Grand Admiral Arnold Kaiser looked toward the galactic map of the Milky Way From the Orion Arm, to the Pleiades, Magellanic Clouds, and the Galactic Center, red and blue dots peppered the region. Within the blue, Andromedan Republic ships were represented, but only as a single dot. All the red dots were clustered in walls, once upon a time, with the red being the Allied forces who launched a resistance against Andromeda.    I really need a drink, Arnold sat on his chair and slumped, we could really use a coffee now… not now, but for this whole war.   Decades of non stop fighting. Andromeda and the nations of the Milky Way were such firm enemies that coexistence was out of the question. Oh, how the diplomats busted their arses for geopolitical realities that just refused to exist, and those realities were that of peace and cooperation. Arnold forgot just how it happened, but the Sagittarian alliance of the Milky Way truly rubbed the Republic the wrong way, and that got firebrand leaders elected to the forefront. Those leaders were only a small part of the reason why the Local Group was at war.    "Grand Admiral," a synthetic voice spoke up from behind, "I came like we planned, and I hope you have a discussion for the both of us."   Arnold turned around to face a cybernetic woman with skin that seized his attention: pure metal, titanium, with red eyes, and a slender figure. She moved with a youthfulness that he never saw for anyone her age, sitting on the chair next to him and crossing her legs. Ready for business, like she always was, that was her deal and what sold her position for the Andromedan elections.   "High Chancellor Soaph," he looked at the warm and grinning cyborg, "what an honor it is to have you here!"   "Arnold," Soaph shook her head and placed a finger underneath his chin, "you don't need to address me as High Chancellor, or even her excellency, just call me Soaph."   The Grand Admiral nodded his head before swerving his gaze to the map. "Our forces have made like a typhoon into the Milky Way." He pointed toward the Orion Arm of the Milky Way galaxy, a place littered with Andromedan fleets and captured bases. "We forced them out of the Orion Bubble, seized the mega structural stellar spheres of Betelgeuse and Eta Carina." Soaph hummed, folding her hands on her lap, and nodding at Arnold. "We are doing well, High Chancellor."   "I expect no less from someone under my tutelage." Soaph stood up and walked to the holographic map, statistics and figures reflecting from her naval suit. "I always wanted to make you my Grand Admiral." She removed her sailor hat, allowing curly braids to freely flow. "You've done well against the pirates, as a student, and now you've done well as a Grand Admiral."   "Thank you, Soaph," Arnold flustered before his mentor's compliments, "you've always been a great teacher."   She was pacing around the room, hands behind her back. "I try my best, Arnold." Indeed, she did, putting him through grueling tests and studying, and never allowing surrender. "I try my best to raise the best of successors."   Successors.   Soaph had always been a mother figure to him ever since he was a child. Feeding him, raising him, disciplining him, teaching him, she did everything an Andromedan mother was to do and more. Did she acknowledge this? Yes, she did in addition to being the first one to do it. Yet the word "successor" drew a curiosity from within Arnold's mind.   "Successor?" Arnold piped up after some seconds of watching Soaph wander the war room. "What do you mean?"   "I am serious." The High Chancellor emphasized the word with so much command that Arnold visibly flinched. "Haven't you noticed yet, darling? Wherever heights I go to, I take you with me. This is why you have such a high position in my cabinet. I am a patrician, and you… are my plebeian that I choose to sponsor."   "I know how we came into being but I-"   "You will also be the last plebeian ever sponsored."   The last plebeian? Arnold watched Soaph's lips turn into a possessive, almost maternal grin. What does she mean?   "What are you talking about?"   Hands, part-organic and part-synthetic, pinched the Grand Admiral's cheeks. Their owner cooed at him, treating him like she did when he was a child. As to what got into Soaph, Arnold did not know… he was used to public displays of affection from her, but this one was so sudden.   "Andromeda," Soaph said through her coos, "has always suffered a divide between the rich and poor, one in which the Republic failed to bridge on a routine basis… only worsening it."   Arnold nodded. "Yes, you told me that, but… but…"   "But what, my dear student? What do you want to tell your mother?"   Soaph will never stop embarrassing me, he thought to himself, never.   "What do you mean by I am the last plebeian sponsored by a patrician?"   A smirk, one that was playful for him but cold for anyone else, sliced across Soaph's cybernetic features. He knew the playfulness, for she had never been too serious or a buzzkill when he grew up, but why the silent iciness?    "The Milky Way will be Andromeda's final war as a Republic." Arnold's eyes widened as Soaph straightened herself before the map, spreading her arms wide, and causing the projector to display against her form. "Next election, you will be removed from the Grand Admiral status… and you will be brought to the capital and closer to me."   "What…"   "It will be just like when you were a child." Soaph smiled at the memory of her basically raising a homeless, orphaned Arnold as a young adult. "Living with me, when I was about two decades old-" Her voice grew angry. "-witnessing my father shit on the plebeian servants, and being under my protection."   "I know that made you mad-"   She raised her hand at him. "No, Arnold… don't you dare say that. I hated my father, but I never felt an inch of hatred for you, only an urge to protect you."   He slowly nodded at Soaph's declaration of maternal love before he asked. "But why will you remove me from the Grand Admiral role? Haven't I done a good-"   "You didn't do a good job." Soaph's words started off cold before her voice flared. "You did an amazing job." She bordered upon squealing like a teenager. "Every battle report I saw with your name on it, I read over and over again, just to feel the same pride and joy for your accomplishments." Then, her voice calmed down. "As for the soldiers, their sacrifices will be honored in the coming empire."   "C-C-Coming empire?" Arnold stammered.   "Yes, my dear. The coming empire. The reason you will come with me to the capital, and be gone from your appointed position, is because we are going to a greater destiny.    I will be an empress, and you, the next in line."   She was going to end the Republic. Everything she ever talked about, everything they did together, it was to end the Republic. All the political plays were calculating for a reason, and politics changed her into something else.   Will to power, that was what they called it.   "You will stand by my side," Soaph marched to him, "as the New Era Party seizes the national legislature and declares this new order. A crown will fall upon your head, Arnold, and then comes the greatest reward for both you and I."   "What is that reward, Soaph?"   "No patrician or class social constructs will exist to separate us from each other ever again. Our bond will not be a secret to hide.   I can finally be your mother, you, my son, and none in the universe can refute it."   They say that love makes people do crazy things, but Arnold never expected love to motivate someone into turning against the Republic.