Well, it has been some time, hasn't it?

I really have no excuse about the lateness of this chapter. I finished it last year and posted it in spacebattles but, for some reason, failed to upload it here. Laziness, procrastination, absentmindedness, I could blame either or all of them.

Anyway Early this year I started having a problem with my left hand and needed surgery, I am better now, but nowhere near 100%, which is why, in part, it took till today to upload this.

The good news? I have a side story and one additional chapter finished and awaiting upload so in the coming days you should see a couple of updates on this one :)

As always, hope you enjoy and, remember, if you can spare a few minutes, I'd love to have your opinions and feedback!

June 28th 3041
Wynn's Roost
UNS Dyson

"Okay, as this meeting is informal, I'd appreciate it if everyone could neatly put our ranks into the closet and speak freely. That being said, it's been nearly a month since Tripoli concluded, and I believe it is time to fully discuss some of the high and low points of it," stated Admiral Reuben Thomes in his grave manner, "again, this is informal and we can hash out more details later. Unless anyone objects, I'd like to start with the groundsides issues as it looks to be what we need to concentrate on first."

"This is about Colonel Abe's complaint, isn't it?" asked Kuong with a resigned sigh. Abe had been Kuong's XO and the two had been friends for quite a few years, though some of the choices made for Tripoli had rubbed the newly promoted Colonel the wrong way and had soured that relationship. Tripoli had been seen as a success, but there had been a few complications, mostly minor snags, along with other issues that detracted from the operation's overall success.

"In part," replied the senior Admiral, keeping his expression severe, "I think Hiiro is exaggerating his position, our casualties were minute both in men and material, but..."

"Three men dead, with five seriously injured? I'd call that well below what we'd normally consider 'acceptable losses' for an operation like this," interrupted Kuong, "and one of those five involved a freak accident with the cockpit's harness." That one had been rather curious situation and prompted an investigation onto the destroid's safety systems but nothing had come of it, thus far.

"Yes, our causalities were rather light, but our opposition wasn't a prize either," commented the Admiral, "the thing is, Geoff, that I think we might have been a bit too hasty in launching Tripoli."

"That is probably true, but our people were reasonably ready and very eager. Plus we needed to test their mettle, something I believe we succeeded at," replied the Army General with a thin smile on his face, "While the opposition was subpar, we've got our boys over that first hurdle and won't likely flinch now if tested against something nastier. It doesn't hurt any that their morale is sky high at the moment."

"Well," interjected Marine General Rodger Locatelli, in a neutral tone, "most of them are local boys, not 53er. And we lead them on a charge against their legendary boogieman, which we helped turn into mincemeat, pushovers or not. They'd have to be worse than dead not to be riding a high."

Most of the people around the table nodded or lightly chuckled in agreement, including General Kuong.

"Well, that is also true," admitted Geoff, as he leaned towards the table, looking towards Admiral Thomes, "but what do you want to do about this, Reuben?"

Keeping his own face as neutral as he could, the Admiral took a moment to parse his thoughts before replying. "I think we need to review our plans. We need to take time to consolidate our forces and, possibly, reschedule Perry."

In a move that raised a few eyebrows around the table, Kuong, however, sharply nodded his head.

"That was fast," commented Dr. Fraga, who was looking somewhat surprised. While military matters weren't her forte, she knew how headstrong Geoff could be at times.

"Actually, in spite of everything, I was thinking of suggesting a delay on Perry for at least six months at least, preferably of a year or more," stated Geoff as he leaned back onto his chair.

"Care to elaborate your reasons?" asked Thomes as he leaned back onto his own chair, massaging his chin. He had a thought that he wouldn't like at least part of the reasons.

"Well, thing is the current NCOs and Officer Programs have been turning out considerably fewer troops than we'd initial expected."

"Any particular problems with it, and why?" asked Locatelli with a frown on his face. He had also been having issues with the Officer program, but his goals were considerably lower than General Kuong Geoff's. Worse come worse, he could pull enough NCOs and Officers from the shipboard compliments to meet his quota, at the expense of a limited drop in ship security.

"No offense to General Fenwood, but the militia has been both less than what I expected and more of a headache," looking at the reactions around him, Geoff raised a hand motioning them to wait as to preempt any interruptions, "Please let me clarify. Before I continue, I assure you it's not that they have been sabotaging us or anything of the like, so that potential divisive topic is a non-issue. The simple truth is that less militiamen of rank have volunteered than expected and, of those that have, well, we've had to turn back quite a few."

"So it is a matter of quality and quantity?" asked Locatelli with a sour look on his face. He had been having issues with the Officer program but with his more humble goals, it hadn't been that much of an issue and he was still within schedule. Mostly.

"Yes," responded the Army General with a defeated sigh, "It is, but that is not the only reason. I also need the extra time to consolidate the new formations and, from what I've seen from Tripoli, we are going to need it."

