Sigma Mercenaries 0001R: Initial Public Offering REVISED

by CSS Stravag

Sigma Mercenaries Mainline story beginning, REVISED EDITION. When an unknown train lands on the vegetable garden of an American Militiaman, and the happenings in the train are revealed to be wildly messed up, four Americans swing into action to save lives and bring order to chaos. Along the way, they will meet a very odd and diverse cast of peeps from all over Existence.. (Rated M)

12. Political High Noon

(Sigma Mercenaries, Story 0001: Initial Public Offering)
(Chapter 12: Political High Noon)

(28 March, Magi Year 14408 / Year SL 8838, 0200 Hours Star League Standard Time)
(Senate Chambers, Star League Grand Palace, Luna Zero)
(Day 11 of Campaign)

"The vote is registered," the Speaker of the Senate declared. "By a tally of 2206 to 294, the Senate has adopted the nonbinding resolution to censure the Protectorate of Sigma for Conduct Unbecoming a Star Empire."

Senator Mandy Glivenne had done as the Speaker requested, she submitted it as a nonbinding resolution (which was basically a loud and obnoxious warning) rather than what she wanted, a Binding Resolution (which would force the Star League and its member states to take action). Naturally, Mandy had voted for it, as had her clique, but it had no horsepower.

Of course, while the resolution had no horsepower, she intended to give it some fang in an indirect fashion.

"The author of the Resolution, Senior Senator Mandy Glivenne, has accepted the right to speak in extension of the resolution."

Mandy stepped forward from her position behind the speaker and took the podium position. "Ladies and gentlemen, thank you all for the voice of agreement against the lawlessness of certain parties and their desire to disrupt the stable order we have sacrificed for."

Senator Glivenne had to pause momentarily for applause to her line, even if she did not intend it as an applause line. This was the theater aspect of Senate duties, where one had to put on an appropriate show for the cameras, the host Empires, and for points amongst the other Senators. The quickest way to fall to irrelevance in this room was not a failure to do one's job, but a failure to gain and maintain notoriety in a crowded field.

"With one voice, the Star League has spoken: we put the Protectorate of Sigma and their benefactors in the Multimage Empire on notice that lawlessness shall not be tolerated. We also put the Executors on notice that their authority to deny justice and due process to the Star League is limited; crimes against the member states, crimes against the Star League populace, and crimes against the order of the cosmos shall not be tolerated, regardless of who excuses their anarchistic actions."

-x-

(Same time)
(Multimage Empire Administration Building, Terra 02)

"What the fresh fuck is she smoking?" Division Commander Gerard Caecilius asked nobody in particular.

"She just called out both the Multimage Empire and the Executors in one breath," Division Commander Joan D'Arc gaped.

"It is truly fortunate that she is protected by the full legal immunities of the Star League Senate," Empress Rini Atrebas said with a rather evil smile. "I do not see my grandfather suffering her bullshit bully pulpit soapbox routine under any other circumstance. Threatening a Protectorate, a Star Empire, and the Executors in one sentence is not a move calculated to make friends amongst the Lords of the Executors."

"This will end badly for her," Master Executor Hotaru Tomoe said pensively. "I shall not speak of details, lest it corrupt the savory chain of events to come, but rest assured she shall live to regret those words."

Senator Glivenne looked up to the cameras again after the applause died down. "The usurpation of a Star League planet and populous, the destruction of Star League Living Monuments, the profaning of the ComStar Mercenary Network, the Protectorate has committed a long list of sins to which they shall all have to answer for," Mandy said, though was briefly interrupted. "We now issue notice: Sigma, you shall cease all activity against the order of Existence before we are forced to take action."

-x-

(Same time)
(Workout Room, Temple of the Executors, Luna Zero)

"What do you think, brother? Cause De Facto?" Master Executor Beryl Atrebas asked her elder brother.

"Close, not yet," Will Transcendent (Master Executor) Eric Atrebas answered. "Strictly speaking, arrogance grand mal is not a crime. It may be an excellent way to invoke Darwin, but it is not illegal."

"Censuring us for doing their job, I give them the credit of their stones, but they lack any proper measure of brains," High Executor Elena Dreyfuss said while flexing her shoulders from the strain of her sword practice. Despite being only a High Executor and some 300,000 years younger than Eric Atrebas, she was still holding her own in sparring against the 'old man' of their order. The expectation, even amongst the Executors, was that defeating Master Executor Atrebas in close quarters was effectively impossible, but some could successfully hold their own against him for a while, and a few Executors ran the risk of matching or besting him. Elena considered herself fortunate to be on that shortlist for matching Atrebas, if only barely.

"A nonbinding censure has no more value in hand than used toilet paper," Master Executor (Retired Will Transcendent) Doran Beilan pointed out. "This was a noisemaker campaign, nothing more and nothing less. Senator Glivenne is simply trying to spook any potential business away from Sigma, thereby crippling the protectorate economically and forcing them to fold. Once that never-to-happen fate comes to pass, they swoop in, pick up the pieces, and shout 'I told you so' for a problem they created to begin with."

"It failed before she wrote up the resolution," Eric Atrebas pointed out. "Boeing-Federated just signed off on financing five hundred Apache IIM R3 helos across the next two years. Sigma is obviously thinking ahead in their intended merc work, to gamble on two billion C-bills of hardware like that. If I was a betting man, I would wager on the cagey American long before I bet on Glivenne."

The cheering on the monitor subsided. "Thank you all for the fast vote on this resolution, and have a good evening. To the Star League Citizens, know that we shall forever watch over the cosmic order and maintain the peace of the heavens, no matter the cost." Mandy gave the traditional short bow expected of a Senator, and left the stage to massive applause from the Senators at large.

"They have built a yes-man echo chamber, well insulated from the outside world," Beryl judged. "They will never hear the approaching mercenary's footsteps until after his troops breach, bang, and make entry."

"Now that's a party I could sign off on," Eric Atrebas said in jest. As much as he disdained the Senate, he had no cause to forcibly disband them. He suspected that Sigma might find cause in years to come…

-x-x-x-

(28 March, Magi Year 14408 / Year SL 8838, 0545 Hours Local Time)
(Jamieson's Quarters, Administration Building, Base Boarhound, Terra 232)
(Day 11 of Campaign)

Clint's door beeped three times. "Who goes?" he half-shouted at the door.

"Moira," his assigned SSO for the day replied in kind.

"Enter," Clint said as he finished securing his belt. "Mornin'," he said after she entered.

"I could use another four hours of sleep," she grumped. "Do we have anything major planned today?"

"Nothing much," Clint said after a quick glance at his tablet. "TRADOC meeting with Century Commander Vickers, 1400 hours or so. Some range time scheduled for grenade launchers, need to decide on grenade launcher standards so we get to throw some high explosives today. Other than morning workout, nothing major scheduled," he said. "You look like hell, Moira. Didn't sleep well?"

"All of us were up late," Moira answered. "Star League Grand Council voted to censure us for 'conduct unbecoming a Star Empire' and Senator Glivenne was first to the microphones."

"Well isn't that too fucking bad," Clint said at his most acidic. "Bitchwagon has no authority on this planet, so the censure is worthless. She can sit down and rotate for all I care."

"Ghuh?" Moira gaped after a moment, then laughed at the insult Clint had dropped. "Wow! Was not expecting that!"

"Just stating the obvious, and what is free-roaming in my skull," Clint admitted.

"Where did you get that line?" Moira asked, having not heard it before.

