Injecting Tension into the Slackened
Three months had already slipped by since we cleaned up the smuggling racket run by our so-called loyalists.
“Things sure are lively these days, huh.”
“Tell me about it.”
We sat nursing our coffee, eyes on the news screens as reports rolled in about the Empire’s economy rocketing skyward on the back of an unexpected construction boom.
Of course, that boom was nothing other than the Warp Gate network the Empire was shoving forward as a national project.
At first the astronomical costs had everyone scowling and muttering darkly…
“Isn’t it strange, Riel?”
“What is?”
“All those people who were openly negative have turned into the most passionate converts.”
Just as I said, the moment the gate in the Basik system—the Empire’s physical heart—was completed and successfully linked to the northern and southern gates, every last scrap of criticism evaporated overnight.
“That’s all thanks to you, Minister. You rounded up every idiot who might’ve caused trouble before they could even start.”
“Hmm.”
I had to admit Riel had a point; my share of the credit wasn’t zero. Still lost in idle thoughts, we kept chatting until the coffee was gone, then started packing up to dive into the next round of work.
The report caught our ears, so even as we worked we traded opinions about it. Not that the conversation went very deep…
“Idiots. Who looks at a convoy and thinks three rust-bucket pirate ships are enough to pull off a raid?”
“Right?”
It was pure gossip, the sort of thing you toss around while pouring a second cup of coffee during a workday tea break.
Alina, who had come over to help with the paperwork, shook her humanoid head in firm disagreement.
“This is not a situation you can simply dismiss, little fleshling.”
“…?”
At my blank look she projected a hologram from her eyes and began laying out the facts.
“Pirate activity has been surging across the entire galaxy of late.”
Red dots representing pirate fleets swarmed across the galactic map in alarming numbers.
“Because of this, the Galactic League is receiving constant reports on pirate movements. The Ministry of the Interior and the National Gendarmerie are already requesting support from every department that fields armed forces.”
“Oh, right. The Interior Ministry just recommended that the nobles start using their private troops to patrol their own territories.”
“Hmm…”
The news left me quietly puzzled.
A pirate rampage event? Was there ever something like that?
Fifteen years into this life and my memories of the old game events were starting to blur, but no matter how hard I dug through the fading recollections, nothing like this turned up.
There were events where pirates suddenly demanded tolls or raided resources, sure…
But those didn’t match what was happening now. As far as I remembered, neither the vanilla game nor any of the mods I’d installed had an event like this.
PAUSED
So I hit Pause for the first time in ages and gave myself a long stretch of thinking time. After what felt like several hours I finally reached a conclusion: this was another one of those “realistic reinterpretations” the world loved to throw at me.
Even the original game events were enough to make my head explode, and now we’ve got these damn realistic versions…!
Realizing it changed nothing in the moment, of course. Knowing about it didn’t give me or the Foreign Executive Ministry any special leverage either.
PAUSE RELEASED
I unpaused at once, shrugged, and spoke with deliberate nonchalance.
“So what? They’re just pirates. We go over there and smash them, right?”
“Well… yeah, I guess.”
Even Alina agreed with that assessment, so we all shrugged the whole thing off as nothing serious.
Not long afterward I would come to regret that decision.
Barely a week after that conversation, a report landed straight on my terminal about the “Warlord” who had raised an army of pirates and mercenaries on the far side of the galaxy.
Galactic League Warning
Reports continue to pour into the Galactic League from the eastern frontier colonies regarding unusual pirate activity.
Rumors also speak of numerous mercenary fleets from across the galaxy converging on the same region.
Some mercenaries have even broken existing contracts with their employers to head there.
The Galactic League intends to form an investigation team and dispatch it to the area in order to assess the seriousness of the situation.
The Warlord’s Call
In the unexplored Borkalnos system—long a gathering place for vagrants, pirates, mercenaries, and unregistered elements—a man calling himself the Warlord is uniting countless pirate bands under a single banner.
The Warlord has issued a fiery proclamation to pirates and mercenaries across the galaxy, declaring that now is the time for all of them to stand as one and show the galaxy their strength.
Captivated by his charisma, more and more pirate fleets are turning their prows toward Borkalnos.
The Warlord
Judging that he has gathered sufficient forces in Borkalnos, the Warlord has raised the banner of rebellion and now leads a vast host of pirates and mercenaries.
His stated goal appears to be bringing every nation and species in the galaxy under his banner as equals.
Many powers are watching closely to see what impact this upheaval will have on the galaxy.
While I had been too busy to deal with it, some bizarre event chain had been advancing on its own without my input.
At the same moment, far away…
The Warlord had raised his banner in the galactic east—the very heart of the former Kerzin Federation’s sphere of influence.
“Pirates raising an army? Give me a break.”
“Look at them spouting nonsense.”
Even though their former leaders, Kerzin and Zeltec, had been smashed by the Prosnark, the rear-line states had suffered only light damage and had actually prospered from the war boom. To the Syr Citizen League and the Mekt-Pux Corporate Consortium, the Warlord’s uprising was nothing more than children’s play.
“No matter how many of them there are, pirates are still just pirates.”
“Exactly.”
“Send a patrol fleet and they’ll trip over each other and wipe themselves out.”
So the states of the old Kerzin hegemony—especially the Syr Citizen League, the closest to the Warlord’s territory—dispatched a fleet at once to teach the pirates a lesson.
“Pathetic♡ Can’t even maneuver a fleet, you slowpokes♡ So weak♡ Die♡”
“Gyaaaaah…!”
The ruthless pirates turned the once-proud punitive force into cosmic dust in the blink of an eye.
“Is that really the Syr Citizen League…?”
“Disappointing. I’m done being a Syr fan.”
Suddenly branded a third-rate power that had handed its fleet over to mere pirates, the League’s leadership could not simply sit still. This time they committed a full regular fleet—the kind normally reserved for interstellar wars—to the pirate-hunting campaign…
…or so the fragmentary reports claimed. The lack of detail left me more than a little frustrated.
“Minister, honestly, the other side of the galaxy is tens of thousands of light-years away. Being able to get even this much in real time is already pretty amazing, you know?”
The moment I opened my mouth to complain, Riel hit me with a reality check, so I decided to drop the subject.
With more time and money we could certainly dig up richer intelligence, but…
“Pirates are still people. Sometimes they can pull off feats that break the usual rules.”
“Haha. Perhaps one of them is a psionic.”
Unfortunately, the Holy Sevelian Empire sat tens of thousands of light-years from wherever this Warlord character was running amok.
“More importantly, shouldn’t we prioritize the settler lists for the newly discovered paradise planet—well, moon?”
“Indeed. It may be small, but the environment is perfect.”
The Empire’s leadership was far more interested in how to develop a tiny moon than in any countermeasures against the Warlord.
That atmosphere, however, would not last much longer.