Merendinoemiliano – thank you for the encouragement.

As they neared the Rising Sun mine, Winter prepared to use her semblance. In the light of the fact that there were surface to air missiles at the mine she preferred not to risk the lives of her men and decided to investigate the mine first by herself. They had lost the feed from the mine forty minutes earlier and her own instinct was that the White Fang would have departed. Certainly, the military bullhead which Major Bronze had brought with him had started moving twenty minutes before and was heading for the coast. Still, it was possible that they would have stragglers or would have left a few people behind for an ambush. She had brainstormed with Clover Ebi and Major Magenta what they considered the likely escape routes for the White Fang would be on the assumption that they would be seeking to leave Vacuo as soon as possible.

Heading to the coast had been one of possibilities discussed. It suggested that they had a vessel waiting to pick them up and as Atlas did not have a naval presence in Vacuo it would be hard to pursue them. Unless a vessel flagrantly flew the White Fang colours, they did not think that they could risk attacking any vessel which declined a request to divert to the nearest port. The likelihood was that the vessel would be crewed by Faunus who could pass for human and would claim to be a Vale or Mistralian vessel. Two years ago, an Atlesian patrol had been suckered into boarding a vessel from Menagerie because of intelligence that it was carrying arms to a small port within 100 miles of Argus. They had intercepted an encrypted signal that referred to the vessel carrying large quantities of cauliflowers and leeks. The intelligence division had concluded that this was code for guns and swords and had authorised an interception of the vessel at sea. Colonel Cordovin had obeyed the order with her customary enthusiasm and lack of tact. It turned out that the vessel was really carrying vegetables and had sued the Atlas military for piracy and theft.

Winter spoke to specialist Ebi and Major Magenta. Clover and the Ace-Ops were the nearest to the likely destination of the hijacked Atlas ship and had diverted to chase it. Major Magenta said, "I think is at best 50/50 as to whether the two bullheads are also heading in that direction, but we have to follow that bullhead. It is equally likely that they are heading for the border with Vale, and we do not have an active pursuit agreement with Vale. I am heading for the supply base which they originally came from. I hope that the massacre at the mine was not a policy decision and just reflected anger at shooting of the miner."

Specialist Ebi said, "I hope you are wrong on the first point and right on the second, sir."

Major Magenta said, "As do I. Captain Violetta is also chasing the stolen military vessel. Colonel Winter has ordered another four bullheads into the air each targeting a different area. However, the reality is that the three of us and captain Violetta are the only officers who have a realistic chance of intercepting them unless they have gone for a very unusual exit strategy. I will order her to liaise with you specialist Ebi. Winter report back after you have inspected the mine."

Winter turned to Lieutenant Amin, sergeant Hartnell and Mr Corkran. "We will over the mine shortly. I will order the pilot to keep the ship out of missile range and will reconnoitre relying on my semblance. A missile will find it hard to lock on to my Manticore."

She saw the sergeant and Corkran exchange glances and the Lynx Faunus nodded at the sergeant as if to say I will bite the bullet.

"Sir. Permission t' speak."

"Granted."

"I would suggest that we first check for Grimm. The last hour and a half will have resulted in a tsunami of negative emotions which will be calling in Grimm from twenty miles away. I anticipate that they are gathering t' attack the mine especially as the electrified fence is now inoperative. Second, there are likely t' be some extremely nervous Faunus down there and you are very recognisable. A Schnee riding a giant Grimm could result in ill-judged reactions if they are armed. I would respectfully suggest that Lieutenant Amin and a small squad make the first contact with the survivors while you me and the Sergeant are conspicuously seen to be dealing with the Grimm."

Sergeant Hartnell added, "I agree that the Grimm are likely to be gathering near the mine. There may be some truth in the suggestion that Lieutenant Amin with five soldiers will have advantages in reassuring the miners that they are not going to be punished for what the White Fang did. His semblance will also be useful if anyone decides that they have nothing to lose by attacking us and in dealing with any Grimm which get inside the perimeter."

