Monthly Prompt: Meet and Greet Part 3 (Patreon)

I swallowed a sigh as I leaned against the doorframe, crossing my arms and observing. Komand'r stood at the command center, a long hologram displaying the Citadelian homeworld and what was known about their defenses. Flanking the table were holograms of the pirates that we had subjugated. None of them looked happy to be there, and even if they couldn’t see me, they could feel my presence.

This was an important step. Komand’r could rule her people well enough. It was difficult to tell if that was always the case, but her people were riding high on freedom and success. All she had to do was point and her people would obey. The pirates were a ruthless bunch. The kind that were used to being in charge. They had been cowed by, but just because they bent the knee didn’t mean that they could stand back up again.

Komand’r, if she wanted to control the Vega system, had to show that she could rule. Force the dissenters to obey her commands despite whatever their thoughts were. To counter their thoughts of treason and betrayal. To use them for everything that they could offer, anticipate their plans, then rip them out down to the root. She had to command them. Fight with them and against them. She had to show them that she was worth following and she had to show me that she was up to the task.

I eyed the invasion plans lazily, half paying attention while I caught up on work that my armies and empire had started to pile up. Matters of military and economics. And projections for what the Vega system being added to my empire would do. It was a powerful system with a highly unusual number of planets that had never been properly cultivated. I glanced over the plans that Ada’la sent me -- given the restrictions that I had given her, they were great plans.

At this point, I honestly didn’t know what I would do without her. My empire was what it was because she had helped shape it, and if her race wasn’t already nearly immortal, then my highest priority would be to find a way to give it to her.

“The Citadelian defenses are mighty, but they are unprepared,” Komand’r said, catching my attention. “In the history of the Vega system, they have never been tested. What’s more, the element of surprise is ours. They can not have expected an… alliance of pirates to have formed, much less that we will attack them.” She started, speaking the word alliance with a savage grin.

She was making a mistake in that regard. It was obvious to me that she was planning on killing the pirates as soon as they weren’t needed. If she were smart about it, Komand’r would take the time to cultivate loyal agents in the pirate’s crews and promote them, but there was hate in Komand’r that could only be sated with the blood of her enemies. Which was a problem considering that she considered everyone not a member of her species an enemy.

“That’s because it’s suicide,” A pirate that I couldn’t recall the name of said. “Their royal fleet is parked there -- the reason it's never been tested is because no one managed to make it to their defensive perimeter. They all died light-years out, shot to shit by their patrols. Numbers aren't going to mean a single thing." There were murmurs of agreement -- even if they didn’t agree, they were disagreeing with Komand’r.

“That is where you are mistaken,” Komand’r stated, taking control of the conversation before it could devolve into just disagreeing with whatever she said. Because they were present in hologram only, they felt like they were distant from the danger, regardless of how untrue it might be. That, in turn, made them bolder. “Numbers are meaningless in this battle. No matter how many ships we take down or how many soldiers we kill, they will simply be replaced. The only way to defeat the Citadelians Empire is to take out their centers of clone production. On their home planet.”

She crossed her arms, giving them a moment to take that in. That was good. She was setting the stakes and the target. Their goal wasn’t to defeat the entire empire, just a piece of it, and that piece would make the rest crumble. It makes the task seem that much simpler and feasible.

“Our victory condition is reaching the home planet. Once we do, nothing will stand in our way,” To prove her point, she raised a hand and showed off a black star bolt. By now, I knew her well enough to know that she wore a savage grin worthy of a saiyan. “We will use the element of surprise and blitz their home planet. We punch through their defenses, and when we arrive on their home planet, we raze it to the ground. We give them a taste of what they have inflicted upon my people.”

There were several nervous looks as the pirates realized that their lives weren’t being taken into consideration. What Komand’r was suggesting would be a slaughter. Now, how was she going to convince them to walk willingly into that slaughter?

“Uh… yeah, that still sounds like suicide to me,” Another pirate remarked, frowning deeply as he seemed to be regretting his life choices. It was a bit late for that, though.

Komand’r chuckled, “There will be deaths, yes. But provided that we reach the homeworld, then we can seize control of their clone armies. Those that survive the battle will be rewarded appropriately.”

The pirates shifted at that, all of them considering the risks and the rewards. It wasn’t a bad ploy -- they were sitting at the table because of their greed and their willingness to take to sate it -- but it would have been a lot more effective if she didn’t openly consider them enemies. And Komand’r made it no secret what she did to her enemies. So, they were weighing their chances of making it back at all.

The one that I had shot the arm off of spoke up, “What reassurances do we have that you aren’t sending us all to die?” Her tone was sharp, looking directly through Komand’r as if she could see me standing behind her. She thought that Komand’r was just a puppet and I was pulling the strings. Couldn’t blame her for that, but that wasn’t the case. If Komand’r succeeded or failed was entirely on her own merits.

