Chapter 5: The Road Foward

Feedback is appreciated

I

The differences between the Revolutionary and Legitimate Confederation in terms of culture were not many. The two sides shared the same beliefs, festivities and vies in many things, if one thing could be called extremely different would be the way their governance worked while the Supreme Chairman chosen High Council governed the legitimate confederation in the revolutionary confederation there was a rather unique way of running things. The government was divided into various sections all headed by a Minister or Secretary of the respective section and they had the complete power over that field in other words the Minister of Finance could so something that may offhandedly affect the Secretary of Defence like reducing the finds for military academies and colleges and the Secretary wont be able to stop him, he could instead ask the Revolutionary Leader Dr. Ivan Bromka to persuade the Minister to increase the funding again. This sort of way governing things was quite flawed in many ways as it meant a lot of ping-pong with laws, money influx, and many other things but it also meant that a competent minister could really do a lot for their field in a short amount of time. Another thing to point out was that while the people elected the ministers every couple years, the main revolutionary leader Dr. Ivan Bromka always stayed as the Supreme Chairman equivalent of the Revolutionary Confederation.

The system of each nation is something to take note of as it did mean a big change in the way of the war, while the legitimate Confederation was stagnated in terms of a military expedition thanks to the Supreme Chairman’s indecision and the High Council inability to reach a conclusion on the von Ellwangen situation in addition to all the protests regarding that case, meanwhile in the revolutionary Confederation Siegfried Stein had been planning out an expedition plan alongside Fleet Admiral Connor Konev. Their plan was almost ready and in fact Marshal Konev hoped to begin the expedition way earlier into the planning, but he was stopped by Siegfried Stein who was at the moment stopping him as well from announcing the expedition, as he believed that the plan was missing something. Konev scratched his head and told the young Admiral that the plan looked perfect to him but that if he thought there was something to be added then he should not feel shy about letting him now. Stein nodded at his words and decided to leave Konev and go towards his own office.

Fleet Admiral Stein is a somewhat rare occurrence in between both confederation’s military top officials, he was someone with no hobbies or interests outside of his job, even people like Konev who was not the humblest person took to teaching low resources kids in his free time. This made it so that when or if the war came to and end the young Fleet Admiral would be left to continue his life having lost the one thing that had characterized him since he entered the military academy at an extremely tender age and rapidly ascending the ranks of the Confederation’s army even so he did not slow down his planning and strategizing on how to successfully carry out the inevitable expedition into Legitimate territory. Those around him had often labelled Stein as a genius at war yet at this time he found himself caught in a struggle unable to decide on what he should do, as this process of thought was happening the Marshal could have been easily mistaken for a porcelain doll, completely immobile, his gaze lost in the sea of stars inside of his head. This state of being was one that no person was able to see since he had to snap out of this way when he heard Vice Admiral Jakob Thomas asking to enter his office. The reason for Thomas visit was something that made Stein excited as he was there to present his superior a plan of his own for the upcoming expedition. This plan is said to have lighten the blue eyes of the young man as he failed to correctly articulate words while he congratulated the Vice Admiral for what he thought as a great plan, his tone was not too dissimilar from that of an excited kid opening a present in what used to be a big festivity when humanity was still on Earth. Moments like this made Stein’s age a lot more obvious than regularly as he usually conducted himself in a more serious and mature manner only really showing his true personality around the very select few people he felt comfortable with, he desired to speak more about the plan with the Vice Admiral but he had other business to attend to and so he saluted the Fleet Admiral and left him to decide what to do.


The following day the two Fleet Admirals had a brief meeting in which they went over the changes that Siegfried had made in accordance to Admiral Carey’s suggestions. Stein was expecting for Marshal Konev to find some sort of flaw or small chance of mistake in the plans and tactics made by Carey which he would then use to reject Stein’s proposal, however his expectations were wrong and Konev not only accepted the changes but even praised them. Stein was surprised at Konev’s words about the proposals and he even began thinking that perhaps he was not as incompetent as he had originally thought, while he did not believe that he truly deserved his current position at least now Konev was in a higher pedestal inside of Stein’s mind that he originally was. Stein having concluded his meeting with Konev saluted him left the part of presenting the proposal to the Secretary of Defence who due to the two Fleet Admirals approving would have no more power other than to tell the Revolutionary leader Dr. Bromka about it so that the Ministers and Secretaries of Finances, Resources and various other offices could get ready for the tremendous straining on their departments once the expedition begins. This would be later pointed out as one of the biggest flaws in the Revolutionary government as it meant that its budget and people were constantly being drained by the many battles waged against the Legitimate Confederation, as the battles being done were taken soldiers and officers in the millions, the money and resources being consumed for ships and supplies were to many outrageous yet as long as the two military men agreed in partaking in a military operation which if successful will bring both of them a decent amount of fame and money could deplete the Revolutionary’s resources which was in truthiness the only thing they had more of when compared to the Legitimate Confederation, however at that present time budgets and resources were the least in Siegfried’s mind instead it was filled with the excitement of knowing that very soon he would make himself even more powerful after giving his country another major victory, but he was also concerned about how he would break the news of the expedition to his sister who was still in many ways extremely against what she called a meaningless war.



