While You Weren't Looking (2)
And the one currently sitting in the rank-one seat was none other than Antares himself.
His goal, of course, was simple enough. Trapped inside this game like everyone else — yet somehow, unlike the other players who had slipped into casual enjoy-the-ride mode — he intended to see this game through to its end. And the only path to that ending ran through the victory of the clan he led.
Which meant he needed absolute control over the Earth Federation, the faction the majority of players had joined. And for that, a coup. Every preparation was already underway.
"At this rate, staging a coup and swallowing the Earth Federation whole is going to be rough."
"I'd have to agree."
"Honestly, Clan Leader used the trust ratings to scatter their main force all over the map, but there's still over ten million ships parked near Earth itself — their capital."
"On the bright side, the rest of the clan members have been grinding their own trust scores. We've completely dispersed the colonial fleets across Federation space, so that part shouldn't be a major issue."
Even with nearly fifteen thousand direct clan members under his command — and counting subordinate clans, so-called outside mercenaries, friendly allies, and affiliated players, a force of no fewer than twenty thousand — the enemy was a colossal power capable of fielding a million ships. No, ten million.
"We're hungry."
"Facts."
To raise the coup's odds of success by even a fraction, Antares and the Humanity Clan leadership had tried every scheme imaginable. As already mentioned, they had scattered the Earth Federation's main force to the four winds and goaded it into bleeding strength against rival factions. To prevent the Federation from simply calling up regional garrisons instead of the main fleet, they exploited their high trust ratings to pull troops that should have been holding territory or fighting wars into the Faction Workshops — then worked those same troops and their commanders with relentless friendliness campaigns until they became Humanity's people.
From the Earth Federation's perspective, every single one of these acts would have been branded internal subversion of the highest order — if anyone in charge had known. Fortunately, the Federation's ruling Security Council and its chairman remained blissfully ignorant, which was precisely why the Humanity Clan could keep advancing this heart-pounding coup plan with such thoroughness.
Even so, Antares and the rest of the leadership had concluded that establishing command authority through an Earth Federation coup was still impossible under current conditions. To nudge the win rate any higher, they needed more power. More fleets. More bodies.
And so the question became: what exactly were they planning to do about it?
"If we want the forces for a proper coup, pulling the neutral players in the Central District over to our side is the right call, isn't it?"
"Obviously. And it's not just about the coup itself — once we commit the majority of our strength, or hell, all of it, who's going to watch the house while we're gone?"
"Yeah, fair point."
Raising the coup's success rate was only half the picture. The other half was a preventive war — a power grab that would fill the inevitable vacuum left during the coup and stop neighboring factions or clans from invading while Humanity's back was turned. Two birds, one stone: expand their forces and lock down the borders.
There were, however, two problems with the plan.
"We managed to beat Arcadia's clan last time by borrowing the Federation main force, but we took some serious losses doing it."
"The lower-tier clans that held the front line burned through a huge chunk of the strategic stockpile in the clan warehouse just repairing their capital ships."
"If we move again in this condition…"
"…that damn pink-haired bitch from the Loki Clan is not going to sit still."
The first problem: the recent war against the Justice Clan — which had been trying to plant itself in neutral territory — had inflicted heavier damage on the subordinate clans than expected. That damage was severe enough to erase the gains Humanity had made through its "faction factionalization" project: dissolving healthy clans and folding their members into Humanity or its vassals. All that carefully accumulated strength, reduced to scrap.
And even if the losses hadn't been that bad, the second problem remained. The Loki Clan — and its leader, Betelgeuse — had been watching Humanity's growth with open hostility. They would never simply stand by.
"That damn pink-haired TS bitch is definitely going to get in our way."
"You've got to hand it to her, though. Used to be a guy, and still seduces other clan leaders like some kind of demon. Impressive, in a way."
"That's not the point…"
So the question grinding at Antares and the Humanity leadership was simple: how do we neutralize the Loki Clan's interference and swallow the neutrals whole?
After turning the problem over and over, Antares felt a remarkable solution flash across his mind.
"Wait. Hold on. They're going to be watching us either way, right?"
"Well… yeah?"
"Justice is crippled for now, so there's nobody else worth watching. It's us or nothing."
"Then we flip that. We use this clan as bait."
"…Excuse me?"
"Clan Leader, what exactly are you proposing?"
The leadership floated question marks above their heads. The idea, heard cold, made no sense at all. But only for a moment.
