The eighty systems with eighty worlds were out of the UGN’s control. Having given every right to those worlds over to the OCS, there was no further need to interfere unless given explicit orders to by the Omniconpro Megacorporation itself. After all, the taxpayers did not pay them nearly as much as the OCS Lobbyists, and thus the will of the masses could be ignored in favor of the will of the rich. It was a ‘mutually beneficial’ relationship, at least on paper.

Because when the businesses and high-level executives don’t pay taxes for anything, the masses have to make up for that lack of money somehow. The UGN and its member nations got their taxes, but with graft and corruption being what they were the budget was always spent in the wrong places.

However, as the years since the Proxy War truly started began to roll by, time began to run out. The quarterly and yearly earnings reports for the OCS did not look good, with nothing but net losses since the intervention began. Instead of the investment paying off for a quick gain, the eighty worlds were costing far more than they were seeming to be worth. Unfortunately, for the OCS, they could not simply back out. When Arcadia took the territory that they were supposed to have only a short while prior it had been a massive PR disaster and a damaging blow to their image.

They had appeared weak and it seemed to some that their grip over the UGN was not as strong as it seemed. So, they doubled down with their control and now the UGN leadership were all nothing more than puppets. Still, appearances had to be kept, and therefore although the new leadership were just a bunch of willing pawns and stooges, they still had to act in a way that did not fully reveal that they were the thralls that they were.

The current UGN leadership did not expect anything to go wrong, which was why they were surprised four years later when their corporate overlords demanded that they send a military force to sweep the other factions from the eighty systems.

Only General Secretary Snuggli Cuddli realized the danger that his masters were putting themselves and the UGN in, and he only realized this when the word ‘Arcadian’ popped up. Something in his adorable little head realized that the OCS were unknowingly putting the entire rest of the galaxy at risk and he tried to voice his disagreement with their desires.

However, he was never in any position to deny them anything. They controlled his life, his career and even his familial connections. Such was the connection that his homeland had with companies and businesses that they had the ability to ruin people with a few words to the right people, regardless of the damages such things would result in. Cuddli realized something during the meeting with the OCS heads though, something he had both secretly expected and feared would be the truth.

His cabinet had no fucking clue how to do anything at all.

They were good at looking the part and going through the motions, but Cuddli began to realize as the days after the meeting passed that those who he had been made to take on each year were utter buffoons who had delegated every duty they had to others. After doing the bare minimum to look productive whenever he had stopped by to visit, they abandoned their duties and simply lazed about. Some were even abusing their office to molest the opposite gender, or the same gender, or children, or whatever they were into.

Cuddli reviewed their backgrounds for the first time in his career and then as he looked between the list of names from his cabinet and the OCS executives it clicked. These people had fabricated up to three decades of experience in various political jobs! Cross refencing data from news articles and magazines, Cuddli realized that these ‘Middle-aged Adults’ were nothing more than teens and young adults; the children of the OCS leadership! The names matched, the appearances matched, the speech patterns and mannerisms matched, it all matched!

He had been hoodwinked into thinking that he had been given valuable people, and his contract stated that he could not fire someone without OCS permission. He could hire anyone he saw fit, but firing was a different story altogether. Now he was forced to deal with a bunch of spoiled rich kids who broke all manner of rules and regulations by outsourcing highly confidential work to places with little to no security or reason not to simply leak data!

The UGN military, or what was left of it after the final war with the AHU, was being drawn away from the territory it was guarding, 99% of the UGN’s leadership were nothing more than lazy, spoiled and inexperienced brats and the OCS was pulling the entire rest of the galaxy headlong towards an unwinnable war with a psychotic tyrant who would gladly reduce entire planets into uninhabitable wastelands!

What else could possibly go wrong?!

“General Secretary Snuggli, your position is no longer needed.”

“Pardon?”

“Due to a unanimous vote of no confidence from the cabinet, you are being replaced with Zverik Nurfol, effective immediately. Please come with us.”

“THAT Zverik Nurfol?! The six-year-old son of the CEO and President of the OCS?!”

“Yes. Now come with us or we will have to remove you by force.”

“…. This whole galaxy is doomed…”

…

“Is this intel correct?”

“Yes, Lord Arkhan. We have multiple sources that confirm its validity.”

Arkhan shook his head as he read the report.

“I mean, six years old? Are they idiots? I was a ruler at a young age, but at least I have the mind of…”

“The mind of what, my Lord?”

“Nothing. Never mind. I am just incredibly concerned that the UGN will be nothing more than a puppet. More so than they already were. For their highest leader to be just a child, and a prepubescent one at that raises a lot of red flags. Do we have any idea of who or what he is connected to?”

Evelyn Norn pressed a button on her datapad and brought up a full genealogical tree for the current General Secretary of the UGN that went back over three centuries.

“That is a bit too much for my tastes. What I meant to say was, ‘what are his immediate relationships and connections?’ not ‘show me his full recorded family tree’.”

The ice queen of an elf pressed another button and another document appeared on Arkhan’s datapad.

“So, the son of the OCS head, the brother of three other members of his cabinet, the nephew of exactly seven other branch leaders for the OCS and a simultaneously became a graduate from just over fifty different colleges only a single month after he was born. He owns seven different star systems and has a net worth equal to the most valuable sector in the UGN. He has committed about seven hundred and sixty-four different crimes of various degrees yet has never faced any punishment. Instead, those who tried to seek justice ‘mysteriously disappeared’. He has a drastically below average intelligence and a penchant for throwing violent fits if he doesn’t get what he wants. Lastly, he is under the impression that money solves all problems and that he can do anything he wants to anyone or anything. Not unexpected for the favorite son of a massive megacorporation.”

Arkhan put down his datapad and sighed.

“Well, this should make things more interesting. Ready the military; after four years of the OCS being trapped in a money hole, I have a gut feeling that the Proxy War will boil over relatively soon.”