"Victoria, actually. When we first teamed up, it was her favorite thing to shout at the television when the President was giving a speech," he said.

"Hardcore Americans, but you don't like the President?" Moira asked, now confused.

"We don't like Statists," Clint said. "Especially don't like Communists or Marxists, mass-murdering fuckheads that get a pass by their supporters. Nobody can spoil a party faster than someone who wants to suck all the horsepower out of a nation and redistribute it." Clint sighed and relented a bit, but only a small fraction. "No country on my home planet exists without blood on its hands, but none are worse than the Communists and Fascists. In less than a hundred years, those two geopolitical groups buried 250 million plus people, and they sure as hell didn't achieve their objective of global unity and prosperity."

"That's kinda wrong, but how does that equate to the Star League Senate?" Moira asked.

"They're doing the exact same bullshit as the United Nations on my homeworld, trying to slowly realign the world into some kind of one-world governance. Statists, little power-mad bureaucrats that swear up and down they know better than the population of an entire planet." Clint grunted. "Bah! Way too early in the day for that kind of thinking, though. Virtue, anything in my field I need to know about this morning?"

"Yes, actually," Virtue reported. "We have another 22 test-outs from the evacuees of the 133628 Train, comprising 16 Phoenix, 1 Dragon, 2 Humans, a Nymph, a Sylph, and a Valkyrie."

"Holy shit," Clint gaped. "What's the story here?"

"The Phoenix in question range in ages from 870 to 6014 years of age," Virtue reported. "Each of them is a veteran of at least one Star Empire's military forces, and several of them have served time in various mercenary formations. The dragon claims military service but not in the armies of the Star Empires, likewise with the two humans. The Nymph and Sylph are both Illyaris Star Empire residents and had stellar records in their Militias. The Valkyrie, naturally, has a very high combat aptitude and has probably learned well from the more recent deceased on Valhalla."

"Wow, look at this," Moira had clipped one of the records up on to the television.

"Damn, her list of qualifications reads like an inventory sheet at a military base," Clint gaped. "Okay, Virtue, can you set me up some time today to review the test-out groups?"

"I have a gap in your schedule at 1230," the AI pointed out. "Should I invite anyone else?"

"Hess will want to be in on this, is he available?" Clint asked.

"Checking," Virtue answered. "Confirmed, Hess is clear."

"Slate it in, I want to know why these kinds of troops are hanging around."

-x-x-x-

(28 March, Magi Year 14408 / Year SL 8838, 0915 Hours Local Time)
(Engineering Services Building, Base Boarhound, Terra 232)

"Got some presents for the unit from Xigon, sir," Jeff Evans said after Hess walked in the door.

"Outstanding," Sigma One said with a smile. "What is the scoop?" he asked as he approached the table with the new gear.

"Our reports to Xigon on how well the equipment works has been a huge thumbs-up for their equipment. So, in response to how well the beacons work, they've upped the ante with something a little more functional than just the standard beacon," Jeff lifted (barely) the end of a large object that reminded Hess of nothing so much as a surveyor's sighting tripod. "So, this is the heart of Xigon's Modular Transport Pylon system. Each pylon weighs in at 85 pounds or so, it's not light, but it has pretty much everything on the wish-list you haven't written up yet."

"So, intelligent sensor and gate control, semi-automated gate partitioning, real-time comms with home base, datalink system for network access across the void?" Hess asked, given those would be the points he was looking for in such a do-all device.

"Fully automated gate partitioning, or can be done by manual input by either a local operator or, say, someone here in the command center. Or even Virtue could partition gates as needed using this pylon." Jeff lifted the pylon off the table and unfolded the three legs, then set the pylon down as would be a surveyor's tripod. "Has six slots for modular equipment and standard connection buses for most common systems, such as external computational modules or enhanced sensor systems."

"Onboard power?" Hess asked.

"Enough to run the pylon for a couple hours without any addons, but as soon as you start throwing on modules the operating life goes down geometrically." Jeff scratched his head. "It can be powered from a standard power connection, so if we have to operate it with addons we could carry in a few batteries."

"Probably could run it off the alternator on our HMMVW vehicles or anything with a fusion powerplant," Hess guessed. Anything that could charge one of the batteries could also likely directly supply power to a device. "Are these ready for prime-time?"

"Should be," Jeff mused. "Test?"

Hess arched an eyebrow. "Your insurance paid up?"

"If they only knew, sir," Jeff said. "Here," he picked up a secondary box and passed it to the boss. "These relays are required to use the pylon's commo system. We can test by setting a radio to a non-recognized frequency and encryption code, then use the integral comms to communicate through the pylon to the relay to Virtue."

"Please plug the relay into one of the data lines in the room," Virtue requested. Being an old hand with high-tech devices, Hess has no trouble whatsoever setting the device up and connecting it to the network. The relay itself required a separate power connection, which was easily obtained from a wall outlet.

"Frequency and encryption code for the laser?" Jeff asked.

"Laser band 60558948," Hess said as he entered it into the control panel. The actual band was not any kind of encoding on the laser, it was the Micro-Gate Identifier for the relay and pylon. "Encryption 7F3802DA12," again Hess said as he punched random keys on the entry pad for the encryption link. The encryption was a little more important, as it made decrypting comms much more difficult if someone spoofed the relay in an attempt to intercept comms.

"Good old Hex codes," Evans said after he closed up the control panel on the side of the pylon. "Virtue, how many engines are available right now?"

"All five engines are on standby, no scheduled departures at this time," Virtue said.

"Nice. we'll do a radio test at the location, using the pylon as a relay. Do we have an outside location we can test with?" By which Jeff meant a reasonably safe location away from Base Boarhound.

"Virtue, can you put a precursor in the control center for the water treatment plant? We can use that as a test area, the engineers are not scheduled to be out there until tomorrow," Hess said.

"Deploying now," Virtue said. Her method was simple: she spawned the precursor probe inside the ScrapNet Interface on the fourth floor, then used one of the Gate Engines to transpose the precursor to the requested room. "Room is clear, please set the pylon into semi-automatic mode and I will configure." Jeff changed the toggle for the gate beacon control. "Fifteen seconds, gentlemen."

Hess pulled his Springfield XD and checked the chamber indicator to ensure he had a round loaded. Satisfied, he holstered and readied for the coming test.

-x-

On the far side of the transfer, Jeff used the backlight on his tablet to light up the area around the pylon. "Looks like the transfer worked. Commo test?"

"Hold one," Hess said. He pulled the microphone off the pylon and keyed it. "Virtue, Sigma One, pylon commo test," he prompted the micro-gate laser communications link.

"Sigma One, pylon communications are active," Virtue answered.

"Acknowledged, we will do a radio relay test shortly. Standby for further," Hess said. "Have a spare radio?" he asked Jeff.

"Here," Jeff passed Hess the extra radio he always carried.

Hess pulled the back cover of the radio and reset the frequency to 191.20 and the encryption band to 3C24. He then added that information to the communication settings on the pylon. All that remained was the test. "Virtue, Sigma One, radio relay test pylon 1 on frequency 191.20 stepping 3C24, how copy?"

"Good copy all, Sigma One. Systems work as advertised," the artificial intelligence agent reported. "Should I initiate a return gate?"

"Ten-four, nothing else to test at this time," Hess ordered.

After fifteen seconds, the return to interior lighting was abrupt and rather startling to both Engineer and mercenary. "That was interesting," Jeff said. "Should I order a couple dozen for on-hand spares?"

