Free Dr. Benya!
***
Of course, this much went without saying—but no government in existence, however much at fault its own people had been, would simply shrug and say 'Ah, I see,' the moment violent protests broke out.
And so, the moment word arrived that a large-scale outbreak of violence orchestrated under Ilena's direction was smashing into the government offices of each planetary administration—that she was raining a merciless offensive down upon the corporations of opposing factions, the Red Scourge-brainwashed, and the so-called 'resistance movements'—
"We cannot retreat at a time like this."
"Suppress them first, then deal with the fallout."
"Deploy the planetary defense forces on the pretext of maintaining public order, immediately!"
"We should commit a separate security force as well. Show weakness at a moment like this and they'll smell blood."
They immediately authorized the deployment of planetary defense fleets and security forces, adopting a policy of crushing the uprising by any means necessary.
But as mentioned before, this situation was nothing like the routine demonstrations or Red Scourge raids the star system government was used to dealing with.
In particular, what everyone had assumed would be a WWE match—a prediction the star system government never intended—had 'somehow' turned into a full-blown UFC bout.
*KWAAAANG!!*
*BOOM!*
"......"
"Milano-V has already slipped beyond the planetary government's control. The government offices are burning, and the entire leadership is reportedly barricaded inside a bunker."
"A large movement of mercenary and private security vessels in the satellite zones of Milano-IV! They're interfering with the security fleet's maneuvers!"
"We're receiving reports that the orbital elevator control room and several key systems of the capital planet have been seized."
"Urgent contact from the security forces at the capital's spaceport—they're in a standoff with unidentified armed personnel!"
"This is insane—three of the five Lagrange relay stations serving the Dyson Sphere power plant have been attacked, and one of them has been outright occupied!"
"God damn it all."
Over the past three months, through one life-or-death crisis after another, the planetary defense units had been forged by relentless real combat.
And now those same units, accustomed to nothing more than peaceful small-scale riots and WWE-style suppression protocols, were being repeatedly thrown into disarray by the armed struggle—bordering on outright rebellion—that the Demonia branch had unleashed across the board.
Granted, under normal circumstances, as Benya herself had felt firsthand, with the materiel and military power the star system government possessed, there was no way they should have been getting pushed back like this. But......
"The suppression effort is stalling far worse than we anticipated."
"Veteran mercenary units and Demonia's elite troops have infiltrated the city districts and are running wild, mixed in among the civilians!"
"Communication from the Milano-VI planetary government. To summarize: their message is essentially 'you've lost the moral high ground, what suppression are you even talking about?'"
"Damn opportunistic settler bastards—we hand them concessions and this is how they repay us?!"
"Furthermore, of the Milano-V planetary government's fleet, only two cruisers and fifteen destroyers have joined our side."
"And the rest?"
"They've defected to Demonia. The cruiser gap between us and them has now gone from 20 to 2, down to 14 to 8."
"Two of those were ships Demonia already had, two of the defectors I can understand—but where did the other four come from?"
"Three cruisers from the sixth planet, and one patrol squadron that joined independently from the fourth."
"......Haah."
"Tsk."
"For the record, they hold an overwhelming advantage in small craft. At roughly a 3-to-7 ratio, all we can manage is defending the capital planet's orbit."
The elite mercenary forces led by the Demonia branch had burrowed into every major city, rendering the star system government's formidable fleet effectively useless.
At the same time, the 'insiders' that Ilena and her friends had been patiently devouring bite by bite finally revealed their true colors, crying 'It's now!!!'
On top of that, even the foreign mercenary companies that had flocked in from other star systems to hunt the Red Scourge had thrown in their lot with this affair......
But above all, the most important factor was this: whatever else you could say about the situation, on this particular issue the Milano government was being utterly trampled on the question of legitimacy compared to the Demonia side—so much so that the individual planetary governments within the system were expressing open hostility or simply stepping back to watch from a distance.
