Chapter 4: War Plans

“Never do an enemy a small injury”

– Niccolo Machiavelli

Cockroach Coven – Old Palace of the Emperor, Conference room 1:

Meeting of the senior Coven leadership with Ghoul Emissary, direct representative of the Queen.

Attendees:

Larnor Bakt-Yek – Grand Overseer of Coven of Cockroaches.

Yesteg Krimpt – Senior General of Intelligence, Coven of Cockroaches

Gremd Mordrake – Para Overseer of Internal Affairs, Coven of Cockroaches

Adm. Moulash Yamkrol – Diplomat and Ghoul Emissary.

“Emissary, I would like to welcome you, once again, on behalf of our Coven of Cockroaches,” said Larnor Bakt-Yek.

“Thank you very much for your welcome Grand Overseer, the Queen sends her greetings and her regrets. This last expedition has been regrettable. The Queen finds it hard to believe that despite powerful allies we find ourselves in this disastrous situation. She notes that our allies are not better off and it is her belief that we were not betrayed by them. She has had the opportunity to analyze the battle in detail and she would like to bring to your attention some observations that she and our senior military have made.

“The technique that was used to trap your ships is known to us and is highly advanced. It was known to very few advanced races that we know about including our creators. We are no longer party to the information that is used to construct such devices, but we are aware of how to evade such traps. We did provide the information to your fleets when we observed the trap and that allowed at least some of your ships to escape. We observed at least three ancient races that allied themselves with our enemies. We have fought with and against the Warriors of the Apocalypse and we are well aware of the dangerous nature of the Dinosaurs. They have been previously very insular, but they now appear to be emerging. The same situation applies to the Una who appeared to have become active in this galaxy in the form of energy beings. Following the great Apocalyptic War, they were dispersed and it is our aim to capture the Una who are in our Universe. They are an advanced people which forces us to proceed with the greatest of care. In our galaxy they are in a humanoid form with wings and as such they are useful to us. Any one of the three advanced races could have created these devices that trapped you.

“The enemy fleets displayed a diversity of weapons. We have provided you with the technology to be able to successfully attack the Collective. The defenders surprised us with powerful and dangerous weapons. They caught us unawares at Beeliar, but we collected information carefully during this attack; despite the disastrous consequences for some of our ships. The greatest thorn in our side is the fleet of the young Archduke Jason Kargo. This young man is a growing threat to all of us in this universe. He is at the center of what is going on. We do not know his role, but of all the potential leaders he is the most vulnerable and exposed. If we get rid of him, we dispose of a big problem. His fleet was the most effective of all of the fleets including the ancients. His weapons have the characteristics of those of the ancients, but are different to the Parzool freaks, The Orcs and the misnamed and despised Warriors of the Apocalypse.

“The Empires share many of the same weapons as Lord Kargo. The underwater craft of Emperor Cassius were effective. For a low-level technology people, they astonished us. We know they have made a leap forward. The Empire of Cassius and the Empire of Felix are moving ahead more quickly than any previous civilizations we know. This is very dangerous for us all. We know of the influence of the Collective Insects from your Galaxy, Tiland. They have been an aggravation to us all for a million years, but we are hearing about another ancient race called Porquenta. This ancient race is making very powerful weapons and appears to be selling them to our enemies. We cannot find such a race in our archives but the influence of Porquenta is pervasive and menacing to all of our interests,” said the Emissary.

“Our Queen remains concerned you have not delivered as you have promised. We brokered a deal to help you with your biggest enemies to help you overcome the Collective. Had you attacked the Empire you would have been very vulnerable to the forces of the Collective. If you would have attacked the people of Dhoom it is our view neither of you could win. Both of you have lost an equivalent number of ships, but they have overtaken you. We do not want to be pessimistic about the outcome of the conflict with the people of Dhoom. It is for that reason we suggested an alliance. Our greatest concern is that you have been compromised and your information leaks to our enemies. There is no other way that they could know of the potential attacks. They could not have assembled such a force of allies had they not been aware well ahead of time of your intentions. Our Queen has been concerned for some time about the security of your information, as your security has an impact upon our security. Our Queen wishes to penalize you for your poor performance. We want you to send fifty-million of your people to us in compensation for your inability to deliver as you have promised. We have provided you with technology and assistance, you have promised constantly that you would deliver outcomes and in each case you have not delivered.

