problem.
“Waaah, I’m a baby admiral, I don’t have any special skills, waaah.”
“Where on earth did my precious elite fleet go… orororong…”
That problem was simple: after Prosnak’s eastward advance and the Warlord Incident, Zeltec’s elite forces had been completely wiped out.
Pirates, at least, showed up anywhere and anytime, so experience against them could still be accumulated…
“Zeltec’s fleets consist only of the young and the old.”
“There are no veterans left. The fleet is huge on the outside but hollow inside—this is our chance.”
And Prosnak, a nation always sincere about slaughtering other countries, was never going to miss an opportunity like that.
“Disrupt the intelligence networks of the surrounding nations. Collapse them completely if possible.”
“Especially Sevelia’s network—that one must be destroyed.”
Under the pretext of a cooperative relationship, they had let their guard down. In an instant, Prosnak shattered not only the Holy Sevelian Empire’s northeastern intelligence network but also the anti-Prosnak networks of every neighboring state…
“Now!!!”
They smashed through Zeltec’s western border fortress systems and hurled their fleets toward the capital before Zeltec’s own forces could even react.
Of course, no matter how skilled Prosnak was at mobile warfare, breaking through the fortress network Zeltec had laid across the entire region as a lesson from the last war still took time.
“Do we look like pushovers to you?”
“Go! For the victory of Zeltec!”
While the dense unmanned fortresses burned themselves out buying time, Zeltec’s fleets scrambled into interception battles against Prosnak…
“Prosnak is stroooong!!!”
“Trash. Loser. Die.”
Exposed to pure, heartless killing intent, the former Warlord fleets of Zeltec never even managed a proper fight before turning into space dust.
Worse, their inter-fleet coordination was a complete mess, resulting in the classic blunder of feeding themselves piecemeal into Prosnak’s main force.
With their fleets gone once again, Zeltec’s only remaining hope was aid from neighboring nations…
“Please help us! Prosnak is ravaging our entire territory and turning the suckers who buy our products into soap!”
“…And how exactly do you expect us to come help you?”
Kerzin, the most likely candidate, already knew the situation and was pinned down by the massive Prosnak fleets stationed along their border.
As for the Syr-Hod League…
“With what face did you crawl in here?”
“Ah.”
“Go back to your wonderful country at once.”
They still remembered exactly what Zeltec had done together with the Fuxviet Union in the early days of their founding. The Zeltec ambassador who went to request aid was driven out without getting a single proper word in.
And finally, the Fuxviet Union…
“Ahh, this cool sensation… time to return to expansionism.”
“You absolute bastards!!!!”
After reaching the absolute peak of their blackening, they simply reenacted classic Soviet-style expansionism against Zeltec.
“You sons of bitches! We held out against the Warlord for you, and this is how you repay us?!”
“Ah, blame those low-class corporate types from the already-fallen Mekt-Fux for that.”
“Come to think of it, Zeltec is just a bunch of corporate types too, right?”
“Oh.”
Already short on strength, Zeltec now faced a two-front war against both Prosnak and Fuxviet…
“There’s no point holding out any longer.”
“You’re right.”
“If we want to live, our only option is to abandon our homeland and flee to another country.”
Zeltec’s corporations and the majority of their pragmatic citizens launched a great escape just to survive.
Of course, as the richest nation in the galaxy, one would expect Prosnak and Fuxviet fleets to swarm them for plunder…
“Leave a certain amount of capital on the capital world.”
“Why are you seizing other people’s private property?!”
“So that you can escape safely. We are creating bait.”
The Zeltec leadership, feeling responsibility for the current catastrophe.
The last fleet, battered into ruin yet somehow surviving long enough to evolve into true veterans.
And the citizens who simply wanted to land one solid hit on either Prosnak or Fuxviet and were burning with the will to resist.
Because those people willingly became the “bait,” the vast majority of Zeltec’s corporations and civilians managed to cross the border safely.
But once they crossed that border and became “refugees,” their real suffering was only just beginning.
“So the corporations already had capital spread across the entire galaxy and used that to start recovering, yeah?”
“That’s correct, Advisor Riel.”
If Arto had been present, he would have exclaimed “Rothschild!” in pure admiration.
Unfortunately Arto was still being held by the Empress, so there was no one here to make that particular exclamation.
Riel naturally moved on to the next topic—the refugees.
“Then what about the Zeltec refugees, yeah? Did they just go to Kerzin or Syr-Hod?”
At her question the official giving the report hesitated for a moment, then said:
“…Currently the majority of Zeltec refugees are coming to us.”