II

At the same time that the Revolutionaries were beginning preparations for their incoming expedition into the Legitimate territory, the Secretary of Defence Joao Pereira paid a visit to the Chairman of the Legitimate government with the motive of informing him about new findings that had been found regarding the leader of the anti-war movement Ermenrich von Ellwangen. These findings were those of encoded messages that had been sent far out inside of their territory, so far out that they had in fact reached the Ezephiel Star System, which is the star system closest to the corridor connecting the two Confederations. This system had no inhabited planets and was mostly used for mining on asteroids and communications with the Planet Musen stationed force in the case of attack, this system had also been a battlefield in the Confederate Year 163, battle in were Admiral Trung Yin and Raphael Dalton battled each other a stalemate, this despite Dalton’s fleet being larger than Yin’s fleet. The findings of such communications from Ellwangen would not be that important under regular circumstances but of course as someone who was possibly wrongly imprisoned and had been abused by the power of others meant that now the government could use this to claim they believed that von Ellwangen was collaborating with the enemy. The Chairman of the Confederation was ready to ask the Secretary to leave, but Pereira decided to explain him about something that might actually point about these messages having gone far beyond the satellites on a remote star system, this was that a message was sent in the year 172 in an extremely close date to the battle of the Barnabas starzone in which Fleet Admirals Raphael Dalton and Connor Konev managed to correctly predict the movement of a fleet led by Admiral Dean Hopson and almost wiped out the fleet from the face of the galaxy but it was only saved by Vice Admiral Karl Odenwitz. The Secretary of Defence claimed that von Ellwangen might have colluded with the Revolutionaries and betrayed his country. The Chairman simply nodded and asked the Secretary to revise the issue and that if he found anything else surfaced he was to tell him immediately. He also told him to get the help of Admiral David Hopson as his organization skills could surely be of help.

Admiral David Hopson upon being told to help with the Secretary’s job accepted without asking any questions, although in reality inside he desired to deny the orders and to even ask for them to leave the man alone however he knew that as a military official in a nation where the Secretary of Defence Pereira saw himself as above everyone in the military and even saw himself as its leader he had no other choice but to accept, otherwise he would have surely been dismissed from his role after constant pressure by the Secretary of Defence on the Chairman to take action. His forced acceptance of a job that would never be shown on his record did not mean he would not vent about his frustrations with Pereira’s forceful ways with the Fleet Admiral who after hearing everything Admiral Hopson had to say simply responded by saying that even if in paper all the Secretary could do according the Confederation’s laws was to oversee and act as the principal defence law maker and adviser, he was a man that had already broken through the shackles of paper with the help of the Chairman and was essentially able to do anything he pleased and therefore all the Admiral could do was to quietly complain as complaining loudly would surely cause Pereira to try and paint him as a traitor. Admiral Hopson nodded and in compliance with his superior’s words decided to give Admiral Skye Hyde something to do and to also tell her about the situation of von Ellwangen. He believed that if Hyde was left too long without any work then she would become too accustomed to relaxing and won’t be able to respond correctly on the battlefield.







The reaction that Skye had to the words Admiral Hopson had relayed to her through the screen communications was nonchalant and she was in fact almost ready to ask about how what was happening concerned her, but before she could even open her mouth the middle-aged Admiral asked Hyde to simply think about what the government was doing with von Ellwangen and if she believed it was the right of course of action. Skye once again tried to say something however Admiral Hopson had to sign off in order to begin organizing the documents the Secretary of Defence had given to him and as such Hyde just nodded and allowed the communication to be cut off. She began to ponder more about what was the reasoning of Hopson’s request as opposed to thinking about what she was actually asked to think about. She sighed and as a loyal soldier decided to follow her superior’s words and began pondering about what she had been asked to, her thoughts however were stopped before they could even begin by her husband Karl Odenwitz with whom she decided to share the information on von Ellwangen and asked for his thoughts on the situation. Karl put his hand against his chin and closed his eyes for a moment before beginning to speak “I do believe that arresting him without any proof was against the nation’s spirit in a way, but if these messages really are communications with the rebel forces then I will have to say that the government made the right choice and perhaps should increase the funding of internal security.” Admiral Hyde did not give any response towards Admiral Odenwitz’ remarks even if she disagreed on using money on internal security instead she would have liked for the money to be used on finding a way to stop the on-going war in a diplomatic way. Hyde’s ward Nero hearing the growing silence in the air stepped into the conversation and added that they would probably not need to increase funding on internal security if they ended the war, the response was perfectly made to tailor both Hyde and Odenwitz as it left out the how they would end the war leaving to the interpretation of the Admirals whether it was a diplomatic way that would allow them to retire or by annihilating the revolutionary forces in such a way that the war would be won by a surrendering.



In the following days Admiral Hopson’s “emergency investigation” advanced at the pace of an old cruiser, as Hopson had to work completely alone to not leak the incident until anything was confirmed. The media frequently questioned members of the High Council about von Elllwangen however they gave no answer with the exception of the Secretary of Defence who said that they had found some information that could make the man a dangerous element to the safety of the nation, the way he said it not only calmed down the inquires the media had been making for the past months but actually managed to slightly up the Council’s approval rating, although he did not answer any question about the supposed information.

Hopson had to give daily reports about his progress to Pereira who was unhappy with the pace of his investigation, as he had been hoping to have enough information to prove Von Ellwangen’s treason and convince other members of the Council to finally approve the decision to attack the rebel revolutionary confederation., had he and anyone else on the council known about Siegfried Stein’s and Connor Konev’s expedition which had already started preparation they would’ve probably canned the investigation, released von Ellwangen and tried to focus on defending their nation using the full strength of their military, but for the time being all the legitimate confederation could do was await for the revolutionary preparations to be finished and for the report of a large fleet closing in on their territory arrived until then the democracy of the nation would continue to lose its lustre.