Chapter 12

-scene break-

This required a deft hand. Their superiors within Joint European Special Forces Command had been quite clear on that if this thing went wrong... well what they were doing was technically an act of war. The Council didn't mean ill by committing it, but there was no choice. So they'd given the order, not that all their good intentions would mean much if they were caught, which was why they were so careful. If they were caught in these snow covered foothills in Northern Britannia, the commandos knew it would mean war.

It was why they were attempting to blend in as much as possible. Why they were trying to leave just enough 'evidence' that they weren't European at all, the hope was that their false trail would make them suspect the Charles Camp. No one had bothered with their target he'd been under house arrest for years now, finding the location alone had been an labor in itself.

Slowly one of the men adjusted his tablet, as the Britainian produced UAV flew over head. It was a small bird like squad carried observation drone. "Snow storm is moving as predicted, we need to move now,"

"Team two is in position." They needed to cut the power, but make it look like the snow had done it, just like the snow storm had cut the power to the town just a little ways away. As it was they were spread out over three cars, waiting for the go ahead. They had the best equipment they could buy, steal, or limited requisition for... even an old IG Gareth.

He really hoped they'd not need to do that... their contingency... well it was to take the Gareth and blast the house after they'd secure the target... and then run fast. Blast the target with the onboard Hadron blasters, and hope to any higher power listening that everyone just assumed it had been Leouch's supporters, and not look any further into it until they were gone.

Metaphorically the guy was a walking nuke... or at least a dirty bomb. He was radiation so to speak everyone wanted him to stay in this dark little hole far away from where he could cause any trouble at all. That was the way things had boiled down. True there had been people who just wanted Schneziel el Britannia shot for war crimes, but after 'Lelouch's Assassination' those had fallen by the way side. Schneziel still had organized the handling of the Damocles's research, development, and construction. That kind of information didn't have a value, at least no one with a physical price tag attached to it.

"Any problems?"

He shook his head, "Nothing we've seen." A daylight smash and grab was still incredibly dangerous though, "Get ready," They couldn't afford spotters, they didn't have enough people as it was. It was just lucky they, the guards who were going for low key, didn't have any knightmares. In this particular scenario they were going to need to be so fast, Isaac looked back at the truck. They had to knock out the power to the house, after that it would boil down whether they needed the Gefyjon system. If they did well they'd be constrained even further on time. "Tell them to knock the power offline," There offsite team was down the road too far to be helpful if things went south. Isenberg took a minute to wipe though snow away.

"Callum says they're doing it now, standby," A voice beside him stated while adjusting the compact intermediate caliber assault rifle cradled in his gloved hands.

Isenberg nodded, "As soon as the power goes out sweep for signals, take the guards out in the front we're moving up," Two men were bracing on the cars with their high powered designated rifles, he and the other three moving up on approach to the house. In a couple minutes without power, or signals from the house a pair of shots snapped out muffled by large suppressors, range, and the screaming wind.

The house was three stories, and the construction a mix of thick timber, brick and stunning glass facades. The heavy doors were three inch thick wood, with an intricate stained glass paneling in laid for that extra picturesque appearance. The first three bullets from the compact assault rifle punched through Greg Chase's armored vest, and dropped him in the hallway.

Isenbern looked at the Britannian quickly and gestured for the men to move up, and kicked the personal defense weapon away from the downed Britannian. Then he kept moving up the hall, after the first pair of flash bangs went off.

There were probably a dozen guards assigned to the building, if that more than likely there were probably eight to ten, and that was counting the two men they'd downed at the gate. By the time he moved up Piers was holding his ribs, lucky the bullet hadn't actually penetrated his protective vest.

A voice echoed in his ear bud, "Captain we have movement at the window," There was the barest of pause, "confirmed armed, taking the shot." Isenberg grunted, he considered warning them off, but even in this situation he doubted they'd arm Schneziel.

Two of his men were at the stairs, while the Piers and his partner were looking into the kitchen. That left one of his snipers covering the garage. In truth that didn't mean much, stopping a car even with a rifle was not an easy proposition, certainly not within in the context of the mission either.