Riel’s face twisted into pure disbelief.
“Why are refugees from the far northeastern edge coming all the way out here to the west, yeah?”
“Well… the eastern and southern nations refused to accept them.”
“…?”
Riel looked completely unable to understand.
Syr-Hod she could maybe accept, but what about Uko’Praknar, or their own vassal the Nurval Republic? Even beyond those there were the Roirakan, the Rixi, and plenty of other nations.
But as the explanation continued, Riel smacked her forehead like a Chilean uncle, unable to hide her shock.
“Please take us in.”
“Us? Take you people in?”
The Nurval Republic had gained a few star systems as war reparations from Uko’Praknar, but it was still one of the smaller interstellar states in the east. It had neither the capacity nor the land to absorb the massive wave of Zeltec refugees who had escaped thanks to the “bait.”
Was the next stop, Uko’Praknar, any better?
“Let’s skip this place.”
“Yes.”
Still being forced to pay punitive damages by the Galactic League, they quickly skipped the refugees as well.
The refugee caravan’s next destination was the Roirakan Republic, the nation that had thoroughly disciplined Uko’Praknar.
“We don’t accept stateless refugees.”
“We’ll pay money, please!”
“I already told you—no citizenship, no entry.”
Roirakan gave them a full course in the sorrow of the stateless and ruthlessly drove them out. Of course the real reason was that they were watching the face of their neighbor, the Fuxviet Union…
So the refugees knocked on the door of the next nation, the Rixi Republic, and began hoping they could finally settle down.
But…
“We’re in the middle of a full-blown rebellion right now and you want us to take refugees on top of that?”
Unfortunately for the Zeltec refugees, that was exactly when the secessionist spasms had begun in Rixi.
“We can’t take refugees. Get lost.”
“We’re not leaving! Just kill us then!”
—KWA-AANG!!
Only after the already frayed nerves of the Rixi fleet destroyed several of the refugee ships did they change course and head somewhere else.
After circling halfway around the galaxy, the refugees finally arrived at a paradise(?) where they could rest.
Hearing all that, Riel made an expression that was truly difficult to describe and said:
“Well… um, okay yeah, at least they made it here, that’s good… so now they’re living split between us, Ztrakfor, and Kar-Due, yeah?”
“About that—actually most of the Zeltec refugees who went to Ztrakfor are saying it’s the front line against Prosnak and they’re scared, so they’re flooding back toward us.”
At the follow-up, Riel let out a long sigh.
“…Just dump them somewhere reasonable near the border for now. The rest can wait until the Minister gets back, yeah.”
“Understood, Advisor Riel.”
And just like that she reverse-dumped the entire mess onto Arto.
After somehow finishing the day’s work, Riel…
“Haaah.”
…sighed heavily and opened a comm channel to Ash, who was still wriggling around in orbit.
“Countess Ash, today was way too hard, yeah.”
—“Uh… don’t tell me you called me just because you’re tired?”
The reason was simple: in this filthy hard situation she just needed to vent and dump some of the stress building up in her neural net.
Ash, who had been mindlessly wriggling, was startled by the sudden life-complaint but kept listening anyway.
“…so that’s why I’m suffering, yeah?”
—“I see…”
“In a way this is all the ‘duty’ and ‘purpose’ I have as the Minister’s advisor, but seriously, do I really have to suffer this much, yeah…?”
The moment the words “duty” and “purpose” came out together, Ash—who had been awkwardly answering the call—suddenly froze…
—“Duty… purpose…? Right, I have something I must do… wait, why am I here… where is this… no, I have to go… to that place…”
“Countess Ash?”
She kept muttering to herself, then the channel was forcibly cut.
Immediately afterward:
“A-Advisor Riel! Countess Ash, who was next to the open-air shipyard, just vanished without a word!”
“This is… a warp, a warp signature!”
“How is that possible in a place with no hyperspace lanes…?!”
Faced with the sudden big event of Ash’s escape, Riel wordlessly looked up at the sky…
And in that exact moment.
—Beep!
—“No… don’t… please stop…”
Holding a completely drained Arto whose cheeks were sunken, eyes hollow, and every muscle in his body looking like it had melted away—
—“Riel! You’ve worked hard! Go pick Arto up!”
—came a cheerful transmission from Artraia, whose skin was now smooth, eyes full of life, and entire body radiating vitality compared to two days ago.
Looking at that scene, Riel was seized by the dilemma of how exactly she was supposed to explain everything that had happened in the time Arto had been gone.