The Last Fleet: A Military Sci-Fi Series by Joshua T. Calvert

Author:Joshua T. Calvert [Calvert, Joshua T.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2023-10-14T16:00:00+00:00

13

"I've been to Kerrhain twice," explained Bambam, who was on the bridge with Gavin, Marshall, and Dodger, sitting in their chairs. They were all rotated one hundred and eighty degrees, facing the center where their feet almost touched under the holographic representation of the Kerrhain system. Its central star, KH-1, hovered in the center, followed by two ultra-hot rocky planets, the terra-compatible world Kerrhain, which looked similar to Andal or Earth on the hologram, the inner asteroid belt, and the two gas giants Gleuse and Hain, which formed the outer system at a clear distance. This was followed by yet another asteroid belt, a flat ring of rocky chunks of various sizes that were regularly thrust into the system's interior by collisions. The exchange with objects from the local Oort Cloud provided an unusually high orbital activity of extraterrestrial celestial bodies, so that Kerrhain had become known throughout the Star Empire for its constant threat of asteroid impacts. Gavin recalled that there had been a period during his teenage years when the film factories of New Stone and New California had released one disaster movie after another about Kerrhain. In alternating variations, it was about how the planetary defense network had been hacked and therefore an object got through. In another, Republican rebels infiltrated one of the control centers, bribed high-ranking officers, or just blew something up. That's how Kerrhain had become famous, although it was actually a fairly insignificant system. The local house was one that had risen late to high nobility, and High Lady Kerrhain was equally considered undiplomatic and poorly connected in the Council of Nobility. Since the most resource-rich asteroids had already been plundered by the Luna Mining Corporation during the turmoil of the Secession Wars in the 2300s, there was also little economic power - and thus little weight - in the Saturn Parliament.

In the Council of Nobility, the wildest rumors about the system and sources of money of House Kerrhain and its status as part of the imperial high nobility had been going on for a very long time. Those who lost money usually lost influence, so the local house could not lack it. The wilder theories even went so far as to suggest that the High Lady might be a courtesan of the Emperor, who had been widowed for ten years. Gavin had never listened to such nonsense, and had found more plausible explanations based on a tolerated black market for Assai weed, through which bribes were collected. It grew nowhere else in human territory - despite numerous attempts by pretty much every criminal organization - within the Star Empire. At the same time, nowhere was it consumed as much as in human territory - outside Kerrhain. So all that was left was the export of the outlawed drug by shady elements. Every year, the High Lady was reprimanded again in the Council of Nobility, and yet, thanks to the Emperor's protective hand, she was not punished for the rampant criminality within her Governorship.

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