NationStates Jolt Archive

Ok...Here is the deal. I am changing stuff. The conflict will still happen its just that the reasons and the pretense and event are all going to be a bit different. If you dont like it go eat turds, Its my nation, my thread my rules :p

The Great March War is Over…

Channing Ansel, Hegemon and First Citizen of New Ortaga, has been dead for over three years. He was murdered by his own daughter as the Hegemony of New Ortaga’s Solar Navy commenced its grandest action in its history: the invasion of the Verniian home system of Gregor. The Solar Navy’s greatest moment—the culmination of centuries of military tradition, an epic record of conquest, and a force considered to be the only threat to the Star Empire of Valinon—was also its last. It was also the end of the Hegemony, the end of the Hegemon, and the end of the last Ortagan Empire.

At the Third Battle of Gregor the grand fleet assembled under the command of Solar Admiral Doral Hellings, known as the Warlord of the Great March, was routed by the Grand Coalition of Valinon, Vernii, Liberated New Hope, the Wickians, and the Vaku. Admiral Hellings was captured and two other solar admirals perished along with three quarters of the fleet. In a single battle over half the Solar Navy simply ceased to exist as a fighting force. Casualties were calculated in the hundreds of thousands as crewmen and Solar Marines, sent to commence a mass invasion of Vernii itself, were decimated by Coalition forces under the command of Grossadmiral Forrest of Valinon. The pitiful scraps of Hellings fleet vanished into history along with the era of Hegemonic status as a Great Power. Most went rogue, fleeing into the now chaotic Great March, but a few limped home to the Home Suns. When they finally arrived the survivors would find an even greater defeat than that of Gregor.

Defeat at Gregor left the Hegemony in ruins and besieged. The nation was stripped of its greatest military asset, its best commanders, its best ships, its best weapons, and all its assumptions that this war would be a quick victory. Vaku and Wickian war fleets were running rampant through the Great March on a course headed for the Home Suns. The combined fleets of Valinon, Vernii, and Liberated New Hope were rallying to bring the war to the Home Suns itself. And before the battle in Gregor ended Kendra Ansel had murdered her own father in an attempt to seize power as the new Hegemon and plunging the dying state of the Great Revolution into open civil war.

New Ortaga was now burning from within and without. The Interim Governing Council that shared control over the empire with the Hegemon had learned of Kendra Ansel’s betrayal and branded her a traitor. It named Jordan Galt, Polemarch of the Hegemony, to the office. The Council then stripped Strategos Cima Garahou, head of the Solar Forces, of her title and office when she followed Kendra Ansel into open rebellion with the fortress system of Axis. Ginias Saharin, infamous genius and weapons designer, was named as the new Strategos. But as the Solar Forces and legions of Security and Intelligence mir-vis loyal to Galt moved against the rebellious fleets, marines, and Observers of Kendra Ansel and Cima Garahou a new threat appeared.

The commanders of the Solar Army—graying generals and forgotten soldiers—had been repressed and neglected for years. Their disgust with Hegemonic atrocities and tactics too well known for them to be deployed in the field, but their size and importance as an internal policing body made them to necessary to be purged. But this graying cadre under the leadership of the charismatic General Yuri Kellarny had united with the dissidents and revolutionaries who had long called for Hegemonic tyranny and dominion. They rebelled against both Hegemonic factions, fighting the Roum Faction led by Galt and the Zealots of Kendra Ansel. They demanded the democracy long promised by Hegemon Ansel and long withheld. And now they demanded with armed force.

The fighting raged across New Ortaga from the distant systems of Xerxes and New Edo to the core systems of Roum and Gadsen. Silesia, capital of a vast empire, knew war in its streets the same as its provincial capitals. Martial law was declared, entire cities were subject to orbital bombardment by Hegemonic factions, and millions were killed regardless of whether they were combatants or civilians. The people of New Ortaga fought each other with greater zeal and veracity than they had their foreign enemies.

It would have been enough for the Grand Coalition to have allowed the civil war to rage. The destruction created by the Hegemonic war machine turned on itself was enough to level entire systems and sectors. But the crippled behemoth still wielded the power to take the rest of the Raumreich with it. Even in its death throws the Hegemony still possessed the Fenris Network, a vast array of automated weapons satellites and launchers capable of firing enough artificial gravetic weapons—more commonly known as singularity weapons—and sunbusters to wipe out most of the civilized Raumreich. Allowing Kendra Ansel’s crazed fanatics, the desperate forces under Galt, or even the tenacious rebels of Kellarny was simply not acceptable.

Two weeks after the Battle of Gregor the Grand Coalition finally launched its own invasion of the Home Suns. It was the hailed as the ultimate reprieve by Kellarny and the rebels, but for the Hegemonic factions it was the beginning of the final end. Within two days Axis had fallen, taking with it Kendra Ansel, Cima Garahou, and most of their supporters. It also rendered the Fenris Network inoperable when its command and control center located on Citadel, the central world of Axis, was destroyed. The important agricultural world of Immolan fell the same day, and the allied war fleets started to probe the core worlds still controlled by Hegemon Galt or those systems still a three-way battleground between the Hegemony, the few surviving Zealots, and the new revolutionaries. Desperate to preserve some shred of authority, some small powerbase, Hegemon Galt and Strategos Saharin gave the order for all fleets loyal to them to withdraw to the systems of Roum, Gadsen, and St. Ives, the three oldest Ortagan systems.

While Hegemonic forces rallied to Roum, General Kellarny and the revolutionaries tried desperately to preserve the resistance on New Ortaga itself. Bombarded, broken, and scattered the Solar Army and its allies could not last—especially with the remaining fleets returning home. But the unexpected support of the Merchanters, the wealthy, reclusive old families of New Ortaga, saved them and with the addition of new resources and their own heavily defended cities on the central continent of the Ortagan homeworld. The civil war in the Ortagan core systems stalemated while the outlying planets started to fall to the Solar Army or the Grand Coalition’s fleets.

Seeing the end of the Hegemony in sight, many of Galt’s supporters and some naval commanders decided to avoid the fate of defeat. Solar Admiral Midas Rackham refused to return to Roum, and instead declared himself a warlord while lying claim to the disputed system of Kerezin with the fleet under his command. Coordinator Kagoshima, a member of the Interim Governing Council, fled Roum and declared his personal fiefdom of two star systems independent. The system of Berchest, wary of Hegemonic, revolutionary, and Coalition intent, seceded and declared independence. It then sent terms for peace to the Coalition while declaring war against the Hegemonic remnant.

The members of the Grand Coalition finally initiated an invasion of Roum, the Ortagan home system, after being approached by the representatives of Kellarny’s revolutionaries and the Berchesters. It faced the last major fleet of the Hegemony led by Strategos Galt and Solar Admiral Grunger. The Battle of Roum, the first time the Ortagan home world had been directly threatened, was a total defeat for the Hegemony. Confronted by overwhelming odds, the last breaths of the Solar Navy’s morale collapsed. Hegemon Galt’s security forces fought on New Ortaga while entire Solar Marine regiments and Solar Navy warships merely surrendered to either Coalition or revolutionary forces. In a final symbol of the Hegemony’s collapse, Strategos Saharin led his own fleet in a retreat from Roum halving what remained of its defenses. He left behind the faltering Solar Admiral Grunger and all of the Interim Governing Council, including Hegemon Galt, before fleeing into exile in Mesa.

It was a matter of minutes before Admiral Grunger transmitted a message of surrender to the Coalition forces. He then gave orders to arrest Hegemon Galt, the Interim Council, and any other ranking offices of the Solar Forces before committing suicide. The war against the Hegemony was finally over.

Six days later representatives of the Grand Coalition and the newly declared Roum Administrative Authority (representing the liberated Ortagans) met with Hegemon Jordan Galt. The Armistice of Roum was signed acknowledging the unconditional surrender of the Hegemony and the dissolution of the Hegemonic Government. A month later, Jordan Galt, all surviving members of the Interim Governing Council, three Solar Admirals, sixteen Solar Marine generals, forty-seven Security and Intelligence directors, and twenty-two other Hegemonic officials were sentenced to death for war crimes, crimes against sentients, and crimes against civilization. Hundreds of others were condemned to prison sentences ranging from life to a decade. There were no appeals or options for parole.

Two weeks after the executions and over a month since the Armistice of Roum, representatives of the RAA signed the Second Proxima Centauri Accord establishing the reformed League of the Raumreich. The document was also signed by the members of the Grand Coalition (Valinon, Vernii, Liberated New Hope, the Wickians, and the Vaku), the other Successor States of the Hegemony (Tyrador, Kerezin, and Berchest), and all other major nations of the Raumreich with the exception of Saharin-dominated Mesa. At the first meeting of the new League, a resolution was passed raising a combined force to help the RAA secure and keep peace within its own space until a constitutional convention was held to bring about a formal, independent government. In return for League assistance the RAA, representing the Home Suns of New Ortaga, relinquished all claims to the other Successor States and all claims to any territories outside the Home Suns. General Kellarny agreed to the resolution on behalf of the RAA.

This was what should have been the crowning achievement of the factions that had resisted Hegemonic rule for so long, but it was almost immediately soured. When the convention in the old Ortagan city of Braavos was less than two weeks old, Valinor banks and other creditors started to repossess properties, infrastructures, and assets of private and public Ortagan corporations as they defaulted on the vast loans allowed under the Hegemony. As the already shattered economy reeled toward utter collapse, the members of the convention were forced to take drastic measures to give the Home Suns a functioning government as quickly as possible.

While economic ruin stared them in the face, the members of the RAA convention at last unveiled the Articles of the Suns. It was a leviathan document filled with compromises trying to appease as many factions as possible. The dream of a republic was aborted in favor of restoring the long-exiled House of Corrin to a new throne to secure the support and monetary backing of the also long-exiled aristocracy and Loyalists. But it was at least agreed the new Archon-Prince of the Federated Suns would be only the Head of State, and would renounced all claims to acting as the Head of Government. The Senate of the Suns was another bizarre creation. Portions of planets, especially those of the wealthy Merchanters, were allowed to elect their own Senators independent of the planetary delegations and the drastically depopulated worlds of Dylar and Seljuk relegated to being territories without direct Senate representation. Finally, the issue of the Federated Forces—the new military replacing the largely destroyed Solar Forces—was left virtually unresolved in order to prevent further dispute. It was merely agreed the Federated Forces should exist in some form.

Thus the Federated Suns of New Ortaga, the last and largest Successor State, was born. It came into being a state with virtually no military. What little protection it had came from surviving Solar Navy ships, the tired soldiers of the Solar Army, the private armies of the Merchanters, and the small—but powerful—fleet raised by the Loyalists in Valinon. It had no foreign policy or ties to the greater Raumreich community save for a seat in the League and ties to the either neutral or wary cousins of the Successor State community. Above all else, it came into the full inheritance of the economic and physical fallout caused by the years of Hegemonic abuse, mismanagement, and war.

But in three years the Federated Suns have shown they will not collapse as many initially suspected. A combination of protectionist legislation, belated League intervention, and the reformation of old public corporations finally stalled foreign creditors—even if it came after almost half the economy entered into foreign hands, most of them Valinor. The haphazard and bizarre constitutional monarchy of continues to function with no serious conflict between the Archon-Prince Tiberius Corrin I, Consul Yuri Kellarny, or the Senate of the Suns. The Federated Forces endure—if in a very small form—and even participate in international missions trying to bring ex-Hegemonic pirates to justice. Reconstruction of the devastated cities and communities proceeds to the extent most of the populace displaced by the Great March War now has something to call home—even if it is not luxurious. And even the attitudes of the people are beginning to recognize there is something to be seen for the future of New Ortaga after the days of empire have ended.

The road to recovery is not complete, but it is now far from the beginning. But the Federated Suns will soon be tested by the competitive and conflict world of the Raumreich as it moves to secure its own place in international affairs.

Contado Side Café, Silesia, New Ortaga, Roum system, Federated Suns of New Ortaga
05.22.1304 AF
0822 Roum Local Standard

The Contado Side Café was one of the small success stories in the recovering world of Silesia. It had the fortune of setting near one of the ‘lev hubs servicing Residential Sector 9-a, better known as The Shell. It was a success story in a successful neighborhood, a business catering to the city’s working class moving closer to the reclaimed business and government sectors around the restored Whisper Palace. The Senate and the Consul may not have returned to the city yet, but people were acting like they would soon. The belief was not totally unfounded.

So every morning the Contado was a swarm of people grabbing Immolanese coffee, tea from Valinon, or the strange, harsher brew coming from Vaku space. They crowded the counter clamoring as they watched the ‘feeds showing the United Valinon News Network, Federated Public News, and SunsNet. These days its SunsNet, the new—thankfully Ortagan—holo feed finally replacing UVNN as a the major news source, on the largest display behind the counter. The slim form of Anstelle Marselles covers the morning news broadcast from the Federated Suns interim capital of Braavos.

“The Old Federation Assembly Hall is still being rocked by the Senate’s debated over funding for the Federated Forces,” Marselles says as the domed outline of the Hall centered on Old Braavos’s skyline appears behind her. “Senator Amante is speaking today in opposition of the proposed budget increase. She and Senator Silvius continue to lead the opposition saying the recently completed Intra-System Security Patrol Initiative is sufficient to secure border and customs security. Both have criticized the addition of two more carriers and another dreadnought to the Federated Navy as an excessive waste of money. They say the funding should be reallocated to the Outer System Reclamation and Recolonization project.”

Assorted grumbles for and against the embattled men and women in uniform erupt from the squall of café-goers. Toward the edges of the crowd a few debates spark off.

“Those in support of the budget increase have had little time in the Senate for the past week. But Praetor Constantine and Fleet Admiral Cantrell are appearing before the Senate tomorrow. The Senate has also requested Admiral Helena Larkin to discuss increased capital ship expenditures. Currently both sides in the Senate have said they have no interests in bringing the proposal to a vote for the foreseeable future. Consul Kellarny issued a statement yesterday on behalf of the entire Senate saying all Senators wish to explore the matter fully and make sure the proposal is seen from all possible angles.”

The image behind Marselles changes to the sweeping, gracefully lines of the Palace of Winds. Sequestered on the tropical Summer Isles of the Great Sea it serves as the official residence of the Archon-Prince and is the center of the new royal court.

“The intense discussion over the Federated Forces budget has many wondering if Prince Tiberius will speak on the issue when he appears before the Senate for a special address next week. The Prince has not disclosed his specific reason for addressing the Senate, but Lord Marsh announced earlier this morning Prince Tiberius is speaking with regards to the Suns’ future foreign policy. When asked about the budget debate, the Prince’s Hand said permanent security issues were not as an immediate concern to the Crown as foreign policy.”

The murmurs of debate quiet slightly. While called a prince, Tiberius Corrin is over 350 years old. But his older generation genetic pro-long treatments make him look older than newer generations of the same do now. When compared to Empress Freidelinde of Valinon or Emperor Alexis of Vernii he looks positively ancient. The last member of the old royal dynasty has led the remnants of the old Grand Duchy’s aristocracy in a swell of monetary and resource support for reconstruction efforts. He has also become part of the public face of the new government along with the more prevalent and popular Yuri Kellarny. But he rarely—in fact to date has never—addressed the Senate with regards to policy outside of very specific internal affairs. Under the Articles the Archon-Prince has no direct power over the Senate, although it and the courts are organized under his name, but his determination to see the reconstruction of the Suns completed and his generosity have given the old royal immense popular support. The Senators wouldn’t have an easy time of ignoring his statements, regardless of what side of the debate he came in on.

“This will be Prince Tiberius’ first public appearance since his return to New Ortaga after his visit to the League of the Raumreich two weeks ago. Lord Marsh said this was not due to any health concerns. He said the Prince had been busy with affairs of state, including the reception for the new Liberation ambassador next week. Marsh says the Prince still has no statement regarding the issue of his successor, which was the cause for much debate within the Senate at the beginning of this session. Currently there are no known heirs left to the Throne of the Suns, which has left many speculating with what future the monarchy has. The only other close relative to the Prince is Archduke Metternicht of Valinon, who has said he has no interest in the throne…”

The blinking of displays at the entrance to the ‘lev hub becomes more rapid as the next train approaches. There is a flurry of motion as those in line grab what they’ve ordered or dart to make the train. In a matter of minutes the line in the Contado is halved, with many relieved by their new position while wondering if they will make it to the counter in time.

Old Federation Assembly Hall, Braavos, New Ortaga, Roum system, Federated Suns of New Ortaga
05.22.1304 AF
1158 Roum Local Standard

Yuri Kellarny, Consul of the Suns, sat at the podium on the raised dais dominating the center of the vast chamber that had served the Federation of New Ortaga’s Grand Assembly. It had been designed to hold far more people than the twenty-seven member Senate of the Suns, but any Ortagan save a history student would have to count the seats to know how many the Assembly Hall could hold. The last child of the last generation who grew up with stories of the Old Federation as a child had been dead for centuries before Channing Ansel launched his revolution and named himself Hegemon.

But with the Whisper Palace and Silesia still recovering from the war there had been no where for the struggling new government of New Ortaga to meet. After a few months in one of the surviving defense platforms orbiting planet, the Merchanter families who controlled the cities and continents of Landing—the home of the oldest Ortagan cities—had finally agreed to let the government use Braavos as an interim capital.

It was a move Kellarny still hated. For starters it put the Federated Suns farther into the debt of the Merchanter families—a notoriously unwise thing to do with that particular group of economic sharks. Second was the attitude of Braavos and the other Grand Sisters that were Ortaga’s oldest cities. They had become so used to enduring the chaotic upheavals of the nation’s history they now assumed they could survive any government merely by outlasting it. The Senate of the Suns, the Consul, and the Solar Ministries may meet in the city, but the city could clearly care less about them being there. Unless it came to voting their own special delegation of three Senators, yet another example of the concessions made to appease the Merchanters. He couldn’t wait until the move to Silesia came in a little over a month.

And, if nothing else, maybe the colder climate would cool the legislative battles storming the Senate these days.

“The people of New Edo firmly believe the Senate must recognize the need to pursue the reconstruction of both the inner and outer federated systems with all the resources at our disposal,” Antonia Amante’s fiery voice echoes through the Hall. “The completion of the Intra-System Security Patrol Initiative has left all systems in the Federated Suns with enough system patrol craft and fast-strike cruisers to maintain security. These vessels—many using imported technology from Valinon and the Liberation that cost us billions of solaris—can be moved between our systems by use of the warp-gates in times of emergency.”

“This leaves us with no need for massed fleets of jump capable ships,” Senator Amante glares at her most vocal opponent, Marcus Wayridge representing New Ortaga. “The only purpose ships of this nature serve is to rearm the navy to pursue offensive war and to prepare for new waves of conquest the people do not want and that this government should not stand for—much less consider! The mere suggestions of the delegation led by Senator Wayridge are enough to show Roum has not abandoned unnecessary imperial ambitions-”

“Right of reply!” Kellarny looks up. He had wondered when Wayridge would decide he had heard enough of Amante’s rhetoric.

“The Consul recognizes the Senator from Roum for five minutes of reply,” Kellarny says with louder mummers coming from both sides of the debate. He bangs the gavel a few more times. “And I request decorum be maintained while Senator Wayridge speaks.”

Wayridge stands, “Senator Amante it is not the intent of either myself or my colleagues to reequip the Federated Forces for the purpose of conquest. We represent the belief of many of our citizens that our standing military is not enough to even patrol our own borders, much less defend the Federated Suns from a hostile attack. The entirety of the Federated Suns Navy consists of what would be no more than a battle squadron in any other navy outside of the Talbott Cluster. Our own admirals and captains have told us it is impossible—not impractical, but impossible—for the navy to deploy itself in a way that defends more than two or three systems at once in any war time scenario. You have had access to these same reports, Senators. As I have, as Consul Kellarny has, as the Archon-Prince has, and as the people of the Suns have!”

“This is not about the desire to conquer. This is not about trying to rebuild our military to the point we can challenge Valinon, Vernii, or the Liberation. This is a necessary move to provide for the security and safety of our people. If a government cannot provide that it has no business claiming the authority to rule.”

“Our system patrol craft and cruisers are enough to defend our borders from pirates, criminals, and dissidents,” Wayridge locks eyes with Amante. “They were not designed to fight openly with any major warship of any major power. We all know this, but we have fooled ourselves into believing in the illusion of our security. We need a stronger navy—not a massive armada. We need a navy capable of defending all of the Home Suns without having to leave one, two, or six other systems open to attack. That is what we are asking for.”

Wayridge turns toward the dais, “I yield my remaining time to the Consul.”

Kellarny nods, “Senator Amante, you may continue.”

“Yes, Consul,” Amante eyes Wayridge again. “There is no logical explanation for the military expenditures proposed in the new Federated Forces budget. Beginning a process of aggressive rearmament not only ignores our responsibility to advance reconstruction goals, it also sets a dangerous precedent which may lead neighboring nations to believe we are preparing to invade them. Our relations abroad our tenuous enough without having to worry about the possibility of being brought before the League of the Raumreich for sanctions.”

“It is our duty and responsibility as the representatives of the People and the Government of New Ortaga to reject this budget proposal and draft a new one that better accommodates the future and livelihood of our citizens. To do anything less is nothing less than betraying our constituents and our future as a nation. I now yield to any questions from the floor.”

Kellarny sits up, “The Senators has yielded her time to questions. Are there any questions from the floor at this time?”

“The Consul recognizes Senator Milligan, representing Immolan.”

“Thank you, Consul. Senator Amante are you aware the present naval deployment to assist with the anti-piracy patrols organized by the League are currently less than any other nation in the Inner Marches with the exception of…”

Kellarny looks to Amante and to Silvius from Xerxes. He continued to be amazed by the sheer tenacity of those resisting the budget proposal. Calling for the construction of a formal navy consisting of a single dreadnought squadron, twelve battleship squadrons, sixteen carriers, and enough cruisers and destroyers to actually support the intra-system defense squadrons was not a rearmament program. It was at most the bare bones force necessary to defend the Federated Suns territory—especially when the current navy was no more than three dreadnoughts, twelve battleships, eight carriers, thirty-two cruisers, and eighty-eight destroyers. The cruisers and destroyers even included warships left over from the Solar Navy, not the newer vessels designed by Loyalist engineers who worked in Valinon during the war.

Kellarny watches as many of the navy and army officers start to leave when the questions being put to Amante start to move toward softball questions of allies trying to build her position. He has a hard time making sure their looks of disgust and anger are not reflected on his own face. The office of consul was not one he had wanted to hold, but the vocal demands he accept the Senates appointment from the people, the military, and even the Archon-Prince left him with little choice. Kellarny was starting to realize it may have been necessary for him to take it in order to make sure this mad conglomeration known as “the Ortagan democracy” to other nations actually worked. But he was still far from admitting that without a fight.

The questions become fewer and fewer until eventually they are exhausted. Kellarny turns back to Amante.

“Senator, it would appear there are no further questions for you. Do you have any motions or proposals to present to the Senate at this time?”

“I would move the Senate consider a three hour recess at this time, Consul. This way the Senate may decide if it wishes to pursue this issue further, or if it wishes to table this discussion for the moment into address other issues on today’s agenda.”

Kellarny is not surprised in the least.

“Your motion is in order, Senator. Are there seconds? The Consul does see seconds and so we will move into voting procedure on this motion…”

Ten minutes later the Senate of the Suns stands in recess.

Old Federation Assembly Hall, Braavos, New Ortaga, Roum system, Federated Suns of New Ortaga
05.22.1304 AF
1744 Roum Local Standard

Kellarny looks up and makes a motion for Jenna Eco, his chief of staff, to cut her terse outline of the daily report short when he finds the doors to his office flanked by a pair of crimson-garbed guardsmen. The guards uniforms are trimmed with the white and gold reserved for the restored House of Corrin, and each of their shoulders bear the new crest Tiberius Corrin took after assuming the throne as Archon-Prince: an eagle with wings spread superimposed over the sun and sword of the Federated Suns.

“I didn’t know you were expecting a meeting with the Prince, Yuri,” Eco whispers.

“I wasn’t,” Kellarny nods as one of the Guardians of the Suns opens the door for him and he walks into the office. He sees a swirl of red and black robes as the Archon-Prince stands from his seat behind the rounded desk that dominates the office. The Prince’s action is followed by the robed figure of Julius Umberto—more commonly known by his title of Lord Marsh. Behind the Prince one of the ranking members of the Guardians—commonly called Knights—stands in the ceremonial armor and surcoat. By his surcoat’s lack of ornament Kellarny guesses he is one of the more junior members. But he knows the archaic style power armor is deadlier than it looks and a product of the technologically obsessed Valinor.

“Consul Kellarny,” Tiberius Corrin says in his conversational tones, “I apologize for my unannounced interruption into your routine. But I assure you I had some matters to discuss with you privately that were important. They simply weren’t important enough to interrupt a full session of the Senate.”

“Your Highness, I wish you would have interrupted today’s session several times today. It would have saved me a lot of headaches.”

Tiberius’ paternal face has a quiet smile, “You handled it well enough. And I think we can dispense with the titles, don’t you?”

“If you wish so, sir,” Kellarny nods. After the Hegemony no Ortagan is inclined to stand on formalities. Ansel’s Revolution and its titles had been more than enough. Thankfully Tiberius Corrin and most of his court were more than willing to oblige. And given the limited powers the monarchy had under the Articles of the Suns there were probably more important issues for both the monarch and the aristocracy to focus on.

But if anything Kellarny wished the Prince would occasionally be more vocal in the realm of the rest of the Federated Suns government. His voice had the force needed to belay the ludicrous positions of several Senators when it was used.

Corrin offers another nod and takes one of the seats across from Kellarny’s desk. Kellarny waits for Eco and Lord Marsh to join the Prince before he sits down. He watches as the Solar Knight drifts to stand behind the Prince again.

“I had wondered when I would hear from you,” Kellarny eyes Tiberius. “This announcement of your upcoming address to the Senate has all of Braavos shaken up. And Lord Marsh has done well at keeping the topic of your address vague.”

“I have a few plans for the advancement of the Federated Suns future I think the Senators and yourself should be aware of,” Tiberius says with a mischievous twinkle in his eye. “Of course it is nothing I expect the Senate to fund or put to vote, but it is something I think you all need to know about.”

“Really? Do I even want to know what it is?”

“I think you should want to know when the head of state might be taking a few weeks away from the nation, Yuri. This is especially important to you if we are going to consider the duties of your current position within the government. Julius, you do have the documents, correct?”

“Yes, My Prince,” Lord Marsh brings out a data pad and hands it to Kellarny. Kellarny takes it with a nod and skims through it. A few minutes later Kellarny looks at Tiberius Corrin with a mixture of surprise and disbelief.

“A good will tour of the Inner Marches?”

Tiberius Corrin responds with a nod.

“I would say this was crazy, but I am sure Lord Marsh has already made similar arguments…”

“I have.”

“Then I don’t see any reason to repeat them since his were better. But I don’t see the benefit it this at the moment, sir. We need your help in pushing the Inner Suns reconstruction efforts and the re-colonization of Dylar and Seljuk forward. Then there is a good chance I may need your assistance in getting the Senators to see straight were our defense priorities are concerned.”

“Julius is more than capable of carrying on with my efforts in the reconstruction project, especially with the help of the small council and the rest of the Court. I have said numerous times before the re-colonization programs are the domain of the Senate, as well as the final decision with regards to our military expenditures.”

“And how do you think the Senators will take it if you decide to usurp their foreign policy programs?”

“I’m not usurping anything, Yuri. Whether Senator Amante and her cronies are willing to admit it or not our diplomatic corps has done almost everything it can. The rest of the Inner Marches are not going to take our change of nature on simple faith and the words of someone with the title ‘ambassador’ in front of his name. They all grew up listening to the morons the Hegemony used to call ambassadors spewing unfiltered garbage and propaganda in every capital of the Raumreich. We need to show them the Federated Suns are willing to make a commitment to rebuilding and reconnecting the rest of the sector.”

“You think this does that?”

“When you look at the success of the Centauri Peace Summit three years ago where all major heads of state where assembled I think it says volumes when any major head of state travels outside his own borders. It speaks even more if it is for something else than going to Valinon to speak before the League.”

The Consul and the Prince eye one another for a moment. Kellarny looks back at the plan the outlined on the data pad.

“I notice you don’t have a trip planned to either Vakutu or Ticonderoga. Somehow I don’t think that will go forward without a both Jukaga and Ginske venting what amounts to raw sewage into every public forum they can.”

“There is an explanation for that,” Lord Marsh interjects. “Prince Tiberius did wish to go to Ticonderoga but Sir Martyn and I both rejected that. The situation in Ticonderoga is growing far too volatile for anyone to go there without what amounts to a small fleet.”

“But I have arranged an audience with the Wickian ambassador to the League to discuss the possibility of a future state visit,” Tiberius finishes. “The Vaku government rejected an initial proposal I sent them. Emperor Jukaga believes it is sufficient for our governments to continue dialogue through the League and sees no reason for a visit or mission to his empire.”

“What a surprise,” Kellarny adds with enough sarcasm to boil armor plating.

“The Vaku will come around in time, or they won’t. No one can make them any more. But I take it from your lack of immediate objections you don’t see any major flaws?”

“Besides my earlier objections you mean. And since your mind is set on this I know there is little point in trying to talk you out of it, sir. But there is one thing I will try and talk you into.”

“Additional security? I think Sir Martyn and Julius will have that area—“

“No, sir, it is not security measures. It doesn’t involve your goodwill mission at all. I need you to speak in favor of the military budget. I see no other way to resolve it without leaving the Suns more vulnerable than they already are. And if this situation in Ticonderoga does dissolve into an all out crisis it could easily result in a stand-off between the Imperium and the Vaku. The situation will put the entire Great March on edge, even if the League or the Valinor get involved.”

“Yuri, you must understand my position regarding the legislature of this government. I won’t interfere in what is the expressed will of the people.”

“What Amante and the opposition are doing is not the will of the people. All the polls taken so far show over three-fourths of the Suns support rearmament in order to secure our own borders. Over half of the people in the streets feel—without being stupid—that the system patrols are wholly inadequate to defend our worlds. Anyone from Saharin to a well armed pirate or Hegemonic militia could stride through the Outer Suns or strike the Inner Suns before our own navy could even field a half-assed response. Amante is supporting her own foreign policy agenda and her own pacifist bloc’s idea that the Suns must remain totally unarmed in order to preserve the peace. If we were in Sol or some pacified outer quadrant of the galaxy that would work, but in the Raumreich it will not.”

Tiberius looks at Kellarny, whose posture has become with the mention of Amante and the opposition.

“There are still those that believe we may lead by example, Yuri.”

“With all due respect, sir, there were those who thought the Revolution was the way to a perfect future. Most of them are dead because they believed that even as the guardians of Ansel’s regime bombed their homes from orbit to preserve their grip on power. You don’t disarm and then expect your neighbors to. We can pursue international disarmament after we have rearmed enough to actually defend our own borders and our own people.”

The Archon-Prince leans back in his chair eyeing the Consul. Kellarny allows his own gaze to drift toward Lord Marsh, and he sees an expression suggesting the more politically inclined member of Tiberius’ small council may have tread this ground already. A thoughtful silence fills the room for several minutes.

“You are certain these polls are correct?”

“I can show you any you care to name, sir, and they all say the same thing. Lord Marsh can do the same. At this point I think even the Valinor or Verniian embassy could. Only Amante and her colleagues can’t see the numbers.”

Tiberius pauses for another moment.

“I will speak with regards to the military’s budget next week then. But I will not call out Senator Amante or the members of the Senate opposing this bill. I will only say that the Crown and the Court—after hearing public opinion—stand beside the belief the Suns should rearm. But our goal is to defend our border not embark on some foreign crusade.”

Kellarny bows his head slightly, “Thank you, sir. I can say more than just our men and women in uniform will appreciate you doing that.”

“I would hope so, Yuri. Otherwise you would have been lying to me less than a handful of minutes ago. But I warn you once again, I will not become involved in the day-to-day affairs of this or any other Solar government. It is neither my place nor my role as head of state under the Articles.”

The Archon-Prince stands slowly, “Two fusion warheads thrown into the Senate chambers with one speech. I think that may be a record for my new crown.”

“I am sure we can have it documented as such if you would like, sir.”

“Please don’t, Yuri.”

Combat Bridge of the HSS Challenger, Surveyed System HS-22, Near the Dylar System, Unclaimed Space
05.22.1304 AF
1843 Solar Forces Standard

“Attention Dreadnought Challenger! Please allow our shuttles to return to the hangers! We need them to evacuate and proceed to Dylar! I repeat please allow our shuttles to return to the hanger so we may evacuate!”

Commodore Michael Neilson, formerly of the Solar Navy, turns to the task force’s tactical gunnery coordinator, “Signal to the Judgement and the frigates, orders to open fire at will and eliminate the reclamation team’s shuttles.”

“Yes, Commodore.”

Neilson turns to his own station’s displays in time to see a flurry of missile counters racing away from the Challenger, the dreadnought Judgement, and the pair of Roum class war-frigates providing their screen. In a few seconds the termination of the missile counters coincides with that of the shuttles forcible removed from the Federated Suns’ naval reclamation team freighters and transports by Neilson’s Solar Marine contingent.

“Dreadnought Challenger, please stop engaging our shuttles are unarmed! I repeat are shuttles are unarmed!”

A new voice breaks over the transmission.

“Captain Adler, the reactor has been compromised! The safety locks have been disabled! We will experience—“

“Cut the com line now, Mr. Bandlerson.”

“Yes, Commodore.”

“Then get me Colonel Boccacio.”

“Right away, sir.”

While waiting for the reply from Marine contingent’s commander, Neilson watches as the first of the freighters starts to blink rapidly and then vanishes. He looks up at the combat bridge’s optical screens in time to see the other vessels of the eight ship convoy join it one by one.

“Challenger Command, this is Away Team Actual.”

“Colonel, are our freighters secure?”

“Roger, Challenger Command.”

“And the star map order from the supply dump was acquired before the Federated Navy could commence a memory wipe?”

“Yes, Commodore, we have the files you requested.”

“Then have your men lay in a course for Peregrine. We will jump to rendezvous with the rest of the fleet in eight minutes starting…,” Neilson looks to his tactical officer and nods, “now.”

“Countdown commenced, Commodore. My men will have our new vessels ready to depart on the marker.”

Neilson cuts the com and looks at the rapidly expanding clouds of shrapnel and debris that used to be survey vessels for the Federated Suns’ naval reclamation program. This convoy was once of three or four dozen sent out by the new government in Roum to salvage any military hardware, software, or data left behind in the hundreds of supply and weapons caches left behind by the Hegemony. The equipment and materials found that were prohibited by the Grand Coalition’s Second Proxima Centauri Accords would be handed over to League of the Raumreich weapons inspectors, but the rest would go back to reequip the paltry forced the Federated Suns called a navy.

Neilson grinds his teeth when he thinks of what his homeland has become. The Revolution was far from perfect, but serving it had been far better than offering ones service to some sycophantic government held up by the arms of rebels and the fleets of the Grand Coalition. Neilson had never dreamed of surrendering after the collapse of Roum, but he doubted surrendering would have done him or his men any good. He had trained the men and women who had led the attacks on Erewohn, Thetis, Ticonderoga, and Gregor. His command had been among the ruthless hounds that had harried the flanks of the Wickian, Vaku, and Valinor joint fleet that had pressed into Ortagan space from Dylar and Thetis. Surrendering at Roum or anywhere after it would have resulted in an end of life by the noose or the firing squad after standing before a Coalition tribunal for a few days or hours.

But the age of the pirates and rebels left from the Hegemony was also coming to a sudden close. Neilson could barely even count the number of officers and ships that had been caught in the last year as Valinor, Vaku, Verniian, Liberation, Wickian, and even Ortagan warships had hunted them down. Even Midas Rackham’s Freehold and Kagoshima’s Free State of Tyrador had ceased to be safe havens for the remaining Hegemonic forces in the Great March. Those that still survived were banding together into larger fleets and either trying to pursue more aggressive acts of piracy—suicide as far as Neilson was concerned—or slinking away from the Inner Marches to the wilder, less patrolled space in the Talbott Cluster or beyond.

Neilson smiles slightly. He doesn’t intend to just slink away into the darkness of the Cluster and be forgotten. Instead he will buy his way into a new empire that will protect him from the persecution of the Coalition and its Ortagan lapdogs. There is one last weapon designed to defend the shipyards at New Edo that was hijacked by Observers at the end of the Great March War, and it is a weapon its designer would no doubt want returned to him. Michael Neilson knows the best way to stay in the good graces of Ginias Saharin is to give the now Hegemon and Strategos of Mesa something he wants.

FNSI Konpei, Axis system, Federated Suns of New Ortaga
05.22.1304 AF
1905 Federated Forces Standard

Captain William Ballantine, master of the FNS St. Ives, puts his hands on the edge of the tactical display showing a centered view of the border between the Federated Suns and the largely unorganized space under the “administration” of Grand Coalition member states. The line between Federated and League-mandated space is marred by a host of glowing red stars each marking a location where Federated Naval Intelligence believes the forces under the command of ex-Commodore Michael Neilson has attacked either a civilian or military target. Several of the stars are outlined in gold denoting Neilson’s attack on a non-Ortagan vessel.

“As you can see, Ballantine, these attacks are getting more frequent and more organized. FNI believes Neilson is trying to locate one of the c-fractional weapons platforms the Observers captured during the civil war.”

“Is that so?” Ballantine looks over the edge of his antiquated data-specs at the slender figure of Admiral Helena Larkin. The admiral stands with her shoulders squared and hands grasped tightly behind her back. Her hawkish eyes glare at Ballantine. Despite her impressive record as a commander in the pre-Revolutionary Solar Navy and her noteworthy campaign during the Great March War, Larkin has remained tense around Ballantine for years. Even while in exile in Valinon Larkin had been terse toward the famous tactician and commander who had won fame for himself in the wars started by the Grand Duchy of New Ortaga in an attempt to overshadow its horrible losses in the Colonial Wars.

Ballantine finds it ridiculous Larkin should fear him. He had fallen out of favor with the navy long before the Revolution for his brash independence and unique command style. He finds it almost as absurd as the fact that he commands a warship—much less one of the Suns eight Roum class carriers—at his age. But in order to stock the Free Ortaga Alliance’s small armada with trained officers and the almost equally small Federated Navy the Suns couldn’t afford to be that particular about simple things like age.

“You are questioning FNI’s assessment?”

“Not their assessment, Admiral. I question the target you suggested they believe Neilson is looking for. He’s raiding supply caches we know are more data dumps, battle orders, and research store facilities than ammunitions depots. He’s doing this despite the reports we received from Commander Swanwick’s engagement with him that he has initiated what appears to be a program of missile and drone platform conservation. I want to know if FNI really thinks Neilson is going after the Forge Device.”

Ballantine studies Larkin’s cooling gaze at the mention of the mythical shadow still casting doubt onto the international reputation of the Federated Suns and its new armed forces. The Forge Device had been another weapon designed by Ginias Saharin and given operational clearance by the Hegemony before his death. It was in essence a gravimetric shield generator adapted for offensive purposes. What designs and schematics the Grand Coalition and the Federated Forces had been able to uncover about the device in the fragmented and largely destroyed records of Axis and Roum gave clues its strength might be enough to allow it to attack a world with numerous asteroids accelerated to c-fractional speeds or crack a planet’s moon.

Ultimately the power of the device had not mattered during the Great March War. Observer strike teams had captured the weapons platform from its birth in the New Edo shipyards. But Saharin had installed a failsafe mechanism. A network of bio-toxin delivery systems scattered around the platform had been activated before it could jump. Presumably it had jumped successfully, but Saharin and Galt’s forces had been unable to recover it. Information from interrogated SecInt prisoners had confirmed the two Hegemonic leaders believed the Forge had been moved somewhere between the Great March and the Talbott Cluster. But the appearance of Coalition war fleets over New Ortaga had put a sudden end to their attempts to track the device down.

Rumors of the device persisted after the war, and records discovered by Coalition and Federated forces in old caches used by Observers to launch raids during the civil war had said the platform was relocated. But the Observers had never had the means to purge the ship to board it. Reports of its existence had been covered up ever since. It was a desperate move, hoping to find the weapon in secret and assume anyone who had found it would have already announced its discovery or simply use it.

Larkin’s mouth twitches in what might have been a suppressed smile.

“FNI does believe the Forge is Neilson’s ultimate objective, but he clearly thinks he can pursue it on his own timetable. His latest attacks two weeks ago show he is doubling back into the Great March. We presume he is doing so to try and find additional munitions for his own vessels. I believe it is our chance to stop him before he vanishes like too many of these Hegemonic pirates have in the last year.”

“My ship is a good vessel, Admiral, but I cannot fight Neilson in an open battle. One of those dreadnoughts can get close enough and reduce the St. Ives to a debris field. It would take a battle squadron to bring him down.”

“It’s a battle squadron we don’t have,” Larkin says bitterly. “And we’ve exhausted all our other options.”

“Then the Valinor won’t contribute any additional vessels?”

“Tereshkova,” Larkin almost spits the name, “says her vessels are spread thin as it is. I am inclined to believe her even if it is terrible convenient for them. The Valinor government seems to think it can make due with anti-piracy and peacekeeping patrols in the Great March while the Verniians and the Vaku dance around each other like a pair of Vikings wielding dull hammers.”

Ballantine inclines his head, “The Valinor are staying home these days.”

“Who can blame them? The war left them as the last of the traditional super-powers in the Inner Marches. I wouldn’t waste that sort of power either. Tereshkova did promise support if we can ascertain Neilson’s exact position, but that was her only offer. But I think that we have a viable alternative.”

Larkin turns the center of the map to the border between the Suns and Liberation space, “The Silver Fleet has the ships we need to hunt down Neilson, and they have been harried more by Hegemonic rebels than anyone else except us. Fleet Admiral Cantrell has given orders to assemble a modest task force with the Ives as its leading ship. We want you to operate close to Liberation space and try to get into contact with the Silver Fleet. You will have the authority to present them with a proposal for cooperation to capture Neilson. By our information he is the last major Hegemonic officer operating in the Great March. You will also disclose any additional information you find about his whereabouts or plans with the Liberation freely, but you will exclude the knowledge of the Forge Device.”

Ballantine nods, “Did Admiral Cantrell name any specific ships as part of the task force?”

“The cruiser Navarre and the destroyers Wraith and Shield will by placed under your command for the duration of this mission. Two tenders will also be made available for you in Seljuk, but may be moved elsewhere at your discretion. Additional details are provided for you in your orders.”

Larkin produces a disc from the pocket of her uniform.

“Admiral Cantrell expects you to have your command assembled and ready to depart in two days, Captain. I believe that leaves you with enough work to do. Dismissed.”

Ballantine salutes and then withdraws from the small briefing room. He starts to walk back down the halls of the new command facility for the Federated Navy hallowed out of a piece of the massive asteroid formerly known as the HSF Solomon. He can still smell the cloying smell of freshly produced metal and plastic as he starts making his way toward the elevators that will take him back to the hanger his shuttle is in.

And there isnt going to be any warning of the Valinor this time....so forget this lil part even happened!

The wood surrounded Rolt Manor, near the township of Naffalgar, has been plunged into a despairing pall ever since its lord and its lady returned from New Köln. Since Reynard Adonis was only a life peer he had no formal estate of his own other than his modest apartments in the capital. But the last time the old Reichsprotektor had collapsed it had been clear this would not be solved by a few days of bed rest there. So Lady Diedre Rolt-Adonis had come back to her own ancestral holdings in the temperate eastern reaches of Proxima Centauri and had temporarily stepped down as leader of the Opposition during the Diet’s recess season.

But the prognosis for Reynard Adonis had not gotten any better and two rounds of nanite treatments along with an emergency gene-bath therapy had failed to halt the tide. After a lifespan of over five centuries Lord Reynard Adonis, famous commander and the oldest living member of the Congress of Lords, was dying. But the office of Reichsprotektor was left in his hands, even when he slipped into a coma. Lady Rolt and the Empress had agreed it was for the best to downplay how severe Adonis’ condition really was. There had been enough sharpening of blades and arming of political weapons the last time Adonis had briefly taken emergency leave of his post a year after the end of the Great March War. If the machinations of the Centrist bloc in the Sterling Government could be stalled for even a few more months it was worth a temporary breakdown in the chain of command.

However, the amount of time Reynard Adonis could buy for his sovereign and his country had finally run out. Lady Diedre watches quietly as the Rowald Martin, Adonis’ physician, stands quietly and reaches for her husband’s eyes. Without a word she stands and leaves the room. The sound of her footsteps grows quicker once the door comes to a close.