"Simple version. We sweet-talk one of the clans sitting way out on the Federation–Pirate border — far from the Central District — and pick a fight with a Pirate Coalition clan."
"And then?"
"We make a show of intervening with our own fleet. At the same time, we burn some of the trust we've stockpiled and get the main force to commit even a little bit of strength to the same theater."
The leadership nodded along, looking impressed. A few of them, though, still offered the kind of pushback a staff officer was supposed to give.
"Uh, Clan Leader? After the losses we took last time, even if the main force moves, it won't be much."
"Right. Best case they toss us a few light flotillas capped at cruisers and call it a day."
"The scale doesn't matter. What matters is the fact that the main force moved at all."
If the Earth Federation's main force was seen to move — and if the Humanity Clan's fleets were seen redeploying in force at the same time — then whether they liked it or not, the Loki Clan and Betelgeuse would have no choice but to respond in kind. That was Antares's plan.
The leadership applauded. They settled in to draft the operational details and put the whole thing into motion.
While Antares and the Humanity Clan were busily arranging every piece of their grand design, they moved the Earth Federation's main force and deliberately leaked the information to the Pirate Coalition side.
Over in the Loki Clan, the intel landed — and a long, hard period of deliberation began.
"Clan Leader, these bastards are gearing up to push hard in our direction."
"They neutralized those Justice stick-in-the-muds for a while, and now they're going for the throat?"
The Loki upper ranks, having parsed the situation, erupted on cue. Exactly as Antares had planned, they started screaming that the clan had no choice but to respond in kind.
The one person who was supposed to lead that response — Betelgeuse, clan leader of Loki — looked thoroughly unimpressed.
"Ugh… that bastard is really only ever up to the most disgusting shit."
"What do you mean, Clan Leader?"
"Antares. The way he's playing this is pure rat poison on a cheese plate, and he's tossing it straight at us."
It made sense. Betelgeuse possessed a mind on roughly the same level as Antares's, and from where she sat, the reason behind every one of his moves was painfully obvious.
That didn't mean she could afford to ignore the danger of leaving the situation alone.
God, I'd love to just shrug this off… but the bastard's made it so we can't pull our feet out of the trap.
The image of that oily golden-haired pretty boy rose in her mind. Antares had built the board so that she and the Loki Clan had no clean exit — and the fact that a clan named after the god of mischief and schemes was being used as a prop in someone else's scheme filled her with deep, personal offense. Like it or not, she and Loki would have to play along with Antares's little theater piece.
"Haha, that fucking gay bastard Antares, huhuhahat—"
"Yikes."
"Our Clan Leader's going a little feral again, isn't she?"
"Can confirm."
She unloaded a full magazine of dual-wielded curses at Antares, then accepted reality. To check the Humanity Clan's blunt-force advance, she ordered immediate reinforcements — direct clan forces and allied contingents — to the border zone between the Pirate Coalition and the Earth Federation.
That decision, however, came with a side order.
"Hey. We've got people on the Earth Federation side, right?"
"Huh? Oh, yeah, we do."
"Most of them are dug in inside Federation space, though. Hard to use them for anything direct, aren't they?"
"Oh, come on. If some bastards have the nerve to try using us, don't we at least owe them a little chaos?"
"Ossu!"
"LEEEET'S GOOO!"
Betelgeuse's smile turned pure miniature-demon wicked. The Loki Clan's response was unanimous: Now that's our Clan Leader. They immediately activated the moles they'd planted inside Earth Federation territory and prepared to hit Humanity with a full-spectrum trolling campaign.
There was one thing, however, that Betelgeuse and the Loki Clan failed to notice.
Humanity's push toward the Pirate Coalition was meant to hide something. And what that something actually was remained an open question.
Most players took the surface reading at face value: with Justice neutralized, Humanity was seizing the chance to crush the Loki Clan. The Loki upper ranks sensed, vaguely, that this wasn't the real play — that something else was going on underneath. Betelgeuse herself came closest, suspecting that the Pirate Coalition feint was cover for an invasion somewhere else entirely. She nearly touched the truth.
But she never quite reached Antares's actual objective — the absorption of neutral players and the conquest of their territory.
Hmm. Is he trying to completely screw over Arcadia and Justice while he's at it? Or is it Rattenwater over in Zenobia?
She could only tilt her head at a fog that refused to clear.
Of course, as she'd already demonstrated, Betelgeuse's intellect rivaled Antares's own. Given a little more time, she almost certainly would have unraveled the Humanity Clan's true goal.
But a little more time was exactly what she didn't have.