Koban 6: Conflict and Empire Read Online Free Page A

Emperor Farlol’s trunks in his own crap when we scare the hell out of him, or perhaps kill his royal imperial ass.”
    Thad sighed, again. “You just won’t let it go will you? Both Tet and President MacDougal told us no. Twice for you. Even if you don’t think good old Stewart knows a rifle from his penis, you damn well know Tet understands the military aspects of our raid. He appears to have a grasp of Thandol psychology, and thinks a direct attack against the Emperor, on his capital planet, would trigger a massive and recklessly rash response by them. That would be a major attack, and one we can’t stop. Right now, they don't know how thinly we’re spread. Tet wants to make them cautious, not ragingly reckless.”
    Sarge voiced one final bitch, in a tone indicating his acceptance of inevitable defeat of his personal preferences. “Attacking a damned repair base, or any base deep in Empire space, will also piss them off. If they’re gonna hit us back, and nobody doubts that, scaring the boss elephant might make him hesitate.”
    “It wouldn’t damage their ability to strike back, even if Farlol the umpty umpth were killed. The Ragnar would simply be given more material support, and turned lose, with instructions to show no mercy, to accept no surrender of human colonies. They didn’t appear ready to kill everyone on Zanzibar 2, at least not until we started kicking their asses in space. According to the two low ranking apes we captured, they were stationed on a Smasher that carried a close cousin of the Emperor, who was only there to observe the action. The near disaster for that observer’s ship must have embarrassed the Ragnar commander of that fleet.
    “He’d been placed in charge of conquering the Federation for the Empire, and losing that imperial observer could have been disastrous for him. The two ape grunts think that if the cousin of the emperor had died, this Force Commander Gimtal Thond would have been executed, and the Ragnar replaced for the task of trying to take us over.”
    “Humph. Then I don’t suppose he’s very favorably disposed to us then, is he? This ship repair planet, Meglor. Isn’t that where the two captives expected Thond to send the damaged ships of his fleet?”
    Thad detected the first signs of interest from Reynolds, now that he couldn’t talk anyone into his own plan of action. He knew his friend well, and the best way to spark his interest in their mission, was to ridicule his knowledge of the subject. “I thought you had your complaining mouth open too wide to hear the briefing. What the hell do you know about Meglor, except its name?”
    “Aside from a Crusher being parked in orbit there, and Thond’s Zanzibar fleet in for repairs, it’s where Stranglers are made out of damaged Smashers, or from that ship class, when they’re slated for refurbishing. They cut off one pointy corner, install a Debilitater at the bottom, and add better ground attack defenses.”
    Thad was pleased he’d provoked his interest, but was surprised as well. “That last information wasn’t in the briefing I heard Tet give. How do you know about the Stranglers?”
    “Because, Colonel , a mere sergeant like me knows to read the mission particulars that are sent to his Comtap, and not just listen to the big wigs chatter. You only picked up the overall strategy with your big floppy looking ears. I read all the dirty details, which often tell you how to survive when the strategy fails, and the fit hits the shan .”
    “O-Kay, detail man. What mission use do you find in the knowledge that Stranglers are made at Meglor? How does that help us determine how effective Decoherence bomb delivery is with dense gasses inside our three test ships?”
    “It doesn’t help a damn bit.” He held up a hand to hold off a reply.
    Then he picked a quote out of his wolfbat memory matrix.
    “But, Tet also said this about the test clanships we’re taking along, ‘those clanships don’t have to return