Zephyr Dorsey

Erikaun

“Where is his highness?” demanded Count Ivan as soon as he entered the cool shadows of the stable.
The czar’s hostler, Yuri, turned-off the handheld lightmeter he was using to tune-up Czar Dmitri’s favorite ride, an antique self-driving Tesla, and looked up at the count. “He’s on his hoverbike. Why?”
Count Ivan trod closer carefully, trying not to step off the planks and sink his new sealskin boots into the gloppy filth covering the dirt floor of the retro-fashioned stable. The boots had been made from the first seals to be clubbed in the new part of the Arctic that the Arcane Empire had recently laid claim to.
“Our former moon colony has just signed a letter of intent to join the Neoterrian Alliance,” answered the count.
“Oh my,” said Yuri. He hung his lightmeter on a vertical, wall-mounted toolbox and pressed a button sending a transparent door sliding in front of several racks of smooth, ivory tools. “The czar is not going to like that.”
“Not in the least,” said Ivan, clamping his childhood playmate on the shoulder. “That is why I think you should be the one to tell him.” Ivan spun on an expensive heel and began scurrying across the planks toward the nearest exit.
“Wait! Ivan!” Yuri called after the quickly retreating count. “Czar Dmitri cannot hear such news from his hostler.”
“But you are his chief hostler,” countered Ivan.
“Not good enough. You are his foreign minister. You must be the one tell him.”
Ivan sighed and began reapproaching his old friend. “Oh, you are right, I suppose. Well… perhaps you could at least put the idea in his head. Just soften him up a little for the blow.”
“What do you mean?”
“You know, maybe just bring up the idea as you are putting away his mount, Nice day for a ride, eh, sire? Would it not just ruin this glorious day, sire, if, say, our former colony of Erikaun were to join the Neoterrian Alliance?”
Before Yuri could tell Ivan what a ridiculous idea that was, he heard a familiar sound and perked up like a robo-mastiff who has just heard something flowing into its oil bowl. He looked out through the stable’s wide door.
“Here comes the czar,” said Yuri. He put his hands on either side of Ivan’s epauletted shoulders. “He is always in his best mood just after a ride. While I am helping him dismount, give him the news all at once. It is always the best way with bad news, trust me. Like pulling teeth or resetting bone.”
Count Ivan swallowed hard and pulled at his gold-laced collar. “Must you always use such violent analogies, Yuri?”
Yuri punched his old childhood pal on the shoulder and moved to one side of the stable’s main aisle. “Step aside, Count Ivan. You do not want to be ran-over before you can deliver your news.”
Ivan hesitated and looked into the bright sunlight at the rapidly approaching hoverbike. “Do I not?”
“Certainly not. Nothing puts the czar in a worse mood than having his hoverbike dented.”
“Ah. Of course,” said the count, taking a step back—and right into a mudhole.
“Magnificent!” cried the czar as he glided into the stable, standing-up while remaining astride his powerful hoverbike. He put his little fists to his hips. “There is nothing more thrilling than a breakneck ride across the steppes!”
Czar Dmitri, a man in his sixties, was wearing riding breeches and little else. He felt hoverbiking bare-chested added invigoration to any ride across the motherland.
“Yes, sire, thrilling!” replied Yuri, carrying a stepstool as he went to one side of the hoverbike. He held up a hand, and the czar took hold of it to steady himself as he descended the few steps to the soft ground.
“Ah, Count Ivan! How happy I am to see you!” said the czar, kissing the count on the cheeks. “Why are you so short today?”
Ivan looked down. “I found a sinkhole in your stable, sire.”
“That’s no way to talk about Hostler Yuri, Count Ivan!” cried Czar Dmitri in a theatrical voice, laughing uproariously as he peered at his stable hand for his reaction.
Yuri smiled wanly from beside the hoverbike and switched the blustering machine to its idle gear, causing its roar to diminish to a purr. As he moved it toward an open stable, he gave Ivan a hard look and tilted his head forcefully toward the czar.
Ivan cleared his throat. “Uhm, sire—”
“What say we go practice jujitsu before dinner, Ivan?” suggested Czar Dmitri punching the count several times about the chest and shoulders as he danced and bobbed around him.
Ivan had no desire to spar with Czar Dmitri ever, much less on a day when the czar seemed to be in one of his more virile moods. He gave one last, pleading glance toward Yuri, who was just moving out of sight with the hoverbike, then stepped out of his boots (which were too stuck in the mud to easily extract) and followed the Czar out into the open air.
A few minutes later, after wiping down the hoverbike, Yuri emerged from the stall to find the czar wearing a bewildered expression.
“Czar Dmitri?” said the hostler, moving closer. “Are you alright, sire?”
“Count Ivan…” muttered the czar.
“Yes, sire?”
“He blurted something about Erikaun joining the Neoterrian Alliance and then ran away. I have not seen privilege run that fast since I moved to silence the oligarchs.”
“That is unfortunate, sire,” said the hostler.
“Yes. I am surrounded by a worthless, entitled aristocracy,” said the czar with a sigh. “Genetically designed in vitro for well-proportioned physiques and superior intelligence, but severely lacking in good sense. Thank God I have you for balance, hostler.”
The czar gave Yuri what was intended to be a playful slap across the face and walked out of the stall and toward the small hill where sat his dacha.
Yuri turned away, rubbing his stinging cheek—then saw Ivan’s boots standing half-buried in the muck. “Well, no ill wind…” he said, plucking the boots from the gunk.

