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SLS Texas
Tamar Orbit
"Okay." Amanda looked down the length of the conference table, her hand resting on the arm of Victor's life-support chair. Her staff, her staff looked back at her. A dozen men and women, two-thirds of them in uniform, letting fall the decision of 'what next' to a girl only just sixteen-years old and her crippled twin brother who, depending on how you looked at it, were Director-General of the Terrain Hegemony, which no longer existed, and First Lord of the Star League which hadn't existed in almost as long as the Hegemony. "What do we have? How much do they know?"
"As to the second, they know a lot, and they know nothing," Lawrence Thompson was one of those in civilian clothes. The senior member of the Ministry of Communications.
"Explain."
"We came in on the ecliptic," Murakama answered, "and deliberately put the system primary between us and Tamar. And we jumped well-outside the Fuchida Limit. That definitely increased flight-time, but it's also non-standard as hell, which reduced the number of eyes that might have been looking at us. Even after we made orbit, we had many of our electronic deception equipment active."
"Which may have prevented them from getting a good emission read, but nothing to stop them from pointing an old-fashioned optical telescope at us," Carson said.
"A lot of people saw our ships in orbit," Thompson acknowledged. "But WarShips, compact KF-drive ships in general, became extinct over a century ago. There are none left in the Inner Sphere. Zero."
"So you mean they didn't recognize our ships for what they were?" Murakama asked.
"Many, no," Thompson said. "Some, yes. But keep in mind, Birkenhead was destroyed as we settled into orbit. Whoever destroyed her had to have a good enough read on her course to do that, which suggests some fairly high-end equipment. But at the same time that limited our exposure to lesser-quality equipment.
"Second, Birkenhead's destruction was very noisy, and you took pains to scatter our surviving vessels beyond range of threat—and identification. We lit off with a full electronic warfare package that would have been nasty for our tech to deal with, let alone their stuff, and that was coupled with the assault raining down. Most were, at best, very distracted. The HPG was jammed so it never got a transmission off, and we captured it—and its memory cores—intact. All reference has been deleted, and the physical medium itself destroyed.
"Third, I activated Mirror Box. That's a two-stage deception program that first infiltrated their data-networks and first spammed image-hosting sites, news feeds, and the like with hundreds of false pics. These images were given a chance to propogate, and then a limited virus self-extracted and hashed everything stored with them. It didn't destroy the images, but trying to reconstruct them to a state usable enough to separate out reality from fiction, and then make class IDs, let alone individual IDs necessary to generate total numbers, would take a first-class SLDF laboratory months."
"Dammit, if they think we launched a cyberwarfare attack they'll—"
"Do what, General?" Thompson asked.
"We need them!"
"The way they've backslid over the last few centuries they need us more," Thompson said.
"And the infrastructure attack?"
"What attack?" Amanda asked, trying to exert control over the meeting even as it threatened to slip away.
"Someone," Carson's tone said there was no doubt in his mind who it was, "unleashed a binary virus on the local digital network."
"It wasn't me or my people. The coding is wrong. Or rather, it's right for Tamar, wrong for us."
"What do you mean?" Amanda asked.
"If I were to come up with that kind of virus, it'd be effective against, well, the systems I'm familiar with. The stuff we use. The problem is how far technology in general has regressed. My code would have been…too advanced. Oh, it'd definitely cause problems, but not to the extent we're seeing on the surface. My people are still tearing apart the sequestered archives we grabbed from the HPG station, but I'd be surprised if we didn't find it or something like it in there."
Winters nodded grudgingly, followed a half-moment later by Murakama.
"We've talked to those who could've seen us, as many as could be had, and they don't understand what all we have. That we have some…let's call them 'unusual assets' is purely obvious, but I'd think it very likely that nobody is quite certain what we have. I expect there will be a lot of confusion, a lot of wild speculation and guesses thrown around. Some may suggest we have WarShips, personally I'd think the presence of a hospital ship to be pretty firm evidence, but I expect those who seriously consider WarShips will be laughed at or scorned until definitive proof is offered."
"Why?" Murakama asked. "I'm not disagreeing, necessarily, but it seems…unlikely."