A quiet rustling of cloth against the table's edge drew the eyes to the one who'd yet to speak up at the meeting, "I agree with a postponement," interjected Admiral Duperiale in her trademark neutral tone, "The Spacy could use the time to graduate and incorporate new hands as well."

The Spacy requirements were the most complex and time intensive of all the branches, while they had the most amount of trained hands, and training additional space hands was relatively straightforward, training engineers, officers or NCOs, was not.

Worse, the Spacy schools were also providing training for the nascent civilian space sector, though those were the most abridged courses they were, by and large, producing space truckers. But even in its abridged fashion they were still rather time intensive. You just didn't send people out into space without the proper skill set and mentality, given that space was as hostile as it came, merciless and unforgiving. Otherwise was to dance with disaster.

The true bottleneck was the instructors. For each professional pulled into the classrooms for teaching there was one less professional doing their jobs and there was either nobody yet available to fill it, or, just as likely, someone with barebones training filling it; probably with one hand on the controls, and another holding up the training manual, all the while praying not to screw up.

It came down to a juggling act, with all skilled hands of the 53rs putting extra hours as instructors or educators, while trying to do the most critical tasks and letting the new trainees finish their training on-the-job.

It was, to say the least, a very risky situation.

"Sounds good to me," commented General Locatelli as he leaned onto the table, "my Marines could also use the extra time as well. I am for it."

"Then I believe we are in agreement," stated Rear Admiral Duperiale.

"Indeed," concluded Admiral Thomes, as he scratched his chin, "we will need to determine for how long we can put Perry on hold, but if all of you are in agreement, I don't see a reason to oppose it, far from it." he paused for a moment, "So if there is anything else about Tripoli?"

He was met with silence.

"Then we can move on. Next topic on the list for today is the occupation itself. Geoff, how is it going?"

"Better than expected," replied Major General Kuong Geoff, before frowning, "at least thus far."

"Oh?" Thomes raised an eyebrow.

"Well, the Onverwatchers haven't put forward any form of real insurgency or opposition to our occupation," commented Geoff as he leaned forward in his chair, "and they have been cooperating quite a bit more than what I'd have expected with our forces, at least insomuch as to keep the peace."

"I sense a 'but' coming," interjected Thomes as he leaned back onto his chair.

"That is because there is," stated Geoff with a frown, "the thing is that they are still feeling cowed. Sort of like a planetary wide collective moment of holding their breath as they wait for the other shoe to drop. However I don't think it will last too long, not with all the changes we are imposing on them."

"You mean the end of their Raiding economy and Slavery?" commented Thaddeus Mitchelson with a certain distaste on his face.

"They call it indenturedment,"corrected Dr. Fraga automatically.

"They might love it, and squeeze it, and call it George for all I care, it is slavery none the less," Thaddeus Mitchelson interjected sarcastically, the only hint of how angry he was at the situation coming through the minute frown he was sporting.

"True, and yet slavery isn't the hot potato. At least not directly," stated the senior researcher, "The problem is that our occupation means the end of the raiding economy. Which will cause us the most problems for the foreseeable future is that there just isn't an economic model in place, even partially, to fill its loss."

As dramatic and barbaric as Slavery was, by and large it didn't affect the bulk of the planet's population, or at least not directly. Household 'indentured' were a minority reserved almost solely for the wealthy but the loss of the raiding economy and of the end industrial slavery meant the end of the affluent lifestyle for more than the planetary elites, which was the bigger issue.

"The lady is right," commented Geoff to the senior engineer, his expression even, "It is the removal of privilege that will cause the bigger backlash against us."

"But…" started Thaddeus with a perplexed look on his face.

"Thaddeus, look," interrupted the Army General as he glanced towards the senior engineer, "As bad as the slavery was, it didn't affect the whole planetary population directly, not every Onverwachter Freemen owned slaves. Slaves were expensive, you either had to be a magnate or in the elite to be able to afford even one and, even then, not all slaves were equal under the Onverwacht system."

"Unequal," harrumphed the senior engineer, "that sounds hard to accept."

"No, not really," Countered the Army General, "While most industrials lived short miserable lives, others, like the household slaves, might very well have been better off than the bulk of the freemen population."

"Your point being?" asked the senior engineer with a frown.

"The point being that making slavery illegal, forcing them to free the slaves and turning them into waged workers not only pissed off the rich and powerful, who as we all know are the minority, but it also drastically destabilized their economy. If we sit back and don't do anything their whole system will tank, and soon. Then we'll be looking at one hell of a row from the rest of the population," explained the Army General with more patience then Thaddeus probably deserved at the moment, "Hell, we already have a small refugee situation thanks to the Freedom Act." He said referring to the unofficial name of the ordinance that put an end to the indentured system on Onverwacht.