Winter nodded. "Let us see how many Grimm are gathering, but I suspect that is what we will do. Mr Corkran, I will need your advice on Grimm behaviour in the desert and to keep an eye out for the wildlife."

In a couple of minutes, it became clear that the mine had turned into a Grimm magnet. She activated her semblance and moved to head them off.

/-/

Marrow walked through the gate of the mine noting the dead bodies. He saw a man he half-recognised and then realised it was Brian Thrush's nephew who he had met for dinner. He had been disconcerted by the removal of his distinctive haircut. It looked like the fight at the gate had been fairly even. His aura was fully activated, and he was ready to use his semblance. The troops accompanying him were ten paces behind him. Their weapons were ready to be used.

He stopped and looked around for people. He saw a human wearing a SDC pilot unform accompanied by a middle-aged Beaver Faunus emerge from one of the barracks. The Beaver Faunus was carrying a white pillowcase.

He raised his hand in salute and beckoned them forward. Once they had reached him he said, "Lieutenant Marrow Amin of the Atlas military. My commanding officer is dealing with the Grimm outside. Please could you let the survivors know as it will be helpful to reduce their anxiety levels.

The pilot said, "I am glad to see you. Please understand that the Faunus left here are merely workers caught up in something which they had no control over."

Marrow wagged his tail and he saw the Beaver Faubus relax. "That is what my commanding officer assumed. I presume that the White Fang has left in the bullhead they came in and in the Major's military bullhead."

The Beaver Faunus said "That is right. In addition, about half the miners left with them."

"Could you let the workers know that we understand that those left here where not responsible for what happened? How many of you are left at the mine?"

The Beaver Faunus said, "Fifty Faunus and four humans. Few of the Faunus who left really want to join the White Fang, but they were frightened that they would be blamed for what happened here, particularly what happened to the bodies."

The pilot said, "The Bear Faunus told me and the other pilot Jones that as we had not to his knowledge killed or tortured any Faunus and had complied with their orders, we would be allowed to live. The two other human survivors were kitchen staff who were hidden by some of the workers here. My name is Joe Grue."

Marrow said, "We will be debriefing you all at some stage, but for the moment we just want to check that those left are in a good condition. Are there any wounded who need immediate medical care?"

The Beaver Faunus said "Lieutenant Amin. We have plenty of corpses, but no one is seriously wounded. My name is Bill Amber. I have family in Mantle, and I would like to let them know that I am still alive." He looked at Marrow and said, "Pardon me for asking, but are you one of the convenience store Amins and did you compete at the Vytal festival."

Marrow said, "Yes. I am the third son of Andrew Amin, and I did compete at the Vytal festival."

"Good. That will help. I assume you would like us to surrender to you and to allow your men to check us for weapons?"

"Correct. I am afraid we have to work on the assumption that they could have left a fanatic behind who would want to take a few Atlas soldiers with him"

Bill Amber nodded and said, "Let me go back and speak to my fellow workers. If you wait for five minutes, I think I can persuade them to surrender peacefully to you and your men." He looked at Joe Grue, "I will leave you here. Do remember that none of us left here are to blame for what happened."

The Beaver Faunus limped up the road to the barracks which were more or less the only buildings left standing at the mine. The headquarters building was particularly devastated, but that had been where the armoury was and before the feed was broken they had seen a rocket launcher fired at the building set off a devastating explosion.

The Pilot said, "He is telling the truth. The White Fang only lost control when they saw the Atlas soldier shoot an unarmed Faunus in the back. It also did not help that the leader of the attack was in the bullhead the Mohawks shot down and was out of commission for most of the fight. For what it is worth, I do not think that any of those left came in with the attackers."

Marrow said, "We saw enough of what happened here so that we are not going to take it out on those who are left here. What is important is what you can tell us about their plans and how they managed it. I assume they hijacked you at the supply base."

