Three-Bottle Coup [Tankiverse Fanfic]

[Hippin_in_Hawaii 639]

The Three-Bottle Coup
Fanfic in the Tankiverse by Hippin_in_Hawaii

Kevin opened the door to the command vehicle and leaned in. “Sir, there’s someone here to see you.”

Fred leaned back from the map he’d been scrutinizing with Georgia and several of his respected commanders. “Who is it?”

“She won’t give me a name, sir, but she waved a bottle of whisky in my face. It’s the same as the special bottles you two have.”

Fred and Georgina made eye contact and nodded. “Ok, everyone, we can finish this tomorrow. You know my overall goals, and you know my general priorities. Bring back some commitments on how you, personally, can help those to mature. And bring back some suggestions on what I need to rethink. Dismissed. Georgina, please stay.”

There was a brief commotion as people gathered their possessions and navigated the narrow path to the doorway, dodging Fred and Georgie. Waiting outside was a figure in a cloak and hood, presumably the woman Kevin had mentioned, who pushed her way in as soon as she could. Kevin followed on her heels.

“General, allow me to present some lady with a bottle of whisky.”

“Thank you, Kevin. You may leave.”

Kevin hesitated. “Sir, she’s armed.”

Georgina pushed past Fred, placing herself between him and the cloaked figure. Her hand was on the grip of her pistol. “You let an armed person that you don’t recognize in here?”

Kevin coughed discreetly. “I never said I didn’t recognize her, sir. I said she wouldn’t give her name. I don’t think you’re in danger, and I can’t in good conscience ask her to disarm.”

“Technically,” spoke the figure, “I’m not armed, I’m legged.” She pulled back the lower portion of her cloak, and extended her leg. There, protruding from the cuff of her slacks, gleamed the titanium of a prosthetic limb.

“Nienna!” squealed Georgina, leaping forward to take the figure in her arms.

Kevin coughed loudly. “I didn’t hear that!” he exclaimed, making a hasty exit and closing the door behind him. Then he opened the door and leaned back in. “By the way, she insisted I set up that terrible joke!” He fled before anyone could respond.

“Ok, ok, give me a second…” harrumphed Nienna as she tried to disentangle herself from both Georgie and the cloak. “Ok, now, proper hug!” She and Georgie held each other close, both on the verge of tears. After they finally parted Fred stepped forward, his arms spreading wide.

“Stop right there!”

Fred complied, looking both confused and ridiculous in his current pose.

“You have to give it back.”

Fred slowly dropped his arms, his expression changinging from confused to completely bewildered.

“Give…. It back?” He looked at Georgina, who shrugged and looked back to Nienna.

“Yes, give it back. You took this country. You have to give it back. You don’t get to keep it. Tell me you know that.”

Fred chuckled. “Yes, I know that. It was exactly the conversation we were having when you made your entrance. Now can I get that hug?”

Nienna bounded forward to wrap herself around Fred, who enthusiastically returned the affection. “Oh, it is so good to see you!”

After the hugging and sniffles had subsided, Nienna produced her bottle of whisky from a shoulder bag. She placed it on the situation table in the middle of a map, then took one of the small chairs. Fred and Georgina joined her, Fred putting three coffee mugs on the table. Without a word, Nienna opened her bottle and poured. The three raised their mugs and touched them together; there was, of course, only one first toast that would do. “To Chip,” they said in unison.

“So where,” asked Fred, to break the ice, “does one shop for cloak and dagger cloaks these days?”

“Go ahead and laugh, but if I’m going to have a future in public service after this is over, I can’t be associated with the renegade who overthrew the government!”

“Good point. But color-coordinating the cloak with your dispatch bag is a bit over the top, don’t you think?” chided Georgina.

“You two!” exclaimed Nienna, shaking her head while pouring a second round. “So tell me, Generalissimos, how we’re going to get out of this war.”

“Simple enough,” said Fred. “We’re going to lose it.”