“Our queen has become impatient. She believes you need to send a deposit of five million people to mitigate our risk immediately. We will accept the fifty-million in installments over the next three months.” Adm. Moulash Yamkrol, the Emissary demanded.

Larnor Bakt-Yek replied, “Emissary, we will reluctantly concur with your request. We will require the analysis of weapons and defenses you have made. We also need to know how to escape from the net that paralyzed our ships.”

“Agreed.”

“We will load your freighters as we have done previously?”

“Yes, we will send details of our freighter timetables.”

***

Cockroach Coven – Old Palace of the Emperor, Conference room 1:

Meeting of the senior Coven leadership political and military.

“I would now like to receive your reports of progress,” Bakt-Yek ordered as he looked at the Para-Overseer of Internal affairs. “Mordrake, I was disturbed by your report. Can you please explain your opinions?”

Gremd Mordrake started his briefing, “Overseer, the internal situation within the Coven is progressively deteriorating. The morale of our Cockroaches is at an all-time low. The recent failure against the Collective is weighing heavily upon our people. They crave a victory, but we have given them one defeat after the other. Morale within the military is abominable and our concern is that we will lose control unless we are able to achieve some kind of positive victory in the not-too-distant future.

“Positively, I have assembled all of our dissidents in one location as planned, along with our problem people from every planet. Within hours they are all going to be sent to our friends the Ghouls. They will take a very big problem off our hands. We have a consistent percentage of the population of dissidents. This percentage fluctuates little over the centuries. Internal intelligence concentrates on those groups and identifies them. We round them up and we dispose of them to the Ghouls. If they disappear it takes a very long time for replacements to get organized. We go significantly deeper to try and take many levels of their organization and many of their members as well. We have done the same with criminals. We worked with the police to assemble every single troublemaker, criminal and other individual of any kind that has caused our society any kind of difficulty. We also fortunately had nearly three million such individuals in stasis and we have added this group to the pool for garbage disposal. Our society even at its best would not miss them. The Ghouls do not specify the quality only the quantity and we deliver as expected.

“The second matter is that of gathering intelligence from our enemies. Infiltrating the enemy is a constant problem. Our scientists are concerned that they do not have the full genetic template that they need to convert our people to humans or Bugs so that they will not be able to be found. Ten percent of our infiltrators remain in place gathering intelligence and undermining the enemy. An unexpected problem has arisen. The closer the genetic match to the enemy, the more likely they are to identify with the host nation. Of the ten percent, nearly four-fifths have chosen to break off links with us. This is leading us to very severe and serious intelligence problems. We are increasingly unsure of the validity and reliability of the information that we are receiving as we are no longer sure of the loyalty of our so-called spies within both the Empire and in the Collective.

“The third matter is our declining morale at home and the increasing risk of civil war. We are battling to keep a lid on our problems in our own planets. The Royal Family remain a thorn in our sides, they are doing nothing overtly to counter us, but the people are asking for their return. We have wished to remove this cursed family festering in the Coven and now we have the opportunity. This war provides us with the confluence of events where we can to remove the problem once and for all. We can kill them and destroy the entire planet to remove all evidence. I propose that we deliver the citizens to the Ghouls as repayment for what we owe them. That would give us a considerable amount of credit with them. We send twelve billion to the Ghouls, destroy the royal family and make sure that the planet no longer exists. There will then be no divided loyalty amongst our people,” the para overseer finished

The chairman nodded and thanked Mordrake then turned to Yestek Krimpt, Senior General of Intelligence. “Krimpt please tell us what you know and what has been happening in your areas?”

“Overseer, we need to take decisive action following our recent setback. Duke Kargo is emerging as an important leader. We need to kill him. He is the glue keeping the alliance together. He is a festering pustule waiting to be pierced. He does not appear to take an active military role. He attends university and is a nephew of the Emperor,” said Krimpt.

“Why then is he such a problem, Krimpt?” asked the Chairman.

