Post

Of New Governments and Battle Plans
Asaka-i-Mu, West Casanese space

Following the capture of Tedjiko, the now-Fleet Admiral Shi had been granted control of the entire Houtou theatre, admittedly the quietest theatre of the war. However, the admiral had plans.

"Houtou... The bulwark of tradition in the East. With only a small amount of convincing, they ought to join our cause with vigour. But with Shashai... It's not my place to say, and she's still my friend, I've known her since my academy days. But, her recent actions may throw a wrench in any attempts at that."

"Indeed." came a response from a hologram, sitting across from her as Admiral Shi took a drink of her blood tea, a Houtou delicacy. "Our dear new Supreme Leader's caused a PR catastrophe. With all these purges and putting her acquaintances with no qualifications, present company of course excluded, in such high-ranking positions... Well, I find myself somehow nostalgic for Saze. She'd at least have kept her purges to the shadows, the insuffrable hag."

"I don't think anyone wants Saze back, Admiral Aemusa. But... I'm not convinced Shashai should be in charge, either. And these recent attacks... We suffered a complete route in Sazeshi, and horrendous losses... And to an elf commodore from our own Ugenoma, to boot! We're still bogged down in a grind in On'an, and in Seiren, we barely made a dent. And, in Tedjiko, if I hadn't improvised and thrown the plan out, we'd still be sitting there and twiddling our thumbs, taking constant attrition. I had hopes that, maybe, she'd be more interested in unification, rather than not only continuing, but expanding, the racist policies of the theocrats... We can't win a war with only a third of our population, regardless of how much we mobilise it... Especially not after losing Chaimu!"

"Your 'improvisation' is the only thing keeping Shashai in power. Everyone thinks you're in her back pocket, you know."

"I'm loyal to my country and its people, and I believe in our message, of worker revolution. But that doesn't mean I support everything it's doing. Shashai's my friend, but... She's changed. Maybe she was even like this all along. But it's making our task impossible, and she seems to be the one in someone's back pocket... Xijiun's back pocket, at that! This entire war reeks of their involvement. We need to pay them back for destroying our capital, but the war serves my purposes fine... The Casanese people need to be reunified against this threat, and the last vestiges pseudo-feudalistic pro-Dacician nonsense from Yanko's years need to end."

"Couldn't have said it better myself. You've got my support. Say the word, and we'll glass the new capital off the face of the galaxy, capture Shashai, and put you in charge. Build a new capital atop the rubble, with more pillars, arches, gardens, parks, and fountains."

"No. The last thing we need right now is a massive civil war while being routed on every front. We need to win before we can even consider a coup."

"You fear civil war, but with these new castes, we may have one anyway... People're getting understandibly antsy about being uprooted from their homes and forcefully relocated to labour camps."

"The downtrodden and enslaved are our allies in our cause against Shashai. They'll back us, when it comes to it. We just need to keep them in line until then. Their suffering will be short, hopefully, but it will be great, and at the end of it all, when they are liberated, they'll never allow the likes to happen again. I'm no accelerationist, but great suffering definitely has a way of driving lessons home. The nightmare is coming to an end, but only once this war does. And then we'll retake the colonies, too, and kick that conniving, plotting, backstabbing wh*re of a wannabe empress and her foreign puppetmasters out. It is well past time the Deuyu took their place solely in the history books, and Casanese politics were dictated by our own desires, rather than the necessities of defence or the whims of a larger country or elite family of queens and their unchecked-in-power governor stooges. The Deuyu have ruined us, and caused all this conflict, and we'll make sure they are ruined in kind."

"Quite the speech. Let's get to the war business, then. We've got a province to liberate, and hearts and minds to win."

Cutting the transmission, Shi lets out a long sigh, "Nunki, why are you doing this...? What happened to all the academy talk, of freedom and equality? I'm the only one left who can stop you, aren't I?" She pushes these thoughts to the corner of her mind, and addresses her battle map. With the failure in Seiren, the best bet would be to draw Teyai out and manoeuvre around her, and attack her supply lines. Cut her off, and force a surrender, hopefully without even a fight. Shi knew Teyai to be a reasonable, if talented and slightly mad, leader, so she held out hopes that she might even get an ally out of it.

And so, the solution was obvious. Pull forces out of Yanda, leaving some hidden within the asteroid belt, with the impression of moving to reinforce a renewed offencive against Sazeshi, while secretly dispatching forces into Houtou to cut off the retreat before they even know what's happening while the asteroid force acts as a diversion. The offensive force would have to attack through one system; Reimu.

With the bait in place, Teyai's fleet starts to move into Yanda, the prospect of taking the fight out of Eastern space clearly too juicy to pass up. And Shi moves around. However, her plans would not go quite as she had hoped, with the East having a surprise of their own in the waiting as two great heroes clash for the first time.