When Two Rewards Collide
And so, as a result of suddenly receiving rewards from both clans at once, I found myself in possession of ship classes I couldn't even build yet — vessels that required an Aviation Command or a Fleet Association I still hadn't constructed. Internally, I was practically buzzing with glee.
But at this point, neither I, nor Jessica, nor anyone around us — nor Humanity or Loki, who'd sent the rewards — had considered a certain problem...
And that problem was this:
Even if the other side transferred the ships over to me, system-wise ownership only transferred after the vessels docked at my base. Until they automatically entered the docking facilities, the ships were still treated as belonging to their respective factions — that is, their original commanders. That was the first problem.
The other problem was...
"Commander, the ships we received as rewards are scheduled to arrive at the base shortly."
"They're coming through the teleporter?"
"Yes. Since your base has one anyway, they said they'll request clearance and come through... uh, Commander?"
"What."
"They're coming from both the Loki Clan and the Humanity Clan at the same time... doesn't that mean the two factions' ships are going to start fighting the moment they exit the teleporter?"
"...Huh?"
The instant Jessica belatedly pointed it out, one large carrier and two battleships spilled out of the teleporter and immediately opened up on each other with their close-in defense weapons.
Watching the ships I'd received as rewards demolish themselves in real time during delivery, I felt my sanity leave my body.
What the fuck.
I frantically threw the Kraken into the middle of it and managed to pry them apart one by one, barely getting the situation under control. But the damage was done — they'd hammered each other with 250mm CIWS fire, and the external structures, air-defense systems, and radars were all completely wrecked. I felt a deep and profound sorrow.
A merry spy-hunting hour.
While our protagonist Icarus was busy watching the ships from his long-overdue "simultaneous rewards" tear each other apart, Antares and his inner circle — having realized from the incident at Icarus's base that there was a spy inside their own ranks, and not just among the rank-and-file but among the officer corps itself — were having a very busy time of it.
"Hah, that fucking bitch."
"That's actually insane. How do you even plant a spy all the way up in the other clan's officer corps?"
They were neck-deep in cleaning up the spy-suspicion mess that had erupted over Indian Machete.
"Did you send Icarus the reward?"
"No point poking a sleeping bear. Antares sent it himself."
"Oof."
"More importantly, let's focus on what we need to do right now."
Documents fanned out across the conference table where only Humanity's innermost circle had gathered. Among them was a thick stack of files on suspected spies and collaborators, all dug up by Foxy — Humanity's intelligence officer, a narrow-eyed fox-eared woman everyone treated like a pure-STR meathead.
"Whoa. These are all double agents?"
"Spies, double agents... plus simple HUMINT assets, and even guys who don't know they're spies themselves."
"To be precise, it's just a pile of people who look suspicious."
Foxy, who'd hauled the mountain of files over with her adjutant and was now squinting her narrow eyes and twitching the fox ears on her head from the effort, calmly advised Antares at the head of the table that it was time to make a decision.
"Antares, honestly, our clan's situation is a complete mess right now."
"Mm."
"We focused so hard on gathering forces just for the Earth Federation coup that we let this many shady people flood in. It's a disaster."
"Hmm... we really did rush it, didn't we."
Antares nodded at Foxy's words, then made his resolve clear.
"No choice. Let's use this chance to clean house properly."
Naturally, once Antares showed that kind of reaction, the inner circle gathered around the table — the old veterans of Humanity — all nodded in agreement.
"Good. Then no matter what it takes, let's grind every last one of those damn spies into dust while we're at it."
"Honestly, this is for the better. Better than having Loki's spies running wild in the middle of the actual Earth Federation coup later."
"The timing worked out."
And so, after more than four months of careful work since the clan's founding, the internal spy-HUMINT network that Clan Leader Betelgeuse had so painstakingly built was, as of this moment, set on a course to be almost entirely destroyed within roughly three months.
Of course, Betelgeuse and the Loki Clan's upper ranks were never going to miss a development like that.
"You piece of shit, you've got a mouth — say something."
"I'm sor—"
"Fuuuuuck. I told you not to do it, and what? What the fuck did you do?"
The moment Indian Machete's cover was blown, he'd fled — and Betelgeuse had him dragged straight to the main base so she could personally work him over. She stomped on his head again and again, putting in maximum eeeeeeffort to vent her extreme stress however she could.
But no amount of stomping was going to put a blown spy-HUMINT network back together.
As the Fun Unofficial Chat Cafe — the dedicated chat channel for the spy-HUMINT network — that Betelgeuse had open right beside her made abundantly clear, the spies were getting ground into paste. Betelgeuse, under extreme stress, stomped on Indian Machete's head beneath her feet once more.
But only for a moment.
"Hah, fuck... Sebastian!"
"Yes, Commander."
"Dump this bastard outside somewhere and get every single clan officer on the line."
"What should I tell them?"
"Spy network collapse. Demand emergency countermeasures."
"Understood, Commander."
Betelgeuse called her adjutant, chucked the thoroughly stomped Indian Machete straight out of the command room, and ordered an emergency meeting of the Loki Clan's upper ranks to respond to the current situation.
And while the two clans, all thanks to me, were busy running internal crackdowns and external infiltration ops under the surface — completely unknown to me, who hadn't the faintest clue any of this was happening — what exactly was I doing?
"Hmm."
"What are you doing, Commander?"
"When something this unusual happens, you've got to post proof at least once, don't you think?"
"I... I suppose so."
I had uploaded the whole near-miss of a reward-that-almost-wasn't to the gallery and was watching the reactions roll in.
And for what was, in hindsight, an entirely predictable reason — even with the Kraken intervening as fast as possible, a carrier's fragile armor plating, unlike a battleship's, had no chance of withstanding a close-quarters brawl.