"And the absence of local assets should make what we do have seem like…like…"
"Finding Atlantis?" Carson asked. "Or maybe the lost city of gold?"
"Toss in the Holy Grail, the Ark of the Covenant, the Raiden; and the truth about the Kennedy Assassination, Rosewill sightings, and General Gaffa and you might be closer," Winters said. "The people here just don't think in those kind of terms anymore, Ariel. What about the HPG?"
"The Ministry of Communications has been folded into 'ComStar,'" Thompson said. "They're officially neutral and have solo responsibility for maintaining and operating HPGs. It's a monopoly. There's some quasi-religious claptrap, and some apocalyptic stuff that's pretty bleak reading. I'm not sure if they are responsible for 'preserving technology for mankind's use' or…reducing the level of technology outside their direct control so that mankind has to come to them for technology."
"Ick," Amanda said.
"Agreed."
"You think ComStar is responsible," Victor rasped.
"For both the Silver Tower incident, and the virus?" Thompson asked. "Yes. Birkenhead was rather stupid on their part, but their historical archive wasn't nearly as well protected as their sequestered archive. My read of what I've had a chance to look at, they haven't been above um…reducing mankind's technological footprint."
Murakama nodded slowly. "So between our approach, and E-war systems, the destruction of Birkenhead, the dispersal of ships and full active E-War barrage, the force and violence of our reaction, and Mirror Box with this…secondary virus means you think that while our complete Order of Battle is in a potential enemy's hands, actually separating it out of the murk is going to be a long and laborious process?"
"Yes," Thompson said.
"What about Steiner?" Carson asked. He looked pointedly at the officer—the only local-time person present.
"We ran his DropShip's bridges, and purged both astro and sensor data," Murakama said.
Amanda frowned, "But you called him…"
"More to keep him from trying to rush his droppers' command decks than any real need," Murakama conceded. She turned to the officer in question. "Sorry."
"No apology necessary," he said evenly. "I'm still your…guest."
"That's a polite term for 'hostage,'" Amanda said. "Isn't it?"
"Sometimes," Steiner said as the other officers and civilians looked at her in consternation. "Do you feel the need for one?"
"Not particularly," Amanda said. "If we gave you parole, you couldn't discuss what you'd seen while in our company, correct?"
"That's a rather old principal of honor," Steiner said.
"Which could be discarded in service of pragmatism," Winters said. "No offense."
"I realize we must look…different, in your eyes," Steiner said. "The loss of technology, the repeated devastating wars to ends that must seem…foreign. But we do still conduct ourselves with honor, General."
Winters winced, but then nodded. "Fair point."
"On the other hand, honesty compels me to add that 'honor' can have very different meanings to different cultures. Where my own would fall, if I were to give you my word not to discuss what I'd seen while your guest, and if the Archon and First Prince were to ask me directly, I cannot say. Not until put to the test."
"That's fair enough," Amanda said. "My advisors will no doubt insist that you remain our guest. For myself, I would ask that you continue to advise us on the…let's call it the current reality of human-occupied space."
"I'm more familiar with some parts than others," Felix Steiner replied. "But so long as I believe it serves the interest of the Federated Suns, I will do so. And when I don't believe it can, if it comes to that, I will inform you so."
"Thank you," Amanda said. "General Winters?"
"Okay," Winters said. "What about on the ground?"
"I kept our most battered units well away from prying eyes," Carson said. "The arty units were all socked away in firebases, the battle armor never deployed, and most of the aerospace assets stayed in space. They probably have a good deal of optical image-capture of some of our mech and armor assets, but our ECM was probably enough make trying to figure out which can do what another long exercise in patience. If they assume that our equipment is equally capable across the board, that kind of refinement is impossible."
"And Silver Tower?"
"Maybe," Thompson said. "Outside of ComStar, probably not. Even those that understand the principles behind how an HPG works don't seem to understand how it could affect in-system assets. But ComStar itself clearly does. Whether this attack was ordered from higher, or one rouge station commander, is more than I can say."
"Okay, so we're pretty secure. What about the Director-General's first question?"