“This is not easy to establish. He is a playboy preoccupied with women whose greatest pleasure in life is spreading himself as widely as he possibly can. He is a man who is preoccupied with himself and his celebrity. He has little substance from what we see from his media interviews but basks in the reflected glory of those superficial individuals who’ve attached themselves to him. He is well-regarded in the Collective as well as in both Empires. Undoubtedly, he is a personable individual who is able to convince others that he can be their friend. We struggle to find the substance behind the image. He is a young man who entered the Empire from a primitive planet. When he boarded the battleship to travel to the Empire, he was a frail physical wreck. We can only assume it was from his excessive behaviors. After a period of isolation and contemplation he again involved himself with many women. He took an interest in trying to reverse the work of the priests on the Ship AI. The priests tell us that he did not have a crystal and his efforts to thwart them were pathetic. They thought he did not have any slots. They were never impressed with him. We have heard it said Kargo sees himself as an apprentice warlord. I find this arrogance laughable. We believe that he was saved from capture by the priests by Adm. Kane and Gen. Morgan James who betrayed the priests and captured the fleet of the priests. They then attacked the planet of priests. This cut us off from a major source of intelligence and influence within the Empire.

“This dissipated young man was befriended by our arch enemies the Collective who inexplicably appeared to develop an interest in mammalian behavior, fashion and food preparation. We believe that the Archduke was used as a front for the cunning Emperor Cassius and the sly Ouma Chatzke to work together. Emperor Cassius appears to have mended his relationship with The Mob and the Jumo Empire has joined the evil axis. We do not have information as to how the Dinosaurs, the Warriors and Hounds of the Apocalypse and the Boars became involved and joined the enemy along with the Orcs. We know that we antagonized the Boars and the Orcs, by pretending to be the ancients with whom they previously fought, but that is not a good enough reason for them to join our enemies,” replied Yestek Krimpt.

“We suggest we target the Archduke. He is vulnerable and he may have more influence than we can establish. We think he has possibly been trying to fool us and is more able than he appears on investigation. To this end we have captured the parents of one of his group and we are holding them hostage. We are not entirely sure how we will use them yet, but we know that we will be able to obtain significant leverage when we need it. We have also activated agents within the Collective and agents within both Empires in order to await the opportunity to assassinate the leaders. We do not know where the Warriors of the Apocalypse reside and we cannot target them, nor can we target the Orcs. The Dinosaurs represent an intractable problem for us. Infiltrating their kingdom is well-nigh impossible. They have previously led an entirely isolated existence and they have a low trust for outsiders. We cannot create spies to infiltrate the kingdom. They are apparently not interested in trade with external groups, empires, or with anyone that they do not know well.

“We are attempting to find out who the ancient people, the Porquenta are. They are clearly a subtly hidden ancient group of great potency and danger to us. They do not appear to have their own ships and they keep very much to the background as do the Ghouls. We have also heard rumors of a further ancient people called the Mars who are beginning to be involved in the background. We are finding this sudden appearance of ancient peoples difficult to understand. Their motivations remain obscure to us and mysterious to our allies. The Jellyfish/Slugs are prepared to share information with us as we share with them and they are nonplussed by the current turn of events. They previously warned us of the Dinosaurs who are in their galaxy Albos. They told us that they have been unable to find strategies to infiltrate them as they are so different. They made many attempts over millions of years without success,” continued Krimpt.

“One of our contacts within the University has informed us that the young Archduke Playboy is required to undertake a practical computer task within a company and has been sent to one of the Information AI consultancies with whom we have extensive contact. He will be there in the next few weeks. This company was previously owned by the priests. The company has facilitated the entry of many of our people into the Empire. We have a very long-established relationship. Since the debacle on Nirvana, the company is now owned by the young Archduke even though he may not immediately be aware of this fact. The company actively provides us with people from within the Empire to supply to our friends the Ghouls. They have done this for us for a very long time. The Chief Executive of the company Abel Satora has worked with us for hundreds of years. He is very cooperative and a pragmatic businessman. He will be delighted I am sure to help us with the troublesome young Archduke. He also supplies people to the people of Dhoom who I understand also furnish some of their allocation to the Slug/Jellyfish people.

“We now know that the people of Dhoom are attempting to transfer their consciousness to mammals so that they may become surface dwellers as are we. We have also discovered that the Jellyfish are attempting to adapt themselves to attach to mammals as the Slugs are insisting to regain their independence. Their mutual agreement will terminate in the not-too-distant future. For both the Jellyfish and the Dhoom, the mammalian form is much more suitable than any form of insect. This is not an area where I can say that I have a great degree of expertise but these are the facts as I know them.

“Overseer I need your permission and ratification to proceed against the young Archduke and if the opportunities present themselves to assassinate the Emperor Cassius and Emperor Felix. I need permission to activate our operatives to assassinate Ouma Chatzke,” requested Yestek Krimpt as he finished his briefing.

“As overseer I grant you permission to proceed with your tasks as you have defined.”