"Damn it go up the stairs," He wished he could have had more men, but too many people and the Britannians would surely have caught them, at least the second team should already have been moving up the way to their position. There was some shooting at the top of the stairs, and Felix went down to the last Britannian, Isenberg gestured for his partner to grab Felix, and drag him out to the car as he looked around.

From his chair, Schneziel el Britannia looked up tiredly. "Well I'll assume your not Lelouch's men at least, do you happen to have a newspaper?" Well it seemed he was at least in good spirits, that had to count for something though.

"We have the package," he paused waiting for the response from the second team, "we're bugging out."

-scene break-

While the Europeans were breaking Schneziel from his mundane life under house arrest Lelouch had been busy with the politicking in the capital. This was the complicated affair that had held his attention all morning. While the media, and the masses fawned over the high resolution photos of the Moon's surface Lelouch had delivered the mineral news to the scientific and leadership cadres of the world. Titanium, Helium 3 and such top amongst the list.

He had spent the better part of the moorning arguing shop with the good minister Sharpe over practicalities of lunar research and development. That blasted miser. The man had prattled on for every counted coin the whole of the morning. It'd provoked Cornelia into the arguing, which looking back during this called break was probably the intent all along.

Lelouch reached out, they were adjourned for the moment. Kaguya had called for that, to some irritation from others. He wrapped an arm over Cornelia's shoulders, causing her to start, and a dog yelped loudly as Cornelia stepped downward, "Ah well," Lelouch commented pulling her back, he shrugged, "We have things to discuss you and I,"

One of Lelouch's officers move past them as Cornelia shrugged him off of her, "What's all this about? Why now?"

"Why not," He asked, "I've done what I could without taking the throne," Lelouch's smile reminded her of Schneziel's teasing grin, "and that involves you of course, dear," Lelouch wanted her off balance, besides keeping Cornelia close had other benefits. The military, well save perhaps the navy, and even that was dubious was Cornelia's creature. The bulk of the military was hers to command, and she was good at it. "and there is still the issue of Claudio," He waved his hand dismissively taking a free chair behind the desk as they entered the office, "Jameson, and Hamiliton appointments to the order will be confirmed after my ascension, it is my opinion they're suitable choices. This obviously leaves the Knights of two, four and eight slots vacant. Take Wino, and your two appointments, along with Claudio with you in case the Charles faction tries it."

That wasn't what Cornelia wanted to hear, "If the eighth is free give it to Claudio,"

"No," He responded quietly, "I have just given you, as an extension of my good will, three of the Knights of the Round for your own well being." He took a moment to ruffle her hair, "I can spare my Knight of Eleven if you feel endangered, but I am not placing another one under your authority. I have need for the rest, there is much to do."

Lelouch ruffling her hair caused her to step back, "What do you mean by that?" She stopped, at least she could at least tell him now. "I asked Kallen Stadtfeld to be my Knight of two."

"You what?" Lelouch stared dumbfounded at her, it took a minute for him to recompose himself from the announcement, and he asked the more important question. "Did she accept?"

Cornelia nodded in triumph at his surprise, "She did," She wasn't going to tell him that she'd rushed ahead and done it while they'd been talking in the hangar, he didn't need to know that, "You said Claudio couldn't be knight of nine because Nonette still had it, and I'll accept that, but the position for Knight of Two was open and available when I offered it to Stadtfeld."

"So it is," Lelouch conceded. He nodded swiftly, "Then I will confirm that appointment as well. I will pair her with Sommerfield, that'll even them out I think," he had kind of hoped to offer the Knight of two position to Kallen some time later, and eventually use the Knight of eight slot for a bargaining chip with Cornelia later on, mostly as a reward. "We will talk more on that latter," He tapped the projector which glowed read, "Major Reedus of the Imperial Guard will be overseeing the Royal Engineers to construct the first in a series of ground to space launch sites for cargo lifts. This will be the first step in the Empire's expansion into space." He smiled, "I'd consider investing into construction, and steel companies, business will be booming soon" Aeronautics was another sound investment, but that much went without saying. "The Europeans have already started transferring funding Stane's aeronautics firm," Given that this was the same firm who'd been responsible for building the bulk of the Plato, block I, and II class air cruisers he figured it would get her attention.