"Three dozen, and get the communication relays set up in a permanent location and coded into their respective pylons," Hess ordered. "I can see these devices being very useful going forward."

"Stowaway," Jeff Evans pointed to something on the ground.

"Black Widow, nasty stuff," Hess said before he stomped it with his size 11 heavy work boot. "No tango no more," he concluded after smearing the threat spider across three tiles on the floor.

Hess had no way of knowing the first true use of the pylon system was only a few hours hence.

-x-x-x-

(28 March, Magi Year 14408 / Year SL 8838, 0930 Hours Local Time)
(Mayville Town Hall, outside Base Boarhound, Terra 232)
(Day 11 of Campaign)

"This is a bit faster than I was expecting," Mayor Noreaux grumped.

Celine Noreaux whistled. "How many are on that bleeding Train?"

"I really can't say," Vash The Stampede answered honestly. "Ours only had about a thousand people total, and that was 200 cars front to back."

"Huh," Zeke Noreaux grunted. "If that's the yardstick, and the newcomer is 1300 cars, you're talking almost 7000 persons total."

"That's a lot," Millie gaped as the first transport truck rolled to a stop in front of the town hall, which made her comment ambiguous as to what she was referring to.

This first truck of five did not have any of the incoming refugees in it, all it had was supplies for the town (food, repair parts, clothing, water purification systems, and medical supplies). The persons that jumped out of the back were a surprise to the Mayor, but a very welcome one. "Magi Technicians? Thank the heavens!"

"Eh, more like 'thank the disaster relief group', actually," the lead technician said. "Senior Journeyman Technician Loesse, we're here to repair your water distribution pumps. Where's the pump house?"

"That brick building down the road," Zeke pointed to a squat, wide brick edifice of civil engineering some 300 meters down the way. "Mayor Noreaux, by the way." the two shook hands. "Need a hand unloading?"

"No sir, we've got this," the journeyman tech answered. "We'll get the water running here shortly, at least before the main water treatment plant is up and running again. That's scheduled to begin repairs tomorrow," he said. "Where do you want the supplies?"

"Right here," Zeke waved four guys forward who were waiting for the material. "We'll get everything distributed."

"Medical supplies here," the pharmacist said, waving to the first guy off the truck with several boxes of medical relief material. Two more boxes joined the first, which were loaded onto a hand cart for transport downtown to the pharmacy and clinic.

"Food stores over here," two burly guys waved to a waiting pickup truck. The pickup was electric-driven, used by the one grocer in town to barter with the next town for food and transport it; he charged the vehicle from a small Portable Fusion Reactor generator he used to power the freezers in his store as well, which made cold storage of foods possible in town; all that was needed was some distilled water to fuel the reactor.

"I'll take the clothing," the smallest of the four guys received several boxes and hand-carted it across the street to the town's de facto clothes warehouse.

"This is a cluster," the Journeyman said as the three trucks with refugees began offloading in front of the town hall. "When the Star League screws de poochie, they go for it hard," he said with a bit of a faked accent.

"And I'm glad to be out from under them," Zeke said. "Them bailing out was actually an improvement, even if most of the infrastructure went to hell. How's the merc doing on his plans to get everything back up and running?"

"Power is being worked on right now, the fusion power plant north of here is already being reconditioned, should have it up before nightfall. That will give us the power necessary to run the water treatment plant, and thereafter the pump house here in town."

"Are they charging?" Zeke asked, by which he meant for power.

"Right now, no, that may change," the Journeyman answered.

"Well, we'll just see what we'll see," the Mayor judged. "I have a group to induct. Do you need anything from me?"

"Nothing at present," the technician answered. "Fifth truck has two large pallets of MREs for emergency food storage, do you have a secure location to store them?"

"Yeah, the Sheriff can tell you where to store them." The journeyman and the Mayor parted ways, the former headed back to his truck, the latter into the town hall.

The staff of the town hall had rallied quickly and assembled everyone in the audience seats for the town council meeting. As it happened, most of the town council was also present for discussions with Ambassador Vash, so it became a bit of a meet and greet session for everyone involved.

Zeke waited for the last of the entrants to take their seats before he called for silence. "Welcome, refugees, to Mayville. I am Mayor Zeke Noreaux, and today I welcome a lost people to a lost world. First, let's start with a show of hands, how many of you were born on the Train or don't remember your past life?" About a dozen of the sixty persons raised their hands. "How many of you were still in school when you got on the Train?" Again, roughly a dozen raised their hands. "And lastly, how many of you know you are under the age of sixteen?" This time, the show of hands was roughly half. "Okay, for those of you under 16, we have a school that you'll be attending to prepare you for the coming challenges and eventual workforce roles around the world."

Mayor Noreaux could sense more than anything else the confusion his statement had caused with some, so he decided a quick explanation was in order. "I think I need to better explain what I meant. To anyone who already understands this, bear with me, I just want to make sure everyone's on the same page. I'll start by saying I know what the conditions on the Trains are like, I toured the 523 Train while I was at Boarhound yesterday. The insides of the Trains are, technically, self-sustaining because the Star League pumps supplies into them constantly, meaning all you have to do is order food and water from the terminals."

"That's right, mister," one of the teens answered.

"Out here, we don't have that self-sustainment. If we want food, we have to grow it. If we want material, we have to either build it ourselves or trade for it. To build it, you have to know how to build it — that requires training. If you want to grow food, you need to know when to plant and how to tend your crops or livestock — again, a matter of training. If you intend to trade, you have to have something of value to trade with — either money or another item that the person you're trading with is willing to accept. Are you with me so far?"

"Yes sir!" a not-quite-teen girl said.

"The mercenary, Hess, intends to bring the world back to the modern methods. We've fallen back to basic survival skills, but he has a plan to rebuild the world. What that means for us all is simple: we work at our jobs and careers, we are paid money or material for our labors, we use that money or material to sustain ourselves and better the community and the world. The harder and smarter you work, the better you get paid. The better you get paid, the better you can advance yourself. This is how the world works to a degree right now, and how it shall work going forward. For those of you coming off the Trains, it will take time to adjust, but we are here to help. You work with us, we'll help you become established and learn the ways of the world to come. Now, any questions?" Immediately, several arms were raised.

Zeke did not yet realize it, but within a month he would understand: the Trains were truly a self-contained ecosystem that required severe adaptation to truly walk away from. He would give this speech (or a variation) hundreds of times to come, all the way up to his retirement several decades into the future.

-x-x-x-

(28 March, Magi Year 14408 / Year SL 8838, 1145 Hours Local Time)
(Southeastern Corner, Base Boarhound Interior Wall, Terra 232)
(Day 11 of Campaign)

Cynthia had been both disappointed and unsurprised to find that there was precisely no religious buildings in Boarhound. She expected, in a military based on the NATO / American model, there would at least be a Christian chapel of some kind, but the closest thing she could find was an office on the second floor of the Administration Building that once belonged to a Chaplain. Nothing else, not even a private church or synagogue anywhere on base.

The fact that Hess had readily signed off on her plan for a Shinto shrine and Relic Crafthall had briefly confused her. Sigma One struck her as one who neither participated in any religion, nor one who would welcome effort on it when other problems were at hand. The understanding came to her in the days afterward: Sigma One would not necessarily favor such a proposal, but would not hinder it — an echo of the First Amendment in its true wording, and hence its inclusion in the Enumerated Natural Rights of the Sigma Constitution.