If it had been simple persecution, perhaps it could have been weathered. But now that it had come to light that the authorities had gone far beyond ordinary torture, committing acts verging on sexual assault and sexual torture—
The whole sector was already in an uproar on every front, and now even within the fleet and military—the only lifeline the Milano government had left—voices were rising: 'We don't even have a just cause, do we.'
"AAGH!"
"Why—why the hell are you subcontracting eight layers deep there, you bastard!!!"
"Die. Die, come back to life, then die again—prove your innocence through it."
"Kkhuheuk."
Perhaps because the star system government, bleeding legitimacy by the hour, faced the danger of being ground into dust, its stance began to shift.
Before long, despite still holding an overwhelming fleet-to-fleet advantage, the government pivoted its thinking on the 'Benya Detention Incident' away from an all-out policy of armed suppression and toward negotiation.
Naturally, the hardline anti-Demonia factions within the government pushed back against this course from their administration's leadership, insisting they could not afford to keep ceding ground like this......
"No."
"Why not?!"
"If a genuine armed clash breaks out in our current situation, what exactly do you intend to do afterward?"
"Afterward?"
"......We wouldn't lose, of course. But that doesn't mean they'll simply roll over and take it, either."
"We still have three battleships, and cruisers in the double digits. But think about what happens if we clash head-on with them—the losses among everything except our battleships will be catastrophic."
"And if that happens, how do you propose to deal with the space pirates who will come charging in to prey on this star system the moment they smell weakness?"
"Gghh......"
"He's right. And don't forget, the Red Scourge infestation hasn't been fully resolved either."
"What about the Black Scourge, then? The ones Demonia is breeding by the millions under the pretext of suppressing the Red Scourge?"
"......"
"Khuuugh."
"One careless mistake, and the entire star system could burn."
"I see."
Exactly so.
The President, too, truth be told, was itching with the desire to simply steamroll the whole problem away.
The problem was that if he crushed them recklessly, it was glaringly obvious that the black tide of 'Black Scourge' legions created by Benya—who at this very moment was locked in the orbital prison above Milano-III—would drown the cities and fortresses of the Milano star system in sheer overwhelming numbers, on top of the mercenary companies, private security firms, and Demonia marines already sprawled everywhere.
The parties involved had eaten shit over something they never intended in the first place, and were forced to weep tears of blood while maintaining the peace.
"Then as a first step, let us release that Benya—the Demonia Consul—and have her bring the rampage spreading across the star system under control."
"Tsk. Nothing else for it, I suppose."
"I agree."
"Wait—we shouldn't just send her out. The correct move is to use the Consul's release as bait to force them to stand down first, isn't it?"
"We've seen this dance before. If we show any hesitation, they'll seize on it as an opening to cook up some even more absurd operation."
"Hmmph."
But whatever the back-and-forth, the bottom line was that the star system government had lost all control over the situation and been reduced to flailing helplessly.
And so, quite naturally, they were forced to point to the one and only solution at hand: releasing our pliable, squishy Benya and brandishing their 'resolve' to resolve the crisis as peacefully as possible.
***
And then, after being released from prison, having learned all of the above—
"Ah, those bastards? Just hand them over to us."
"Excuse me? No, I'm terribly sorry, but those individuals are scheduled to be processed through legal channels. Releasing them to an outside party would be... difficult."
"Then pass it up your chain of command. Tell them if they hand them over, we'll waive part of the compensation owed for this whole incident."
"......Would you perhaps like us to gift-wrap them? We can also provide a sedation service to ensure they don't resist."
"I like how well we communicate."
This was the answer I received upon returning to the Milano-V branch headquarters, together with the capsule containing the five guards and their lackeys—the ones who had tried to feed me that utter horseshit.
"Hold on a second. Is this actually real?"
"You may take it as a measure of how much loyalty we have devoted to you, Doctor, and how much stronger we have grown."
"Uh. Hmm."
Rather than being fed some elaborate setup, I found myself choking on a perfectly normal bite of food, coughing as it went down the wrong pipe, overcome by sheer disbelief.