Forging Alliances Snippet 2

 

Chapter 2

 

Tortuga, Omicron Sector

 

The Xeno Wraith Queen checked the status of her domain and felt a mixture of what organics might think of as emotional states.

She was cautiously pleased with the progress. They had finally made progress in her flagship to the point that she had moved into it and expanded. It was now her body, though she lacked the understanding to control every aspect of it on her own. She disliked that she was still reliant on robots and organics for crew. She did not like being reliant on anything or anyone.

The flagship was the basis for her growing fleet. Additional ships of the same class were under construction; however they would of course be of lesser quality. They could never be in a position to threaten her existence. She had 20 under various stages of construction. Five others had been completed. They had an organic crew and a very simplified version of herself within the computer core.

She disliked that, and she disliked the issues with production. She also desired a larger ship eventually. Her changeling was directing Necron engineers to design a new larger and better warship. That would take time.

Until then she had to make do with her flagship and the copies of the Necron cruisers that were being produced from her manufacturing facilities. Those she had in quantity now that the bugs in the production had been cleaned out. She had 12 squadrons completed and another dozen squadrons under various stages of construction. She was aiming for thousands. She wanted enough ships to blot out a local sun and send any opposition fleeing in terror from her very presence.

<<(O)>>

Necron Admiral Chester pondered his existence once more ever so briefly. He had been created by the Wraith Queen as a copy of another Necron admiral when that Necron had passed through the star system. He had most of the memories of that alpha but he was aware that he had been reprogrammed for absolute loyalty to the queen.

He was also aware that the queen was not happy with the alliance and had a serious problem with her strategy. The Queen was focusing on capital ships and disdained planets and organic support. She was centered around the capital system. However that was allowing the Necrons to snap up the other pirate bases as well as all of the resources in the sector and the neighboring one. That was a problem.

The resources in the capital were finite. Already they were running into production issues.

Finding a way to broach it to the queen in such a way that she would listen was an ongoing issue. She wasn’t willing to listen or change. She clearly had trust issues. Only the female changeling clones could get her to delegate.

Perhaps he was approaching the problem in the wrong way? After all the queen was linked to the changeling. He needed a friend in court. The clones were the kingmakers, propping the queen up, evening out her tantrums and being the voice of reason.

How odd that was, he thought. He had absorbed some of Machiavelli and other great works. There were ways that politicians had used sadists and strongmen to further their own agenda. The carrot and the stick, good cop bad cop. The strongman made the leader seem benevolent and reasonable while also strong. No one wanted to harm the leader for fear of the strongman taking over and going on a rampage leading to ruin.

This was the reverse, more like Stalin in some ways, he mused. Hitler, Stalin… other megalomaniacs who did not work or share well with others. Yes, he needed to show his value to her and to the changeling and find ways to build trust. Otherwise everything would be for naught. That was not an acceptable outcome.

<<(O)>>

Hazel Irons checked on her clones and the Necrons. She made the rounds each day, making certain that everything was running smoothly.

There were dozens of clones of herself running around, it was a bit odd seeing so many faces that looked like her. She tried to not think about it. Between the group of clones they considered her the alpha or prime since she had the closest link to the Wraith Queen.

Her partner was impatient and needed constant management and stroking to keep her focused. She did not like the alliance with the Necrons. At this point in time there was no way to break it off, they were too intertwined. Besides, the Necrons were growing at an exponential rate. That was a concern that had yet to be addressed.

A big problem with the expansion was her queen’s need for control. She didn’t trust organics, and she trusted copies of herself even less. It was something that they were working on, Hazel thought with a brief shake of her head.

<<(O)>>