Prophets' Fall

Tick... tock... tick... tock...

"Last five minutes, commander."

"I know, prof."

"What do we do?"

"I don't know. Nothing we can send down to Makemake, except for railgun projectiles maybe, will make it there in time."

"That's a given."

I got up from my seat, and started walking around.

"Do you have any ideas of your own?" I asked. "This is the last five minutes, anything is okay right now."

"I wish I had, but... no." he said, and got up. "Does this mean that we will give in? Or... will we simply do nothing?"

"I don't know." I said. "I didn't think we could get cornered this way... I guess we will just do nothing."

"In that case..." said the professor. "Commander, I want you to know that you didn't do any wrong choices. Sometimes, it is possible to make no mistakes and still lose."

"I did make a mistake." I said. "I shouldn't have sent her on a badly planned secret mission."

"You knew she was a capable soldier." the professor said. "You evaluated the situation, and made a clear decision. Things just went wrong. Things go wrong all the time."

I couldn't see it from the professor's point of view. I had made mistakes, and he was just trying to comfort me.

"Last sixty seconds." said the professor, but then, he suddenly got excited. "Sir! It's the admiral. She wants to talk to you."

"The headset, quick!"

I got the headset and the comms channel was open.

"Commander?"

"Admiral, I'm listening."

"Kagan?" her voice was cracking.

"Mei?"

"It's been good knowing you, and the time we spent together-"

"Mei, what are you saying!?"

"I-I-I don't have much time. I just wanted to say that you've made the right decision. And... farewell."

"Mei!"

A hysterical laughter followed my helpless cries.

"Just kidding." said the admiral. "Commander, mission accomplished. The Council is no more."

I went silent, but a smile formed on my face.

"I'm going to kill you." I said. "I think I deserve an explanation here, this couldn't have been a stupid joke!"

"It wasn't." said Mei. "I really was caught during the attempt, so I had to try something. I convinced them that if they didn't arrest or kill me right away, they could use me to make a deal with you. Little did they know, they were already poisoned..."

"So, you mean-"

"If your stupid substance didn't take that long, this wouldn't have happened!" the admiral said angrily. "Anyway, the mission is successful. I have the two marines with me here, in the room. You better get some reinforcements down here before someone notices that their bloody government prophets are missing."

"You got it." I said. "Stay safe."

The professor and I got a deep, relaxing breath.

"I'm sending some marines down there to secure the area." I said.

"Wait a moment." said the professor. "Now that The Council is gone, we are the rulers of Makemake... are we not?"

"We are." I said. "It will take some effort to get things sorted out with the public. The hard part is over, but the harder part is jut about to begin..."

Taking some marine forces with me, I took a shuttle down to Makemake's surface, for the first time in a long while. After spending most of my recent years in a cramped up metal can; stepping on a real planet - even though it was a tiny dwarf planet - felt so good.

I went to The Core Council room. Mei and her marines were waiting for us there.

"Admiral, good work on this hard mission. I could promote you if there was something above the rank of full admiral, but I guess only the marines will get to have a promotion now."

Not knowing how to respond, the marines just saluted.

"Secure the whole government area." I said. "Disarm The Council's guards and remove them from their duties."

"Yes, sir!" said the marines, and got out of the council room.

"Well, admiral; your next task is to prepare a short speech."

"A speech?" asked Mei. "What for?"

"I will take the main bulk of the governmental transition, but if people of Makemake want to hear something from their military commanders as well, you will have to be prepared. They will have to see the Republic Navy as their guardian angels, not some heavily armed rogue maniacs." I explained.

"It would be a much easier task if you asked me to fly a cruiser through a toilet paper roll." Mei said. "My job is to fly ships-"

"It is not." I said. "You are overqualified for a navigator. You tend to forget that you are the highest ranking commander of the Republic Navy... Act like it!"

"I'm not a politician, I'm a military commander." she argued.

"No one expects anything political, Mei; politics died right when Terran and Martian populations left their homeland." I said. "People just need to trust us, and have hope. As far as I'm concerned, you could just tell them your own story of being a navy officer up until now, and that could create enough sympathy to keep the military factories running. Remind them how we survived so far, and what we are up against!"

Mei thought in silence for a minute.

"Alright, you convinced me. I will prepare something good." she said.

"Thank you, admiral. I really appreciate it."

"Mr. President, one more thing..." Mei said. "Now that the entirety of the known human refugees are united, I suspect that they will want an election to choose the president. And then, politics will become relevant again."

"I know." I said. "The question is whether we will be able to postpone it until the colony ship is finished."

"You don't think that you can win the election?" Mei asked.

"I do think that I will win." I said. "I just think that we, the whole human civilization, should keep our focus on the colony ship for now. Despite how peaceful Makemake looks right now, there is a fierce war going on."

"Well, it will be your job to remind people about that, then." said Mei. "I will be taking a lift to the flagship. Are you coming?"

"I am."