"So, what do you suggest?" asked Thomes, in an effort to diffuse the situation.

"Well, I have a team working on the parts of their economic network we think are salvageable but we haven't been integrating them with the rest of the inter-planetary economy, or at least not yet. Gloria here," he said motioning towards the former Mayor of Dyson City who nodded as he spoke, "thinks that will cause a PR backlash on the rest of the UN, one we could ill afford at this juncture, and I agree."

The new UN was still held together by pins and needles. It was a new entity and while it was growing fast, thankfully with Wynn's Roost's rock solid core; just incorporating what few worlds were left in the Outworld Wastes was pushing it nearly to its limits. It was an impressive pace for such a young and nearly untested nation and everybody on the table knew that.

"So we are going for the self-sufficient model for them?" asked Dr. Fraga, now taking a bit more of interest in the ongoing conversation.

"Not completely, they can feed themselves, by and large. However much like Wynn, they also have an industrial sector we can lean on but, unlike Wynn, the planetary economy is reliant on raw resources imports they'd now will have to pay for, assuming anyone in the Wastes will sell to them."

"So, if importing is a no go," replied Reuben, as he massaged the bridge of his nose, "we will need to make them more reliant on what can be harvested in system."

"If only it were that easy, the Onverwatchers took the high tech industry from Nerum, assuming that the Nerumies don't want it back… "

"I don't think they will," commented Gloria Logan with a small smile on her face, "I've been talking to Tribune Hasek and he is also in agreement about letting the Onverwatchers keep the factory. Well, as long as either we provide further compensation or Onverwatcht does."

"And that compensation will take the form of?" asked Thomes as he leaned towards the table.

"Thankfully it's no 'slavers now become the enslaved' tit-for-tat kind of deal. They merely want a bigger industry allocation, on top of the other bootstrap concessions, of course" explained the former Mayor matter of factly, "Hasek is a very shrewd man, you know?"

"Going back to Onverwacht, the high tech factory is quite interesting and could prove the linchpin on keeping the planetary economy from tanking, if we put some effort to it." Replied the army General with a sigh, "The locals been keeping it operating by hook or crook, they set up a very inefficient cottage industry to supply the critical parts and the manufactured resources it needed. Said cottage industry was what 'employed' most of the industrial indentured, whom we have since freed and demanded be safely and gainfully employed." The freedom act not only included the mandatory freedom of the indentured, but set up provisos for the safety of the workplace, the maximum number of work hours and, among other things, the prohibition of child labor.

"This is going somewhere, right?" commented Rodger Locatelli as he leaned back onto his chair.

"It is, Rodger, and will be getting there now; the thing is that the industry needs a few rare earths that are not particularly abundant on Onverwacht, so we will be needing some input from the rest of the UN to keep them afloat." Lectured Gloria Logan, her expression unreadable, "To that end we are going to trying a twofold approach, on one hand we will want to make a few concessions to the mining concerns within our territory so that they will trade with the Onverwatchers,"

"Bribe them with tax breaks and the like?" commented Admiral Thomes with a nod, "Well, I can see that working,"

"Yes, greed tends to be a reliable factor," admitted the Former Town Mayor, "on the other hand we are going to also try a few propaganda campaigns throughout our territory. Hopefully it will put a spin on things so that the Onverwachters won't be total pariahs, but it is a more long term thing," commented Gloria, as she played with a lock of her hair as she often did whenever a thorny problem hit her desk.

"That is not going to be easy," commented Thomes as he relaxed slightly, leaning back on his chair.

"It won't be. It never is. It is a long term plan that will likely last through well into the next decade just to begin with. Any really meaningful gains to how the rest of the population views Onverwatcht over the short term is, perhaps, going to be a bit of a longshot at best." Admitted Gloria with a slight frown on her face.

A few people around the table nodded at that.

"That is reasonable. Unfortunate, but reasonable. Anything else?" asked Admiral Thomes.

"I've started an enforced visit by citizens to visit the former 'life camps' of the industrial workers. As you all know, they were rather...bad," mentioned the Army General with a small frown.

The conditions in the industrial indentured life camps had been short on terrible. Poor food, almost no medical aid, and a universal policy of hammering the nail that stuck out, in some cases quite literally. They hadn't been death camps but some of them hadn't been that far off.

The industrial indentureds had been at the bottom of the socio-economic pyramid, and were worked pretty much either to death or at least till they were maimed. Both of which were a common enough occurrence. They didn't have a long shelf life either way, hence the reason for yet more slave raids. For most of the inhabitants of Onverwacht, those indentured were invisible, silent, segregated, and separated from the rest of the population.

"Taking a page off the old World War II Allies' playbook?" Asked General Locatelli with a small smirk, "Sounds good to me, we can't really afford to use kid's gloves on these people."

