Chapter 107

Six people sat huddled around a table in the Plum II’s lounge: Marl, Alan, Phantom, Koume, Sakura, and Teiro. Technically, there was a seventh, but Etta was currently obsessed with the built-in dart board, relentlessly pelting a holographic bullseye with arrows.

"It’s a hard concept to swallow," Alan grunted, his arms crossed so tightly his biceps looked ready to pop. A deep furrow was etched into his brow. Teiro had just finished introducing Sakura to the gang and had moved right into his "Total War" PowerPoint presentation—minus the actual slides. "But the logic holds up. And it seems like this kind of madness has actually happened before."

"I still don't get it," Marl said, leaning her cheek on her hand while lounging across the sofa. "Every single company in a territory joining the fight? Isn't that just a fancy way of committing mass suicide?"

Teiro shrugged. "Maybe. But back on Earth, we did it twice. Big, world-spanning brawls. If I remember my history right, about fifty million people—soldiers, civilians, everyone—kicked the bucket."

He was digging through the dusty bins of his memory for these facts. He hadn’t exactly been a star student, but he hadn’t been a total slacker either. The rest of the room, however, stared at him as if he’d just confessed to eating puppies.

【FIFTY MILLION WOULD BE EQUIVALENT TO APPROXIMATELY 1% TO 2% OF EARTH'S TOTAL POPULATION, MR. TEIRO.】 Koume’s lamp flickered rhythmically from her spot on the table. 【TRANSLATING THAT TO THE SCALE OF THE GALACTIC EMPIRE, WE ARE LOOKING AT A CONFLICT WHERE ROUGHLY ONE TRILLION LIVES WERE EXTINGUISHED.】

Teiro nodded casually. "Yeah, sounds about right."

Marl clamped a hand over her mouth, her eyes wide. "I can't believe it. You mentioned some of this before, but... Teiro, is Earth okay? Like, mentally? That's not normal. How does that even happen?"

"From what I’ve dug up," Alan cut in, eyes glued to his terminal, "Total War is the ultimate 'no-backsies' scenario. Once you throw everything you own onto the table, you can’t walk away until you’ve won it all back. You’re committed to the bit until the bitter end."

Teiro leaned over to see what Alan was looking at. It was some kind of academic paper titled War History Research Report.

"I’m no strategist," Sakura said, sitting up with her back straight as a rod, "but isn't that just bad business? You should reach a settlement before the losses become catastrophic." She waved a hand at Alan, looking for some military common sense.

"You'd think, right?" Alan replied. "But peace only works if the other guy signs the paper. If he’s bet his entire civilization on winning, he’s not going to just quit—especially if he’s currently winning. If I were in that position, I’d keep swinging until my opponent couldn't even crawl, let alone rebuild. A group willing to wage Total War is too dangerous to leave alive. How did it play out on Earth?"

He looked at Teiro. Teiro rubbed his chin. "Well, I’m not exactly a general, but that's the gist of it. Like Alan said, the buy-in is so high that losing isn't just an option—it’s the end of the world. So, you just keep going. Besides, if you were the kind of people who could play nice and settle, you probably wouldn't have started a war like that in the first place."

Teiro delivered this logic with a "them's the breaks" shrug. The others exchanged glances and gave hesitant nods. It was insane, but it made a twisted kind of sense.

"Well, when you put it like that..." Marl's expression softened into something almost pitying. "By the way, was there a war going on when you were there?"

Teiro shook his head. "Nah. The last world-ender was my granddad's generation. There were still plenty of smaller scraps all over the place, but the 'Big One' never happened again. Probably a good thing. If it had, I doubt the Galactic Empire would even exist right now."

He gave them a SparkNotes version of modern history. They listened with rapt attention, but once he reached the part about the Cold War Structure, their faces collectively began to twitch.

"That's disgusting," Sakura spat, her disgust palpable. The others murmured their agreement.

"Seriously, your old world was out of its mind," Alan said, looking somewhere between horrified and amused. "Mutually Assured Destruction? I follow the math, but what kind of absolute lunatics actually put that into practice? What the hell is wrong with Earth?"

"Hey, don't look at me! It wasn't a choice; it just sort of... happened," Teiro defended. "But, hmmm. If Earth ever got the tech to easily shoot down missiles and stuff like you guys do here, it wouldn't surprise me if things got rowdy again."

If someone breaks the balance of MAD, the nukes start flying. Teiro didn't think the big nations would go at it directly because Globalism had tied their wallets together, but a massive Proxy War? That was practically a hobby for humanity.

"Right... I don't even know what to say to that," Marl said, forcing the conversation back on track. "I just hope it’s still in one piece. But let's focus. If the Enzio Alliance is actually doing this Total War thing, what’s the real problem?"