So, when not studying under Nereus in the art of Relic Wizardry (a very narrow subset of magic that Cynthia had never considered possible outside of fiction), she found the time to begin her preparation work for the shrine. Finding the spot for it had required several days of searching, as she had found out a military base inside a wall was not very well engineered for open spaces and extra room. Still, enough searching and the answer was found: on the eastern wall of the base, at the junction with the south wall, an unused area of grounds some 200 meters wide and 500 meters long stood ready to find a purpose.

Finding the location was the great hurdle, designing the facility was the aesthetic challenge. For that, she had a large roll of plotter paper, several pencils, and the back hatch of a HMMVW (which, when closed, was almost the perfect angle for a rump drafting desk). Structuring the facility became the next challenge, and for that there were a few hard-and-fast rules that she would follow, and a few that were required in Shinto practice.

"Need at least a small set of stairs," she reminded herself. The entrance to the bulk of the Shinto shrines involved a flight of stairs, which in this case would require some manner of raised plateau for the facility. Maybe a two-meter raise? Even with that, it shouldn't cause the buildings to rise above the level of the heavy wall nearby.

The Torii, or Shrine Gate, was also a hard-and-fast requirement that she would not short on. The gate came before the stairs, both facing west, and the combination led to the main entrance pathway to the Shrine itself. Given the geometry of the area, she also included a secondary entrance facing north, with the two pathways meeting in front of where she intended the Haiden, or open hall of worship. The last of the absolute requirements for the Shrine was the Honden, the house of the Kami (divinity) that would serve as the focal point for the entire temple.

Cynthia sighed. "The critical parts are done," she said in relief. Deciding that much was the tough part; the rest would just require some jigsawing to move parts around from one area to the next for best placement. Before she began drawing in her ideas of what she thought was a good idea, she started from a trick taught to her by her boyfriend. "For any major project, always start with a list," she said in a simulacrum of his voice. In this case, she tore off a strip of plotter paper and divided it into two columns: Shrine requirements, Relic Hall requirements.

For the Shrine components, she went down the list from memory: Chozuya (Ritual cleansing fountain), Kagura-Den (Building for Noh and the Kagura dance), Shamusho (admin office for the shrine), and Ema (a board for wooden plaques with wishes or prayers). She figured for now the shrine would not need any auxiliary shrines (Sessha), though as time went on they would probably come up with ideas for a few.

On the second column, her pencil hovered over the paper, motionless, wordless, for several minutes. "Okay, have to admit, I have no idea what to write here," she forced herself to admit aloud after a few minutes of contemplation. With nothing coming to mind, she decided 'phone a friend' was in order, in this case referring to High Executor Nereus; and on that note she returned to the driver's seat of the HMMVW and the radios in the center console. Each vehicle radio had a cheat sheet with it, of the frequencies for the general communication bands for around the base, and it was a simple task to reprogram the radio to the command frequency. "High Executor Nereus from Williams," she requested.

A reply only took four seconds. "Go for Nereus," her instructor answered.

"Sir, I have hit a breakpoint in designing the Shrine and Relic Halls, I could use some assistance in planning if you are available."

"Acknowledged, I'll be there in a minute," Nereus answered the request for help.

Cynthia needed only wait roughly forty seconds before she sensed the change in auras around her — Nereus was here. "Sensei?" she asked.

"A good plot so far," Nereus said from the back of the HMMVW. "Ah, I see where the halt point is."

Cynthia returned to the rear of the HMMVW. "Hai, sensei. I do not know what building requirements are needed."

Nereus nodded. "There are two ways to do this, at least as how the Dynasty did this. One, each Relic Enchanter has his or her own small building. Nothing much, cot, bathroom, worktable, basic kitchenette, so that a Relic Enchanter remains with their work at all times. Second, a larger building that comprises four or six working chambers with a couple communal bathrooms and a communal kitchen, which is close enough to maintain the distortive aura for the enchanting process but allows a little more room."

Cynthia pulled off another section of plotter paper and did some rough sketching for the building designs the Executor had described. Drawing out what she thought he had described only took her a few minutes. "Something like these, sir?"

"Yes, almost exactly so," Nereus answered.

"Ah," she nodded twice. Choosing between the two was not a simple task: the single-person buildings were very flexible in placement and footprint, but the multiple-Enchanter building would easily be more efficient and require less resource outlay.

Movement to her left caught her eye as she was mentally debating the vices and virtues of the two floorplans, and in that brief distraction she saw the outside edge of an answer. A troop of Basic Inductees was marching past the southern edge of the southern METARgraphic field, moving as one group comprised of many, not as a mismatched collection of individuals. The passing Basic Trainee platoon reminded her of Sigma One's unstated but obvious goal to form a cohesive and harmonious whole from the mismatched dregs and survivors he brought in. On that, Cynthia figured an echo would be appropriate for this requirement.

Cadet Williams pulled another sheet of plotter paper forward and quickly sketched out a new design, one which she intended to magnify the team effort and cohesion of this one group, and through the partnership with the Shrine, serve as an example to the Protectorate. "Would this be doable?" She held her concept art up for the Executor to examine.

Nereus studied her diagram for a few moments. "Did you intend this as scalable?" he asked after a moment.

"Uh, not really, sensei, how so?" she asked after a moment.

"Your design is symmetrical, eight units to each side. If you consider it as two groups of eight, you could easily build this in row buildings in cells of eight, just extend the next section off the end of the last."

Cynthia turned the illustration around so she could see it, and immediately recognized the concept Nereus had envisioned. "Did not intend it, but I guess I did design it that way? I was just trying to make the facility more of a community thing," she admitted freely.

"You did so well beyond your envisioning," Nereus said, then stepped past her and flipped the pages up to allow view of the Shrine plan. "Here, the northeast corner of the Shrine plot, you could easily fit in two rows of the buildings, four groups to each building."

Cynthia stepped up to her mapping sheet and quickly drew in the envisioned concept. It would be a start for the Relic Enchanters, which she figured could be a pivotal art in coming Protectorate affairs. "If I may, sir, what else would be involved in the art?"

Nereus thought for a moment on the subject. "Let us discuss blacksmithing," he said simply.

There was one thing that was never in question for Cynthia: to which divinity the Shrine would be consecrated. Sigma, she figured, would need the divine grace and protection of Hachiman, and that would be her starting point.

-x-x-x-

(28 March, Magi Year 14408 / Year SL 8838, 1335 Hours Local Time)
(Southeastern Corner, Base Boarhound Interior Wall, Terra 232)
(Day 11 of Campaign)

"You're thinking something again," Toni prompted the boss.

"Yeah, we need to implement some kind of a weapons cache system for the Militia forces for coming engagements." Hess continued his pacing down between barracks buildings, southbound away from the command building. "You heard Senator Glivenne's speech, and you've heard what Mayor Noreaux had to say about Star League dominion. As more Militia comes online, we need to prepare armories and caches for the troops to provide extended defense." The ready expectation was that each militiaman would provide his or her own small arms, occasionally heavier weapons of their own preference, but support weapons (anti-tank guided missiles, LAWS rockets, support lasers, similar) would need to be provided by the Protectorate in a militia call-up for most scenarios.

"Also need to set up training for Militia heavy weapons, maybe a certification course with periodic refresher?" Clint said.

"If we go the certification route, we will want to make the fees for certification miniscule, and do the training out of the civil defense budget," Erich decided. "No such animal as taxing the fuck out of possession or use of equipment like the NFA '34 did back home, and I want that premise to include certification for heavier arms. I want the Militia as dangerous as possible to foreign invaders."