"I agree as well," replied Thomes after a short silence, his expression neutral, "we are going to need to play ball on Onverwatcht very carefully, as I'd rather we find some way of integrating them, long term. I agree though with Gloria and fear that, shortly, no matter what we do, they will be pariahs within this new UN we are building, even with all the plans we are putting into place."

"Yes, hence the hearts and minds I suggested we employ," stated Gloria with a calculating look, "It's not nearly enough to work on just changing views of the Onverwatchters, but how the whole Wastelander population views them."

"We are going to make them out as victims?" the scowl on Thaddeus face was for the ages.

"Nothing that radical, but we are going to try and tell things from the ordinary citizen's point of view and tell of their own stories, of how they were manipulated and treated as brainless dolts and kept largely stupid," countered the former Mayor, "Bread and circuses doesn't work otherwise, not for long at any rate."

"So we are going to pin it on the planetary Elites, the slavery, the raiding, the abuses?" Thaddeus was starting to look a bit red on his face and his scowl had deepened, "it is not their fault alone," warned the engineer.

"To a point we are going to do that, as they do make an ideal scapegoat," commented Geoff, "Besides, it was their idea to begin with."

"That was centuries ago," noted the Marine General with a frown on his face.

"Sure, the true responsible parties are dust, but their children are the ones that profited the most of this. They do have something to make up for it," Geoff turned towards Thaddeus, a serious look on his face, "Thaddeus, what do you want me to do? Execute them all? Blame everyone for this whole clusterfuck? Perhaps try to look for the ones ultimately responsible, the Camerons and that Amaris? Should I dig them up and shoot them too? I get slavery is a red button for you, but do try being objective about it."

"I…" paused the engineer with a frown on his face for a moment, then he sighed and his expression relaxed somewhat, "You are right, of course, but, well, like you said it is a red button topic for me."

"While you two are arguing, I wanted to know what we are going to be doing about the children," interrupted Dr. Fraga with a patronizing expression, "They are surely not to blame for the sins of their ancestors, or their parents."

"Well, I've been studying a few proposals, there is an idea of sending them off world as students to the new branch schools we've been setting up has been suggested," commented Geoff, "I have some doubts but, on itself, it is not a bad idea."

Those particular schools were ones that were already following the UN model of education, given the dispersed nature of the local cluster populations. Each was being built as virtual small independent towns in their own sake, with each school having dorm complexes within their campuses and a small support infrastructure at the very least. It was a tried and true method back in their home dimension as well and there was no reason why it should flop here.

"That assumes the parents will agree to this scheme," noted Dr. Elizabeth Fraga with a slim frown.

"It is a matter of how we present it to them," noted Geoff, "I have my PR people working on suggestions, not particularly high priority, but..." he trailed off.

"What about the other children? Their future schoolmates, I mean," Thaddeus clarified, "Keep in mind that children can be rather judgmental, especially if their parents, ah, encourage them to be so."

"That much is true," stated Kuong Geoff, "but, I think, it is a matter of how we present the children."

"Perhaps keeping them incognito?" Suggested Locatelli with a pensive look on his face.

"I'm not sure," Gloria Logan choose that time to interrupt, "children talk, and deception is a very bad card to play in this scenario, but we do not have many options either, perhaps set them up in the rarely hit worlds like Fallry or Salvende, those two hadn't been hit in quite a few years, from what I understand, so they might be less likely to object too loudly..."

"I have my doubts about this," interrupted Admiral Thomes, "but it is something. So let's do this," he said towards Geoff, "this one is all on you and Gloria," he mentioned motioning towards the Mayor, "But before doing anything else, go talk to Justice Maxton and depending on how that works, we move ahead with this one."

"I was thinking," interrupted Gloria with a pensive look on her face, "we have one of MBS ace reporters embedded with our forces, right?"

"Zantik you mean? Wait. Isn't her specialty..." replied Geoff, raising an eyebrow.

"Precisely," replied the former Mayor with a predatory smile, "Perhaps we could ask her to do one of the documentaries, as part of the hearts and minds effort?"

"Not a bad idea," replied Reuben Thomes, "She has done some top notch jobs in the past and Gambine, the owner of MBS, owes us a favor. If they are for it, I think it would be a good idea. Plus it would keep Ms. Zantik on Onverwacht for a few more month, right Gloria?"

"It is a happy coincidence, I am sure," she replied with an unashamed shark like smile, which caused all the present to chuckle a bit. Gloria Logan and Ichiko Zantik got along poorly, like a house on fire, and they tended to butt heads from time to time.

"Moving on, Shin, I believe you had some info for us, right?" asked Thomes towards the Intelligence Agency.

"That I do," replied Shin, with a small frown, "As you know, we've been investigating the remains taken from the Narbonne for the last few months."