If she won? Then the Vega system was hers. She would rule it in my name. If she failed? Then she would die alongside everyone else she brought down with her. But, no matter what, a foolish ankle-biter of an empire would be brought low and their cloning tech would be mine. It was just a question of whose hand it would be by -- Komand’r or mine.

…

A leader had to appear that they had all of the answers even when they were just as clueless as everyone else. They couldn't afford to panic. They couldn't afford unease. They had to appear confident at all times with every choice that they made. If they didn't, then those below then would panic. They would lose their nerve. They would doubt. But, if they saw that their leader believed in his choices, then they would follow.

Because, in the end, people were sheep. It's easier to follow an order than it is to give one.

But it was equally as important to know those that followed you. To know their limits. To know the lengths that they're willing to go, their breaking points, what motivated them, and what divided them.

"Hm. You saw through me," I admitted to Komand'r as we stood on the command deck of a ship. She was dressed up in armor -- black and white silver in a style fitting of her people.

Komand'r flashed me a smile that radiated confidence -- she liked her power. That much was obvious. "The system must be united, but that ilk will never truly submit. Even now they plot treason. If they will not serve, then they must be eliminated. But first, I wish to get as much use out of them as I can."

It was also important to know your limits as well as the limits of those that you led. There were some that simply wouldn't follow. Too much pride, too used to freedom, any one of a thousand different reasons. Though, in this case, it was because the pirates knew that one way or the other, Komand'r was going to kill them for aiding in the enslavement of her people.

And she was right to. I desired stability. While it was possible to make the pirates offer that by breaking and reforming them, that would take time. Killing them all was more time-efficient.

I turned my gaze to the fleet formation. The pirates led the way with the Tamaran fleet behind. Their numbers had multiplied by a hundred by liberating those at the pirate station. Most were unfit for combat, but their spirits were willing even if their bodies were not. The ships that were liberated at Tamaran were now filled and manned.

The pirates were a cushion to eat up the bulk of the losses. They realized it undoubtedly, but they had little choice. If they tried to flee they would certainly be killed, if not by me then the ships behind them. Fighting and surviving the battle would be their best shot of later escaping the system.

As I looked at the formation, I saw a red ping appear on the hologram. The enemy fleet. Komand'r seemed to radiate excitement and a lust for battle. For vengeance. She turned to the hologram, placing her hands on the railing, she spoke with confidence. "Our people have lived under the boot of the Citadelians for too long! Our families enslaved, our pride stolen and our will all but broken. Yet, here we stand! Proud, unbroken, and whole!"

The command deck cheered. And her position as their leader was solidified for the remainder of her life. People were sheep. Meet their needs, give them what they truly desire, and they will follow you until the end. But Komand'r wasn't done, even as the pirates began to surge forward. She slammed a fist onto the railing in a display of anger, black light surrounded by white surrounding the fist.

"They will know the wrath of the Tamaranean people! Their cities will be razed, their culture destroyed and forgotten until they only exist to be our slaves. We shall annihilate then completely and utterly!" The crowd cheered again, longing for blood in a way that only those that suffered at the hands of another could. I paid her speech little mind, instead of focusing on the battle.

In all honesty, I cared little for battles between fleets. I understood that they were necessary, I understood that they were important, and I understood their value towards victory and defeat -- I simply cared little for them. Standing on a ship that did the fighting for me was incredibly dull, no matter how visually appealing the battle might be.

Still, I paid attention to the tactics used. The pirates were clearly disused to direct confrontation and none wished to be the one that struck first. They fanned out, so it was the Citadelians that landed the first blow. Their ships surged forward, proving that we had the numeral advantage, but that meant little when the bulk of our fleet was made up of pirates fighting under the threat of death. The Citadelians fired first, destroying a ship. As it was reduced to a husk, the fight began.

The pirates unleashed everything that they had, using their loose formation to their advantage to perform evasive maneuvers. The Citadelian fleet, smaller though it hit much harder, flew forward. Energy blasts, physical explosives, missiles, and more slammed against their unyielding shields. All the while, they fired back, and when they struck, the pirate ships were reduced to scrap metal.

And that was the core reason I couldn't bring myself to care about space battles. The enemy fleet? I could destroy it with a gesture. Same for our pirate army. How was I supposed to be impressed by such a battle?

"The red reaver crew is attempting to flee-"

"Open fire on them. There is no place for cowards in the Vega system," Komand'r interrupted, her eyes narrowed into slits. Her gaze was on the screen, and the offending grouping of ships were colored red, then fired upon. A prudent move. Once one ran, others would follow.

Still, more would try, I thought as I looked at the dwindling number of pirates. They were hammering the Citadelians fleet, ships were exploding and their formation was breaking, but the pirates were paying a heavy price for it. They swarmed over the formation, overwhelming the fleet with numbers as they chipped away. And they were chipped away in turn.