Martin turns to the other figure in the room: Virgil Graff. Graff has long served as Lady Diedre’s chief of staff and continued on even when she lost the office of Prime Minister to Duke Sterling.

“You will see to it the necessary paperwork is taken care of discreetly, Doctor?”

“Of course, Virgil, I will send it through secure links.”

“Thank you. I will see to it Her Majesty is informed.”

“What about Lady Diedre?”

“I already sent a message to her son in Naffalgar fifteen minutes ago. He’s on his way.”

Martin had wondered who Graff had been speaking to when his eyes glazed over with the look of someone using an n-plant or skull-phone. He nods quietly and steps back from the bed. A new pair of men come in to start to attend to the Reicksprotektor’s body.

“If you will excuse me, Doctor, I must try to get in contact with Lady Katherine as well. Can you see yourself out?”

“Under the circumstances I think that is for the best, Virgil. Would you give my condolences to Lady Diedre when you see her?”

“I will, Doctor, I will. And thank you for your time over the past months.”

The young Wickian Lieutenant bowed deeply at his waist, before he spoke.

“Your Majesty,” He said, “I carry with me a message from President Ginske, I have been instructed to deliver it to you personally, and to return with your reply. With your permission?”

He asked and when it was given he unlocked the attaché case from his wrist and opened it with a scan of his thumb print and an input code. He extracted a sealed manila envelope and handed it the Empress. The first part of his mission complete the Lieutenant stepped back respectfully and stood at attention.

Inside the envelope were two loose leaf white lined sheets of paper, absolutely archaic considering the era in which they lived, but it was the last secure method of communication. Wickians in generally did not trust the NU-Space system nor could they trust their own communication networks to be absent of Guilder infiltration. On the paper in black flowing script were the words the Wickian President wished the Empress alone to read.

Empress Friedelinde,

It is with the deepest of regret that I can not afford to speak with you under better conditions, nor through more modern methods. I wish to be upfront with the reason as to why, The Guild Block has spies everywhere in the Government, Navy, and communication networks. A simple courier ironically is more secure than even the Nu-Space Ansibles. I must be absolutely sure of the security of this correspondence, if the Guilders learned of this attempt it would be Civil War.

If these were shock you, I would be surprised. The situation in the Concordat has continued to decline after the peace of the Great March War. In our war against the Ortagans my nation has fallen from grace, where once we were a democratic commonwealth, we are now only a despotic oppressive regime much like that we have fought. There is an old saying that in order to kill a monster you must become one yourself. When I look in the mirror I wonder just what animal my nation has become. I fear the answer.

The vast majority of my people live in abject poverty and the lucky ones are those serving in industry as little more than indentured servants. People are dieing from simple diseases, children are adults at 15 when the gifted are drafted into Military of Guild service while the rest are sent to waste away in the mines. It is a system of our own creation. We are the only nation that survived over a hundred years of war against the Ortagans. To do so my people have sacrificed many of their fundamental rights in order to gain security against the enemy. A wise man once said he who sacrifices liberty for security deserves neither, and the situation in Ticonderoga proves that point. It is a situation that I can no longer tolerate and allow to continue.

My nation, my race, is dying from symptoms we created ourselves. The system will not allow change the Congress is firmly in the Guilds hands. I intend to force through the changes necessary to stop my nation’s fall, I intend in five days time to declare Martial Law due to these exigent circumstances. We will wrest control of the nation back from the Guilds and establish a Provisional Government. I then wish to hold a true constitutional convention for the formation of a Wickian Republic. I will at that time request appropriate Liga der Raumreich oversight in the mater.

I do not really know what to expect this correspondence to accomplish. Even as I write it, it seems like merely a confession of my actions to follow in these coming days. Perhaps it is just to warn you of dangerous events soon to occur so that you may inform your Kreigsmarine detachment stationed in the system. Maybe its so that you know I have the best intentions of my nation at heart Perhaps more than anything it is a reevaluation of the past, and those we chose to associate with much to our cost, and an attempt to correct the mistakes of the past.

A similar copy of this correspondence has been sent to Prime Minister Darius. I think nothing but the fullest support of the Liga can prevent blood from being spilled.

Respectfully,

David Lloyd Ginske, President of the Wickian Concordat

“Empress your reply?” The Officer said while still waiting at attention, he seemed as if he would stand in that position for hours if so required.

OOC: Well forget the parts about taking over, think of this as a bid to inform about a possible republican convention i guess.

“Jesus. Jesus Christ.” Baxter Reynolds, III, LL.M., Chief Operations Officer of the nascent Venture Corporation and nephew to the great and powerful Richard Zheng swore softly and passionately to a Judeo-Christian throwback in which he did not believe and about which he certainly did not care. He did this because he felt himself to be royally screwed, and found this to be the appropriate response from the broad and expressive Western vernacular to which he was an heir.

****

The various plans and machinations of Conquest Incorporated had crumbled before the simple and uncontrovertible fact that it had missed the Battle of Gregor. Arriving nearly thirteen hours after the end of the decisive fleet action, the Corporate Security Services found its nominal objective completed--the Grand Coalition had, in defending Gregor, protected the majority of the orbital factories and habitats in which Conquest had a vested financial interest. Too late for Gregor, Conquest had essentially been too late for the war--“looting” was not a sufficiently legitimate cause for war, and so the CICSS had not been permitted to rove in the wake of the Grand Coalition, plundering at will.

Without the opportunity to acquire the seasoned personnel, material and economic assets from the prostrate ruin of the Hegemony that they had expected, the suited parasites faltered and had, for the better part of two years twiddled their thumbs. Expanding economic ties with selected polities and putting out feelers had been the full extent of Incorporated activities in the Raumreich for some time. That had changed six months before.

Nepotism was not as cut and dry an issue in the Incorporated State as it was in common thinking. While there was clearly no more reason to hire an incompetent family member than there was to hire an incompetent outsider, the trust and familiarity to be had with one’s own flesh and blood made for corporate org charts that looked a little like the family trees of some of the more powerful and wealthy clans. So, while the culture remained one of bloated capitalism, debauchery and excess, a keen interest in family ties pervaded the conglomerate’s collective consciousness.

Director Richard Zheng, the Managing Officer himself, was no exception to this rule, and had lunch on a regular basis with his nine nephews and younger cousins. Of these, Reynolds was his cherished favorite. It was at the conclusion of one of these lunches (marked as usual by a brief and self-indulgent speech laden with advice for his bright-eyed charges) that Reynolds’ troubles began.

“Uncle Richard? I-- I was wondering if I could have just a moment of your time, sir.” In his early thirties, Reynolds was something like a hundred and twenty years younger than his uncle, and the difference in experience was palpable.

“Baxter! Baxter, my boy, of course!” The megabajillionaire swung an arm around the shoulders of his nephew as his Human Resources detail closed in around them. “I have a meeting in seven minutes and--” he paused imperceptibly as he checked an internal clock, “--forty-four seconds. You can walk me to the elevators over near the park. I estimate we have three and a half minutes to enjoy the scenery.” At this, he gestured out the window of the restaurant where the family gathering had taken place, down the raised concourse towards which they were moving and at the towering greenery of one of the many indoor, multi-kilometer parks housed within the vaulting halls of the enormous structures they were in--Reynolds forgot which exactly. “What’s on your mind?”

Reynolds, not very long out of a long stint in graduate school, had spent the last two weeks as part of a long-range planning committee reviewing potential markets into which to expand--a low-level assignment on the likes of which many a young man cut his teeth. While the group’s conclusion had been to further develop Solar markets, Baxter Reynolds III had elected to use his special status to raise another possibility.

“We’re dead in the water in the Raumreich Oversector, sir. We’re sitting on hundreds of billions of credits in system leases and we haven’t developed them at all. I meant to raise--”

Zheng’s playful demeanor had eroded swiftly over the course of the past two sentences, and he interrupted with a unsettlingly level voice--not quite clenching his teeth, but all but doing so. “Baxter, while I agree that the Oversector has vast potential, and while I am painfully aware of the investments already made, decisions have already been made far beyond your pay level. The predacious civilization to the galactic east of the Free Expansion Zone fared far better in the war than had been hoped, and we--no, I failed to exploit the war’s opportunities as I should have.” Now his teeth were well and truly clenched, and Reynolds felt his chest tighten.

He had quite inadvertently stumbled onto one of the few issues which his beloved uncle could legitimately feel had escaped him. It was and forever would be a raw wound, and he had best tread with utmost caution. But to turn back now would be to lose face.

With what little time remained for him, Reynolds outlined quickly and succinctly a plan for growth and development in the Raumreich Oversector--without the sun-blocking armadas of capital ships, limitless barrages of missiles, singularity-mimicking munitions, continent-leveling ground warfare and generally costly and inefficient misery that it had been assumed were part and parcel of every Raumreich experience. A new method, a new model. Details, theories and forecast data spewed forth from the younger man’s artificially perfected lips as they rounded the last corner, quickly approaching the lift that would take his uncle and his great opportunity for advancement away. Sweat began to bead on his forehead as they neared the stylized doors set into a magnificent redwood that soared towards the distant ceiling. With a suddenness that caught none of the black-suited protectors flanking the Director by surprise, but which found his nephew striding quickly forward by himself, the Director stopped. Reynolds caught himself and turned.

Director Zheng, olive skin complimented perfectly by the earthy tones of the artificial ecosystem around him, stood in thought, starting piercingly at his favorite nephew as he had never before. Reynolds’ own, largely separate ethnic heritage was evident as he waited in silence, bright blue eyes half-closed in tense but eager anticipation, pale skin flushed with terrified excitement. For all their emotional familiarity, theirs was not a close relation.

“I suppose...” Zheng’s snapped forward with an energy that seemed to propel him without his having moved at all. He delivered his verdict as he walked past Reynolds and into the lift. “Your mother has been after me to find you something. Very well.” He turned, and met Reynolds blue eyes with his own gold-flecked brown gaze. “Do it. Have a proposal for your Raumreich branch by dinner.”

Baxter Reynolds, III, LL.M gaped in stark terror. “No, wait--!” The lift doors closed in his face.

****

Almost without pause, those four minutes had flowed into a formal dinner meeting with the Director, a four-week stint with a Corporate Strategies planning group to a full-scale presentation to the board of directors of Conquest Incorporated. The Heavy Crew. The Bosses.

And--horribly, crushingly, inexorably--the unthinkable had happened. Despite his youth and inexperience, the one selected to execute the plan of Baxter Reynolds III was Baxter Reynolds III.

He had naturally assumed that a venture of the scale he was proposing would be headed by someone of great weight and experience. Not so. Due no doubt to his uncle’s influence, it was Reynolds’ name that advanced again and again and again on spreadsheets and charts and memos. He would get credit for the plan, which was all he had really wanted. He would get a small percentage, which he had certainly desired. But he was also the one that would have to put his genitals in the crocodile’s mouth, as the popular colloquialism went.

Ultimate authority would rest in the hands of Aeiko Akimoto, of course. Reynolds was far too junior for nominal control of a multi-trillion credit enterprise. While the elder executive, a seasoned pro from the Triumph Media Group, would be the public face of the new initiative, his primary concern would be keeping young Baxter out of trouble. The rest--the daily operations, the big picture, all of it--rested in the uncalloused hands of Baxter Reynolds, III.

The sendoff had been spectacular, even by the lavish standards to which he had become accustomed. The last words he had heard from Uncle Richard before boarding the shuttle to orbit had been words of warning. “Just remember--if you drop the ball, I won’t be able to protect you. Not that I would if you did. Good luck!”

Thus encouraged, Reynolds departed the cradle of humanity for parts unknown. He left the Solar system to take up his new post as Chief Operations Officer of the newly formed Venture Corporation, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Conquest Incorporated and henceforth its branch in the Raumreich Oversector.

****

Gregor, Raumreich Oversector, Milky Way

“Oh, screw me.” While much improved over the past several hours, Reynolds was now quite drunk.

“Of the many services for which I am paid, sir, that is not one.”

“As COO of VentureCorp, I hereby order you to shut the hell up, Jay.”

“Very good, sir.” Vice Admiral Jay Pradesh stood, adjusted his cap and stretched. Scanning the officer’s bar of the Venture Corp Vessel Resurgent to make sure no one was looking, he settled a fatherly hand on the younger man’s shoulder. “Mr. Reynolds, I appreciate what you are going through, sir. But I think it really is time to sober up. We made transit fifteen minutes ago, and should be receiving a hail from Vice Admiral Portman any moment now.”

Feeling suddenly much worse, Reynolds picked his head up off the table at which he was sitting and strode with increasing confidence and coordination towards the exit of the bar (thankfully deserted, it being midmorning shipboard time) as his artificially enhanced metabolism dutifully reduced the alcoholic swill in his stomach to something more manageable--glucose and water--as per his unspoken commands.

With Pradesh in tow, Reynolds adopted a cheerful outward buoyancy he did not in any way posses. Taking stock of his situation, he was materially more secure than he had ever really expected to be. The convoy of which the dreadnought Resurgent was the flag ship included the 1st Heavy Lift Squadron, the 3rd Escort Flotilla, 9th Heavy Task Force and the 2nd Reconnaissance Task Force--collectively, VentureCorp’s First Fleet. More than a match for whatever ex-Hegemonic forces that might be lurking in the FEZ.

But Reynolds’ first and most delicate task was not one where this material strength would be of any assistance. His wit, his will and his wallet would be his only allies. He was going to suborn an officer of the Imperial Verniian Navy.

After that, recruit pirates.

And after that, build an empire.

Baxter Reynolds, III, LL.M. was not feeling much better when he arrived at the flag deck.

Friedelinde reads the message after casting the opened envelope onto the desk in front of her. The expressions of Grossadmiral Adonis and Prince Wilhelm remain unaffected after taking a moment to digest the rank insignia—or more correctly the lack thereof—on the lieutenant’s uniform. The Kammerherr and Duke Sterling are less subdued with their reactions. The Prime Minister has a few minutes of sheer shock broadcasted from his face before gaining control of his emotions. But Erwin von Ribbentrop clearly is considering the idea of strangling something for this gross breech of protocol, especially when the Concordat’s ambassador to the Star Empire is virtually within the sight of the Palace in New Köln.

Friedelinde finishes reading the letter then, pointedly, hands it to Lady Adonis rather than her prime minister. Her son turns his head so he can read it along with the First Star Lord.

The letter makes it way to Duke Sterling. Friedelinde folds her hands on the desk and watches the prime minister.

Sterling looks up, “Your Majesty, surely you cannot consider a course of action based on what this level proposes. President Ginske is essentially requesting that we directly intervene in the internal affairs of the Concordat on grounds that are—“

“Oh, stow it, Adrian,” Friedelinde cuts in. “I will not tolerate hearing the outright lies that are required to make it sound like the Concordat has anything approaching the ‘elected’ government it claims to. Any person who has read an intelligence report or even watched UVNN could tell you exactly what the Concordat is, and it is certainly not a democracy.”

“I still see no benefits of involving ourselves in what is an internal matter of a sovereign nation, Your Majesty. It sets a dangerous precedent and goes against the policy we have followed since the end of the war: that we will not be the Raumreich’s policeman.”

“Occasionally, Adrian, it becomes necessary to take actions which do not promise immediate short-term benefits. I realize you are required to cooperate with your governing partners in the Centrist, but surely you have not forgotten everything you learned when you were foreign minister under Lady Diedre?”

Sterling starts to say something, but he is silenced by a flash from the Empress’ eyes.

“An ultimately this matter falls under the prerogatives of the Crown, and does not need to be embraced as a critical issue by your government yet,” she turns to Katherine Adonis.

“What kind of fleet element could you dispatch to Ticonderoga without causing too much difficulty, Katherine?”

The First Star Lord eye brows arch.

“I suppose that would depend on what Your Majesty is expecting will happen in the system. Vizeadmiral Tereshkova has a trio of cruisers temporarily based out of the system as part of her anti-piracy and peacekeeping patrols in the Great March. But there are no major elements of her command nearby.”

“I want to deter any of the Concordat’s neighbors from treating a crisis in the system as a window to move in to either annex the system or advance their own interest in Concordat space.”

“The Verniians and the Vaku…,” Sterling says quietly.

“Precisely, Emperor Alexis and Emperor Jukaga have been at each others’ throats discreetly since the end of the war. I would prefer if it was at least kept a quiet dispute since we obviously cannot convince either one of them to resolve the issue diplomatically. Can we spare anything from Klein, Katherine?”

“I think we can easily do that, Your Majesty. The super-carrier Dominion has completed a dock reworks and an update on her on board automation. She and her task force could be put under way before the end of the week.”

“Good, now if you will excuse me, ladies and gentlemen, I must prepare for a meeting with Director Guiscard and his staff. The sooner he can leave the better it--,” Friedelinde looks up as the door suddenly opens one of her own couriers rushes in.

“Forgive me, Your Majesty, My Lords, and My Lady, but I have an urgent message from Lady Diedre’s chief of staff. I am afraid that Lord Adonis has…”

**********

A little over a half-hour later a formal honor guard is lowering the flag in front of the Palace to half-mast, and in the distance the flags in front of the Imperial Congressional Building are following suit.

**********


President Ginske,

I cannot fully begin to appreciate the situation you have found yourself in, but I understand the need for governmental reform often comes at many inconvenient times in a nation's history.

Of course I offer you my deepest wishes that attempts at reform in the Concordat will succeed peacefully and effortlessly, but I acknowledge your people do not put as much faith and stock in comforting words as my own do. But I believe the United Star Empire can act to help control tensions that may arise during this period of reform.

I have spoken with Grossadmiral the Lady Katerine Adonis and she has made arrangements for a task force under the HMS Dominion, a super-carrier, to make a tour to Ticonderoga. The Dominion will depart from Klein before the end of the week, and should reach Ticonderoga in no more than four days. A message has also been sent to Vizeadmiral Tereshkova advising her of the severity of the situation in the Concordat, but due to the nature of the limited forces under her command I do not expect she will be able to greatly strengthen her own forces in your system.

I will also see to it that the issue of corruption and mismanagement where international aid to Ticonderoga is concerned is brought before the Assembly of Nations at the next session. With the situation you have described I have no doubt even my own government will find cause to see exactly what has been done with the money and supplies they have granted to the Guilds. I firmly believe we can expect the Liberation and some of the Ortagan states to reach a similar conclusion.

My primary concern is what actions maybe taken by your immediate neighbors should Ticonderoga descend into a state of civil collapse. The attitudes of both Vernii and Vakutu are well known to both of us, and I have no doubt neither will be willing to allow the other to gain control of Ticonderoga for strategic reasons and damages to their prestige if nothing else.

I am firmly of the opinion the Raumreich cannot bear another war at this time—if it can even be said the Oversector could ever “bear” a war. This opinion is only resolved by the military strength both Emperor Alexis and Emperor Jukaga have amassed since the collapse of the Hegemony. If need be I will see to it that the resources of my realm are committed to stopping Ticonderoga from becoming a flashpoint or a pawn by either of these powers. I will also take what steps I can to make sure the independence and sovereignty of your nation is respected in the coming months.

I wish there was some other way you could accomplish what you have to, but I accept your word that it cannot be done otherwise without question. Do know your people have my personal respect for the years served on the frontline in the entire war against the Ortagan Hegemony, and know that I am not alone in appreciating your sacrifices for the sake of the Grand Coalition.

Respects,
Friedelinde Alderman
Empress of the United Star Empire, Protector of the Valinor

Darius read the letter and blinked. He raised his head and looked to the WIckian courier, then back at the letter. And blinked again. A smile wrang itself around his face and he did a little jump into the air in his flaming-pink leasure suit. "HA!" he declared to the heavens, continuing a little dance atop the marble floor. Talia came in to see what all the fuss was about. He ran over to her, grabbing her by the hands and dancing in circles, whirling her about.

"What is all this about, dear?!" she inquires, smiling but for reasons she does not know.

"Democracy, darling! Democracy! It's like life itself--you plant a seed and watch it grow and grow and spead like wildfire across the Reich!" He danced a bit longer and then went to the courier, grasping him by the shoulder. "You, you wonderful man, can you tell this to Ginske? Tell him he has the full support of every man and woman of the Homeland. Tell him he has my every resource at his disposal!" He lets go of the messenger, pacing off into the next room, still shouting. "Admiral Murphy himself will attend to any military aid your president might need!" He storms back into the room carrying a small wormskin box. He opens it. Inside is a golden "T"-shape with intricate designs imbossed throughout. In the center is a great silver circle with beams reaching out, the Morning Star.

"In this is the Guardian's seal," he places it in the courier's hands, "... take it. It's carried the authority of Hamunaptra since the time of the Sultans. No Gaurdian has awarded it's power since the Verniians destroyed the last of the Clergy remnants and freed our system forever. Give this to Ginske and tell him these things. Go!"

Darius had no idea Ginske would likely toss the priceless trinket aside upon recieving it, but then again Darius never understood the WIckians.

Vice Admiral Wallace Portman's flagship, the dreadnought Seraphim and its attendant warships moved into formation near the First Fleet of their ally. Portman sat at his desk in his finely furnished cabin as he typed out a message for Communications to transmit to Resurgent.

From: VADM Portman, CO BatRon7 & SG 14, Imperial Navy of Vernii.
To: VADM Pradesh, COO Reynolds, VentureCorp First Fleet.

Priority transit privilege has been granted to your forces for transit through the termini to New Tyrolia. Once our forces have arrived there, I invite you and your commanders to meet with my chief of staff and I for dinner and joint operational planning aboard Seraphim.

~ Vice Admiral Wallace Portman

Portman clicked the "Send" button on his screen, and let his gaze drift to the large view screen on the wall before him. He manipulated the controls, focusing and magnifying on the flagship of the new arrivals. He studied its lines and weapons batteries for a moment, satisfied at the workmanship of his nation's ally. Here, away from the eyes of his subordinates, the vice admiral allowed himself an unprofessional chuckle. Anti-piracy work in the Great March and FEZ was a quick route to further recognition and honors from the Admiralty, and while dangerous, the posting was heavily competed among the senior brass for its prestige value. As a competent but uninspiring officer (even he admitted it, but only to himself) he'd been lucky to make rear admiral, and that had looked to be the pinnacle of his military career.

He got up from his desk, and poured himself a snifter of brandy imported from Earth, and returned to his thoughts. Everything had changed after he'd met and befriended Duke Bennigsen at an uncle's marriage celebration. The man had powerful friends and quite a lot of influence in the admiralty due to his corporation's warship construction contracts, and Portman had found himself promoted within months to his new position, and a whole new horizon of potential rewards had opened up to him.

Portman smiled to himself and raised the snifter of brandy to the viewscreen, silently toasting both his patron and his allies, who would help him climb the ranks of power.

+++

A task force of warships, mostly cruisers and destroyers, floated protectively around two large Imperial Navy vessels. One was the dreadnought Warspite, serving as both flagship and opposition force for the imminent exercise. The other ship differed from the round and sleek lines of the warships around it. It was a Planetery Operations Vessel, and its angular lines contrasted sharply with the appearance of its escorts. It also lacked their smooth hulls. Telescopic and fully extended communications and sensor masts jutted from its dorsal and ventral surfaces, while camera turrets trained their powerful optics onto the planet beneath.

Inside the starship lay a control room for commanding and observing ground operations. Enlisted personnel manned the crowded posts, while officers hovered nearby. In a section set aside for them, a group of senior officers sat and intently watched the compartment's screens. Everything seemed exactly as it would if it were the bridge of a warship, but there was one main difference. Everyone in the room wore the brown uniform of the Imperial Army rather than the Navy's black.

"Field test commencing. Launching dropship."

Magnetic clamps released their grip, and hull mounted counter-grav generators pulsed to full power, kicking the combat transport's payload away from its hull. The sleek, black, delta shaped landing pod oriented itself toward the planet below as its own thrusters kicked online. It hit the upper atmosphere at supersonic speeds, hurtling through the air as a blazing comet. Groundside weapons systems opened fire on the landing pod. Decoys and flares bounded away from it, and ECM emitters screamed out electromagnetic distortion at enemy tracking sensors. Hits were scored, but their energy was absorbed by protective bow shields and shunted away into the blazing air, as altitude dropped at an alarming rate.

Enemy fire increased, seemingly desperate to keep it from touching down, and the pod finally manuevered for the first time since hitting atmosphere. Braking flaps fully extended, and it began a steep pullout from its dive, pulling G-forces that brought its wings dangerously near their stress limits. Navigational computers directed it into a plunge behind a tall mountain ridge, hiding it from enemy radar as it skimmed over the ground at an altitude of less than a kilometer at high supersonic speed. Forward counter-grav generators engaged, hammering down inertia with sheer brute force, and speed decreased very rapidly. Altitude fell, and ventral counter-grav generators engaged for a split second to 'soften' the landing.

It hit the earth with a violent impact, tossing out a large amount of rock and soil, and reducing its wings to a cloud of splintered metal as they struck the ground. The mission compartment bounced back into the air from the energy transfer, a truly frightening thing to witness a 40,000 ton object do. It crashed back to earth, still quite violently but comparatively softer to the previous impact, and skidded the rest of the way to a standstill, ploughing a multi-kilometer trench behind it.

Inertial fields had protected the pod's payload during its energetic landing, while navigation computers noted the safe landing, and turned to their final duty. Explosive charges ripped apart the tightly sealed hull of the pod, and a 13,000 ton monstrosity rumbled from the debris. Designated as Autonomous Land Battleship Number One (affectionally known by its maintenance crews as "Albion"), N1 carried firepower equivalent to a battlecruiser in a ton-per-ton ratio. Its computer took a fraction of a second to analyze the terrain around it and detected no hostiles in the immediate area, while simultaneously establishing a data link with the POV in orbit. Objectives and geographic data were downloaded, while a status report was sent back.

The operation's command staff transmitted approval to Warspite's battle computers to begin their campaign, and seconds later a heavy artillery battery in a concealed mountain bunker several dozen kilometers away opened fire on the landing site of N1.

Radar detected the incoming shells, and the tank's computer swiftly allocated PD lasers to deal with the incoming rounds. It surged forward on its multiple treads, moving at almost 90 kilometers per hour, a surprising speed for a vehicle of its size. As its lasers engaged their targets, N1 calculated the likely firing position of their battery from their trajectory, while analyzing seismic data and filtering out its own vibrations to compare the results to its trajectory analysis. Once the probable location of the enemy battery was confirmed, the computer swiftly plotted its own counter-fire. An expendable reconnaisance drone was loaded into one of its mortars, and launched over the mountain ridge. Expandable wings deployed from it, and sensors scoured the landscape with a variety of spectrums. The flash and thermal bloom of the battery firing off a second barrage betrayed its location.

N1 noted the heavy fortifications would require a large amount of firepower to destroy, and three 40cm mortars were loaded with five kiloton atomic rounds. N1's first shots in anger passed the third incoming salvo over the top of the mountain range, and seconds later sensors detected the trademark rumbling of the earth as the bunker was bracketed by near direct hits. A fourth salvo never came, and N1 was satisfied that the threat had been neutralized.

Warspite acknowledged the minor loss, and began moving its units, both real (and unmanned) and simulated, into defensive positions between the enemy tank and its objectives. Just over eight hours and 720 kilometers from the landing site later, N1 was finally mission killed by Warspite, after being pincered by an armored division backed up with long range artillery and air support. In exchange for its own loss, N1 had destroyed almost an entire infantry division, and badly mangled an armor brigade, along with destroying or shooting down numerous artillery units and aircraft.

umm lets move on....

The Resurgent followed the Seraphim through the bizarre quirk of astronomy that was the Gregor/New Tyrolia wormhole, their respective broods filing orderly through the terminus to the next system in their expedition. Vice Admiral Pradesh frowned imperceptibly as they entered the Gregor end of the anomaly. Do they have to call them termini? Perhaps something more inviting? But ah, the efficiency! This was something anyone could appreciate, but no one as keenly as a corporate creature.

And, the military man mused as he studied his immaculate appearance in the warped reflection of the fine red wine he was bringing to dinner, there were few corporate creatures like Baxter Reynolds, III. He glanced around the shuttle bay to make sure he was alone with his thoughts. Beyond the Marine guards in their matte black powered armor, a gaggle of technicians fussing over some external component of one of the pinnances and the unseen eye of the ship’s security systems, he was.

It was an odd strategy, this of Baxter’s. The all-but-completely superficial break with the parent corporation was intended to give the Venture Corporation a sharper, cleaner perception. Certainly, it sounded much more amicable than did “Conquest Incorporated,” but it was also supposed to appear more accountable and forthright than a heavily-fortified megalopolis outside the Raumreich itself. Everything down to the corporate color scheme was supposed to be more fetching, substituting the more ominous black and red of the parent corporation for blue and white.

But another reason to spin off a subsidiary was deniability. Conquest did not think it would pay to compete with the old men of the Raumreich in arms and material. Instead, it would move hard and fast into the shadows and underworlds. It would seek advantage where others would dare not tread.

But only dozens of times removed, of course. Reynolds would have to play both spymaster and criminal baron, and hide it all from public view. All the same, there might always be rumors. By the grace of god and an inside straight, no evidence, but there could possibly be snapshots of the wider action, scraps that could endanger the future of the bright, young Venture Corporation and its bright, young COO if they were not counteracted. This would require friendships, strategic partnerships... and bribes. Lots and lots of bribes.

“Vice Admiral. You look snappy.”

Pradesh turned to see his boss in a perfectly (not hyperbole--it had been tailored by laser under AE supervision) cut smoking jacket, a pitiless looking Human Resources agent trailing respectfully behind in a conservative black suit. The officer saw himself reflected in the opaque black sunglasses of the bodyguard and repressed a shudder. One heard stories, from time to time....

“Thank you, sir.” Pradesh touched his gloved hand to his cap in salute. “You do, as well.”

“Ha!” Reynolds barked. He had overcome his earlier jitteriness, it seemed. “I look like my mother dressed me, which is exactly what she would have tried to do if she was here.” He looked down at himself. “Though, she used to do an excellent job. Shall we?”

They boarded the finely-polished executive shuttle (also black), which rose with an elegance and poise missing from the typical workaday craft. Seconds later they were hurtling into the void towards the Seraphim.

Hmmm there was nothing to see here besides some plagerism of mine...better that it is gonzo.

Holistan City "Gateway to the Homeland," True Hope--The Morning Star System
The newly built Baliwar International Spaceport, a week ago...

Holistan City was hardly a city. It was a leftover mining camp on the ass-end of the planet as far as Hamunaptra was concerned, but now it served a purpose. Darius ordered the construction of a great spaceport just outside the town and named it for the first un-monumented war hero he could think of off the top of his head (Cashus Baliwar, a Marine Colonel who died on Centris). He had offices and other infrastructure built all over the city--it was an entirely artificial creation and meant for one purpose: to take in the great influx of migrant workers now needed because of the crippling labor shortage.

They came from everywhere, but particularly the Talbott Cluster, where traders will gladly rob citizens of everything they own in exchange for a trip to the Inner Reich. WIckians also came, fleeing the terrible conditions that seemed to follow WIckians wherever they lived. Then there were the riff-raff exported from every other nation around. Vernii sent its criminals, Valinon it's undesirables, etc. All were welcome... well, welcome by some, anyhow.

"Look at them, Samir," Rym commanded in the muttled Arabic language of the Homeland. Rym Bitat, Assistant Director of the new Office of Immigration and Integration (OII) looked out from her new office's new spaceport balcony out onto the new landing pads reserved for the new immigrant workers. She spoke to her Special Aid, Samir with the special kind of disgust one can only insinuate in her native tongue. "Just look at them, like lost little children. Filthy, poor, white children." Samir looks down, squinting as best he can, reaching for his glasses. "These Clusterfolk... why do they have to be white? Must every damned other people in the whole Reich be white Christians? It's despicable." The heat out on the balcony and landing pads would be unbearable to the newcomers. Rym and Samir, natives of this, the hottest openly populated planet in the Reich, have yet to break a sweat.

"Ma'am, it seems all the Arabs are still in Sol."

"Ha!" she let out, incredulous. "The Arabs in Sol are no Arabs atall, not anymore. The German races have dilluted them so much you can't tell them apart.

"Yes, Ma'am." Samir accepted the comment as if it were a command.

"They poor in like rats out of a sinking ship. Soon there won't be any of us left, Samir."

"I think it a good thing, Ma'am. Better a good Arab stay away from jobs reserved for Clusterfolk."

"True, Samir, but they'll breed. It's all they do, the Germanic races. Breed like rats. Look at the Verniians and the Valinor--they're everywhere! Even the damned Elves--just another German if you ask me."

"Ma'am, you'd do well to temper your tone. The Director..."

"Hello!" greeted Salahd Barhimi, Director of the OII, specially appointed by Darius himself. He spoke in a firm, hearty, almost American English, accentuating his H's and R's, much like Darius himself. Rym was not amused. "Amazing, isn't it? So many people from so far away coming, and for what? Freedom! The wonders of of an idea, Ms. Bitat." Barhimi was as idealistic as Darius. He had to be--it's how he got his job. Still, Rym was not amused.

Rym nodded her head to acknowlege the Director and put on an elegant smile. She may be the holder of a high government office, but she is still a woman in the Liberation and appearances must be upheld. She clasped his arm and, her stomach wrenching from disgust, spoke in the plainest, most chipper American English she could muster. "Indeed, Mr. Barhimi. A great accomplishment for the Gaurdian to have brought these people..." she blinked at the concept and had to swallow, "... such opportunity." The balcony oozed with false tolerance and goodwill.

"Indeed, Ms. Bitat! You'll see to it that this particular batch makes it to the Integration houses in a pleasant manner. They come from Noveau Caledonia , one of the more... refined Cluster states if I understand correctly."

"Yes, of course Mr. Barhimi." If she had had a knife she could have plunged it into his chest. All the world is filled with rage and hatred. Why? she thinks to herself. Resentment, they name is Rym.

"Then I must be off. The Gaurdian calls!" the Director announces before bounding back inside off the balcony. Just before he gets to the door, though, he turns. "Oh, and I guess I'll be the one to tell you: you've been promoted, er, unofficially. Next week you'll be placed in charge of WIckian affairs... and because of this you'll be working with some Kuma Adad agents, something about an influx of contraband or something like that. Anyway, you'll get the whole memo soon. Tata!"

Rym stood confounded. "Samir?" she let out in her native tongue in desperation. "The Christians are right. There is a God, there is a God and he wishes me to suffer."

"Yes, ma'am."

Today, the same office though not on the Balcony

"So let me get this straight," Rym said, staring the two Kuma Adad agents before her down incredulously, "You want me to relinquish all control of my new post to Kuma Adad so you can hunt down contraband?"

"Yes."

"Ok."

The two agents stand confused for a moment before checking with her once more. "You aren't... upset?"

"For your sake, I've just been demoted to Spacejew-patrol. I may as well let you have them all to yourselves."

"We'll still need you to comply, your presence will be needed" one instructed.

"Sure, whatever you need. S'long as I don't have to actually talk to one of them."

The two agents smiled at eachother. The Adad did well to have her put in such a position.

Later that day...

WIckian immigrants and their cargo are searched relentlessly. There are beatings out in the open, witnesses are disposed of or mindwiped. The "contraband," loads and loads of Liberation and Valinor Aid being moved through the system on its way to the Cluster, is found. Darius recieves a report a few hours later containing words like "reasonable suspicion" and "protected rights." The Adad agents involved are commended, Darius makes a call.

"Yes, may I speak to the Empress? Yes, you have my verification codes. Thank you." The Valinor are so very cordial, Darius thought to himself. "Empress? Yes, hello--it's been some time. Oh, I've just come across something you might want to hear about..."

Darius described the situation and sent her a copy of the report over NuSpace.

"I believe, in the dating world, they call this situation an in, if you understand my meaning. The Guilds have been selling League aid and we've been tracking your ships in-route to Ticonderoga. I'll have Murphy put some boats out myself. The Directory seems to be the appropriate means, don't you think?"

Hours later, on board The Gaurdian's Sword in route to Ticonderoga...

Murphy decided, upon being told that Ginske had been handed the Gaurdian's Seal, that somesuch political controversy in Ticonderoga wasn't worth his time and relegated the whole thing to one of his Vice Admirals, one Sahid Barbat--a cool headed fellow in need of experience outside the Homeland. This would do fine.

Murphy himself was still present in his flagship with the remainder of Barbat's detachment, but he would remain behind, outside of sensor range and only a matter of minutes away (hyperspace travel) while Barbat's Dreadnought squadron and support cruisers and destroyers approached the system at sublight--it would be some time before they entered the system's sensor range. They had not gained Ginske's (or anyone else's) permission to enter or even approach the system.

He sat and drank tea while his crew ran attack drills. What a fine reason for a trip to the badlands, he thought to himself, laughingly. Democracy.

United Valinon News Network News-in-Brief Data Feed
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Your source for news from across the Empire!

>News-in-Brief Data Faxes
>International Section
>Raumreich Headlines

Conquest Incorporated Reorganizes Raumreich Operations
~Aldin Mitchells, Reporting

Senior executives of Conquest Incorporated announced Wednesday their Raumreich branch has been reorganized and placed under new leadership. The reorganization comes after considerable inactivity from Conquest Incorporated after the end of the war.

The newly formed Venture Corporation will assume control over all operations and administration of Conquest Incorporated asset’s in the Raumreich. The new corporation’s chief operation officer—and primary administrator in the Oversector—is Baxter Reynolds III.

Reynolds has already taken the initiative for the Venture Corporation by leading a sizeable naval task force to secure Conquest Incorporated’s claims in the Tyrolia Free Expansion Zone, originally explored by Vernii.

The Sterling Government’s reception of the new incorporated leader to the Oversector was muted. Archduke Metternicht commented on Reynolds’ arrival while leaving the summit with Berchester ambassadors this afternoon.

“The arrival of Herr Reynolds and the deployment of additional Conquest military assets to the FEZ is ill-timed to say the least. The militarization of the border systems between the FEZ and the Greater Empire of Vakutu continue to be rampant. I have no doubt the appearance of another party closely tied to the Verniian Imperium will be brought before the League Assembly by the Vaku. The management of Conquest Incorporated in Sol should have better consulted their information regarding the FEZ before deploying military assets to further provoke Vakutu…more?

Metternicht Says Berchester Summit Near Conclusion
~Sharon King, Reporting

Archduke Faustus Metternicht said negotiations with the Commonwealth of Berchest are proceeding ahead of schedule Tuesday and should be concluded by next week.

The conference with Adele Jorgenson, the Berchester foreign affairs minister, was organized after a request by the Berchester government to normalize relations with the Star Empire. Metternicht and Jorgenson have led the conference for two weeks working toward final agreements between the Star Empire and the Commonwealth over security policies, trade, and mutually linked foreign policy.

“I believe the negotiations with the Berchesters will be concluded to the mutual satisfaction of Prime Minister Cyrano and Her Imperial Majesty’s Government,” Metternicht said. “The Berchester Commonwealth believes its future lies in linking itself to areas outside of the Great March, and we are perfectly suited to helping them in this regard. The links created by this conference will be the building blocks for decades of cooperation between Alpha Centauri and Berchest.”

Metternicht and Jorgenson have both dispelled rumors their meeting have been negotiations aimed at uniting Berchest with the Star Empire as a new dominion.

“Having just obtained our independence from the greater Ortagan state we have no desire to give away our sovereignty,” Jorgenson said. “But we recognize a state in the Raumreich cannot exist without maintaining strong diplomatic ties with its neighbors, especially a state as small as our commonwealth.”

The Sterling Government has leaked some information regarding the final agreements of conference. Metternicht and Jorgenson have drafted a mutual free trade agreement and a joint statement regarding…more?

Wickian Concordat Contemplating International Integration
~Goro Izuma, Reporting

Exiled Wickian communities in Vernii want to reintegrate with the Wickian Concordat. Emperor Alexis Calimar has entered negotiations with Concordat officials to draft a plan for peaceful integration.

Members of the Concordat government and the Vernii Wickian Enclave, led by August Saint-Just, have met with the Verniian government to discuss a valid plan for the enclave community to rejoin their fellow Wickians. The plan will address a way to reintegrate Saint-Just’s community without it having to be relocated to Ticonderoga, Thetis, or Gryps.

No formal resolution has been announced by either the Concordat or the Imperium, but representatives of both nation are considering the creation of an autonomous or semi-autonomous political entity within the Imperium made up of the Wickian Enclave.

It is unknown whether this new entity would be represented in the Concordat, the Imperium, or both. The possibility of reintegration into the Concordat would be the greatest upheaval in Concordat politics since the end of the war if it will result in a change to the composition of the Wickian legislature…more?

Duke Sterling To Attend Great March Conference
~Shane Beumont, Reporting

Duke Sterling has confirmed he will attend the conference to be held by the Free State of Tyrador. He will be joined by representatives of Tyrador, New Ortaga, and Berchest…more?

Tereshkova and Shen-Tai Petition for More Ships
~Daniel Arlington, Reporting

Grossadmiral Shen-Tai and Vizeadmiral Tereshkova have published public statements calling for additional warships to be sent to both the Talbott Cluster and the Great March. They say reductions made by the Sterling Government have led to growing piracy and instability in both sectors…more?

Last Sunbuster to Be Dismantled Before League Delegation
~Boris Kartov

Director David Sterchi announced the Special Bureau for Deactivation and Dismantling (SBDD) will breakdown the last Great March War sunbuster before a delegation from the League of the Raumreich. Sterchi said the dismantling ceremony was delayed so it could take place during the next Assembly of Nations summit on…more?

“Herzer water?” The distinctly sweetly feminine voice asked. The young man though seemed not to hear her, he continued to chip away at the ore in front of him with reckless abandon and with an unstoppable energy. He was tall even for a Wickian stand erect at a full seven feet. His skin was glistening with a thick sheen of sweaty, but it was the almost translucent pale tone that a miner had, down in the pits for 18 hours a day away from anything resembling UV rays. The girl offering the water could not help but be intrigued by his form, he had a muscle tone that would have been worth millions in bio-sculpt else anywhere outside Ticonderoga, it could almost be called Herculean, and clad in only a miner’s harness he bore just about all to her liking. She also noticed that he was genetically pure, his body lacked and hair follicles and he had bright green skull stips and bright red eyes, suggesting a Guild birth nowadays, they were some of only Wickians who were not cross breed maintaining the old limited distinctive genes. She herself was quite short for a Wickian female standing under six feet, and she had pale hazel eyes, though she still chose to depilate her heard, her skin tone was darker, almost Asiatic. “Herzer!” she said louder, at that he turned.

“AH, hey there Shilan, Thanks!” He said taking the dipper of water and drinking the pint, it was his hourly allotment. “Ah that’s good stuff” he lied, it was piss warm and tasted of minerals and fluoride.

“Are you going to the ‘Green when you get off?” She asked him clearly hoping he would be. “I could use the company.”

“Sure, I will see you there and then we can drink ourselves into oblivion.” For a miner and their assistants their two hours of recreation were their only refugee from work, meal time, and the required four hours of sleep a cycle. This would continue for 8 months before they were sent back to the city on furlough for two months, which was their rest cycle which they would live in a place not much better than a refugee camp, Herzer would rather be working at least he made two credits an hour in the mines. This was the fate of anyone who did not score outstanding on their applicability tests, after their eighth grade of school, Herzer had now been in the mines for three years. His parents, Tester take them, had disowned him when he scored only an average, between that and his courting of a Indy girl, he had become the black sheep of his Guilder Family who quickly swept him under the rug. He sought refugee with his older cousin who had been in the Monitor Corps, the 235th Pursuit Squadron, under then Lt. Commander David Ginske. The man who was now the President, the man who also lost his entire squadron in the first bloody hour of the war, his cousin among the dead. After the war, with no money, no home, he like so many of the displaced navy dependents were sent to the work camps, given jobs they were most applicable to. For Herzer, it was the minds, a lucky few got sent to refined services or the merchant fleet. And here he remained, not all that bitter, he was healthy, had a job, lived in heated quarters with meals twice a day. He even had a good looking friend with benefits in Shilan, nah life could be worst.

* * *

Life couldn’t get any worst for those poor wogs, though Chief Warrant Officer Lewis Dunbar as he flew his assault VTOL over Ecol cities’ suburbs. The craft was painted in the green and blow of the Thorin Militia. They were orbiting the suburbs over the newly established Fresca Work Camp, it was a collection point for displaced unemployed workers, here they would be evaluated and distributed to where they were most needed. At least that was the theory. In point of fact they were really in a sense refugee camps full of people forced into them. There was little food or medicine and disease was rampant. They were here today to fix that by ensuring the distribution of Liga aide. The cargo Helo, bearing Liga markings was being unloaded at the central pad, thousands of inhabitants were crowding the Liga ship and workers begging for their assistance. The Liga workers were simply throwing supplies out to them. It seemed unorganized and really it was, Dunbar could see a few fights breaking out over the aid packages but for the most part it was an organized chaos, that was until two APC’s in the maroon red of Ecol City’s Security Force appeared. These were Rex Fresca’s men, his own private army in Ecol city, they manned the walls, his factories and policed the streets. They had more than three battalions of troops in the city, outnumbering even the Thorin Militia whose duties were largely being usurped by the Fresca’s forces over time.