Nienna paused, staring thoughtfully at first Fred then Georgina. She looked down at her drink, drumming her fingers on the table alongside it. “Ok, that is a surprising answer.”

“It’s an inevitability. We’re going to lose.” Fred sighed, then continued. “The forces that have allied against us have the resources to wipe us completely off the map, and it won’t be long before they’re organized enough to use them. Whatever gains we’ve made in territory, we have no chance of holding. If we wait until their counteroffensive coalesces, we’re done for. Even assuming they don’t raze the country, we’ll have exhausted our resources, depleted our population, and fought major battles in all of our cities. We’ll be broke, disarmed, and probably spend the next fifty years occupied. Our only hope for survival is to end this war before they manage to start pushing back in force.”

Nienna looked to Georgina, who nodded in support. “Fred’s right. We’re screwed. The so-called information that the Leadership has been sharing with the population is propaganda, completely manufactured fairy tales mixed with out-of-context truths. If we continue the war they started, in three years, maybe less, there will be no Federated States. We’ll be disassembled and our territory distributed as compensation to the nations we’ve inconvenienced along the way.”

“So what’s your plan?”

Fred and Georgina traded a significant glance.

“Ok, you don’t have a plan. What do you have?”

Fred sipped his whisky. “My coup is only four days old. There’s a lot to manage! But I do have a list of objectives. Keep in mind these aren’t ordered or prioritized yet, but some of them do have to follow a chronology.”

Nienna nodded. “Noted.”

“Ok. First, a cessation of expansion. That actually is first, and we’ve already undertaken it. Well, as much as we can. There are some battles we’re currently in the midst of that would cost more lives if we tried to disengage, so in those cases, we’re pressing forward to clearly-defined objectives.

"On the military side, we want to petition for a ceasefire. Then we’ll begin withdrawing out troops and fortifying a much smaller area. We won’t pull all the way back to the original zone of the Liberation at first; we’ll keep some extra territory and choice cities to use for negotiations later. The hope is to end up with our post-war boundaries still including everything we held after the Liberation.

“On the publicity front, we need to start publicizing the fact that we’ve changed management. We can use the members of the Leadership that put us into this war as bargaining chips with the opposing sides; offer to hand them over to stand trial as war criminals. We can and probably should declassify and disseminate as many of their confidential documents as we can find.

“On the political front, we need to have some form of emergency election and get civilian leadership up and running again. Then we need to manage the transfer of power from me back to that body.

“Assuming we can manage to meet all of those objectives, the last thing to address is what to do about me.” Fred took the rest of his drink as a single shot. “Yep, that’s going to be a sticky one.”

Nienna reached over and poured him another. “That’s a pretty notable list of objectives.”

Georgina nodded her agreement. “We have many others, but those are the biggest. We’ve actually mentioned you a couple of times recently.”

Nienna glared suspiciously at them. “In what context?”

Fred raised his hands in a calming gesture. “We recognize that you were a powerful figure in the Legislature before our country became a totalitarian regime. We think that your policies show a consistent pattern of conscientiousness and humanitarian values, and that you have demonstrated repeatedly a commitment to, and concern for, the citizens of this country.”

“Let me cut you off there, Chief! You can’t just hand the government over to me!”

“Of course I can’t,” agreed Fred. “And I’m not offering to. Should you end up in the Leadership, or in any position other than your current one once the Legislature is reinstated, it has to happen through regular channels. Campaigning and elections and such. But we thought maybe you could help shape the process.”

Nienna sipped at her whisky. “I remember this tasting better,” she muttered.

Fred and Georgie exchanged amused glances.

Nienna looked up at them. “Am I missing something?”

“At our first meeting,” responded Georgina, “we both made similar comments. This whisky really isn’t particularly good, but it sure seemed amazing after the mission. We just didn’t have cultured tastes at the time.”