"Correct. The leader was a bull Faunus who had been branded over one eye with the SDC initials. He said that he had been ordered not to lead the attack because of a concern that he would not be able to control his thirst for vengeance. He said that the rest of the crews of the bullheads and the staff at the supply base would be left alive but tied up. He said that unless the SDC and the Atlas military were stupider than he thought, they would work out that the ambush had been there and would send people to release them. The White Fang do have pilots who seem to be at least a little bit competent."

"Did they give any clue as to their escape route?"

"No. The Bull Faunus warned us against asking questions and they were careful not to talk about their escape plans in our presence. They did say that the main aim of this raid was to force Atlas and the multi-kingdoms to take them seriously and spend more on security."

The workers and the three other humans came out of the barracks. He was not certain whether he felt relieved or horrified that they all came out dressed only in their underwear. It was clear that there were no concealed weapons being carried which was good, but the fact that they thought it necessary to strip down was mortifying.

Marrow nodded at two soldiers who went to check out the barracks.

He then took a deep breath. He wondered how he could pitch the tone right so that he could reassure them without causing them to be fearful or deciding that he was lying to them. He decided that he could get away with "Too many individuals have already died today. I have no desire to add to the numbers. My commanding officer is dealing with the Grimm outside the mine and there will bullheads coming later this afternoon to evacuate you all."

He paused, "By the way, while I appreciate you making it easy for me to decide that you were not a threat, I would like you to put your trousers and shirts back on as soon as possible. Early afternoon in Vacuo is not a good time to be sunbathing."

The remark got a bigger laugh than it deserved. Still, he supposed that it meant that he was defusing the anxiety.

/-/

Ronald Rouge waited close to the landed bullhead. He hoped that he had distracted the Atlas forces sufficiently that the two civilian bullheads had made it to the rendezvous point. He had sent the six people who had travelled with him away on the bikes which they had found stored in the bullhead. He knew that at best he had a few hours left before he became delirious, but he hoped to take a few more Atlesians with him. Using the missiles from the military bullhead to blow up the mine had left him with some unused explosives. He had used the trip to prepare two bombs. The first was designed to go off when the Atlas military entered the bullhead and the second was designed to go off ten minutes later when the other soldiers were helping any survivors of the first bomb. He also had a mortar targeted at the spot which he had decided was the most likely place for an intercepting airship to land.

He knew intellectually he was in a state of shock and that the feelings of shame which were overwhelming him were not justified. Still, he could not avoid feeling that he had let Adam and Sienna down by being out of commission for most of the fight. It had also been his idea to distract the Mohawks and split their forces by having a small contingent arrive at the gate. That had gone horribly wrong. and the firing at the gates had alerted the guards that there was something wrong. After a few hours and what he had heard from the others the fact that there had been an explosion at the mine at the same time as the bullheads arrived was not something which could reasonably have been predicted.

Still the mutilated bodies meant that Atlas and the SDC would be able to focus on the barbarity and ignore the fact that the SDC had deliberately killed fifty workers to cover up a problem. He had suggested to Bruno that it was better to let the White Fang take the blame. The fact that most of the worst atrocities had been committed by the workers was not one which any good could come from by publicising. There was a big enough body of opinion in Atlas and Mistral which wanted to expel all Faunus to Menagerie as it was. There was even a faction in Vale which supported this aim, although they were a little more subtle about it. Agnes Winchester had said that during the Faunus Wars both sides had done things to each other which cannot be forgiven and that perhaps a degree of separation was the only way forward. Still the only kingdoms with territory to spare were Mistral and Vale and neither of them were willing to give up territory.

He hoped that Adam and sienna would agree that the harm cased to Faunus generally by the realisation that all the Stepin Fetchits were one insult away from running amok. As it was the last three years had seen the Atlesian elites redeploying their Faunus servants and the slums of Mistral, Vale and Mantle becoming less integrated and the wealthy humans in Mantle had moved to Atlas

He saw an Atlas military ship arrive and initially it seemed to be about to land in the place he had predicted. At the last minute it stopped its descent and simply circled the area. Ronald was glad that he was fairly well hidden from view. An hour later a second Atlas military ship came into sight. A soldier jumped from a ridiculous height and landed on the sand. Ronald stared at it. If he did not know better he would have sworn it was a robot. He then cursed to himself, it was not impossible that it was as Atlas had been at the forefront of military tech to make up for the lower numbers of citizen sit had compared to Vale and Mistral. Still blowing up a robot was better than nothing and there was still a chance that he could use the second bomb to kill soldiers.

