The Lion King System.
Zhao Chen's interstellar fleet had already, without a sound or a whisper, passed through the star gate and come to this place. The various forces of the Reef Star Region did not yet know that a flood-dragon[1] had already lain in wait right there beneath the very lids of their eyes.
And at this moment, Medusa — having just led the Snake-folk to a great triumph — got in contact with Zhao Chen. The two of them appeared within a stretch of virtual-image space.
"Congratulations, Your Majesty the Queen, on the great routing of the enemy fleet!" Zhao Chen offered his congratulations the moment he came on.
"How is it you know I won?" Medusa looked at Zhao Chen in astonishment; the fighting on her side had ended less than half a day ago.
I not only know that you won — I even know the details of your whole battle exceedingly clearly.
Zhao Chen naturally couldn't say it thus; he said with a smile, "Were it not a great triumph, then you couldn't possibly appear here to see me with joy carried between your brows, now could you?"
Medusa smiled faintly. "This is, still, thanks to that batch of interstellar warships Your Excellency Zhao Chen gave us — their might was, sure enough, of no ordinary sort! It helped us Snake-folk win the victory in this battle!"
"It was but a very ordinary transaction; Your Majesty the Queen pays the money, I sell the ships." Zhao Chen shrugged.
Medusa fixed her lovely eyes upon Zhao Chen, and, striking while the iron was hot, asked, "I wonder whether Your Excellency Zhao Chen would still be willing to sell us another batch of interstellar warships…" Though this battle had been won, the Warhammer faction would, next, surely wreak a frenzied revenge. On the strength of these Owl-Dragon-lineage interstellar warships in hand alone, she still couldn't thoroughly defeat the Warhammer faction's interstellar warships — and, moreover, the other side would surely prepare all the more thoroughly for its next assault.
Zhao Chen said blandly, "Your Majesty the Queen, in this present situation — even if you were to beggar yourself entirely procuring my interstellar warships, there'd still be no thoroughly defeating the Warhammer faction's interstellar fleet. There was an element of luck in this victory. Next time won't be so simple."
Medusa was left without a word, her face taking on a shade of care and worry. She knew this fact too — but for the moment, this was the only method there was.
Medusa looked toward Zhao Chen; biting lightly at her crimson lips, she made ready to try once more. "Your Excellency Zhao Chen, I still hope you can join us, the Independent faction. So long as you're willing to help us, then when the time comes, you can divide the whole Reef Star Region in three, with us Snake-folk and the Bramble Free Trade Group!" Medusa laid out, straight off, a condition she reckoned in her own mind to be a fine one.
But what this Queen didn't know was that what Zhao Chen wanted was more.
Zhao Chen's two eyes bored into Medusa. Though what was here was but the consciousness-forms of the two of them, Medusa seemed, all the same, to feel a kind of overbearing pressure. She had rarely felt a thing of this sort; the last time had been from her mother, back when she'd been alive.
"We can cooperate — but the form of the cooperation must be by my requirements," Zhao Chen said.
Medusa felt a stir of gladness within; this showed that Zhao Chen had been swayed. Though she didn't know what sort of conditions the other party would raise, so long as there were conditions, it showed there was something for the two sides to talk over.
"Speak!"
Zhao Chen raised a hand and held up three fingers. "I have three conditions. First: after the battle is over, the ruler of the Reef Star Region cannot be three — there can be only one! And that is me!"
Medusa's lovely eyes froze; this opening condition was provocative to just this degree. She'd never imagined this man's appetite could be so vast.
"This is impossible… we Snake-folk will not submit ourselves to any force!" Medusa opposed it straight out.
Zhao Chen had not the slightest ripple of feeling on account of the other party's opposition; the other party's opposition had long been within his expectation. He went on, light and unhurried as a passing cloud. "Second: apart from the Lion King System, all the other star systems of the Reef Star Region I can hand over entire, to the administration of your Snake-folk and that Bramble Free Trade Group. I'll grant you the highest degree of self-governance; I can guarantee to you that, so long as you and your people do nothing that poses a threat to me, I will absolutely never interfere with your race. But — 70% of the net quarterly earnings of every star system in the Reef Star Region are to be handed up to me."