"First off," Alan answered, "Enzio’s combat strength is going to be several times higher than our worst-case scenario. The EAP only counts the official member companies of the Enzio Alliance Union. If they’ve mobilized every company in their space? I can't even wrap my head around those numbers. Koume, you got anything?"

The sphere remained silent for a beat. 【PLEASE STAND BY.】 A moment later, her lamp began to pulse. 【BASED ON DATA FROM THE OLD NEURAL NETWORK ERA, I ESTIMATE THE ENEMY’S ACTUAL STRENGTH AT THREE TO FIVE TIMES OUR CURRENT PROJECTIONS. GIVEN THE LONG PREPARATION PERIOD REPORTED BY DEFECTORS, THERE IS A NON-ZERO CHANCE IT EXCEEDS TEN TIMES.】

Sakura’s face went paper-white.

"Five to ten times!?" she shrieked, nearly falling off her seat. "Wait! That would mean they easily eclipse the entire EAP's total military assets!"

It was less of a question and more of a horrified realization. Teiro gestured for the panicked Admiral to sit back down, though his own heart was doing a frantic tap-dance in his chest. That was a lot higher than even his "glass half-empty" estimates.

"Wait, the EAP thought they’d finally gained the upper hand last month with that New Fleet Group, right?" Teiro muttered. "This is a nightmare. If we look at their Total Production Capacity... the power balance won't just shift; it’ll flip. In maybe... two to five years? Oh, we are screwed."

The EAP was the big dog in the Alpha Region Space, sure, but it wasn't a god. If the Enzio Alliance Territory had unified its entire economy for war, a five-year survival window was probably being optimistic.

"Wh-What are we supposed to do!?" Marl practically lunged at Teiro, her face inches from his. "That means we have zero chance of winning a straight fight!"

"Hey, back up! Isn't that what we're sitting here trying to figure out?" Teiro asked. Marl blinked, blushed, and sat back. "Ugh... R-Right. Good point."

"Anyway," Teiro grumbled, "thinking about it that way... that enemy fleet we just fought? That probably wasn't even their main force. It was likely just a distraction."

"Makes sense," Alan agreed grimly. "Given the low strategic value of that sector, it’s more natural to assume they were just a regional detachment. We thought we were fighting their best, and it was just a side quest for them. This is bad. We need the EAP Leadership to wake up and smell the apocalypse."

Alan crossed his arms, looking like he’d just swallowed a lemon. Sakura, however, looked even gloomier.

"That will be... difficult," she admitted. "I understand the logic because I'm sitting here listening to you, but even I'm struggling to truly believe it. There’s no precedent for this. Those stiff-necked bureaucrats won't believe a word of it."

"Excuse me!?" Marl snapped. "You're a Fleet Commander! You're a heavyweight in the EAP! This is no time for 'it might be hard'!"

Teiro opened his mouth to tell Marl to chill, but Sakura raised a hand to stop him.

"No, Marl is right. This is my job," Sakura said with a heavy sigh. "I apologize. But the fact remains: convincing them will be an uphill battle. We need something... some kind of undeniable proof. Do we have anything?"

The room went silent as everyone went into deep thought.

"The problem is that our only evidence is circumstantial and the word of a few defectors," Alan said, tapping his finger against the table. Clack. Clack. Clack. "We need more. We need a mountain of testimonies."

Teiro stared blankly at the ceiling. "Okay, but wait. How are they even doing it? How do you force every single company in a territory to obey? Even if there are a lot of people with an Anti-Imperial Will, getting everyone on board sounds impossible."

In the Empire, the company was the center of life. Forcing them all into a suicide pact seemed completely unnatural.

"Perhaps it isn't all of them?" Sakura suggested.

"No, it has to be all of them," Alan countered. "The proof is the lack of any other Defecting Corps. I don't know the 'how,' but they’ve unified their will somehow. It is strange, though. How do you even pull that off?"

Alan shrugged, completely stumped. Silence descended on the lounge again, heavy and stifling.

"Alright! I've got it!"

Teiro’s shout shattered the quiet. He stood up, all eyes tracking him.

"Let’s go see for ourselves! The fastest way to get answers is to ask the local companies directly. Plus, we might find exactly the kind of 'convincing material' the EAP brass needs to stop sitting on their hands!"

Author's Note: Lately, I’ve been slammed with work due to the year-end rush, so I haven't been able to post at my usual speed. The next chapter might be a bit late as well, so to anyone looking forward to it, I offer my deepest apologies! My bad! orz Once the New Year settles in, I should be back to my regular posting schedule.