“What the hell are those pigs doing here chief?” asked his door gunner who manned the tri-barrel in the port side hatch of the VTOL. “Do you think they missed the Op Order giving us jurisdiction for this.”

“I don’t know corporal, I just know that I don’t like it. Keep a sharp eye out.” The chief replied. The APC’s pulled up along side the Liga Helo, people moved out of their way quickly, it was common knowledge that the Sec Forces did not slow for pedestrians. Two squads of troops disembarked from the vehicles and established a perimeter around the Helo, pushing and clubbing the displaced civilians out of their way. Some fell and did not get up.

“Fucking thugs.” The corporal said as he watched the scene unfold. The chief heard his words distantly as he was on the horn to higher.

Understood Red Four, we just received a frago from district command,” The comms officer said refereeing to the local fleet unit responsible for the entire Side, “The Purple Bellies now have jurisdiction in your area, remain overhead to observe but you are not authorized to intervene. Black four out.

“I can’t believe this shit, we are the Thorin Militia we should have jurisdiction for the entire habitat. The Navy is really going to shit if they are deferring to the guild’s thugs now.” The chief said more to himself that anyone in particular. That was when he heard the distinctive whine of tri-barrels being discharged. It was a loud whomp, because they fired more than 100 rounds a second, over 6000 a minute. And now their fury was directed at the crowd. It was as if the hand of god smeared big long lines of red through the crowd where people’s bodies used to be.

The chief heard the corporal charge his own tri-barrel, and he knew he wasn’t pointing it out the scattering crowd. He also saw what started the massacre, one of the APC’s was covered in flames, which now were slowly burning out as the infantry poured foam onto it. Someone in the crowd had thrown a gasoline bomb at one of the APC’s which brought the violent crack down. The chiefs hands flicked his own safeties off, arming his own 30mm tri-barrel, his two 1.5 cm lasers and his anti-tank missiles, as he painted the offending APC that had down the killing.

“Home Base, Red Four those purple bellied bastard just fired into the crowd, I estimate 200 dead and wounded. Request weapons free” Gasoline bomb or not the response was criminal, there was an accepted progression of force for such a situation and the Security forces bypassed most of it in under a second. He heard the loud high pitch of a radar lock on his VTOL, he pulled back sharply on his cyclic, forcing his bird up quickly breaking the lock, while turning his own VTOL in the direction of the aggressor, the nose swung in line with the two SecFor VTOLs which tagged him.

“Orders Chief!” The Corporal yelled as he watched the escalation.

”Stand by!”

Red four this is Black Six Shit that was the Colonel himself, Christifori. You are ordered to RTB immediately, Thorin Actual out He left no room for interpretation or discussion, the lone militia VTOL, witness to the latest atrocity of the Guilders returned to base, unable to protect those whom it swore to protect.

* * *

Archer Christifori’s hand slammed into the console in front of him.

“Sir, how much longer are we going to allow this to happen, they just murdered all those people, and this is far from the first time, they killed And-“ Captain Chafee stopped the murder of her commander’s sister was still too painful of a subject.

“I know Katya” He told her using her first name, “You know what they will say though, they were justified, the crowd had gained a mob mentality and even threw a gasoline bomb, damaging an APC and killing one of their own.” He said as if trying to believe his own words and they were a bitter pill to swallow. Yet, he had to swallow them, not to would be treason, the sad thing was that the idea. What was the world coming to?

The Venture Corporation's executive shuttle was received in the main docking bay of Seraphim, where they were greeted by a small honor guard from the ship's contingent of marines. An officer wearing the gold and black uniform of the Imperial Navy waited a short distance from the bottom of the shuttle's ramp. As Pradesh and Baxter disembarked, both he and the honor guard snapped to attention, his white gloved hand coming up to the rim of his peaked cap in a stiff salute. "I am Commander Frederick Meares, Chief of Staff for Vice Admiral Portman," after the introductions finished, he continued, "If you'll kindly follow me, the vice admiral is waiting for you in his cabin."

Seraphim was a new warship, built to replace losses from the Great War, and naval engineers had taken the opportunity to adjust her accordingly to the latest advances in technology and to lessons learned from the war. If Pradesh had visited older capital ships in the past, he may have noticed that Seraphim's passageways seemed smaller in width, with barely enough room for two men standing side to side. It would have felt cramped, but there happened to be fewer crewmen moving about as well, preventing any feeling of claustrophobia.

Portman's flag cabin however, was still of a size that the Imperial Navy considered appropriate for his rank. The entrance opened into his office, which was the largest compartment of his small suite, with enough space to both entertain a dozen visitors and work on the mundane tasks of commanding a squadron. The bulkheads of the compartment were covered in wood paneling, and paintings of old naval battles decorated the walls. The opposite end of the compartment was dominated by a massive viewscreen, which displayed one of the task force cruisers moving into an escort position near the dreadnought. The scent of grilling beef wafted through the air from the hatchway to the left, through which a white linened dining table could be glimpsed. A large desk occupied a place along one bulkhead, and the man occupying a seat in front of it swiveled around and stood as his guests entered.

Portman strode over to shake hands with Pradesh and Reynolds, smiling broadly, "Welcome my friends, it is an honor to have you here aboard my flagship. My cooks are preparing a hearty meal of steak and potatoes, I hope that will be to your liking?"

+++

"Disgusting."

"I bet your pardon Joe?"

"It's disgraceful."

Henry Lockhart rolled his eyes, he knew his coworker well enough to know that Joseph was about to launch into another rant. He put down his pen and stepped away from the table where the plans for a new habitat lay sprawled out, and moved over to the window where Joseph Begrano was staring at the city outside.

"What is it this time?"

"It frustrates me, Henry, it really does. It frustrates me that we're sitting here designing a habitat that will probably end up housing a few hundred people when it could house three thousand in suburban density, and who knows how many people they'd be able to stuff in it if it was a Navy habitat. You know what really pisses me off though? That we get blamed for that type of misuse. Oh sure, no one really says anything, but you can feel their resentment that they depend on us because they don't have the capacity to build their habitats themselves, then this happens, and that resentment turns to hate. It makes me feel guilty Henry. Hell, my jacket would probably cost three weeks of a normal worker's salary here in Ticon, and that fact makes me feel like we aren't doing enough. They need our help and we're failing them."

Henry chewed his lip, gazing at the city from the comfort and safety of the 50th floor of the Emmerson Complex, the Kiel Industrial Group's combination of headquarters and residences for its employees in Ticonderoga. The two habitat engineers had long ago acquired a distaste for their posting, but the pay was good. The Complex's interior was well lit, spacious, and clean, a contrast to the dirty and crowded city that surrounded it.

"I understand Joe, but it's not our fault. It's unfortunate that the only people here who like us are the ones who are responsible for most of this mess. They have the industry they need, they have the resources, they even have the capital. They're able to continue contracting our services and make their payments, so we know there's nothing really standing in their way. It's just that it's all in the wrong hands. Guild leaders could have rebuilt the middle class by now if they wanted, but they don't. They're simply concentrating more and more of the wealth into their own hands, tightening their grip on the workers to avoid challenges to their power. They want the people to be their serfs, and that's what they're getting."

Joseph started mumbling, something about social injustice and inevitable violence, but Henry wasn't really paying attention. He was playing with the Verniian flag lapel pin on his jacket, the sign he'd been given so other Project members here in Ticonderoga could recognize him. He'd been recruited by the head of his department, a grandfatherly old man who had recognized Henry's political and social ideas had closely resembled what the Project wanted in a member. The first day he'd worn his pin, it'd been like a whole new world had opened up to him. He'd been walking down a hallway and the chief financial officer for the Ticonderoga Branch had been coming the opposite way, followed by a small crowd of staffers. Henry had slid up against the wall to make room, and noticed that the CFO was wearing the same pin. The executive noticed Henry's gaze, they'd locked eyes for a brief moment, and then the man had given Henry a pleasant smile and nod before sweeping past. A man who's salary rivaled most Guild leaders, who had a small army of staff and bodyguards, had pleasantly acknowledged Henry's existence.

Henry had been promoted to Project Director for this new Guild VIP habitat just two days after that pin had first adorned his jacket, and had successfully requested Joseph be assigned to his team...both teams actually. The man wasn't a militarist, but he had an almost annoyingly strong sense of justice and morality, was proud of his nation for what it had accomplished.

"....I just don't see how they can let their people live like that, it must require a callousness to human suffering that I can only imagine. The entire damn system needs fixing."

Henry brought up a sympathetic hand, patting Joseph on the shoulder. His other hand moved to his jacket's waist pocket, rolling another lapel pin between his fingers, before softly speaking, "That's why we're here Joe, we're here to fix all of it."

"The Vaku are of no concern," Darius replies, "at last not to my policy decisions, they aren't. And though this will undoubtedly injure my people's longstanding relationship with the Imperium, the greater welfare of the Reich must be looked after--especially for the WIckian people."

He then smiles and elevates his chin in pride, "As for my dedication to Ginske's cause: First Admiral Murphy himself rides The Gaurdian's Sword and the rest of a great expeditiary force to Ticonderoga in order to secure the system from any coup in case it comes." A fleet manifest listing the ships in-route pops up behind him, scrolling [see below]. "Ahead of him goes a minor detachment that will arrive in the system as soon as I can get Ginske's clearance."


Ticonderoga Expeditionary Force Manifest*

The Detachment:

1 DN squadron

1/2 BC squadron

2 DD squardons

The Expeditiary Force (including the Detachment):

4 Leviathan Class SD
1 Fenris Class SD

1 DN squardon

3 BC squardrons

3 LC squadrons

1 CS squadrons

5 DD squadrons


*Note: Silver Fleet squadrons are counted in 10's

Suns Network Towers, Valyria, New Ortaga, Roum system, Federated Suns of New Ortaga
05.24.1304 AF
0845 Roum Local Standard

“Welcome back to our morning transit segment,” Anstelle Marselles says as she smiles at the cameras. “We have two members of Consul Kellarny’s cabinet here to speak about the issues expected to be addressed at the Commonwealth of Ortagan States summit in Berchest next month. Praetor Thrace and Quaestor Moretti, thank you for joining us.”

Quaestor Peter Moretti was the head of the Solar Ministry of Finance and also a member of one of the Merchanter dynasties. Ibram Thrace had been a leader of the resistance forces against the Hegemony during the civil war. Moretti smiles at Marselles, but Thrace just offers a terse nod.

“Praetor Thrace,” Marselles starts, “we have been hearing numerous reports that the Commonwealth of Berchest has entered negotiations with Valinon for new defense technologies and a possible trade agreement. Is this going to affect their relations with the other successor states? And do you know any specifics about the Berchester negotiations?”

“I am afraid I can’t offer many specifics about the agreement the Berchesters are trying to work out with the Valinor, Anstelle. Consul Kellarny and the Senate have worked hard to maintain the policy that the Suns do not interfere with the internal affairs or sovereign policies of the other successor states since the adoption of the Kellarny-Kagoshima Resolution before the League. I do know the Berchesters are seeking to normalize their relations with the Star Empire and hope to open additional economic opportunities for international investment. But these negotiations will not affect Berchest’s relationship with the Suns.”

“What about Tyrador or Kerezin, Praetor? Do you think their governments will see this as an attempt by Berchest to distant itself from the other successor states, especially since they are hosting this year’s summit?”

“I cannot speak for either Councilor Kagoshima’s or Dominus Rackham’s government official policy, but delegations from both nations are still planning to attend the summit. If they see a problem with the Berchester negotiations it is not enough to make them abandon the Commonwealth summit.”

“Senator Amante and Senator Silvius have both spoken about the Suns seeking to lead an effort to create a joint Commonwealth military program rather than increase the Federated Forces budget. Is this a proposal the Senate and the Consul intend to send on to the summit?”

Thrace’s face darkens a little, “The Senate and the Consul don’t see this plan as being feasible, Anstelle. Trying to create a unified military supported by the COS would have to result in the organization becoming a supra-national governing authority. I don’t think we won’t that here, and I don’t see any of the other successor states supporting its modification after having so recently secured their independence. But we will be discussing the possibility of Commonwealth states participating jointly in any peacekeeping or policing actions supported by the League of the Raumreich.”

“But not the possibility of a joint military program?”

“No, that will not be on the agenda.”

“Quaestor Moretti, many of the Merchanter corporations and the new uni-corps have been very vocal about the planned trade and economics programs this Commonwealth summit faces. Would you be able to tell us more about that?”

“Certainly, Anstelle, the Suns will be seeking to establish normal trade relations between all COS member states. Given our common national and cultural backgrounds it is only logical we try to foster a stronger economic bond. My staff and I will be working with the Tyradoris delegation for proposal on internationally standardized cargo containers and warp-gate coordination. We will also be proposing the transferal of a warp-gate program to Kerezin to reintegrate the Freehold with the greater Ortagan economy.”

“There has been some resistance to this proposal from Berchest and the Verniians because of Rackham’s suspension of the Freehold’s Conclave of Sovereign Clans, do you see that being a problem at the summit?”

“Not at all, our own mission to the Freehold has said the Conclave was merely dismissed in order to undergo reorganization to comply with the passage of the new Freehold Unified Constitution. The concerns about this being a permanent dismissal of the Freehold’s legislative body are wholly unsupported.”

“Do you believe this summit will result in a free trade agreement that will encompass all the successor states?”

“I think that may be trying to go to far too fast, Anstelle. But I do see this summit producing a comprehensive resolution putting a plan into place that will work toward a free trade environment and an integration of the COS economies. The success of our own attempts to eliminate trade barriers between the Suns and Tyrador are showing what potential lies in this area…”

Offices of the Consul, Old Federated Assembly Hall, Braavos, New Ortaga, Roum system, Federated Suns of New Ortaga
05.24.1304 AF
1322 Roum Local Standard

“This situation with Berchest could very well explode at the conference, Yuri. What word we are hearing out of Alpha Centauri is that they are pushing for a full cooperative trade and security agreement with the Valinor.”

Yuri Kellarny leans back in his chair and looks at the aggravated face of Ibram Thrace.

“We always knew the Berchesters were going to drift more toward the Valinor than anyone else, Ibram. They want guarantees on their security and independence from the other successor states, especially us. They chose not to believe we are actually sincere about renouncing all claims to the other successor states, and at this point I don’t know what else we can do to relieve their doubts. If allying with the Valinor will let them have more stable relations with Tyrador, Kerezin, and us then I say let them do it. Nothing we have offered them has worked so maybe this finally will. But please say you have more specifics than you gave on the SunsNet.”

Thrace nods, “Diamid’s been trying to monitor the flow of the negotiations in Alpha Centauri as much as possible. He can’t get everything, of course, but it looks like Minister Jorgensen has established a mutual free trade pact and is trying to get the Valinor to agree to a mutual defense pact as well. We’re assuming he will also push the Sterling Government to adopt a statute agreeing to fully protect Berchester independence from any other successor state.”

Ser Benjamin Diamid, Knight-Commander in the Order of the Suns, was the Federated Suns’ ambassador to the Star Empire. During the Great March War he had been one of the contacts between the exiled Loyalist community and the Valinor government. His existing contact—and his consider donations to Loyalist sponsored reconstruction programs—had made it a given he would be granted the posh assignment when Kellarny was forming his cabinet and hammering out the workings of the Solar Ministries. And he had not been a disappointment in his new office.

“Do you have anything else?” Kellarny scratches a few notes into his data-pad.

“No, that’s all Diamid could get for us at the moment. I told him to forward anything else he could find out ASAP. But I do have something else I want to say, Yuri.”

Kellarny nods.

“It’s this proposal for Kerezin. I don’t believe it is entirely appropriate to give Rackham access to the warp-gate network. His government is little more than a continually occupation of the Kerezin system, despite his claims to be trying to establish a unified system government. Surely we can have it delayed?”

“No, the Senate has bought Moretti’s proposals all the way, Ibram. And the Senators like what they’re hearing about what is happening in Kerezin. It may be a military occupation, and it may be supported by what amounts to one of the last surviving Solar Navy fleets, but Rackham is producing results. His popular support among lower classes in Kerezin is growing. The reports we have from the FIS show the clans are losing ground because their own people were tired of the years of in-fighting. I wouldn’t be surprised if Rackam’s dissolution of the Conclave of Sovereign Clans becomes permanent and a whole new government structure is brought in.”

Thrace shakes his head, “I don’t think that will go over well in Morning Star.”

“It doesn’t have to. Rackham can keep his more immediate neighbors happy—or at the very least sated. Gregor and Alpha Centauri tacitly support his regime by doing nothing so long as he toes their lines. He even has the Vaku on his side so long as he keeps providing them with ‘security operatives’.”

Thrace shakes his head again, during the Great March War then Solar Admiral Midas Rackham had been head of the Solar Navy’s intelligence service. When Rackham had taken his command and fled to Kerezin he had taken most of the SNID operating core with him. Since the end of the war Rackham had developed a growing reputation for fielding a very respectable intelligence and security network, and a reputation for selling these expertises to the highest bidder.

“Worrying over Rackham and Berchest will get us no where at the moment,” Kellarny picks up a data pad and hands it to Thrace. “But we do have something else we need to discuss. Our Prince has a plan of how to rally additional support for us abroad, and he seems hell bent on going through with his plan.”

Kellarny takes several minutes to outline Tiberius Corrin’s proposal, and has to make himself not laugh as Thrace’s eyes grow to the size of a plate.

“A tour of all the Inner Marches? I don’t mean to insult the Prince, Yuri, but has he gone insane?”

“If he has he’s kept enough of his sanity to make the idea sound sane when he talks about it. Besides, Ibram, do you see our ambassadors going any farther without some sort of grand push? The efforts of your ministry have been admirable at reconnecting us with the Oversector at large and improving our relations with the Coalition members. But how much farther can they go? We’ve lost any momentum we had with the Verniians and the Liberation in recent years because of the hardliner groups in their governments still bringing up the war. The Concordat and the Vaku can barely be said to have any sort of formal diplomatic relations with us at all.”

“I doubt if anyone except the Valinor will ever have anything approaching normal diplomatic relations with the Vaku,” Thrace adds casually. “But I can’t argue with the point we seem to have milked all the diplomatic avenues we can. I know you don’t want to hear it either, but we have no idea what the international reaction actually will be if the Senate does decide to increase the military budget.”

“I think I may have solved that one. The Prince has agreed to speak on the subject of our military expenditures and support the position they should be increased.”

“You’ve been busy lately, Yuri.”

“And if Prince Tiberius has his way with this tour I will be even busier, and so will the Senate. Speaking of our wonderful legislature, I have to meet with Senator Amante.”

FNS St. Ives, Seljuk system, Federated Suns of New Ortaga
05.24.1304 AF
1600 Federated Forces Standard

William Ballantine locks eyes with Commander Saul Hogan, his XO, and throws the hard copy report away disgustedly.

“He attacked the recovery convoy when I was being debriefed for this deployment. If we hadn’t come close to stopping him during the raid on Dylar a year ago I would say there was a mole helping him.”

“All hands gone,” Hogan breathes and takes a long drink from his whiskey, “Neilson has always been thorough, and he was always a lucky son of a bitch.”

“Lucky and smart,” Ballantine says leaning back in his chair, “which is why we have to catch up to him ASAP. If Neilson can find the Forge Device and it hits the nets we could have prevented it all the Coalition states will be calling for heads to roll.”

Hogan looks at the manifests of the reclamation convoy, “At least he should be short on munitions, spare parts, and most supplies you need to actually keep a fleet running. FNI can confirm these reports Neilson’s numbers have increased since Dylar?”

“They have eye-witness reports from a Merchanter Echo class super-freighter that survived a convoy Neilson jumped two months ago. He was operating with four more war-frigates and three additional wings of monitors than he had at Dylar. If their commanders are not fully integrated into Neilson’s command they are at least coordinating with him.”

“So we have a barebones task force against what is rapidly building up to be a fleet,” Hogan glowers. “I think Cantrell and Larkin both need their heads examine, or take a refresher course in basic math.”

“They’re banking on either the Liberation or the Valinor providing ships to help take down Neilson, and we might even pull it off if we can provide them with Neilson’s whereabouts or the location of his base of operations.”

“I take it that is why you put us in at Seljuk instead of heading out into the Great March?”

Ballantine smiles, “It may have something to do with it. I have also taken some liberties with my orders, which is why we are seeing a Merchanter convoy to Morning Star. Larkin and Cantrell want to gamble on the Liberation coming in as the cavalry; I’d rather make sure they will come from the beginning.”

“Your luck is looking as good as always, Bill,” Hogan downs the last of the liquor. “The Merchanter freighters are already lined up and ready for departure. The Navarre guided the last one in before I headed down here for this wonderful news.”

“Then I think it’s time we got back to the bridge and see if we can’t turn this horrible set of odds in your favor.”

“Let’s hope…,” Hogan and Ballantine both stand and make for the St. Ives’ bridge.

****

Thirty-three minutes later the bulk of the St. Ives sits in a cluster of civilian hulls gathered around it for protection. The entire convoy is made up of massive Echo class super-freighters, Konstantin class freight conveyors, and a few Mellow Gold class commercial transports. All of the civilian vessels are massive behemoths, the growing powerhouse in the Federated Suns’ international trade.

Speedy reactivation of the warp-gate network after the war had meant the Ortagan transportation economy had not collapsed outright—or at least hadn’t yet. But the vessels destroyed during the civil war and the general breakdown in the merchant marine caused by the Hegemony’s state-controlled or at least directed economic practices had left many gaps. Internally trade flows because the still functioning shipyards of St. Ives and Gadsen managed to pound out relatively cheap freighters with n-space drives. These ships relied on the warp-gates to transport them across the Suns, but there had been little to do to preserve independent international shipping. One by one the old firms had once again been replaced by Ortaga’s ancient Merchanter clans who had the money and the resources to build the vast super-freighters and conveyors needed to keep goods flowing in and out of the Suns. Even now the half-completed skeletons of massive freighters—many worthy of a Valinor or Verniian shipyard—are bustling hives of activity in many of the Suns operational shipyards.

These new behemoths, only half jokingly called galleons, ply the trade lanes between the Federated Suns, Berchest, Tyrador, Vernii, Valinon, and the Liberations. They often can be found clutching the coattails of Ortagan, Valinor, or Liberation naval task force patrolling the now wild expanses of the Great March exactly as this convoy is now.

The small forms of Ballantine’s two destroyers close back into the convoy’s formation as it prepares to jump. The cruiser Navarre moves to hold a forward position roughly 8000 kilometers in front of the St. Ives, the destroyers, and the civilian ships. Then in a tell-tale flash of white light and energy the convoy vanishes to a nav-point in interstellar space where it will reorient and prepare for another jump to the Liberation’s home system.

Great Nanjin Mountain Range, New Tortuga, Kerezin system, Freehold of Kerezin
05.24.1300 AF
2048 Kerezin Local Standard

Midas Rackham’s declaration the Conclave of Sovereign Clans must dissolve was more than just an interim period to establish the regime of the new constitution in his freehold, it was a death sentence to the clan-led nation-states who had ruled New Tortuga for so many decades. The clans had survived the wars between Vernii and Valinon, the invasion of the Boroglians, and the Verniian annexation of their system. But the massed legions and fleets of a former Solar Admiral were proving too much to be withstood.

It did not help that the common people of Kerezin were more willing to back Rackham than their former clan overlords. Most of the planet’s major population centers had already sided with Rackham when the new “constitution” was announced. Many of them had even raised their local militias to be equipped by Rackham’s Solar Marines—now organized into the Kerezin Free Defense Force—to assist in anyway they could.

So before the edict had even been sent out from White Harbor (the recently established capital of the Freehold) that the clans must submit to the new government many of the clans and their supports had withdrawn into the Tortugan hinterland. But the clans’ assumption an armed insurrection could last indefinitely against Rackham’s regime was being shown as a considerable fault in strategic thinking.

Right now Kam Chul—a fresh recruit from the city of Rainswood—is having difficulty seeing the overall success of Rackham’s troops against the clans. His stomach feels the impact of the ground through his combat-core armor, but no where near as hard as it would have felt had he been wearing the cheap flak combat armor worn by the clansmen. Kam’s new armor, and most of his equipment, are straight from the armory and munitions brought down from the warships and transports of Rackham’s fleet hovering above the craggy Nanjin Mountains. However, certain sounds can make any armor seem like cardboard.

The high-pitched tearing sound of a Verniian tri-barrel chills Kam’s heart. He jams himself up closer against the rock he was crouching behind even as he realizes that is probably not enough to stop the powerful projectile weapon. Kam looks to either side to see where the tri-barrel rounds are going, and he turns just in time to see it turn two of his squad mates to unrecognizable piles of legs and meaty pulp.

“Bravo Salient CentCom, this is Lance Salient Able. We’re caught in heavy suppression fire from clan units using assault tri-barrels at map position O-1-Niner…,” the stream of number from Kam’s formerly Ortagan area commander loses meaning as the tri-barrel continues to smash into rocks, earth, and flesh around him.

“Lance Salient Able, this is Bravo Salient CentCom. We have your position. Be advised Havoc atmo-squadron in route. Bravo CentCom, out.”

Kam breathes a sigh of relief as the news breaks over the com. There is a roar behind him as someone manages to throw a concussion grenade up in the direction of the tri-barrels. Half of some poor bastard in armor exactly like Kam’s roles back down the mountain suggesting the grenadier did not get to enjoy any success he made have.

But the snarling sound of the tri-barrel is suddenly lost to a much lower, primal roar. Kam strains to hear their firing only to realize the tri-barrels have stopped in a desperate attempt to flee from this newly arrived predator. They are too late.

The black-and-grey arrowhead of a Solar Marines Havoc class atmospheric bomber screams toward the mountain barreling like its pilot must want to commit suicide. Then the bomber abruptly shoots upward, but not before releasing three silver javelins of metal, explosives, and contrails at its target.

Kam feels the burning heat even behind his rock and feels shards of rock and other unknown substances rain on his armor and helmet. If he didn’t know any better he would think the sun itself had decided to burn the mountain. The clansmen who had been manning the tri-barrels must have had a death like they had been thrown into the sun.

“All squads over the top now!” bellows the com.

Kam and what is left of their squad move pull themselves over the rock into a world of charred earth, shattered rocks, dying screams, and blood. The sharp cracks of gunfire start to sound as the surviving clansmen—deprived of their fire support—seek to hold the Freeholders back for as long as they can.

Kam adds the sound of his own rifle to the din, not caring about the risk. Everything seems worthwhile to bring an end to the clans and finally unite Kerezin into something that can give its people more than just war, famines, and death.

The morning filling the streets of New Köln had already been a somber one. Clouds blotted out most of the light from Alpha Centauri A and mixed with the fog sweeping into the imperial city from the river bisecting it. To many watching UVNN’s Morning Watch Keeper program and a host of other local news services it seemed almost natural the regular ‘feeds should be interrupted by the bass drum notes signaling a flash news. Many had saw the flags around the city being lowered to half mast and had been perplexed when no news came from either the Palace or the Imperial Congressional Building to explain why. The confusion grew when the flags were lowered across the empire. The late night ‘feeds had been filled with reports from Yalta, Madras, Archangel, Chandara, Pelledrine, Erudan, and even the Martian dominions.

The weathered face of Chris Bandkamp, one of UVNN’s core anchors, looks into the camera.

“We apologize for interrupting the Morning Watch Keeper, and will return you to Natana and Viktor shortly. However, we have just received word from the Palace that the Kammerherr is making a statement for the Empress as to why orders were given to fly all flags at half mast late yesterday evening. We will take you to the Palace now.”

Bandkamp’s image spirals out to be replaced with Lord Erwin von Ribbentrop walking up to a podium on the stair’s leading to the Palace’s entrance. The Kammerherr is flanked by a pair of Sovereign Protectors who each wear a black armband denoting the imperial household is in mourning.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” Ribbentrop begins, “I would ask that you keep your questions brief once I am done presenting Her Imperial Majesty’s statement. The House of Alderman is in mourning today, and Her Majesty’s desires the citizens of her realm join her in maintaining a respectful silence for the loss of a great man of the Star Empire.”

Ribbentrop’s eyes sweep out into the camera’s eyes, “Last night a life of long and exemplary service was ended in Naffalgar. Her Imperial Majesty was informed the Reichsprotektor, Lord Reynard Adonis, has passed after several months of ill health. Her Majesty and the Prince-Consort are traveling to Naffalgar today to comfort the Lady Diedre Rolt-Adonis and Lady Katherine Adonis.”

Some murmurs break into the feed as the shock of the reporters match those of the Valinor Vaterland. Ribbentrop holds a hand up to silence them before they can break into anything more.

“By decree of the Crown, all flags and banners of the Star Empire and its Dominions are to be flown at half-mast for thirty-two standard days in honor and respect of Lord Adonis. Her Imperial Majesty will personally oversee the honor guard that will escort the remains of the Reichsprotektor from Naffalgar to New Köln tomorrow. Lord Adonis will lie in state at the Imperial Congressional Building for twenty-five days, and then he will be buried with full honors at the imperial cemetery in Valprieza. Arrangements will be made with representative of foreign governments wishing to pay their respects to the Reichsprotektor for his service during the Great March War.”

“I will now take a few questions,” Ribbentrop looks glaringly into the sounds and lights assaulting him before pointing to a Proxima News Service reporter.

“Does the Crown have any announcements regarding the Reichsprotektor’s successor?”

“Her Imperial Majesty does not have any immediate plans to fill the office of Reichsprotektor until Lord Adonis’ remains are escorted to the capital and given their proper respects,” Ribbentrop looks slightly affronted by the question. “However, the Crown is taking into consideration the need to name a new Reichsprotektor and is reviewing a short list of candidates that was drafted by Lord Adonis, Grossadmiral Adonis, Grossgeneralfeldmarschall Beckett, and the Prime Minister. Her Majesty will announce who will assume the office at her leisure. Next question…”

Ribbentrop takes eight more questions from UVNN and several foreign services before dismissing the press conference. The news of Reynard Adonis’ death travels across the Star Empire with the speed of lightning. Even after five centuries of life—impressive even by the pro-long and gene bath treatments society of Valinon—it comes as a shock the old Reichsprotektor could actually die of something as banal as old age. Adonis had survived the last, old wars with Ironholm, the grueling Outer Dominion Wars, the wars with Vernii, and the recent massive conflict between the Ortagan Hegemony and the rest of the Raumreich. Dying of old age seemed to be a bizarre joke, except the grim expression on the Kammerherr’s wasn’t laughing.

The news causes members of the nobility from Alpha Centauri to Chandara to be woken from their beds regardless of time difference from Proxima Centauri I. Members of the dominion governments and their militias scramble to draft honor guards befitting the Reichsprotektor’s funeral. And, above all else, for the first time in almost a century the position of Reichsprotektor (held by Adonis since the beginning of Empress Friedelinde’s reign) devolve back to the Crown in fact as well as name. For the past three years the Star Empire had grown increasingly introverted as it steadily withdrew from major commitments beyond its borders. Now it turns in even more, contemplating what the death of Reynard Adonis will come to mean for the future of the empire in the Raumreich.

OOC: Co-written by Conquest and Vernii.

Aboard the Seraphim, New Tyrolia, the Imperium of Vernii

Disembarking, Pradesh returned Meares' salute with comparable military efficiency, though with a millimetrically more languid snap of glove to cap. Reynolds brought his hand to his temple in a thoroughly civilian response. The Human Resources agent behind the two did exactly nothing, face impassive, eyes scanning the shuttle bay behind their plastic bulwarks.

The party followed the Chief of Staff down one corridor and then another, carefully noting information as it came to him while appearing to avoid giving the impression of doing exactly that. While the quantity of that information was small, it did serve to generate a picture of efficiency and modernity. It was a sign of the times--the entire Oversector was readjusting to the ebb and flow of peacetime by modernizing and expanding their navies.

Delivered by Meares, the corporate boss and the Vice Admiral moved deeper into the cabin to meet Portman halfway--Reynolds took his hand outstretched hand in both of his and shook it warmly. Pradesh saluted his counterpart before shaking hands.

The HR agent satisfied himself that this was no ambush from the doorway, and took up an unobstructive position in the corridor across from the Verniian marine. Obliged by deeply ingrained discipline to stare directly forwards, the seasoned operative felt slightly sheepish to have imposed himself in front of the man in so odd a spot.

"The honor," Reynolds smiled an amicable smile, "is ours. Thank you for asking us aboard--and honest business should always be conducted over food that is equally so: steak and potatoes sounds perfect."

"Excellent then," Portman responded. “Thank you, Meares. You may go.”

“Very good, sir.” The Admiral’s chief of staff departed with a nod to the two men from VentureCorp.

The gentle clinks of the table being set came from the dining compartment, and they drifted to their seats. The steaks, thick and marbled with fat, had been cut from cattle raised on Vernii, and the potatoes had been grown on Erewohn. The wine, thoughtfully provided by Pradesh, was poured into wine glasses with the navy's insignia engraved on them. Portman placed a holoprojector at the center of the table, pressed its activation button, and brought up a glowing map of the systems contained in the Free Expansion Zone. "I hope it won't offend you, but I generally prefer to engage in serious topics during meals, and leave small talk for afterwards. I believe that the mind doesn't like to work hard when it's busy overseeing the digestion of a full stomach."

Reynolds chuckled as he seated himself. "A wise policy."

"The most serious interferences in commerce are taking place here," Portman pointed a finger at a group of stars, "near the Concordat system of Amber. Pirates, mostly ex-Solar Navy vessels, seem to like to imagine they're still fighting the war. The New Tyrolia/Amber trade route, which also branches off to minor settlements in nearby systems, is often the site of attacks. They probably have a base somewhere in that area. The Admiralty, and I'm sure your own commanders, are worried that this security problem could spill over into your systems near that route."

Pradesh glanced at Reynolds for permission to speak and interpreted the other man's nod as such. "We are, in fact. Our original plans had called for our heavier units, principally the 9th Heavy Task Force which includes our dreadnoughts and their attendant escorts, to that area before moving on to the systems tagged for immediate settlement. Those have been tentatively named St. James," he indicated a star above the table with his right index finger, "and Lorelei." At this, he indicated another. Both were to the 'south' of the regional map, 'below' New Tyrolia. "While the our transport elements would ideally remain here near the terminus defenses with the 3rd Escort Flotilla under Commodore Epcott, I would like to send the various divisions of the 2nd Reconnaissance Task Force out to precede us both to those systems and to those nearby. This is, of course, assuming you do not mind Epcott and his charges loitering in the Imperium."

Portman nodded, "No, of course not. As long as your ships abide by System Traffic Control's directives, and your men behave themselves if they go on shore leave, there's no problem. I should also inform you that I have orders to assist your forces in any manner if you request it during your deployment, provided it does not interfere with my other orders or violate the self-interest of my nation. Otherwise, I intend to assign my screening units for convoy protection, and deploy my capital ships into two-ship units for searching remote systems for the bases of merchant raiders."

"That will be no problem. I'll dispatch the recon elements after dinner." Pradesh filled Portman's wine glass, then Reynolds' and then his own. "With the sector cleared, new horizons will beckon great men onwards."

Reynolds chuckled--a low and throaty sound. "Well said, Jay. Grand, but well said." He sipped, testing the vintage. “Now that those sundry details have been taken care of, we can give this meal the attention it deserves.”

A raised glass was Portman’s response. “May the remnants of the Solar Navy disappear as quickly and completely as will these steaks.”

“Hear, hear!”

“Excellent.”

For some time, the men made polite conversation, learning about families and discussing the wider region (which successor state was the weakest, how likely the Vaku were to begin aggressive raiding in the wake of the war, and so on and so forth. Quite abruptly, Reynolds steered the conversation in a new direction.

“The difficulty with--you’ll excuse the pun, Admiral, I’m sure--ventures such as ours is their very scale stirs great controversy. Completely unwarranted, to be sure, but when a private enterprise comes to own whole worlds... obstructive parties present themselves. While the Venture Corporation looks forward to playing a constructive role in the international community, there will doubtless be whispers... attempts to discredit us and play on stereotypes of suited criminals. Pure ridiculousness, but my concern is that we have not had sufficient time to make the contacts and friendships that would protect us from such slander.” Here, Reynolds paused momentarily. He minutely caressed a small, steel ring on his left hand. A distinctive tingling sensation failed to course through his hand. That meant that either the Imperium was not covertly recording the dinner conversation, or that the equipment they were using to do it was very, very good.

“I feel that you could serve as such a spokesman, particularly within the professional bounds of your fine service. Having served alongside us, you will be in a position to testify as to the upstanding nature of men like Jay. In return for vouching for us--if that is your disposition--we would pay you a monthly retainer. All entirely above board, of course.”

Pradesh withdrew a pen from his trouser pocket and wrote a figure on a napkin, which he slid across the table to Portman. It was, suffice to say, a healthy sum.

Portman chewed his lip for a moment, gazing at Reynolds. "As long as this favorable testimony does not interfere with my oath as an officer, I see no problem with that. However, these payments will need to be made discretely, as I'm sure it violates at least one regulation that could interfere with my career. I will make this clear though, I will not be a spy, nor betray my country. Not that I'm accusing you of attempting this, but to head off any future temptation that may occur to you or your comrades."

A casual flick of the hand was Reynold’s immediate response. “Discretion is a virtue that is a personal favorite of mine--you need not worry. I can understand how the fripperies of formal government could hamper your activities in this sort of dealing, and I sympathize.” He cleared his throat. “As to your concerns regarding espionage and the like, allow me to assure you that that is the last thing on our minds. It would be the furthest thing from a temptation to anyone I might be affiliated with. My personal goals, when it comes to the Imperium, are to develop a more effective and lasting cohesion of purpose...on levels both official and unofficial, with whatever elements and parties are receptive.” He smiled. “Such as yourself, my good sir.”

"In that case, I think I could perhaps be of further service. I have a few friends in the military/industrial complex that you may be interested in meeting..."


***

Mile High City, Earth, Sol

While the Triumph Media Group and its smaller competitors in the so-called “Incorporated State” supported several news services sporting salacious reporting, carrying bevies of poorly researched or “fabricated” stories intended primarily to entertain and distract a grey and plodding populace, they did sometimes manage to foster into prominence a first-class publication.

At the forefront of these, the Financial Times was the database that the truly well-informed took a snobbish delight in daily perusing. The ostentatious affectation of actually purchasing a hardcopy summary of the previous day’s news was the mark of a successful (and self-assured) man.

In a cafe that had never seen natural light in its boring history, a coffee-stained example of this last lay abandoned. In the stunted subsection of its foreign affairs division marked “Raumreich Markets” was a headline that read “Akimoto Details Coming Oversector Investment Strategies.” Though the text was stained a light brown, a portion was legible:

The Chief Executive Officer of the newly constituted Venture Corporation discussed the breadth and scope of Conquest’s efforts to establish a foothold in the potentially profitable Raumreich Oversector--and what Aeiko Akimoto has to say is leaving the speculators floored.

“Yes, I said ‘two systems.’ And yes, I said ‘to start.’” With these words Mr. Akimoto, chosen from a field of seasoned candidates to run a new venture (pun not intended) organized from the very top of the corporate hierarchy, provoked a flurry of questions that could all be boiled down to something like “How incredible are the sums being expended here, exactly?” Questions he did not answer. “Venture Corporation has called upon the considerable fluid assets made available to it to begin to prepare the infrastructure necessary to support at least two planetary populations. We are planning for five hundred million carefully vetted immigrants and employees. Again, to start.”

If the first announcement had not left your intrepid reporter positively agog, then the second most certainly did. And yet, the majesty of politics won over the importance of demographics and the next question asked had nothing to do with shifting half a billion souls.

When questioned as to whether he was familiar with comments from Archduke Metternicht, the First Foreign Minister of the Star Empire of Valinon, made public earlier this week, Mr. Akimoto answered in the affirmative. “While the Archduke’s decision not to make his concerns clear to anyone at VentureCorp is regrettable, I am aware of his concerns.” Concerns, Mr. Akimoto went on to say, that reflected a “distorted” perception of the security situation within the Verniian Free Expansion Zone. “Neither Conquest nor VentureCorp has ever maintained any sort of armed presence in the FEZ beyond a handful of observers. The real estate in question is measured in hundreds of billions of credits, and to attempt to paint recent efforts to combat piracy and secure corporate property as anything other than prudent--and certainly an escalation of any sort--is hard to understand for anyone, I should think.” He went on to describe the security operations under Chief Operations Officer Baxter Reynolds III and Vice Admiral Jay Pradesh as “cautious, reserved and merited.”

Were VentureCorp and Akimoto still looking forward to doing business in the Star Empire, another reporter wondered? Mr. Akimoto grinned like the Cheshire Cat. “Of course.”

Anything further was obscured by darkening coffee stains.

St. James, Free Expansion Zone, Raumreich Oversector

The clink of cup on saucer found a comfortable spot amidst the quiet, early morning on the bridge of the Gallant, hung in the air for as long as was appropriate and then was swept gently away by the sounds of subdued activity. It was only just after six, shipboard time, but Commodore Chebrin was a religiously early riser. He sat in his command chair gazing calmly into the holographic plot before him, currently set to display the system of St. James.

He inspected this system primary--a white-hot class F star half again as massive as the sun--over the china rim of his breakfast tea. (Ships with corporate, profit-seeking masters tended to lean heavily towards the spartan, but no one had yet dared suggest to Chebrin that he go without his habitual and cherished cup of Earl Grey.) Circling it tightly was an asteroid belt, the grave marker of a world stillborn so close to the gravitational tug of its mother star. Little but empty space separated this from the planet Agricolum, a world of little remarkable flora or fauna but picturesque plains and grassland. Unscarred by significant glacial activity in its recent history, it was a blank slate to be written upon lovingly. Nestled so closely beside the sphere that it was surprising that it had not been battered into pieces was yet another asteroid belt, followed by an aireless hunk of rock named Bastion.

Somewhere in there, possibly, were remnants of the Hegemonic Navy trying to scrape a living off the sides of nearby Wickian freight. Pathetic. And yet his orders were to secure their services, particularly if they were flying in monitors. Chebrin finished up his tea and gestured for it to be removed from where he had set it, on the arm of his command chair. His place was not to wonder why, only instead to do or die. He smiled grimly.

“All right. I want one squadron of interceptors fitted out with recon pods and sent out in a light screen ahead of us. Then I want a CAP of another squadron rotated on the hour. Carriers to trail the cruisers, but closely. I want to see them before they see us, and I want us ready.”

Verbal acknowledgements came promptly from his officers and orders were relayed to the two CVEs and additional CL of Chebrin’s force. The relatively young man leaned back in the command chair and looked again into the plot as his ships began their sweep. He steepled his gloved hands and pondered the same question three of his peers were considering in different systems, commanding identical divisions.

Where are you, you Ortagan bastards?

SOMEWHERE IN NU-SPACE... Darius talks about very important things with his Valinor friends.

"The Vaku and I have never been at odds... indeed I suspect that Jukaga sees the Morning Star as little more than another dot on a readout. If anything it is more important that we keep Vernii from directly controlling the system just to keep the Vaku from a panic. If the Verniians think encircling the Empire is a good idea for peace then I'd hate to see how they start a war." He then paused, looking up and moving a finger to his brow.

"... actually... and this is an odd thought, Friedelinde, but has anyone actually thought of going to Calimar and talking about how dangerous this whole thing is? I mean. Really. I dunno if you guys expected me to... I just didn't think to."

There's a point of awkward silence as this room full of international leaders washes over with a somewhat obvious "... oh." Someone would have to do it, even if Calimar wouldn't listen.

"As for other ways of handling the situation, making sure we're all ready to back Ginske as the legitimate head of government would probably be a good move concidering this latest news about applying for Verniian citizenship." Darius's tone had slipped to something less than chipper, so he corrects himself and changes the subject. "Anyhow, the whole force," Darius refers back to his manifest, "isn't meant to go in. Call me a boyscout, but I just like to be prepared for hairy situations. The detachment will join the anti-piracy forces on arrival, once I have Villers' clearance."
_____________________________________________________

MEANWHILE in Ticonderoga... Villers' office recieves a very business-like letter informing him that a detachment (it's exact numbers matching the detachment mentioned earlier) will be arriving from the Silver Fleet at Valinon's request to assist anti-piracy efforts.
_____________________________________________________

MEANWHILE in Trinidan on True Hope... [ATTN: Anyone who wants to have their corporations take part in GREED]

Lush, tropical plants fill the pricey, downtown garden cafe where, at a white-wire patio table, a handsome man in beige sits inconspiciously in sunglasses and a hat.

