Chapter 45

Year 4, Day 199, HIMS Lacerate, High Orbit, Earth 29 Universe

Alexander blinked and a small readout showing the current time in Washington D.C appeared in his vision. Ever since the mental upgrades he'd noticed that controlling the different aspects of LVIOS had gotten easier, much easier. Before he struggled to master mentally turning on and off the stealth field, and that was a simple binary command, now all it took for a thought and a some form of body movement and he could call up things that once took going through many menus to do. Oh he could try macros with just a twitch of his fingers, but this, this was something different. On a whim he mentally targeted the hotel were the President had set up shop after the Kromaggs retreated, the White House and pentagon having been bombed from orbit during the invasion.

His eyes widened as the target came up without issue. Suddenly so many ideas that he had discarded as too time consuming were possible. His teleportation defence for example, useful, but clunky in the extreme would be much more powerful if a simple thought could trigger it. He made a mental note to practice with it when he wasn't suffering the effects of too much exposure the quantum interface, not that he even understood what that was.

Oh he was feeling better, but he knew he wasn't up to his normal self, even transiting the crew of the Lacerate (he needed a better name for it!) had given him a slight headache, but he didn't want to risk putting himself out of commission incase the Kromaggs came back. He didn't think it was likely, not in the short term at least, unfortunately the Kromaggs weren't stupid, they'd built a pan-dimensional empire after all; they'd likely cut their losses and focus on dealing with the threat the new player in the game represented.

"What's with your stupid grin?" Mark Clayworth asked startling Alexander out of his thoughts as he wandered into Alexander's ready room.

"Oh just thinking about where I put the Imperial crew" Alexander said with a shrug.

"Oh? I thought you were just going to dump them on Tasmania" Mark said, "I'm honestly impressed, it's a good spot, close to Endeavour, but not too close, and it's an island so it's not like we have to worry about them running."

Alexander grinned, "Yeah, all true, but it's not the reason I put them there"

Mark scowled, "Then why?"

Alexander shook his head, "You need to be an Australian to get it, and I don't have time to explain. Toodles." He said with a little wave before triggering a transit.

***

An hour later Alexander was comfortably ensconced in a high backed leather chair. The conference room was richly appointed, as benefiting one of the American capital's most expensive hotels. The room wasn't as crowded as Alexander expected, only a half dozen aids and a few technical people monitoring the teleconference hookup. Over a dozen major nations were represented, but only two were actually in the room, President Row of the United States and Alexander himself.

"We need to strike back!" The new Russian President, his predecessor not having escaped the Kromagg invasion, screamed from a wall mounted screen. "We need to teach the apes a lesson!"

There were a series of nods from the other world leaders, even President Row, who Alexander had thought was smarter than that.

"Well if you've got a spare Tsar bomba laying around I can play delivery boy." Alexander said sipping at the tea that had been provided earlier. "But you need to consider something, they didn't pull out because they couldn't win, they pulled out because it was getting too expensive. Attacking them could be... problematic."

"Lord Harlow, could you please explain what you mean." The British Prime Minister, John Abbott, asked after a few seconds.

Alexander sat his cup down on the table, and laid his palms flat, "What I mean is, and I'm sure your own military advisors have told you as much, the Kromaggs could have won at any point, even after the Lacerate showed up and blow away their orbital supremacy"

President Row held up her hand, silencing the objections that were brewing from some of the other leaders, "He's right, that's what my people have told me"

Alexander nodded, "In the end it came down to cost, the Kromaggs are in the empire business for the long term, they've taken dozens of worlds, and colonised even more. So we bloodied their nose a bit, so what, they could literally drown this world in bodies, tens of millions of soldiers, hundreds of thousands of attack craft. So why didn't they?"

The Chinese Premier nodded, "It wasn't cost effective" he said simply.

Alexander nodded, "but if we strike back..."

"Then it becomes more economic to destroy us" Row said with finality.

Alexander hid a sigh of relief seeing them move off the topic. The last thing he wanted was them pushing him to bomb Kromagg worlds, it would escalate things beyond his ability to manage. He made a mental note to thank Arkady for the advice to frame his reasoning in economic terms, that was something politicians understood. Not that he didn't want to hurt the Kromaggs, oh he wanted to hurt them, he wanted to hurt them bad, but, that had to wait until E29 could defend itself.

"You make a compelling point Mr. Harlow," The Russian President said, pointedly refusing to use Alexander's self appointed title, "However, that leaves us with the problem of them returning."