The mechanical soldier approached the bullhead cautiously while the two aircraft continued to circle at a safe distance. Ronald waited until it had reached the bullhead and then set off the first bomb. There was a satisfying explosion, and the mechanical soldier was clearly no longer viable. He waited for the aircraft to land and for soldiers to approach the wreckage. He would be happy to settle for taking out some of the Atlas Forensic experts.

He was watching carefully when suddenly he found himself grabbed by unfeasibly long arms and someone swiftly arrived to disarm him and fire a tranquilliser into his chest.

A few hours later he woke up and saw a tall Atlesian male standing over him and said, "Good bomb and I did like the placement of the other two. I do like dealing with competent enemies. For you, Tommy the war is over."

Ronald smiled to himself, "The name is Ronny. I will not live long enough to be interrogated successfully."

The man replied, "I feel lucky. You have just been operated on by a first-class surgeon and his prognosis is that you will survive. Of course, only he, me and you know that you are alive."

/-/

It was evening in Atlas and General Ironwood was preparing for an emergency council meeting which he had called. The Atlas journalists did not bother with having correspondents in Vacuo and had accepted that kingdom security justified a delay on publishing the details. So far the SDC and the military had been able to get away with saying that there had been an incident at a mine in Vacuo, that the Atlas military and the SDC were investigating, and more details would be released when they were available and the next of kin had been notified. The announcement had been made just after the stock market had closed.

He had ordered Clover and Colonel White to take a flight back to Atlas to report to him in person as soon as they arrived. He would also need to speak again to Winter and Magenta, but they were needed in Vacuo to organise the pursuit of the terrorists, the investigation of the incident and the evacuation of the survivors. However, he accepted that unless they were extremely lucky the White Fang attackers would not be caught. One concern was that knowledge that the White Fang had successfully destroyed a SDC mine and murdered the management plus a senior officer could lead to riots in Mantle. He expected that it would be necessary to announce a curfew in Mantle tomorrow night.

He had still not decided what was the line he should take in the best interests of Atlas. For that reason, he had avoided activating his semblance until he had thought through the details. He was all too aware that while he believed that him exercising power was in the best interests of Atlas, there were other factors which meant that tunnel vision on that objective was not a good idea for the moment.

It was hard to work out what was the truth and what he should tell the council and the people of Atlas. The trouble was that he had until the morning news cycle to come up with a story which was sufficiently close to the truth not to fall apart within days while not being so complex that no one could make sense of it.

While it would be easy condemn the White Fang as murdering terrorists, he knew that the danger was that the rhetoric would get out of hand and phrases which emphasised that all Faunus were less than human and should be culled would quickly take over. No matter what he said he expected that there would be disturbances on the streets of Mantle, but he wanted to be able to control them.

He was desperate to avoid publicising the fact of the mutilations and the fact that many of them were inflicted by the workers rather than the White Fang. He was also desperate to avoid having to produce Major Bronze's little black book and camera or the shot of the CSM shooting the branded Faunus.

Equally he knew that downplaying what had happened too much would be counterproductive. There would always be some people who suspected that the government lied as a matter of course, but most people glazed over when they started ranting. If one lied as a matter of course, the concern was that rational people would begin to agree with the loonies or the bored people would start listening to them. People accepted that governments accentuated the positive, but if you went too far in eliminating the negative, doubts set in. There were too many soldiers who had seen the aftermath at the mine and there were too many dead soldiers and mineworkers with families to pretend that there had merely been a raid with a few casualties. He had no illusions that if they tried to hush things up totally then the footage from the security cameras which had been transmitted to him would be leaked by someone. Besides which the White Fang would soon be boasting about the raid. He needed to get Atlas's story out before they published their version of the proof.