That caused a frown among the present, the whole Narbonne incident had been a clusterfuck of the highest order. While it was impossible to know that the crew of the Narbonne would react so... psychotically... it was ultimately their responsibility for sending a lone UNS Warship on a first contact mission, something that was against regulations, but had been ordered anyway mostly out of opportunism, expedience and an effort to avoid showing their full hand to the Narbonne and her masters.

The end result had showed that they had been, at the very least, conceited and complacent, and that was a dangerous combination, what with possible Zentradi and Supervision Army units lurking the black.

"I don't have to repeat my initial analysis to you, nor do I have to state how lucky we were with that fiasco," there were a few grunts of agreement there, the whole situation had been a powder keg and, as stated, they had been magnificently lucky, "But I will remind you all that it is a further proof of why we need to reschedule Perry till my people can be sufficiently prepared."

"Ah, so you are backing Geoff's request?" asked Dr. Fraga with an impish smile, "You were rather quiet a while ago when we were discussing Perry."

"I didn't felt my voice was needed at a time," Shin replied with that quiet smile of his own, "But, never the less, I want to make something very clear to you. The people behind the Narbonne are not a simple one-off black operation, but a fanatical, aggressive and very well-funded organization that. Nothing short of a major player can be supporting something like that and, from what we know, none of the players in this Inner Sphere would have a reason to keep a mature WarShip program secret, quite the opposite."

"Yeah, I recall your initial paper. I assume you found anything noteworthy?" questioned General Locatelli, somewhat impatiently. In his opinion, Shin was being a bit over paranoid with the whole 'Comstar' thing. He had no real evidence and what he had was hearsay and statements by a group of people that Shin himself hand admitted he didn't particularly trust.

"Not much, at least so far. They were very thorough in their scuttling; though, I understand, some of the material samples taken from the wreck were more than merely interesting," he said glancing towards Thaddeus Mitchelson who nodded sharply, "But that is beside the point," he added shaking his head, "What I wanted was authorization to liaise with the IU people."

"The crew of the Lucretia? I thought you didn't trust them, Shin," Mentioned Reuben as he leaned towards the table.

"Honestly? Yes, I still have my doubts about them. Truth is though, that we are getting nowhere with the data modules we've recovered." That had been the real prize of the Narbonne excursion, a number of supposedly civilian grade data units that had survived their partial encounter with plasma.

"And IU enters the scene, how?" asked Locatelli as he massaged his chin.

"Well" Shin looked as if he had bitten into a lemon, "I understand they have some experts on data recovery. Not to mention they are far more familiar with the computer architecture and programing languages than my specialists. With their aid, we might actually get somewhere."

"This is a first," commented Locatelli with a jovial smile on his face, "Shin admitting his analysts can't do everything!"

"Rodger," said Thomes as a warning to the Marine General before turning towards Shin, "I assume you will be taking precautions, I mean given your concerns?"

"Certainly," He said with a confident look, "Look, I know it is a bit of a gamble but, if this works, it will pay off massively, a proverbial jackpot, so we can't ignore this option."

That was something that should have been expected from the get go, the differences in computer architecture, software coding, and most importantly the machine code were substantially different between the UNS/Spacy standard and the Inner Sphere one.

"As I understand the crew of the Lucretia is rather busy of late with their startup, but since you feel they are needed, and for the records I agree it is too important to simply ignore. So I will ask Captain Lopez. He owes me one, several if you want to get technical, and, besides, they have been very friendly since the Wolf came back," finished Thomes with a small smile.

July 4th 3041
Wynn's Roost
Macross City

"...and finally, to us!" said Buford Lopez as he raised a Champagne glass high above his head.

"To us," echoed the crowd before him as they did likewise.

Buford downed his drink in one go, as he was known to do. Today was a day of merriment, of happiness; An important day for somebody that, till a few months prior, had thought his lot to be one of a wanderer at best, a fugitive at worst. But that was not to be, thankfully. The meeting with the UNS Wolf had changed things for him and for the whole crew of the Lucretia, for the better. To a level even he was still wrapping his mind around.

The Count's Message had been very brief and to the point, 'our mission is to humanity', it was enough for Buford and for his command crew.

And so, after putting things to a vote, they had opted to create a research institute. The plan was for it to still be under the effigy of Interconnectedness Unlimited, but partially independent of it. If only to spare their boss some of the questions the First Prince would surely be asking once contact officially started. Considering the windfall that was about to come across both desks, and one he was personally enjoying at the moment, he was more than willing to spare the boss from having to come up with answers.

Buford put down his glass down on one of the buffet tables, leisurely taking in the room with a glance. They had decided to go all the way on the festivities and, with the Lucretia in dry-dock, all the crew and their high profile guests could attend and to their luck, most had, with one or two exception due to family or health issues. Smiling, he approached his XO and his aide, who were expecting him by the main buffet table, as both the current and former crew of the Lucretia begun to splinter into smaller groups and began their coordinated, and uncoordinated, attacks on the buffet tables.