This condition, too, was very excessive; but because of that first condition earlier, Medusa was not overly angered.
"Third: this one bears some relation to the last. I grant you the highest degree of self-governance — but the power of diplomacy and the power of the military belong to me. To the Snake-folk and to that Bramble Free Trade Group, I can grant a certain quota of military establishment, for the upkeep of your rule; but apart from the interstellar warships you presently have, should you wish to procure new warships, that must have my consent. And, at the same time, should the Reef Star Region meet with any crisis whatsoever, I and my interstellar fleet will take charge of it."
Medusa looked at Zhao Chen through narrowed eyes. "What you want is for us to be your puppets?"
Zhao Chen spread open both hands and asked blandly, "And what's so bad about being puppets? I wonder whether Your Majesty the Queen has ever heard this saying. Better to be a dog in a time of peace than a man in a time of chaos.[2] Set against your soaring ambitions, what your people want is, in truth, something simpler — merely a life of peace and quiet, that's all. All of this I can give you. Apart from one nominal ruler appearing above your heads, there is not a single place where things would be different. Or would Your Majesty the Queen rather look on as her own people's lands are laid to ruin, as they're slaughtered, enslaved, and, in the end, left homeless and adrift!"
Medusa's gaze was complex; within, she was somewhat torn.
"Then why should I not choose Starlight, or Warhammer!" Medusa flung back at Zhao Chen.
"Do you have a choice?" Zhao Chen retorted with a light laugh. "The people of the Starlight faction and the Warhammer faction long ago threw in their lot with the two empires. And set against these people who threw in with them early — would they trouble themselves over you, this 'latecomer' now coming to submit? The treatment then is easy to imagine; indeed, even you, this Queen, might well be forced against your will to bow before the abusive tyranny of some personage or other — and your Snake-folk, too, would become a people beneath other people."
"Enough — say no more!" Medusa stopped Zhao Chen from going on. It wasn't that she thought Zhao Chen was crying wolf to frighten her — it was that these things simply were the reality. It was only that Medusa was unwilling to face it. Her breathing had gone somewhat rapid; the joy of the earlier victory was swept clean away. She stared at Zhao Chen. "Our conversation ends here. Your Excellency Zhao Chen — I'll take my leave."
"You may give my conditions some thought; whenever you've thought it through, come find me at any time." Zhao Chen watched with a smile as Medusa's figure vanished from before his eyes.
At last, Zhao Chen opened his eyes in the captain's chair of his own command ship.
"Ah, Your Majesty the Queen — I hope you can make the wise choice; otherwise, when the time comes, I may have to bring a cruel hand down upon the flower." As he said this, a System-mission screen surfaced before Zhao Chen's eyes.
The Reef Star Region Campaign, 2/3.
Please choose: to cleanse the internal members of the Independent faction yourself and rule the Reef Star Region, or to prop up the Snake-folk as a proxy to rule the Reef Star Region.
This was an option that had popped up before Zhao Chen's conference with Medusa. Though ruling the Reef Star Region directly sounded very gratifying to the ear, it was very troublesome; Zhao Chen's side would need to cultivate an enormous number of administrative personnel, and to digest the whole of the Reef Star Region would, as well, take a very long time. Rather than tax his spirit and strength in such a way, better to prop up a "proxy" directly. And the most fitting candidate for this "proxy" was, of course, this Medusa.
Zhao Chen had great confidence that this Medusa would, in the end, submit herself to him after all.
For reality was cruel. And the situation of the Reef Star Region at present was, likewise, cruel! This Queen, if she wished to break the deadlock, had no other choice.
Zhao Chen was her one and only life-saving straw.