Meanwhile…
Inside the WTF Room deep within the bowels of the headquarters of the Neoterrian Alliance, President Dan was playing virtual pool with his National Security Advisor, Igby “Brains” Galore. Brains was also President Dan’s Chief Political Consultant and all-around minder.
“Remind me again, Brains,” said the elderly president. “Was I black or white?”
“Stripes, sir,” answered Brains as he needlessly chalked his stick.
“Ah, yes,” said the president, bending toward the table to aim for a shot.
They were playing 3D pool to celebrate the recruitment of Erikaun into the Alliance’s system of allied states. The president preferred computer-generated pool to the real deal because it was easier to reset the table if he made a shot he didn’t like. Plus, one could set the skill-level to “infantile.”
Brains put down his chalk cube and watched the president proceed to make an excellent shot, perfectly sinking the projected display of a solid-colored ball into the corner pocket.
“Boo-yah!” exclaimed the president, lifting one leg awkwardly and pumping a fist.
“Very good shot, sir,” said Brains, not bothering to remind the president that he was actually supposed to be aiming for the striped balls.
“Ah, we really scored a coup today, didn’t we, Brains?” said the president as he paused to down a shotglass filled nearly to the brim with an orange sports drink.
“Yes, sir, we sure did. A big win for democracy.”
“If we have the moon colony, baby, that means Dmitri The Impaler can’t have it,” said the president as the sticky orange drink dribbled down his chin.
“That’s right, sir.”
“He can’t have it!” yelled President Dan. “It’s ours now!”
“Absolutely,” said Brains.
President Dan lowered himself for his next shot. From Brains’ perspective it looked as if the shot were pointed toward another corner-pocket, but this time the president was not bothering to aim for a ball at all. He was simply going to sink the cue ball straight into the pocket.
A high voice pierced the air. “Mister President, Mister President!”
The president missed the white cue ball almost entirely, causing it to spin in place. His cue stick dropped to the green felt table, sending the glowing digital spheres scattering.
Brains turned to see Vice-President Jammy Jankins entering the room with a frantic look. Jammy was mostly chosen as the running mate for the president because, with a little help from multiple-generations’ worth of genetic manipulation, she managed to represent every identity-group the president’s party had to appease during the general election. Additionally, when Dan-the-candidate had been told that Jammy also enjoyed baking cookies as a way to relieve stress, he knew she was his man.
President Dan glanced down embarrassedly at his dropped cue stick as he reached for another orange shotglass. “I guess I’ve had a few too many of these,” he said, throwing another snout-full down his throat.
“Mister President!” Vice-President Jammy said again. “I have horrible news.”
“What is it, J.J.?” asked the president, now looking alarmed himself. “Did you burn the cookies?”
“No, sir. The Arcane Empire has invaded Erikaun!”
“Curse that Dmitri!” exclaimed President Dan slamming a fist into the palm of his hand. He swiveled toward his National Security Advisor, caught himself before succumbing to his sudden vertigo, and asked, “What should we do, Brains?”
“This is a very difficult situation, Mister President,” replied Brains.
“Absolutely,” said President Dan.
“Let me think about it overnight, sir, and get back to you in the morning.”
“Fair enough,” said the president. “J.J., why don’t you run check on those cookies? Me and Brains here got a game to reset.”
“Of course, Mister President.”
Jammy turned and ran out of the room.
Brains’ mind started turning-over the Erikaun conundrum, looking at it from every angle. They could not allow such naked aggression to stand. If they did, what credibility would they have when they tried to deter the Arcane Empire’s expected grab for more thawed Arctic tundra? And they couldn’t send Alliance soldiers to the moon and defend the colony directly. That would be regarded as an act of war.
He turned to find the president taking off his shirt.
“Whoa, whoa, sir. What are you doing?”
“Oh, I’m sorry. I thought I was skins.”
“No. Shirts. Definitely shirts.”
“Oh,” said the president, rebuttoning his shirt. He paused and gave Brains a hard stare. “Well?”
“Ah,” said Brains. He began taking off his shirt. “My bad.”