"Would that not make them dangerous to us as well?" Moira asked.

"Yes, technically, but unlike the soggy pussy politicians from our homeland, we shall accept fear of the civilians being armed and dangerous," Clint answered. "When a government fears its people, there is freedom; when a people fears their government, it is known as tyranny."

"I did not sign on to this position to become a tyrant," Erich said deadpan. "I have no issue with fearing the armed-citizen-at-large response to government FUBAR, it becomes an ever-present reminder to not screw the pooch or repeat the failings of governments elsewhere."

"I guess we'll need to make sure we don't screw any pooches, then," Toni said carefully.

Hess pushed through the front doors to the Administration Building. "Understand, Toni, that the Magi, the United States, and Sigma operate under a different set of commanding philosophies from pretty much any other government in Existence. In the United States, it is explicit: government of the people, by the people, and for the people, and that government derives its just authority from the people. Amongst the Magi, the premise is implicit but even more ruthlessly enforced. Sigma, it is my intention, shall blend the explicit demand of government protection of personal and natural rights with the ruthless enforcement thereof from the Magi side. Hence the Sigma Constitution's direct and unequivocal protections, but the flexibility of direct voting to decide matters of several sizes and areas of effect."

The conversation halted as the four troops approached one of the HMMVW vehicles, intending to head out to the northern METARgraphic field to review the first day of training for the unit's first Basic Training test-out. All four silently stood between several of the HMMVW vehicles as a group of basic trainees approached. "We owe it to them to do it right," Clint said as the troop of recruits marched past the vehicle parking area.

"Hang a big 10-4 on that one," Hess said after a moment of watching the recruits march by. He turned to open one of the passenger doors to the HMMVW (Moira preferred to drive whenever possible, a side effect of Hess having taught her the ways of the Dragon Wagon in days past), but hesitated when he heard something from the recruit column. As he glanced back, Sigma One caught sight of one of the recruits on the near side collapsed onto the grass, clutching his right side. The lady in line behind him stopped to check, and then shouted for a medic.

"Trouble?" Toni asked.

"May be some trouble," Hess said. "Clint, Moira," he ordered after a moment, an implicit order to form up, and then closed the HMMVW door. From the parking area to where the recruit fell was only ten meters, an easy three seconds march for the Sigma commanders and their guards. "What gives here?"

"I — " the guy convulsed, though Hess noticed it was some kind of physical reaction convulsion, as if something had kicked him in the side, not apparently an internal issue. "I feel like someone just hit my side with an axe!"

"Side? Heart attack, boss?" Clint asked.

Hess kneeled down next to the guy and reached for his radio. "Garrison from Sigma One, medical support needed on the south side of the admin building vehicle lot, one man down, possible heart attack."

"Sigma One, Medtech One, copy traffic, we are in route," his radio answered.

The kid gasped again, and again Hess thought he saw the reaction to the 'hit' as a reaction to something external. "Damnit!" the recruit shouted. "I — I keep seeing a tree, and a guy at the tree with an axe, and every time he hits the tree I feel it!"

"The hell?" Clint asked as the trainees condensed around the area.

"The hits look like they're external, like he's being kicked in the side, has someone hexed him or something?" one of the recruits asked.

"Not impossible," the Basic instructor said. "A mental suggestion of a scene timed to the hex?" he further guessed.

Clint gasped. "Wait, I've heard that befo — Narnia!"

"What?" Hess asked. He was familiar with the name, but had not read the books in almost two decades.

"Chronicles of Narnia! The last book in the series, one of the opening scenes! A Dryad!"

"The hell?" Moira asked Clint.

The recruit yelped again. "Serious! Early scene, loggers going through a magical forest, they cut down a Dryad's tree and she collapses dead at the main character's feet," Clint gave the severely-abbreviated explanation of what he had read over a decade past.

"Serious?" Moira asked.

"He may be right," Toni said. "I'm feeling something here, like he's connected to — "

The SSO was cut off by the abrupt and noisy teleportation arrival of High Executor Nereus. "The hell am I feeling? Every few seconds — "

"AGH!" the recruit shouted. "That guy — he buried the axe into the corewood!"

"Holy shit, is that kid linked to a tree?" Nereus asked as he pushed his way past Toni, knelt down next to Hess, and touched the kid's forehead. "Fuck no, he's not linked to the tree, he is the bloody tree!"

"Told you, a Dryad," Clint said.

"Now what?" the Basic Instructor asked.

"If we do nothing, the kid is dead by default," Hess said. "We stop the shithead with the axe, we save him." Hess looked to the Executor. "Sir, if you can sense the link, can you sense where the tree is in Existence?"

"Already know it," Nereus said. "You want to go there?"

"Oh Hell yes," Hess said as he stood up. "Toni, my rifle and vest."

"Yes sir!" she teleported away, presumably up to the apartment to collect said gear.

"Moira, drop Clint off at his apartment, then get into ScrapNet and pull a Dimensional Beacon Pylon that Xigon just provided us. I have an idea."

"Yes si — " She was cut off as the recruit gasped. Without further word, she simply teleported Clint and herself up to the apartment level.

"How did you not know about this?" one of the other recruits asked of the downed recruit.

"I've always seen a tree in my dreams, the back of my thoughts," he spasmed briefly; "but I never knew I was connected to it!"

"Not impossible, especially if his mother never told him," Hess opined. Toni arrived back at the scene, and promptly was dragged forward by the heavy gearset to where she fell across the recruit's legs. "Much obliged, Toni," Hess said as he relieved the much lighter SSO of his vest, then with the other hand pulled Toni up.

To put the vest on rapidly, Erich grabbed it from behind and simply flipped it up and over his head, rotating it as it flipped so that the gearset pretty much fell onto his shoulders. It was a feat of reaction speed that he positioned his arms properly to go through the arm-holes and settled properly. There were a few murmurs for such handling of a very heavy vest set. "Rifle, boss," Toni presented it to him, and Hess quickly had the sling over his shoulders and in place. The last touch was to load a magazine and run the rotating bolt to chamber a round.

Clint and Moira arrived again by teleport, two-man shoulder-carrying the pylon, and both with proper arms. "This thing is heavy, chief!" Clint said.

"And I need you two on your guns, not humping that log around," Hess groused. He looked to where the Basic unit was effectively stalled; "you, you, and you," his finger swept three of the recruits that looked a little beefier than the norm; "relieve them of the pylon and prepare to follow us in when ordered."

"Hai!" two of the three shouted, and all three moved to immediately take up the Transport Pylon from Moira and Clint.

"High Executor, whenever you're ready," Hess said.

"Everybody quiet, we need silence for stealth," he said to the assembled group. The recruit gasped sharply, likely due to another strike of the axe, but everyone else quieted down. "Gate to envisioned location," Nereus chanted, and just past his right hand formed a dimensional hole leading to the 'envisioned location' and presumably to the tree that would have to be saved.

Hess signaled Clint to move first. Clint, ever the pointman for the Sigma Team, moved forward, checked through the gate at several angles to ensure no obvious threat, and then stepped through. Moira went second, Hess third, and Toni was the last through.

On the far side, it did not take Hess long to identify where the threat was. Clint drew the bolt back on his ACR, an unmistakable sound especially in a wide-open plainsland area.

"What was — " the guy with the axe twisted around to see what made the noise, and immediately froze when he saw what had appeared behind him. "Dear Lord!"

"Set down the axe," Clint ordered calmly.

"What?" the guy asked.