"Michelle, Robert!" he said as he approached the pair, "how are you two doing in this fine day?"

Robert Bannson smiled, "Fine enough, Buford, that was a fine toast you gave."

"Indeed," commented Michelle Actron, with a broad smile on her face, "Very inspiring."

"Thank you two," he replied with a smile of his own, "I thought I had laid it a bit too thickly, but will abide by your judgment," he finished with a wink

"So, what do you think of our chances, for the future I mean," asked the former Captain of the Lucretia to the pair.

"Welp, I think they are good, or maybe it is this wine talking," commented Michelle as she motioned towards the glass on her hand, "it is very good champagne,"

"That it is. I believe this one is from Salvende? I've been told the winemakers were originally from a commune from False Dawn, but once the planet ecosystem begun its decline they evacuated there and boy were they surprised by the quality of the soil."

"Wine snob."

"Its 'wine connoisseur' you heathen. And this is champagne, not wine."

Shaking his head at the pair's antics, Robert decided to head off that long running 'debate' with another topic, "So 'Lucretia Tech'? That was...a very original choice," he finished without an ounce of sarcasm. Not that he needed it to get his point across.

"Heh, well that is what the voting said," replied Buford as he scratched the back of his head, "Not my favorite but its functional. Plus it reminds us from where we came." His smile took a melancholic turn for a moment before it was washed away by a smile, "But what do you think?" he said turning towards Michelle.

"I liked it. Besides, we are a research and development firm now, I know that Frederich and Descartes are both very happy with the arrangement we reached with the Spacy. Just think of all the opportunities now..."

And then some. They were going to be doing integration work between both tech bases for the civilian market and, if their analysis were right, it looked to be a very profitable market. In all likelihood there were opportunities about to land in their laps that they hadn't even considered yet. Plus, there were also a few odd jobs for the Government they had been contracted to do that could pay off handsomely as well.

"But," interrupted Buford, "I know you well enough to know that a 'but' was coming."

She smiled abashedly and looked down for a second, "Well, I have my doubts; especially due to the whole... incident." She said in a huffed tone.

She meant the Narbonne Incident. By and large it had been classified by the Spacy, but the core members of the Lucretia had been, by means of several NDAs and other legal documents, briefed on it.

"I understand," replied Buford in a contemplatory tone as he massaged his chin with one hand "but this is not the place to talk about it, Michelle" he paused for a second before a smile crept into his face, "Still, for the moment we are beyond the reach of the cowled crowd. Yes, there is the Explorer Corps to worry about, but let's be fair, they are more likely exploring the unknown regions then where we are. The odds of them revisiting this area is minute."

Robbert Bannson nodded in agreement as he dug his hands into his pockets, "The Skipper is right about that, Michelle. Though I think we should remain vigilant, or at least help Mr. Enfield's people do that." He added with a knowing look.

Buford nodded in turn and turned towards his aide, "Yes, Robert is right, but leave that for Monday. Today is a day of celebration and you should do just that," he replied with a grandfatherly smile.

Michelle nodded and smiled in turn. "Sure thing, Skipper, I will consider it an order," she replied as she reached for a canapé.

"You too, Robert," added Buford as he tapped his XO's shoulder.

"I...I was having fun, Buford," replied Robert, defensively.

"I know you are, and that you will," he added with a wink, "but for the moment, do enjoy your youth. At least for today, take it as advice from this old timer."

"Sure," replied Robert somewhat unsure as he blinked, confused.

"Well, anyway, got other people to talk to, you two take care and, like I said," started the older man.

"...Have fun," echoed the three of them, after which they all shared a small laugh. Buford smiled, and then departed, slowly.

"What was that about," asked Michelle conspiratorially as her boss left earshot.

"No clue," replied Robert a tad too fast, with a small blush on his face.

"Well," Michelle Shrugged, "you should try some of these," she said handing over a canapé platter to Robert, "they are really, really good."

"You think so?" replied Robert with a smile as he reached for one.

A few meters away, Buford watched at his aide and XO with a grandfatherly smile. Ah, to be young…

July 6th 3041
Terra
Hilton Head

Edward Zacharias carefully knocked on his superior's open door before entering to his office. It was a spartan affair, and while ROM's offices tended to be that way, Charles Seneca's took the words 'pristine' and 'unremarkable' to a new level; which said something of the man that commanded the Blessed Order's Intelligence Apparatus.

The man Edward was looking for noted the knock and raised his head from behind his desk's Holoscreen. He motioned Edward to sit in one of the chairs before his desk and quickly deactivated the Holoscreen. Charles, officially Percentor ROM, sighed and waited for his aide to sit down. He really didn't want this conversation, no matter how much duty required.