"Mr. K," greets the dark, bald man in vanilla, tipping his hat to the lighter fellow in beige and taking a seat.

"Hello, Mr. H," returned the man in beige, now easily seen as Trinidan industrialist, Salhadan Kite. The other man is Jo'el Henderson, an ethnic oddity in the Homeland in that he is a Jew. Luckily he was easily confused with an Arab (them all being Semetic, after all).

"Your health?" Mr. H. inquires.

"Fine," says Mr. K., a bit obsessive about his excersize and diet. In front of him, on his plate, are the leftovers of some plain toast and a glass of orange juice. "Your family?"

"Wonderful." Mr. H. is indeed a family man. His family does all kinds of things together--Grand Larceny, Counterfieting, Smuggling. He has a big family. "Though, not everything goes so well."

"This is what I hear," Mr. K. calmly replies.

"My brother* was caught in a storm** the other day. I'm afraid mother*** won't let him fly to town**** any longer," Mr. H. confesses, very business-like for such bad news.

"Oh, well that's just terrible news, Mr. H. I'll be sure to tell your mother*** I'll miss your brother* greatly, but respect her decision." Mr. K. makes sure to look off into the breeze. "Something really should be done about these strorms**, Mr. H. They're getting out of hand."

"Indeed, Mr. K. My thoughts exactly. I'll see you next time, yes?"

"As always. Send my thoughts to Henry the Horse!"

LATER...

Using his connections throughout the corporate world (as well as his secret love of whimsical style), Mr. Kite sends out the following musical invitation to the leading corporate and industrial leaders (particularly the ones known for shady dealings) in the Raumreich to a dinner-party to be held in his summer-home on New Hope, Bishopsgate, to occur two weeks from the time of the invitation's arrival.

[OOC: If you feel like reading this to the tune of The Beatles' "For the Benefit of Mr. Kite," (found here: http://youtube.com/watch?v=1dL9I7j2-Lo ) you're welcome to.]


For the benefit of Mr. Kite,
There will be a show this night on trampoline^
The Hendersons will all be there,
Security will make sure that there's not-a scene.
A crucial meeting on the way of barter
will be held, your presence nigh required!
In this way Mr. K. will challenge the world!

The celebrated Mr. K.
Performs his feat on Saturday at Bishopsgate.
The Hendersons will run the fling
As Mr. Kite conducts the thing, don't be late.
Messrs. K and H. assure those invited
Their production will be second to none--
And of course Henry The Horse^^ dances the waltz!

The band begins at ten to six
When Mr. K. presents the facts for all around.
And Mr. H. will demonstrate
Exactly why K's proposals are'on solid ground.
Having been some days in preparation
A splendid time is guaranteed for all
And this night Mr. Kite is topping the bill!

______________________________________________________

MEANWHILE, since Retcons are in the air, I present to you, Lucy, Darius's daughter, now 16 years old instead of 5. Why? Because I'm bored. Trust me, this'll turn into something. Also in Trinidan, True Hope...

"Where's daddy?" the young Luciphon inquires to her mother in the golden sitting room of the Lower Governor's Palace, standing residence of The Prime Gaurdian.

"He's having an important phone conversation with the Valinor, he mussn't be bothered," she replied, stacking another ornately decorated box on the fireplace mantle.

"But it's my biiiiirrrrthdaaaay!" she loudly complains. Talia is glad the party is not for a few more hours.

"Hell be done soon, I promise."

"Huff. Well, OK. But he'd better not miss it."

"He won't, I promise."
______________________________________________________

MEANWHILE, in the merchant ship Gondala, one sailor, after checking in his Clusterfolk cargo, notices he's developed a slight cough.

"Damn Clusterfolk are carryin' a cold with'em, Ja'har," he complains to his first mate.

"Shut up and start mopping."

"Aye... sir." he says between coughs.
______________________________________________________

[OOC: Lots of OOC stuff to deal with...

Regarding Mr. Henderson's name--It doesn't seem too Jewish, but things change in what I'll assume is around 500 years of human history. As for their conversation, you'll have noted the *'s by key words. Here is a translation key:

Translation Key:
*The aid from Ticon
**Kuma Adad
***The Guilds
****The Cluster

Also,

^zero-grav trampoline is very fast-paced and entertaining in the future, I suspect.
^^Henry the Horse is a famous performance artist throughout the Liberation (because I said so), and because I outrank a good many of you in the official Nationstates rankings having to do with entertainment, I'll assume you'd've heard of him.

Much thanks.]

/me whistles

After the Great March War and the collapse of any sort of authority over the entirety of the Great March, the Kriegsmarine had agreed to establish a small permanent fleet station in the Ticonderoga system. The terse diplomatic framework had agreed to create a naval station and presence which would mirror that of the Pergamum facility in Klein on the Ortagan side of the Great March. But the growing instability of the Concordat’s government and the reduction in Great March patrols by the Sterling Government had turned the Ticonderoga post into little more than a supply cache serving as a picket headquarters for Vizeadmiral Tereshkova’s overstretched command. Until the message from President Ginske the command officer of the Ticonderoga Station Picket had never exceeded the rank of kapitan zur sternen and had often been entrusted to no more than a korvettenkapitan. In a single instant three years of being a backwater post are suddenly brought to a crashing halt.

Kommodore Jorge Stecker looks out of the simulated view ports of the HMS Dominion’s bridge and nods as he sees the slight blue-white distortions caused by Kriegsmarine warships completing a Verner drive jump. He listens vaguely to Kapitan Ashley Norrington accounting for the rest of the Dominion’s task force. Even without straining to hear he can tell the five cruisers, two frigates, four destroyers, and six “drone” destroyers making up the main compliment of his task force have arrived. Normally Stecker’s command boasted only two fully manned cruisers, but the possibility of needing Reichswehr detachments to pacify a crisis in the Wickian orbital sides had led to the drone cruisers manned only by a skeleton crew being replaced by the updated Prince Viktor-class cruisers with full troop loads. The task force’s numbers and overall combat strength was bolstered even more by the addition of the HMS Apollo, a Chimera-class battlecruiser closer in size to a pre-war battleship than a battlecruiser. But Stecker knew the presence of one of the Kriegsmarine’s Sophia-class EW frigates would raise eyebrows even among Ticonderoga’s more casual observers.

The task force’s course will intercept the relatively stable orbit of the collection of supply and munitions containers making up Ticonderoga Station. Stecker can see the outline of the supply station and the three cruisers already guarding it. But the pathetic outpost is utterly mocked by the massive facility the Concordat Navy calls the Scorpion Shipyards. Stecker turns to look at the bustling hub of the Concordat Navy. It is a veritable sea of lights and warships, which managed to escape the Great March War relatively unscathed because of the Hegemony’s obsession with eliminating the Concordat’s civilian rather than its military infrastructure.

Stecker cocks his head as he hears the paced footsteps of Norrington approaching, “Any problems, Ashley?”

“No, Kommodore, the task force has reassembled and is proceeding at one-third power to the station as you ordered. Our CAP has been deployed, and I also deployed a Ferret drone to help us pick up some more of the Wickian comm chatter.”

“Discreetly I hope,” Stecker adds with a slight smile

“Of course, sir, we are on good terms with the system’s management.”

“Most of them at least…”

“Kapitan Hamiliton has sent his regards and welcomes you to Ticonderoga Station, sir. He says the Concordat Navy was made aware of your impending arrival and your intent to take a more active role in rooting out the remaining Ortagan pirates. They seemed thankful for the extra efforts we were making. And he says he will be ready to transfer formal control of the station once we arrive, and has accepted your dinner invitation.”

Stecker clasps his hands behind his back, “Excellent, and how close will our present course take us to the Scorpion yards?”

“We will pass within one hundred thousand kilometers of the Concordat’s delineated perimeter for the yards, sir.”

“I would like you to give the Wickians a token of my respect, Ashley. Have the task force flash its running lights, and use the grossadmirals pattern. It should smooth our presence here over a bit more.”

“You’re expecting the Concordat will give us problems.”

“Not immediately, but I do not wish to make it seem like we intend to be rude. I found out quickly during the war it is best to give as much attention to a Wickians’ sense of honor and recognition as you would a Vaku.”

“I will see to it, sir.”

“Thank you, Ashley, and if you will excuse me I must take a shuttle to the Apollo. I want to inspect Kapitan Shen-whei’s new battlecruiser before we rendezvous with Hamilton’s cruisers. I’ve not yet had the privilege of seeing one of the new Chimera-class from the inside.”

“Yes, sir,” she gives Stecker the salute due his rank. Stecker returns it.

“Dismissed, Kapitan, and the bridge is yours.”

“Aye, sir.”

Eight minutes later a shuttle and two Precentor-class drones move away from the elongated bulk of the Dominion and starts on a lazy arch that will meet the course of the battlecruiser trailing on the starboard side of the super-carrier. Before Stecker’s shuttle has reached the Apollo his command starts to signal the Scorpion Shipyards. All of Stecker’s vessels flash their running lights in the ornate two-minute pattern reserved for the highest flag admirals of the Kriegsmarine.

In NuSpace...

"Unless there's anything else that needs discussed immediately, I must get going. There's a great deal to be done if we want keep the proverbial feces from hitting the fan."

Darius opened his eyes to the very real world of his office and turned to his stationary, scribbling off a note for his secretary to send Calimar's direction:


Alexis,

A portion of my Finance Bureau will be leaving on a special trip to Gregor this coming Tuesday and should arrive in Gregor on the 12th of next month. This may be short notice, so I don't mean to impose--but if it is entirely possible I would like to come along and join you for some tea or possibly a game of golf or something else none-too-taxing as a photo opportunity to convince our Valinor friends that relations between our two nations are strong as ever.

I wish to keep the trip in a friendly, unofficial capacity and will be returning the following week. I will also be taking advantage of my time there to observe my financial corp at work, so you won't be demanded to entertain me the entire time. I understand if this is a bit too sudden.

Sincerely,


Darius

Redoubt Armaments' main factory was an enormous, hulking facility on the outskirts of New Boston. Despite its extensive automation, it employed over 10,000 people, and consumed enough electricity to require its own on-site nuclear power plant. Redoubt, a subsidiary of Kiel Industrial Group, had won the contract for building the first brigade of the Imperial Army's new Autonomous Land Battleships, and today, it was playing host to a routine inspection tour of the first units and the construction yard itself.

As a brown groundcar pulled up in front of the main entrance, a small delegation of three men came out to meet it. An officer stepped out, and one of the men stepped out and shook hands with the visitor.

"Welcome Brigadier Anderson, to Plant One. I'm Franklin Trevalier, Factory Manager."

"Thank you Mr. Trevalier. This place is certainly impressive on the outside. I hope that I will be suitably impressed by what I've come here for though."

"You haven't seen the production floor yet, Brigadier, I assure you, you will be impressed. Please, follow me."

Sunlight glinted off something metal on Trevalier's jacket as the man turned around. Brigadier Anderson then noticed that the three men all wore flag lapel pins on their jackets. He stifled a cynical snort, I'm sure they are quite patriotic, given the amount of money they're making from our contracts.

+++

Darius,

I would appreciate your company. The palace botanical gardens have many new and rare additions from all over the Empire and the Reich at large and I’ve yet to see them myself. I’ll invite a few of Gregor’s friendlier photographers and arrange a tour.

When you come, I’d also like to hear what our Valinor friends have had to say lately. Oh, and do bring Talia. Kitty has been cooped up in the palace for far too long and needs a distraction.

Till then,
Alexis

+++

5,394 AU from Erewohn's Primary

The blazing yellow furnace of Erewohn's sun was reduced to a tiny circle from the viewpoint of a team of workers and drones, laboring in the darkness of space at approximately seven hundred and seventy six trillion kilometers from the fiery heart of the system. Helmet mounted spot lights served as their only useful illumination, and only the meager running lights of a construction ship floating nearby served as visual evidence that they had not been marooned in that lonely immensity.

The men themselves were climbing over the support lattices of several mirrors, mirrors of such size that the men looked like ants in comparison. They were easily the size of stadiums, and they had been constructed in the perfect manufacturing conditions for optics; zero-gravity vaccuum. No errors marred their perfect faces, and with their magnification power combined they formed an optical telescope of enormous power.

The project was a brainchild of the Center for Warfare Reformation, a joint program created by the General Staff and Admiralty, entrusted with the task of bringing the capabilities of the armed forces onto the road to technologically surpassing the Valinor Kriegsmarine and other branches; to propel Vernii and its allies into eventual regional military technological equality or supremacy. One of their earliest objectives was to bring information collection capabilities to an entire new level. The telescope was merely the first in a new line of experiments in the Program for Total Surveillance Capability.

The telescope was virtually identical to a civilian version that would soon be deployed in New Tyrolia, but smaller. The New Tyrolian version would be on an even larger scale, capable of resolving weather patterns on worlds twenty light years away, while the Center's version could do it at only a modest light month in comparison. It had been planned that way however. Money had been secretly transferred to the University of Cardona's program to purchase a small number of "replacement mirrors" with, mirrors that had never actually appeared in the budget or asset sheets, and had instead been delivered to their true buyer, the Imperial Navy, after being deleted from production records.

Optical Survelliance Array 1, as the telescope had been named, would lurk in the inner regions of the system's Oort Cloud: far, far away from any prying sensor nets or shipping, hiding among billions of other objects left over from the system's formation. It would watch the system for a month, transmitting its data on a heavily encrypted and tight beam to a nu-space relay that had been placed half a light year away, which would then relay data back to Gregor. It was a test of both the telescope's capabilities in observing activity and emplacements in the system, and of the system garrison fleet's ( which had not been informed of its deployment or even existence) extreme long-range detection capabilities.

If it achieved one month of observing the system without being detected, OSA 1 would be declared operational, and deployed to its first target...

Villers' is Alive...so funeral thread is no without a purpose.

OOC: To avoid sidetracking this, I'm going to start putting my development posts in another thread, found here (http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showthread.php?t=544362)

This post was pathetic as it was. I can do better and will with my next one!

Old Federation Assembly Hall, Braavos, New Ortaga, Roum system, Federated Suns of New Ortaga
05.28.1304 AF
1247 Roum Local Standard

The Senators of the Suns returned to their chambers with mixed looks of interest and quizzical concerned. It was an expression that was mirrored on the face of several of the Solar Ministers, a scattered number of the Solar Peerage, and members of the military attending the session of the Senate of the Suns where the Archon-Prince was to address a special statement to the body. Yuri Kellarny, Ibram Thrace, and Julius Umberto—Lord Marsh—are among the few faces who are impassive walls of knowing decorum. Kellarny waits for the Senators to return to their seats before he stands at the dais. He takes a moment to survey the room, exchanging brief glances with Thrace and Umberto.

Then he raises the gavel and raps it sharply three times.

“Thank you for returning promptly, Senators, and thank you for joining us members of the Cabinet, at this time we will be moving back into formal session. Are there any points or motions to from the floor at this time? Yes, Senator Amante, please rise and state your point.”

“I move to reopen this formal session of the Senate and to proceed back into formal debate.”

“That motion is in order, Senator, is there a second?” Kellarny waits for several green acknowledgements to spark across the room.

“Seeing seconds is there opposition? Seeing none we will move back into formal session.”

Kellarny raps the gavel once.

“Senators, at this time I would like to make note of an interjection into today’s agenda. His Highness, the Archon-Prince of the Federated Suns, wishes to address a statement to this session of the Senate and the Cabinets. At this time I would request the members of the chamber rise.”

There is a rustle as the delegates and officials rise to their feet. On cue the simple wooden and bronze doors of the chamber swing open and an honor guard from the Guardians of the Suns file in, assuming regularly spaced places on the way to the dais. They come to attention as one, heads fixed to look at the yawning entrance provided by the door. Then Tiberius Corrin sweeps into the room.

The Archon-Prince moves calmly down the aisle flanked a few steps behind on either side by two junior members of the Knights. A slight smile touches Tiberius’ lips. He approaches the dais and makes his way down the standing members of the Cabinet to where Kellarny stands at the center. He waits for a few minutes and nods in respect as the Consul relinquishes his position at the podium.

“Thank you, Senators and delegates,” he says quietly, “but please, be seated. I promise I will not consume too much of your valuable time. I have only a few statements I wish to address to the Senate of the Suns, and one special announcement regarding a policy adopted by the Crown, operating within the bounds set by the Articles.”

Tiberius pauses, his eyes watching until everyone present in the chamber are seated.

“First, I wish to commend the actions of Praetor Thrace and those of his diplomatic corps in pursuing with the utmost diligence the advancement of the Federated Suns’ diplomatic relations across the Oversector. Without the Praetor’s determination and dedication—attributes shared with our ambassadors abroad—I fear the Federated Suns would have been reduced to the role of an international pariah equivalent to that of our nation under the Hegemonic government. Instead, we find ourselves as a nation that can be heard before such august bodies as the League of the Raumreich and its councils. We may even lay claim to having a measured level of relations with all states which choose to be a part of the international fraternity that is the Oversector.”

Tiberius’ wording clearly singles out the Mesan-led government of Ginias Saharin, the true heir to the Hegemony’s status as one of the most loathed states in the Raumreich. The Archon-Prince pauses for a few seconds before pressing on.

“However, I am afraid even the dedication and determination of our diplomatic corps and Praetor Thrace are limited as to what they can achieve at this time. I have watched with growing concern as our diplomatic progress has gradually slowed in regards to advancing our relations with the other nations of the Oversector.”

“But I bear in mind the sweeping progress made three years ago when many of the Oversector’s heads of state and heads of government were gathered together for the duration of the Alpha Centauri Peace Summit, which brought a formal end to the crisis known as the Great March War. I believe with every part of my mind and body that a similar action on the part of the Federated Suns will demonstrate our willingness to cooperate with the international community and will secure further advancements in our diplomacy across the Oversector. I see an action such as this as the only way to allow Praetor Thrace and our diplomatic corps the opportunities of further meaningful discourse.”

Tiberius takes a moment to study the curious looks shared by nearly all the Senators and Ministers.

“I would therefore like at this time to announce my intention to start a grand tour of some of our neighbors in the Inner Marches. A week from today I will depart the Federated Suns for the system of Morning Star, capital of the Collective Protectorates of Liberated New Hope. I wish to arrange a meeting with Protector Darius, leader of our esteemed neighbors. From Morning Star I intend to proceed to Gregor, where I wish to meet with Emperor Alexis Calimar of the Verniian Imperium. I then will proceed to Alpha Centauri to meet with Empress Friedelinde Alderman and Duke Adrian Sterling of Valinon. While on the Valinor homeworld I will also tour the headquarters of the League and meet with the ambassadors from the Wickian Concordat and the Vaku Empire. Finally, I will proceed to Berchest, where I will attend this year’s conference of the Commonwealth of Ortagan States along with the rest of the Federated Suns’ delegation.”

Murmurs start to spread throughout the chamber, a close second to the mixed looks of surprise and shock. Tiberius holds up a single hand as a plea for decorum.

“I wish to assure the Senate of the Suns that I do not wish to infringe upon either its powers or those of Praetor Thrace and his ministry as specified under the Articles. My visits to all the aforementioned nations—although they are visits of states—will not be an arena for negotiating of formal treaties or any other formal relations. I will act as a good will ambassador on behalf of the Federated Suns, its government, and its people. I will leave the negotiations of formalities to those most qualified and empowered to do so: the members of this august body and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.”

“With this announcement being made, I will now turn my attention to a statement regarding recent business before the Senate I feel has been maligned—although not through the personal fault of any member of the Senate.”

“I have spoken with individual citizens of the Suns, and have followed with utmost interest the nature of public opinion and will regarding the issue of the Federated Forces. I realize the divisive nature of this topic with respects to members of the Senate, but I feel I can no longer remain silent on this issue in good conscience due to my oath to uphold the rights, freedoms, and interests of the Citizens of the Suns as stated in at my coronation.”

Tiberius pauses for a moment, collecting himself.

“There is no immediate threat of a major conflict in the Oversector at the time. And our region is being well served with respects to the upholding international peace and security by the League of the Raumreich and the Directory for Security Stability. But the history of the Oversector urges us to pursue a path of prudence and proven wisdom. It is best to prepare for the worst situation than to find ourselves vulnerable and unable to protect our people.”

“I have reviewed the bill proposed to increase the budget of the Federated Forces, and can find no fault in the measures it requests the Senate to embrace. What is being proposed is not an armada designed for conquest. What is being proposed is a shield for the people of the Suns. It is a shield that can save our people from having another to endure another horrific conflict that will see them lose their homes, their freedoms, and possibly their very lives. I encourage the Senators of the Suns to review in greater detail the proposal currently put before it and recognize it for the good in which it is intended.”

Tiberius’ gaze sweeps the chamber, “Our nation has made mistakes in its past. It has failed in previous times to protect its people from both foreign-born aggression and the excesses of its own government. I put faith in the Articles and Senate of the Sun to safeguard our people from the latter, and I call upon this body to find a way to protect our citizens from the former. In parting, I wish to impress upon the Senate that no future is ever completely assured.”

Tiberius takes a step back, “I would like to thank the most honorable and esteemed Senators of the Sun for their time. And I would further thank the Consul and Ministers of the Suns for also hearing my words on this day. I will now allow all of you to return to the more pressing business of seeing to the needs of the Citizens of the Suns and the maintenance of the Articles. Please accept my deepest, sincerest wishes for your continued appreciation for the prudence and wisdom necessary to maintain the state of the Suns.”

The Archon-Prince starts to turn away from the podium and move down the dais when Senator Wayridge stands and starts to applause. His action is mirrored immediately by other Senators, the cabinet ministers, and Yuri Kellarny. Senator Amante and Senator Silvius notice all to well that some of the Senators rising soon after Wayridge are the former non-aligned members that had been tacitly supporting their reduced military budget.

As Yuri Kellarny starts to move toward the podium, Tiberius Corrin moves quickly down the aisle with his escort. The Guardians fall into formation behind the Knights and as the last pair of Guardians exit the chamber the doors start to call for the first time the Federated Suns’ sovereign has ever addressed its senate.

FNS St. Ives, Interstellar Space, Border Between the Federated Suns of New Ortaga and the Collective Protectorates of Liberated New Hope
05.28.1304 AF
1403 Federated Forces Standard

“The Zephyr and the Cardelis have reported back in, Captain, they are ready for the transit to Morning Star. Both captains report they expect no further difficulties.”

“Thank you, Mr. Mosher,” William Ballantine looks across the theatre display that consumes most of the center of the St. Ives’ bridge. The counters for the Zephyr, one of the convoy’s freight conveyors, and the Cardelis, a super-freighter, switch from a blinking yellow to green. Both ships had been experiencing minor difficulties with their jump drive. Ballantine assumed it was due to their owners taking liberties with their maintenance schedules. “Are there any other difficulties from the fleet?”

“No, sir.”

“Give the order to form up for the final jump to Morning Star. Set our clock at ten minutes to transit,” out of the corner of his eye Ballantine sees Hogan make a brief motion with his hand to set the clock and sync it with the fleet from his place across the display.

“Yes, sir, clock is set and we are syncing with fleet.”

Ballantine watches as the destroyers Wraith and Shield start to close with the fleet. The Navarre continues to drift lazily above the St. Ives. Hogan steps up beside him.

“Do you think the Liberationers will be surprised to see us?”

“I would hope not, but who knows how much Larkin actually passed on to them. If they are in the dark, we should be able to explain to them what Axis wants. The Liberation is more open-minded and more willing to listen than a lot of the nations in the Inner Marches. Still, have a two flight CAP with a Talon for support ready to launch when we complete the transit.”

“I’ll pass the word along,” Hogan nods and takes a step back, moving toward flight control.

Ballantine steps back and folds his hands together at the small of his back. He glances over the hard copy sheets and data pads that are littering the display close to where he is standing. FNI’s assessment of Neilson and his forces were vague in more areas than Ballantine would like, and Neilson was almost as much of an enigma himself. The documents, papers, and textbooks he had left behind gave a window into his tactical mindset, but were clearly written to not allow for many readers to pry into the former Solar Navy officer’s personal state of mind. But that wasn’t exactly a surprise coming from a successful officer who served under the Hegemony. Keeping a low mental profile on anything marginally approaching a political issue was a way to avoid either a firing squad or the crucifixion Ansel’s revolution had favored for its more radical dissenters.

The commander of the St. Ives takes a moment to look up at the clock moving steadily toward zero. He starts to collect the intel reports.

“Two minute to transition warning.”

“Sounding.”

The chatter of the carrier’s bridge preparing to lead its convoy into Morning Star takes on its subdued tones. Ballantine hears the thirty second countdown start, then the ten, and then the St. Ives and her accompanying vessels vanish from their patch of interstellar space.

Mid System, Morning Star system, Collective Protectorates of Liberated New Hope
05.28.1304 AF
1418 Federated Forces Standard

In a series of flashes and dissipating energy the St. Ives, the Navarre, the Wraith, the Shield, and their civilian wards appear in the capital system of the Liberation. The gravimetric engines of the Federated Forces warships increase gradually to one-third their normal power as they align with the system’s ecliptic and drift lazily through the system. They make no move to approach any certain planet.

The fighter launch tubes along the St. Ives starboard hanger bay spew forth two flights of four Eagle class star fighters. A single Talon class shuttle exits the forward of the portside hanger bay and moves to join with the Eagles. The Talon’s launch looks to have been a little rough, with the small craft exiting considerably far from the dead center of the hanger. The Federated Forces is not known for having the keen polish of the vanished Solar Navy.

Calm tones of the St. Ives on duty communications officer pulse out in a general broadcast as the convoy continues its lazy course.

“Attention Morning Star System Traffic Control, this is the FNS St. Ives leading Solar Merchant Convoy 0999-Alpha-Pi-Alpha, origin Seljuk, to Morning Star. We request approach vector to True Hope. I repeat, Morning Star System Traffic Control, this is the FNS St. Ives, leading Solar Merchant Convoy…”

The Federated Navy vessels weapons stay powered down and the tell-tale energy signature of their gravimetric shields are missing. It is no doubt still a novel sight to see Ortagan warships present in the Collective Protectorate’s territory. But the Federated Navy goes out of its way to seem as non-threatening as possible when operating in foreign territory. Admirals Cantrell and Larkin have no desire to provoke any memories of the Great March War in their neighbors, and have stressed that point to the commanding officers of the new Ortagan navy.

FNS Immolan, Interstellar Space, Near the Ticonderoga system, Wickian Concordat
05.28.1304 AF
1623 Federated Forces Standard

Traveling between the border systems of the Federated Suns and the Collective Protectorates on the Roum side of the Great March may not necessarily require a protective escort, but almost any nation’s merchantmen operating on the Ticonderoga side of the Great March would be insane not to. Even with patrolling warships of the Valinor, Verniian, Liberation, Wickian, and Vaku navies operating throughout the sector, piracy and other crimes remain rife in a region still suffering from the implosion of any kind of centralized government authority with the collapse of the Hegemony. The growing tensions between Gregor and Vakutu haven’t helped matters easier.

So the Immolan, a sister ship to Ballantine’s St. Ives, finds itself making a slow journey back to the Suns’ space after escorting a convoy of Merchanter owned super-freighters to the Verniian system of New Tyrolia. It’s the carrier’s first operational cruise on this side of the Great March, but the same can not be said of all of its escorts. Besides the cruiser Aurora, the Immolan is accompanied by two war-frigates left to the Federated Navy by the defunct Hegemony. The war-frigates ride point—one 6800 kilometers ahead of the Immolan and the Aurora, the other roughly 4500 kilometers behind. Both of the ex-Solar Navy warships had been part of the forces permanently stationed along the Ortagan-Verniian frontier in this sector before the Great March War.

A full squadron of twelve Eagles and two Talons serve as the task force’s CAP. Captain Marcia Case--renowned as the Amazon of Gadsen for her defense of the key Ortagan system in the last days of the Colonial Wars--is making some notations on tactical display with one of the data pens from the single pocket on the front of her duty uniform. Lieutenant Commander Marcus Jannot steps close to the carrier's CO, a data pad with the report of the Talon recently back from its discreet recon flight along the outer fringes of Ticonderoga.

Case makes no acknowledgment of Jannot's presence and merely continues to make her notations. Jannot debates whether to make his presence known, or continue to wait and not risk annoying one of the Federated Navy's most strict commanders. Jannot's tour on the Immolan filled with moments like these. As one of the first officers to be produced by the Federated Naval Academy in Axis, Jannot is on the fast track to move toward a permanent junior or possible senior command of his own--and it is a trend he has no desire to see end. But his indecision is abruptly dispelled.

"You have something for me, Mr. Jannot?" Case scribbles a few more notations on the display.

"Yes, sir...ma'am. The report from the last Ticonderoga run is ready for your review."

Case turns, her flashing green eyes studying Jannot impassively. Her fading black hair only serves to sharpen her eyes and facial features, and Jannot is reminded Case also regularly commands runs to the Ticonderoga side of the Great March because of her long-standing rapport with Vizeadmiral Tereshkova, the Kriegsmarine's commanding officer in the Great March.

Case signs the receipt for the encrypted file with the data pen she had been using.

"Anything I should make particular note of, Commander?"

"There has been an increasing in Concordat com chatter over the past two hours, ma'am."

"Still no explanation as to why the Valinor have decided to pay the Wickians a visit?"

"No, Captain."

Case starts to read through the file. The presence of a Valinor super-carrier group has stymied Case, Jannot, and the Immolan's CIC for the better part of two days. While not as evocative as a deployment of dreadnoughts or other capital ships the Valinor navy could send, a super-carrier with one of the newest generation of Valinor battlecruisers in tow was certainly a statement. Especially when you had to consider how much of a backwater post Ticonderoga had become to the thinly stretched Valinor anti-piracy and security patrols scattered throughout the Great March. The oddest factor was that the super-carrier didn't seem to be doing anything or even in a hurry to leave the Wickian capital system. All it and its battle group had done since arriving was resupply from the modest container cache and run a series of skirmish exercises with the three cruisers that had already been in the system. Jannot considered this a mix blessing. The Kriegsmarine deployment might not be huge, but the battlecruiser could engage the Immolan and her escorts with a fair expectation of engagement parity with the drone support that super-carrier could dish out. He suspected it, the carrier, and the battle group could carve a fair swathe through the Wickian defenses of the system before being stopped if they had wanted to.

The whole situation had caused enough of a stir to have Case forward a full report on a secure courier drone back to the Federated Navy station at Dylar. But there had been no reply from Rear Admiral Lance in Dylar or the fleet command in Axis.

"Do we have Talon 317 ready for the next patrol?"

"No, ma'am. I had flight control hold 317 since the super-carrier was moving her group into the outer system."

Case pauses and looks back up at Jannot for a moment.

"Cancel the hold. Send 317 ahead to Ticonderoga. If the Valinor notice it, tell the crew to report that they are comparing registries to try and find a Solar Navy crew operating a falsely registered freighter. I will have CIC find an appropriate roster of candidates. We did not inform the Concordat Navy or the Valinor because this mission was compartmentalized due to security concerns. Understood, Mr. Jannot?"

"Yes, Captain. I will have 317 out of the hanger in ten minutes."

"Make it eight or less. We don't want it to have to run under full power with a cluster of Valinor sensor suites running. See to it," Case turns back to the display, and Jannot nods moving quickly toward Immolan's flight control officer.

Contado Side Cafe, Silesia, New Ortaga, Roum system, Federated Suns of New Ortaga
05.28.1304 AF
2110 Roum Local Standard

The Contado's night patronage was sparse, but it would have been a surprise if it wasn't. The Shell's people were mostly younger. Those that were out at night traveled took the 'lev to North-Cent, the sector home to Silesia's bar and club scene. But there were still a half dozen customers trying to waste away the twenty minutes left of the Contado's business hours.

Those enjoying a lazy night, warm as Ortaga's northern latitudes moved into summer, took in the 'feeds still vying for attention at the cafe. SunsNet's Night-Watch was recapping the day--including the surprise address by the Archon-Prince--when the stilted, rapid beats signaling a breaking news segment interrupt its calming flow. A harried Qwillard Pycelle at a desk with the nine-cojoined suns of SunsNet at the front fills the screen.

"We apologize for the interruption of Night-Watch, and will return you to Aiden and his program shortly. But now we have breaking news from Alpha Centauri on the Berchester-Valinor conference."

An image of Damien Jorgensen, First Minister and Princep of Berchest, and Archduke Faustus Metternicht, the Valinor foreign affairs minister, shaking hands in front of Berchester and Valinor flags fills the space next to Pycelle.

"At 1545, Proxima Centauri local standard, Minister Jorgensen and Archduke Metternicht issued a joint statement. The Berchester Commonwealth and the United Star Empire have signed a mutual defense and economic agreement package. Archduke Metternicht also confirmed that Valinon will guarantee the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Berchest through any means necessary for as long as this agreement is in effect. We will show you a feed from the separate statement Jorgensen gave just a few minutes ago."

Pycelle is replaced by the Berchester head of state standing at a podium, with a swarming group of reporters from the Oversector's major newnets in front. Jorgensen points into the crowd.

"Minister Jorgensen, how do you expect this will impact Berchest's relationship with the other Ortagan states and the Commonwealth of Ortagan States summit it is hosting?"

"We continue to believe that Berchest has the right to pursue international relations outside the sphere of associated Ortagan states and outside of the COS. Berchest has enjoyed good relations with the United Star Empire since the recognition of our independence over three years ago. The conclusion of our negotiations with this agreement is simply an outgrowth of this growing bond."

"What about the reports that your government is also negotiating to use Valinor ships to equip the Commonwealth's navy?"

Jorgensen looks irritated, "There are ongoing negotiations regarding other elements of our national security and defense beyond those touched on the agreement I announced with Archduke Metternicht. At this time those negotiations are not totally concluded, but I will say that part of a future agreement does involve the purchase of several Great March War era battleships that have recently been mothballed by the Valinor navy."

Jorgensen tries to move on, but a reporter from Morning Star continues the discussion.

"How do you think a military acquisition of this magnitude will disrupt relations with Berchest's immediate neighbors?"

"There will be no major disruptions. Berchest's major neighbors--the Federated Suns and the Liberation--both operate multiple battleships, dreadnoughts, and carriers. Currently the Commonwealth Navy operates no capital ships. This has been viewed as unacceptable by the entirety of Assembly of the Commonwealth and by my government. The people of Berchest have declared they consider this arrangement as unacceptable by voting overwhelming for the National Alliance Party in our first general election. Berchest has the right to defend itself, its people, and its territory. I will continue to lead our government in its process to ensure we can--and will--do this."

The feed cuts back to Pycelle.

"There has been no statement issued by Consul Kellarny, Praetor Thrace, or any member of the Senate directly addressing the Berchester-Valinor alliance. But the Solar Ministry of Foreign Affairs has said a statement will be issued tomorrow morning after all relevant issues are reviewed by the Consul and the Solar Cabinet. SunsNet will continue to investigate this issue, and will report when additional details are come out. We will return you now to Aiden and Night-Watch."

OOC: Read it and weep.

A Wickian man walked into the empty lobby of the office, only a secretary sat behind the reception desk. She smiled to him as he approached her desk. Behind was the spherical logo of Higgins telecom Inc.

“May I help you sir?” She asked him. Behind the cover of her desk she pulled out a pulsar and pointed it at the man concealed behind the shelf.

“Yes, I have an appointment with Mr. Higgins.” He said.

“I have been stuck inside all day, how is the weather outside?” She asked nonchalantly, and on the surface it was a funny question since there was no weather in Ticonderoga, only the same exact sixty-two degrees regulated by the life support systems of the Wickian habitats.

“You know it looks like rain.” The man told her.

“That’s too bad.” She said replacing the pulsar and entering a series of numbers on a key pad unlocking the elevator door. As it opened she told him, “Mr. Higgins will see you know. Have a nice day.”

A minute later after enduring the dreadful tone of Verniian composed elevator music he walk out of it into a conference room where Mr. Higgins should have been waiting for him. Instead he found a half dozen other people scattered around a table with a central holo-tank displaying the Ticonderoga System, with eight red circles covering the same number out of the eighteen Sides of the system. Each Side was a collection of habitation stations, agricultural stations, foundries, mining complexes, power stations, and any other thing necessary to carryout life in space. Each was a different size and density, like cities in space scattered about the system. Over ¾ were located within the “field” where the industrial heart of the system was located. The remaindered besides a half dozen Naval outposts at strategic locations were located around the gas giant called Pegasus near the Scorpion Shipyards, the largest of the four Navy shipyards remaining in the concordat and the only one capable of constructing dreadnoughts. It was not that the Navy believed in having only one shipyard capable of constructing the powerful capital class ships, its that the struggling economy and the war ravaged Wickain nation had no others left. An ominous red flashing number was displayed at the top of the holo-tank, 200,000,000 casualties a full quarter of the population.

“Hawkins its been a long time.” A man rose from the head of the conference table with his hand outstretched as he clasped Robert Hawkins arm and shook.

“That it has Victor, a long time.” Hawkins returned the shake.

“I believe you already know everyone hear except Mr. Valentine and this young lady, Ms. Sarah Mason.” Victor said introducing the field agent to another and the assistant director of Naval Intelligence. “Please take a seat. Ill need to get everyone up to date before you give us your report Hawkins.”

Hawkins took a seat and prepared to listen to Victors briefing, the contents of which he had spent the last four years under deep cover to prevent just what was displayed on the holo-tank.

“As many of you know four years ago during the fall of the Ortagan Hegemony thousands of strategic warheads of the Solar Navy and the Observers suddenly became available to the highest bidder or to which ever ‘allied’ power could get to them. It became the priority of our Navy to secure as many of these warheads as possible, ranging from tactical fusion missiles, and monitor singularity warheads to Vortex Singularity missiles. You do not need to know the full extent of what exactly the Navy Managed to secure just that three months after the war ended, a Navy convoy was ambushed at their recharging point 5 light years outside Gadsen, resulting in the loss of two cruisers and a freighter containing twenty five corsair class monitor-launched singularity warheads and a Vortex Strategic Class Warhead.” A rush of concern swept the room at that news. In the first battle of the Great March war eight Corsair missiles were able to reach attack range, two gutted Commodore Trell’s Flotilla, the rest hit various habitats. A single warhead would consume an entire habitat. A vortex missile was a different beast altogether, it was the size of light cruiser, with ECM, and its own point defense. It would be capable of destroying entire sides, even the mammoth Scorpion Fleet Shipyard.

“We learned three years ago the identity of the group that attacked the convoy. It was a collection of outlawed Solar Navy, and Wickians we believe to be working for the Colbert Guilds and Condor Solutions Inc. We believe it is their intention to detonate these weapons in Ticonderoga in an attempt to facilitate a coup against the Concordat.”

“Mr. Hawkins if you would.” Victor gestured to Robert to tell about his own involvement.

“I was given the mission of infiltrating a terrorist cell involved in this conspiracy. After two years spent in prison I was able to establish contacts and to infiltrate their organization. I have been made aware of their full plans. The holo-tank shows their primary targets. Today an Federated Suns flagged freighter has entered the system, onboard her are ten of the corsair missiles. I believe that our only option is to intercept the freighter and confiscate her cargo.”

Valentine spoke up, “If we do this they will know that the gig is up. They will commence with their strike.”

“That is true, we will also be moving against the Cells we have already identified, we should get forty percent, with luck we will get 75% of them, but there will be a few that escape, we will take losses. If we do not act on this intelligence we will get that result.” Hawkins said pointing to the holo-tank.

“I agree with your assessment Mr. Hawkins. Victor, you have my full authority to move against the known terrorist cells. Hawkins you and Mason will intercept the freighter. This mission is of the utmost importance. We have suffered enough at the hands of Ortagan weapons, lets not allow them to cause us more harm.” With the orders of the assistant director the agents left to begin operations to take down the newest enemy.

+ + +

Director Valentine returned to his office, he placed his suit coat on its hanger and sat behind his desk, as he activated his laptop computer and opened a secure chat line. The logo of the Colbet Familias Guild was displayed while a please wait sign flashed before Steven Colbert face replaced the logo.

“What is it?” The leader of the most powerful guild family asked.

“They know about our plans they are commencing operations to intercept our Cells as I speak.”

“Damnit. If we launch now we will not succeed in destroying every threat.”

“We must go no or lose it all.”

“Then we will. The Navy has been dragging this nation down and down, getting us involved in wars that are not ours. Today we make history; today we will take back what is ours.” With that the computer screen deactivated. Leaving the Director alone in his office with his thoughts, until he felt a pair of decidedly feminine hands begin to rub his shoulders and neck and lips nibble at his ear.

“Ah Sarah it is good to see you, ah that’s nice.”

“Says the man who just betrayed his nation” She asked him.

“Says the man who just made millions of credits to his lover.” He told her sharply

“Thank you for doing that.” Valentine was about to ask doing what when the hands suddenly moved to the sides of his head before twisting his head as his neck was snapped. As she lowered the dead man to his desk she pulled out a small text communicator. She typed a simple message.

It has begun. The word is Blake.

Morning Star Space (This is for you, Ortaga)

In the newly constructed Morning Star Office of System Traffic Management (OST) building in New Hamunaptra there bleeps a new little dot in the abyssal holotank in the central command center of the new authority. The state of the art facility handles the staggering amount of traffic in the Morning Star by way of an automated system run by a newly developed AI, TRACI (Traffic Redirect Action Control Initiative, pronounced like “Tracy”).

The Ortagans are greeted by the pleasant voice that may be familiar to them from film and NuSpace ads and interviews: that of actress Keli Farris (famed for her roll in the Raumreich-wide acclaimed blockbuster action/thriller Midnight Thunder or the recent romantic comedy remake of the now thousand-year-old classic Schindler’s List. She was chosen to do the voice of TRACI as part of a promotion deal for her next film, a science fiction about a future dominated by machines). Though the new traffic authority no longer directly advertises for corporations by playing ads to incoming pilots, anyone aware of this deal might still realize that the corporate world’s grip on the Morning Star has not been completely removed.

“This is Morning Star Traffic Control. Hello and welcome to the Morning Star. Your request has been processed. Please proceed to the coordinates currently being forwarded to your navigational computer—Khalid International Spaceport in Trinidan. Please contact us if you have any questions or would like to adjust your destination. Have a wonderful visit to the Morning Star.”

In his office, Deputy Guardian Elias Al-Maruqi is alerted of the Ortagan arrival. The Deputy Guardian is a new, little known, but broadly powerful post within Darius’s government that effectively functions as his second in command and directly presides over the executive bureaus and offices that make up Darius’s executive branch of the government. Directly appointed by Darius, he has the approval and support of the government and what portion of the citizenry are aware of his existence and post. He's a larger man, in many respects, than the Guardian--perhaps "rounder" would be a better term. He fits well enough, though, into his calm beige suit; his modest taste in clothing comes from a life of business with Verniians, Valinor, and even the occasional Ortagan while under the employ of Accent Enterprises--a position still waiting on him when and if his term comes to a sudden end. In these ways he is opposite to Darius, but he has proved invaluable in running the day-to-day operation of the Homeland and its Protectorates.

As the Ortagan shuttle approaches it should pass by the huge construction yards currently building the new Silver Fleet. The great behemoth ships are a site to behold as they float in the docks in pieces slowly assembled into the great beasts that will someday protect the Liberation.

Trinidan, True Hope, a few days ago…

[OOC: The stuff that follows is a lot of conversations that only really apply to some internal stuff I having brewing within Darius’s family. I just thought I’d warn anyone who might get annoyed]

Darius enters the huge, stainless steal kitchen where Talia sits on a barstool at the island counter eating olives out of the jar with her fingers. “Pack your things, we’re going to Gregor.”

“We?” she raises an eyebrow.

“Yes. Alexis asked if you’d come entertain Katrina.”

“Oh.” She places another olive in her mouth and continues to talk while chewing, “Poor thing, Kitty. Cardona has gotten positively dreadful since the war.*”

Darius is incredulous. “What are you talking about? Cardona’s a wonderful city.”

“You know nothing of women’s interests.”

“I know your interests.”

“Hardly—when are we leaving?” She changed the subject.

“Tuesday.”

“For how long?”

“A week, give or take--tell Lucy if you see her, she's coming along, too.”

Talia distracts herself from the conversation; her eyes widen, “Oo! Can we bring Kat back with us!? I’ll take her to Babylon and…”

Darius leaves the kitchen.

*Talia speaks of the general flight of clothing designers, shop owners, club developers, and other orchestrates of culture to the Ortagan states to take advantage of the formerly repressed populous.