He looked round the meeting table. John Marigold of Atlas Gold represented the interests of the multi-kingdoms and business as well as his own. George Campion represented old money and the old aristocrats. They were usually a solid block vote and could be relied on to demonise the White Fang. Sleet would go out of his way to try find a formula which differentiated the White Fang from Faunus generally and would warn against following the example of Mistral. Camilla was more difficult to predict. She would hate all the options on the table today and he rather hoped that he she would abstain on most of the votes which they were likely to have today.

He said, "I have called this emergency meeting to brief you about an incident at a SDC mine in Vacuo earlier today. While we are still in the process of gathering information, I can confirm that last might the White Fang took over an SDC supply base, hijacked three SDC cargo bullheads this morning and used them to launch an attack at the Rising Sun mine in Vacuo seven hours ago. The exact sequence of events at the mine is still being finalised, but in summary there was a battle between the White Fang and mine security plus a small group of Atlas soldiers who were coincidentally visiting the mine at the time. Initial reports are that while all the employees at the supply base survived and were treated in a reasonably civilised manner and two of the three bullhead pilots survived, the entire SDC personnel at the mine were killed or are missing presume dead apart from two of the catering staff. Major Bronze, his CSM, a pilot and four soldiers also died. The mine buildings apart from the worker's barracks have been destroyed and a military bullhead was destroyed. It is estimated that around fifteen members of the White Fang were killed."

He scanned their faces. All had known something had been happening in Vacuo, but this was far worse than they had been expecting.

"Clearly the White Fang has escalated its campaign significantly. They attacked us at a weak point. Atlesian corporations have significant operations in Vacuo, but they are widely spread out. The defences at the mines have been designed to deal with bandits attacking from the ground and with Grimm. They were not designed to deal with aerial attacks, although it appears that the SDC security team at the mine had acquired surface to air missiles which they used to shoot down one of the hi-jacked bullheads. They boasted to some of the people they captured that one of the main goals was to force the multi-kingdoms to significantly increase their expenditure on security and their safety protocols. My analysts are not convinced that they intended casualties to be as high as they were. Certainly, running into Major Bronze and a small team of soldiers was not something which could reasonably have been expected. They also seem to have expected that the management at the mine would have surrendered immediately as soon as they realised that they were being confronted by overwhelming force. While that does not excuse the slaughter, it at least reduces the likelihood that it was planned. There may be some other mitigating factors which we are seeking to verify at this time."

Merigold said, "Who cares? They murdered Atlas citizens and destroyed Atlas property. Condemn them as vicious animals, close down the White Fang front organisations, purge Atlas and Mantle of their supporters and put pressure on Vale to get off the fence."

Sleet said, "Around a third of the population of Mantle are Faunus. Many of the humans there are feeling discontented and already blame Faunus for low wages. Unless we handle the news carefully, there will be riots in the streets of Mantle. I do not want shops owned by Faunus having their shop windows broken or for Faunus to be lynched. The last thing we need is our own Dust Crystal Night. Besides which the Faunus in Mantle will fight back. Too many of them have done kingdom Service and have been trained how to defend themselves."

"Don't exaggerate, Sleet," barked Merigold. "I am sure we can rely on James to keep order provided we keep this quiet overnight."

Ironwood said, "If we spin this as being a deliberate massacre, I am not certain that I could keep the peace without either shooting humans or allowing the incidents feared by Councillor Sleet to take place. I would prefer not to put my officers in a situation where there is a real risk that their orders will not be obeyed. I am asking my analysts to look at this this evening, but my own view is that we need to distinguish between our Faunus and the members of the White Fang."

Camilla asked, "Why didn't the mine people just surrender? I know that most businesses have standing instructions to their employees not to actively resist the White Fang."

"My people in Vacuo are still investigating. I can confirm that it is SOP for the SDC not to defend against overwhelming force unless it is considered that deaths would result in any event. Jacques Schnee has confirmed this. There are some possibilities which they are looking into which might mean that they took the view that their best chance was fighting. However, before speculating openly, I want to see if there is evidence supporting these possibilities."