Work had been heavy for Rho Division these last few months, since the incident. The destruction of the Narbonne had really shaken the whole organization to its foundations, for good reason. Not only had they lost a precious asset, but had also discovered that their monopoly on WarShips wasn't as good as they'd previously believed. Worse than that, whomever had sunk the Narbonne completely out-ranged and, if the rumors were true - and Charles was sitting hard on the reports that did prove it - they flat out out-teched the Blessed Order in that area as well.

The worst part was that it didn't need to happen that way. The UNers, whatever that meant, had tried parlaying first and fired only after the Captain of the Narbonne had fired upon them without provocation. He really wanted to curse that dead man's blind obedience.

"Let me guess, you thinking of Garland, right?" commented Zacharias, now comfortably seated in one of the chairs before Charles' desk.

Seneca blinked, losing his train of thought, and glanced at his aide. "Am I that transparent?" he finally asked with a sigh.

"Nope boss, still as hard to read as ever. But lately? Each time you end up in that thinking place, it is because of Garland," he replied as he leaned back onto the very comfortable chair.

Jeff Garland had been the Captain of the Narbonne, a decorated Percentor within the ComGuards Theta branch. Loyal, very connected and, by Rho's own profile, he had been labeled as very reliable, a reasonable requirement for somebody charged with the captaincy of one of the few WarShips they had on active duty.

But that was per Garland's file, before Charles had his conversations with the Percentor Martial.

Anastasius Focht had had a poor image of Garland from the start. He hadn't hesitated at labeling the man a toad and a sycophant. Someone very good at the political game of back scratching and paying favors with favors. Even more interestingly, he had been a favorite of Cassnew, Focht's predecessor. Thus, was a very clear image of the rot that had infected the ComGuards, a rot that it was Focht's duty to purge, much like it was his duty to fix up any messes in ROM.

Anastasius had been, initially, in hot water over the incident, the Narbonne had been his responsibility, but he had managed to deflect most of the blame over Theta Branch Precentor Vandergrifth, who was also a leftover of the Cassnew era, another political appointee, and also happened to be the man who assigned Garland to the Narbonne.

Seneca nodded in acknowledgment, "You are right, I was thinking of him, this has become such a mess…"

"Yeah, no question about it," Edward agreed as he scratched his jaw, "As they say in the army, a Clusterfuck."

"Speaking of which, I hope you are bearer of good news?" asked the Precentor ROM in a business like tone.

"Well, I'd probably had sent you a mail otherwise," replied the junior Spy unabashedly, with a smirk.

"Such cheek, and from my own aide at that," replied Charles, with a smirk of his own, "out with it, then."

"Well, as you know, Pythagoras has been a bust thus far," commented Zacharias.

The Pythagoras Array was a leftover of the Star League era, it was lostech at its finest, nobody in ComStar knew how it worked, they had found it by chance and had thought of it to be some sort of HPG prototype device of some sort till a Rho branch analyst, assigned to the Lucretia Task force, had stumbled upon the still readable, if water damaged, manual a few years prior.

Regardless of how it worked, the device allowed them to triangulate the location of KF Jumps, origin and destination, assuming you had both the profile of the KF drive and the jumps happened within a certain distance of the Array.

Interestingly, the Lucretia Task force had only released the data on the existence of the Array after they failed to catch their quarry near Anjin Muerto over a year prior. Of course, regretfully, the array proved to be very temperamental, rather short ranged and of limited flexibility, it tended to produce false positives rather often too, so it wasn't the game breaker he had thought once he heard of its existence.

That had been his first encounter with the Lucretia Task force since assuming leadership of ROM, it hadn't been the last or the most pleasant.

"Indeed," acknowledged the head of ROM as he massaged his chin, "though I thought you said you had some good news?" he asked with a raised eyebrow.

"I have, I have," replied his aide nonchalantly before placing a datastick on the desk.

"And this is?" Seneca asked as he tentatively grabbed the datastick.

"That, boss, contains the logs of the little listener device our friends from the Lucretia Task force had placed on an HPG repeater belonging to IU."

"You are telling me they have an HPG Network of their own?" Charles had to make a conscious effort of keeping his voice and expression steady, "And Akerman didn't thought to tell anyone?"

Tor Ackerman was the current senior member of the Lucretia's Task Force, and of the senior crew the only one still alive, at least for now.

"Well, apparently he thought we knew, ditched the blame squarely on the very late Percentor Dempsey. As it seems that is how the Task Force knew where to send the Narbonne."

Charles felt the migraine coming, as the whole incident, no, the whole chain of incidents, was proving to be an enduring nightmare, and whenever he started to think he knew all about it, something new appeared on his table. Victoria Dempsey's Lucretia task force was quickly becoming the example of a cowboy op gone very bad, rogue even.

