Chapter 6:
A Last Stand
NATURALLY, I HAD my own personal quarters on the Argos. And, although even superdreadnoughts like this were normally designed to make the most efficient use of their limited space, those quarters were pointlessly spacious and opulent. After all, the Argos was my ship. It had been built with my money, so my demands had been accounted for in its construction.
An image of Kukuri was projected onto one wall of my quarters as he communicated with me from the Capital Planet. As I listened to his report, I felt my face twitch. “The Seventh Weapons Factory is creating a successor to the Avid using my rare metals…?”
The intelligence Kukuri had managed to obtain on the Capital Planet indicated that the Seventh Weapons Factory had betrayed me.
“The crown prince’s faction requisitioned those rare metals, and they’re monitoring the factory staff and their relatives. The Seventh couldn’t have contacted you even if they’d wanted to, Master Liam.”
“Guess I can’t write them off as traitors, then.”
I supposed that they’d had no choice but to do what they did, under the circumstances. Regardless of those circumstances, however, my rare metals had been stolen.
“Master Liam, what are your orders?”
Although Kukuri was asking me for direction, I didn’t have time right now to go save Nias and the others from Calvin’s knights and soldiers. “Is there any chance that Nias and everyone else will be killed to silence them…?”
“I doubt that. The weapons factories are under Imperial control, after all. If the crown prince’s forces are too ruthless, it won’t reflect well on him.”
If Calvin barged into an Imperially owned weapons factory, forced its staff to do a job for him, and then killed them all afterward, his reputation would be shot. He’d even run the risk of other weapons factories turning on him. The nobility wouldn’t think highly of such brutish methods either. Everyone would worry that they’d be next if they happened to have something Calvin might want, which would lead fewer and fewer people to support his bid for the throne. This whole business with the Seventh Weapons Factory was a bad move.
“Leave them be, then. We don’t have time to go save them.”
“What about just helping the young lady—Nias? We would be more than capable of rescuing one person.”
“No. In fact, I want her to work on this successor craft.”
“Are you sure, sir?”
“Calvin must really be panicking. He’s acting stupid.”
Taking over the Seventh Weapons Factory to make them produce a successor to the Avid… What was the point of that? I couldn’t imagine that action alone would turn the tide for Calvin. Buying a new fleet of ships would have served him better than going to all this time and effort over a single machine.
“If they do create this successor to the Avid, then I’ll help myself to it as part of the spoils of war when I win. I was just thinking that I want a new mobile knight for Ellen or my sister apprentices to use.”
At present, those sister apprentices were completely enamored with Yasuyuki, our master Yasushi’s son. I had invited them to come fight in the war with me, but they’d turned me down, saying they would rather remain behind to play with Yasuyuki.
Still, I wanted to take them into battle with me one day. They needed to gain combat experience as Way of the Flash practitioners, after all. But I couldn’t give them any old mobile knight to do so. I had thought about having a mass-produced version of the Avid developed, but Amagi shut that down as a waste of funds, so I’d been at a loss on the matter. If Calvin was going to the trouble of developing a successor to the Avid for me, then seizing it in battle was a good plan.
“As long as it doesn’t look like anyone’s going to be hurt, you can ignore them. If the Seventh’s in trouble, though, then go ahead and save Nias and the rest of them.”
“Yes, sir,” Kukuri said, then added, “I’d like to inform you of one more thing, Master Liam.”
“What’s that?”