Bruce Carmichael was another civilian, and effectively their head of supply. Now he leaned forward and raised a solitary index finger.
"Bruce?" Amanda asked.
"I set some people to preparing a general survey after the…incident. When we talked over Planting I had a bare-bones outline of our assets. I now have a preliminary report that it much more complete, though many details remain to be filled out."
"Noted," Murakama said impatiently.
"One of the things we have, Admiral that I did not yet previously discuss, and have not yet quantified, is knowledge. The medical technology onboard even one of the Dove-class ambulance DropShips surpasses that of much of the Inner Sphere. The Mercy itself puts all of the most advanced emergency trauma centers to shame. Not one, all of them. Oh, the number of beds they have, the number of patients they can treat are higher in absolute terms, but Mercy can heal people faster, more completely, and save a great many that the Inner Sphere would consider hopeless cases. There are some specialized fields, oncology for example, where Mercy is not as well suited, but even there our medical databases are far more complete than the rest of the Inner Sphere.
"Our access to knowledge, if not technology, in other areas is similarly high compared to the rest of the sphere. Fusion engines, communications, radar, computer support… Our everyday technologies, mind you. Your personal data-slate you use off-duty is at least as advanced as what the wealthiest individuals, leaders of member-states, or those in the most highly-advanced R&D labs, have access to. That minimum is on our end. In all likelihood, it is considerably more advanced than what those same individuals have. Our sensitive military technologies are that much greater again. And that doesn't begin to address the knowledge and experience our personnel have."
"You've made your point," Amanda cut in smoothly. "Continue."
"Okay," Carmichael shrugged. "By our own standards our preparedness sucks. On paper we have ten regiments each of cavalry and marines, thirteen of various types of artillery, and, well, the Legion. I'll come back to our WarShips. Of those, the 3d Cavalry was our most intact formation to come through the Event. Personnel and equipment-wise, each regimental unit ranges from thirty-five percent of book strength, to eighty percent. But…our people are tired, and our equipment worn."
"Fourteen years of combat will do that," Murakama said.
"But this unit wasn't meant for combat, not its core assets," Carmichael said. "That we had no choice is neither here nor there. But the core assets had, have, one responsibility, the protection of the First Lord…or Lady."
"We've fought when we had no choice," Winters said smoothly.
"And when we did," Jackson said.
Amanda regarded the man wearing the uniform of a Rim Worlds Republic Major General save for the missing nameplate over his right breast. "Reclaiming your honor was not a choice, Jackson," she said softly.
"I could have chosen not to, but then I wouldn't be in this mess," he noted.
"Dark," Victor wheezed.
"Gallows humor usually is," Jackson noted. "Kit, I don't know about you or…whoever is going to step up for Jim now, but materially we suck." He turned back to Amanda. "It's not just destroyed equipment, Ma'am. A lot of our stuff we were planning on recycling for scrap. Keeping it running will be a real trick."
"Noted," Carmichael said. "Also keep in mind that it isn't homogenous."
"What do you mean?" Felix Steiner asked.
None of them had been comfortable with the idea of bringing a local into the discussion, especially not one as highly ranked, and highly placed, as the commander of the 41st Avalon Hussars. Amanda had decided that they didn't have a choice. They needed someone who knew the local terrain.
"How much do you know about the SLDF?" Winters asked. "In particular, our logistics setup?"
"Not much," Steiner admitted after a moment.
"Okay, very broadly this was how it was supposed to work." Winters grinned and most of those in uniform did as well. "The Royal Command would get the best gear. When a new technology cycle happened, what they had—the tech, not necessarily the actual equipment—would be passed on to the regular army. The regulars in turn would pass their stuff on to the member-states. Supposedly it was going to all the member states, but in practice it only went to…" he drummed the table once.
"Understood," Steiner said.
