Space Battleship Yamato 2199
The Silver First Minister
"To answer your question, I've met Albert Dessler, once."
She gave the answer to Mia, her so-called "pet Alterian" many days after she posed the question, and even then, only when she'd grown bored with her workload one day. As always, Mia was in her office, standing pretty-but-uselessly in the corner with her hands together and a meek, defeated expression on her face.
First Minister Sabera leaned back on her throne—by most definitions, it could be called that—the capital of the White Comet Empire visible through the massive windows behind her. Mia finally looked up from her corner. Finally, a response.
"Sit," she commanded, and Mia obeyed, taking one of the small seats facing her. She glanced at the ornate crystal decanter sitting near her. "Drink."
Mia shook her head slightly. Sabera gestured that this was not a request, and Mia poured herself a tiny amount of wine into a nearby glass from the decanter after pulling out the stopper. Sabera kept staring at her until she actually drank, or pretended to drink, from it and was suitably satisfied.
"I was not First Minister at the time," she said, recalling her position prior to becoming head of government. "I went to Baleras as Foreign Minister to deliver the best wishes of His Imperial Majesty and my government for centennial of his reign as 'President'," she said, holding back a laugh. Her mood was starting to improve and she tapped her desk twice, the indication Mia should pour her a drink, which she did, slowly and inefficiently but at least with some care.
"I will admit, he was a very charming man," resisting the urge to play with a strand of her long, white hair. "Not what you'd expect for an absolute, unquestioned tyrant or the most powerful man in the universe. Of course he had a century to refine that charisma," she said, before taking her glass and finishing its dark red contents in a single gulp. She banged the crystal glass against the marble of her desktop, indicating Mia should refill it, which she did slowly.
"He had the complete love and devotion of his people, at least those of his own race and certainly some portion of the conquered races, your own included," she said, catching her physical response to that unpleasant reminder. "I remember…I remember that he surrounded himself with this division of women from Imperial Guard, the 'Blue Shadow' to cater to his every whim. It'd be quite ridiculous even for an emperor, much less a self-labeled president!" she said, bursting out laughter that shook her slender, white-clothed form.
"An egomaniac, without a doubt. Married to his country, they would say. I'm sure there was only thing he loved more than himself, and it wasn't his country," she said after her laughter died down. She looked up at Mia and pointed her fan at her in a single, swift motion, the same she used when scolding military commanders or civilian officials who displeased her, as they tended to. "If you're not going to pour properly, sit down and I will!" she barked.
Mia immediately shrank away before obeying, Sabera leaning from her throne and taking the decanter and pouring pretty girl a drink. Before she'd come to the White Comet Empire—before Alteria was "suppressed"—Mia had been a lady-in-waiting or a courtesan or something to that effect. "Drink. I don't keep you for the company, I keep up because your appearance soothes me. Your function could be performed by a particular piece of artwork or this alcohol," she shouted. "So drink!"
Mia was shaking like a flower—but only briefly. Sabera was already looking away, disinterested, resting her chin against her arm. She looked tired while she idly picked at the red trim of her uniform, the symbol of her office, with a fingernail. Mia slowly drank her glass empty.
"Your world, Alteria, it was destroyed by the Director General of Garmillan Imperial Guard," Sabera told her when she finished. "Even in response to planetary revolt, such measures were disproportionate for Garmillas."
In a blink, she leaned over the table and took both of her arms, nearly causing her to spill her glass. Sabera held Mia tightly, staring at her with an intensity she'd cultivated over the course of her political career. Mia struggled for a moment before relenting. "Hydom Gimleh. That is his name. Remember that name. With the permission of Dessler, he destroyed your world, and everyone and everything you knew with it."
Mia had started shaking again. Sabera could tell she was close to tears and released her, then poured herself another glass which she immediate drank in a single gulp. She enjoyed drinking, it made her occupation more tolerable. "Remember that name."
"I will, Your Excellency," her eyes still wide.
Sabera smiled. She'd gotten through that comely-but-thick skull, not an easy feat. When she stood up, she tapped her finger twice in front Mia's cup, and she poured herself another, almost-respectable glass that she immediately drank in a gulp. Sabera circled around her desk, fan in one hand and the other on her hip, dragging her long white cape after her.
"I think it's time we check on that reprobate, Goran Dagam," she announced.
Even if she had more chest than she had brains, Mia could operate the hyperspace communication system that allowed Sabera direct contact with any warship in the field with a working transponder. By the time Sabera paced into the dais in the center of her office, Mia had made the preparations. Sabera assumed the pose she was best known for, her right arm resting on the large ceremonial dagger she wore on her left shoulder, another symbol of her office, part of her form concealed by her cape.
