February 5th, 2091
Outskirts of the Hegemony Attican Traverse
The familiar and stately face of the Hegemony State Network's most trusted anchorman looked earnestly into the camera. "Even now, traitors and barbarians are at our gates, but take heart! The stalwart men of the National Army and the Dinlat are manning the walls, and the brave warriors of our Navy are returning to us in droves. Their admirals failed them, but their loyalty to the true government and the ideals of this Hegemony still remains strong. The military leadership, who so foolishly punished their brave and loyal captains for their own failures after the first battle against the humans, have been stripped of their ranks by the Ruling Council, who urge all loyal men of the Hegemony Navy to return home - "
Commander Tarreyt, leader of the 46th Frontier Squadron's fighter wing, grinned at the other assembled senior officers.
"They must be desperate. The State Network never admits to the government fucking up."
Captain Jarro, chief intelligence officer and head of the Squadron's political officers, rolled his eyes.
"Even then, they're still shifting all the blame for their idiotic collective punishment onto the military higher-ups. Which is ridiculous, because I can practically guarantee that it wasn't their idea. Even the Hegemony military isn't dumb enough to wipe out a tenth of their officer corps for no reason, so that means some Council member probably threw a tantrum to make it happen."
"Do you think anyone will buy it?" Captain Leytt, the Squadron's Chief of Staff, asked. The survivors of the disaster at Arcturus had largely scattered to the four winds in their panicked route from the UN ships hunting them. The recent raiding campaign against the frontier of the humans' nascent civilization meant that the UN lacked the logistical capability to sustain a prolonged hunting campaign within the depths of the Attican Traverse, so the 46th had been able to breath easier since leaving human territory.
Jarro shrugged. "There were always going to be some who would make their way back to the Hegemony, even if they thought they'd be executed for their troubles. The announcement that they won't be punished will likely embolden any who wanted to return but hesitated out of fear of reprisal. The ships and surviving formations commanded by officers associated with the houses of the Ruling Council will almost certainly return. Ships commanded by officers from other houses will likely make their way to their family holdings and lay low until their families tell them what to do. Ships commanded by majority commoners or a mixed grouping of houses are a wildcard. There's almost certainly dozens or hundreds of mutinies going on as we speak among ships like that. In short, even with this announcement, I'm sure desertions will still be rampant."
Captain Bekin, leader of the Squadron's HQ Flotilla, spoke next. "That brings us to the thresher maw in the room: What are we going to be? Loyalists? The Nobility? Desertion? I can't claim to be partial to any of them, but we can't just sit around forever."
Captains Jevir and Bamoll, the commanders of the other two combat flotillas, nodded in agreement. However, the fourth flotilla commander, Neveq -in charge of the logistical and support ships - shook his head in disagreement.
"I'm with you that we have to make a choice, but I'd say I am partial to some of them. Or, more accurately, I am just strongly opposed to one of them. We cannot lend ourselves to the Ruling Council's cause. They have been running the show, which means that no matter what they say, at the end of the day they are the ones who have been leading us into disaster after disaster. I don't claim to give a damn about the 'democracy' the damned asari constantly whinge about, but there are other ways to make sure a government faces consequences for failure. As far as I'm concerned, it's our...what do those aliens call it?...that's right, it's our 'civic duty' to ensure that their incompetent heads end up on a pike."
Jarro laughed. "Believe it or not, I agree. The Hegemony believes in the strong ruling and the weak serving, in accordance with the 'laws of nature' or whatever the propaganda is calling it these days. They've proven their weakness with their constant incompetence. By their own ideology they are condemned."
Leytt laughed. "Yeah, you've got a point. They'd hardly be the first Ruling Council to be torn apart by the subordinate houses."
Ran finally spoke up for the first time. "And that's precisely the problem. There have been, what, two or three dozen Ruling Councils in the Hegemony's history? And that's just the history they let us read. Dozens of tries, with dozens of different sets of houses running the show. Yet, they accomplish nothing of actual substance. Nothing but posturing and scheming, only to be replaced by the next batch of incompetents, who do more of the same. Thousands of years, and next to nothing to show for it. Supporting another nobles' rebellion wouldn't change a thing."
Jarro was very far from a "true believer", especially by the standards of political officers, but he still felt the need to go to bat for the regime he'd given his entire adult life to.
"We've got one of the largest interstellar empires in the galaxy. I'd hardly call that 'nothing'."
Ran inhaled, closing his eyes. "Do you know what percentage of Khar'Shan's population does not have access to running water?"
Jarro gave him a perplexed look. "Uh...no, I don't."
"Twenty percent. Thousands of years of interstellar civilization, hundreds of star system's worth of resources, and yet somehow not a single Ruling Council has been able to ensure there is running water for a fifth of the population on our home planet, the most developed world in our empire. Oh, and I was lying by the way. Twenty percent is just the free population. The slaves are at seventy percent. That's higher than the humans, if you were curious. Before they discovered the mass effect."