"Can they do it?"

He nodded, "Inside of three years, by estimates presented to me, and that is without information sharing. The UFN will no doubt be sharing the Damocles information. Do you know how Schneziel built Damocles?"

"I don't," Cornelia answered, no one seemed to know because Lelouch had allegedly ordered the information purged, and Schneziel had never said. "Are you going to share?"

"He was siphoning the money, and parts too from all number of projects," Lelouch commented, "The Avalon took as long as it did because Schneizel wanted to make it look like he needed the money. He could have launched it in 2015 if he had wanted maybe earlier." He muttered, Toromo though had developed the technology, and he said as much, "But a lot of the Float system components, they're Britannian issue except the serial numbers were declared defective in batches as not meeting quality controls during testing, so the Navy never noticed they were missing," The same was also true of a lot of shield systems, and other parts like air filtration.

She watched the projector shifted, it showed a projection of the launch from an equatorial facility and then moved up to over Britannian North America up over the far north, where it rendezvoused with another facility. "The float systems magnetic propulsion meant he could lift thousands of tons of raw material, that's how he built Damocles in secret."

"I've been mining the asteroid belt," He wouldn't really call it mining it was more like asteroid hauling, but the point stood. "We'd take a material rich asteroid, haul it back to Earth, induce spin and gather the material," then they'd drop the rest in the debris pile at the L2 point, where it would sit unless they needed it. "That is how the Empire is going to build in space," They certainly weren't going to try and lift hundreds of thousands of tons into orbit even with float systems that would be astronomical. It was doable of course enough float systems, and plasma thrust engines you could do it, but Lelouch had heard his engineers reiterate that that was hardly cost effecient.

-scene break—

Slowly Nunnally unfolded the letter, somehow it had been snuck into her room, past her watchful members of the protective detail, who were normally responsible for clearing her mail. Still she recognized the vi Britannia crest... or more importantly her mother's crest. True Lelouch could have been the one writing her, but he'd, at least during his rule, had rarely bothered. Whenever Lelouch had marked something he'd branded it with the seal of his Imperial Guard, or less frequently the Regal Lion of the Empire. It had to be her mother, because... because Cornelia said that Marianne vi Britannia had been in a coma this whole time. Cornelia had been so furious when she had found out years ago, especially because Marianne had vanished from her hospital ward... now though her mother had sent her a letter.

Nunnally knew she should immediately tell Cornelia, but for the moment she just wanted to be alone with the letter. Maybe Lelouch had had a reason for never calling... Cornelia said it was because of security reasons, but Nunnally just figured he was mad... at the beginning at least. That had been before well... he'd gone and made that speech. Maybe Cornelia was right, there had been fighting in Britannia's capital though...

Still her mother was writing a letter to her... after years. Nunnally was giddy, and more than that she wanted to memorized the letter, because as soon as Cornelia found out she'd snatch it away. She knew that Cornelia probably meant well... but so had Lelouch, and neither ever asked what she wanted, and it was her letter. A letter Cornelia would subject to all kinds of tests, and studies. On the other hand though Cornelia's tests might be able to find Marianne.

With a sigh she held on to the letter, before heading over to the window. She didn't even want to watch the television, right now everyone was going on about what was happening on the news. Lelouch had popularized the idea of space travel, particularly by publishing high resolution photos of the moon surface.

Of course Cornelia had actually the gall to actually restrict her television, and internet privileges... then again Cornelia had spent the last few years trying to be a combination of sister, mother, friend and monarch to Nunnally. It didn't really work out very well. Cornelia meant well, but right now everyone was talking about Lelouch's return. There wasn't a point in not letting her see the news, at least one Nunnally could see.