"I said put down the axe, I will not tell you again," Clint said quite a bit more forcefully.

"What gives here?" the man asked, but did set aside his axe and held his hands up away from his body. "Who are you people? Where did you come from?"

"We shall explain in due time, but only after the area is secured," Hess said. "Turn to face the tree, keep your hands away from your body. Do as ordered and you shall not be harmed." The man complied immediately. "Take three paces backwards towards my voice." Again the guy did as ordered without much in the way of hesitation. "That is good. Down to your knees, keep your hands up." The guy hesitated again, but did as ordered. "Clint, secure the tango. Moira, shotgun against that boulder, secure and disarm."

"Yes sir," Moira said as Clint moved forward.

Clint closed up to the guy. "Have any cuffs, big guy? I pulled my set." Clint asked.

"Here," Hess tossed Clint a set of handcuffs.

Clint grabbed the guy's right forearm by his left hand, then slapped the handcuff around his wrist. "What? Am I being arrested? What for?"

"You are being detained for the duration of this matter, you are not under arrest," Clint answered. "After we're done, you will be released unharmed and with no penalties financial or material."

"Then why — " he grumped, but bit of his question after Clint secured his left wrist.

"Safety precaution," Hess said as he closed up behind Clint. "I'm not seeing anyone else in the vicinity, clear to begin?"

"Looks clear," Clint said. "Bring in the Pylon?"

"Yeah, let's get this moving," Hess said. "All right, mister, I'll help you take a more comfortable seating, you'll be here for a few."

Hess hoisted the guy to his feet by one hand. "Okay, what gives here?" he asked while Hess marched the guy to the boulder where Moira had possession of his shotgun, trying to figure out how to disarm it.

"Chief, how do you disarm a double-barrel like this?" Moira asked.

"Toggle lever behind the hammers, sweep it left or right until the action unfolds." Moira did as instructed and the barrels opened up to reveal the two shells.

"Huh, never had to work with these," Moira said wistfully. "I always did pump-action shotguns."

"Don't doubt it," Hess said as he seated the detainee on the rock. "I never found a double-barrel I liked, the sights were never on for me, and even two otherwise-identical doubles would throw different centers of pattern using the same shells. After three or four tries, I gave up and sold my doubles to a collector that specialized in them."

"That why you used to carry the 870 over your shoulder?" Moira asked.

"Was, but mostly I considered the 870 for breaching or extreme close quarters. Which reminds me," Hess turned to the detained logger. "What year is it, mister?"

"1879," he answered.

"Makes sense, the first proper repeating shotguns are a few years off still," Hess said. "Double barrels become the only way to do more than one shot for a shotgun without reloading."

The guy simply stared at Hess while Hess watched the recruits bring the pylon to the tree. "What in God's name are you?" he asked after a moment.

Hess chuckled grimly. "If you're asking as to how I understand the procession of firearms technology that has not been invented yet, I am a student of history. If you're asking as to what I intend for the tree, I am just a guy who saves lives. If you're asking about how all this has been pieced together and landed on you, I can only attribute that state of affairs to chance."

The detainee looked around at the crew that had stormed his area, and then at the tew newcomers. "All this? Chance? I have heard grandiose lies in my time, but that is beyond the shadow of doubt."

"This," Hess waved a finger at the troops setting up the Pylon; "this part is not chance. The circumstance I was referring to was you choosing the one tree for miles to cut down, which so happens to be a tree attached to a recruit soldier in the mercenary army I am building. You cut that tree down, it kills the soldier, thus my intervention to end that threat."

The detainee smirked. "So then what? As soon as you leave, I'm going to finish with that tree, even if I have to go to San Antonio to get myself a new axe."

"Our purpose here is to relocate the tree to our territory. Unless you intend to tag along with us, I expect the tree will be well out of your reach." Hess looked to the two new arrivals. "High Executor, Clarence, welcome to the party. How's the kid?" Hess asked.

"Recovering, now that this gentlemen is not burying an axe into his soul tree," Nereus nodded to the detainee. "I ordered him to quarters for the day."

"And I have a present for you, from Xigon," Clarence handed Sigma One a radio module. "Jack that into your tablet and it gives you micro-gate communication with base as well as remote control for the Pylon. They said they just finished setting it up twenty minutes ago."

"Alpha-stage testing, wonderful," Hess grumped but did attach it to his tablet.

"I have it in place, I think, but I don't have a damn clue how to get it working," Clint said in a rush as he approached.

"Relax, Clarence just gave me a remote-control unit for the device, I'm working on it." Hess changed several adapter settings, then keyed the microphone on his radio. "Sigma One, radio test Pylon Communications, anyone receiving me?"

His radio crackled for a moment. "Sigma One, Virtue, reading five by five. I see the Pylon and have initiated a sensor sweep of the tree. Be warned, the pylon is reporting a 90-minute tasking to isolate what we need to transport."

"Can we augment the check?" Hess requested by radio.

"I have offloaded the computation to my processing cores, but the hard limitation on the system right now is the single integrated sensor system. The pylon is set up to receive up to three more Enhanced Sensor Systems, but the power capacity for running those sensors is less than it would take to complete the scan," Virtue reported.

"Can it receive external power?" Clarence asked.

"Yes, actually," Hess answered.

"It has a standard power bus on it, you could theoretically connect it to the equipment charging slots on one of the HMMVW vehicles," Virtue better explained Hess' response.

"Virtue, deploy the enhanced sensor systems to the ScrapNet interface in the undercroft. I'm sending Moira after them." Hess looked to the SSO Dragon-in-human-form. "Moira, recover those sensors and bring one of the HMMVW through the gate with them. Preferably the one with the Ma Deuce on top, follow?"

"On it, sir!" Moira headed out for the existing magical Gate at a trot.

"Don't like it here?" Nereus asked.

"Nah, not bad territory, my problem is exposure. If any shit goes down, Lumberjack here is sitting on the only usable cover in line of sight," Hess jerked his thumb at the detainee and the small boulder under the detainee's arse. "Sooner we are out of here, the better."

"10-4 to that, boss man," Clarence said.

"To that point," Hess keyed his microphone again; "Virtue, Sigma One, please order the attack helo contingent to runway standby with rockets and gunpods. No armor threats this vicinity, but this area is exposed and would be optimal for a cavalry encounter."

"Acknowledged, gunship squadron will be spooled up in ten minutes," Virtue reported.

"What…" the detainee said. "By God, what manner of witchcraft do you practice, to hear such voices and hold a conversation with them?"

Clint chuckled. "Another notch on our tally, boss," Clint said and presented Hess his fist for a fist-bump.

Hess obliged the fistbump. "10-4, been accused of antisocial behavior, murder by proxy just because I own guns, being a danger to the community, treason for refusing to surrender my guns to the government, general heartlessness, even been accused of being a Communist which makes not a damn bit of sense, but here, today, I have finally been accused of the holy of holies in the realm of insults: witchcraft. I need to put that on my permanent record."

"Clarke's Third Law strikes again," Clarence said with his own chuckle.

"Huh?" Nereus indirectly asked Sigma Three.

"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic," Hess covered for Clarence. "Of which, there is a corollary to Clarke's third law, which states that any technology, even the most basic, is still magic to those who have no exposure to high technology." Hess shrugged. "Consider, locally this is year 1879. The concept of electricity is understood scientifically but is not understood widespread. The most major public practical electrical usage right now is telegraph systems. Radio is still several decades off into the future." Hess lifted the radio handset off his lapel. "A two-way conversation by radio has all the appearance of magic in an area that has no exposure to the precursor technologies to radio, much less radio itself."