He stood up, leaning forward with his hands on the table. "You could skim one tenth of one percent off of the annual revenue of one of our hundreds of state-backed mega corporations and it would be more than enough to bring that number down to zero. And yet, for thousands of years the number has barely budged. Believe me, I've checked census records. That can't be blamed on the other races stealing our colonies, or us getting robbed at the peace deal in the krogan rebellions, or whatever other nonsense the propaganda ministry is fixated on this century. That can't even be blamed on incompetence. That's a result of countless generations of governments choosing not to do anything about it. And that is just one of uncountable examples like it. The Hegemony is a lead weight holding down civilization. Our successes are in spite of it, not because of it."
Every man present shifted uncomfortably in his seat. Just listening to talk like this could get someone disappeared by the Dinlat. Which was precisely why no one said a word. Every man who wore a uniform for the Hegemony and wasn't completely delusional knew that the regime they served was rotten to its core. Even men who genuinely believed in the regime's ideology would still be the first to lament the current rulers' incompetence(in private and to people they were absolutely certain wouldn't rat to the Dinlat). Of course, men like that would pine for some vaguely defined 'better days' when the regime was run 'properly', but the simple truth was that such days had never existed. Indeed, for men like Ran who read their history (including the parts the Dinlat didn't want to be read) it rapidly became clear that the Hegemony had been an abomination from its very inception.
Ran was very far from pious, but there was one spiritual point on which he was in total agreement with the 'backwards' followers of the Old Way who lived in his adopted homeland in the Periphery: the batarian race had lost its soul long ago. Of course, the damned yokels also believed that it could be found once again. Ran was not sure he believed that, but he knew for damn sure that it wasn't going to happen while the festering wound that was the Hegemony persisted on the body of the batarian species.
It was Leytt who finally broke the silence, speaking genuinely to Ran as an old friend, rather than a subordinate. "I don't think any of us here disagree with the words themselves, but I do feel it necessary to ask: what exactly did you have in mind? You say we won't be supporting he nobles, so do you intend to start a rebellion of our own? We have less than five hundred combat ships to our name, no army to speak of save for what we can scrape together from our ships' marines, and no power base to launch a rebellion from. Which is why I am assuming you have a plan."
Ran smiled. "You sum it up nicely. We need ships, an army, and allies. And yes, I do have a plan to get them. First we dig through the garbage, and then we return to our post."
The gathered officers shared an exasperated glance born of years working together under the same eccentric talent. An unspoken message was shared among them.
This is going to be one of those meetings.
February 9th, 2091
Yevethk Colony, Hegemony Outer Systems
As a result of an analysis of the battle produced by the combined efforts of the squadron's intelligence and logistics departments, a very rough estimate of the losses incurred by the Hegemony Navy was placed on Ran's desk. Of the twenty thousand ships that had invaded human space, seven thousand had escaped the the battle intact. Several hundred more had likely been destroyed in the relentless pursuit operation executed by the UN following the battle. Which meant that perhaps a little over six thousand ships had managed to survive the entire ordeal. Nearly three quarters losses, in a battle where they'd outnumbered the enemy by more than three to one. A failure this spectacular would be answered with rebellion, and the relative handful of reservist-crewed ships the Hegemony had recently pulled out of mothballs prior to the invasion would not be able to prevent it.
Numbers for the personal fleets of the countless nobles, mercenaries, and other non-state navies operating under the nominal authority of the Hegemony were so unreliable it bordered on comedy, but if one subtracted the regular navy's twenty thousand ships from the widely-publicized propaganda number of forty thousand that the Hegemony claimed as the total number of ships at its (arguable) command, then that left twenty thousand ships with unaccounted for loyalties.
Ten thousand of those ships allegedly belonged to the Hegemony's "Partner States" in the Terminus region. These could largely be written off, both because the warlords who ran those "states" would likely be too busy fending off the inevitable raids the Hegemony's sudden weakness would invite, and because the figure of ten thousand ships ascribed to them was so laughably inflated that even a cursory glance at open source intelligence by a layman would show that they had perhaps half that number. And that was the generous estimate.
Of the remaining ten thousand, the vast majority would be property of the nobility. A few hundred would be the personal retinues of the houses currently sitting on the Ruling Council. The rest would be nobles outside of the council, circling like aquatic predators around the proverbial chum that the Ruling Council had become. A handful may remain loyal, but few would be interested in associating themselves with a failure of that magnitude.
Reading over the report yet again as his contingent made its way to its destination, Ran found himself speculating.
Alright, of the ten thousand remaining we'll give...let's say five hundred to the Hegemony, eighty-five hundred to the rebels. The other thousand are unaccounted for independents and mercenaries, wildcards. I'll leave them out for the moment. Now, of the six thousand Navy ships, let's pull a number out of my ass... we'll call it four thousand returning home. Of those, it's probable that the majority will favor the rebels, but we'll be generous for the sake of argument and give half of them to the loyalists. Add another thousand or so from the mothball ships... and just to be nice, we'll also split the wildcards 50/50. So, that gives us four thousand versus eleven thousand. Even with me being very generous, they still face a war outnumbered worse than two to one. And they don't have any super ships to tilt the odds.
