It was another eighteen hours before the Alliance assigned Arbiters, who would be in charge of the planet now that the Command Caste had been eliminated from Volga society, arrived to begin the task of rebuilding government functions.
"Greetings, Commander Keres Max. I am informed that you are in charge of the troops in this theatre of war. With these official orders, you have permission to stand down, and we will take over responsibility on your behalf." The Arbiter greeted him before handing over a data tablet with detailed orders.
The thought briefly occurred to Max that they could make a killing making those things since the Alliance used them for everything, and official orders like this and other political negotiations used a brand new one every time for data security reasons. He would have to discuss it with the Tech Nomads at some point. The Human version was much more intuitive to use than the Alliance version, which had been standardized for centuries.
"Thank you, Arbiter. I will pass a final message to the civilians, informing them of your arrival and asking for their best behaviour. I believe that it will help you in your work." Max agreed.
The lead Arbiter, a Myceloid man nearly three meters tall and covered in a strange, dimpled hide that shimmered under the light, seemed rather dubious that such a thing was necessary or even beneficial, but Max quickly tapped into the city's broadcast system and removed his helmet to address the people of the Volga Capital.
[Citizens of the Capital Planet, greetings. As many of you know already, I am Commander Keres Max, the leader of the human military forces on this planet. With the agreement between our people complete, an Arbiter from the Alliance has come to manage planetary affairs on our behalf. I request that you treat them with all due respect and recognize their authority.
Should there be an issue with their governance, the contact information for my Flagship has been provided to your military leadership, who will vet any complaints and determine if they need to be forwarded for further consideration.
Again, I request that you all treat the Arbiter as you would your own leader and trust that they will be working in the best interests of everyone while they enforce the terms of the surrender agreement signed by the former leaders.
Thank You, and may your days be peaceful.]
The applause from the detainees, as well as the civilians in nearby buildings, echoed through the city, and the Arbiter gave Max an impressed look before turning to the Capital building.
"How much damage did it take during the fighting? Will we be able to continue working here?" He asked.
"Sergeant, please fill the new Arbiter in on the damages sustained by the building and its records during the apprehension of the politicians." Max requested, and the helpful spokesperson came forward with a paper notepad in his hand.
He had itemized the damages by room and hallway on every floor of the building, so it only took a few minutes to go through everything and determine that it only needed a good cleaning to be back to eighty percent effective and a few more days of verifying documents in the digital system to determine how much more could be directly transferred.
"Tell me, Commander Keres. How did you take a Capital City with so few casualties?" The Arbiter asked.
"Overwhelming force. Once we breached the outer defences and crushed the city's shields, it was only a matter of time before the city fell. It is a bit of a shame that the Titan Class Mecha that was guarding the city escaped, but I am sure that we will get around to taking care of that matter eventually." Max sighed.
"Oh, did the message not reach you here? It went to the location of your mothership, where it was knocked out of warp by Interceptor Drones and disabled by your second in command. The pilot of the Mecha is now aboard Terminus, in the custody of your research and development team." The Arbiter informed him.
"The Research and Development team? I guess I will find out the details once I get back home. But for now, the city is yours, and I do hope that you have a pleasant time with it. There is a lack of local government officials, but the government employees are almost all gathered here in the courtyard, with only a few sent for medical attention.
It seemed prudent to gather all of those who were important to the continued operation of the city into one spot, both for the aftermath of the battle and in case things ground to a stalemate. Without these people, the city would have a very hard time continuing to operate in a siege situation."
The Arbiter looked far more impressed than Max would prefer, like he was startled that a human had thought of all that, but his thoughts were on the standard combat procedures, how they might have done things differently, and the likely outcomes of the various standardized tactics.
More and more Alliance workers showed up over the next hour, stabilizing the city's infrastructure, while reports came in of others all over the planet taking over for the former leaders. Unlike the Capital City, most of the others had taken heavy damage when the shields went down, but none were too heavy, as the cities had surrendered in short order once they realized that things weren't going to go well for them if they continued to fight.
Max read the thoughts of the various Alliance officials that had been reassigned to work here and didn't find any resentment or other negative feelings about the matter, only optimism that they could improve things on this posting and get themselves a promotion back home after their tour of duty was finished.
They also appreciated the condition that the planet was in and had exchanged a large number of gloating messages with friends assigned to other planets, which had suffered under less effective tactics. For example, the 805th Compliance Fleet had decided that the Orbital Bombing of their assigned planet to soften it up before the Mecha landing was the best way forward, and the vast majority of the planet was now rubble, with hundreds of millions dead.
The attack had been a blitz, with millions of bombs in motion at once, so by the time they realized that the Volga couldn't defend themselves, it was already too late to stop the bombardment.
So, the Arbiters who had been sent there had a major rebuilding effort ahead of them in every single city on the planet and a much more hostile civilian population to deal with.
The only saving grace was that they were the only ones to go for a full-scale bombing without a test attack, so over a hundred other planets had suffered only minimal damages, considering the situation.
The source of this c𝐨ntent is fre𝒆w(e)bn(o)vel