"Practice was…more complicated," Winters said. He looked slowly around the table. "The cutting edge stuff went to a testing command, and the stuff they approved got passed on to the Blackwatch, and from the Blackwatch down to the Royals for testing and evaluation for the SLDF to adopt. And not everything the Blackwatch fielded was adopted. There were things that even the Star League could afford for a Regiment, but not for the entire Royal Command, let alone the SLDF." His fingers began to slowly tap the table and his words came slower, more deliberately. "And there were three…call 'em cycles. Royal A cycle got upgraded first, then B, then C. Six cycles among the regular army. It helped spread out the logistic bottlenecks. Materially there was supposed to be no difference between Royal A and Royal C once everyone had been upgraded, or Regular 1 and Regular 6, but that way we weren't trying to ship new material across all of human-inhabited space at once."
"Supposed to be?" Steiner asked.
"Well…sometimes a piece of tech would come along and rather than go back and distribute it to Royal A, they went ahead and gave it to Royal C first, then A, then B."
Steiner nodded slightly.
"The regiments, the units we have, were originally testing units for the Black Watch, about company size, mostly. We…recruited up to strength after the coup, but we ordered equipment runs before the Periphery went up. They weren't full-scale SLDF runs, of course, but they were large enough to keep us in bullets. For that matter, the Black Watch was always…caching stuff away, just in case. And not just on Terra. There are equipment sets all over the place."
Steiner nodded again.
"Our equipment list is, effectively, what it was at the beginning of the civil war. Or at least as close to it as we managed to keep which is, honestly, not very. But it means we have a lot of diversification in or TOE from regiment to regiment. The Hexapumas and Direcats the 3d used on Planting? They're the only unit that has them because the 3d was the only unit testing them. A lot of the other units are in the same boat. Just enough to kick ass, but not enough to make a difference, and different enough to make it hard to act in conjunction. We tended to split assets off on an as-needed basis for the main armies."
"Why not make yourself more homogenous?"
"Well, it's like Carmichael and Jackson said," Winters replied with a shrug. "Our primary purpose was to keep Amanda and Victor alive. Refitting everyone would have been a diversion of resources away from the front. Since we weren't supposed to end up in combat, there wasn't much point, only we ended up as a sort of floating strategic reserve."
"And the Legion?" Steiner asked. "That is one point I am not too clear on. You clearly regard its assets as distinct from your primary ground troops."
"The Legion is a mess of volunteers," Murakama said. "No offense, Jackson, but it is."
"Oh, I agree." Jackson turned to Steiner. "I could make it a joke and say the Legion is a dumping ground for those looking to prove something, mostly by getting killed. And it'd be true, to a degree. But actually it was where Kerensky dumped units of volunteers. Individual volunteers from member states were grouped into the regular units, but Kerensky thought of the Star League as a super-nation-state and it wasn't. It acted like one sometimes, but…it wasn't. No offense, Amanda."
"The truth hurts, we live with it and deal," she replied evenly.
Jackson nodded and turned back to Steiner. "My point is, individual volunteers were assets, but he saw formations that volunteered as a potential internal threat to both the Star League and the internal homogeneity of purpose of the SLDF. So they were grouped into the Legion where he could keep the people he didn't trust concentrated, isolated, and still at hand for when he needed to shove someone into a meat grinder. There are also several corporations that were running high-tech R&D programs in anticipation of future SLDF contracts that managed to escape and have more or less signed on.
"As for the Legion itself, well, at its core is what is left of my division. The 23rd Rim Worlds Republican Guards Division."
Steiner's mouth dropped open. "Rim?" he squeaked.
Jackson smiled bitterly. "Kerensky wanted us, needed me, as examples. We were his excuse, you see. If we could make the choice to be upright and honorable and turn against the monster we had sworn allegiance to, then every other rimmer was guilty of not making that choice and could be…dealt with and it wouldn't really be an atrocity. They gave him no choice, you see? Of course, he didn't want us too close to his army. We might contaminate them. Make them think that rimmers somehow didn't deserve to be exterminated."
"Many of the member states had units that weren't prepared to just…sit by the wayside," Winters cut in. "We started with a 'regiment' of a dozen Sword of Light battalions, for example."
"Sword of L—Dracs?"
"Samurai," Winters corrected wryly. "Did you know they once had five battalions in each regiment? I understand that they've only mustered four ever since."
"What about infantry and aerospace fighters?" Amanda asked.