Basically…
The plan Brains had come up with to solve the Erikaun situation was to saddle the Arcane Empire with enormous economic sanctions while also diplomatically isolating the Empire. Such measures were immediately instituted.
However, as the weeks turned into months and the Alliance sat back and waited for the sanctions and feeling of isolation to really kick-in and annoy the heck out of Czar Dmitri, the czar, himself, had spent the time shoring-up his position on the moon and turning most of the former colony into rubble.
Brains could only watch terrified and amazed as the people of the Arcane Empire continued to suffer great privations without demanding that their leader give-in to the Alliance’s demand that all Arcanian troops be withdrawn from Erikaun immediately. Even worse, the sanctions were forcing the Empire into such a miserable existence that the people’s hatred for the Neoterrian Alliance was growing red hot. Soon, driven by their anger and privations, they might demand a war against the Alliance, plunging the globe into World War III.
Before the Arcane Empire’s attack on Erikaun, Brains had not realized just how comfortable the czar would be with sacrificing tens of thousands of lives for the sake of personal glory and national aggrandizement. Only now, in retrospect, did Brains realize that the czar had been planning for this very moment throughout his entire reign. There had been little tell-tale signs all along the way, of course. An invasion here, a political assassination there. It all added-up in hindsight.
And now Czar Dmitri had moved into his endgame. But why now? Perhaps, thought Brains, the czar could see the end of his vigorous days approaching and he knew that time was running-out for him to make his bold, game-winning moves.
Realizing that sanctions had delayed, but not stopped, the approach of world war, he forced himself to devise another strategy. After days and days of strenuous thinking—the immense pressure only alleviated by the occasional game of Wordle—he at last came-up with his Hail Mary scheme… A high-stakes summit between the president and the czar. He was convinced that a face-to-face meeting between the two great leaders was the world’s last chance to avoid global catastrophe.

Unfortunately, it wasn’t likely to succeed…
It had actually been President Dan who had come up with the accompanying assassination plot.
“Say what?” Brains had responded.
“I’m old as Christmas,” the president said. “I’m losing my mind anyway. Let me go out with a bang.”
“Literally.”
“Listen, Brains. It’s brilliant. No one will check me for a gun. I’m the friggin President of the Alliance.”
Brains thought that even a gun on a president was likely to be detected by security at a major summit, but there were ways around that.
“What do you plan to do? Just walk up to him and blow his brains out?”
“Yeah. Or pow in the chest,” replied President Dan. “What’s the more high-percentage shot?”
“No! No way, Mister President,” said Brains shaking his head.
President Dan took his minder by the arm. “Listen, Brains… we both know we got nothing. We’re out of options. Just like we both know that this summit is just another way for Dmitri to stall, just another way for him to fake like he’s trying to find a path to peace. It’s all baloney, man. Baloney!”
Brains knew the president was correct.
“But we have an ace up our sleeve,” said the president.
“We do?”
“Dmitri has spent twenty-five years turning the Empire into his own personal fiefdom. The whole government’s centered around one man. Take him out, and the whole house of cards tumbles. Blam!”
“I don’t know, Mister President…”
“This isn’t only about Erikaun, Brains. Think of those poor conscripted soldiers of the Arcane Empire, having to die in their czar’s unnecessary war. And the privations we are causing by our sanctions!” The president whistled. “Man, those worked better than I thought they would!”
“Forgive me if I’m not particularly worried about the Arcanian people right now, Mister President,” said Brains, who knew people on the moon.
“Cut off the head, kill the snake,” said President Dan, karate-chopping his palm with the butt of his other hand, his squinty little Clint Eastwood eyes looking suddenly deadly. Like he really could kill someone.
The old man might just be able to pull this off, thought Brains, becoming a little frightened of the president himself.
President Dan stuck out his hand. “Come on, Brains. I’ll need your help at the summit. Let’s do this thing. Let’s save the world!”
Brains hesitated, then took the president’s hand. “Let’s save the world, Mister President.”
“Boo-yah!”

When the day of the summit arrived…

Brains had it all worked-out. He knew exactly how to distract the security crews and get the president, armed and dangerous, past all the weapons detectors and into the room alone with Czar Dmitri.
After the last brush with security had been successfully finessed, Brains watched nervously as the president and the czar walked alone into the meeting-room. Then he stepped behind a pillar and took out his phone and sent the text that would alert his contact behind the Caviar Curtain to be ready. The text didn’t give details, but it made it perfectly clear that Big Dog was about to take Grouchy Bear permanently out of the picture. If there were any sane men left near the top of the power-pyramid in the Arcane Empire, now was the time for them to make their move.
Brains stepped out from behind the column and stared, heart pounding, as the meeting-room’s gold-paneled doors slid closed with an electronic hiss. It was hard to believe that on the other side of those knobless doors were a ruthless czar operating at the height of his powers, a tottering president with the world on his shoulders, some very expensive furniture, and a loaded gun engraved with the word, Erikaun.