Days later, Darius and Talia are well on their way to Gregor…

“I had to make a few underhanded deals, some ruinous promises, order an assassination or two: but I got us the rum,” Darius saunters into he and Talia’s quarters on board his personal touring craft, the Savac, holding a bottle and two glasses. She lay on the couch reading a book, then sits up, smiling, and pats the place next to her to welcome him.

He plops down on the couch and pours a drink, handing it to Talia, then starts one for himself. She takes a big swig, then plants a big wet kiss on Darius’ cheek. The two had actually, over the years (and one child), developed affection for one another, something they’d come to enjoy more than constant sex (not to say they didn’t indulge). It had specifically grown in the recent years of peace within and without the Liberation. They looked into eachothers eyes for a moment before Darius—already stinking of rum despite only having the one drink—sits up erect, shoulders back, like he were going to make a declaration.

“I think we should take a last name.” He was quite matter-of-fact.

“I’m sorry?”

“Most of the House got blown up… er, died in the war. And I think the title separates us from the people.” Darius speaks of the House of the Setting Star, the old ruling house from which he decended, and of which Talia had become a part.

Talia takes another drink (the two intended on getting drunk, and they tended to act as if they were already there) and held her chin up unsteadily, to jokingly fain an official air. “Well you can take any last name you like. Why should I? We never married.”

Darius takes on a lightheartedly indignant poise. “Well then we should do that, too. And as long as we’re talking about the family, I think Lucy needs a little brother while we’re at it.”

Talia giggles, finishing her glass and taking the bottle from Darius to pour another. “Well I dunno about last names and weddings, but I think we can get started on that last one right now.”

Talia and Darius usually try to separate their life-changing decisions from drinking, but it can’t always be done.

At the same time, in her quarters on the ship…

Lucy sits silently in a comfortable chair with a NuSpace headset. Sarah, a servant girl from the palace, pages though a magazine in another chair while Lucy chats with her therapist in a simulated park. They stroll along a path with the sun shining and birds chirping in the trees which, as they tend to do in pleasant, simulated parks, bend pleasantly with the gentle breeze. The therapist, Dr. Karl Seriph, had designed the park himself for therapeutic reaons.

“… I dunno, Karl. I mean, he had an important reason for missing it and I already forgave him, but it was really important to me.”

Seriph strokes his clean-shaven chin as he stares down at his feet. Lucy is smart enough to know he tries to look and dress youthfully for his young clients. “Of course it was important, it was your birthday. You’re handling this very well, very maturely, and you should be proud of that, but you have a right to emotion—particularly anger—even aimed toward your father.”

“It’s just so weird being his daughter. He’s so important and everything he says or does ‘effects the nation’ or something like that. I just wish he could be my dad for a while.”

“That can be difficult for a man in his position.”

She scoffs. “A man in his position. Sometimes it seems like I’m just one part of his life. Do you know why he’s taking me on this trip?” She’s grown noticeably agitated, or at least as noticeably agitated as she can manage. “He wants me to meet his Emperor friend’s son… Jeffrey or something.”

“And this offends you.”

“I am NOT a tool for his politics!”

“How do you plan to deal with this, then?”

“I don’t know… I’d just really rather be somewhere else right now. I used to be able to get away from him… but him and mother are always together lately and…” she’s started to turn more inward. Seryph tries to keep her talking.

“And?”

“I haven’t seen Uncle Sean since the Rain Festival.” She covers her eyes—it’s certainly not to shade the sunlight.

“That was a strange episode for both of you. Have you talked to him since?”

She pauses on the path, still avoiding Seryph in the face. “I will.” Before he can reply she suddenly regains her composure. “I should be going. It’s been a while and Sarah is probably getting bored.”

They say their goodbyes and leave the NuSpace park into the real world. Sarah puts down the magazine and smiles hopefully, like she tends to do, as if to say “I hope everything went well” (it’s a re-occurring habit, this exact smile).

Meanwhile, in a non-descript office somewhere back in the Homeland

Dr. Seryph takes off the headset and places it on the desk, adjusting his eyes to the reality around him, which suddenly includes a darkly-clothed gentleman with a blurry face—well, blurry to Seryph for the moment.

“Hello, Doctor,” greets the blurry man.

Seryph recognizes the voice: General Andre Jacobs, formerly the Liberation Minister* until that department was entirely absorbed by First Admiral Murphy’s new Silver Fleet; those higher-ups like Smith were simply given commissions and ranks within the new, entirely military bureaucracy. “Greetings General… the Moth’s progress reports were just sent in. I’ll hope this is a friendly visit.” As Seryph blinks, the man's face gradually gains definition.

“When have my visits ever been friendly, Doctor?” Through a series of professional misfortunes, almost all of which can be blamed on Murphy, Jacobs had been gradually lowered from head of the military's bureacracy to a rarely approached public relations position. Lucky for Jacobs, everything is not what it seems and he holds important, if clandestine positions elsewhere. His luck made him no less bitter. Murphy's distrust in Jacobs' position was well founded, but it is apparent he had not grown suspicious enough.

Seryph frowns and looks down to his lap, then up at the ceiling. “No.”

“We’re approaching Year Zero + 2, Doctor.” The general seems to grow more anxious and cynical with every day the project continues. Seryph theorizes that Jacobs’ insisting to end every sentence in “Doctor” has to be a tactic to annoy. It works.

“And making exponential progress.”

“It’s not exponential enough, Doctor.”

“She’s already shown remarkable abilities, but if she is not given the proper chance to adjust and grow through this change she will become unstable, and I do believe the last thing you or the Gods** want this project to become even less predictable than it has already become.”

The General stares and blinks at Seryph for a moment, blinks a few times, then stands. “She will be reach stage three before the next progress report, and I am placing you personally responsible for her progress.”

Seryph, remaining calm, pulls out a handkerchief, removes his glasses, and begins cleaning the later with the former. “It’s impossible and you know it.” He's blurry again.

“I’ve found that with the correct pressures, what some consider ‘impossible’ becomes exceedingly probable, Doctor. I will see you in sixty days.” He turns and leaves the office. Dr. Seryph is bothered by the general’s failure to say “good day” on his way out; he never does.

*Think “Department of Defense.” Bureaucracy positions were assigned army ranks to establish a clear difference between the two parts of the organization, Fleet and Bureau. The remnants of the army had recently been absorbed into the Collective Protectorates Marine Corps (CPMC). This new system has been largely successful, giving many the chance to enlist in the military and military life with little risk to their person.

** The Gods are those anonymous sorts who run Kuma Adad. No one knows who they are or pretends it would be a good idea to go trying to find out.

12th Battle Squadron
Scorpion Fleet Shipyard
28-05-906 A.L

Nothing which was not identified and verified as a Concordat Navy vessel was allowed within three million kilometers of Scorpion Fleet shipyard. This perimeter was maintained consistently by two monitor squadrons operating in four ship lances, and the alert Battle Squadron. The eight dreadnoughts of the 12th Battle Squadron were on station and fully alert for any attack against the system, it was their mission specifically to act as a quick reaction force against any threat, and to make up the dispersed carrier groups that guarded strategic points around the system.

The alert squadron represented along with it battle cruiser and screening elements roughly a quarter of Home Fleet’s tonnage. No dreadnought in its formation was more than ten years old and each had been retrofitted with second generation electronic packages and upgrades. They were the most modern ships in the fleet and the Covington-Class Tyrannous Rex was one of the powerful ships in her class in the entire Raumreich. The dozen ships in her class that went to war five years ago earned a fearful reputation fighting against the Solar Navy, which came to dread their powerful spinal mounted Graser that was capable of punching through the strongest shields employed by the Solar Navy’s dreadnought. But their service came at a price, out of the twelve that went to war only six returned, most lost in the blood bath that the battle in Gadsen was on both sides. It was the price the 12th commander knew well because he paid it in the first battle of that war fighting off the Observer’s onslaught of singularity weapons.

Admiral William Trell stood on the bridge of his Flagship the CNS Vulcan staring at the holo-tank as he noted the arrival of the Valinor Taskforce. They were right on time, the Valinor were if anything punctual.

“Ensign Martin, bring up the visual feed of drone Julliet-7-bravo.” The Admiral ordered as a screen appeared in the holo-tank that showed the Valinor super carrier in all of her majesty. William Trell had seen some of the hardest combat during the war and his uniform covered a few scars from the experience, and he felt a shiver run the length of his spine as he considered the Super Carrier. He was well aware of the destruction that could be wrought by that ship, and he knew all to well how quickly a swarm of drones could be spawned from it against any threat. Only an ignorant fool did not give the ship the respect it deserved.

“Not that imposing from here is she? I expect with one well placed shot from the Rex we could have her dead to rights, Admiral.” Trell to his credit managed to avoid coughing at his Flag Captain’s comment. Arvid was a capable captain, but he lacked combat experience having been in fleet logistics during the war, he was though one of the rising stars of the Navy, due in large part to his patriarchs in the guilds. It was the result of fighting three wars within a century the Concordat Navy was by record one of the most veteran forces in the Raumreich, participating in more battles and skirmishes than any other Navy. Trell knew that the experience had bled the best of the fleet out of the service. Entire graveyards of Wickians ships hulls attested to that. The Concordat Space Navy had paid a dear price. As a result it was now a largely inexperienced force aside from a small cadre of senior officers and warrants. Captain (SG) Mitchell Arvid was an example of an officer who had never held a starship command before this posting, it was simply hoped that his proficiency at commanding a desk would translate into the ability to captain a man of war.

“Yes Captain I expect that you are right.” The captain begain to smile at that comment it was the nearest thing to praise he had received from the Admiral. “If though you ever suggest attacking a Valinor vessel again in my presence it will be the last time you do so.” The admiral scowled.

“I was just commenting…” Trell cut him off.

“You are my flag captain, Mitchell. That gives you the right to comment. Have you forgotten already the Valinor who have lost their lives protecting this system? Do not dishonor their sacrifice with talk about killing more of them even if it is in jest, I am not laughing am I?”

“No Admiral you are not.” Arvid managed as he tried to assume the position of attention during the Admiral’s slashing.

“You also need to learn the definition of a rhetorical question.” The Admiral said in a low tone before he raised his voice.

“Lieutenant Higgins, you have my permission to return their salute, flash the Protector’s pattern.” Trell ordered rendering honors to the arriving Valinor ships.

OOC: Well there will be more to follow soon when I get time to write. Hopefully this weekend.

Alpha Centauri

The facades of the Palace and the Imperial Congressional Building are draped in a veritable sea of heavy black cloth. The banners are trimmed with a thin band of intertwined red, silver, and gold, the colors of the Aldermans, and the lion and sun crest of the empire rests at the center. The cool, patrician gazes of the collective lions look down on a baleful assembly that has filled every available space except for the cordoned off area guarded by members of the Reichswehr in full combat-dress danger suits. Black dominates more than just the facades of the government buildings on Imperial Centre, the island in the center of the river that bisects New Köln. The crowded mourners—most officials from the various branches of the imperial government, members of the peerage, or foreign envoys—add their own various blacks and grays to the somber morning in the capital. Anxious gazes are turned to the main marble and granite bridge connecting the Centre to the rest of the city.

A deep, cracking boom starts to reverberate across the island from the city proper. Many start to strain to see what they have waited for over an hour. The coordinated steps of a full Reichswehr honor company marching in full dress kit flows seamlessly from around the corner of one of the blocks of offices surrounding the Centre. The usually gleaming silver helmets and bayonets have been rubbed with soot to give them the dull sheen of mourning. At the head of the massed infantry, a major and five captains ride on black stallions. The captains on the edge of the mounted formation carry a flag each—one the imperial colors and the other the jack of the Reichswehr—but both are held horizontal like a lance to match those flying at half-staff on the Centre.

After the Reichswehr honor guard comes Reynard Adonis’ casket, drawn by four black horses matching those of the officers. The casket is a deep-hued, well-polished red cedar with the imperial colors draped across it. It is attended by three squads of Imperial Sovereign Protectors dressed in their own red uniforms trimmed with gold and silver, each member of the guard wears a black armband.

The casket is quickly followed by a mounted procession. Two mounted squads of Protectors escort the widowed Lady Diedre Rolt-Adonis, her son, and most of the imperial family. Empress Friedelinde’s face is a mere shadow behind a black veil flowing off the brim of her hat and blending with the fabric of her dress as she rides side saddle. The empress’ dress and manner is mirrored by Lady Diedre and Princess Katherine. James Stewart, the Prince-Consort, and Crown Prince Wilhelm ride on either side of the empress and Lady Rolt wear black uniforms cut along the lines of the Kriegsmarine that are unadorned. Behind the imperial party seven grossadmirals—including Katherine Adonis and Quentin Forrest—and nine grossgeneralfeldmarschalls—all but two of their number—ride on their own mounts in full dress uniform.

The Kriegsmarine’s honor guard finishes the procession. A pair of drummers hammer out a slow march as a pair of korvettenkapitans lead an honor company of naval ratings behind them. The deep navy dress uniforms of the company are amended with black armbands mirroring those of the Sovereign Protectors.

The crowd collectively follows the procession, with some wincing at the repeated cracking steps of the Reichswehr formation. As it draws closer to the stairs leading up to the Imperial Congressional Building, the massive doors of the empire’s parliament open and Duke Adrian Sterling leads out the ministers of Her Majesty’s Government dressed in the black robes due sitting members of the Congress of Lords and the charcoal grey of the Congress of the Dominions. They watch in silence as the honor guard starts to file into place along the stairs and continues to march in place as the Reichsprotektor’s casket is secured by the Sovereign Protectors and the other mourners dismount.

The casket and its honor guard starts to slowly make its way up the stairs while the empress and Lady Diedre leady the funeral party behind him. The members of the Imperial Diet waiting its arrival step aside as the casket is carried into the Grand Rotunda dominating the entrance into the center of the imperial legislature. They fall into file behind Adonis’ family, the imperial family, and the officers.

Inside the casket is greeted with a great wave of shuffling and rustling as the hundreds of peers and the scattered Dominion representatives rise to their feet. A second honor guard drawn from the Reichswehr and the Kriegsmarine snaps to attention as the casket approaches. They wait for the Sovereign Protectors to place the casket on the raised marble were typically a bronze statue of the reigning Alderman stands, but the empress’ statue was quietly moved shortly after Adonis’ death had been announced.

The Sovereign Protectors turn and salute the military honor guard waiting to assume responsibility for their charge. The action is immediately returned by the military guards. The Protectors withdraw, forming a circle between the members of the Diet and the casket. The major and the two captains that served as standard bearers in the procession come forward silently. The banners are then handed over to the guard around the casket.

The weight of the Star Empire’s power and authority stands still for a moment, a glimmer of a few minutes where briefly the pulse of the last of the old superpowers in the Raumreich stops while its leaders pay their respects. The pause is broken when Lady Diedre, joined by Katherine Adonis and her sixteen year old half-brother Richard Rolt-Adonis, move toward the casket. Lady Diedre rests a hand on the casket for a few minutes before turning away and moving back toward the rest of the funeral party.

Empress Friedelinde comes forward escorted by the Prince-Consort. She takes a moment and then turns to one of the Sovereign Protectors who is holding a wooden box. She takes out a gold circle, roughly the size of an average man’s palm, with the crest of Valinon worked in gold and silver and places it on the casket. After a few moments she rejoins Lady Diedre.

The officers and government ministers then file past the casket, each taking a few moments before moving back. After a little over a half hour the ceremony is complete and the assembled peers, ministers, officers, and officials leave the rotunda. Left behind is the casket with its honor guard of eight soldiers, four from the Reichswehr and four from the Kriegsmarine.

**********

“That is enough, thank you. And thank you, Your Majesty,” Michael Seebach, director of the Ministry for External State Security, picks up the quarter-full wine glass and studies its rich, red contents. Empress Friedelinde nods slightly as she continues to read through the reports Seebach had put on the comp-pad. The lights of New Köln make the shadows in the imperial study distort and take on strange new shapes, and it makes it seem that the empress—still clad in her black dress—forms out of her chair. The tall, gaunt man with the features typical of the Gehn family bows slightly.

“Your Majesty,” the manservant says slowly, “would you wish for me to have some dinner prepared for you as well-”

“No, that will be all, Ars, you are excused,” he bows again slightly and leaves Seebach alone with Friedelinde.

“If you would continue, Michael….?”

“Yes, Your Majesty, as you can see there is an unusual amount of activity by many high ranking Guild members. They are moving large amounts of money around, even by their standards, and it has become almost impossible to trace. The largest amount of activity both financial and in terms of personnel is being generated by the Colbert Guild and Condor Solutions. We cannot follow everything they are doing, but we can confirm a large portion of their financial transactions have ended up in the hands of other government officials.”

Friedelinde nods and puts the comp-pad on the table. She picks up her own fuller glass of wine and rests it against her lips.

“There has also been an increase in the active operations of Concordat Naval Intelligence within the habitat sides, but it’s unusual.”

“In what way?”

“It’s disorganized, Your Majesty, or at least appears to be. An early surge of activity suddenly tapered off, as if their orders were abruptly rewritten. But what action the CNI did take was against known agents and representatives within the Concordat who are known to be vehemently opposed to the Navy’s involvement with the direct government of the Concordat. These factions typically align with one or more of the Concordat Guilds.”

The empress takes a drink and then turns her chair so she can let her eyes drift between the view of New Köln and the ESS director.

“Your reports speculate this is the forerunner to a possible civil conflict within the Concordat government, Michael. Does the ESS believe this means a civil war in the Concordat is imminent?”

“At this time, Your Majesty, I cannot say for certain. It’s clear the Concordat is moving toward a civil conflict, but it appears to be another dispute of between the Guilds and the Navy. The Wickian constitution has become so distorted and corrupted since the war it’s become clear their government is functioning more by force of habit and the determination of its leaders rather than on procedure. The Protector’s failing health is making the situation all the worse. But I do not think we should expect this to foment into an actual civil war. It is unlikely another round of rioting and general violence could be avoided at this stage though.”

“Then the Guilds will blame it on the Navy, and it will be used to further corrupt the distribution of League to the Wickian populace,” Friedeline says with a slight grimace of disgust. “This is becoming tiresome.”

“Yes, Your Majesty.”

“Can you increase your personnel in the Concordat; see if we can diffuse this before we have some Guild fanatic trying to blow up a side in order to prove his point?”

“It would be difficult to it quickly, Your Majesty, but not impossible. And it will be made easier if we can enlist some support from OKI.”

“The Kriegsmarine will be corroborating with you fully in this arena, Michael. I will see to that tomorrow and have the carrier group that was sent to Ticonderoga last week on higher alert. If the Concordat destabilizes now it will draw the Verniians and the Vaku into at least a partial confrontation to see who has the right to take advantage of the situation. And that is a flash point we simply cannot afford at this point. I want you to make decapitating this crisis the ESS’s top priority.”

“Yes, Your Majesty.”

Friedelinde raises her glass slightly as a toast. Seebach takes it as a signal to sample his own.

“With perhaps a little luck and a larger portion of dedication, we might be able to rebound this situation and finally break the drifting of more power to the Guilds. Certainly a sane, or at least more even tempered, government in Ticonderoga would be a welcome development, especially if it means the Concordat can police itself and we no longer have to worry about the whole nation becoming Jukaga’s and Calimar’s private reenactment of Old Earth’s nineteenth century China.”

“Of course Your Majesty realizes this will not sit entirely well with Duke Sterling or His Grace, the Archduke Metternicht,” Seebach says with an ever so slight smile.

“I’m of the opinion that reminding my most beloved ministers who still holds the reigns is needed on a more than regular basis, Michael, and thankfully we both have the job security to do it. I’m not going anywhere and I appoint you, so as long as we can both keep a watchful eye on each other’s back I expect we will do quite well. Don’t you?”

“Without a doubt, Your Majesty, without a doubt.”

CNS Vincent Pauls
Near Genoa Anchorage
Ticonderoga System
Wickian Concordat

Second Lieutenant Georgia Fisk did not know what to make of her mission or the two spooks who were waiting near the port hatch along with their squad of troops in power armor. Yesterday her orders were to proceed to the carrier Lexington to relieve a fellow destroyer in the outer system patrol, now they were all but hijacked at Scorpion Fleet Yards and told to burn like hell towards an Ortagan freighter, and to intercept it at all costs. What worried her most was that if interception was not possible they were to destroy the freighter, a defenseless civilian vessel, for no reason but ambiguous orders that supposable originated at the highest levels of the Government.

“Skipper, I got her. She is three light seconds off of Marker Three-Lima-Niner-Oscar.”

”Good Work, Mr. Jettys.” She told her sensor operator. He had done well tracking down the transponder Mr. Hawkins had given them the codes for. Now all that remained was for them to intercept.

“Helm, prepare to jump to Marker Three-Lima-Niner-Oscar. Upon translation go to full military power and vector us in on that freighter.” She ordered her bridge crew who hurried about their orders. They moved a bit to fast, almost bordering on the nervous edge of panicky motions. They like their skipper were young and green, some of the first out of the recruiting program after the war. But they were competent and after twenty seconds the Destroyer disappeared in flash that was the telltale of a successful jump.

After translation Pauls raced through space at over 920 gravities of acceleration, a rate attainable and maintained by second generation CSN gravitic thrusters and inertial compensators refined from Valinor tech transfers of civilian equipment only a few years before the Great March War. While massive dreadnoughts and capital ships still used older equipment many of the smaller more cost effective vessels such as the new Jackal class destroyers acted as test beds for new technology and systems. If they proved effective they then could be applied to much larger vessels. The Pauls was running at full military power for a purpose, she was chasing down her target, the freighter Alexia Dumont, which was registered to St. Ives in the Federated Suns. It was the freighter that Concordat Naval Intelligence knew to be carrying several of the terrorists’ warheads.

“Freighter Alexia Dumont, You are ordered to heave to and prepare to be boarded.” A single missile leapt from one of the two revolving missile turrets a sped towards the freighter detonating 10km of its port side. “I say again Freighter Alexia Dumont, you are ordered to heave to and prepare to be boarded. This is your last warning; you have ten seconds to comply.” The voice of the destroyers skipper Lt.(jg.) Georgia Fisk said, for eight long seconds she thought that she would be forced to fire on the civilian vessel, when it at last cut its acceleration.

“Wickian Warship this is the Alexia Dumont, We will comply!” It was a rather funny sight as the Wickian ship docked with the much more massive freighter which out massed it by at least one hundred times, however the spinal graser on the Pauls could have easily gutted the more massive freighter, which is why they complied.

The destroyer no was within a light second and begain to decelerate relative to the freighter.

“Mr. Hawkins, Interception will be completed in one-five minutes. The Freighter has cut their acceleration and has heaved to.” Fisk told the CNI operative using her N-Plants.

“Understood Captain, you have done this new class well. Good work on the intercept, remain vigilant.” Hawkins advised her. She felt pride in her ship and the spooks compliment if that is what it was. Her destroyer was of a new class of and was unique in the Raumreich, while the Kreigsmarine maintained fully automated drone vessels for anything smaller than a Cruiser the CSN was unwilling to make use of drone vessels. Instead they sought to maximize automation while retaining a Wickian crew in the vessel. The Destroyer was roughly half the mass of older designs and only about time and again the mass of a Light Attack Craft. It maintained much the armaments of a LAC, with a strong spinal mounted energy weapon, along with several small but quick firing missile launchers. For their size they were quite deadly against anything up to the size of a cruiser. It was the new doctrine of the CSN to make smaller but extremely capable ships, of which these destroyers were one of the trademarks.


She was not expecting any trouble from the freighter, their scans revealed no weapons or any significant shielding. It wasn’t a threat. All the same her tactical officer remained alert. Two tethered decoys and their ECM were active as SOP’s required when closing with any suspicious vessel, and her crew was in skin suits.

“Range to Freighter 120 k-klicks, interception in five-“ The helmsman never finished, as the destroyer was rocked. Several screens blew as the small bridge violently decompressed. Fisk grunted painfully as she was jolted in her shock frame as the world went to hell all around her. She wasn’t ready for this, it wasn’t supposed to happen this way. Was it an engineering casualty or were they under attack? Her mind struggled to comprehend what was going on.

“Report!” She screamed, but there was no response. She turned her head to look to her tactical officer and noticed for the first time the decapitated man that was fallen over his console, his blood pouring onto the deck. The ships computer however displayed information on her skin-suits HUD.

The freighter had fired on them, two 50cm lasers had hit them in the bow and had torn through the thinly armored ship. At this range they had no warning at all. She instinctively authorized the ship to respond as their 175 cm spinal graser spoke in anger. It was a weapon normally found on a Battle Cruiser but was able to be mounted spinally on the destroyer due to new capacitors derived from the tech transfers. The large bore energy weapon cut through the freighter as if it had no defenses at all. But the freighter was quite large and massive, it was not destroyed. However its engineering section along with its power plants were in one violent blow were, the secondary explosions consumed the vessel.

What should she do now? What, What, What….

“Damage Report!” She yelled hoping someone would respond.

“M-Missile separation!” How the ship was destroyed she wondered and they realized someone had finally taken their spot at the tactical station. A damage report begain to be displayed on her HUD, nine crewmembers were reported as KIA, five had sustained wounds out of their complement of twenty six. Only one deck of the four still retained atmosphere and their small sickbay was gone chiseled out by the enemy beam weapon.

“Four birds….Outbound?!” reported the petty officer who now was at tactical. “What…” He spoke out loud not realizing he had. “They are gone.” Two seconds later he reported again. “There they are 700k-klicks out bearing 242 degrees. That’s not possible….They are skippers!”

Fisk felt her blood run cold as she realized what they were a half second before the computer displayed the answer on her Hud, as the sensors analyzed something she had read about only in textbooks. The delivery system was unknown but the payload was not.

“Singularity Alarm!” The sensor operator yelled. The freighter had just launched almost a half dozen singularity missiles, and she had no means to intercept them.

“Mister Hawkins” She screamed in her implants hoping the spook was still alive.

Hall of Congress
Side Six, Government Sector
Ticonderoga System

(this is happening as the previous post is playing out)

The Hall of Congress was quiet for the first time in noticeable memory, David Ginske, the hereditary president of the Concordat was standing behind a podium, to his back was flag of the former Commonwealth. He called this emergency session only two days before. It was time to address the problems with his nation, and for the first time to take a step forward together.

“My fellow Wickians, Protector Eric Strength who led our people through the hardships following the War of the Lion once said, ‘To survive is to fight and to fight is to survive.’ We as a people have taken this axiom to heart and have embodied it for nearly a century. We have fought, we have resisted every attack inflicted upon us, and we have bleed for our determination to survive. To secure our survival we have lost our home world, and over 85% of our population, and now just to survive in this system we have began to sacrifice our civil rights, all for the greater good.”

At this last comment the stark partisans of the Congress split between the Guild Majority and the Navy minority began to boil to the surface as the Guilders began to hiss their disapproval.

“Under my administration a virtual caste system has been created to prop up the façade of our free society. Some of us are made to be warriors, some are to be the elite and the great many of us are forced to be workers.” Even at this some of the Guilds were quiet perhaps facing the consequences of their desperate actions to survive for the first time. “Our nation has fallen into grief and what of the men who attacked us, whom have cost us so much? One in particular has gone unpunished, Ginas Saharin, the man whose inventions nearly wipe our people out goes free unpunished while we squabble and cripple our nation. We are blind to our greatest threats as we fight ourselves.

“Yes, we have survived, though the cost was high.” Ginske stopped talking at this moment, it was clear he knew well the cost, his left arm that ended at his elbow was proof of his own personal cost. “But sometimes it is too high, what have we become? We need to ask ourselves if we even deserve to survive, because with each coming day we still visit our sins upon our children and others, and I have watched the leaders and the powerful people of this government inflict it upon the weak and downtrodden. Today that will end. I have signed and put into service Executive Order 329 which is declaring the Concordat a broken government. An interim government known as the Committee of Public Safety., a committee of nine officers, three of whom are elected from the Navy, three from the Guilds, and three from the Workers class. will take over administration of our nation, while a constitutional convention is held. It is time for us to remake our nation into something better than it is!” The President said.

The Guild Leaders where shouting now standing up and raising their fists, their voices were heard, Tyrant! Illegal! You cant Do This!

Ginske raised his one good hand,

"Silence. For too long have the Guild Familias oppressed the people of Ticonderoga keeping them in servitude. They are just laborers and works to you, to people like me and those who serve they are our most precious commodity not the the rocks they dig out every day. Our system is flawed and it will no longer be allowed to stand!"

Ticonderoga

The bridge of the HMS Apollo is quieter and more reserved than usual, almost starkly so. It is out of place considering how thoroughly the battlecruiser, the three cruisers of Kapitan Hamilton’s command, and four of the manned destroyers detached from Kommodore Stecker’s carrier force had trounced the opposing team led by the Dominion in the latest round of war games. Stecker had been running a series of simulated war games in the outer system for almost a week now. Supposedly it was to prepare the newly formed carrier group for duty on the patrols in the Great March, but it was also becoming clear it gave Stecker’s command an excuse for lingering in the Wickian capital system.

Stecker is also the reason for the crew’s muted decorum. The kommodore stands with his pleasant smile on his face looking at the view of the defeated Dominion as it reforms with the ships of its own team, preparing for the leisurely return to the inner system close to the Scorpion Shipyards and the imperial supply station. Shen-whei, master of the Apollo has no doubt his commanding officer is an unusual beast. Stecker is polite and proper enough—that was to be expected from an old Vaterland family with its tradition of naval service—but he commands with an ease and sureness that border on the casual. Before this deployment, Shen-whei had never known a task force CO to not assume command of at least one of the teams in a war game. Stecker’s action also seemed to have shown as much interesting in testing the mettle of Ashley Norrington, his flagship captain, as it did with observing the capabilities of Shen-whei’s own ship. But no one on the Apollo knows quite what they should expect from their commander.

Shen-whei approaches Stecker quietly. The kommodore doesn’t break away from studying his super-carrier or the data stream showing the statistics from the match the Apollo’s team had just won.

“Some most interesting strategies you displayed, Kapitan. I particularly enjoyed the Prometheus Feint you used. Seeing the old Dominionite tactics so well executed is very rare outside the historical sims, and apparently their lasting impact are somewhat neglected by the latest generation of officers.”

“Thank you, sir. But I will admit that Kapitan Norrington did hold her own despite the surprise.”

“That she did, and I think the casualty ratio may have made up for her ignorance on a few bits of history,” Stecker’s smile broadens a little. Despite its victory, the Blue Team led by the Apollo had lost a pair of cruisers, a destroyer, and the battlecruiser had its starboard weapons control crippled in a surprise drone attack coordinated by Ferrets and the Red Team’s Sophia-class EW frigate. “But it still doesn’t quite distract from your victory.”

Stecker runs his hands over one of the satellite command stations scattered along the bridge’s simulated viewports.

“She’s quite the vessel, Kapitan, and quite the devil of an impressive hull someone’s first round on the deck. Some part of me has the indecency to envy both you and your crew. I trust I can rely on you to pass that on to your officers and crew?”

“With please, Kommodore.”

“Good, good,” Stecker’s eyes drift over Shen-whei’s shoulder as the Apollo’s XO approaches. The younger man—of Falas extract by the look of his face—salutes.

“My apologies, Kommodore, Kapitan, but Kapitan Norrington is holding for the Kommodore and she is it is urgent.”

Stecker nods, “Work never seems to leave quite enough time to reminisce. You will excuse me if I borrow your station, Kapitan?”

“It is yours, sir.”

“Thank you.”

**********

Before he finally settles into Shen-whei’s chair, Stecker had already activated his n-plant. The larger bridge of the Dominion fills his senses and his vision, even as Stecker knows his avatar appeared on board group’s flagship. He turns around to where Norrington is sitting at her own station.

“Something the matter, Ashley?”

“One of the drone destroyers picked up some interesting readings on our maneuvers I thought warranted your attention, sir. There was a pair of jump footprints detected. One was a ship leaving Ticonderoga when we were setting up for the games, and the other came in just a few seconds ago—arriving in the system.”

“It’s probably something more than your usual out-system traffic, but I don’t particularly want to run down the local smugglers anonymous, Ashley. There’s no telling how the Concordat Navy might react to that.”

“I don’t think it’s smugglers, sir. The jump footprints were Ortagan, both of them.”

Stecker’s eyes narrow, “Hegemonic?”

“No, sir, these were newer, and CIC can’t confirm if they are the Federated or Tyrdorian military, exposure time was too limited, and I didn’t want to double back and tip our hand. The footprints are consistent with small craft, sir, given their power signatures I’d say we have something with a definite jump range limit of a dozen light years or so.”

“Some new type of monitor?”

“Smaller than that, Kommodore, a lot smaller. It’s barely bigger than those new fighters the Federated Suns and the Free State are starting to churn out.”

“Does it look like the Wickians caught sign of it yet?”

“If they did we aren’t getting any reaction from their patrols or the Scorpion yards. After the jump there were no additional energy signatures. Whoever is there knows how to run silent. I doubt if we would have noticed them unless we had been so close to their jump exit vector.”

Stecker takes a moment, crossing his arms, “I want the SEWS-37’s RIs to do a full post-operation rundown and test of their system, Ashley. And I want it to include a full diagnostic performance of the ship’s electronic countermeasure suite at full power. Send a message to the Scorpion yards under my personal header and apologize for the inconvenience. Tell them we are having some difficulties with our systems.”

“Yes, Kommodore, there is also one other thing. This just came in with the latest ‘briefs on the local nets.”

Stecker opens the file and scans over the headlines. When he gets to the reports from the Wickian Congress there is a sharp hissing of surprise.

“This is unexpected. Ashley, I want you to form up with Blue Team. We will be setting course back to the station at three-quarters full power. I will inform Shen-whei of the same.”

“Aye, sir.”

“I don’t like the way this could go, Ashley, be ready for anything to happen. I will transfer back over to the Dominion when we reach our destination.”

Ashley nods before Stecker cuts the connection. He then gets up and moves to issue the new orders to the Apollo’s commander. Meanwhile the carrier group’s Sophia-class frigate starts to test its countermeasure suit, jamming the outer system with electronic noise and disinformation.

Alpha Centauri

Michael Seebach cuts his connection to the briefing session with the oberführers and gruppenführers assigned to the areas closest to the Concordat when the disruptions in the meeting were running beyond what one could consider rampant. Seebach had told the ESS officers to dismiss for a half hour to review the situation, analyze it, and then be prepared to start the session over. After leaving the Nu-space conference room he idly waves a hand across his office. The displayed art and scattered news-feeds are replaced by a vast array of resources.

Muted vid-feeds from a half-dozen news networks from UVNN to the Verniian-based GSN are joined by maps of the Ticonderoga systems, displays of the most recent reports from the ESS, and even a strat/tact (strategic and tactical) display compiling Kriegsmarine and Reichswehr assets. Several other hovering holograms detail the known positions of foreign militaries—including the Verniian, Vaku, and Wickian forces.

Seebach waves forward the strat/tact and the UVNN feeds while he activates his offices’ RIs, giving them a series of search parameters and having them start to sift through the massive amounts of data pouring into his office. This is very much a race against time, and he has no doubt his own efforts will or have already been joined by his “colleagues” in Gregor and Vakutu at least. His office door chime sounds and he releases the lock.

Standartenführer Macros, his chief of staff steps in.

“You are aware of the situation then, Director,” Macros looks at the feeds, stepping through the GSN’s vid.

“Unfortunately, Kale, is there another burden to be added to the list?”

“The Kammerherr has called from the Palace. He says you should be prepared to brief Her Majesty in two hours at the most.”

“The Empress already knows about this?”

“Not yet. Ribbentrop said he would try to postpone her from knowing about it for a while to allow you time to process the information yourself. But he said two hours is the most he could give you under the circumstances.”

“Two hours is even more than I had expected,” Seebach sends several search profiles and reports to Macros’ local net box. “Look over these and help me crunch this down as far as possible. I’ll have another briefing with the Great March Ticonderoga Department in less than twenty-six minutes now.”

Macros nods and takes up one of the chairs in front of Seebach’s desk. Seebach calls up Reichsführer Feist, head of the Greater March Bureau. A few seconds later he finds himself drawn into Feist’s favorite Nu-space environment, a devoted replica of one of the villas of Erewohn’s elite. It’s where Feist had done most of his field service before starting his climb through the ESS’s upper ranks.

“I would ask to what do I owe the pleasure, Director, but I think we both know what it is,” Feist says without any real amusement in his voice. “What can I do for you?”

“How many operational cells do you have fully prepped in Ticond, Eldin?”

Feist takes a moment, “Five at the moment. I have three others in the system, but they haven’t had time to be brought up to op status. I’d only sent them there after Her Majesty expressed her interest in the Wickian internal situation last month.”

“Bring three of the five to full pre-op status and have them ready to take to the field in no more than three hours after being given notice. Then have another track down and pull some members of the Guild cells we’ve been watching. I want to know what exactly they are up to if we can get it. This situation is rapidly spiraling out of control and I want to see who is ahead of the game: Ginske or the Guilds.”

“Anything else I should bear in mind?”

“Yes, if you can, try to diffuse anything that looks like it may result in Ticon blowing up like the Hegemony.”

“I won’t make any promises.”

“With the Wickians who can?” Seebach cuts the feed and goes back to shifting through his reports.

Hall of Congress
Side Six
Capital, Wickian Concordat

“This is outrageous Ginske!” A tall Wickian stood from the majority side of Congress, his red eyes shot daggers at the President. “You do not have the authority to do this! It is illegal. Any resolution you propose will be vetoed, the Concordat and Congress are the legitimate branches of this government to act against it is treason!”

Ginske listened to perhaps the most powerful man in the Concordat condemn his words and actions, this man who was the root of all the stratified societal problems that now crippled his nation. Of the two hundred congressmen in the hull over 150 of them stood an jeered at the president and supported Stephen Colbert. Colbert became animated with their cheers,

“You have gone to far Ginske, we will not tolerate a usurpation of power by the Navy again, Eric Strength proved the fallacy of that action eighty years ago!” The President of the Concordat simply stood silent against the charges, “I propose a vote of no confidence in President Ginske!” He screamed to the cheers of his compatriots, it was the moment the Guilds have been waiting for, a justifiable excuse to ride the Navy block of any remaining influence in the government. The motion was quickly seconded and passed.

“David Ginske you are no longer President of the Concordat, Guards arrest this man for high treason!” Colbert screamed as he pointed his arm at the former President who had dared to challenge the de facto political supremacy of the Guilds, and lost. The two security men moved to the Presidents flanks, neither they or any of the outraged Congressmen had the necessary scanning equipment to realize that throughout the entire exchange that the President was not merely standing stoically against their outrage but was actively utilizing his n-plants to call in his ace.

The two main doors to the Hall burst open yielding against the kick of a Wickian Marine in Sentinel power armor, the all black exoskeletons where shaped like armored knights of old, their helmets façade an imposing dragon snarl that the samurai of old earth once used. The squad fell in line a side the president when he spoke again, there was silence in the hall.

“Your Congress has lost the faith of its people in its ability to govern, you have oppressed those you were elected to serve. While they are forced to toil in the mines you and yours live in walled cities secure in your own vision of what this nation should be. I am going to shatter that vision. The Concordat as you have twisted it is no more!” The Marines charged their pulse rifles, the sharp whine made Ginske’s determination clear.

You all are no longer congressmen but private citizens. You will be allowed to return to your residences should you not resist. There are shuttle craft waiting these marines will show you to them.” With that Ginske turned and left the Hall.

CNS Vincent Pauls

HAWKINS

The intelligence agent heard the voice scream inside his skull, but he couldn’t see anything, when he opened his eyes he saw the corridor was filled with smoke, he looked about and saw that the three marines accompanying him and Agent Mason were down, his HUD display on his helmet informed him that there were no vital signs. Then he saw Mason, she was lying prone with a large splinter pieced through her chest, her open and unresponsive eyes told him she was gone as well.

Hawkins sat up slowly, as his mind was being filled with tactical data from the bridge. He understood the situation quickly, the terrorist had managed to fire a salvo before they intercepted their ship, he supposed they though their energy weapons would have destroyed the small destroyer outright, but the ECM suite was quite good and Hawkins noticed that six other beams had missed the Pauls.

“Lieutenant Fisk jump the ship to Side Six, it will be impossible to intercept the jumpers before they reach attack range of their target. There will be a brief window to intercept as they settle in for their final run, it is our only hope.”

“Hawkins how do you know that is where the missiles will go?”

“Terrorists will go for the head, it will cause the most confusion and terror on the part of our people. There is no time to argue jump now!”

The wounded Destroyer jumped for the government side, Hawkins had to warn the government but these things would take time he just did not have, the terrorists would undoubtedly move up their time table now, they must have other assets in play already. He called his controller Supervisor Victor using his N-Plants,

“Victor, the freighter was armed they launched a spread of jumpers, target I believe to be Side Six, interception probability is severely low.”

Victor himself was on another side, in Ecol City,

“Understood Hawkins do what you can, the other teams have intercepted 70% of the lost warheads. Five are still unaccounted, we are warning the government now. I will make the Navy aware of the situation. Victor out.”

Victor knew he had no time to waste, it was funny he supposed that he was coordinating his operation from a bench in a park at Ecol City, but Nu-Space was a godsend for CNI, especially for the more black operations, he was completely inconspicuous. He was using his special clearance codes to contact the ready alert squadron, with his priority he would be able to redeploy the squadron, as well as warn the government.

He screamed in pain as an unbearable shock startled him, where a moment before he was in the Net now he was shut out, his head spinning, he had been eject. He tried to reconnect but could not, his mind raced. He was being jammed, but how? Only a handful of people knew he was here, this area was swept and clean. Why and how it occurred no longer mattered. He knew he had been compromised he had to escape and evade whom ever it was doing this.

He paid no attention to the startled pedestrians in the park as he stood and began to run towards the street. He pulled his pulsar from his hip and charged the weapon, While he used his left hand to pull a thin hood over the top of his head and over his eyes, it was the tactical overlay from the skin suit he wore under his street cloths, it gave him many optical advantages. It could also detected deadly weapons on individuals by noticing their power packs. He saw that two men approaching him from the front carried weapons in their hands, they were looking right at him, as they drew their weapons Victor was already firing his own, downing both of them in two shots. That was when he felt two thunderous hits to his back as he fell to his knees, he felt another and another, the last to exited through his front as his blood poured out of his body he felt weak, his hands fell limply. Three more figures surrounded him, Victor could do nothing as one put a pulsar to his head,

“The Word is Blake.” The assassin said just before he fired.

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Metternicht, Jorgensen Sign Treaty
~Sharon King, Reporting

Archduke Metternicht and Damien Jorgensen, First Minister of Berchest, announced they have both signed an extensive security and economic treaty on behalf of the Empire and the Commonwealth of Berchest. The treaty will now be sent to the Imperial Diet and the Berchester Federal Council for ratification.

The treaty's primary points are a mutual defense pact and a full economic agreement between the two nations. The Foreign Office has confirmed the economic package of the treaty includes a free trade agreement. The defense pact includes the somewhat controversial assurance that the Empire will guarantee the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Berchest and will defend both from foreign aggression. This point had been a focal point of Minister Jorgensen's efforts during the treaty talks and is expected to greatly aid his reelection campaign in second Commonwealth general elections to be held next year.

“This treaty is a historic moment for both the people of Valinon and the people of Berchest,” Metternicht said after the signing ceremony. “It represents that Her Imperial Majesty and Her Majesty's Government are moving to further the integration of the Ortagan successor states into the greater community of the Raumreich. The United Star Empire is committed to seeing the Ortagan community—from the Federated Suns to the Kerezin Freehold—becoming an essential part of the Oversector. The agreement Minister Jorgensen and I signed today is the greatest step taken in this area since the signing of the New Gadsen Accords with Consul Kellarny two years ago.”

When asked, Metternicht said the ambassadors to the Kerezin Freehold and the Free State of Tyrador were pursuing separate talks. However, he said there were no plans for any formal treaty talks at this time.

Jorgensen hailed the signing of the treaty as a major success in Berchester efforts to establish themselves outside the former Ortagan sphere.

"We continue to believe that Berchest has the right to pursue international relations outside the sphere of associated Ortagan states and outside of the COS. Berchest has enjoyed good relations with the United Star Empire since the recognition of our independence over three years ago. The conclusion of our negotiations with this agreement is simply an outgrowth of this growing bond,” Jorgensen said.

But the treaty has been criticized by some members of the Opposition. Count Desmond Seward of Yalta, member of the United Lords and second-ranking member of the Shadow Cabinet, called the treaty a mistake.