"Infantry is limited," Winters said. "There is some organic to the cavalry, dismounts and the like, and several of the Marines are classed as infantry regiments, but those are specialized troops for maritime environments."
"I have two regiments of infantry left in my division, and the Ceti Hussars are a combined-arms unit. There are some others here and there, but on the whole, not as much as we would like," Jackson offered
"Fighters are…similar," Winters said. "We have enough space-based assets, more than enough, probably. But the Nessies don't handle ground-support well. Or rather, their fighter assets weren't designed or intended for atmospheric combat. That limits our in-atmosphere fighter support."
"Okay," Amanda said. "So what we're hearing is that even with our worn-out equipment and with fourteen years of combat exhaustion we can kick the ass of any Inner Sphere unit we want to fight?"
"Yes," Winters said flatly. "Oh, we'll get hurt in the process, if the other team is big enough, but even sitting the WarShips out we'll win unless the other side has both the numbers and willingness to accept the kinds of casualty it'll take to win."
"Alright, speaking of WarShips…" Amanda arched an eyebrow at Carmichael.
"As I said, there are no compact core ships remaining in operation in the Inner Sphere," Carmichael said. "Well…none known to be operating. The Member States blew the hell out of each other's WarShip fleets and the drive technology has been lost. We know what was in the major fleet groups after the Liberation, and the Mars and Titan Fleet Yards, and the various other Fleet Yards, Assembly Areas, Naval Reservations, and Fleet Anchorages. We have to assume Kerensky took every hull that was operable with him, but there were quite a few out of commission, wrecked, or badly damaged that he would have been forced to leave behind. Some of those could possibly have been salvaged and are floating around in deep space, but…" he shrugged slightly.
"It'll take an eyeball examination to determine what's left," Murakama said.
"What about the automated facilities?" Winters asked.
"There were maybe a handful of people Kerensky really let in close," Murakama replied. "DeChavilier was one of them. He ended up on the SDS oversight board when he was at the Citadel."
"So?" Steiner asked.
"The man was a dinosaur," Murakama said. "Sometimes I thought that he regarded a fusion plant as a bottle with a djinn inside of it. He hated the Caspers, he didn't understand them, and to the best of my knowledge Kerensky wasn't close to any of the naval officers familiar with the system…or any decent naval combat commander at all which probably explains the ship losses we took."
"You think he destroyed all of the automated stations?" Amanda asked.
Murakama shook her head. "The stations, the drones, all of the documentation he could get his hands on… It would not surprise me if either of them had the actual project personnel terminated."
"His own people?"
"You weren't there, General Steiner," Murakama said. "You've heard stories. The drones were monsters, and they killed a lot of my friends. But they were monsters because Kerensky made them monsters...and made them ones that Amaris was able to co-opt." She shook her head. "I suppose it's possible that some of the automated stations might have survived. I doubt any of the manned deep-space facilities did, or, if they are, remain functioning."
"What's the procedure in this situation?" Amanda asked.
Murakama chuckled hollowly. "There isn't one. Nobody ever anticipated this situation."
"Admiral…"
"Probably a routine status query, at which point we'd get an automated response."
"Directed to us?"
"Directed to NavCom," Murakama said. "Hmm. We could just ask it to dump into the automated queue. Everyone would be able to read it that way, though."
"Not if it was encoded."
"Assuming that the Fleet Codes aren't historical records no," Murakama acknowledged.
"Could we have any response scrub communication data?" Thompson asked. "It stands to reason that if any such facility is online and not occupied it is because no one knows where it is."
"We should be able to do that," Murakama agreed. "Amanda, you'll need to authorize it."
"Done," Amanda agreed. "And put together a list of the closest bases. We'll need to check to see if any automated facilities are just offline, and if any of the manned stations are useful. Where are we materially?"
"Badly in need of maintenance overhaul," Murakama said. "The equipment isn't in bad shape, there isn't a list of unfixed combat damage for example. Aside from the damage we took when Birkenhead blew, of course. It just…needs a lot of maintenance that crews can't do, or at least can't do while their ships are operational. The crews need shore leave, preferably on-planet. Even with our medical tech there is only so much that time on a grav-deck will do. I really hate to think about what long-term micro-G is like for your spacers, General Steiner."
