== Part 32 – Nine Tenths of the Law Times Negative One==

It was a sign of how important the Archon considered Eve Steiner's diplomatic mission to the Cylons was that Foreign Affairs had assigned the LCDS Sound Investment, one of their specially modified Monarch class Dropships modified to serve especially important diplomats. The lower deck staterooms, shops, spa, and casino were gone, turned into offices and meeting rooms where diplomats and their staff could work. The lounges and dining areas remained, so guests could be entertained and personnel could relax on their off hours. And the theater had been turned into what looked like a military combat information center, albeit staffed by civilians or at least personnel in civilian dress.

Currently, the "theater's" original video screen was dominated by a live image of the Cylon ship as captured by the Dropship's military grade sensor suite, which included telescopes powerful to spot a two kilometer wide starfish orbiting Langhorne from a standard jump point. But even at maximum zoom from the Sound Investment's turnover point, the telescope could only resolve a fuzzy star shape next to the curve of the planet. A pair of smaller windows was opened off to the side, showing a tiny rectangular block that the analysts said was a Leopard class Dropship and a long thin blob that was supposed to be a Merchant class Dropship. Given the Sound Investment's position, all three ships were almost identically distant from Eve's Dropship, so all the images of them being displayed were happening at roughly the same time.

Eve had been called to the CIC and barely been informed of what was going on when the Leopard started executing a turnover far too early. In the senior analyst's opinion, the Leopard must have just spotted the Cylon ship and decided that tangling with what appeared to be a Warship was best avoided, so it was running back to its Jumpship rather than try to fight through odds clearly stacked against it.

As Eve wondered if the Cylons were going to use their magical FTL drive, they did just that. Gravity on the Sound Investment had barely resumed when the Cylon ship vanished from the main window in a flash of light, and reappeared in the Merchant's window. There was quite a gap between them, but the Cylon ship was just inside the window's boundaries and a stream of little white specks like confetti began to pour from the Cylon ship and charge towards the Jumpship.

Someone in the CIC cursed aloud and Eve didn't blame them. It was one thing to read reports and see recordings of impossible events. It was another thing entirely to watch it happen live in front of you, or at least as live as interplanetary distance light lag allowed.

The Archon was right, Eve thought, not that she ever thought the Archon had been wrong in the first place. But seeing the Cylon's performance for herself just reaffirmed her mission in her mind. While Eve might fail in persuading these Cylons to become the Commonwealth's allies, she had to do everything in her power to make sure the Cylons didn't become the Commonwealth's enemies.


"I'm telling you, we're not pirates," pleaded the woman who was apparently the leader of the raiders aboard the Leopard Dropship Skipray.

The Centurions had searched the entire Dropship and assembled everyone they had found in the Skipray's mech bay. Unlike what certain popular media portrayals would have their audiences believe, a Leopard's main mech bay was not simply one big open space. If that were the case, the entire bay would depressurize any time one of the mech bay doors opened and there just wouldn't be enough air left in the rest of the ship to repressurize it. Instead, each mech cubicle was effectively a mech size airlock that was sealed off from the rest of the Dropship for vacuum and low atmospheric operations, complete with internal doors to allow mechs to be moved between cubicles without having to leave the Dropship's confines. Now sixteen humans were held at gunpoint in the central corridor between the mech cubicles.

"Really?" Knife Six said doubtfully as she twirled her knife between her fingers. Impressively, she was doing it without accidentally cutting herself even once. Even more impressively, she wasn't even aware she was doing it, or at least gave that impression to the watching humans given how carelessly she was gesturing with her knife hand. The humans were all watching her, seemingly more concerned about the woman twirling a knife than the robots holding them at gun point. "You arrived in system via pirate point. I've been told than only pirates use these points, which is why they've been named that."

"Well someone told you wrong," the leader told her. "It's not just pirates that use pirate points. Any small unit operation willing to risk a misjump to save on travel time will use pirate points too."

"Is that a fact?" Knife Six asked. The knife twirling stopped instantly with a snap, and Knife Six poked the tip of her knife at Gail. "And what kind of military unit are you?"

"We're mercenaries, isn't that obvious?" the woman said indignantly. She balled a fist with thumb out and used it to point to herself. "I'm Gail Adams of Adams' Cavalry."

"Hmm..." Knife Six said thoughtfully as unseen by the humans, a flurry of information requests went out to the basestar and then to Langhorne.


