Chương 12: Chapter 12: Count Lamb
"Make no mistake, citizen. You have freedom. You have the freedom to choose between saying and doing what is legal, what we say you can do, and being tried and punished. Before you say a word, know that insulting an Imperial Inspector is a felony. Now, make your choice, citizen."
- Imperial Inspector Larry of System Crimson Rose.
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As Alexander was being transported to the most secure prison on the planet of Valorian, a bloody purge was going on in the entire solar system of Obsidian.
When news of Count Gerard Wolf's supposed treason first broke out, the 250 billion people who resided across 20 main planets and countless minor ones in the solar system couldn't believe it. Treason? Republic spy? What type of Republic spy would beat back Republic invasions four times, wiping out numerous Republic forces in the process? If all the Republic spies were like Count Wolf, then the Dorn Republic would have been obliterated long ago!
Yet the 'evidence' was there, and a lot of supposed eyewitnesses went on the media network and told their stories, and the system listened. From CSF Commander Perkins to Vice-Commander Lamb of Battlefleet Obsidian to the man's own butler, countless people close to Count Wolf took the stage and repeated the same story. Even Duke Wells and Countess Valentine chipped in to add some weight to the narrative.
Repeat a lie a thousand times, and that lie becomes the truth. Repeat it a million times, and it becomes history.
The official story was that Wolf had been working with the Republic, no matter how idiotic it sounded. That he had been plotting to overthrow the rule of not just Duke Wells, but also that of the Holy Emperor himself. And that after discovering his treacheries, external Lords such as Duke Wells and Countess Valentine both found it necessary to intervene for the greater good of the Empire and its people. Thus, they stepped in and took care of Wolf before his evil conspiracies could come to fruition.
Those who once served under Wolf, people like Commander Perkins and Baron Lamb, spoke of a similar narrative, one that would justify their betrayal of their Lord when he needed them the most. They claimed that while they did swear their allegiance to the Count, their loyalty toward the Holy Phoenix Empire outweighed any other loyalty. Thus, as much as it 'pained' them, they decided to work with the loyal Imperial Nobles and take care of the greatest traitor the Empire had seen in at least a decade.
In other words, everyone involved in the betrayal did the right thing. Lamb did the right thing in holding off the reinforcements as his Lord and his family were gunned down. When Perkins ordered his forces to surround Wolf Den and take out anyone that survived the onslaught, he was doing service to the Empire.
As a reward for making the right choice and protecting the Empire, Duke Wells sent a letter to the Holy Emperor, petitioning to make Baron Lamb the new Lord of Obsidian. His argument was simple. As Gerard's second in command, Baron Lamb would be the most effective commander for Battlefleet Obsidian and the best hope to keep the Republic forces at bay.
Maybe the Holy Emperor was aware of what truly happened with Count Wolf. Maybe he wasn't. After all, one doesn't rule a hundred worlds and make countless nobles bend the knee by being ignorant. Either way, what was done couldn't be changed, not even at the will of the Great Phoenix. Wolf was dead, and Lamb was his best replacement. As such, it didn't take long for the Emperor to promote the Baron to Count and name the newly made Count the Lord of Obsidian and Supreme Commander of Battlefleet Obsidian.
In other words, Lamb got what he wanted. He had replaced the Wolf and usurped everything his former leader had.
As for the opinion of the people...the bombardment of propaganda was effective. Billions were convinced by the lies. After all, that was the only narrative they were told, and it was echoed by a million different sources, all of them famous, credible and trustworthy. When only one team was present for a debate, the winner was never a question.
Of course, there were dissenters. A lot of them. Gerard Wolf had impressed a lot of people in his ten years of rule, especially when compared to the slavers and crooks that the other Imperial Nobles were. For years, the people of System Obsidian prided themselves for being under a kind Lord who truly cared for their wellbeing. Many of them didn't buy the story the media was selling, and they sought to bring justice to their fallen leader.
Yet the new Lord of Obsidian was prepared, and propaganda wasn't the only thing he could bombard the people with. For those who submitted, he held out carrots. As for those who refused his rule...he had the gauss machine guns tuned and ready for them.
The first to be purged were the Wolf loyalists in positions of influence and power. All the warships of Battlefleet Obsidian were instructed to shut their engines and warp drives, lower their shields, and get ready for inspection. Once that was done, ONI frigates and cruisers transported squads of ONI Alpha Teams onto countless starships, where operatives loyal to Count Lamb arrested any and all captains, officers, marines, and crews that were guilty of 'conspiring with the republic'. Those who had the minor sign of resisting were shot where they stood. Those who defended those about to be arrested were gunned down as well, for as the ONI agents said, only traitors would defend traitors.
A few starships tried to resist this purge by force, only to be targeted by the lance batteries from the ONI frigates and cruisers as well as the Orbital Cannons mounted on the starship docks. Both were much more prepared than the loyalists ever would be. The starships didn't last very long.