The General nodded slightly.
"Compared to how everyone else in the Inner Sphere is doing? We're in pretty good shape," Murakama went on. "And, of course, we have Prometheus and Vulcan. Assuming we find ourselves a secure area with appreciable resources, we should be in very good shape in the long run…if we have time."
"What about against the Clans?" Steiner asked.
"I don't know," Murakama said. "Oh, I could've killed that WarShip they had over Planting. But I don't know how much they've upgraded over the last few centuries. Until we actually fight them I'm not sure there's any way of knowing. On the upside, Naval technology doesn't…mature as quickly as ground-tech. That's why there was no 'Royal Command' in the Navy. There might not have been sufficient time for them to come up with weapons that can blot my ships away without breaking a sweat. Not" she added quickly, "that I think that's likely of course."
"Even the Nessies?" Winters asked.
"Well…" Murakuma grinned wryly.
"Excuse me," Steiner interjected, "but what exactly are the Nessies? You've mentioned them before?"
The others at the table traded looks.
"That's restricted, General Steiner," Amanda said formally. "We all greatly appreciate your contributions but…"
"I understand…My Lady," Steiner said.
"Thank you." Amanda turned back to Winters. "Okay, how does our equipment compare to the Clans?"
"Our top-end equipment is about as good," Winters said. "They've got better energy weapons, we've got better ballistics. We got around the minimum-range missile problem by making better ammo, it looks like most of their changes are in the launcher. Extensive changes. Our engines are better, mostly because we were able to skimp on rad-shielding by using an aneutronic fuel, their modular tech makes them faster to repair as well as their ability to reconfigure their base loadouts. That last point would be a huge advantage in a long-running battle, even if it's only distributed to their front-line units which from the garrison they were putting in that we captured on Plantings seems to be the case, but their doctrine seems almost exclusively geared towards very short, very sharp engagements. I'm not sure why.
"The problem is that we have a lot of equipment that isn't our best. The regular army stuff equipping Jackson's division, for example, is better than anything in the Inner Sphere, but it just isn't as good on a ton-for-ton basis as the stuff the woofies are throwing around.
"I have some people crunching numbers to see just where that differences are amongst our various units, but one area that we are flat out better is our Intelligence."
"Explain," Amanda said.
"The simple version is that we spend a lot of effort making sure our individual people have the best understanding of the situation around them," Winters said. "That translates into a lot of things, most boiling down to our soldiers being able to shoot more accurately on an individual level, and coordinate with those around them on a unit level. For some reason they Clans seem to struggle with that. I can't see why it'd be a problem on a technical level. I have a team working on that too."
"Is this…intelligence technology wide-spread?"
"To greater or lesser degree, yes," Jackson said. "I don't have the full-up virtual cockpits the Cav's vertols do, for example, or their mech equivalent. But what I do have is better than anything the regular army had, and it's compatible with our better-equipped units."
"So what you are saying is that we can fight them if we have to. Our best units can probably win, but at high cost?"
"That's the material situation, Ma'am," Winters corrected. "There are some…call 'em tactical oddities we've seen out of the woofies. I don't know how wide-spread it is, right now we just have the two data-points. For that matter we don't know that it extends to all of these Clans or if it is just an artifact of the woofies in particular."
"What kind of tactical oddities?" Carmichael asked.
"Coordination," Carson said. "They maneuver their units well, but when they actually engage, it's one-on-one. We'll pick a target and three or four mechs will give it a bad day. They…it isn't every man for himself. If it was we'd still see instances of two people engaging the same target. They…don't. They very deliberately coordinate so that every soldiers engages his own target. We aren't sure why. Just like the bargaining thing General Winters went through over Planting. And they actually did it. It's…weird."
"Exploitable?" Amanda asked.
"Potentially, yes," Winters agreed. "But I want to know more about why they are doing it before I try to take deliberate advantage of them."
"Why?"
"Because it'll be pretty obvious when we do set out to take advantage," Winters said. "If it's part of a religious mandate, for example, stomping on it could provoke a disproportionate response and we can't be sure that that response would be directed at us…or someone else. If their answer to heresy is a nuke…"
"Unlikely," Amanda said. "But I understand your point."