"Holy shit, never considered that all the way through," Clint said. "That's gonna bite us in the ass repeatedly going forward."

"Exactly," Hess said. "But, this thing is neither here nor there, the tree is the big deal of the day."

"So, are you going to explain this matter?" the attempted lumberjack asked.

"Yeah, I did say I would explain it," Hess said. "So, here is the run-down on this matter." Hess waved a finger at the HMMVW that had just emerged from the gate, which was partially visible to the rock. "Through the dimensional gate that vehicle just came out of is a military base. On that military base is a new recruit, just signed up for duty about a week ago. Normal guy, not much older than twenty years, still working out what military occupation specialty he wants to go for. Only, just about twenty minutes ago, we discovered the poor sod is not a normal normal man, he is not human. He is a Dryad, if one wanted to go with the older term for the group. Are you familiar with the name?"

"A vengeful tree spirit?" the detainee asked.

"Tree spirit, yes. Vengeful, not so much. To my knowledge, the guy in question has never spoken ill in any fashion, much less tried to exact vengeance on any one being for any given reason. Our action here was to save the Dryad's life by way of preventing you finishing the cutting," Hess pulled his tablet out and checked the scan status from the Pylon. "He has not invoked a request for vengeance, and in all reality you would have had no expectation that you were hacking away at a Dryad's tree, thus earn no enmity for doing so. Hence, once the tree is relocated, you get released, we walk away, end of story."

"So you are siding with a demonic spirit over a common man? What promises have you been offered for such witchcraft?"

Hess was silent for a few moments, watching Clint and Moira connect the Pylon to onboard power on the HMMVW and attach the extended sensor modules. Once those changes were in place, Hess noted that the run time for the sensor sweep had dropped from 82 minutes to 32.

"No answer?" the detainee asked.

Hess chuckled. "You've already backed yourself into a mental position from which everything I say is wrong by default. I do not argue intellectually dishonest contests, and if you are conflating an action to save a non-human being as satanic, then there is no explanation I can give that you would accept."

-x-

(25 minutes later)

"I am thinking, a wall placard back at the administration building, all the things we've been accused of," Toni said out of the blue.

"Need a dedicated monitor and scrolling list, actually," Hess said. "The list will grow rapidly. Witchcraft, though, that is a particularly interesting charge, especially to a man who has spent his entire life in the hard sciences and firearms industry."

"It is not wise to make a mockery of God's word," the detainee said.

"Quite correct," Hess said. "Which is why I usually do not speak ill of the Bible, but have been known to speak ill of some who call themselves Christian."

"Are you Christian?" the detainee asked.

"I decline to answer," Hess answered as he adjusted some settings on the tablet. "This is going to be a fairly large transfer, we're already looking at a 15 meter radius and 21 meters down for the taproot."

"Hey, boss, how long do we have on the transfer?" Clarence asked.

"Six and a half, why?" Before Clarence could answer, Hess looked to the financial officer, and after he noticed the expression on his face, looked to where Clarence was looking. Finding the cause of the consternation was easy, which elicited a single-word reaction from Hess: "Fuck."

"I had a feelin' this was going too smoothly," Clint groused.

"What happens when one mixes Clarke's Third with Murphy's First?" Executor Nereus asked, cued into the threat just the same.

"Bad business, no two ways about it," Sigma One answered the Executor. "Okay, here's the gig. They'll be on top of us in five minutes. That said, this does not have to end in an incident if we play the cards right. Clint, you're on the Ma Deuce. I want Moira in the driver's seat. I will have my radio gain turned up and the microphone on vox, keep your ears up and your brain in high gear, follow?"

"Hell yes sir," Clint said.

"Our panic button is the rotor group, press it if this goes messy. May not be fast enough to save our arses, but it means we have company after the smoke clears. When you get to the vehicle, disconnect the pylon and maneuver 40 meters laterally, defilade positioning. Good to go?"

"On it, chief," Clint said. He turned to the tree and started jogging in that direction.

"United States cavalry," Nereus said. "You think you have this?" he asked Hess after a moment.

"Six-Five and pick 'em at this point. I am American, so I think I have a few cards to play. Question is, does their commanding officer have enough of a sense of humor to play this one on the level?"

Nereus snorted at the rhetorical question.

-x-

(6 minutes later)

"This one's gonna be close," Clarence pointed out.

"Close enough, actually," Hess said with a smile. "Virtue, Sigma One, when the scanning is complete, prepare the gate solution and hold 90 seconds, then give me a chime and interface. If shots are fired, send it immediately and bring in the rotor contingent."

"Acknowledged," Virtue answered immediately.

"All forces, radio silence on this channel. I am going vox at this time." Hess switched a toggle on his lapel microphone to continuously transmit. "Radio check, radio check." Clint gave him a thumbs-up. "Clarence, kill your radio."

"Aye," Clarence switched his down to zero volume, which didn't kill it but did mute it. "Totally different experience."

"Hang loose," Hess said to Clarence before he checked his tablet. "Scan completed," Hess said after he put his tablet back into his TT pouch.

The cavalry troops stopped at a respectable distance on orders of their commanding officer, then the officer and one more approached. "Captain Michael Vickers, United States Army. Who commands this scene?"

"I do. Erich Hess, United States citizen." Hess identified himself.

The Captain sighed. "Offhand, mister Hess, I am not seeing what is supposed to be going on here. Care to explain yourself?"

"We are relocating a tree, Captain," Sigma One said. "Should be ready to do it here in about a minute."

The Captain frowned. "Do you men require assistance finishing the felling?" he asked by way of misinterpreting what Hess intended.

"Actually, sir, I said 'relocate' deliberately. The intention is specifically to not cut it down," Erich said.

The Captain looked to the tree, to Hess, to the tree again, and back to Hess. "That is a rather large tree. You intend to accomplish this in what manner?"

"High technology, specifically cross-dimensional matter displacement," Hess said casually. "We move the tree from its present location to an alternate dimension, and transpose the volume in its arrival area to here. Make sense, sir?"

"You are talking about Lemonsov's Postulate on the conservation of mass?" the Cavalry Captain asked.

Hess knew that the principle of conservation of mass was not strictly applicable to what he was doing here, but it was an angle to start from that gave Hess a clean opening. "Exactly so, Captain. The actual destruction of matter is wildly difficult, annihilation forces or methods are very few and far between. Matter transposition, however, is both far simpler and far less energy-consuming. Thus our present quest to transpose the tree and its attendant ground to a different location, with an equal and opposite transposition of matter to this location to compensate." Hess' tablet chimed. "And that means the system is ready to commence."

"And this gentlemen?" the subordinate officer asked.

Hess pulled his tablet and confirmed the information. "This gentlemen is a story to be concluded momentarily," Hess said. "Now, if you will, eyes on the tree but do not approach." Hess deliberately jacked down the transfer rate for the gate lapse to 2000 milliseconds (2 seconds) to make it easily visually noticeable. "In 3, 2, 1, initiate," Hess said, and with a tap of the control button on his tablet, the transfer began.

The tree began disappearing from the top down at a brisk clip, its physical volume replaced with the atmosphere of its arrival location. Two seconds later, the tree was replaced with a patch of grass from the assembly grounds in front of the command center — Hess recognized it easily, given the lack of common weeds and the much brighter green.

"Holy Moses," the attempted-lumberjack said.