“The actions of the Sterling Government continue to prove that its desire to manipulate and further destabilize the Great March in order to secure its own agenda. These protocols could very well be seen as an attempt by the Star Empire to build up an alternative to the Federated Suns, not to mention the continued armaments talks also being followed by Archduke Metternicht...more

Third Valinon-Protectorates Conference Approaching
~Eveline Leuthard, Reporting

Preparations are underway in the Collective Protectorates for the upcoming conference between Empress Friedelinde and Guardian Darius. This will be the third annual summit between the leaders of the two veto-power nations on the Directory for Security and Stability.

While not formally binding on either nation's policies, the summits have allowed for many pressing issues to be addressed before having to go to either a formal League Assembly or Directory session. The summits were viewed as being a key factor in the easing of tensions regarding the Gregor Wormhole Terminus Zone and a threat of raising imperial transit tariff a year ago, with the Liberation negotiating moderately on behalf of the Verniian Imperium.

Kammerherr von Ribbentrop announced in a press conference yesterday that the summit will also coincide with the formal withdrawal of the Morning Star Expeditionary Force of the Reichswehr. The special command was formed after the Hegemonic attack on the Liberation capital that killed Admiral Setties and most of his cabinet. Generalmajor Edmond Fastovsky, commanding the force, will oversee the withdrawal in a formal ceremony supervised by the empress and the guardian.

Von Ribbentrop also said the summit would not interfere with the Archon-Prince Tiberius recently announced visit to Morning Star.

Outside of the military ceremony, most of the summit will be held in the city of Chimaera on the Liberation world of New Hope. Some issues have already been announced as being on the table including...more?

Talon 182, Morning Star system, Collective Protectorates of Liberated New Hope
05.28.1304 AF
1449 Federated Forces Standard

William Ballantine cranes his head out to look at the ships under construction in the Silver Fleet’s expansive yards. He puts his data pad away and turns to face the pilot of 182.

“Have you finished primary acceleration, Lieutenant?”

“Yes, Captain. We won’t require another boost for the rest of the journey to the coordinates the system controller forwarded us.”

“Then if you will excuse me…” Ballatine gestures to his safety harness.

“Of course, Captain.”

Ballatine releases his harness and stands up, “Come on, Saul, you couldn’t be any more obvious if you were a kid in a Braavos game shop.”

“I would have still been happier on the bridge,” Ballatine’s XO mutters, but removes his harness with considerable haste.

The two Federated officers move across the small cabin of the Talon toward the undivided cockpit area. Ballantine rests his arm on the back of the co-pilots chair, the younger second class lieutenant pauses for a minute and then goes back to completing his scanner surveys of the Liberation home system. Hogan stabilizes himself by grabbing on to one of the frame ribs loosely dividing the cockpit from the rest of the ship.

“Look at the size of that son of a bitch,” Hogan points at the dreadnought eating up most of the small gig’s view of the fleet yards. “The Liberation has been borrowing more than a few of the Kriegsmarine’s lessons since the end of the war if looks count for anything.”

“They’ve probably learned a few lessons at least, but I’m willing to bet Murphy’s navy carries more creature comforts than any Kriegsmarine commander or sailor has secretly dreamed of this side of a flag rank,” Ballantine had been aboard some of the Kriegsmarine’s vessels when the Free Ortagan Alliance had been in the process of buildings its own ships during the war.

The Valinor navy built nothing for comfort—unless everything else had been given priority before it. Ballantine knew the officers of the Federated Suns erstwhile ally “suffered” under conditions their colleagues in the Imperial Verniian Navy or the Silver Fleet would have shouted as being intolerable.

Hogan gives a low, long whistle as the gig turns the skeletal edge of the uncompleted dreadnought’s stern quarters and sits in a course for its designated hanger.

“Still,” Ballatine adds pulling out his data pad again, “there is a lot of construction going on in Morning Star, a lot more than FNI had estimated in their reports.”

“You think the Silver Fleet is expanding to gain bulk on the Valinor or the Verniians this soon?”

“Maybe, and maybe the Silver Fleet has been playing the numbers game for the last few years. The Liberation spread out so far and so fast after the war I’ve often wondered if the naval infrastructure they have in this system could actually pull it off, even with all additions they’ve made to their facilities since the war. I think it’s just as likely Darius and his government may have put up a small smoke screen to make Murphy’s fleet look bigger than it really is, at least on paper.”

“It’s a risky move for them.”

Ballantine nods, “But for it to get tested in practice the Liberation needs some enemy willing to challenge their fleet’s capacity. Their government has done their damndest to make sure no one is too pissed off at them since the Armistice. I think that may be more than part of the reason.”

“Hell, they manage to keep both the Verniians and the Valinor happy with them most days of the week. I think that’s a miracle in itself,” Hogan says, inclining his neck to look back at the dreadnought.

“And they keep open relations with us since the Armistice, and no one else besides Valinon has really tried that. It will be interesting to see what kind of response Larkin’s message gets here, and interesting to see who they send to receive it.”

“Right…” Hogan says, now balancing on one foot to get a better view.

“Sir,” the pilot says, “we’re preparing for our final course correction to the Liberation hanger. If you and Commander Hogan want to prepare yourselves for the arrival…?”

“Thank you, Hodges.”

Talon 317, Outer Ticonderoga system, Wickian Concordat
05.28.1304 AF
1708 Federated Forces Standard

“Shit, shit, shit,” First Lieutenant Rob Bhatt looks over his instrument panel for the sixteenth—seventeenth?—time. He’d lost count.

When his Talon had jumped into the outskirts of the Concordat’s primary system he and his ECO, Joey Moi, hadn’t expected to see what looked like half the Kriegsmarine right off the nose of their bird, which was not much bigger than the Federated Navy’s Eagle fighters. Bhatt tries to glean what little he can from the stripped down passive mode his sensors are running on. He turns to Moi.

“Do we have any sign those destroyers picked us up?” Bhatt hisses. The fact sound doesn’t travel through space still doesn’t stop him from acting like the Valinor warships can’t pick up even his hushed voice.

“I don’t think so, Gator, but I can’t be sure,” Moi peers into the screens of his own sensors, offering slightly more detail than Bhatt’s. “They’re still moving away from us and our power level is still negligible. I doubt if their sensors could even pick us up.”

“Never be optimistic with the damned Kriegsmarine, Snap. They’ve been known to swat small pebbles out of orbit before, and we’re real close to being that size. Do we have any readings on what our energy bleeding was when we transed into n-space?”

“Cutting the last jump shorter pulled our bleed down by fifteen per—hold on!”

Bhatt stiffens as the ECO hunches down over his station.

“What the hell is it?”

“The Valinor EW frigate just started making a whole hell of a lot of noise, a whole hell of a lot. I’m getting countermeasure jamming patterns and sensor decoy patterns. Shit, it’s like their testing every system they’ve got on her.”

“Is it directed at us?”

Moi carefully dials up his sensor’s power just a little, edging toward the upper reaches of the passive operations range.

“No, it doesn’t seem to be directed at anything. But that carrier and its escorts are definitely moving between us and the normal approach vectors into the primary. Whooa! And they just started clipping it back in-system. No additional contacts either, I think they’re hauling ass back toward their picket station.”

Bhatt breathes out heavily.

“What now?”

“We’re going to continue with the mission the Spinster sent us on. Bring our sensors back up and start scanning the Wickian com frequencies. Maybe we can figure out what pulled the Valinors’ chain.”

Moi nods and goes back to his sensors. Bhatt takes a few minutes, watching as the Valinor carrier group continues to move away.

“And, Snap?”

“Yes?”

“Keep the first coordinates punched into the nav-comp. I’m going to keep us ready for trans if anything so much as glances at us in the wrong direction.”

Vakutu

The heavy, thick smell of the air permeates Arrak nar Ki’ra’s nostrils as he accepts the data disc from Tukag nar Sutaghi, Baron of the Sutaghi hrai and one Emperor Jukaga’s—Arrak’s half brother—closest advisors. Spring in Varu, capital of the Greater Empire and its throne world, made one long for the drier days of fall before it was done. The humid, dank air mixed with the burgeoning flowers and grasses of the Isle of the Steel Throne forms a thick aroma that dampens the senses and infuriates the members of the Greater Empire’s ruling classes, but the prestige locked within the city makes it impossible to leave even for an Emperor and the closest members of his court.

Arrak takes a moment to study his half-brother’s expression. While restrained, as Jukaga’s gaze always is, Arrak can tell the emotions of a desired sense of approaching victory and tribulation over the nature of whatever this crisis is war within the current holder of the Steel Throne. He inserts the disc into his comp-pad—finally one produced by local sources that accommodate the Vak physiology rather than being imported from specialist in the Valinor Empire—and begins to read. A few minutes later his eyes widen and he looks up. He now understands Jukaga’s warring emotions fully.

Jukaga nar Ki’ra arches his eyebrows, ”Your thoughts, Honored Brother.”

”A most unusual circumstance is presented to us, Majesty,” Arrak says in careful tones, ”this crisis the Wickian President Ginske may provoke is may give way to unseen benefits for us. But it could just as easily provide the window the paki of the Verniian Imperium have been waiting for where Ticonderoga is concerned. I believe we must proceed with all due caution and see what may come of this decree by Ginske, but I bow to what wisdom the Your Majesty has to offer us.”

”And what do the nar Sutaghi see in this for the empire?”

The older, cautious Tukag closes his eyes for a moment, clearly ordering his thoughts. Arrak watches his ally among his half-brother’s counsels. He and Tukag know how elegant and deadly the hunting between the Greater Empire and the Imperium is. This game has seen an uneasy balance maintained between the two powers on the opposite side of the Raumreich from the Valinor, Liberation, and Ortagan empires, but it is not an easy balance. Both are growing in power—militarily and economically—but they both agree the Greater Empire is not ready to openly confront the more populous, but corrupt and decadent, Imperium led by the vast bureaucracy of Gregor. Thankfully, the Greater Empire has the benefit of a powerful ally in Valinon, even if that alliance is strained. Then there is the fact the Verniians seem to make a perennial habit of being able to alienate many of the other powers in the Inner Marches by testing the limits unceasingly.

”I see many perils this could bring if the Verniians or those associated with them come to hold unquestioned power in Ticonderoga,” Tukag nar Sutaghi beings, ”but I see equal peril in acting unaided and unsupported to turn Ticonderoga to our own cause openly. This may best be a situation where the reformed League and our membership in it may prove our greatest advantage. If we stay our hand and wait for Gregor to interfere—as it surely will—we can paint this as unwarranted aggression, as an attempt to openly encircle us and threaten the balance along our borders. The Valinor will not be inclined to tolerate this disruption of their much beloved status quo, and I doubt many others in the Great March would be fond of seeing the Imperium grow further.”

”An interesting proposal,” Jukaga drums on the table with his claws extended a mere fraction, ”to speak of the opinions of the various Ortagan ilk as benefiting us.”

Tukag waves a hand upward, the Vak equivalent of a shrug, but bows his head slightly in difference to his emperor.

”I concur it is interesting, Majesty, but the Ortagans and the Liberation are as invested in maintaining stability as the Valinor. We can use their desire to maintain it to our own ends, and I feel that we should.”

Jukaga inclines his head, but then tilts it back down ever so slightly, ”Agreed, Esteemed Baron.”

”We should prepare for the Verniians to seize the system if civil order falters. If necessary we should act rather than wait for the Verniians to deliver the first strike. To lose the benefit of surprise—of delivering the invaluable first blow—could prove deadly, Honored and Esteemed Father,” Jugurtha, Jukaga’s oldest son and heir apparent to the Steel Throne cuts in.

Arrak narrows his eyes and glances to one side. He cannot look at his half-nephew, but he has no doubt Jugurtha can feel his stare. Besides being the Erd’Thrak’Hra—Jukaga’s steward of the realm—Arrak has also been invested with the power to oversee his nephew’s education and tutelage in the paths necessary to reign from the throne by the emperor. It is a struggle to teach this particular pupil, and both Jugurtha’s father and his uncle are aware of the difficulty faced with this overly headstrong and fickle descendant of the imperial line. By the rights of the office he holds as master over the heir, Arrak could strike Jugurtha to teach him to restrain this impudence. But it would be out of place in such an intimate setting, even if Arrak believes it would do infinitely more good than evil.

”I must concur with the young prince to some degree, Majesty” Baron Kahl nar Qarg says in his bass roar, ”to so freely give away one of our greatest advantages seems to err—especially as delicate as our relations with the Lion of Alpha Centauri grows. It may be more prudent to seize at least the aggressive posture in this arena, if only to demonstrate to the paki of the Emperor Calimar and his…fetid bureaucrats…how their interference will be treated. A force from the Fleets and the Legions close to Concordat space should prove enough to scare off those weak-willed cowards.”

Arrak glowers as much as is allowed at the head of the nar Qarg clan. The hrai nar Qarg had always been the most warlike of the Eight Great Clans of Vakutu. Although their warrior prowess was tempered with an undeniable tactical rationale and intelligence, for the most part, they often lacked the observation of the textures to truly grasp the strategic game the Greater Empire had found itself in since the end of the war with the Ortagan Hegemony. Still, Kuhl is only highlighting the nature of his lines, for Jugurtha there is less—if any—form of excuse.

The members of Jukaga’s inner circle look toward the Emperor. Jukaga pauses, closes his own eyes and takes a deep breath audible to the entire room. He stares out over the gardens of one of the villas sharing the isle with the formal palace where the Steel Throne resides. The palace itself is hidden well across the isles, but the rising bulk of the growing’ modernizing capital city of the Greater Empire still dominates the horizon around the bay surrounding the imperial enclave. One of Jukaga’s hands reaches out to idly toy with the flowering vines growing on the columns on this side of the exterior of this villa’s solar. His hears perk at the sound of a distant roar from an aero-car approaching the isle. No doubt some courier carrying further dispatches necessary to maintain the imperial household and state. Jukaga’s eyes open and look toward Arrak.

”Prudence is the path we must take in this issue. We will wait to see what our worthy adversaries in Ticonderoga pursue with this latest development. We will wait for the Verniians to express their nature and interfere, as we know they must. When they show their hands, it is we who will be waiting to exploit their hubris to our full advantage. They will be made to play the role of the fools of our court and will be made to once again respect the power of our dominion and those of our most honored allies—even those of our more erstwhile allies. They will be crushed by our hands and driven from the Wickian worlds if they dare to impugn upon the balance that exists across our borders,” Jukaga pauses.

”But we must also prepare for the possibility the Verniians will not conform toward their typical cowardice, and may yet find some small measure of a true warrior’s pride and honor. Our fleets along the border must be prepared for any possible contingency, the Legions present shall be made ready to move, and word will be sent to those of the Kraknakh Ghayeer along the hinterland to make their preparations as well. Our realm will not be caught unaware, especially by the cesspit that seeps from Gregor. Baron nar Sutaghi?”

“I hearken to your words and command, My Emperor.”

“Inform the Council of Eight to make itself ready for a matter of our leisure. Our barons will be ready to congress before the eighth evening hour is struck tomorrow.”

“It shall be done, Majesty.”

“The Baron nar Qarg shall, of course, attend to our orders to the legions posthaste.”

“With the pleasure of a true servant, Most Esteemed of the Eight.”

“Our son shall return to his studies,” Jukaga’s eyes light on his son and flash for a moment, ”and shall confer with our Esteemed Brothers, his teacher, to revisit some lessons on prudence and restraint.”

Jugurtha nods, stiffly.

”Then you all have our leave to attend to our commands and to whatever other business you may have in keeping with your own affairs. But our Esteemed Brother shall remain for a few moments of our leisure.”

Arrak remains seated while the others file out. He lavishes his own flash of anger on the Prince. A lesson will indeed be had later tonight.

”Besides disciplining Jugurtha for his continued insolence, brother, I would wish another duty of you.”

“I listen.”

“Contact Rakti nar Kiranka and debrief him personally on this issue. If there is to be a civil conflict in Ticonderoga it is a question of when, not if, Vernii will interfere. We must be ready to prevent this. This means we must move early to ensure our working majority within the Directory is preserved. Rakti must move to see there is no disruption between the concord of the Star Empire and the Collective Protectorates on the issue of Ticonderoga. I believe you are one of the few capable of impressing this sufficiently upon the ambassador.”

“I will see to it this evening. It will be morning at the Skye Complex by then.”

Jukaga nods, ”See to it then, brother. None must stand in the way of this.”

Anthony Whitcomb had been the Wickian ambassador to the liga for almost forty years now, his face there was trademark. He had the unfortunate position of trying to push though resolutions to assist his struggling nation knowing that every time they would be vetoed by the Hegemony. Now finally that the Hegemony was gone there was meaningful assistance from the Liga and his nation was helped greatly because of it.

The driver to his air car opened the door for him,

"Thank you Markus, please take me to the Liga."

"Yes sir." the driver told him, as Whitcomb settled in he felt the counter grav drive engage as the air car lifted off the ground and was transporting him to the Liga, he had called for a meeting due to a data package he had just received from Ticonderoga. He was to inform the Liga that the Concordat government has fallen and that a provisional government has been erected in its place until such time as a new constitution could be ratified. There would be hell from the Vernii over this, and from the liberation at first, though he was confident that he could swing the LNH to the provisional government's position so long as they were assured that the new government would be a democratic republic. And he would do it, he was convinced the sincerity of Ginske's coup and he would support it to the fullest.

There would be so much to do, and all of it would be painful, the ambassador thought to himself that he was getting to old for all this shit now. He wished for a moment that it would all be over, and he got his wish.

An alarm blared from the cockpit of the air car as a red flashing light warned the driver of a targeting lock on the vehicle. For the safety of the ambassadors even in the heart of the Star Empire their cars were armored and the driver had the benefit of military grade sensors. Markus Aulter was a combat veteran, and his instincts kicked in as he cut the counter-grav as he attempted to evade the lock, but it wasn't enough. A 1cm laser cut through the vehicle as it exploded in a ball of flames, as bits of debris rained down upon the Ilse of Skye.

Far below two men set down the anti-aircraft weapon and placed plastic explosives on it. They moved away quickly as one hit the detonator that detonated the explosives leaving behind little of their weapon. The two men dressed in casual attire moved off the roof of the building they were on and down the stairs back into the apartment building.

Count Andreas Maltzan, the current Chancellor of the Liga der Raumreich, had been reviewing his files about Ticonderoga and its political situation when his chief of staff hurried into his office. Maltzan ignored the breach of protocol, judging from the grave expression on Isac's face, something serious was going on.

"My lord, I regret to inform you that Ambassador Whitcomb is dead."

"What?!"

"His aircar crashed a few minutes ago with no survivors."

"How did it happen?"

"No other details are currently available right now, though there's an ISS agent waiting to see you."

Maltzan's jaws tightened, "He can wait a few minutes. Please inform the other ambassador's that due to today's tragedy, I believe we will have to cancel all meetings today. Damn terrible timing this is, how can we discuss the situation in Ticonderoga without a Wickian representative? Have someone call Whitcomb's people and find out if there's anyone that could serve as an interim ambassador, and how soon we can expect a replacement."

"Is there anything else sir?"

"No. Go ahead and send in the ISS agent."

"Right away, my lord."

As the doors shut behind Isaac, Maltzan pulled a small remote from his desk and pressed one of its buttons. The windows behind him shifted from allowing a view of the Skye Complex's extensive gardens to displaying the graceful and towering skyscrapers of Cardona, the same view his old office at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs had given him.

It never hurts to let them know they're on your turf, after all.

Alpha Centauri

Hauptkommisar Jules Ambrose idly waits in the anteroom outside the chancellor’s office his khaki and tan crush cap neatly tucked under one arm. His uniform is dominated by the same khaki color scheme with tan trims, and not for the first time in his long career Ambrose notes that even by the standards of the anachronistic Star Empire the Ministry for Internal State Security’s formal dress looks like it could have crawled out from some Old Earth museum of the British or old United States militaries. The only interruption of the color scheme is the ISS’s black-and-red sun blazing from above the bill of his cap, and the badge hanging from the pocket roughly at his heart. The crest’s color scheme is repeated, but instead of the ISS sun there is a crossed quill and key—the mark of ISS Section 6, the unit formed to handle diplomatic or international incidents within the empire’s borders.

But Ambrose’s role in the actual security of the Skye Complex—the League’s headquarters on the Isle of Clouds—was limited. The direct ISS security of the League headquarters had vanished with the end of the Great March War and the Second Proxima Centauri Accords. The Complex and the international territory of the Isle were under the protection of the League’s Special Directorate for Skye Complex and League Security, commonly shortened to SkyeSec. The personnel of SkyeSec were the best of the best, drawn from a pool selected from all the League members’ military and security services. It was quick and efficient, and Ambrose knew that SkyeSec’s director-general had already ordered a security lockdown for the whole isle and put his teams on stand-by.

But Ambrose’s position as ISS liaison to the League—essential considering the Isle of Clouds was surrounded by the rest of the Valinor homeworld—still gave him access to SkyeSec’s network. He knew SkyeSec had already confirmed some sort of weapon, one with a considerable energy signature, had been discharged moments before the vitriolic Ambassador Whitcomb met his end. An incident like this was one SkyeSec was still ill-equipped to handle, which was why the addendums of the Accords still provided for the Valinor to handle investigatory measures needed on any crimes that occurred on the Isle of Clouds—under strict League supervision provided by SkyeSec.

Ambrose had no doubt the incident was already sending screaming messages across the Star Empire’s secure networks linking the Vaterland with the League isle. The UVNN feed in his office had already sent out a flash-point special news message reporting an explosion at the Skye Complex. Ambrose knew at least the basic outlines of all the procedures put into place for a security and intelligence failure of this magnitude. By now there would be Reichswehr and ISS Protective Security Teams racing to lock down the aerospace ports that serviced the Complex and putting a strict security interdiction on all travel to and from it. The Kriegsmarine would undoubtedly be scrambling to find some warship and what was deemed an appropriate number of drones to put into orbit above the Isle of Clouds. In New Koln, already on Proxima Centauri I’s night side, skull-phones would be interrupting dinners, private cocktail parties, and a host of Imperial Court social functions to alert the members of the Government.

And by tomorrow—after the initial news reports sent most of the populace into shock that this could happen on Proxima I—Ambrose knew every member of the Congress of Lords from the Sterling Government coalition and the opposition would be screaming for something to be done. Someone had the nerve to not just spit in the eye of the Star Empire, but to walk right up and give it a right hook in the nose. Ambrose seventy-seven years with ISS had taught him his nation responded poorly to such a gross offense to the widely held notion that the Star Empire, as the last surviving traditional Raumreich super-power, was invulnerable.

“Technically,” Ambrose mutters to himself, “I suppose I should wait until someone from the Grisham Building actually orders me to do this.”

But Ambrose didn’t think anyone would mind in this particular circumstance if he overstepped his jurisdiction by just a little. Even if they did, this assignment was only one step away—if it was not less—from him shuffling off to a quite retirement from the ISS after his overly numerous years of service. It would be simple enough to retire a few months early and avoid any sort of scathing retribution.

Ambrose turns around when he hears the doors to the chancellor’s office open again. Count Maltzan’s chief of staff—Isaac if Ambrose remembered correctly—hurried out again. Ambrose barely listens to whatever formalities the Verniian staff member says asking him to enter the count’s inner sanctum. He is sure he can guess at least half the words Isaac had said if pressed, or may even get the whole stock phrase right. Ambrose nods his thanks and proceeds inwards.

Ambrose steps in and looks around at the office’s windows. Clearly Maltzan had altered the projectors to change the windows view, but Ambrose can’t tell if this is Cardona, New Boston, or the Acler capital whose name escapes him. Idly Ambrose wonders who besides the Verniians, the Ortagans, and those yahoos on Pholus—Alpha Centauri’s second world—would even want to live sandwiched together in spires like that, but then he remembers where he is. He snaps a quick salute.

“Your Excellency,” Ambrose uses the title associated with the chancellery rather than the “your grace” Maltzan’s noble title warranted, “I am sure we are both aware of what I am here to discuss just as I am sure we both can say we are saddened by the loss of Ambassador Whitcomb. May we proceed to business as quickly as possible to make sure the presses of both our nations do not manage to out race us with their reaction as they do too frequently?”

**********

UVNN’s press office servicing the League and its business was rather small. Most of the Star Empire and most of the Raumreich would probably be surprised if they knew a mere three staffers provided the vast network’s coverage for what amounted to the international forum for the Oversector. But as none of the other major newsnets in the Oversector stationed a horde of reporters on the Isle of Clouds—if the Skye Complex would even allow such—UVNN’s management had never felt too worried by the issue. After all, the office had already managed to scrape together an outlined report and forwarded it to the network’s central office outside of Port Rosario, the capital of the province of Amazonia.

Lydia Milne, the anchor grabbed to cover the special bulletin, reads over the copy using her n-plant again. She fights back a slight smile. It’s been years since Valinon had faced any sort of major domestic terrorism and she had managed to land it. Given UVNN’s management structure the anchor that first covered a bulletin like this normally became the network’s face for the incident. It could be the crisis needed to finally get her off the graveyard shift. Milne looks up as the cue starts to count down, in the background she hears the beeps and rolling drums UVNN uses for a special broadcast mount their quite force. She looks into what would be her audience.

“Good evening, we apologize for the late hour for those of you joining us from the Vaterland, Madras, and most of Pelledrine but we have received word that there has been an explosion at the Skye Complex.”

“At this time our reporters on the Isle of Clouds have been only able to gather the outline of the situation from official League sources, but it is clear the explosion came from an aero-car registered to the Wickian embassy to the League. Chancellor Maltzan’s office has confirmed that Ambassador Whitcomb perished in the attack. The cause of the explosion has not been announced by SkyeSec. However, the international zone has been locked down by League security and is being reinforced by ISS and Reichswehr forces in the area.”

“It is unclear how Ambassador Whitcomb’s unfortunate death will affect the League’s approach to the crisis growing in Ticonderoga. So we will go to John Covenant, our League analyst, for further updates. John?”

Lydia fought back another smile before it could even reach her face. There was no doubt about it. This would send her straight to the top.

Side Six
Government Center
Wickian Concordat


The protest continued as the marines in power armor begain to show the congressmen to the waiting transports which would transfer them back to their homes. Ginske knew that many of those he was sending back now would resist violently if he let them return to their base of power. But these men and women had committed no crime, he would become just like them he arrested them without charge. And if a time came in the near future when the Guilder CEO’s among the Congress men chose armed resistance that was something the Navy was just itching do deal with. He stood stoically watching the events unfold, he knew he was watching history, at this very moment the Wickian people who had suffered for so long first at Ortagan heads and now from their own were going to get satisfaction, soon a new order would rise, and with it a great democratic republic would emerge from the ruins of despotism. The Imperium would likely not take to kindly to the provisional government but that was not a crippling blow because Ginske was on quite good terms with the leader of Liberated New Hope, and he knew that this coup on his part and the endgame he had planned would give Darius such a hard on that he would likely faint from blood loss. So far everything was going good if only luck would hold out.

It did not.

Ginske first notion that something was amiss was the two sets of massive arms that wrapped around him, and pulled him back at great speed out of the Hall. Men and women dressed in the gloss black skin suits of the protective service were forcibly moving him out of the hall and he tried to figured out what was wrong. Had they misjudged the Guilds, had they forces available to prevent the coup, were they going to assault the hall….both of these seemed unlikely but here he was fleeing along with eight of the highest trained body guards in the Raumreich.

As they exited the Hall Ginske could here the civil defense siren, which meant only one thing. Attack. Civilians were sprinting about trying to get to the sides life boats and hardened shelters.

He was hearing the team leaders communications with higher in bits and pieces.

Principle on his way eta three minutes….Time to impact…Insufficient….understood

The team leader then stopped and turned around already his skin suit was coming off his body with no regard to his modest.

“Mr. President, put this on and put on the helmet.” He told Ginkse who hurried to do so knowing all would be explained. “Team button up.” He told them as they put on their helmets. “The side is under attack interception of missiles is not likely impact is in nine zero seconds. We will not make it to shelter in time.” Ginske was a veteran of the navy and he still held his Captain rank as commander of a monitor squadron. It took him less then thirty seconds to suit up. He felt the team lead slap a transmitter on his chest. “Distress beacon, if we lose pressure search and rescue will find you sir.” His voice was dark, they failed to get the principle to shelter, the only thing protecting Ginske would be the skin suit and the six hours air it had. That was when a two kilometer section of the side on the opposite end as the Presidents party was obliterated with such force that the presidents party was scattered and for Ginske everything went black.

+ + +

Only moments ago the airspace around the government side was awash with point defense lasers. Wickian Sides were some of the best protected and well armed in the Raumreich due to the fact that they came under attack but such hostile enemies. They were designed to withstand a direct hit from multiple corsair missiles, however decompression was a major issue but that could be resolved by the inhabitants seeking shelter in the many lifeboats and shelters throughout the side, that is if they had time to get to the shelter for their lives to be saved and with this sneak attack there was little warning.

Even so the point defense of the side claimed one missile. Two Fighters of the CLAC, White Moon claimed another and the Destroyer Pauls damaged though it was managed to get one. But one slipped through the defenses, which were much to hurried. Three for four was as good as could be expected given the situation but one corsair would reek havoc on the side, and it did.

And in one instant, whoever was behind the terrorist attacks that occurred this day has effectively wiped out ninety percent of the Concordat Government, including the Guild leaders, many senior navy admirals and President David Ginske

Ticonderoga

Ashley Norrington stands rigidly at the edge of the Dominion’s bridge staring hard at the surrounded asteroids and debris shrouding the Wickian capital world and its orbital sides. The chaos consuming the Concordat’s central world can be felt by the explosion of demands, orders, panicked reports, and garbled civilian chatter coming in over the nets the carrier was monitoring even if it could not be seen by her eyes.

The blaring klaxons calling the crew to general quarters is dulled on the bridge itself, but the distant blare can still be heard from the sealed blast doors to the bridge. Ashley pushes the data feeds presented by her n-plants to the edges of her visions as tell-tales, watching as the ranks of the afternoon watch are swelled by the full manpower rated for engagement.

“Kommodore on the bridge!”

Ashley turns in time to see Jorge Stecker’s hand drift away from adjusting his collar. The carrier group’s commander had retired to his quarters a few hours earlier to make reports to Alpha Centauri, but Stecker had immediately sent word to the bridge he was coming when it was reported someone had launched missiles on the seat of the Wickian government.

“Status report, please, Kapitan,” Stecker says, covering the last few steps between them.

“Our escorts will complete forming up in four minutes, sir, with the exception of the Gladiator and the Conquest. Kapitan Denton says he will break off from the resupply container in three minutes. The Conquest will join us in seven.”

“Have Hoag make that seven five at the maximum. We have no idea what is going on beyond the Field, and I doubt it is anything good after Ginske’s declaration. If the situation has the possibilities the ESS thinks it does, I have no desire to have any part of the group caught with—“

“Singularity alarm! We have positive confirmation on three—no four—four weapons-grade quantum singularity reactors within the Field.”

Ashley spins around to look at the bridge’s sensor section. She sees Stecker do the same out of the corner of her eye.

“Target?” Stecker issues a cool bark.

The lead for the sensors swallows and looks up at the commodore and his kapitan, “They’re the missiles bearing on Side Six, commodore. Concordat defenses are engaging, but the missiles are coming in hot at close range. I—“

There is a roar as klaxons throughout the carrier—even those on the bridge, and without a doubt those across the ships of Dominion’s escorts—scream in a panic that had gone missing since the death of the Ortagan Hegemony and the Solar Navy. Ashley looks at Stecker, seeing his eyes harden and narrow as he looks over her shoulder. She turns around. The holographic view and simulated windows of the bridge are gone, replaced by battle maps and tactical readouts. All of them are flashing read and yellow, with the icons of a singularity detonation assaulting the eyes near the center of the Field in view from the position of the supply cache. A quick glance to the left confirms Ashley’s fear that it is location of Side Six. The Wickian defenses had already failed at least once. She finds herself holding her breath, but for the moment no other holographic fireballs appear.

“Comm,” Stecker says in a quite voice, “what word do we have on the Wickian nets?”

“There’s a lot of chatter, sir, but we have picked up confirmed kills on three of the missiles launched against Six. We don’t have anything hard on the damage, sir, but the reports from one of the Wickian CLACs say the last missile was a confirmed hit.”

Stecker’s eyes close, “Do we know what class it was?”

“Corsair-class, sir, but no specific details on the model that detonated or at least not any we can call reliable.”

Ashley mutters quietly to herself. There can be a very, very small bit of thanks to God it was “just” a Corsair missile and not one of the old Vortex devils. But the thanks for that are almost too small to be noticed as it past.

“Kapitan,” Stecker’s too quite voice pulls Ashley back to the stunned silence of the carrier’s bridge.

“Yes, sir.”

“Bring us to battle formation three hundred klicks off the cache, interposed between its outer perimeter and the Field. And scramble the full combat wing at once.”

“Yes, sir,” she nods slightly.

“Comm?” Stecker looks to his right.

“Yes, Kommodore?”

“Pass word to the group to sound battle stations and take us from amber to red alert immediately. Then start broadcasting our exclusion codes on the Wickian general and open military nets. No vessel outside our own is to come within five hundred klicks of the cache’s outer perimeter. Give the word that we open fire on any ships who attempt to violate our exclusion zone immediate, no warning shots.”

“Aye, sir.”

Stecker turns back to Ashley, “Kapitan, you will assume command of the carrier group at my discretion. I will assume the flag bridge immediately, but I must contact Sanctuary and the Admiralty immediately. I will also be attempting to contact whoever may be in charge of the Concordat military response to this…situation if all communication with Side Six has been lost. You should have all our ships stand ready to give assistance to the Concordat Navy and the system civil authorities.”

“Yes, sir.”

Stecker nods, “And if anything comes near us, Kapitan, blow it to the sun.”

Stecker turns and leaves the bridge.

********

The relative calm that had still hung over the carrier group since its return from the outer system was abruptly terminated while the unknown missiles were still those desperately few seconds away from Side Six. In practiced moves the Dominion’s escorts move to form a battle perimeter around her with Shen-whei’s Apollo taking a position within their protective formation, but leading the super-carrier first by forty kilometers then by a steady sixty-five. The Sophia-class EW ship lingers in Dominion’s shadow. Meanwhile the three groups of Precentor-class interceptor drones and two Ferret-class drones forming the group’s CAP are angling hard in from their ritualized patrol routes to rejoin the accelerating detachment.

By the time the damage caused by the Corsair missile that got through is becoming apparent within the Field the launch chutes consuming the inner “alley” of the carrier’s bulk are a swarm of activity. The agile Precentors fall away from the Dominion while several flights of Harbinger-class assault bombers move quickly down the alley between the double rows of Precentor launch chutes. A few additional Ferrets linger behind Harbingers.

Within the container yard forming the Kriegsmarine’s supply cache and “naval station” the cruiser HMS Gladiator breaks its connection with its resupply container. It angles upwards, disregarding non-combat protocols as its gravimetric engines achieve full military power as it lays in a course to join the rest of Stecker’s command. Four of Gladiator’s own drones—two-thirds its own drone compliment—form up in front of its bow. A little over two minutes later, Kapitan Hoag’s cruiser, HMS Conquest, follows suit.

While the two lagging cruisers race to catch up with the fleet, the warships already in formation release an initial screen of Mobile DOS drones, the platforms dedicated to ECM and PD systems to supplement the defenses mounted on their parent warships. The HMS Nightswift, a frigate named for a nocturnal bird of prey native to Proxima III, release four emergency navigation beacons. The beacons race away from the task force and take up positions around the container cache—one above, one below, and two on the sides parallel to where the warships are moving to interpose themselves between the containers and the Wickian planet. They mirror the message being sent out by the super-carrier, looping a pre-recorded message detailing the exclusion zone declared by Stecker and the penalties for violating it.

Ambassador Leonard Malkov had never been so terrified before in his life. He'd been in his office holding a meeting with one of the Foreign Ministry's commissioners about his upcoming transfer back to Gregor, and the next moment one of the embassy guards had barged into the room shouting about an attack and hustling him out of the office.

They'd just barely entered the crowded bunker at the center of the building when the entire habitat had shaken with a tremendous jolt of force and a thunderclap of noise. Alarms wailed in the corridors outside, and displays inside the bunker began warning of atmosphere loss. The embassy building groaned with the sounds of metal girders under stress, and shutters began automatically sealing off all exterior rooms in case their windows had been smashed.

The shaking subsided and finally halted. Malkov cast his gaze around the bunker, eyeing the tense faces of his staff. His secretary was missing. "Has anyone seen Julie?" he asked, already knowing and fearing the answer. "She went out to lunch," one of Julie's friends replied with eyes brimming with tears.

"Christ," Malkov sighed. One of the security men pointed to a green light above the airlock door, "At least the hallway outside still has air, so we can open this up and get some more room. I'll go and see if the communications center still has atmosphere, and if it does we can get word back to Vernii and send for help."

Malkov nodded in agreement, the security staff could override his decisions if they wanted, but pretending a chain of command was still in effect couldn't hurt morale. "Do it then."

+++

Sally Wyrth bolted upright in her seat on the bridge of the tramp freighter Jayne, as the heat blooms of point-defense lasers suddenly appeared on her holoplot. "What the hell?!"

Her Captain, Mark Tindall glanced up from the game he was playing at his station, "What is it Sally?"

"The defenses at Side Six just lit up, don't know what they're shooting at tho--oh shit!"

Energy flared on the plot for a brief terrible instant, and as the freighter's external cameras adjusted, Side Six came back into view on the holoplot....what was left of it anyway.

"Goddamn!" Captain Tindall exclaimed, "Someone just took a huge ass chunk out of that thing! I'm getting us out of here!" His hands flew to his panel, and took control of the currently vacant pilot station from his own computer. The hum of Jayne's engines turned deeper as the freighter's acceleration climbed as Tindall attempted to put as much space between him and the battle zone as possible.

"Sally, prepare the sensor footage for upload, I'm going to contact GSN, INN..Hell, all the major networks and send it to them, the media needs to know about this as soon as possible."

Side Fourteen
Ecol City Habitat
Inside the Field, Ticonderoga System
Capital of the Former Wickian Commonwealth

Archer Christifori stood before the fifty story tall obelisk which was the corporate headquarters of the Bransford Resource Inc., and the proprietors of Side Fourteen. Side Fourteen lay inside the famed “field” in Ticonderoga, which was the largest concentration of asteroids in the Raumreich. The search for rare ore in the field brought the first guild proprietors to Ticonderoga, and now was the only thing that held the fledgling economy of the Concordat together.

His eyes, those of a veteran of the Great March War by habit scanned the courtyard before he entered the headquarters, the security perimeter was tight, the headquarter surrounded by five meter high ferrocette walls marked every twenty meters by a guard tower equipped with a tri-barrel or HVM mount. When the doors wished open to admit him and his adjunct into the lobby he became weary. There was a squad of men in the black digital camouflage of the private military contractor firm favored by the majority of strong armed guilds, Ravenwood Solutions.

”Ah Leftenant Commander Christifori and Captain Chaffee, welcome, the Director is expecting you in his office. Please follow me to the lift.” He accepted with a nod and they walked towards the lift. Christifori was the commanding officer of Ecol City’s militia brigade. He commanded over ten thousand men and machines which were responsible for the security of the Side, protecting vital areas, as well as policing much of the streets. In the past year more and more of the security details were given over to the contractors of Ravenwood, and there had been several shooting incidents, including one involving his own sister. Personally Christifori did not trust the guilds or their hired goons as far as he could throw them. But he had to cooperate with them, and this meeting was a routine monthly conference in order to better coordinate their efforts.

“Please sirs, you must hand over your side arms before you enter the lift, Standard security precautions.” It was, and Christifori had heard it many times before, but there was something in his voice that was strange, he couldn’t place it an anxiousness perhaps.

“Of course.” He said automatically handing over his side arm before stepping into the lift. It was a quick trip to the director’s office. As the doors swished open Christifori saw not the director of BR inc. but rather a man in a large white robe, there was two men in white power armor flanking him, each had a neural disruptor in their hands. His eyes went wide as he attempt to seek cover, but within the confines of the lift and at this range it would likely be a futile effort….

+ + +

Crystal Chaffee had advised her commanding officer that this meeting could be a trap, in addition to being Christifori’s adjunct she was also his intelligence officers (S-2). They had worked since the murder of his sister for a way to undermine the stranglehold the Guilds have acquired on the Concordat and her citizens. She was well aware that their efforts could have been discovered, through no fault of their own. So when the doors of the lift opened to reveal the ambush she did not attempt to dodge, she only had one objective to complete before the neural disruptors fried every nerve synapses in her body, it was a fortunate thing her N-plant reacted far faster then was humanly possible.

It’s a trap, execute breakout, say again, execute breakout the coded data squawk fired off an instant before everything went black.

+ + +

Acolyte Perin stood over the two fallen forms of the militia officers. The woman was clearly dead, her eyes had rolled back into her head and the drool dripping from he open jaw attested to the fact that she was completely brain dead. Her commanding officer, the troublesome Christifori was neutralized. However he had managed to escape the main blast, instead he had only been struck by the corona, which acted as a powerful taser. His body still was convulsing even as the two guards placed restraints on his arms.

“Interrogate them both, even the fried one might have something we can pull from her N-Plants. They were bound to have contingency plans. Go on, do it now.” He said as he turned back to his desk. The information black out had worked perfectly. While chaos reigned outside the field, the Sides inside of it were oblivious, so potential threats were easily eliminated making consolidation so much more efficient.

Acolyte Perin was a member of the Word of Blake, a secret arm of the Guilds’ Operatives, he was privileged to much information. It was the Word of Blake that had first learned of the Navy’s planned Coup d’ete. They did not have the time or authority however from the Guild Majority to make them aware of the situation, for many of them it was simply to late. However one Guild Director, Norman Armitager could not attend the emergency meeting on Side Six, due to medical issues. And as the Navy acted and detained the entirety of the Guild leadership and as CNI swiftly raided the hidden singularity weapons caches and launch systems of the Word, they had received Armitager’s authorization of a coup d’ main.

As result now most of the Navy’s leadership was dead due to the hit on Side Six, the Usurper Ginske was missing, and Norman Armitager was the soul surviving member of the Concordat Government. And the Word was here to help him regain order. One of many actions occurring now was to secure every Side, and to eliminate the leadership of those forces likely to be opposed to the transition as quickly and quietly as possible. The removal of leadership had worked most efficiently against the Concordat Navy, who had kept knowledge of their attempted coup to only the highest levels. It was thought too if you removed the head of the snake that was militia’s they would wither and die. In many cases they were being proven right across the system. Here in Ecol City, they could not be more wrong.

The Acoylte opened the communicator on his desk. On the other end a similar robed figure stood,

“Objective completed, Christifori has been detained. My patrols are moving in on their barracks it will all be over soon, before it even begain.”

“Excellent Acoylete Perin, you now mu-“ The imagine faded into static to be replaced with solitary ‘Signal Lost’ text in red block letters. Nothing could disrupt the signal, unless…He stood quickly before he was knocked to the floor as the building shook violently and the sound of weapons fire filled his ears. He heard screams and terrible crashes. A door in the back of his office opened as two men in black camo ran into the room and picked him up off the floor.

“What’s going on?” he demanded.

“Please sir you must come with us now. Mobile Infantry has dropped into the building, Militiamen-

“Impossible! How could they-“ The sound of firing was getting louder somehow they had know what he had planned. This was a counter attack, his own troops had few suits that could resist power armor. The vast majority of the Contractors ‘mechs and power armor were moving to contain the Militia barracks and armor not here. They had to evacuate it would be a slaughter house here. Then the door exploded and in stepped two suits of power armor, crimson blood covered most of their suits. Each already had a hand raised three pulsar darts flew from them drilling holes through the ceramic armor protecting the chests of the two Ravenwood guards. The two demonic armored suits parted and behind them stood Archer Christifori, his uniform tattered his eyes bloodshot, an infusion of adrenaline would do that.

“You are Word of Blake.” It wasn’t a question. The Acolyte did not answer nothing that man could do would make him talk. “You killed a dear friend of mine, your Master are responsible for my sister’s death.”

“Your disloyal sister got what she deserved, we knew all about her seditious acts, and we know about yours Christifori.” He watched something break in Christifori’s expression, then as he saw a darkness take hold in his eyes. They were pure hatred, perhaps something about the man could scare him.

“You should just kill me you can not break me.” He spat at the militia who actually smiled and laughed.

“That was the plan.” His hand with a pulsar in it rose level with the acolytes face only a meter away, it fired.

Ticonderoga

“Kapitan?”

Ashley tenses when she hears Stecker’s voice. She hadn’t heard anyone call out the commodore arriving on the bridge. She turns and thankfully finds herself looking at an avatar.

“Yes, Kommodore?”

“Has there been any change in our status, and have we managed to establish any contact with the Concordat authorities?”