Seneca let loose a long suffering sigh.

"Please, tell me there is a logic to this madness," Charles asked Edward with a pleading look.

"Can't promise you that," Edward replied with a suffering sigh of his own, "that broad had her files encrypted with something the boys down at data analysis still can't crack, and you wouldn't believe how compartmentalized the task force was. Honestly, I wouldn't be surprised if the left hand even knew that there was a right hand or a rest of the body."

"Figures," replied Charles, with a downcast look, before his eyes drifted back to the datastick, "so, the data?"

"Oh, that, well, obviously the Lucretia seems to be in bed with this UN the Wolf claimed to be part of," he started.

"Obviously," interrupted Chalres.

"They used a one-time pad we weren't able to crack and we don't expect to," that was the nature of one time pads, after all, "And so had the reply, so that is also a no go, However we do have the destination of the first message."

"Steffelbus?"

"To the man himself," commented Edward with a grin.

"A no brainer given the IU tag, but at least is something solid, it is a shame though," he replied dejectedly as he leaned back into his chair.

"But…" protested his aide.

"Sorry, Edward, but last time we sent a wetwork team to Rosamond, they vanished right after arriving and so did the follow up team. Between that and the current problem with MIIO, the answer has to be no. We simply don't have the men to waste."

The hermetism surrounding Rosamond, the Steffelbus and IU were worrying and noteworthy, but his hands were tied. The Primus wanted the Count alive, and the 'hands off' order had come directly from Primus Waterly herself, verbally, not two days after he had been granted authority over the Lucretia task force, for reasons she had refused to elaborate. It was obvious something else was going on, something he wasn't privy to and that was worrying and needed to be handled with care.

He looked at Edward speculatively, he needed an extra set of eyes, then again his aide was a too obvious choice, but perhaps it was obvious enough to be overlooked.

August 2nd 3041
Wynn's Roost
Macross City

It was a temporary structure, a prefab taken out of the Fleet's stock of colony buildings, and originally meant to serve as an auditorium. They had modified the plans and repurposed the auditorium into something far grander, an Assembly building. Across the street, the workers were busy working on the permanent HQ, built as a replica of the old UN New York HQ, but it would take some time for the building to be complete. In the meantime the prefab assembly building would do.

It lacked the offices, but that had been solved masterfully by using some additional prefab office blocks placed nearby. It wasn't glamorous or as comfortable as the finished building would be, especially if you compared it with the administrative buildings in Rook City, but the UN had always prided itself on frugality and functionality. Hopefully that would hold true both in the new dimension as well as it had in the old one.

Just as the unfinished skeleton of a building across the street mimicked the UN headquarters, so did the assembly room itself mimic the UN's own central chamber: a semicircular tiered seating arrangement for the different delegations before a central dais for the Secretary General and a podium before it for the speakers.

On the Secretary General's Dais, Gloria Logan looked at the people arranged before him.

The assembly room itself was half empty, they only had ten different delegations from members and eight other semi-informal observers from systems in different stages of incorporation, but still, it was a beginning.

The Press was in force, though, as it was a historic event and they all wanted their prime time. From the industry giant MBS, to a dozen different local media outlets to small timers from throughout the wastes, all eagerly transported by the fledgling new UN so they could bear witness to the momentous occasion.

She was still unsure how Reuben had roped her into accepting the position even if it was for the moment, she'd still need confirmation vote from the assembly, scheduled for later in the day. But it was a simple majority and was most likely to pass.

She adjusted her reading lens, age came with its baggage and she wasn't too fond of the cybernetic options, and begun reading.

"This is a new beginning to us all, and as such they are strange and confusing days. Cast away by fate and time, we have all come together, today, to forge bonds of friendship in union, in freedom and under the principles of equality and rule of law."

She paused for a second, taking a small breath.

"Though we are not here only for us, but for our children, the young ones and the unborn generations that will follow. It is for them that we are erecting that grand edifice across the street, it is for them that we work and toil from dawn till dusk and bleed and die. Yet also to live. To live life anew."

A few of the delegates begun nodding in approval.

"We start anew today, for them and for us all; together we will make a future that will last the generations. Today we begin our tireless work, to make sure that rule of law is not simply a word, or a synonym for oppression. That equality before the law is not a memory of the past but a reality of today."

Again Gloria paused, but this time for effect.

"Today is our new start and, thus, it is my solemn duty and honor to open this first General Assembly."

And as the gavel hit the sounding block, signaling the commencement of the session, the room erupted in thunderous applause.

It had begun.

Like I said before, only part left on this arc is the side story that should be up latter this week :)

Then we move on to Perry and Arc 2, I'll probably upload it early this week.

Anyway, Thanks for reading