Dyrtan was once again in his hovering chair at the immaculately tidy crystalline desk before the huge VDG. He had been watching battles like this off and on over the course of the last week. A couple of Terran Free Colonists wanted to punish the Titan colony for the attack on their brothers. Dyrtan rolled his eyes and shot back a snarky text response using only his left hand as usual. The translation of the message read, “Your brethren attacked me. I attacked back. It is a simple concept. It is give-and-take. For every one of my people potentially harmed, I intend to inflict pain and death on a hundred. Leave me be, and you will receive none of this treatment. In fact, if you would hold your lasers and bite your tongues, I might even invite you to the colony to take part of our culture. The blood begins and ends with you. Do not force my hand, and I do not need to strike you.” He pressed send before waiting for the translation to be complete. His translator rarely got everything perfectly, and he did not care enough to nit pick.

He had several more important matters that required his attention. A Xen interloper had been discovered in a nearby star system. While the planet was currently no real threat to him, he knew better than to let the Xen gain a foothold. He did not get to do as many video conference calls with his officers these days. He had more to handle than allowed for that personal contact, but he did make it a point to monitor battles. It did not matter how busy he was; those battles were in some ways the life of his entire colony. If the battles did not occur, his people would die. Or more appropriately, more of his people would die than would be strictly necessary.

During the upcoming battle, a strike force of five scouts had been sent test the waters of the Xen planet. He smirked at the novelty of actually using scouts to scout his target, but the smirk was short lived. The Xen colony put up resistance. The battle was barely started, but Dyrtan saw that the numbers were evenly matched. In the exchange that followed, even the life pods were not enough to save any Titan lives. Ten ships met, and ten lives lost.

Dyrtan frowned and was about to begin sending condolences to the families that had lost family from those ships, but he was interrupted by a High Priority Message from the High Council of Pax Titanica. He dared not delay in reading such an important message. Even more lives could be at stake if he delayed, and his left hand moved before fully processing that thought.

He read the message, quirked an eyebrow, and deleted it. He was being promoted and reassigned. Unfortunately, that meant even more work, and that his condolences would have to wait. His left hand launched a frenzy of movement across the holo-keyboard. He had to completely destroy his construction plans and begin them anew with a new set of guidelines and parameters. Buildings that he had been neglecting for their limited strategic value were now of incredible importance. He could hear the protests of the construction crews already, but he knew they would do as he commanded. They always did.

Even the captain of the recycler a couple weeks ago was listening to him more, since he had bailed her bacon out of enemy fire. She had spoken well of his protection to her friends, and now there were half a dozen recycler captains dumping loads of plentiful resources on Ilanthia. He was certainly in need of this extra material now. Without her and her friends’ help, he would be floundering under the new mission objectives. Instead, it was simply a reallocation of resources into the proper locations.

Once that was done, he contacted the necessary personnel: other commanders that would be assisting him on the mission. They were eager and ready to jump on this chance to show the rest of Pax Titanica what they could do. He had only to ask, and they signed up faster than he could snap the fingers of his left hand. Construction would take a week, and then another flurry of activity between all parties involved. Dyrtan received congratulations from many people. He accepted them with a smile and firm left-handed shake. He even laughed a little at the party in his honor.

But as soon as the party was done, Dyrtan was in a hover jet, making the rounds, delivering personal condolences to each of the families that had lost a loved one in his scouting mission. He received no congratulations from them on his promotion, and at least one family slammed their door in his face. They would understand later the need for what had been done, and he did not fault them. Such was the job he was assigned, to receive both praise and blame, to be both loved and hated, to instill both fear and hope. And he did a good enough job of that to be trusted with his latest mission, possibly the most important mission he would ever undertake.