Once upon a time she'd believed in heroic knights, and that her brother could do no wrong, but that had been long ago. Nunally knew her family's face now, Lelouch had been barely man everyone said when he'd seeded and fermented a rebellion against the Empire. In three years he'd conquered the world, three years, and millions of lives. Of course that was just half the story, Schneziel, and her father had their own parts in that story, but no one mentioned Clovis it seemed like save as a minor anecdote, and Euphemia was remembered for a single bloody rampage in a city that perished in nuclear fire. Nunally looked at the letter, and slowly dug out her cell phone. Might as well call Cornelia now, and get it out of the way. She groaned, and started dialing, maybe she'd be interrupting something, Nunnally snorted in a distinctly unladylike manner it'd serve Cornelia right for not coming to her track meet after she had promised she would.

-scene break-

Kaguya sipped at her soda, it was sweet, and melon flavored "Well I think that went pretty well," She commented looking around, as it was it was just her staff. They'd even managed to ditch the watchdogs for a little bit, which made this the ideal time for a classified meeting.

"But," Tamaki beat Ohgi to the exclamation, "He has the city crawling with Imperial Guard, man I knew I shouldn't have said a month, should have said two weeks." He complained, "There all in uniform an all, and knightmares too,"

Ohgi nodded, "it's not just that there are his units as well," He couldn't bring himself to describe the Black Knight marked units. The Imperial Guard units in Pendragon under Algren's command bothered him, but Lelouch had already begun formal procedures to grant his version of the Black Knight's legal enforcement powers. The documents were already being forwarded to the rest of Britannia's zones of influence.

"It went pretty well," She repeated, "The Loyalist faction isn't an issue right now, the real hope is getting a naval treaty passed, furthering our goal of detente amongst the world powers." Kaguya remarked.

Ohgi looked down at his report, "Lelouch won't even say how many ships he does have, he's not going to agree to an arms reduction. He has Britannia's fleet to,"

"And maybe Europe's as well," Noboru chimed, "I mean if that's the goal, and he is behind them then that's a lot of ships that can be refit for space lift capacity right?" He grabbed at his cup of coffee with one hand, and his copy of the intelligence report. "We're reciprocating data as we get it and we know that the new European ship, and the Albion-class both don't follow the Logres, even Alpha doesn't," The Logres-Advanced though certainly shared similarities' with Lelouch's escort class ship, "The other one looks like they trimmed the wings, made it bulkier, and well Intel thinks the cannons are probably particle beam cannons."

The head of the UNBK nodded, "Has anything come out of shield improvement research, besides what we already got told?" The response he got really wasn't what he wanted to hear, knightmares just didn't have the energy production density.

"I'm not comfortable with the idea of nuclear power plants on Knightmares," Kaguya interjected amidst the spew of technical jargon, "and I refuse to have this discussion here." That put an end to the discussion. There were a lot of concerns over the nuclear systems, but Ohgi didn't expect that that would slow the European efforts to research, especially if they were in league with Lelouch. The supreme council woman wasn't concerned with that for the moment though, "The European Science Council has lodged a formal, if harshly worded, demand for access to all the Toromo Institute research data we recovered both during and after the war."

That got a number of small brushfire chats started before some amount of order could be restored to the main discussion, "Lelouch had the Imperial Guard level the facility ahead of the UFN advance during the Ascension War didn't he?" Noboru asked, it was kind of a rhetorical question, "I mean we couldn't have gotten much out of it right?"

"Lelouch bombed the Institute headquarters. During or by collaborating with Schneziel let us," and later their local commanders from member nation forces, "secure information from a handful of older research facilities." Kaguya answered, "Schneziel had had back up facilities but Lelouch was primarily targeting their headquarters, its communications facilities, and what we think was the logistical data storage."

Ohgi nodded, "So he was covering something up then," He shrugged, "I guess it makes sense, I mean he could have had something to do with the project. The Ashfords made plenty of money for Britannia after he became Emperor producing float system technology, along with some of the other technologies developed by both Britannia and the Black Knights."

"For the love of god Kaname Ohgi, really are we going to have this discussion again? I agree a cover up does seem probable" Another member groaned, "Alright so was it intended to eliminate researchers, the staff, hard evidence or a combination of all of them?"