Merigold reacted angrily, "Frack Jacques Schnee and the SDC. If we have to say that his boys got a little trigger happy and started shooting after they had pretended to surrender to avoid riots in Mantle, then so be it. I still want a crackdown on the Faunus rights groups."

"I do not intend to accuse any Atlesian business of anything which it is not guilty off. If the evidence leads that way, then that is a different matter."

"He is guilty of something. Ironwood, were you expecting this? My managers in Vacuo alerted me that the SDC went into lockdown mode last night and that you warned him to increase security at his mines.."

"We had a tip off from Vale that a person of interest had been spotted heading towards Vacuo. If the Faunus in question is telling the truth, then he has good reason to hate the SDC. We had no intelligence suggesting that a squad of in excess of 60 fighters were in Vacuo and until last night had assumed that the aim was assassination or a bombing attack against the SDC Vacuoan headquarters building. One or two other odd things came to light and Colonel White and Major Magenta decided that it was appropriate to carry out an impromptu training exercise today and warned all Atlesian owned mines of the risk of trouble. This meant that a bullhead containing Captain Schnee, a Lieutenant and twenty troops was 95 minutes flying time away from the mine when the attack started. They arrived as quickly as they could, but the White Fang had left thirty minutes earlier."

Sleet said, "It seems fortunate that you had troops in the air at all. Was there any reason Colonel White chose today to run a training exercise?"

Ironwood replied, "A mid-ranking executive had gone on safari with two young Faunus women from Mistral one of who had come to the attention of our people in Vacuo. They played a hunch and decided that if it was suspicious they would launch a raid before he became an officially missing person."

Merigold harrumphed, "How could you miss 50 hostiles?"

Sleet pre-empted Ironwood's reply, "It is not our kingdom. We are lucky they allow us a military presence at all. The Vacuoans can't be bothered to have a proper government of their own but refuse to allow anyone else to control them."

Ironwood said, "That is broadly correct. Vacuo is in any event a low priority for our intelligence agencies. They are not a threat to us as a kingdom and until today the White fang has not carried out operations in Vacuo. Much of the population is nomadic and believes in keeping to themselves. Unless the forces had come through Vacuo City itself, our operatives would not have encountered them. Certainly, we heard no rumours that the White Fang had anything like this in the pipeline, although we knew they were likely to escalate their activities sooner or later."

Campion turned to Sleet, "If you can forego saying I told you so, I promise to listen to your views more carefully this time on how we should deal with the White Fang and the Faunus rights groups" This surprised Ironwood.

Sleet nodded and said, "Thank you. I will give it some thought, but I would suggest that we only go after the more obvious White Fang fronts. Ironwood, I understand that you are still gathering information. I assume that we will meet before any official announcement is made?"

"We will need to make an announcement for the 7 AM news cycle. I would propose a meeting at 4.30 AM."

Camilla said, "How about 6?"

Campion said, "Unless we are going to rubberstamp his draft announcement, it has to be 4.30. Do you really think that you will that much more information available then?" This really surprised Ironwood, to his surprise the man had clearly learnt how to think.

"Yes. Specialist Ebi and Colonel white will be here in three hours. Captain Schnee and Major Magenta will report to me by secure scroll. Captain Schnee has been in charge of the investigation at the mine

Merigold asked, "What do you think the effect of this attack will be on Atlas businesses and security?"