But they pushed forward. With a fleet at their back, they had no choice but to fight.

"All main weapons, prepare to fire," Komand'r ordered, sensing that the climax was nearing. The pirates were winning. The enemy fleet was being destroyed one ship at a time at the cost of ten times the losses to take it. A slaughter on both sides. One that Komand'r seemed eager to finish with her own two hands. If either fleet realized what was wrong, they were too late to act on it. Within a moment, the main guns were primed. "Fire!"

Streaks of red light, a mirror of the weapons that the Citadelians used, shot out at the remaining ships. With their weakened shields, they were melted into slag, exploding spectacularly as they took out pirates surrounding them. But not all. Those were finished off with the secondary weapons, whirlwind missiles that relentlessly hunted down the remaining pirates.

Komand'r smiled at the sight. And did her people. In my time, I found that reactions to war varied -- some could never adapt to the horrors. Some celebrated them. Some valued honor and glory above their own lives while others would do whatever it took to survive. Tamaraneans seemed to relish in their vengeance. They thought nothing of firing in their allies because to them, the pirates were enemies.

"Forward, to the Citadelian’s homeworld!" Komand'r ordered, a smile in her voice as the ships sailed towards their target, ignoring the devastating battle behind. The queen of the Tamaraneans looked over at me, seeking my approval.

I gave it to her in the form of a small nod.

She needed to be ruthless. She needed to be able to destroy her enemies completely and utterly. If she couldn't do that much then there was no way I could trust the Vega System to her. It was a simple gesture but Komand'r stood a little taller.

But her attention was quickly stolen when the main prize came into view. A tan planet, a marking that it was desolate, surrounded by a massive ring. I doubt the Citadelians had been the ones to build it. The ring was gray and miles thick while being segmented into four parts. Looking at it, my memory drifted to a secret that my father had shown me when I last visited Planet Vegeta. Of a ring ship that had brought our people to Planet Plant from Sadala.

A ship that we didn't know who it belonged to. There were similarities, I noted as the ships sailed forward. The fortress ring had defenses and upon realizing that we blew past their first line, it was a scramble to get their second ready. I pushed myself off the wall just as Komand'r turned away. "Hold fast, we shall clear the way," She announced, following in step as we left the command deck.

She needed a show of personal power. My word meant a lot, I learned, but it wasn't enough to stop people from taking shots at me, much less everyone under my command. And she knew this was her shot. Self-awareness. I already knew that she had a keen sense of opportunity.

Upon flying out into space, I crossed my arms and looked down at the pitiful defenses. They were made to keep out machines and ordinary soldiers. Not people like Komand'r. Much less me.

Komand'r soared forward, gathering energy bolts in her hands and she rained them upon the ring's defenses. Explosions rang out across the section she was assaulting. I hovered and watched, confident that she had things in hand. Her starbolts might not be particularly strong, relatively, but I would give her that Komand'r was fast. She moved in a blur, even to my own eyes, forcing me to slide into a higher stage of the Wrath State to keep up. Even then, she was a blur.

It was easier to keep track of where she had been. In no time at all, she cleared the section for the ships to begin an orbital drop onto the ring. Then she cleared beyond it to prove a point -- that if she needed to, she could take on the empire all on her own, regardless of how true or untrue that message might be.

Floating forward, I sailed into an entrance made by Komand'r, and saw her hovering amongst corpses of those that hadn't survived the depressurization of the room. Her hands and eyes glowed, "It would be best to strike down their leader, no?" Komand'r said, half asking a question and half asking for permission.

Ah. This brought back memories of Lord Cooler.

"Do as you will," I answered simply, making Komand'r narrow her eyes slightly in thought. She decided it was tactfully sound because she nodded curtly before tearing a hole through a door, flying through it, and began her search for the leader of the Citadelians.

I turned my attention to the Tamaraneans that boarded the ring for a moment. They carried guns in their hands, while others favored close-range weapons. They wore minimal armor, but that was their way. With Komand'r having cleared the way for them, it was a simple task to board the ring. To dig in. They moved with urgency, and despite how far they had fallen, I saw hints of a proud warrior race.

Deciding that they had things in hand, I flew after Komand'r. Even without my ki sensing abilities, it was a simple task to find her. All I had to do was follow the destruction. Bodies filled the hallways, more than a few of them weren’t Citadelians. They didn’t even have weapons in their hands. Yet, Komand’r killed them all the same.

She butchered her way through the halls, slaughtering everything in her way. She made it a point to because there were no wounded, or those clinging on to life. Every Citadelian was dead. Some would praise her for being through, but I couldn’t. Not when I knew the slaughter was motivated by emotion rather than the desire to ease the burden of the troops.

Still, rage had its uses.