"In space…as Ariel said, we'll need to determine just how good their ships are."
Amanda nodded again, though more slowly. "The Chair," she said, "will now entertain suggestions on where we go from here."
"Tharkaad," Steiner said.
"That's away from the front!" Carson objected.
"Our troops need a break, Kit," Winters said. "They'll fight if we ask, and some of them are in better shape than others, but you know some of our people are toeing the line. Some are over it. And being on-ship not knowing when or even if you'll be dropped into it isn't helping. We had some incidents on Tamar. A couple had real potential to turn ugly."
"We're going to need support," Carmichael said. "A place to R&R, material, the troops are going to want to be paid somehow… I can just imagine what it's going to be like trying to get at an account two and a half centuries old, assuming any of the banks are still standing."
"That means we need to give them a reason to support us," Jackson countered. "Which is what, we fight the clans or sell our technology?"
"No," Amanda said firmly. "No, General, Jackson, we won't be selling our technology." She turned to Steiner. "But nor will we be moving to Tharkaad. This task force is the last vestige of the Star League, General. As the Star League was a beacon entrusted to our Father to be kept burning brightly for all mankind, so it has been passed to Victor and myself. Daddy may have failed, but I will die first."
"If you die, we'll be dead too," Winters said evenly, "and worse, failed in our mission."
"Yes," Amanda's voice remained level. "But if I don't at least try, then I'll have failed. This—" she tapped the table with the knuckles of her right hand, "—this is Daddy's fault. All of it. All of the death and destruction for the last three centuries is his fault! And Amaris'. And Kerensky for not raising Daddy like he was supposed to and not stopping Amaris before the coup, and for abandoning the Star League….
"These people can't replace worn-out JumpShips, their medical technology is something out of the Age of War, planets have been sterilized, water purification technology has all but vanished, worlds that we made habitable aren't any more…"
"The Star League wasn't perfect."
Amanda looked at the woman seated at her right who had, until now, been silent. Christine McCay was her tutor and, effectively, Chief of Staff. And when Amanda had first broached the idea of this meeting, the teen had been surprised to find McCay telling her that she'd have to lead it alone. She hadn't understood then—regarded it almost as a betrayal, actually—but now Amanda could only stare in wonder. She'd made mistakes, she knew she had, and she knew McCay would tear them apart to expose their faults, for how she should have done things better. But that, and this, was how McCay could help her. She said she wanted to grow, and whether or not McCay agreed with her, she'd do her best to help. Even if it meant throwing a pair of teenagers into shark-infested waters.
"No it wasn't," Amanda found herself saying in a small voice. "It failed all too often, and seldom lived up to the letter, let alone the spirit, of its promises. But it was better than this."
McCay nodded wordlessly.
Amanda turned back to Winters. "You let Jackson fight to regain his honor. Will you deny me and Victor the same?"
The silence crackled.
"No," Winters said after a long while. "No, I won't do that. Okay, My Lady, where do you want to go?"
"Not to the capital of a Member State," Amanda said. "Even a regional capital was probably a mistake if a military justifiable one. We need a neutral system, or at least a system with the appearance of neutrality. I'd very much like to return home, but if they're anything like the people controlling the HPG station I don't think we can trust them. Besides," she added lightly, "Terra hasn't gone anywhere since we left, it should still be there when the time is right.
"We need a system where the troops can relax. Preferably one that is well-back from the front that is used to dealing with large numbers of soldiers and willing to provide support. We need one with material resources, and central enough that we can travel from it easily both to disseminate advisory teams, and communications. We'll need a system we can refit, and probably even recruit from."
"Do you mean to conquer the Inner Sphere to recreate the Star League?" Steiner asked.
"Conquer?" Amanda asked, rolling the word around in her mouth to get a feel for the substance of it. "No. Not conquer."
"'We know what that lust is worth,'" Victor croaked.
Steiner looked at him.
A shacking hand reached up and touched the vocoder. "'Shall I give thee delight in dominion-mere pride of thy setting forth?'" the metallic baritone asked.
