Dome of Souls (Book 2 of 2, after Story Less Told)

Ch15: Breakfast with Charlie

"I feel terrible for anyone under his command." he sighed.

"Oh yea, they'll have a shitty time. Fortunately it was a short mission and he screwed it up just enough on record to explain why he won't be running more missions, and his mistakes did a good job distracting from the actual mission."

"Dad, I resigned from the council." he admitted.

"Why?" he asked.

"I hate politics and I hate lying to Christophe. I'm no good at persuading anyone of anything, let alone those corrupt hive-puppets. I just want to build things, raise my girls right, in a nice peaceful house and if possible, not make any more family enemies."

"I respect the honesty, probably why you're a great father and a terrible politician." Greg toasted, enjoying a steak.

"Yea, I agree. So what's the endgame here, dad?"

"It's complicated, messy, violent, and involves a lot of really mad citizens."

"So like your usual Friday nights but with politicians?" he joked.

"Basically. Oh, I recently acquired a ship." he smirked.

"I'm guessing you didn't inform the council and it has something to do with your imminent escape?"

"No need to run when you have a fully armed Shiva." he smiled.

"Holy shit, dad! Please be joking." he gasped.

"Well, it's got some aftermarket mods and I cut a lot of corners on the life support, so it's a clunker."

"I thought you were building a moon base somewhere to escape to with all the printing parts I smuggled you. You built a damn functional and armed Shiva? How the hell did you get the blueprints or the specs for the weapons...no I don't wanna know. You have connections that scare the hell out of me, dad. What in the hell are you doing with a fully armed war-planet?"

"Well this plan I have to overthrow the council may be a bit less slowly political than I implied and a bit more...straight-up military assault and dominate." Greg yawned.

"Holy shit, why did I think you were going to do this patiently and without violence? Why did I think you would do anything clean and legal?" he said pacing nervously.

"Relax. I don't plan to just kill them all and proclaim myself king. Two kills strikes, and then a few heavy warning shots to get their attention. Everyone else is just gonna be filtered for loyalty and stuffed in a damn prison moon like they did to me."

"You aren't gonna imprison Christophe, right?" he asked.

"Just because he did that to me first? Petty revenge? I'll just strip him of clearance and rank and bug the surrogates with locators so he can't plan a counter-revolution. I only plan to lock up his host body and frankly nobody even notices or cares where they are stored, all they do is float in cryo."

"Can't you just escape somewhere?" he asked.

"And leave my species and family behind, run like a bitch and hide? I'd rather be in exile. I built this empire, I built it for my family first and my species second and I intend to have it back. If this empire is so weak and corrupted that one old wardog can topple it, then it deserves to die and something stronger must take its place. If one of our own can conquer it, then an enemy can too. I'd rather the empire be overthrown by one of ours than some foreign enemy we never saw coming."