I flew through the halls, paying no mind to the bodies that fell on top of one another and the blood that covered the floor. Komand'r was a lot slower when she had to deal with things like wind resistance, but even then, she was incredibly fast. If it wasn't for the mounting defenses, or rather her indiscriminate slaughtering them, I might have never caught up to her.

I found Komand'r standing before a sizable door -- the walls pulsed with energy, blue circuitry running through them that glowed ominously. At the center was a glow blue ring that flashed red when Komand'r punched it. The sound of her fist hitting the unyielding metal reverberated through the room, as did the ferocious snarl she unleashed. To my surprise, the door didn't even look scuffed.

"Prince Tarble," Komand'r started, her eyes widening as I approached. Her attention darted to the door, as if trying to will it to vanish, but no such luck. "I-"

"You aren't the most powerful person in the universe," I started, a hand dipping to my belt to pull out a small triangle made of circuitry and metal. "Neither am I, for that matter. So, we must make do with other means of getting around our obstacles," I told her, holding the metal chip up to the glowing blue part of the door. It flashed red for a moment, but not a second later, it turned white and the doors began to move.

A glance at Komand'r told me she was suitably chastised. She offered a small bow, "I will remember your advice," She swore.

"Good. Now let's see who was behind the curtain," I said, plucking the chip from midair. A gift from Virl. A useful one too. I led the way with Komand'r falling in step behind me. Beyond the door was pitch blackness. After a handful of steps, a floodlight turned on, nearly blinding us, but I continued to stride forward, undaunted by the show.

I reached out with my ki sense and found nothing. My scouter said that this place was using an incredible amount of power, though.

"You have done well to reach this far, Prince Tarble," A loud voice rang out in every direction as more floodlights illuminated the room. "In the millennia that I have spent here, you are the first to have reached me." Then, with a grand gesture, the entire room was illuminated.

On the far wall was a computer. A large one. The screen took up much of the wall and the circuitry that covered the walls fed into the computer hardware that surrounded us. I faxed at the screen for a moment, seeing the avatar on it. A Citadelian wearing armor, sitting on a throne with their arms crossed.

And, just like that, I lost interest in this battle.

"Hm," I grunted, glancing over at Komand'r before I tossed the chip at her. She caught it and looked at it, then me curiously. "He's the enemy of your people. It's only right that you should be the one to defeat him." I told her, thinking it was true but it was mostly that blasting a computer was just too anticlimactic for me to the point that I couldn't be bothered.

"You dare?" The screen spat at me with real enough rage that I was convinced it was either a really good AI or a sentient person inside of the screen. "I am the Complex-Complex! The progenitor of the Citadelian race! You will not disrespect me, you child."

I stopped listening, but Komand'r strode forward, "You are the leader of the Citadelians?" She questioned, her tone as cold as ice.

"I am them! I am the guiding hand that has led them for thousands of years. Each clone is little more than an extension of my being," Complex-Complex gloated with the air of someone that wanted to brag for the longest time so they took the first chance they got and went all-in on it. Komand'r started walking forward, and the screen chuckled. "Yes. Everything you have suffered at the hands of the Citadelians has been by my-"

Komand'r ignored him and held the chip out to the screen. It flashed blue once and the chip began its work. A hacking chip meant to seize, copy, and download alien information. A skeleton key for everything electronic. Virl said it wouldn't work on everything, but it had yet to fail to.

"What are you doing?" The screen questioned, a note of panic in its voice. "How are you doing this? Cease! Cease at once!"

Komand'r ignored it and focused on a hologram that came from the chip. Data information, programs, and the like. She tilted her head before a slow smile appeared on her face, one filled with teeth. She pressed a finger on a file before she dragged it to the garbage can.

"St-" the voice continued before it suddenly stopped. The consciousness in the screen suddenly gone. Deleted. A fitting end for a pathetic empire with delusions of grandeur.

Komand'r set a file to her earrings and cleared her throat, "Citadelians of the fortress world, obey this command -- lay down your arms and surrender to the invading forces! Direct them to every Tamaranean slave and aid them in gaining their freedom! Your progenitor has spoken!" With that, she ended the call and pulled up security feeds.

The Citadelians looked confused, but they all hesitantly set down their weapons. The only ones that were more confused were the Tamaraneans. Still, they moved to effectively take control of the location. A smirk tugged at the edge of my lips. Victory was at hand.

Komand'r took a step back, flashing me a similar smirk over her shoulder. Turning around, she walked towards me, tucking a handful of black strands of hair behind her ear as she approached. I stood still, watching her, curious to see her reaction to victory. She surprised me by dropping to a knee in a bow.

"The Vega System is yours," Komand'r informed, looking up at me with half-lidded eyes.

The battle hadn't been that much fun, but the celebration seemed promising.

...

One part left in this mini-series. I'll have to clean it up a bit for it to be considered canon, but it will be. Hope you all enjoyed.