Ashley shakes her head, “It’s chaos, sir. There has been no official statement from any member of the government. No one has heard from Ginske or any ranking member of the Congress since the attack. The Concordat Navy appears to be in complete disarray over the situation, although we are getting reports on their nets of units within Side Six mobilizing. There is also bad news from the embassy, sir.”

Stecker’s mouth tightens, “Go on, Kapitan.”

“Consul Corcoran has confirmed that Ambassador Griswold was killed in the attack. He was returning to Side Six after meeting with several League officials on one of the outlying sides. His shuttle was within the area affected by the Corsair at the time it detonated. Corcoran said he knew Griswold’s flight plan, but he had hoped the ambassador might have adjusted it for some reason. But the embassy’s adjutant managed to contact the commander of the Concordat carrier White Moon. The carrier’s sensors confirmed Griswold’s shuttle was destroyed.”

Stecker closes his eyes for a moment.

“Does the attack appear to have been focused on Griswold in any manner?”

“No, sir, the tour of the League aid mission to the side had been planned for months. All accounts point to this being a drastic case of bad timing. Corcoran is also asking us for additional instructions.”

“I presume the embassy is already on lock down and he’s put out an emergency bulletin to all nationals in the system?”

“Yes, sir, but Corcoran was concerned about the engagements breaking out across Side Six. Some unidentified groups—it’s not clear if they are attached with the Guilds, members of the Congress, or some third party—are engaging Concordat military forces throughout the side. Corcoran is afraid if a bulletin gets out our people on Six may not be able to reach the embassy safely. He is also concerned if his security detachment could effectively hold the embassy after it becomes a refuge.”

“Tell Corcoran to proceed with an attempted evacuation per Foreign Ministry emergency procedures. But have him ready to clear the embassy of all non-essential personnel at a moments notice. Let him know we will dispatch elements of our own Reichswehr contingents if need be to assist in the evacuation. But tell him that as of this moment I consider him the ranking member of our representation to the Concordat and want him to find someone who has the authority to know what they are doing about this.”

“Yes, sir,” Ashley looks at the head of comm section and nods, the oberleutnant turns back to his section where several ratings start speaking into their headsets.

“I also need Kapitan Hamilton’s cruisers to prepare for detached duty in no more than an hour, Kapitan. He needs to be at a rendezvous point immediately outside the Field within two hours.”

“May I ask why, sir?”

“Grossadmiral Gorgas is forwarding all my reports thus far to the Kammerherr and the Ministry for Imperial Affairs. I suspect corresponding reports are also being sent from whoever the ESS has inside and outside of the embassy. No doubt there will be an emergency session of the cabinet soon. But in the meantime, the Second Star Lord wants to marginalize any justification the Concordat’s immediate neighbors—or anyone else—has to intervene in any internal political dispute. I’m forwarding a message to be broadcasted across all common nets and forwarded to Concordat traffic control. The Kriegsmarine will be offering escort to any and all foreign registered vessels currently within the system that wish to leave. A rendezvous point and time will be appended to the message and the convoy will leave within three hours of the broadcast. The ships that participate will be escorted to the outer system and Kapitan Hamilton will coordinate their exit jumps.”

Ashley nods, “I will follow up with Hamilton to coordinate everything, sir.”

“Thank you,” Stecker adds a nod. “Now, I’m afraid I must report Ambassador Griswold’s death to Sanctuary. Should anything untoward occur…”

“I will keep you, informed, sir.”

“I would expect nothing less.”

********


Message To: General System Broadcast, TICONDEROGA, CONCORDAT
Message FW: Concordat System Traffic Control, CN Scorpion Shipyards
Message From: Grossadmiral the Earl Stephan Gorgas, Second Star Lord of Her Imperial Majesty’s Kriegsmarine, Acting Operational Commander of the Kriegsmarine
Message Re: Escort of All Foreign Registered Vessels Wishing to Leave the Ticonderoga System
Message Encrypt: HIMK LEVEL: Blue, NCRYLVL: GAMMA-GENERAL-7; PRIORITY: FLASH BROADCAST

All foreign registered vessels wishing to leave the Ticonderoga system during the present state of emergency caused by the suspected terrorist attack on Side Six will be escorted by elements of Her Imperial Majesty’s Kriegsmarine under the command of Kommodore Jorge Stecker.

All foreign vessels wishing to leave the system must coordinate with Kommodore Stecker’s rendezvous coordinates appended to this message. All foreign vessels must comply with any and all instructions made by the proper Concordat traffic control authorities. The Kriegsmarine and Her Imperial Majesty’s Government are not responsible for any violations of standard Concordat procedures with respects to vessels outside our jurisdiction.

All vessels will have three hours from the broadcast of this message will have three hours to reach the rendezvous point. Vessels at the rendezvous point at the departure time will be escorted to the outer system where a commander appointed by Kommodore Stecker will coordinate the exit vectors and jumps of all vessels that are part of the convoy.

Vessels that miss the departure date of the convoy should coordinate with Kommodore Stecker’s command. If the need arises, additional convoys may be organized at Kommodore Stecker’s discretion.

<ASTROGATION COORDINATES APPENDED>
<ASTROGATION CHARTS APPENDED>
<COMM CHANNEL INFORMATION FOR HMS IMMORTALITE, KAPITAN ZUR STERNEN HAMILTON COMMANDING>


********

Fillin Corcoran pulls his Nu-space link from his temple and massages his eyes. Ticonderoga was going to hell, fast, and no one was in a position to stop it. Or at least there was no one Corcoran could get in touch with or even find. Even getting in touch with imperial citizens was proving a trial, and the emergency message he had just sent out had filled his mailing box with as many failed returns as it had successful receipts.

There is a knock on his office door, “Come in.”

Hauptmann Gerolt Conklin steps in, shutting the door behind him. He stands in front of Corcoran’s desk at a parade rest.

“Sit down, Gerolt, I think we’ve earned that laxity today,” Corcoran takes a heavy pull from the glass of whiskey on his desk. “I have a feeling you don’t have any better news for me than Kapitan Norrington did.”

“No, my men at the gate say there is still a line forming outside. They’re processing I-dent cards as fast as they can, but it’s still slow. Did the Kriegsmarine have anything in the way of assistance to offer?”

“Norrington said the kommodore would deploy additional troops if needed to protect the embassy and secure any evacuation we may have to undertake. Other than that the only assistance we have is that broadcast offering escort of any ships wishing to leave the system.”

“There is a good chance that will cause more problems than it will solve.”

“I have no doubt. Every one of our ships in port is trying to leave as fast as they can. I’ve tried to see if any of them can serve as evac ships for anyone stranded here. USIC has turned us down. Twin Star is offering what space they have on their four freighters in system—unfortunately that means only twelve people can get out. CADC says they are locking down their factory satellite near the Scorpion facility and are going to weather what will come with the Concordat Navy. Several other companies reported they lost what ships they had when the missile hit Side Six. And asking our good private citizens to take on some extra passengers is hit or miss affairs, most of them are misses.”

“We should be able to hold the embassy if need be, sir, especially if reinforcements can be scrambled from the carrier. I’ve spoken with what contacts I have in the Concordat military. They seem confident they can contain whoever is attacking them.”

“I can’t say I share your surety, Gerolt. The Concordat military would probably be saying that even if the opposite were true. I just wish someone, anyone, would step up and assume command at this point. But I’m honestly beginning to think there is no one left to do that.”

“I think it is likely Ginske may have been killed, sir, but I’m afraid that doesn’t change our situation here. I would like to request once again that you move to the embassy’s bunker.”

Corcoran takes another drink, “There’s not enough room in that glorified broom closet for even your people to work in. And I need to show the enduring face of Her Majesty’s Government for our people that do get here. Even though I doubt it will do much to assuage anyone’s fears. But I would request one thing of your men, Gerolt.”

Corcoran pulls a slip of paper from the top of his desk and jots a few notes, “There is a friend of mine who has a private ship in port. Here’s his docking slip number and the access codes. I want you to get my daughter there as quickly as possible.”

Conklin takes the paper and stashes it in one of his fatigue pockets, “Does Ms. Corcoran need time to pack?”

“She may want it, but I’ve told her not to bother. If you have to drag her out to get her away you have my permission to do it. Lisa would never forgive me if I let her stay here when there was a chance to get Ophelia to Erewohn.”

There is another knock.

“Sorry to interrupt, Consul, but one of the League officials from the aid projects is holding. He wants to know if we’ve heard from the commissioner since the attack.”

Corcoran exhales heavily. The League of the Raumreich commissioner for the various aid projects to the Concordat had been schedule to meet with Griswold to oversee a ceremony where the League was installing new environmental hardware at one of the more decayed Wickian sides. Sir Brent Carlsson had been delayed and hadn’t been able to attend the ceremony. Corcoran wondered if the commissioner was busy shouting praises to some divinity of luck given that he and Griswold were supposed to share the same shuttle.

“Tell him we have not, but it’s likely there is just a communications disruption with the League office. Then dispatch a courier to the office to see what is going on.”

“A drone or one of the staff?”

“Find a warm body, Isaac. Can you spare anyone to escort him, Gerolt?”

“I could send him with your daughter, but whoever it is will be on their own when it comes to getting back here.”

“It will have to do. Send some one immediately.”

“The Minister is also holding on a priority line, Consul. He wants to speak to you immediately.”

“By minister you mean…?”

“Archduke Metternicht, Consul.”

Corcoran inhales sharply. He looks at the mostly empty glass in his hand and then downs what is left.

“Well today is looking to be a fucking wonderful day.”

“If you have no further need of me…”

“See to my daughter, Gerolt. If anything comes up forward it to my box immediately if I’m with the Archduke. If I’m not, just come in next time.”

“Yes, sir.”

********

“Fucking piss poor excuse for a people, a government, and a system,” Rupert Sergiusz mutters as he walks with his escorts toward the United Syberian Industrial Cartel’s shuttle. Serguisz was the director of USIC, Ticonderoga Operations.

“If we had any sense we would have let your people take this place over after the last war with Vernii,” Serguisz looks at one of the two Vaku in his security detail. “At least then this place would have proper management, or all the Wickians would be dead.”

“I’ve become lezz sure our peoplz actually needz this shitzhole, Mr. Sergutz,” the Vaku says. Serguisz looks away so his escort will not see him roll his eyes at his less than perfect English.

“I doubt anyone needs this place other than the Wickians now that Ansel is dead, Draltahga,” Serguisz says now looking at Uther—Ticon-Ops system comm coordinator—walking up to him.

“Rupert, our mining directors are getting nervous. They want permission to clear the resource satellites in the field and prepare our mobile assets to join Stecker’s convoy.”

“Give them permission to get off, but to lock the place down and wipe all memory cores before they do. If they don’t tell them they can walk out of the system.”

“There is the problem of limited shuttles. It’s not enough to take off all the local workers.”

“You mean the Wickians? Fuck’em, if we do come back to this system we can always get more. They seem content to blow each other up any way. We should help them do it by concentrating as many targets as possible for them.”

“I’ll pass the word alo—“

“Herr Serguisz!” Serguisz turns around at the voice echoing across the landing bay.

“Oh, Goddammit,” Serguisz looks at the quartet of men surrounded by a small contingent of security personnel whose uniforms are marked with the purple and copper helix of the Turin family and the United Pholus Banking Guild. Serguisz thinks he hears Draltahga chuckle, but he doesn’t have the time to glare at the Vaku.

“Herr Valens.”

“I am afraid I must try to impose upon you. It seems my associates and I am unable to find transportation off the side. Would it be possible for us to acquire accommodations on your vessel?”

“You mean our glorious bulk freighter?”

“If that is all there is to be had…”

“It is. I thought your branch offices here had a dedicated courier boat.”

“We had two, as a matter of fact, but they had the misfortune of being in a hanger within the area of the orbital destroyed by the singularity weapon.”

“Pity,” Serguisz does his best not to growl. There was a time when USIC was the largest industrial concern in the empire. It sill ranks in the top five, but the days of it being able to pay no one heed are long gone. It is especially true when it comes to the empire’s largest, wealthiest, and inarguable most vengeful banking group.

Serguisz had heard Valens was a distant relation of Marius Turin, the banking guild’s head. Valens being present in such a disgusting backwater like Ticonderoga said one of two things. Either UPBG had something else going on in the system that involved attention of a very special kind or Valens had done something to very much displease his relatives. Given that Valens had to beg for a ride off this glorified slum Serguisz was sure it was the latter.

“Uther, call ahead to the SecTrans 37 and have them clear another cabin…make that four cabins.”

Uther leans in, “The captain has mentioned he’s running short of cabins, Rupert. He’s already given up all but six.”

“Then tell him he’s lost them all and to set up more bunks in the cargo hold. We’re only going to Vaku space for the love of God. It’s not like he will have to endure us any more than we will have to endure his flying garbage truck!”

Uther nods.

“Welcome aboard, Valens,” Serguisz leers at the banker. “With any luck we will be able to see a nice show of the Wickians continuing to blow themselves to a good and proper circle of hell.”

Talon 317, Outer Ticonderoga system, Wickian Concordat
05.28.1304 AF
1743 Federated Forces Standard

Rob “Gator” Bhatt stares with all his might toward the primary of the Wickian home system. His hands have a death grip on the combat ship’s maneuvering and throttle controls. Something inside Bhatt had told him this mission was going to go sour after his Talon had bumbled into the Valinor warships when he brought the ship back to n-space. But even Bhatt hadn’t expected that meant his flight to Ticonderoga was going to give him a bird’s eye view of the Concordat falling apart.

“Dammit all, Snap, don’t you have anything coming from any one in this system? For fuck’s sake there’s Wickian, Valinor, and every other ship you could possible imagine. Take your pick if you want a com feed!”

“I’m working on it,” Moi, Bhatt’s ECO and the other member of the Talon’s crew, spits as he pulls away one side of his headset. “The whole system is a mess. There’s military chatter on ever band the Concordat has. The Valinor are on alert, and the civie bands aren’t any better. No one knows a damn thing, Gator. Nothing we can get from passive sensors at least.”

“We’re not bringing anything else, that’s for sure.”

“I know!” Moi turns back to his consoles. “Wait! I think I’m getting something new from the carrier group.”

“Which one?”

“The one whose ships have a big lion painted on them and enough drones to turn us into space dust,” Moi pulls his headset down and hunches over. “It must be bad inside the Field—real bad.”

“Huh?”

“There’s a general broadcast message from the Valinor. It’s a forwarded message from their headquarters back in AC…they’re offering to escort all foreign vessels out of the system.”

“The civilians are going to go from jumping to wanting to get the hell out of Roum fast now,” Bhatt grunts. “No response from the Wickians?”

“There’s nothing on the Wickian bands but garbage. No one has heard from any member of their government, and it doesn’t look like their brass knows what to make of the situation yet.”

“None of this makes any sense. Did you get all the data on the attack? Compress all the chatter we’ve picked up since?”

“What there is that can be made out. And if by ‘data’ you mean the sensor distortion from the gravimetric warhead then the ensuing shit storm on all frequencies—yes. Otherwise all I’ve got is junk, not data.”

“It doesn’t matter. We’re running out of options. Do you still have those coordinates punched in?”

“We’re not due back at the rendezvous for another two hours, Gator.”

“Our mission parameters didn’t tell us what to do if someone decided to try and pull a Hamunaptra on Side Six. Besides, what do you think the Wickians are going to do if they find an Ortagan fighter craft stalling all pretty and powered down on the fringes of their capital after this wonderful load of cosmic schadenfreude? I don’t want a laser being the next thing I say hello to on the other side of this cockpit. Prep the FTL, we’re going back.”

Bhatt’s and Moi’s eyes lock for a moment. Then Moi turns back around.

“Starting FTL prep, jump countdown tentatively set at T-minus five and counting.”

FNS Immolan, Interstellar Space, Near the Ticonderoga system, Wickian Concordat
05.28.1304 AF
1756 Federated Forces Standard

“Sensors registering return FTL transition 877 kilometers off starboard! We have an unidentified vessel on an intercept course with us! Drive signatures indicated they are preparing to accelerate!”

Marcus Jannot looks across the tactical display. Marcia Case is looking to the sensor officer who gave the report.

“We have no inbounds due for another forty-five minutes. Query that vessel now and demand transponder codes! Jannot!”

“Ma’am?”

“Have two Eagle squadrons ready to scramble to supplement the CAP. ComCon, tell me the CAP is on an intercept or tell me who I need to ground for the rest of the deployment.”

“Captain, second flight of Blue Squadron is on an intercept course now. Lieutenant Trop says he will have visual on the inbound craft in two minutes, fifte—hold on! We are receiving a transmission and data feed from the inbound.”

“Transponder codes are being transmitted, Captain. The unidentified craft is identifying itself as Talon 317. We’re querying to verify.”

Case turns to Jannot, “Three-seventeen is not due back for over two hours, am I correct, Commander?”

“That was the originally deployment schedule, Ma’am.”

“There had better be a reason the plans changed,” Case turns and takes a hard copy readout offered to her by an ensign. She flips over the first page then jerks her head up. “This is the summary attacked to 317’s data feed?”

“Yes, Captain.”

“Commander, put the fleet on alert and scramble those two squadrons immediately. Then I need you to put the word out to the fleet, there will be an emergency debriefing session with the flight crew of 317 once they arrive and get cleaned up. I expect all commanders to attend.”

“Did the Wickians sight 317?”

“Would that it would it be that simple, Jannot,” Case hands him the hard copy report. “I also want a courier prepped for an emergency mission back to Dylar. It will be the best crew we have available to us. I don’t care if it’s from the Immolan or Aurora. Speed will be of the essence of this situation more so than usual in an operation. ComCon, send a message to 317. Tell them I will meet them personally.”

“Yes, Captain.”

“Mr. Jannot, you will have the bridge in my absence.”

“Yes, Ma’am….,” Jannot had started reading the summary, “…I…I have the bridge, Ma’am.”

“I think you are beginning to see the picture,” Case adds as she propels herself through one of the bridge’s doorways.

CNS Warrior
Aleutian Shipworks
Inner Field
Ticonderoga System

The shipworks were less then half the total mass of the Scorpion Fleet Yards yet they were an important shipyard for the CSN. Its berths stretched for over 30 kilometers and off of each was a ship either under construction or a ship in dire need of refit. The Concordat Space Navy had some of the oldest ships in commission in the entire Raumreich and each had been heavily refitted and modernized throughout the years. The Warrior was one such ship, an old Liberty class dreadnought almost one hundred and fifty years young she was a Veteran of the First Battle of Thetis where she held off the Behemoth She had also retreated from Thetis twenty years later when the Ortagans finally overran the system. Her armor was pitted, scarred and patched nothing on her outer hull seemed new. But as Lieutenant Cameron Kuzak looked upon her from the view screen of the shuttle she could feel nothing but pride in her assignment to the old weathered battlewagon.

As she stepped out of the shuttle and walked onto the flight deck she looked at her watch and hurried off, gods she was going to be late reporting in. As she moved through the corridors to the lift that would take her to the bridge she felt her heart drop. Standing amidst the torn out wall panels, conduits and wires, the lifts doors were half open with a small sign that said “Out of Order”. She would half to take the long way…

Bridge of the CNS Warrior

“How was the coffee Lieutenant?” Captain Thomas Campbell asked of the young woman who stood before him at attention.

“Sir?” She said quickly. He thought he could almost hear her voice crack but it held, just barely.

“Did I stutter Lieutenant?” the Captain said louder as he rose from his command chair and moved toward her.

“No Sir, you did not. I do not understand the question.”

“Ewe? Lieutenant do I look like a female sheep? I have a rank which is what my subordinates will address me as. That is a common military courtesy of military discipline, is it not, Lieutenant?” He did not let her answer that but just take it in. “I asked earlier how the coffee was lieutenant. You are ten minutes late in reporting. I would not expect my newest aide to get lost on her way to the bridge, so I figured you stopped to get coffee, how was the coffee lieutenant?”

“The coffee was good sir.” She said through her teeth. The Captain looked at her, she was tall for a Wickian, she stood a couple inches higher then his seven feet, but she still had the awkwardness of a new officer reporting in. But she had stood up well to his grilling so far.

“I am happy to hear the Lieutenant. In the future if you stop for coffee you will bring myself and the XO hear a cup as well. I take mine black, the XO enjoys soy milk and splenda. Is that understood?”

“Yes sir it is.”

“I’ve seen your type before Lieutenant, you think are lucky to receive an aide duty so early in your carrer you are probably used to riding on the credit of your mother’s name, isn’t that right?”

“Sir, my mother is dead.”

“And that is the last time you will try to elicit my sympathy Lieutenant. Mr. Hoshi here will show you to your quarters. I suggest that you get your kit squared away and get prepared for duty tomorrow.”

“Yes sir, understood, By your leave?” She said crisply.

“Dismissed Lieutenant.” The captain watched her march off the bridge, it was not until she was off and the hatch shut that his XO finally spoke.

“Don’t think you were too hard of her skipper?”

“She is green Mike. Just like most of the junior officers on this ship. Green officers are like steel that not tempered, they are brittle easy to shatter, its our job to temper them, to make them strong before combat does it for them.”

The two young lieutenants walked through the corridor just outside the bridge, on their way to her new quarters, Hoshi spoke to the new aide,

“Don’t sweat it, the Captain is like that to all the Shinnies, but earn his respect and he will back you to the end.”

“Thank the gods” Kuzack told him she turned sideways to avoid some more retrofitting debris, when the corridor lights flickered black and the ship shook violently. She was not prepared for the disruption nor could she do much about it. She was thrown against the bulkhead and saw a flash of white as she saw Hoshi’s crash against it, then it was her turn.

The Imperial government's bureaucracy was the butt of many jokes throughout the Raumreich. It was slow, unwieldy, and stubborn...at least according to its reputation. That was half-true at least. The gargantuan task of governing five industrialized systems (each with billions of citizens) and over a dozen far flung outposts, ensured that the administrative organs of government would probably never be considered 'lean' or 'efficient'. In a more political sense, even a system that tries its best to meritocratic will suffer from nepotism and cronyism, as administrators seek to expand their influence, win allies, and further their own agenda.

In reality, the byzantine office politics that this created often had little effect on national policies, or in interactions with the common citizens. Inefficiency and corruption mostly plagued the middle management layers of government, while at the highest levels of office, intense department feuds gave way to friendly rivalries, even almost sport-like competition. If an issue was important enough to come to the attention of these office gods, it could be quickly acted upon, and a course of action dictated to subordinates. Sometimes, if an issue was important enough, it would even be dealt with by a deputy minister. In rare cases, higher level attention would be required.

The destruction of Side Six and the decapitation of the Wickian government was one of those issues. It achieved a special session of His Majesty's Upper Cabinet with their deputies, plus several intelligence and military officials in attendance.

+++

The Cabinet's chamber deep inside the Imperial Palace easily rivaled anything found in Empress Friedelinde's residence. It's original incarnation had been rather spartan, the First Boroglian War had demanded any surplus funding directed to the war effort rather than mere decoration. After that though, the chamber had been brought to its architect's original dream. It was oblong in shape, with a domed roof held up by columns. The outer wall was a floor-to ceiling visual screen, that currently displayed the busy metropolis surrounding the palace. The dome interior itself was black, but dominated by the Imperial tri-dragon in gold relief, with the star of Gregor clutched in its talons represented by a beautifully carved diamond. The rest of the Raumreich was represented on the dome, each 'star' placed in the appropriate location relative to Gregor. Imperial systems were white diamonds, the Valinor were rubies, the Liberation worlds were blue sapphires, while the Ortagans were yellow, the Vakutu were purple tourmaline, and Wickians were represented by orange jacinth. As systems changed hands, so too had their representative gems been changed.

The rest of the room was decorated in the peculiar blend of art deco and art nouveau that was becoming known as Verniian PostWar, using bold lines and colors to give direct attention to the central conference table, and to unmistakably mark those sitting at it as important and powerful figures.

Four members of His Majesty's Cabinet were present, flanked by their deputy ministers. They occupied one half of the table, with Grand Duke Alfred Brydges, Minister of Foreign Affairs, occupying the head seat since the developing situation in Ticonderoga fell largely under his jurisdiction. The other half was occupied by several military officers and two intelligence officials, though there were still plenty of empty seats.

Brydges eyed one of the intelligence officials at the other end of the table, "Now, Mr. Conley, would you mind explaining to us just why Ticonderoga has gone to hell?"

"Just ten hours ago, President Ginske convened a special session of the Concordat's congress, where he disbanded the government, and arrested every representative that belonged to the Guild faction. Very shortly afterwards, an attack was launched upon Side Six by a militarized freighter using singularity warheads. Thanks to sensor footage transmitted to us by various sources, we have determined that these warheads were housed upon skipper missiles, which explains why one of them slipped past Side Six's defenses. From what we have gathered from intercepted communications, virtually the entire government and most of the navy's leadership are missing, most likely dead."

"Christ...what a mess," muttered Duke Kent, Minister of State Affairs.

Conley continued, "The situation right now could best be described as extremely chaotic. No one is sure of who exactly is in charge, or should be in charge, and there are unsubstantiated reports of fighting breaking out between pro-Ginske and pro-Guild militias on other habitats. The situation is extremely volatile and will likely deteriorate further."

"So who did it and why?"

"We have several theories. First, that this was a panic reaction by a Guild official or militia in response to Ginske's arrest of their leadership. Second, that this was a calculated power play by a sub-faction to take advantage of the tension between Ginske and the Navy versus the Guilds. Third, that this was an attack by an outside group or power that either had a massive amount of intelligence and fast reaction to a developing situation, or extremely lucky timing. We consider either of the first two options to be more likely. In particular, the extremely close timing between the arrests and the attack suggest that the assets used for the attack were already in place. This raises the possibility that Ginske's move was actually a failed attempt to head off a coup in the making. Also, the fact that some group has managed to procure multiple singularity warheads and the ability to deliver them, means they have a frightening level of sophistication. This points to Guild involvement in some manner, if it came from a domestic source."

Brydges interrupted, "I'd like to focus on the weaponry for a moment, tell us more about that."

"I will let Commander Winstead tell you more about those, it falls more under Naval Intelligence's specialty than the Intelligence Ministry's."

Byrdges nodded at the blond woman, "Commander, if you would please?"

"Certainly. From the data we have gleaned, four skipper missiles were used in the attack on Side Six, one got through and created this crisis. We presume that the other three also carried singularity warheads, which means that the perpetrating party has impressive resources backing them. We have a few ideas as to how they got them. First, and most likely, is that these are former Solar Navy warheads that were captured somehow by the perpetrators, or by a party friendly to them. Second, that they were manufactured domestically and secretly. Third, that another nation, perhaps one of the Solarian states, manufactured and provided them. Another issue of concern is how many do they have? We know they had at least four, we figure it would be safe to assume to that they have more to draw upon if needed, and should plan accordingly."

Fleet Admiral Leveson, one of the attendees, spoke up at that. "Since we are not aware of the number of singularity warheads they possess, it is the opinion of most of our strategists that we should keep in mind that this may not be just a localized crisis, that whoever did this might strike again at another target. The Ortagans or Vernii itself would be likely targets in that case, most likely in revenge against the Ortagans or to keep us from interfering in the Ticonderogan situation by creating our own set of problems to deal with. For this reason, Capital Fleet is going to be temporarily stepping up inspections of in-system shipping until the worst of this crisis is over, and we hope that the Intelligence Ministry will step up surveillance of dissidents and cooperation with planetside security forces in the meantime. We also recommend that the Cabinet temporarily disperse across the planet or system, in the event that the worst occurs and Cardona is attacked. I have already been informed that His Majesty has been whisked from the palace by the Imperial Guard to a...'secure location'." He chuckled at that last part, along with the Ministers. They all knew that the 'secure location' he was referencing was in fact the Emperor's personal island and its villas.

"We will take your concerns and advice under consideration, Fleet Admiral. Now, what are we going to do about Ticonderoga?"

"The situation is most likely going to deteriorate severely before we can do anything at all. Even if we were to mobilize for a peacekeeping effort immediately, it would be a minimum of seven days before any fleet would arrive. In all probability, the lack of a clear chain of command at this point will lead to an armed conflict between opposing factions. A civil war between the Guild and Ginske/Navy factions is likely at this point. Honestly, I'm not sure we should do anything at all besides humanitarian assistance at this point. Any intervention at this point, even as a genuine peacekeeping effort, would most likely be seen as an attempt to bring Ticonderoga under our wing as a satellite state, and would probably only succeed in unifying the factions against us. If we are to involve ourselves in a peacekeeping effort, we should do it as part of a cooperative international campaign. We should instead concentrate on evacuating any remaining Verniian citizens in the system, and assisting with search & rescue and humanitarian efforts."

Archduke Teschen, Minister of Commerce (and the father-in-law of the Empress) spoke up, "Bah! Out of all the regional powers, Vernii has the largest economic and political interest in Ticonderoga besides the Wickians themselves. We have thousands of citizens residing in that system, and hundreds of billions of solaris invested into it, and you're saying that we have no right to secure a peaceful market, and to put a stop to any further bloodshed before it begins? They will collapse into anarchy at this rate and unless we do something, then decades of investment are going to be lost!"

Leveson bit back an initial harsh retort, keeping in mind the stature of his debate opponent. The archduke was a competent minister, but like most people, he fell into the trap of sometimes not realizing when something had become a sunk cost. "If we go into Ticonderoga on our own, I can virtually guarantee the Vaku will as well. They may intervene in the guise of assistance, they may go in to keep an eye on us, it doesn't matter. They will be there to ensure we do not attempt to turn Ticonderoga into a satellite, and when you put our warships in the same system as theirs, while there is a war going on, it will inevitably spark a confrontation of some sort. If it turns into a shooting conflict, I highly doubt it will stay contained to Ticonderoga itself. Now Minister, perhaps you would like to risk everything we've built in the FEZ just to try and salvage a third-rate market? Sure, our corporations have put a lot of capital into that system, but risk is part of a free market, and its not our job to risk the Imperium's possessions by coming to the aid of private investors. Our warships were built to defend Vernii, not KIG." Whoops, I may have gone too far with that last comment, he thought. Though it was true that Kiel Industrial Group had the largest stake in Ticonderoga over any other domestic corporation, the Teschen family also happened to be a major stockholder, and the comment could be considered a subtle attack on the archduke for conflict of interest.

Teschen started to say something, but Grand Duke Brydges cut him off, and thankfully backed Leveson up. "I highly doubt His Majesty would be pleased with any of us if we turned this localized foreign crisis into a full blown war with the Vaku, especially if we did it just to save some stockholders from getting jittery. Resignations of those responsible would undoubtedly be required. The Foreign Ministry and myself will support the Fleet Admiral's stance if it becomes the basis for a proposal of action from the Ministry of Defence. Do you have an actual proposal yet?"

Duke Bergren, Minister of Defense and Leveson's civilian superior, nodded stiffly. "We do indeed. Since almost 7% of Gregor's total population lives in orbital habitats, sufficient training for combat and other operations in such an environment has become a priority for both the Army and Marines. Since the Marines are more geared towards combat, either taking or defending an orbital from an opposing force, they won't be suitable for this environment. The Army's space operation units also emphasize combat training of course, but they are more well-rounded, particularly for occupations and search & rescue. We propose sending the 10th Space Operations Brigade to Ticonderoga to assist with evacuating any remaining citizens of ours, and any foreign nationals that we have the ability to help. We will also offer disaster relief assistance to whoever is in control of what's left of Side Six."

"What would your total force proposal be?"

Leveson answered, "A single transport for the brigade, along with another transport for civilians and supplies. A division of pod battlecruisers will provide an escort. This would grant the force sufficient firepower to deter any casual attacks, but not enough to be seen as a major threat. It will help send the message we want to give, 'We're just here for our own people, not you.'"

"Who will be in charge?"

"Rear Admiral Hickman. He's a relatively junior flag officer who's honestly pretty average, and almost unheard of. That makes him perfect for the role, since if we were sending an invasion fleet we'd send one of our better commanders. I also think we can use this as an excuse to give him his promotion to senior rear admiral at his next review, providing he doesn't botch it."

"If he's so average, why are you giving this assignment to him then? Shouldn't it go to someone more deserving?"

"He's honestly a good officer, he's just too cautious. He's a good administrator, decent tactician and strategist, but he's just not aggressive enough in practice. His only combat experience was during a long range frontier patrol on the edges of the Raumreich, where he encountered and destroyed four Ork raiders with two battlecruisers. My problem is that rather than detour and search nearby systems, he continued his patrol route. A Kriegsmarine heavy cruiser detachment later found and destroyed the raider base in a system only ten light years from the system he fought their forces in. He's decent, but he's not really suited for battlecruiser operations. So if we give him this and use it as a reason to promote him later, we can put him in command of a dreadnought division, where his more cautious approach won't hamper anything."

"So he's not going to rock the boat in Ticonderoga then?"

"Definitely not. If our force gets into a fight, it'll be someone else firing the first shot."

Brydges smiled at that, "Good. I will call up Governor Larson and ask him if we would be willing to provide his services as a mediator. The Wickians may be more inclined to trust him since he's an Enclaver rather than 100% Verniian. I will also tell Count Maltzan to inform the Liga that Vernii is offering its services and full cooperation in this matter. It's really a pity that Ambassador Whitcomb is dead. He may have been an ass, but he would have been quite useful right now. Of course, I imagine that's why he was killed... Anyway, how soon can the relief force depart?"

"Two days at the most, probably less."

"I suppose in the meantime we'll have to issue orders temporarily nationalizing all domestic shipping in Ticonderoga, and use them to evacuate anyone they can. The embassy staff has reported that their facility is mostly intact. They have enough supplies and air to last until your relief force gets to them, though if things turn too hot I will order them to evacuate by any means necessary. If there are no other comments to be made, I believe this meeting can be adjourned."

+++

Count Maltzan cradled his head in his hands as he sat in his dark office, kept company only by a bottle of bourbon and an empty glass. The day wasn't even over yet, but he wished it would be. Whitcomb's assassination had prompted a series of insistent and regular requests for status updates from the home office. Suddenly those requests had ceased for an hour, which he had been thankful for (but now realized they'd simply had their attention jerked away), followed by a single encrypted message that had dumped a load of shit in his plate.

The Wickian government was dead, the situation was likely to get worse, and the Ministry was going to begin a diplomatic intervention. It was now his duty, as Chancellor, to formally notify the Liga and attempt to work out a unified international position on this whole mess.

This is going to be fun, he thought as he poured himself another glass. "Isaac, could you notify the other ambassadors that I will convene an emergency session of the DSS to discuss the Ticonderogan...situation. See if the Wickians have anyone with seniority to act in Whitcomb's place."

Alpha Centauri

The Imperial Special Committee for Defense and Security—more commonly known as DefSec—was little more than an update of pre-war Imperial Defense Committee. The update had been limited to the addition of a few representatives to the committee—the most important being those of the ministry for External State Security and Internal State Security. However, it was still unheard of for more than half of the committee to meet in person. So Duke Adrian Sterling, Prime Minister of the Star Empire, found himself almost alone at the long, oak table in one of the conference rooms buried beneath the Imperial Congressional Building. The only other minister in the building at the time was Marie King, the ISS director.

The rest of the committee was present in the form of avatars, melded into their surroundings by the room's RI. The Empress sat quietly at the opposite end of the table from Sterling. Michael Seebach was representing the ESS. Gorgas fielded the senior representation of the Kriegsmarine, but with the typical satellite system of special commands and advisors setting close by. Sterling had been surprised when Sir Justus Cooke, grossgeneralfeldmarschall of Alpha Centauri, appeared for the Reichswehr with his delegation. Normally one of the other members of the grossgeneralfeldmarschalls council appeared. It was no surprise the space long filled by Reynard Adonis remained empty, but Sterling had kept waiting for Archduke Faustus Metternicht to appear and was ultimately left wanting. The Foreign Minister spot was finally filled by Friedrich von Gentz, Metternicht’s minister without portfolio. Sterling resisted the urge to curse his main partner in the government. Metternicht rarely lapsed, but when he did, well damn the man, though Sterling would be careful to never let that sentiment be uttered allowed.

“Director, if you would start us off?” Friedelinde looks at Seebach.

“Yes, Your Majesty. I am afraid our efforts to diffuse the growing crisis in Ticonderoga and the Concordat government have come too little to late. Stephan’s reports from Kommodore Stecker and my own assets confirm some party initiated and succeeded in launching an attack on Side Six. The Wickian government has effectively shut down. Reports from operatives in the system, Kriegsmarine comm surveillance, and several independent sources say there appears to be some sort of running battle in various sections of the orbital. We can only confirm the Concordat military is fighting some internal opposition, but it has not clearly emerged as being Guild supported. It’s also not even clear if the Concordat military is fighting on President Ginske’s behalf or if this is simply a policing action. I’m uploading what additional information I have available that has been fully confirmed.”

“Do we know anything else?” Sterling asked incredulously. He may not be overly fond of Seebach, but the ESS director had rarely offered so little at any meeting.

Seebach looks at Sterling, his eyes weary, “No, Your Grace. At the request of Her Majesty I had activated additional assets in Ticonderoga and was preparing to deploy more field operatives, but we had no indication what-so-ever the situation was going to deteriorate this quickly. Reichsführer Feist and I thought Ginske had a far better grasp on the system than he apparently did. I will note that this is speculation, but I think his declaration of martial law was an attempt either to prevent this attack or to sideline the leadership of whatever group implemented it.”

“There is no indication this attack was perpetrated by an external threat? The Verniians or—God help us—Jukaga?” Sterling looks at Gentz. The man rarely spoke, or at least not in any official capacity.

“I will not rule out any possibility, Herr Gentz, no matter how slim, but it is highly—and I must stress again, highly—unlikely either the Imperium or the Greater Empire was directly behind this. Emperor Jukaga may have the ambition and the desire to provoke something like this, but his intelligence services had none of the groundwork prepared to carry it out. I can tell you that out of hand. The Verniians are harder to dismiss, but we have seen no indication they were preparing for any major operation in Wickian space. Most of their efforts these days are aimed at peering across into Vaku space. If the attack were of Verniian origin, I suspect it comes from some corporate boardroom. A possible scenario would be the Kiel Group or a corporate coalition wanting to install a government more favorable to them. But if that’s the case they’ve failed miserably the way this thing is spiraling out of control.”

Gentz nods, “His Grace wanted me to pass on another piece of evidence that will most likely discredit Verniian involvement. Ambassador Griswold was killed in the attack. His shuttle was caught in the blast zone while returning from a meeting with several League aid program administrators. The First Minister is conferencing with Consul Corcoran at this moment to establish a plan for our embassy to oversee the evacuation of our nationals in Ticonderoga.”

“Many more prone to cliques than I would mutter that Solarian proverb about living in interesting times,” Gorgas leans forward.

“I think you skirted close enough, Sir Stephan.”

“My apologies, Your Majesty, I thought the paraphrasing would keep me safe. Herr Gentz, will Corcoran be able to prepare our people for an evacuation to coincide with Kommodore Stecker’s present timeline?”

“His Grace would press your for more time, Grossadmiral. Most of our nationals are contacting the embassy and Corcoran has been complying with standard evacuation plans…but the situation is making things more difficult. There is also the question of their being enough ships left in port to complete the evacuation.”

“I think these times would qualify as being a reason to invoke the REACA, wouldn’t you, Sir Adrian?”

Sterling looks at the Empress. The Required Emergency Assistance and Compliance Act had been passed by the Lords shortly after the Verniian surprise attack that set off the War of the Lion. It enabled the ranking military officer in system to invoke a limited right of martial law and nationalization in order to coordinate an evacuation effort. Since it had been passed REACA had only been invoked to remove the empire’s citizen from the Boroglian home world shortly after the Free State decided to declare war on the Verniian Imperium. There had been complaints—which were later assuaged with compensation after the emergency had passed—but the act had been upheld by the courts.

“I would concur, Your Majesty. Sir Stephan, would Stecker be in a position to carry out REACA enforcement.”

“I will pass the orders and the necessary codes to him once we break and he will be. I am sure Justus’ men will look forward to being able to get off the cruisers they have been enjoying their cruise in so far?”

“Rest assured, Stephan, the Reichswehr does occasionally enjoy reminding the Kriegsmarine we do something more than provide assistance to damage control and give you the bullets needed to send pirates on the way to the life eternal.”

Gorgas nods. Sterling eyes his fellow committee members. The implosion of the Wickian government would necessitate a full meeting of the Ministry for Imperial Affairs either tonight or early tomorrow morning. Griswold’s death hammered that point home yet again, but above all this was the weapons used in the attack on Side Six.

“Director Seebach, there is one question that has not been answered. How did any Wickian faction—Navy or Guild—managed to get a hold of multiple quantum singularity warheads and the delivery systems used in the attack?”

“We don’t know, Your Grace. All data given to us by OKI and Kommodore Stecker show all the devices were produced in the Ortagan Hegemony, but we cannot confirm when or where. Given that the warheads and their delivery systems were either destroyed by the Concordat Navy or during the attack it is doubtful we ever will be able to discover that. There are two primary possibilities in my mind as to where these weapons came from. The first is that the Wickians discovered an Ortagan weapons cache during the war and felt no need to register it with the League or the other Coalition members in violation of the Second Proxima Centauri Accords. Despite the diplomatic turmoil this would cause us, whatever is left of the Wickian government, and the League I hope it this is the case.”

“What is the other case, Director?” Friedelinde asks quietly

“The other case, Your Majesty, is one I don’t want to consider. It means there is some ex-Hegemonic official—most likely of the Solar Navy—who possesses not only an arsenal of quantum weaponry but the desire to sell them off to whoever is willing to pay his price. If this is the case, we have just seen how little value this man or woman places on sentient life in the Oversector. I also doubt such an individual would sell off all his wares at one time.”

Sterling sits back, clenching a fist in front of his mouth. The awkward silence is palatable in any room any member of the committee is setting in. A break down in the enforcement of the Accords of this magnitude could undo the work that has been done of ridding the Raumreich of the weapons of mass destruction originally created by the Hegemony. It could undermine the League and the institutions that have grown up around it since the end of the Great March War.

Von Gentz avatar momentarily stiffens, and then he looks to the Empress.

“Your Majesty, Baron von Humboldt has sent word that Count Maltzan is moving to declare an emergency session of the Directory.”

“Then it would seem my foreign service has plenty of opportunities to demonstrate its efficiency and the rest of us must prepare for the meeting we know is coming. Director Seebach, Sir Stephan, I would ask that you both be able to provide at least a few more details when the Ministry meets tomorrow at seven o’clock. God willing, we will not find ourselves moving toward finding the bottom of this quagmire and not moving into the next crisis. Good luck, ladies and gentlemen, I suspect we will all need that and more before the sun comes out tomorrow.”

The Guardian’s Summer Palace (Recently Completed) – New Hope – The Morning Star

While the palace itself, just north of Chimeara on New Hope, had been completed, work still went on to finish the gardens in the various patios and courtyards. Darius looked on from the balcony of his office as workers hurriedly plant trees and flowers in what will inevitably be one of the most lush botanical gardens of the March, a place ideal for entertaining influential guests. He leans on the low railing and daydreams about being a diplomat again.

A voice breaks his dreaming. “Sir?” First Admiral Murphy’s proxy in the palace, Marine Colonel Barry Nisba stands in front of the small assembled crowd of concerned Directors that make up the Cabinet but doesn’t wish to rush the Gaurdian—but the situation in Wick obvious needs an official response from the Morning Star.

Still detached, he doesn’t even bother to turn to Colonel Nisba. Ginske’s death haunts him. “Tell Murphy… tell him to make this go away.”

“… I’m sorry, sir?”

“You heard me, Colonel.” He turns around, and for the first time many had ever seen, there was anger in Darius’ face. “I don’t care how he does it, but I want it to be fast, and I want it to violent, and I want it to be done.”

The Colonel looked on in horror for a moment before turning and walking out the room. The rest of the Cabinet remained. “You, Haj.” He referred to Director of State, head of the diplomatic corps. “Find out what international effort is in the works, and if there isn’t one, make one. Talk to the Valinor—I want to know what the Liga is going to do.”

He then turns to the rest of the group. “And the rest of you. Get your departments ready for a world with no Wick in it anymore. And damnit someone tell Congress to convene! I need retroactive permission.”

LNS Uzanstir El – Milligan – The Collective Protectorates – 2 hours later

Rear Admiral Iyyov Tars, receiving his new orders from “The Big K” (Eastern Fleet Headquarters, Karawain Command), sets his ample fleet out from the star system Milligan. They will reach Ticonderoga in 14 hours. Their orders read as follows:

INCRIPTION ALPHA 5 9
Orders direct from Olimpos – proceed to Ticonderoga and quell all hostile activity. All anti-government forces to be neutralized. Civilian losses expected … keep within reason.