"I doubt they'll attack again, not anytime soon at least, not with the Lacerate hanging over your world ready to hit anything that comes near."

"What about their own spacecraft? You had the element of surprise when you faced them the last time." The Russian asked.

"Pfft" Alexander scoffed, "Tin-cans with guns. The Lacerate could take a dozen of them with it's shields off. Their advantage came from being in orbit, not any technological marvel. The Kromagg ship wasn't much more advanced than a Space Shuttle, it was only their sliding technology that gave them the ability to build something that big in orbit."

"Speaking of the Lacerate," President Row said, changing the topic, "are you willing to trade the technology needed to create such vessels?"

Alexander grinned, "Nope." He held up his hands at the thunderous expressions coming at him from all angles, "I am however willing to give you the technology, and a shipyard that's ready to start building them."

Alexander wondered if it was healthy how much he enjoyed tweaking world leaders.

"That's... very generous of you" John Abbott said.

Alexander shrugged, "not really, I always intended to give you the ships I had under construction in this universe, bringing the Lacerate in was a desperate measure"

"You have starships under construction here?" Row asked incredulously.

"Well not here" Alexander said with a grin, "They are about thirty light years..." He paused a moment, and pointed in a random direction, "thataway"

"Perhaps it would be better if you explained" Row said sternly.

"Well, it's pretty simple, when I found out the Kromaggs were fielding spaceships I realised that we'd need our own to handle them, so I started building a bunch on an uninhabited garden world relatively close to Earth" Alexander said.

"Thirty light years is close?" The Russian President asked skeptically.

"With hyperdrives, you betcha" Alexander said.

"And they are like the Lacerate?" Row asked.

Alexander shook his head, "The Lacerate, which you are not getting by the way, I went to way too much trouble to steal her. No, the Lacerate, is a light cruiser, what I've got under construction are frigates. With more manpower, the shipyard could be easily scaled up, allowing you to build ships like the Lacerate in time."

"And you are just giving it to us?" Abbott asked again, not really believing his luck.

"Well, there are a few conditions" Alexander said with a grin before sobering. "Number one, you agree to some form of shared command over all space assets, I'm not giving you turbolasers if you're going to be shooting each other with them, and no I don't expect you to put them under UN control or anything stupid like that."

"Number two, you agree to aid me against the Kromaggs until such time as we mutually agree they are no longer a threat" Alexander paused a moment, before shrugging, "yeah that'll do it."

"That's it?" Row asked stunned.

"Yeah... oh wait" Alexander said, turning to look at the British PM, "is the Queen still alive? Elizabeth the second?"

John Abbott looked puzzled, "Yes, she and the royal family were evacuated just prior to the apes hitting London"

"Good." Alexander said, "I want a knighthood, a real one"

***

Half an hour later Alexander was sitting in a hotel suite with President Row, alone except for a pair of Secret Service agents, sharing a glass of wine.

"Why the knighthood?" Row asked when she couldn't resist anymore.

"I always wanted to meet the Queen" Alexander said with a shrug. That wasn't his only reason, he also wanted to keep them underestimating him, and a little part of him admitted he did it just to fuck with people.

"I'm honestly surprised you were so willing to give away your technological edge" Row said after a moment, clearing ignoring Alexander's inane statement.

Alexander took a sip of his wine, ordering his thoughts, "I don't see why. The way I see it giving the shipyard to you is a win-win for me. I get rid of a headache, keeping my limited forces tied down defending your world, and I get a strong ally that has reason to hate the Kromaggs"

Row sighed, "You're unfortunately correct about that. Now that the media has recovered somewhat there are calls from even the most unlikely corners demanding retribution. CNN ran a poll suggesting ninety percent approval for the use of nuclearweapons, and you don't what to know what Fox is demanding"

Alexander winced, "You need to keep a lid on that. I was serious when I said if you strike back now you'll just make things worse for you. They only pulled out because it was costing them more than they bargained for, not because they couldn't win. If they think you're going to start nuking their worlds they'll write off ever taking this place and just start portaling in their own sunshine in a can."

"I'm aware of the logic, but I can't say that part of me doesn't want to strike back" Row said with a sigh.

Alexander leaned forward and touched her on the hand, "Just give it time, play the long game, rebuild, rearm, and then when your world is secure hit the bastards so hard they'll never be a threat again"