"I think there has been enough of that for a few centuries," Amanda said softly. "But I would very much like to see the Star League again."
JumpShip Eureka (GSS Kepler, ex-Explorer)
"This is confirmed?" Atalanta demanded as she burst into Manfred Steele's quarters without so much as ringing the admittance chime.
"That they are already at Tamar? Aff," Manfred replied, so taken aback by the other Warrior's demeanor that he replied rather than object to the violation of protocol.
"No, Manfred. This!"
Manfred Steele accepted the data-slate she thrust out at him. "What has drawn your attention? This is a routine 'I am online' informational message. It was sent using a SLDF Naval-branch code, yes, but those codes have long been known to the Inner Sphere."
"And the origin?" Atalanta asked.
"Presumably an old SLDF base in use by one of the carrion lords," Manfred shrugged.
"Look at that header. It is a reply from an autonomous facility!" Atalanta snatched the data-slate back and fiddled with it before shoving it into his hands once more. "And look at this!"
"An HPG transmission from Tamar? I thought ComStar ceased all transmissions from that world."
"ComStar did, yes."
"Wait…this cannot be correct. A code recognized as SLDF in origin, but that the computers refused to decode? Our computers?"
"According to the Loremaster, the ilKhan's codes were insufficient to prevail in getting the message decrypted."
Manfred looked up. "There is more. What have you not yet told me?"
"The Falcons asked the ilKhan for permission to lay claim to a system of no apparent local value. One with no habitable planets or moons or even a habitat. One that has never even gotten the recognition of a name, only a registry number nearly six centuries old. One that is on the attack corridor border they share with Clan Wolf. Ostensibly it will be a logistical node."
"But?" Manfred asked warily.
"They bid the Emerald Talon Naval Assault Star before Ulric even heard of the claim."
"By the Bloodnames of all the Founders…" Manfred stared at her for a long moment. "But the location of the facility this identity header is attached to…we do not know it, quiaff?"
"It is not part of the historical record we have recovered, aff."
"But the Falcons…"
"I think you had better get us to this system the Falcons have bid for, Manfred. Quickly."
Manfred considered for a moment, then crossed to his desk terminal in two great kicks—even the cubage allocated to a ship commander did not leave room for three on a vessel the size of the Eureka. He dropped into the chair and hooked his toes under the desk to anchor himself rather than waste time on the lap bet as he stabbed a button for a comm-connection. "Bridge."
"Star Commodore!" a surprised voice replied.
"Alek, how quickly can we be prepared to jump?"
"Twenty seconds to connect the battery and jettison the sail."
"Not that fast, finish charging and recover the sail should do."
"Two hours, perhaps a bit less."
"A bit less will be just fine. Now, I need you to compute a jump—"
"I took the initiative of replotting our jump to Tamar. We can initiate as soon as—"
"That is good, Alek. Very good. But we are not going to Tamar."
"We-we are not?"
"No, listen. I am sending you a system registry. Find out where the star is. Plot us a least-time course that will not unduly stress the drive. Understood?"
"I-uh… No, Star Commodore, I do not, but it shall be as you say."
Manfred laughed. "Fair enough, Alek." He closed the connection. "The Emerald Talon, eh?"
"What about it?" Atalanta asked.
Manfred pulled up a holo of the Inner Sphere. "The projected Falcon/Wolf border," he asked, tracing a line through it. He stopped at a light-code "Zoetermeer. There is little of worth besides an inhabitable planet. And yet even a resource-poor system has a great many resources to those inclined to harvest them."
"Why bother?" Atalanta asked. "Oh, in the Kerensky cluster, certainly. But here? There are a great many systems that are not resource-poor, quiaff?"
"Aff," Manfred chuckled. "And yet… And yet the Emerald Talon is supposed to take this system in late September. I thought it a matter of lack of forces on the Falcon's part and an obsessive need to 'liberate' every rock capable of supporting life. But there were rumors of a naval depot somewhere in the system. What if…" his finger drifted slightly to where lime-green met light-brown.
"What was it you said, Captain?" Atalanta asked lightly. "By the Bloodnames of all the Founders."