It took a minute for the projector to boot up, but the picture was one familiar to everyone. It was the pacific theater of the last war. Given that a lot of them had been locked up for the bulk of the end phase of the conflict, the parts after Lelouch had taken Damocles, they hadn't been involved in the planning. Without a coordinated leadership Asia's 'Allied' Forces had pretty much acted unilaterally, while Britannia had carefully coordinated strikes against targets. They'd, the Britannians, focused their supply train through China, and the Arabian peninsula.

"When Lelouch counter invaded," A dot appeared on the map over the sea, "and reasserted full control of Area 10," Slowly the northern portion of the Penisula changed colors, "he deployed the 110thVolunteer Regiment Imperial Guard who landed at Chu Nom via Logres insertion," The dot indicating the unit flashed, "Coupled with air support they leveled the Toromo institute headquarters over a period of two days."

Tamaki looked at them, "Okay so what?"

"So three weeks later Lelouch gave the victory in the Penisula speech, declaring that all pre established tactical and strategic objectives had been accomplished," The projector showed the entire Indochina Peninsula in Britannian colors, and the number of Britannian Regular, as well as Imperial Guard units significantly higher." The map shifted to a news still of Lelouch giving the victory speech at the Angkor Wat, "Given that before the war Area 10 had been firmly under Britannian control we expect Lelouch wanted to insure staability, or Schneziel may have had supporters in the region." That also made since given that the Toromo institute had been located within Area 10.

Kaguya pressed the next button on the projector, causing it to shift slides, "I will get Rakshata to read through the recovered data from the Toromo institute," They wouldn't be able to get access to the facilities though, well they could check to see about the bombed out remains, but it wasn't likely to yield much, especially so many years later, "As it is though the Toromo files are probably instrumental to space travel so Rakshata is very busy with both that and our agreement with helping the Chinese, which is our other thing, ta da." The projector once again shifted changing from the Tokyo University campus to a picture of one of the factories that produced float systems for the modern Ikaruga cruiser. What was different was the number of corporate logos, mainly Japanese corporations that were associated with the Six Houses of Kyoto, or really their sucessors. "I've successfully convince Lihua to have the technology demonstrator built as a civilian air station we hope that if it works we will be able to place into a stable Earth orbit." The idea was that if the initial station was civilian that they could perhaps... just maybe have an alternative to militarizing space.

"Any word from that Sahid guy?" Tamaki asked, "I mean he and the rest of them have engineering detachment units marked on, and Lelouch gave him the pedestal for ninety minutes,"

The chairwoman nodded, "I have a meeting schedule with him and Rakshata for two weeks from now, that I hope will be able to tell us something." Lelouch's General Engineering Staff had been brought down to largely address things like space age engineering systems, and how materials, and construction techniques should be used in zero gravity. In particularly Lelouch's GES had suggested a combination of modular self propelled units, and rotating sections for gravity, which was odd because Lelouch's ships didn't seem to have rotating sections, and the Damocles hadn't had them either. It was just one more question that needed answers.

-scene break-

Kallen's face was set into a scowl as she adjusted the cloak. The Imperial Palace was covered with Imperial Guard troops, both infantry and Knightmares. Then again the whole city was crawling with troops. Cornelia had asked her to be her the Knight of Two position so suddenly, but after the informal announcement held by Cornelia, and Lelouch to Parliament well it had kind of been worth it just to see some of the old bastards squirm. Except for having to wear the blasted uniforms of the Knights of the Round, she wasn't used to wearing a freaking cape, and Lelouch, and Gottwald made it look so damn easy.

Parliament... most of them at least, hadn't taken the new throne arrangements well. Dealing with Cornelia had been a problem enough having her sit a step below Lelouch's throne was the visual sign of a marked change in Imperial arrangement. Of course the chamber was empty now, and here she was with Lelouch, Cornelia, as well as the other Rounds, and even Claudio. Cornelia was still pushing for Lelouch to accept Claudio as a member of the rounds, and it didn't really seem to be working.

