Chaos in Milano (5)
Well, it goes without saying that if the central government's fleet decided to chew straight through our civilian meat shields and open fire, all of us would certainly be reduced to cosmic dust. But if it had been a matter of repelling an offensive from a truly alien swarm from some far-off outer universe — the Red Scourge, say — that would be one thing. This or that aside, everyone involved had, at the end of the day, all lived in the same star system.
Just as Ilena had predicted, the government fleet with the Pride of Lombardia as its flagship drew near to us and visibly trained its turrets in our direction… but that was strictly as far as it went. The launch hatches for anti-ship missiles — the one weapon that could genuinely, reliably sink us — never, ever opened. And as the earlier "prison incident" had already made plain, government soldiers, in keeping with their democracy-meta leanings, had a marked tendency to turn suddenly faint-hearted the moment they lacked a proper justification.
"They just keep doing that. Are we fine with it?"
"Of course, ma'am. Setting aside the upper echelons of the central government itself, there was never any real chance the frontline fleet was prepared to gamble on all-out civil war."
"Hm. I see."
Contrary to my initial worries, the transport I was riding and the convoy around it did nothing but keep receiving those repeated orders to halt. Beyond that, not a single further measure was taken — for the entire journey toward the capital, I could see no heavier sanction being imposed on us whatsoever.
Of course, the way the central government's ships were left flailing like that owed partly to their hesitance over the specter of civil war, and partly to…
"Hm? A few more ships just peeled off, didn't they?"
"Yes, ma'am. Because we deliberately provoked additional disturbances on other planets."
"…Eh?"
"However much they wish to avoid civil war, the forces the central government commands are hardly a negligible scale that can simply be ignored. So we arranged for their strength to be pulled apart in every direction at once."
"…Whoa."
That was the kind of report Ilena delivered, deadpan and matter-of-fact, behind her trademark blank expression. In short — separate from this massive nonviolent(?) convoy we were dragging along, we had loosed violent Scourges across the whole star system, and as time went on, our side only kept swelling with stirred-up citizens, mercenary companies, and corporate ships joining the march… while the central government's fleet, sent scrambling to answer distress calls from disturbances all over the system, only kept shrinking, ship by ship.
Still, I suppose because the central government wasn't a complete invalid, even those poor battleships and their friends — utterly incapable of intercepting us — didn't stay reduced to just grumbling along behind our convoy forever. When we finally reached orbit around the capital, Milano-III, and I took my first long look in a while at the orbital prison where I'd been locked up…
"Hmm. It appears things are getting slightly tangled."
"What's the matter now?"
"The Milano Central Government is preparing to declare full martial law."
"…Don't know what that is. Explain it to me nice and simple, pwease. I'm a baby."
"To put it simply: our current approach is, after all, strictly as civilians, is it not?"
"Yeah. Mm."
"By declaring martial law across the entire planet, they would shut down all civilian traffic in and out of port — and at the same time, prevent us from advancing."
"I seeee… but still, can't we just go in anyway?"
"No, ma'am. If we descend while martial law is in effect, we would be treated not as 'civilians' but strictly as a 'combat force' — at which point the Pride of Lombardia's fleet, which has been trailing dutifully behind us, along with the capital's defense fleet, would gain legal justification to open fire on us."
"Pretty sure that makes us raiders, not a combat force."
It was a truly headache-inducing story, but the long and short of it was that the central government had been flailing desperately to scrape together the justification it so badly lacked. Which left me wondering whether I was about to be stranded, neither one thing nor the other, in the middle of empty space — and I could feel my mental state getting kneaded very, very thoroughly.
But whether the world simply felt like toying with my freshly kneaded psyche these days, after a short while…
Right at the moment when I — going hoeeeng and trembling in my boots, sliding past dazed-and-confused into full mush, and even starting to feel a giddy little thrill that maybe the whole planet needed a nice, thorough toasting —
"Ah, is that so? Understood."
-Beep!
"What? What is it now, co-pilot, co-pilot?"
"Good news, ma'am. Combining President Heisenberg's political pressure with corporations affiliated with the Earth Alliance and the Babel Cult branch — both of whom agreed to join us — they sabotaged the central government's martial law declaration."
"Oh?"
"And with planetary martial law blocked that way, the central government immediately moved to declare martial law across the entire star system instead… but—"
"The way you're trailing off, I'm guessing that didn't work out either?"
"Correct, ma'am. To impose system-wide martial law, they required the approval of the ACIC observer stationed in this Milano System — and naturally, from ACIC's perspective, there was no conceivable reason to grant it."
Though I only fully understood it later, it was, how should I put it…
By all accounts, the central government at this point had stopped trusting its own intelligence bureau, convinced that our advance would go no further than seizing power within the system — which was why their response came so late. As for the plan to counter the threat of our "civilian convoy" massing in the outer orbital ring by declaring system-wide martial law…
It turned out they had already spoken with ACIC's local representative about a violent crackdown on us, and had therefore been perfectly certain that the ACIC representative would consent to it as well.
But as the reality unfolding before our eyes made plain, Robert Salandra — the head of ACIC's Milano branch — exercised his veto over the Milano government's system-wide martial law declaration. Publicly, the director's decision was read as a combination of concerns over the military's loyalty and disgust at the central government's incompetence…
Yet in truth, Robert had known full well that a coalition of rival factions was being assembled, and he had most likely been eager to see the weak, hapless Milano Central Government swept away entirely.
Well… this much, at least, was something only we — the ones who knew every fact — could ever have known.
For the Milano Central Government, which could never in its wildest dreams have imagined any of this, the backstab from the ACIC it had trusted left it helpless — neither fighting nor fleeing. And so, one after another, our convoy came down through a swarm of shuttles to land at the Lombardia Spaceport.
The Black Scourge Legion at the fore, along with every other self-proclaimed "civilian," poured into the capital in a great tide and seized its key buildings. At the same time, through meetings with the powerful megacorps and the branches of every allied faction, we succeeded in securing an unbroken stream of support in our favor.
And thus the poor uncles of the Milano government, never managing anything resembling proper resistance, had every last scrap of authority forcibly transferred out of their hands in the blink of an eye — reduced, at a stroke, to mere private citizens.