Inside the large, ostentatious room…
President Dan sat in one tall-backed chair, and Czar Dmitri took the other. Both men remained unsmiling.
“Let’s not pretend this is something it ain’t, Dmitri,” said the president. “You’re willing to push the world to the brink of World War Three and nuclear annihilation, all so you can rebuild the Arcane Empire to its former glory days.”
“You are a good man, President Dan. I think you will not allow millions to die and billions to suffer for a colony that offers you nothing substantial in return. There are no especially valuable resources on the moon. So, why is it any—how do you say—snot off your nose if the colony returns to its rightful place inside the Empire?”
“But there are people up there, dammit. People who have a right to determine what form of government they live under and what kind of society they raise their children in.”
Czar Dmitri smiled his oily, cosmetic-surgery-enhanced smile, then launched into a history lesson highlighting all the hypocrisies and failures of the Neoterrian Alliance.
President Dan began to experience that strange, underwater sensation he got sometimes when he felt like there was something important he was supposed to do, but he couldn’t for the life of him remember what it was.
“You are an old man losing his mind.” the czar was saying when President Dan drifted back into the conversation. “But me? I am in vigorous late-middle age. Have you seen me with my shirt off riding a hoverbike?”
“Oh, I have seen that,” said the president. “Nice pecs.”
“Thank you. I work-out.”
“But all those voices, Dmitri, screaming out in agony and despair… All those lives cut short. Doesn’t any of that bother you? Do you have no soul at all?”
“It is not my soul that is important here, Dan. It is the soul of the Empire. The people of the Arcane Empire have much heart. They are resilient. But your Alliance…” Czar Dmitri shook his head in disgust. “Weak and decadent. Taking back the moon colony will be a small win for us, yes? But total war? Even if we lose, that would be for us a great builder of patriotism, as well as a store of deep resentment for future manipulation. It is win-win for me, you see.”
President Dan could not believe what he was hearing! He was dealing with someone so utterly devoid of simple humanity, so lacking in the least empathy for his fellow human beings, that he would invite the end of civilization simply to get his way.
That kind of thug doesn’t deserve to live, he thought, his eyes narrowing. Anyone who has proven that he has no respect for the lives of others deserves no respect for his own.
“That’s it!” said President Dan, springing to his feet. He had remembered what he was supposed to do. He reached for the gun in his pocket.
Unfortunately, with all the excitement combined with the sudden leap to his feet, the president’s old heart sagged like a blown tire, and he fell to his knees. Despite the massive pain in his chest, however, he managed to raise his gun toward the czar in trembling hand.
Czar Dmitri somersaulted once and in the next second had wrested the gun from President Dan without breaking a sweat. He aimed the gun at the president’s head and turned to call for his personal security team. He was surprised when he felt a hand gently laying itself over his own. Perplexed, he looked down.
“For Erikaun,” the president groaned, using his thumb to press Czar Dmitri’s finger down on the trigger.

Weeks later…
“Tell me again, sire,” said Yuri, as he dusted off Ivan’s epaulettes with an ivory-handled, soft-bristled brush. “How did you know that now was the time to make your move? Dmitri had not yet been arrested for the murder of the Alliance president when you seized the throne.”
Ivan straightened the golden crown atop his head and examined himself in the full-length mirror. He thought he would make an excellent czar. He had the perfectly proportioned physique for it.
“Well, it is a funny thing, Yuri,” he replied. “I got wind of the assassination attempt just before it happened, but I thought it was Dmitri who was to be killed. So, acting merely as a good patriot, I felt I must step-in and fill the power void before the Empire fell into disarray.”
“How very self-sacrificing of you, sire!” said Yuri.
While the new czar was preoccupied with his own reflection, Yuri took advantage of the moment to dust off his sealskin boots with the ivory-handled epaulette brush.
“Aren’t you afraid that recognizing Erikaun as a sovereign nation will be a blow to our prestige?” he asked.
“Let the Alliance have that floating rock,” replied Czar Ivan. “There is better prize that I have my eye on now.”

Meanwhile…
“Mister Galore! Mister Galore!”
Inside the World Transnational Forum Room beneath the governmental mansion, Brains looked up from the 3D display of moon topography he had reprogrammed the digital-pool table to project and saw the president running toward him.
“President Jammy,” he said, standing straighter.
The new president was wearing an oven mitt on one hand, and Brains thought he detected the aroma of burnt cookies.
“Mister Galore. My chief of staff tells me that Czar Ivan is on the red phone. I need to know what to tell him.”
“Well, what does he want?”
“Alaska.”
[END]