“Cultured. Right. We were entry-level boozehounds! This tasted like the nectar of the gods back then.” Nienna sighed. “I do miss my innocence and naivety.”

They sat in silence for a moment before Nienna proposed a toast. “To innocence and naivety! May they work in our favor.”

The friends sat and drank in silence for a bit before Nienna spoke again. “I need to think, and we need to drink. This is a lot to process, and deciding what role, if any, I’m able and willing to assume is no small thing. I know you don’t have a plan. Do you have a timeline?”

Fred nodded. “I hope to be able to step down in a year.”

“A year?” Nienna was aghast.

“Georgie thinks I’m being optimistic. But to negotiate a ceasefire, manage an ordered retreat and fortification, establish a replacement government, and handle my ultimate surrender; well, each of those things could easily take months. And we don’t dare have me announce a date for my surrender of power then not honor it because things didn’t go smoothly. That wouldn’t sit well with, well, anybody.”

Nienna looked intently at Fred. “You’ve been talking about yourself a lot, here, buddy. ‘My coup.’ ‘My surrender.’”

Fred extended his glass for another pour. “Yep. And it’s going to stay that way. It’ll be my face on this, and only mine. I want to preserve the lives and careers of as many people as I can, and having good people like Georgie here end up in prison for doing the right thing is not on my agenda.”

“Fred, you’re going to end up a hero, can’t you see that?”

Fred shook his head. “Maybe to the citizens of the Federated States I’ll end up a folk hero. Even odds on how that shakes out. But to the rest of the world, I will be a war criminal, and one of the biggest. Even if I did have a turn of heart, I was a villain, and will have to be tried. Maybe I’m a better class of scum than the Leadership that started all this, but never forget, I was their tool. Now, I’m a dictator, something the world also hates. And don’t forget I deposed the lawfully-elected government here. Even though I did it for good reasons, there have to be consequences.” Fred paused for a long, slow sip of whisky. “No, this ends badly for me, and I don’t want to share that end with good people who should keep doing good things.” He reached over and took Georgie’s hand; the two shared a tear-filled look.

Across the table, Nienna wiped her own eyes, then grabbed to bottle to pour another round.

“I need to think, and we need to drink.”

Mahalo (thank you) for reading; I hope you enjoyed! This story is part of a series. Information on the series, and links to the other stories, can be found here.

Edited October 17, 2018 by Hippin_in_Hawaii

[Blackdrakon30 2,943]

- Made a sparing amount of edits for smoothing and improved grammar. 

 

Approved

 

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Oh boy, more drinking!  :ph34r: 

 

I'd give you some feedback, but I'm pretty pinched on time, so hopefully you'll be happy enough without my paragraphs.  :P 

[GrandExecutioner 1,403]

Their whisky never seems to run out... :P

[Hippin_in_Hawaii 639]

Their whisky never seems to run out... :P

Let me see... how many people had one of those special bottles?

[shafter9 156]

Let me see... how many people had one of those special bottles?

 

"They laughed and supped and finished their beers, then headed back to the darkness." (Georgie and Fred)

 

"Fred obeyed. The whisky tasted familiar. He looked at the bottle on the desk. Hederson Special Reserve!" (Called on Carpet)

 

Probably more instances exist, the point is, alcohol flows a bit freely compared to most other AWC articles...

[Hippin_in_Hawaii 639]

 

"They laughed and supped and finished their beers, then headed back to the darkness." (Georgie and Fred)

 

"Fred obeyed. The whisky tasted familiar. He looked at the bottle on the desk. Hederson Special Reserve!" (Called on Carpet)

 

Probably more instances exist, the point is, alcohol flows a bit freely compared to most other AWC articles...

 

Compared to most of the other 20+ installment stories in the Amateur Writing section?

[GrandExecutioner 1,403]

Compared to most of the other 20+ installment stories in the Amateur Writing section?

My prediction for next title: Four-Bottle Coup :P