"Damn, woman," Rick said with a laugh to the waiting Six as he climbed out of his mech. "It's a good thing I'm on contract or else I wouldn't be making any money on this planet except for maybe the consulting fees you people pay me."

"Well, we did tell you our goal was to bring peace to the Inner Sphere," Six replied. "That would technically put you out of a job."

"It's nice to have lofty goals, but I'll believe it when I see it," Rick said sardonically. "There's always some asshole who's gonna want to hire mercs to attack some other asshole, and usually for the pettiest of reasons that you wouldn't believe. I'd tell you about them if it wouldn't be a breach of contract."

"I'd love to try to persuade you to tell me them," Six said seductively, then sighed, "but I'm here more on business. Have you ever heard of mercenary group called Adams' Cavalry led by a Gail Adams?"

"Gail?" Rick said thoughtfully. "Oh yeah! I met Gail in a bar on Galatea. Had a grand old time with her. Yeah, I know her."

"So she's a legitimate mercenary?" Six asked.

"Sure," Rick answered. "Why'd you ask?"

"Gail Adams was leading the raiding party we just stopped."

"Ouch!" Rick said with a wince. He'd been a mercenary long enough to know what that meant. "That's too bad for her."


"So, what kind of military operation were you hired for here on Langhorne, Miss Adams?" Knife Six asked, gesturing with her knife carelessly again.

"Look, it was just a raid to destroy some construction sites where someone's building new factories," Adams told her. "We're principled mercs. We don't massacre civilians or any of that shit. We were just here to destroy some property, maybe fight some defending militia or mercs if we couldn't avoid them."

"As far as I'm aware," Knife began thoughtfully as she tapped her knife against her chin, "the only factories under construction on Langhorne belong to us and our business partners."

"Is that so?" Adams asked. "Well fuck me."

"Not sure you're my type," Knife Six replied. "So who hired you?"

"I dunno..." Adams began when she suddenly found herself staring crosseyed at the knife point just inches from her face. "No really! I don't know! Job came through the MRB with the client doing everything to mask their identity. No face. No voice even. Just a printed text message and a contract. Since it came through the MRB, it had to be a legit contract. If you wanna know who hired me, ask the MRB. But I can tell you right now, they ain't gonna tell you. Their entire authority depends on people trusting them to follow the rules."

Adams sighed in relief as the knife was withdrawn from her face.

"Hmm," Knife Six said thoughtfully, only more seriously this time. "Tell me, Miss Adams, what would have been the result if you really had attacked Langhorne and you'd lost? Assume your retreat was cut off and you couldn't get offplanet."

"Uh, I'd probably be dead," Adams said slowly, clearly hoping she wasn't telling the Cylons to kill her. "Maybe I'd end up captured and imprisoned. Certainly me and my mechwarriors would be dispossessed."

Dispossessed. From their reading and talks with Rick, the Cylons knew that meant mechwarriors who no longer had mechs to pilot. Knife Six consulted with the Cylons back on the basestar, which to the humans looked like she was lost in thought trying to decide their fate. Which was pretty much true.

"All right, Miss Adams," Knife Six said finally, her knife disappearing up her sleeve. "Since you've been so honest with us, we've decided to let you go." A wave of relief passed over the humans. "But we're keeping your Battlemechs and we'll be disarming this Dropship." That elicited a round of protests.

"You're going to leave us Dispossessed?" Adams demanded indignantly. "I'd rather die than..."

"By your command," the Centurion guarding her said, bringing a gun barrel up to her temple.

"WAIT!" Adams shouted quickly. The gun reached her head but didn't fire. "Uh, I think I'll uh, I'll..." She gritted her teeth and slowly ground out as if it was physically painful to her, "I'll take the dispossession." The Centurion lowered its gun.

"Relax, Miss Adams," Knife Six told her. "Just be thankful that we didn't take everything away from you. You still have this Dropship even if we do disarm it."

"It's not my Dropship," Adams said dully. "It's a rental."

There was a moment of silence as Knife Six stared down at her

"Then who..." Knife Six began, but someone in the back raised their hand.

"The Skipray is mine," the hand raiser said. "I just get paid to haul people and things places."


"Dispossession? Ouch," Rick said sympathetically. "You guys sure play hardball. Those mechs are a mercenary's livelihood. Without them, we're less than litter on the street."

"Maybe that will discourage other mercenaries from taking jobs against us," Six replied hopefully.

"They have to know they're taking jobs against you," Rick pointed out to her. "Gail clearly didn't."

"Damn, you're right," Six admitted. "That's going to be annoying."