"Link established with the command ship of the Gutaba Expeditionary Fleet, the Megaluda, Your Excellency," Mia announced, her voice almost passing for a real communications officer. "In three, two, one…"
Soon, Governor-General Goran Dagam, a massive beast of a man even by the standards of the Gatlantian military, was visible, standing by his own throne on his own warship light-years away.
"Report, mighty Thunderclap," she ordered, using his common nom de guerre. At almost twice her age, Goran Dagam had a long career as a brigand with many names, "Thunderclap" being the most flattering of those titles. Indeed, all Gatlantian leaders possessed them, herself included.
He got to the point immediately, his sole redeeming feature in her eyes. "We have no firm leads still." He saw her glaring at him. "However, I have another prize. His Majesty is sure to be pleased," he said, clapping his hands.
"SIMPLETON!" she barked. He jumped back from the rebuke. "His Majesty desires the prize he ordered you to claim, the World of Tranquility! You are to press on with the capture of those lost Aquarian techniques hidden there including their cloaking technology!"
She lowered her arm and looked away at his crew over the transmission. They were none-to-pleased at this public dressing down he was receiving. "The Empire seeks technology to uphold its national polity and establish hegemony," she said them. "Should you fail to locate the world of Tranquility, make amends with your death," she commanded, looking back to him.
"Yes, First Minister," he stammered back.
"I await good news," she said, with a subtle gesture for the line to be closed. Mia complied and she twirled her fan between her fingers by the tassel. "Stupid moronic brute," she muttered, barely catching herself curse. She did not curse in front of her lesser, as a rule, it was poor form.
"He seems a very capable warrior at least," Mia added carefully, eliciting a tsk from the First Minister. Mia had a tendency to sympathize with those victims of Sabera's smoldering wrath, a fact Sabera found annoying but dismissed as entirely irrelevant.
"Capable! There are armies of capable warriors. There are capable warriors in that man's own fleet not half as idiotic as he is, like 'Gale'," she declared angrily. The Mighty Gale—Captain Isla Paracas, in actuality—was the commander of the Kiska aircraft carrier group. "Or Bodom Mace!" she barked, naming the actual commander of the Medalusa-class dreadnought who was unfortunate enough to have his vessel used as the Mighty Thunderclap's command ship.
"Both fine men with more than a pair of brain cells to rub together each," she muttered, falling unceremoniously back into her throne and resting her head on her hand. With the other, she waved Mia away—she wanted solitude. The Alterian left with a short bow, practically tripping on the long, violet gown that clung to her hips.
No sooner had she left did Sabera run her hands across the input controls of her desk's digital workstation. The lights across the office dimmed, a soft under glow appearing beneath the desk, and the hologram project built into the dais she'd just used flooded the room with a dull blue glow. After a few seconds, the dull glow contracts and formed a distinct shape, the coat-of-arms White Comet Empire appearing.
"Bring up the Garmillan Mobile Space Fortress," she commanded, and after a few seconds a processing, the computer created a hologram of the massive space station that had been orbiting at the first Lagrangian point between Garmillas and its twin world of Iscander, an array of symmetrical diamonds arranged like a floating city around a central spire.
"What is the current status of Baleras II?" she asked, using its more popular name.
Another moment of processing. The line of text flashed over the hologram in Gatlantian: STATUS UNKNOWN.
Indeed it was—just as the reports made to her by the chief of Imperial Military Intelligence had told her. For some weeks now, the Great Garmillan Empire had been tearing itself apart in a civil war, likely the product of at least one failed assassination attempt on Phuzeron Dessler.
"And the status of Director General Hydom Gimleh?" she asked.
The hologram of Baleras II vanished, replaced by a combined hologram of the Garmillan President, his cabinet, and the joint chiefs-of-staff and paramilitary commanders, all carefully labeled with long paragraphs of additional data. The eternally-gloating Gimleh was rendered standing by the sole woman, and sole non-Garmillan in Dessler's inner circle, Propaganda Minister Miezela Celestella. Another line of text: STATUS UNKNOWN.
The most recent reports had placed Gimleh aboard the Baleras II. Sabera trusted those reports—they came from a source that had proven reliable in the past, unlike Dagam and his clansmen. Nonetheless they were incomplete, and amid the civil war reaching the Garmillan capital, the fate of Garmillas' newest space station remained unclear.