Most of the Battlefleet remained silent and inactive. Many high-level officers who could do something about this had harbored a grudge against their Supreme Commander for a while now. Equality sounded good until people realized it came at the price of the strong. The powerful. The ones who control the guns and the warships. Most Admirals and Captains didn't enjoy seeing their comrades get executed, but they didn't want to throw everything away when they were so close to titles, land, slaves, and credits. Plus, their families were all on Valorian. What would happen to them if the Admirals and Captains made a futile and meaningless attempt to resist? All of them would follow their late Lord to the grave...and be marked as traitors after their deaths. The choice was an easy one.
The commanders didn't move, and those below them did what they were taught to do and obeyed. Some did so out of a sense of duty. Some out of self-preservation. Some out of greed and ambition and hopes for a better future. A million people would have a million reasons, but the one thing that mattered was that they all remained silent.
Soon, Battlefleet Obsidian had a new leader.
The next to feel the Count's might were the Wolf loyalists in the government and the media. Their arrests and executions on Valorian were carried out by forces of the CSF, which had already rooted out a significant fraction of its own numbers. After promising the rest of his men a new level of freedom when making arrests and extracting information from suspects, as well as some financial reward, Commander Perkins led his men into the fray, going after the same people he was tasked with protecting.
Finally, it was the common people on the butcher's block. Protestors who rallied in front of the government buildings and the Obsidian High Command Center were faced with walls of Marines and CSF alike, armed to the teeth with gauss machine guns and shrapnel grenades...and of course, an iron heart.
They ordered the people to disband. The protestors refused, and the armed forces opened fire. They had to, for those who refused to fire on the innocent were gunned down themselves first by ONI agents and their own officers.
So they obeyed. Maybe it was fear. Maybe it was ambition. Yet that would never make a difference once the bullets started flying.
The resulting bloodshed was devastating, but that was only the beginning. For the weeks that followed, Capital Security Forces, under the decrees of Count Lamb, scoured the streets of the Capital World. They broke into homes with impunity and dragged men and women from their beds into prison cells, all in the name of treason and conspiracy. These were the people who publicly or privately spoke up against Count Lamb, and now, they were paying for their opinions with their lives.
The same thing was happening across the entire solar system, except the executions were done by the local garrison and police forces. Count Lamb was determined to purge the Obsidian System of his predecessor's influence, and his methods were the very definition of brutal. Dissenters among the people were hunted by the police and the army. If those in the police and the army failed to do the job, they were gone after by their own officers. If entire units refused to comply, ONI and Obsidian Marines were deployed.
Fear consumed the entire System Obsidian. No one could say for sure that they wouldn't be woken up in their homes or be stopped on their job, only to be taken away and never to be seen again. No one was safe from this onslaught. Officials. Mayors. Planetary Directors. Soldiers and police officers. If you supported the Wolf, then you would die horribly and no one could save you.
This was exactly what Lamb wanted. He wanted to make sure that, at the end of the day, no one would dare speak the name of Wolf unless it was to curse him. More importantly, he wanted to tell everyone that things have changed. The Wolf was gone, and the Lamb was the boss now.
Treason became a flag. One that operatives of Lamb carried as an excuse to take out anyone that might pose a threat to the Count's reign. More importantly, by tying Wolf with the Republic, Lamb was able to justify tearing up everything Gerard Wolf spent a decade building.
What? You want freedom of the press? Ok...call ONI! We've got a Republic spy here! What? You want to keep your trial by jury? You're definitely a traitor and a spy! Things like freedom and rights are nothing more than lies spread by the Republic to weaken us from within! To tear the Empire down! In order for the Empire to resist invaders like the Republic, it needed the full, unquestioning submission of its people! The individuals had to make sacrifices for the greater good!
This became another justification that Count Wolf was a spy, and thus, every policy he put in place must be removed!
There were a lot of policies that Wolf created that Lamb despised. One of them was how he treated the common people. The first thing Lamb did was to triple the taxes on the entire population in the solar system. This is all for the defense of the Empire! What? You have a problem with that? Get the burning stakes ready!
After making sure his treasury would be properly filled, Lamb proceeded to reward his fellow traitors for their loyalty. While Wolf sacrificed the privileges of the nobles and military leaders to benefit the common people, Lamb went in the other direction, bribing those with power so they would support him in crushing the dissenters amongst the population.
After all, it was much easier to put down civilians with machine guns than to deal with military commanders and fleet captains in the same way.
Unlike Wolf, Lamb was generous to those who offered him their service. Commander Perkins was made into a Baron for the role he played in the assassination and the subsequent purges. He was given a minor planet with a population of a measly one million people to do as he wished. Kill. Rape. Torture. Lamb didn't care what the Baron did as long as he continued to serve him. Of course, he also rewarded the Baron with a piece of his treasury.
The other traitors were all rewarded appropriately. Lamb gave them more in a week than what Wolf gave them in ten years, and this, combined with the threat of force, more or less ensured their loyalty toward Lamb.
As the Lamb tarnished the legacy of the Wolf, Alexander found himself in an interrogation room of Darkbane Prison, and he was in for a lot of hurt.
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