Lelouch worked the one handed control of the holographic projector deftly. The monstrosity that had once been Schneziel's floating fortress and palace. It looked like the entire top third of the fortress had been demolished and rebuilt into a massive circular black and silver tower. "Four years of construction, "He commented blandly. The modifications had been set down during World War III, and established as necessary after that considering the expected outcomes of the Requiem plan today the base had far more complex responsibilities. "And in another three the Europeans will probably have their first nuclear test done, and production. They're fiddling with plutonium right now, no sakuradite in the mixture."

"The Europeans have already promised to come forward," Sommerfield said as he stepped forward to address the group, "They're still prattling on about it being energy research, which is probably at least partially true, considering they do have a test reactor set up. They even let me go in, and with one of our teams,"

Cornelia snorted, "Good job Lelouch now what are we going to go have tea in Paris while they build WMDs or perhaps you are going to go to Tokyo how does that sound?"

"You'll find that I am unconcerned with the potential of a nuclear exchange with the European member states," He commented, "They want something that can visibly be a deterrent against our own strike systems." Then he clicked it popping up some kind of machine diagram hyper expanded to show the various component parts, "This is a reinforced particle projector cannon that works by accelerating a hadron stream," He commented.

She glowered at him, "it's a hadron cannon then." Cornelia interjected. "Are you going somewhere with this?"

"In the broadest definition yes," He responded, the projection shifted and the parts flew back together, "and one we're not going to tell anyone about, because this will be the basis for an interlocking total traverse firing system. In short nuclear missiles are obsolete." He clicked again and additional components added to the cannon, another click and suddenly they were looking at the Damocles, "And coupled with information acquired through continued research into the technology used in my own Shinkiro," Particularly its laser projection system, "one can say we have taken a sizable step forward into a bright new future." He tapped the console again, "Space is where our future is, material costs will go down rapidly once asteroid minerals start making it to earth, well for us at least."

Kallen face palmed, "Lelouch I don't give two shits about your science project or your freaking super space guns, I want to know how you're going to stop a war from breaking out. Preferably a solution that doesn't involve postponing it just long enough for another war to start up. I don't want to hear about eventually there is going to be a war."

"Well unfortunately that is actually the case," Lelouch responded snippily, "I have arranged a series of detente oriented talks with Kaguya, and the European Council. To allay your concerns you may relax this is simply a summit designed to introduce spaceflight, and gloss over my return until my formal re-ascension ceremony. The actual talks will be geared towards insuring that individual organizations understand that certain zones of influence exist."

She snorted, "So what you're actually saying is you're going to dick over Ohgi because of that whole mess on the Ikaruga by cutting his legs out from under him, you are changing the status quo back to the way it was. You said the Europeans want nuclear weapons we need to be bringing that kind of information before the general assembly meeting in Tokyo,"

"That's exactly what you're going to do Kallen," Lelouch commented, "Cornelia is going to give you the information, and you are going to march up to Kaguya and throw the information in her face, and there will be one little problem. Britannia is the only country with nuclear weapons. Tokyo was one, one city, but twenty million people died when Suzaku pulled the trigger on the device." He stood up, and clicked again bring up the earth, "This is the earth, with the borders, and sphere of influence coloring of the present day." He declared, "Look at it. The UFN was a bold but idealistic plan; it only could work because it had the right people leading it, and because we stood against Charles di Britannia. It has failed; the idea does not work in the real world without leadership, and the idea of nation states. In order to properly bring the goal of detente to fruition the Europeans must think they have a rough parity in ultimate offensive power to Britannia," Whether that was actually the case in reality, well that wasn't the point. "So go ahead and take the information to the General Assembly meeting in Tokyo."

Jeremiah stepped forward, the arm looked new Kallen had noted because he was wearing a short sleeve version of the Black Knight 'off duty' day uniform, except for that one little crest, "Loyalist Black Knights will be deployed as part of peace keeping operations to various areas under the Crown's sphere of influence, I will personally be assuming command of the loyalist forces in South Africa to prevent further outbreaks of hostilities."

-scene break—