But what did I expect? That Mia, a girl like her, would seek out revenge, seek out justice for her destroyed world? What a ridiculous notion, she thought, angry at herself now. The idea had an undeniable, primal sort of attraction to Sabera, but it was utterly unrealistic, even if there was still a Hydom Gimleh to seek vengeance on. The way things were looking, there might not even have been an Albert Dessler.
We could only hope. Bored, Sabera reached for the dagger on her left shoulder, pressing down on the switch to release it from its sheath. She twirled it between her pale-green fingers—it was very precisely weighed, Gatlantians made some of the best blades in the universe—before holding it by the grip and flinging at directly at Dessler. The improvised throwing knife, and its extremely sharp blade, passed through the hologram before embedding itself in a tapestry hanging from the opposite wall. Sabera gave an irritated sigh: a good throw, to be sure, and she was pleased to see she hadn't lost her touch, but she'd have to put in a work order to have tapestry replaced and the wall behind it repaired. And for what? A few seconds relief from frustration?
No. Because as long as he is alive, Albert Dessler is the most dangerous man in the universe. It was an inconvenient reality that the rest of those old men, Imperial Council of Ministers chose to ignore at their own peril. So long as the comparatively-young Sabera—she'd barely passed her second decade of life—had the confidence of the Emperor as His Majesty's head of government, their ignorance wasn't an issue. The other ministers believed Lieutenant General Erich Domel, the "Wolf of Space" and a popular field commander who was one of Dessler's favorites, was the real threat—and if Domel had perished in the Rainbow Star Cluster, as many suspected, the greatest threat to the White Comet Empire were now those who had killed him, the crew aboard a mystery Terron warship. As usual, they were all wrong, and it was her responsibility to steer the empire from some rather meaningless engagement against another one of Garmillans' long list of enemies.
How many Aterias have there been? Some worlds of the White Comet Empire had also been devastated during the campaign against Garmillas too. Domel might be dead, but more than ever His Majesty counted on her judgment. Rising from behind her desk, she walke directly through the projected hologram and over to the tapestry and with her right arm, yanked her dagger out from the wall and inspected the blade. Unmarked and undamaged, the sign of a high level of craftsmanship.
I might still be able to jam this down Dessler's throat. Even if he loses the civil war, he'll probably live. Even if those Terrons kill him, I bet he'll still be around. He's already died once, after all. She was grinning from ear to ear now. After all, idiocy did not win wars—intelligence did. And after that withering defeat at the hands of Erich Domel, it was "Silver" who had picked up the pieces, mobilizing captured Garmillan engineering and industrial personnel—the "science slaves" as the military dubbed it—to commission the new Medalusa-class dreadnoughts and their weapons, second only in power to the historical wave motion gun of the ancient Iscandar Empire.
It was Silver who had painstakingly combed through the ranks of the Astro Navy for the most experienced officers—experience being something they woefully lacked compared to the Garmillans, who'd been fighting nonstop for a century.
It was others—the benefactors of nepotism, no doubt—who had whispered into the ears of His Majesty, who had gotten the Governor-General of Gutaba Province placed in command of the expedition, even if the officers who joined him, by and large, were not nearly as stupid. There were limits to the office of first minister, things beyond her control.
Nonetheless, when the new Garmillan superweapon was combined the cloaking technology of the Aquarian lost world, whenever that idiot Dagam finally completed his mission or was mercifully killed and replaced by someone les stupid, the White Comet Imperial Astro Navy would have a near-unstoppable platform, one that could, in time, help bridge the hundred-to-one numerical advantage of the Garmillan Navy. Even then, it would not be easy, nor quick—she eyed the hologram of Fleet Admiral Gul Dietz, commander-in-chief of the Garmillan Astro Navy. She had met him to, during the same occasion as Dessler, and owned practically every book on naval doctrine he'd written over his career—he was a cunning, methodical officer, popular with the enlisted men and the officers, and never one to underestimate the enemy.
The unpleasant truth is that I'm more afraid of Dietz than of Dessler, she forced herself to admit. Dietz was not as dangerous as Dessler, but he was much more competent and reasoned—the sort of qualities that could bring the White Comet Empire to the peace table prematurely. Nor was there any easy solution to deal with him, at least from the Gatlantian perspective. Maybe luck would provide, and he'd be slain in combat against the Terrons.
No matter. Even if we are compelled to accept Dietz's peace accords, I may still have my chance. Feeling the hilt of her dagger, she was grinning again. So long as she remained committed to that more modest goal, it was within Sifar Sabera's reach. And not even a violent simpleton like Goran Dagam could take it away from her…