Ironwood replied, "In Vacuo alone it means that each supply base will need a new perimeter fence and an armed detachment guarding them. This may require a consolidation of bases and for the multi-kingdoms to share facilities. There will need to be new security protocols which are regularly changed, and we will need to increase number of troops in Vacuo by 50% and establish three new secondary bases so that any mine we are called on to defend is no more than an hour's flight from a mine. That is assuming that the Vacuoans accept this increase. We will need to renegotiate the contribution to expenses made by the multi-kingdoms. More generally, we will need to beef up security at all the Atlas embassies, invest more in intelligence operations and increase airport and train station security. "

Merigold said, "That is major capital expenditure by the government which will need to be funded somehow. There will need to be major expenditure by the multi-kingdoms. We will not oppose anything reasonably necessary, but government should bear in mind that we will have our own capital expenditure to fund. In some cases, it may be cheaper to close down operation rather than incur the expenditure. You can also forget about checking to see whether the rest of us has been as unprincipled as the SDC. We cannot afford to increase costs now, let alone make payments for imagined past wrongdoings"

Sleet shouted, "It is because of attitudes like that we have this problem. Apologies Campion, but I told you that hanging the Belladonnas out to dry would bite us in the ass. If it was not for the fact that you refused to negotiate then we would not be where we are today. You are now asking that your workers and the Atlas taxpayer subsidise the result of your mistakes"

Camilla interjected, "This is a debate which we will be having for the next six months but cannot resolve now. You have both set out your positions and I can understand where both of you are coming from."

Merigold said, "let Jacques Schnee pay for it. His minions branding activities are what caused this crusade against capitalism. Cut the movement off at its knees and confiscate the SDC holdings."

Ironwood did his best to keep a straight face. Campion had grimaced – the one thing guaranteed to wind up an aristocrat was to talk about confiscating wealth. Sleet hated Merigold anyway and Camilla found his naked greed distasteful at the best of times. To be fair, she was not a greedy person and did not solicit gifts. She did not exactly push them away, but they were for contributions to costs rather than cash and were never more than 5,000 lien.

Sleet asked, "How many of the dead came from Atlas. For the avoidance of doubt, Atlas includes Mantle."

"All the soldiers. Captain Schnee is checking on the mine staff, although she said that one of the miners had said that they were mostly Mistralian. However, I am reluctant to pass our lynching problem over to Mistral."

Merigold said, "I assume that Major Bronze will be proclaimed a hero and given a posthumous medal?"

"I would be surprised if he does not. Are you suggesting he might not be?"

"No, my subordinates told me that he was a very obliging officer and many preferred dealing with him to dealing with Magenta or White."

Ironwood realised then that Merigold had focused on this incident as being a way to take out the SDC rather than engaging mind on protecting his own position. He was broadly hinting that Bronze was corrupt and that unless he played ball, Merigold would leak this information.

Camilla said, "General. You have given us a lot to think about. We will reconvene at 4.30. I do ask that all we bear in mind that while the public may accept minor variations on our announcement tomorrow, we had better make sure that we do not say anything which we need to walk back on because it is clearly a lie or because it is slightly better to double down on it rather than acknowledge we were wrong. If we tell lies tomorrow we only tell crucial lies. For example, if Bronze was corrupt, then do not go all in on him being a hero."

Ironwood replied, "Please do ask me difficult questions and scroll them to me tonight. I will try and answer them tomorrow morning."

/-/

Later that night Adam was heading towards Sienna Khan's headquarters in Mistral with Blake, Bruno, and Julie. He had to trust that the tech had reprogrammed the bullhead so that it was no longer clearly a SDC craft and that the customised spray job proclaiming the craft to be the Chevalier Du Ricci would not excite suspicion. Blake had played him the theme song from the Flashing Blade, and he knew that Sienna would get the reference. The mission had come so close to being a total success and would have been if he had been there or had not listened to the suggestions for refinements. It was clear to him that if it had not been for the firing at the gates, the White Fang would have landed all three bullheads before anyone realised what was going on.

Now it was a matter of getting the information back to Sienna. Experience had taught the White Fang that scrolls were not a secure means of communication. Unfortunately, they had not prearranged a code for the mixture of success and failure which had resulted on this mission.

Sorry for the delay in the update, but I had to rewrite this twice. I will claim my Ironwood is the man who sent a prosthetic arm to a girl who he had wrongly accused as well as the extremist who will do what he thinks necessary to defend Atlas. I also had not realised how interesting I would find playing out the atlas politics could be, especially when I realised that Jacques Schnee was not necessarily the worse game in town.