Worse still, the advantages in firepower that Hegemony had once enjoyed were also long gone. All of the Hegemony's dreadnoughts and the vast majority of its heavy cruisers had perished in nuclear fire at Arcturus. The ships hastily pulled out of mothballs in the build-up to the invasion were mostly destroyers and frigates, as they had been intended as a temporary replacement for the many patrols and border guard forces being appropriated for the invasion. Which meant that for the most part - much like the rebels - the heaviest ships the Hegemony would have easy access to would be standard cruisers (unless some of the scattered handful of surviving heavy cruisers pledged loyalty to them). This also meant that any available heavy ships that could be obtained would be a hugely important strategic asset coveted by both sides...when they learned of it, anyway.
There was going to be a brief window of time until the full extent of the losses taken at Arcturus was understood by the belligerents of the rapidly-approaching civil war, and Ran intended to exploit this to the fullest extent. Which was why he and a contingent of his fleet had made their way to a seemingly unimportant backwater like Yevethk. A small space habitat had been built there, whose sole economic activity was providing services to the Navy personnel that maintained the boneyard at the Lagrange point between the system's star and the sizeable brown dwarf that orbited it.
The boneyard's meager defenses were suitably cowed by a warning shot from Hel'Shan and a stern talking-to from Ran's communications officer, and with that the support and recovery ships got to work. It was certain that, in the near future, one of the two factions in the inevitable civil war would make their way through this system, taking every ship that had even a prayer of being made to fly once again. Ran was not here to do that. He, and the other task forces from the 46th scattered across the Hegemony's most poorly guarded boneyards, were interested in only the choicest cuts of meat: the intact heavy cruisers. He'd leave the rest for the nobles to fight over the bones and sinew. By the end of the day, two heavy cruisers were brought to a partially-operational state, and another ten were made ready to be towed by the recovery ships.
Of course, the hard part will be getting the crews to fly them, but I'll be leaving that in Jarro's capable hands. The rest of us will be heading home to the Periphery, and we'll have work to do when we get there.
February 10th, 2091
Undocumented Dinlat Black Site
Jarro scratched his chin as he perused the prison's records, sparing a disinterested glance at the begging shrieks of a Dinlat guard as his men executed him. Military prisons were not dissimilar from normal prisons, in that they mostly contained men convicted of actual crimes who were there for good reason. Military prisons run by the Dinlat, however, were filled to the brim with political prisoners, whose crimes consisted of saying the wrong thing, hearing the wrong thing, or annoying a Dinlat officer who happened to be in a bad mood that day. In other words, it was a large supply of men with military training and a bone to pick with the Hegemony. An attractive prospect for the recruiting officers of any nascent rebellions. Another gunshot rang out, and the desperate blubbering of the Dinlat guard who had been its target was silenced.
Jarro sighed. The only downside to stealing people from the Dinlat was that the guard and administrative complement had to be slaughtered to the last man and woman and the entire site bombed from orbit to keep their identities a secret from the inevitable Dinlat investigation that would follow. It was a hassle, to be sure, and he could only rely on his own carefully cultivated corps of converted Dinlat officers to do it, as regular Navy men did not have the stomach for a mass string of face-to-face executions the way a Dinlat man would. He'd considered poaching some of the personnel for his own purposes from the sites he and his men had raided, but ultimately decided against it. The jobs at political prisons were where the Dinlat dumped the officers who were suitably loyal but too violent or incompetent to be used for important work. After years of service to the Dinlat, empathy was more of an academic concept to Jarro than an actual feeling he experienced (on the rare occasions he felt anything at all) but even he couldn't help but to grimace when he saw images of what went on in these prisons. Any man who could stand by and watch while the atrocities that went on in every Dinlat prison were carried out was not the sort of man who would be converted to the cause.
Which was probably why the normally soft-hearted (by the admittedly very low standards of batarian despots) Ran had authorized this particular bit of wet work with barely a second thought. He was willing to get blood on his hands when the situation called for it. Jarro appreciated that in a leader.
He got up from the desk, pulling out his datastick as his download finished. He turned to leave the room as one of his men dragged a sobbing clerk by the ankles out from the desk she'd been hiding under. She hadn't gotten through the first word in her plea for mercy before Jarro's man shot her in the head. Jarro stepped over her corpse on the way out. This was why Dinlat men had to be the ones to do this job.
A normal man, guided by his emotions, would just see a helpless young woman weeping and begging for her life.
Jarro exited the office, looking at the line of starving, tortured wretches trudging their way to the ships from the 46th that would lift them out of hell.
I see someone who looked at this, all day, every day, and didn't bat a gods damned eye.
Hey all, sorry if it got a little too dark at the ending passage there. I wanted to show that Ran and his little revolution isn't all sunshine and rainbows. And before you ask, no, that was not me advocating for summary executions at the end there haha. I just wanted to get inside the head of a character like Jarro and explore how he sees the world and justifies himself.
As I mentioned in the previous chapter, there's going to be a third 'series within a series' focusing on what the UN and its friends are up to. I intend for that one to be more open-ended/short-story based vs the more linear narrative of Audacity, so if you've got any perspectives or aspects of the story's world that you'd like to see explored more, feel free to make a suggestion.
As always, thank you very much for reading!