OOC EDIT (for great justice): I've noticed I'm making a serious retcon here, as earlier in the thread I said I was sending a larger force much earlier on. I am going to call that earlier post wankery of the highest degree. Let's just say that the earlier plans never came about, and that this is all Admiral Murphy felt was necessary, despite whatever Darius might be spouting about.

Trk’Pahn

Kal Khantahr Khasra nar Ragitagha mouth tightens slightly with satisfaction as the flight of Dralthi IV- class medium fighters, the workhorse of the Imperial Navy, turn another asteroid to dust and barely noticeable fragments off the VIS Grakneth’ Dak’s bow. The Bhantkara-class carrier—which served as Khasra’s flagship—drifted close to the rings of the blue-white gas giant that was the sixth planet in the Trk’Pahn system. Since the orders from the home world had come to bring the forces along the border with the Concordat to full alert, Khasra drilled his pilots ruthlessly. He also had conducted war games pitting the three carriers of his command against the eight dreadnoughts he had transferred from the naval station in Sum’Tlor. Trk’Pahn and Sum’Tlor formed the Second Imperial Prefecture’s First Military district, where Khasra ruled supreme as far as imperial military matters were concerned. Only the Erd’Thrak’Narad, Trk’Pahn’s system governor, ranked as high as Khasra. And Khasra knew his second cousin would never countermand any military directive he ordered.

Today Khasra’s pilots pleased him. If they continued their superb performance against the unmanned drones the Grakneth’Dak would deploy next Khasra resolved to give the carrier’s wing a day of reprieve before conducting the next war game. He needed time to meet with Drataha nar Drokir, the khantahr commanding the dreadnought squadron, any way. Khasra was contemplating transferring his distant kinsman to command the fleet’s two carrier groups. Khasra viewed it as necessary to make sure his subordinate commanders were capable of considerable adaption and masterful in a number of skills. Better than allowing them to stagnate like Kalralahr nar Rakti, master of the Second Prefecture, allowed his staff to in Jugara.

Khasra sneers with distaste at the thought of his aged superior. He hoped the Most Blessed Emperor or his Baron—Najj nar Ragitagha High Lord of the Fleets and Khasra’s grand-uncle—would cast nar Rakti out of his high office. He hoped further he would accede to the leadership of the prefecture and gain the rank of kalralhar. But Khasra’s aspirations are overridden by the subdued sounds of a disturbance behind him. Quite, harsh tones between Kal Shintahr Karad’ika nar Hhalara, the flag captain, and the shintahr of the carrier’s fighters can be heard. Khasra hears the name Ticonderoga and glowers. The Wickians are one of the perennial problems along the Greater Empire’s borders. Though no where near as noxious as the paki of Vernii, Khasra cannot stand the Wickians who seem content to live in the rotted remnants of their former Commonwealth as if it where an enviable palace. Let the Wickians continue to supply the Greater Empire with raw materials. It was all they were good for, especially now that they were not serving as the Hegemony’s favored target.

The sound of metal-shod boot toes approaches Khasra’s place on the command catwalk.

”Honored Kal Kahntahr, we have processed the latest surveillance reports from Ticonderoga. The pilot of the K’ha’haf class fighter that returned an hour ago brings word of a conflict in the system.

Khasra’s eyes narrow. Trk’Pahn, being the closest imperial system to the Wickian throne system, serves as the center of the navy’s intelligence operations for Ticonderga’ The K’ha’haf fighters are stealth fighters, literally disguised as small asteroids and carrying only the most necessary engine and surveillance systems.

”Conflict you say, my shintahr? What sort of conflict would raise such concern? Have the Verniians invaded? Or have the benighted sons of lesser sires that rule the Concordat finally seized the opportunity to send themselves to the eternal darkness of Nargast?”

“The Honored Kal Kahntahr is most perceptive. The Wickians appear to be on the brink of civil war. A singularity missile was used to attack the Wickian capital of Side Six.”

“What?” Khasra spins around to face nar Hhalara. The flag captain offers a comp-pad to him.

”There has been no response made by the Concordat’s high command, and all contact with the Wickian government appears to have been lost. The attack coincided with a declaration of martial law by President Ginske before the Wickian assembly. Compiled transmissions reveal there are instances of combat throughout the Wickian orbital, but currently hostilities appear to be limited to Side Six. The Valinor carrier group present in the system is preparing to cover the evacuation of all foreign registered warships. I anticipate our own freighters and refinery ships present within Ticonderoga will comply with the Valinor offer and return to either Sum’Tlor or here.”

“Vraxnar,” Khasra damns the occurrences set before him. He finishes the summary report then throws the comp-pad in nar Hhalara’s direction.

”Flight Command, recall all of our fighters and give orders to clear away from the planet. Helm, set in a course to return to Trk’Pahn’Khur at once, full military power! Comm, I want the fleet brought to full readiness at once and issue a moratorium on all vessels that arrive in Trk’Pahn or Sum’Tlor from Concordat space. All ships that flee into our space must heave to for inspection or face destruction,” Khasra turns back to nar Hhalara.

”Compress this report and duplicate it. I want it forwarded to Jugara and Vakutu by two of our Sorthak-class fighters. If it becomes necessary to intervene in Ticonderoga I wish to have clearance as soon as possible. Append a status requesting immediate additional instruction via encrypted ansible communication or returned by our fighters.”

“At once, Honored Kal Kahntahr!”

Khasra turns back to watch as the carrier veers sharply away from the gas giant. He sees the fighters break away from the ring system, accelerating hard to rendezvous with the departing carrier. Khasra mutters a terse prayer to the Great Goddess Sivar, hoping the next time he scrambles his carriers claws they will be facing the primary of Ticonderoga.

The Word of Blake’s initial strikes meet with great success. This was due in part to the Navy’s mission of securing the Guild Leaders and detaining them. What forces the Navy had on alert were prepared to move against Guild installations and Sides. They were not prepared to defend against such a sudden and violent assault, nor were they prepared for the depth to which the Word of Blake operatives had infiltrated the Navy over the years. The Word of Blake under the eye of their Guildist overseer had one mission, to neutralize the command and control of the Navy, and with the exception of some isolated instances accomplished this within the first hour of their strike. The Joint Chiefs of Staff had accompanied President Ginske to Side Six to detain the Guilds, they were now dead with the former President. There was however one officer who escaped that fate, Protector Villers had remained in the headquarters at Scorpion Fleet Yards but the Word of Blake knew that he would…

Command and Control Center
Concordat Navy Headquarters
Scorpion Fleet Yards

“Attention on deck!” Protector of the Concordat Markus Villers marched quickly into command and control. He moved quickly his body seemed to forget his degenerating muscle mass and slowly failing organs, times like these tester help him gave him the grim determination to soldier on. He had only one thing to tell these people,

“As you were.” He said quickly and loudly, although he demanded such discipline and military courtesy his staff all had better things to be doing at the moment. He did not waste their time by giving them an emotional speech, he knew just by his being here they took strength and pride in their duty. He was their protector, he had stood side by side with them against the multiple invasions of the Solar Navy and in the end they had won. He would lead them against this new enemy and together they would defeat them, with the Protector leading them they knew they could not be defeated they would not let the old man down.

“What’s the situation Henry?” He asked his chief of staff, an officer who he worked with for over two decades, the man was his right hand, and more then his comrade, he was his brother.

“It’s the Word of Blake sir, they are much stronger then we initially estimated. There was no way we could have predicted they’d have so much prepared to strike so soon after the President moved against the guilds. The situation is extremely fluid at the moment, and we have lost contact with the Aleutian Ship Works, our last transmissions show several Q-Ships bombarding it with fusion weapons. They had no warning.” He told the Protector disgusted at the situation. “The ships in question were flying Navy colors sir.”

“If they can hack our transponders…” The IFF transponders which identified which ships belong to which force were some of the most secure devices made. If those could be corrupted nothing was secure. “I want our command codes for the System Defense Grid reset and I want Marine security teams at each command node.” He issued the orders hoping it would not be too late. He turned around as he heard someone behind him, the voice was strained as if exerting itself.

“Protector,” He said pausing. Villers knew the man, Commander Vaoth one of the tactical staffers. The man was sweating profusely and had a hollow look about his eyes. He knew from his tone and looks something was wrong. “I-I’m sorry.” He barely head the man’s final words before Henry tackled him. A Marine sentry grabbed him from behind and was dragging him out of the CIC. He knew as the lights flickered around him that it had been to late for the defense grid, and he thought it ironic as the commander’s body exploded it was to late for the people who were trying to save his life.

But before he died his last thoughts were not on disappointment or even sadness, he had done his best in this life. He liked to think he had made a difference in keeping the Navy together after such horrendous losses, but he knew he was nothing remarkable, he was just doing his job. The men and the women of the Navy thought he was, and he felt sorry for the Word of Blake, he knew his people would get their vengeance. And while the Word got in a good sucker punch he knew it would take more then that to beat his people. In the end he felt bad for those poor bastards and anyone else who would get in the Navy’s way after today.

With the Death of the Protector, everything changed.
.

Ticonderoga

Ashley Norrington stands next to Stecker on the bridge of the Dominion. The simulated view of the bridge momentarily fills with a flight of Precentor-class drones as they fly one of the patrols protecting the carrier group and the supply cache. So far no one had made any attempts to violate the exclusion zone around the Kriegsmarine force in Ticonderoga and there was positive feedback from the foreign registered merchant vessels to the offer of protection during an evacuation during the system.

If anything the problems mounting within the last hour were ones with the empire’s own citizens. Ashley knew it was those concerns that had brought Stecker to the bridge to seethe. Many corporations with a presence in the Concordat were refusing Corcoran’s efforts to evacuate civilians—citing everything from limited space and life support to simply refusing to submit to the embassy’s orders.

It was laughable and pathetic all at once. There were less than 600 imperial citizens present in Ticonderoga, but there were over 80 registered merchantmen. Some of them were planning to ride out the storm—like the Corleigh Armament and Development Corporation at the Scorpion Yards—but more of them were leaving, like the not so small flotilla of USIC vessels. Corcoran also confirmed that half-dozen vessels were lost in the attack on Side Six. But the larger conglomerates like USIC refused to back down for a mere consul.

“Sirs, there is a priority message from Alpha Centauri. Sancutary issued additional orders regarding the evacuation of our civilians from Concordat space.”

Ashley and Stecker both look at the leutnant wearing communication insignia. The kommodore nods his thanks and accepts the comp-pad.

“I suppose we should just have these forwarded to our n-plants any more,” Stecker mutters.

“It does provide us with something to do, sir—besides waiting for the situation to get any worse.”

Stecker glowers when the comp-pad brings up the dated message that the Aleutian Ship Works inside the field initially. But he dismisses it without speaking to the leutnant—who looks like he may have opted to pursue his conscription service before pursuing a university career.

“Good news at last,” Stecker hands the ‘pad back to Norrington, “it looks like Alpha Centauri decided to untie our hands.”

“Shall I transmit the REACA codes, kommodore?”

“Post-haste, leutnant, post-haste! And you will send word to Kapitan Hamilton to prepare the Immortalite’s companies to leave for Side Six. They will secure USIC’s docking bays registered on the orbital and use them as a staging area for our evacuation. I want them to coordinate with Corcoran and his adjutant as well. Then I have a message to append to the REACA broadcast. Message begins: All non-military vessels registered under the flag of the United Star Empire of Valinon who have not cleared the Field are to immediately turn back to participate in the evacuation of our citizens from Concordat space. All vessels refusing to comply with these orders will be boarded, placed under direct military command, and their crews and officers will arrested and imprisoned for the duration of the REACA emergency at minimum. Message ends. Dismissed, leutnant.”

The leutnant salutes and retreats back toward the comm section.

“I don’t think even USIC would be stupid enough to disregard the REACA, sir.”

“I’m inclined to agree, kapitan, but I have encountered morons every where. They seem to frequently appear whenever there is something particularly life-threatening involved. But by putting the pressure on the ship’s crew, I think any captain worth the title will be given enough back bone to stand up to a less prudent supervisor. A dirty trick, but…,” Stecker shrugs.

“Also, I want you to detach two Precentor squadrons to cover the evacuation, kapitan. Two Precentor squadrons and a pair of Ferret drones will prevent anyone from doing anything untoward, I should think. Whoever the Concordat Navy is fighting hasn’t been interested in our ships so far. They haven’t been interested in anyone so far, actually. I’m hoping our presence here will let us keep some of the insanity under control.”

“I will get those squadrons through th--.”

There is a renewed sounding of the alarms and a flurry of activity from the Dominion’s ComCon and sensor sections. Stecker’s head snaps up.

“Situation!”

“There’s an explosion in the vicinity of the Scorpion Yards, sir! It looks to have been centered on the command and control facilities!”

“…Comm, get in touch with anyone you can over there. Tell them we stand ready to assist them if needed. Get CADC on the horn and see if they can give us any additional data. Send a Ferret to push out sensor coverage out. Kapitan?”

“Yes, sir.”

“I’m putting you in command of the evacuation and coordination with Corcoran. Get our people out and everyone else we can before someone thinks it’s a good idea to start blasting freighters with singularity warheads!”

**********

Rupert Sergiusz glares at the ceiling as he feels the vibration of SecTrans 37’s engines ebb away then final cease.

“Someone had better have fucking shot up our engine block,” Sergiusz hurls the book he had been reading across the cramped cabin. The dull thud it makes causes him to reconsider his words and he shudders. He jabs a finger at the comm system built into the wall.

“Bridge.”

“What the hell is going on up there, captain? Why the hell have we stopped?”

“I’m sorry, Mr. Serguisz. The Kriegsmarine issued a REACA order. They are requiring all civilian vessels who have not cleared the Field to turn back and assist in the evacuation of the rest of our nationals. I’m preparing to reverse using maneuvering power only to avoid contact with the Field.”

“Tell the super-carrier to blow their orders out the ass, Hannity. You are an employ of the USIC and we have no additional capacity to carry any more passengers.”

“We have space in our holds, sir, and I’m not going to spend time in some brig while this system becomes a full fucking battle between the Concordat Navy and who ever they are fighting.”

“Hannity, you’re fired. Get me your second…NOW!”

“I will spare you some time, sir. You can fire him as well. After him there is no one rated to handle the trip through the Field. If you are still content to not comply with the REACA order I will report you to the Kriegsmarine and the Reichswehr can arrest you when they board us.”

“Fuck…,” Sergiusz glares at the comm and briefly contemplates trying to commandeer the freighter himself. But it was thirty years since he had actually helmed anything larger than a private yacht.

“Am I relieved, Mr. Sergiusz, or may I carry out the Kriegsmarine directive?”

“Carry out,” Sergiusz punches the wall next to the comm system. He curses in the Old Russian of Proxima Centauri I’s northern provinces for that one. Sergiusz just started rubbing his knuckles when the barely functioning chime gives its eerie buzz. He jumps from the bunk and thumbs the door open.

“Ah, Herr Sergiusz, may I assume you know why we have stopped?” Valens says with a slight smile.

Sergiusz looks at the banker. He thinks for only the barest of moments before he glares at Valens, starts swearing at him first in Imperial English then German then Russian, and finally following Valens’ desperate retreat down the hall with a long wrench he found in the hall.

**********

The HMS Immortalite, HMS Ebling, and HMS Loftus Hipper were making their final approach to the rendezvous point set for all foreign registered ships seeking to leave the Ticonderoga system. The cruisers were arranged in the typical arrowhead formation favored by the Kriegsmarine’s cruiser kapitans with the Immortalite leading the formation. Ahead of the cruiser was a terse picket line of two flights of Precentor-class drones, drawn from the compliments aboard each cruiser.

Three assault transport drop away from the Immortalite along with a Ferret-class drone. A single Precentor flight angles off from the screen, joining with the transports and the Ferret, before making to enter the Field on the approach to Side Six. A repeated transmission from the Immortalite broadcasts the transports’ and their escorts’ flight patterns—an approach that will put them in Side Six’s defensive perimeter on a course for the USIC’s hangers and docks in fifteen minutes. The cruiser’s broadcast is mirrored by a similar message broadcasted by the leading transport.

In the distance, two squadrons of Precentors and their Ferret support vector away from the Valinor carrier group and the supply cache. They immediately redline their drives and make for the Field, while the message from the Immortalite updates its broadcast to include the flight plan of the approaching drones and their intent as a protective escort for imperial registered vessels seeking to leave the Ticonderoga system.

Starboard Hanger Bay, FNS Immolan, Interstellar Space, Near the Ticonderoga system, Wickian Concordat
05.28.1304 AF
1811 Federated Forces Standard

A dull thud rumbles through the frame of the small Talon as the lift lowering it from the starboard landing bay to the hanger underneath. Bhatt’s finger hovers a few inches away from the stud that will open the Talon’s ingress/egress hatch.

“You ready for this?” he watches as Moi exhales heavily, shakes his hands, and pops his neck.

“You mean a meeting with the Spinster? Oh, yes! Doesn’t everyone just love to be in the presence of her smiling visage with those sultry lips and those come hither-“

“Alright, enough!” Bhatt rolls his eyes and chokes back a laugh and his ECO smirks.

“Who could possibly want to confront her daily?”

“Jannot?”

This time Moi does laugh and Bhatt gives him only the barest of seconds before hitting the hatch.

Their ears are assaulted with the organized chaos the carrier’s hangers. Flight crews, quartermaster’s staff, technicians, pilots and officers race from point to point in some sort of barely understood pattern. The constant low grade hum of varying types of machinery add the bass line to the Immolan’s symphony.

But the figure waiting just off the Talon’s starboard wing is separated from the world of the hanger. Captain Marcia Case stands just off the Talon’s wing with her arms crossed over her chest. She waits patiently without expression while Bhatt and Moi climb off their bird and come to attention in front of her.

“At ease, gentlemen. I understand you have gathered intelligence on a civil conflict within the Concordat?”

“Yes, Ma’am,” Bhatt says.

“Good, we will proceed to my quarters and you will both give a full debriefing on the situation. Chief?”

“Captain?”

“Scrub 317 for data, compress it and have it sent to my quarters posthaste.”

“Will do, Ma’am.”

Case nods, “This way, lieutenants.”

Corridor 11-A, FNS Immolan, Interstellar Space, Near the Ticonderoga system, Wickian Concordat
05.28.1304 AF
1904 Federated Forces Standard

“Someone give me the moments of my life back,” Moi mumbles as the hatch to Case’s quarters snaps shut behind him and Bhatt. Bhatt smirks at his ECO.

“Oh, come on it wasn’t that bad now was it?”

“No…sure…swell…GAH!” Moi says as he pops his neck. “I’ve never been grilled so much over any part of my life as I have been that. Some times I wish I’d signed with the Suns Patrol rather than the fin,” Moi uses the pronunciation of the Federated Navy’s acronym that’s been a growing trend since the end of the war.

Bhatt snickers, and he sees the Marine on duty as Case’s doorman smirk just a little. Moi, a far shorter man, glares up at the Marine.

“What do you want to go in there instead, Private? And should I tell the captain that you smiled? I bet there’s some obscure regulation against that. Gator, do we still have flogging on the books?”

“Come on, Snap, we have to hit the head before the rest of the brass shows up.”

“…Yea, because this was succchhh fun I want to do it twice. Maybe I can use the private here to demonstrate what the Wickians seem to be intent on doing to each other. He’s tall enough to play the role…now if I could just get him to shave his head.”

“That’s only because you’re such a midget, Snap.”

“I well and truly hate my life. After this tour I think I might start praying in the general direction of Axis for a transfer to a nice, quiet Golem platform orbiting some moon around Dylar.”

“Showers normally involve moving toward water, Snap.”

“I’m coming.”

Wardroom, FNS Immolan, Interstellar Space, Near the Ticonderoga system, Wickian Concordat
05.28.1304 AF
2017 Federated Forces Standard

The door to the wardroom glides shut as Bhatt and Moi leave after delivering their reports to the assembled captains of Case’s command. Case steeples her fingers and reclines in her chair at the center of the U-shaped conference table. Commander Saul Alosius, captain of the war-frigate FNS Reid, and Jannot sit to Case’s left. Colonel Ercole Romano, commander of the carrier’s Army contingent; Lieutenant Commander Xu Park, captain of the war-frigate FNS Fahrion; and Captain Lee Hastings, captain of the cruiser FNS Aurora sit on Case’s right.

“Well, gentlemen, I’m open to suggestions on this issue outside of prepping a courier from Lee’s ship to get a full situation report and all data we have back to Dylar and on its way to the General Staff ASAP,” Case takes a moment to pull the room’s hologram projector to a map of Ticonderoga. It includes data from Talon 317’s run.

“Our information on what civilian ships we have registered in the system is accurate?” Alosius looks at Case.

“It is as far as we know. The only ships we have are freighters assisting in moving supplies and foodstuffs for the League. I am going to presume for the moment the League will have the ability to protect our people in the short term. I also believe the captains are smart enough to accept the Valinor evacuation offer.”

“We hope they are,” Romano growls. “Otherwise this whole thing could get fucked all the way to hell. Pardon, Ma’am.”

“Are we going to continue the surveillance missions, Captain?” Park, the youngest officer present mutters nervously.

Case shakes her head, “Getting caught in Ticonderoga after this would put Consul Kellarny and Axis directly into the fire. We can’t be seen to be invading Concordat space, especially when we all know who a lot of the Wickians will blame for this.”

There are several grimaces from around the table.

“We still need updates regular sit-reps,” Case looks down the table to Lee Hastings. Hastings is an oddity in the Federated Navy, albeit a welcomed one. He is one of a half dozen of officers the Federated Navy gained unexpectedly after the end of the war. The Kriegsmarine “donated” several officers to the naval forces of the then-Free Ortaga Alliance. Most of these were reserve officers who resigned their commission after the end of the war and returned to their country.

But Hastings and his comrades were so disgusted by Duke Adrian Sterlings break with the United Lords party and seizure of the government that they refused to return to Valinon. They had all asked to remain in the Federated Suns and seek commission with its navy. They even went as far too formally renounce their Valinor citizenship without first hearing the Ortagan’s response.

Hastings and his colleagues were all accepted into the ranks. Most of them now captained their own vessels. Lucien Castlewick commanded one of the Federated Navy’s precious battlecruisers, and another was proving invaluable as one of the organizers of the Federated Naval College. Secretly Case doubted any of them would see higher rank, especially flag rank, but she respected Hastings’ opinion.

“Do you have any particular suggestions, Lee?”

“I recommend making contact with the Kriegsmarine carrier group in the system, Captain. Given the circumstances, I think its commander would welcome at least the outside possibility of knowing he has some assistance close by if he needs it. However, I would explain that we only intend to enter the system if the worst case situation happens.”

“That being…?”

“Our civilian ships are attacked or the entire Wickian control over the system collapses.”

“You don’t think that has happened already?” Romano eyes the Valinor officer.

“I hope not, Colonel. If it has it will only be a matter of time before this window into hell gets worse. I expect it would start with the Vaku and the Verniians showing up in force, and it would get a lot worse from there on out.”

The colonel clicks his tongue against his teeth.

“Do you recommend sending anyone particular, Lee?”

“I wouldn’t recommend sending me, Captain. I don’t know who commands the Dominion now. There are officers in the Empire that would receive me poorly.”

“I understand, Lee, I will find someone suitable. I think we have concluded everything we can without hearing from Axis or knowing what the Valinor will say. Lee, you will take care of sending your courier to Dylar?”

“The data has been sent to the Aurora?”

“It has.”

“Consider it done.”

“Good. Gentlemen, I would request you all join me for coffee in say an hour? With any luck this side of the Raumreich will not have blown itself to the apocalypse by then. Mr. Jannot, I would like you to stay behind for a moment.”

Jannot waits as the other officers file out of the wardroom. He turns to Case.

“Ma’am?”

“I believe you are the most qualified to send to confer with the Valinor commander, Jannot. But I must agree with Lee. We cannot violate the Concordat’s sovereignty in this situation with any sort of armed military presence. The situation dictates I would only be able to send you in an unarmed Talon. Given the state of Ticonderoga it will be incredibly dangerous. I do not believe I can order yo-“

“I will do it, Ma’am.”

Case studies Jannot for a moment. The XO feels the older captain looking into his eyes, trying to sense the full measure of his motivation.

“You have my thanks, Mr. Jannot, and my wishes for your safe return. I will see to it you have my Talon’s crew to get you to Ticonderoga.”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-yE7_l5j1mM Similar situation for visuals. And anything with a babylon 5 soundtrack pwns...music was from the best scene of In the Beginning too, must be why i like the song so much.


CNS Warrior
Aleutian Fleet Shipyards
Inner Field
Ticonderoga System

The harsh smell of burnt electronics filled her nose, a harsh cough racked her body as it tried to repel the very unpleasant scent. She tried to move but everything hurt, she took her hand away from her forehand only to see that red blood stained it. Someone stood over her shouting but she could not make out his words or his face, still disorientated by the sudden violence of the attack. Then she felt the sharp pain of the main slapping her face, the pain of the strike brought her to her senses, the anger at being hit fueled her body with adrenaline, an now she could hear the words and make out the figure of Captain Campbell standing over her,

“On your feet Lieutenant!” He said grabbing her tunic and pulling her to her feet without any pretense of grace, just forceful results, with the Lieutenant on her feet he bent over and shook the fallen Lt. Hoshi, “Hoshi! Hoshi!” He could not elicit a response, he did not know if his operations officer was dead or unconscious but it did not matter there was no time to do anything about it. “Lt. Kuzack stay on me, we need to get to CIC.” The Captain took off with Kuzack moving unsteadily after him but at least moving.

Campbell barely recognized the CIC as he enter it, it looked at it the ship was undergoing a refit, panels opened wiring spooling out, consoles shattered, bodies strewn about. But he was one officer standing tall amongst the chaos issuing orders and listening to reports. It was his XO, Mike Holleran. Who was already yelling out orders that would likely save the ship,

“-Suit your men up! Vent all engulfed compartments and seal off those decks!”

“What the hell hit us?” Campbell asked.

“Sir, We’ve been struck amidships with ordnance judging from the radiological alarms it was nuclear.” How the hell had anyone managed to hit them with nuclear weapons, the automated close in point defense turrets that protected the shipyard should have shot down any missiles before they could reach the ‘contact’ range required by nuclear weapons to be effective. Automation was designed to protect the Navy and its installations against just such a sneak attack, the AI was never caught off guard, it was never shocked, and it could process thousands of actions in a second far faster then any human operator, what the hell was going on?

“The armor held and radiation shielding was effective at keeping most of the hard stuff out. The shipyard has suffered critical damage. Two of the docked dreadnoughts and half a dozen screening ships are a flame tied to the docks. We were lucky.” That was the truth, a dreadnought was one of the toughest vessels in the Raumreich, but no armor had been designed that could withstand point blank hits from such powerful warheads. The Warrior’s armor had held, others were not so lucky, and the smaller screening units never stood a chance. The scene at the shipyard was like the slaughtering of a chained bear unable to fight back.

“It’s the Ortagans it has to be, the Solar Navy has reappeared, this must be part of an all out attack.” Campbell said the words were the only ones that made sense, for so long there was only one true enemy, the Hegemony. It was gone now by Ansel’s underlings had run from justice with a large elements of the Solar Navy. They would stop at nothing to seek revenge against those that defeated their nation. But they were a known enemy he had sacrificed so much to combat, and his people new as they were training long to face even now that the Federated Suns was a shadow of its former self.

“I’m amazed we still have power…” The captain muttered as he looked at the schematic outline of the dreadnought, its wire-frame was awash with red and orange hues signifying damaged areas of the ship.

“That’s about all lidar and radar are down, gravimetric is spotty at best. We are frozen out of the main computer it appears to be some kind of worm or malware program-“ The XO informed the Captain before the Communications officer shouted out a report.

“Its not the Ortagans! The defense grid has acquired our vessel and the shipyard. Our own weapon platforms have been turned against us. There are Naval wide reports of failures in automated systems, navigation, fire-control systems.” With those words everything was changed but he could scarcely believe them. The Defense Grid and automated fleet systems were one of the most secure systems in the Navy, how could they have possibly been corrupted? Only a select few officers even knew the access codes, if the Navy was sabotaged to this extent the ramifications were severe.

Captain Campbell was one of the few surviving veterans of the War of the Lion and the Great March War, he had bore witness to some of the most violent fighting seen in the Raumreich, yet he was taken aback by his XO’s words. Their own defense grid, thousands of missile pods, AI drone fighter/bombers were being redirected against naval installations and vessels? Why and how had this happened, for the first time in his career he found that he did not have an enemy to fight and did not know what to do.

Another great shockwave jarred the dreadnought again with just as much force as the first strike. People were thrown about. Campbell saw for the first time that no one was in their skin-suits, if there was a decompression. He turned to the sound of someone’s voice.

“By the Gods…” cried the tactical officer seen in his display the dreadnought Exemplar which was docked with the shipyard suffered a devastating hit. Its propulsion pod was ripped from the hull breaking the powerful warship into two pieces, flame pouring from dozens of compartments. More ordnance was inbound launched from the Defense Grid designed to protect the shipyard. The weapons were targeted at the easy targets presented by the docked warships, and it was approaching unhindered by the traitorous close in point defense systems that were supposed to defend against just such an attack. Something had to be done or else the Warrior would end up like the Exemplar , and he found his voice,

“I want all docking hatches sealed. Sever the docking clamps.” Campbell voice reverberated with frustration and anger. “Order all batteries to remove the AI, go to manual fire control.” There own ship was working against them. The point defense computers would not allow the gun crews to protect the ship, they were docked and the batteries were “tied down” by the computers to prevent damage to the station. Right now all over the ship gun crews were ripping out the control panels which regulated safety protocols for their gun systems. Campbell was an amateur historian, he was not shocked at all that now even so far as technology had come the same problems plagued Navy’s finding themselves the victims of a surprise attack. In 1941 the United States Navy had several battleships which could not return fire against the assaulting Japanese airplanes because their ammo was padlocked in magazines. Sailors had used axes and bolt cutters to force their way in, the Wickian sailors now did the same thing.

“All bow thrusters full reverse, up angle four-five degrees, roll ship nine-zero bring point defense batteries to bear on incoming ordnance. Clear the sky Guns!”

The 2.5 kilometer long dreadnought’s massive bow thruster fired flames from the reaction thrusters’ chemical reaction propelled the ship backwards so slowly at first pushing against the 6 million ton mass of the ship, while dozens of smaller reaction thrusters fried under the bow and along the sides of the vessel forcing its nose “upward” and rolling the ship to bring its primary point-defense cluster to bear against the enemy ordnance. As the PD-laser clusters came to bear they spoke for the first time in anger their discharge was not visible in the color spectrum, yet the tracks on the holo-tank showed good hits on roughly forty percent of the shots, a dismal performance but expected given the circumstances. Yet, the Warrior was the only vessel returning fire, others died around her tied at dock, some had attempted to cut free but were disabled crashing into the station causing more damage and horrific secondary explosions. Now the old dreadnought fired weapons not used since the Second battle of Thetis as rail guns begain to speak throwing out hundreds of rounds a second hoping to knock down the too many missiles that had penetrated the Warrior’s laser clusters.

Holleran yelled out another warning order, into the ships’ 1MC, “All Hands Brace for Impact!”

That was when the second nuke hit the forward bow of the Warrior engulfing the forward third of the dreadnought in its fiery explosion.

Guild Familas Headquarters
High Orbit of Pegasus Gas Giant
Ticonderoga System, Capital of the Former Concordat
Forty-Eight Hours after the Attack


“What if a man should take upon himself to be King?” Norman Armitager, CEO of the Armitager Familas mused. Until the events of two days ago he had been only a mid-level CEO among the Guild Familas, now out of the thirty-two CEO’s who had been representatives in the Congress he was the only one left alive. That made him president of the Concordat, if such an entity still existed at all.

The big man sitting to his left wore the green on grey of the CSN, Frederick Odell was thickly muscled even for a Wickian and he worked hard to keep his impressive build. He tried very hard to shake off the preconceptions that people had about Navy officers who came from guild familias, it was an unfortunate soul that thought Odell to be a mere political officer, or just a lunk wearing a uniform.

“I think that remedy would be worse than the disease.” The Navy officer told Norman.

“Why do you say so?”

“Being King would give you no real advantage. We were never a people to accept a king. I think you would do better by embracing the old methods. Our people do not need a King at least not in title. What you are in Law is the President for as much good as that empty office of a fallen nation would do for you.” Odell grumbled in his deep bass.

Norman Armitager considered the officers’ words. The man had been his one of his closest and most trusted friends since childhood. Then a deep throated laugh filled the conference room as Odell hooted.
“Shit Norman we just ought to call you the Lord-Protector and be done with it” Armitager’s first words were not lost on him after all.

“I expect you are right.” Norman said and then he spoke in low tones “Now is not the time to argue over what is right and what is wrong on some moral scale. They can afford the luxury of debate in Gregor and Alpha Centauri but we do not. People are dying because of riots, food and water shortages, and mutinous troops. We most force upon this nation order, our order. That is where you come in my friend, I need your strength, can you do it.”

Behind Odell’s eyes his mind was calculating a cold arithmetic of what had to be done.

“I will do as you say Norman. I will back you to the hilt. Ginske still listed as missing and Villers is dead, you are the rightful successor. It wont be peaceful and there will be those who will oppose us.”

“I understand my friend. We must act with a firm hand if we are to save anything from this mess and make Word of Blake pay.”

Duke Konrad Bennigsen, chief executive officer (and largest stockholder) of Kiel Industrial Group, and chairman of the Project for a New Verniian Century, sat on the veranda of his Erewohnese mansion. A light blue drink sat in his hand, the tropical world's sun was beginning to set and light the horizon up with a spectrum of brilliant color, and life was good. Or at least, it would have been had his organization not just had its plans for Ticonderoga torn asunder just as thouroughly as Side Six had been. His tablet computer sat on a table next to him, its screen displaying the icons of the other senior committee members in conference call with him.

"How many people did we lose?"

"Fourty-seven. Mostly low level contacts who weren't trusted with anything important and will be easily replaced," Bennigsen felt a flash of annoyance at that choice of wording but ignored it, "However, our system Project Manager is missing and most likely dead, along with three other members who were Outer Circle clearance. Those three are confirmed deaths."

He wasn't surprised. KIG's system office complex had been a heavily reinforced megastructure, but apparently one of the buildings in the complex had been crushed by a kilometer long section of the habitat wall being hurled into it. That had killed at least a hundred and twenty employees, and KIG employees were heavily represented among the Project's membership. The embassy, the other hotbed of Project activity, had fared much better, but the attack had occurred during lunch break and caught many employees (and agents) outside and unprotected.

"We'd better start replacing them then. Find out who we have available that could be moved from their current positions and transferred to Ticonderoga, get our people in Foreign Affairs to start working on that."

"There's another matter sir."

"Oh?"

"Our network of contacts and associates in Ticonderoga has been effectively demolished. Due to compartmentalization of knowledge, even we don't know who all was working for us over there, and we especially don't know who's still alive. Given the casualty figures coming out in the news and from sources in Foreign Affairs, I doubt many are left. It doesn't help that most of our contacts were local government and business leaders that we'd subverted, and the attack seems to have been specifically meant to wipe out any organized leadership in the system. Basically, we're starting entirely from scratch."

"God damnit."

Another voice piped up, this time it was Hugo Denison, Vernii's representative on the Palatine Development Concordat's leadership board. He was the most junior member of the committee, his record of working with the Liberation and Conquest Incorporated had earned him it. "I think we might want to pull out of Ticonderoga entirely."

"What." That time the voice came from Vice Admiral Portman, with a clear tone of anger and incredulity.

"I'm serious. We've just had our plan for the system reset back to where we started. In fact, worse than that because of our casualties and loss of assets. Not only that, but a giant international magnifying glass is going to get focused on Ticonderoga. It's going to be crawling with spies, and intelligence agencies are going to be going through their lists of interesting profiles, crawling through shipping records, and whatever else might put them on the trail of whoever did it. Really, at this point we should be taking steps to cover our tracks so they don't catch onto our trail as a byproduct of all that snooping. Hell, if we're really unlucky and they start finding hints of our existence and plans, they might think we did it." There was a slight hint of fear in Denison's voice. "Trust me, the government can be rather narrow focused at times, and I doubt they'd really believe that the people they might think killed the Wickian government were only trying to subvert it instead."

There was an awkward silence after his last words as every member of the committee thought of what that could mean. Finally, Marquis York, their chief liason to Conquest Incorporated's Human Resources, spoke up. "Gentlemen I think we should put it to a vote. Rebuild and have at it again, or withdraw and cover our trail."

There was another period of brusque debate, but York got his vote. Of the ten committee members, seven (including Bennigsen) voted for withdraw.

Trinidan, True Hope – The Morning Star system, Interim Capital Building: Seven hours till the Eastern Fleet detachment reaches Ticonderoga

Darius sits in his reserved office at the interim capital building in Trinidan, looking intently at a minicomm. No-one but him knows what he’d been up to with the device lately—that it was the latest edition of Nintendo’s long-running Brain Age title. The leader saw keeping his mind in shape as a high priority for the nation (and really loves that one Low to High game).

Deputy Guardian Elias Al-Maruqi burst into the room (as fast as one could through the heavy wooden doors), obviously stricken with confusion, if not rage. “What the hell?” He manages to catch Darius’ attention, who puts down the comm. Only for how much the Guardian depends on him, Elias knew he was on the short list of people who could actually raise their voice to Darius and maintain any real career security. “You actually said ‘make it go away’? Are you twelve? There were opposition leaders in that room!”

Darius stands from his seat, obviously riding his newfound confidence in his own anger (or, more accurately, others’ fear of that anger—something he’d never really counted on until recently). “Opposition? Who, the Catholics? I don’t have opposition! Every groveling peon out there owes their job to me, Federalist or no,” he points out, rounding the desk to approach Elias, lowering his tone. “I’m here to comfort the voters and our friends in abroad. The opposition will scare me the minute they start resembling you.”

As Darius saunters out the door ahead of him, Elias can’t help but mutter to himself, “Keep this up, and they will.”

Outside the door they are greeted by security personnel and the latest of Darius’ aides, passing him notes and statistics. As they walk toward the City Council Chamber where the congress will hold its meetings, Elias informs the Gaurdian, “I won’t be here for the address. I’m meeting with the Ortagan envoy at the port in an hour—they just arrived.”

“Good… though why isn’t Haj handling this?” He refers to Jules Haj, Director of State.

“He’s busy on New Hope trying to orchestrate an international response to the Wick crisis, and I’m not about to let one of his Assistant Director stooges botch our first direct exchange with Ortaga since the war.” Al Maruqi makes no bones about his opinion of Haj’s choice in staff.

“I don’t like it when my cabinet fights, Elias. You’re taking one of Haj’s stooges with you to the meeting. Take Zebari—he’s here in the council building. Doesn’t talk much. You’ll love him.”

Moments later…

In the City Council chamber, currently seating the diminutive Collective Congress, Darius takes his post beside the Speaker and waits through the typical opening routine of this new session. After the required introduction and applause, he begins his address.

“As you know, in the past few hours a violent insurrection has taken place in the Ticonderoga system. I know that many of us—citizens and guests of the Collective—have felt fear and the pain of loss for our friends, loved ones, and investments in the Wickian system. I, too, have lost a personal and professional friend in the chaos: President David Ginske, a driven man who’s powerful dedication to his people had only just begun to show its full extent. The tragedy is only matched by the danger this situation poses for stability and peace in the Reich.

“So I have authorized Admiral Murphy to send a detachment of the Eastern Fleet to make its way to Ticonderoga and assist legitimate Concordat forces in putting down the recent insurrection. At the same time, Director of State Haj and his staff are working to orchestrate an international response to the crisis…

Babylon, New Hope – The Morning Star System, The Collective Reserve Offices

Haj sits in his reserved office in Babylon, working to start Darius’s ordered “international response.” His thin frame wrapped in a stylish platinum suit over a sunny yellow shirt, slumped over the desk—the mood on his face in no way matches his dress as he holds the phone, confronting the monster that is Verniian bureaucracy for his first time.

“… Yes, that’s Haj, spelled H A J. Yes, the new Director of… yes… Director of State. Yes, I’m trying to reach Grand Duke Alfred Brydges at the Foreign Ministry.

“… um, I don’t need authorization.

“Yes, I’ll hold.

Later...

“No. No I haven't got a 27B-6, I haven't even heard of it nor would I know where to get one. Probably because I don’t work for the Verniian government.

Later…

“Well I think this takes precedence over the Minister’s established ‘call hours’!

“Yes I am raising my voice, ma’am!

To be continued…

Six hours till, back in Trindan, the Ortagans have just arrived…

Standing in the hanger, Elias sparks a conversation with the as-of-yet silent Assistant Director Charles Zebari.

“So.” Elias glances over to the younger, far less gray politician on his right. “Does Haj know he’s got a Catholic working just below him?”

Zebari takes a deep breath before he speaks. “Its Orthodox.”

“Yes, well—the gold chain you wear under your shirt isn’t doing you any favors. Leave it at home.”

“I wasn’t aware of any government policy against religion.”

“There isn’t.” Elias is tempted to leave it at that, but gives in to a nag at the back of his mind. “Listen, I got where I am by noticing details about people. The best way of getting past people like me is not having any details to notice."

When the Ortagans arrive, Elias greets them with a firm handshake and leads them to the limo where they are taken to a government suite held at the port. On the ride over, Elias inquires “So it wasn’t clear in my files how long you intended to stay.”

OOC: EDIT: Here's some juicy human interest stuff about Darius and his family I just typed up tonight. While it's not entirely important to the RP, you might want to check it out to further understand The Great Man who Founded a Nation, and is probably selling you a bunch of your mineral products, information technology, popular media (porn), advanced weaponry, and rare meat products.

Meanwhile, on the Cecelon in route to Gregor...

... Talia and Lucy enjoy a game of racquetball—from a distance, as played by some of the ship’s crew off duty. They sit on patio furniture that has no business on the crew’s rec area, making it obvious that the girls’ security detail had to have drug it down for them, along with tables for their drinks. The game continues a good thirty feet away, the grunts echoing around the vast, empty deck—a patchwork of athletic courts, free weights, and aerobic machines.

“Are we even supposed to be… um, in the bowels of the ship or whatever?”

“Nonsense, we can go where we like. Mr. Barlow,” Talia leans to one side to wave to Special Agent Barlow at the other end of the room behind Talia,” and his security men are all over the place. Besides, the fine sailors of the silver fleet are no threat to us!” she declares, distracted by somesuch manly display.

“It smells in here. Their smell is a threat.”

“I don’t see why you’re so testy. Aren’t you a teenage girl? When I was your age I remember being into this sort of thing.”

“Gross, mom. You’re, like, a hundred years old.”

“Oh my, if only.” There’s a pause as Talia cranes her neck at a passing sailor while Lucy raises an eyebrow to the increased grunting of the game. “So I a little bird told me you’ve figured out your father’s ingenious plan.”

Lucy sighs. “You mean that he wants me to meet the Emperor’s sons? What does he even expect?”

There is another pause. “Your father… he means well. It’s only… it’s only that he’s new to this whole National Leader thing. You’ve got to understand—when he goes to all these ‘Important’ international summits and hangs around men like Alexis, he can feel left out.”

Lucy rolls her eyes and chuckles a little, “You’re making him sound like he’s some lonely teenager!”

“You have no idea. No matter how your father might act around all the politicians and celebrities, he’s still just a big lonely kid who wants to fit in with all the other heads of state. And they’ve all been groomed to do this sort of thing their whole lives, come from political or royal families… you see what I’m saying? He doesn’t expect you to do anything in Gregor. He just … wants you to be ready for this world.”

Lucy’s eyes widen and her jaw wants to drop “Oh my… I’m being groomed!?” Her incredulous tone isn't a particularly negative one, but isn't really positive either.

“Oh, honey,” Talia maintains her visual focus on the game, “you say that like it’s a bad thing. He’s going to be Guardian for a long time. You need to get used to this world and the people in it. Whether you like it or not, following in your father’s footsteps is one of the best career paths available to you.” Lucy tries to start, but Talia keeps going, suddenly more serious: “That’s important. Believe it or not, I used to do things. Important things a long time before you were born. But things are different on True Hope then they are in Chimeara. People don’t have the same expectations for women as they do men. I don’t want that for you. I don’t want it to affect you. Someday you’re going to run laps around all these dignitaries.” She smiles, and turns to her daughter, reaching out to cradle the back of her head. “You’re going to be better than your father, even.”

As she turns back to watch the game again, she gives one last piece of advice. “And if you do get with one of the Calimar boys, make it the older one. If we’re gonna bag one for a shotgun wedding, it may as well be the Crown Prince.” The two laugh.