"And that problem is solved," Hess said. "So, now for the end of this story, please stand up, good sir, and face the Captain." Hess pulled a hidden handcuff key he kept in his pants belt, With two clicks and a little finagling, he had the cuffs cleared and in the pouch on his vest. "And that leaves your axe. Clint recovered it and put it in the vehicle, if I remember correctly." Hess waved for Moira to close up on the group, which she did.

The HMMVW slightly spooked the horses, but not to the point of panicking the beasts. "What manner of machine is that?" Captain Vickers asked after it stopped nearby the group.

"You know trains, right?" Clint asked from the gunner's cupola on top of the HMMVW..

"That I do, mister," the Captain answered warily.

"These things are the same principle as a train: mechanical vehicle on wheels, propelled by an engine. Lot smaller scale than a Train, can only carry maybe eight men and two horses with a trailer, and independent wheels, no need for rails."

"Marvelous," the Captain said. "Wait, you said you are an American?" Vickers asked of Hess.

"I am, Captain," Hess answered evenly.

He looked to the vehicle in front of him, then back to Hess. "How far into the future do you hail from?"

"Captain?" the Lieutenant riding with him asked.

"It is a question I expected, Lieutenant," Hess said. "I hail from the year of the Lord two thousand and fifteen," Sigma One explained.

"I suspected as much," the Captain said. "Transposition of matter, independent motorized transport, information on a device of unrecognized origin, you could be naught but from a distant time."

"Quite correct," Hess said. "Clint, where is this gentlemen's axe?"

"Driver side rear," On those directions, Hess took only three seconds to find it.

Hess returned the heavy woodsman's axe by one hand held just below the blade head. "You're returning this?" the guy asked.

"I did say at the onset of this incident that you would not be deprived of property or monies. I hold to that word, which means I do owe you for the tree," Hess admitted. "Do you have need of meat?"

"Meat? What are you proposing?"

"Over your right shoulder, about 600 yards off, is a nice-size buck. If you have need of deer meat, I can drop it from here."

The Captain whistled. "That's a bit of a long shot for a deer," Vickers commented.

Clint snorted. "Not a long shot for him," he said.

"Yea or nay?" Hess asked the attempted lumberjack.

"Yes, I could use the meat, and yes, I will consider that even," he said.

"Hold one. Clint, you have a scope?" Hess asked.

"Right here," Clint pulled out a small spotting scope he kept in his kit for just such an occasion. "Want windage or are you going to Kentucky Windage the shot?"

"It's under a thousand, I think I can gauge it. Spot me if I miss." Hess went to the far side of the HMMVW and braced on the hood with his bipod down. "Looks like four mils of wind? Port side?"

"Sounds about right, boss," Clint said. "Target is stationary. Send it."

"Standby," Hess said. He did the windage Kentucky style, which meant he left his rifle scope at natural zero and simply did the elevation and traverse by way of holding the crosshair above the deer and to the left. Once he was satisfied with what he felt was needed, Hess broke a shot, with the suppressor reducing the sound to the point of not degrading anyone's hearing.

A little more than a second later, the deer jumped six feet in the air, sprinted forward twenty meters, slowed to a trot for ten meters, slowed further to a walk for another ten meters, then stopped and dropped.

"Tango down," Clint said, then returned the spotting scope to his vest storage pouch.

"One shot one kill," Hess said. "He's all yours, mister. Have at it."

"Thank you for this harvest, soldier," the former detainee said. "Just, one last request," he prompted. "Explain to them why you put such a high value on a tree?"

Hess nodded. "Captain, would it be a reasonable guess to say you have in your possession a bible?"

"It certainly would," the Captain said.

"If I may request of you the exact phrasing of 1 Genesis 27?"

"You do not know?" the Captain asked.

"I have read several different translation of the Bible over the years, Captain. The content of the requested verse is the same in meaning, but the phrasing is mildly different from one to the next," Hess hedged his position on the request.

"Certainly," he said. "Lieutenant, is your handy?"

"Here," the subordinate handed the Captain his bible.

Searching for the requested section took twenty seconds. "1 Genesis 27 says, 'So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them'. Is that a match to your prior readings?"

"Aye, that is the King James version," Hess said. "The last version I read was the New Living Translation, if I remember correctly: 'So God created human beings in his own image. In the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.' "

"You were right, mister, same content with different phrasing," the Captain said. "So, what bearing does a discussion of God creating mankind have on a tree?"

"In the future of America, the thoughts of the populace have moved past the consideration of 1 Genesis 27 and 28, for it is now evident to us that God not only created one world, he created many. Humanity of my time, we have seen into the stars, and we see that God's creation is far beyond imagination, as it rightfully should be. 'So God created Man in His own image', so sayeth the Bible. Have you ever considered the premise that God created Man in his own image, but may have created other beings in other images?"

The question was equal parts puzzling to the Captain for the sheer audacity of it, and equal part puzzling on the premise of it. "I have not considered this, no," the Captain said.

"The universe is an infinite expanse of infinite parallels," Hess said. "The phrasing of 1 Genesis 27 is definitive: God created Man in His own image. The phrasing of said verse is not exclusive, however: 1 Genesis 27 does not say that God created Man as the only beings with the capacity for reason, logic, and love. I have met some of these other beings, from other worlds, other parallels, and this incident with the tree was an act to save the life of one such being, a Dryad if one wished to use the not-accurate olden days name of the being."

"A Dryad? A spirit of a tree?" the Lieutenant asked.

"Correct," Hess said. "The tree this gentleman was swinging at is the Dryad's tree. Cut the tree down, kill the dryad, thus I acted to save a life," Sigma One said.

"Why would…" the Captain's thought trailed off. "Why — " he started a sentence, but terminated it aborning as well.

"After experiencing the true vastness of Existence, the marvels and wonders thereof, I have only one lesson to give, Captain. Take all of Creation as is, no more and no less. God made the universe as he did with some manner of plan in mind, and you can rest assured that even a hundred and forty years hence, we still have no proper understanding of what that plan entails. All we can do is as ordered in 1 Genesis 28: 'go forth'. Not my place to question His designs for the world, not my place to question the shape of the world, not my place to question his designs for other beings of sentience. All I properly understand is that He did it, now we get to live with it."

"The philosophy of the future is an unusually complex one," the Captain said. "I can only wonder what awaits us."

"My philosophy is an outlier amongst my peers, Captain," Hess said gravely. "Few in the future America are as open-minded or understanding as I. Mine is borne of years of introspection and study, actively trying to understand Existence as it is, not as how one would preconceive it to be. The book you just returned to your subordinate is the truth, but when it was compiled there was no expectation that humanity would venture outside this world, hence I suspect that God may not have relayed the relevant information on his other creations to the authors for forwarding to us in the here and now. Such detail would have only clouded early matters and debates of scripture, a counterproductive result in spreading His word."

"Now that is a rather shocking take on scripture," the Captain said.

"As I said, in the future we still do not know His grand design, but He did grace us with free will and thought. Thus I will try, forever in vain, but I shall try to understand." Hess' tablet beeped three times, which prompted him to check it. "Matters arise elsewhere that I need to see to, Captain. I must depart."

"Go with grace, Mister Hess," Captain Vickers saluted, to which Hess came to attention and returned the gesture.

"Pile in, we're done here," Moira said from the driver's side window of the HMMVW. Once Hess, Nereus, Clarence, and Toni were in the vehicle, Moira was quick to make for the Gate and return to Base Boarhound.

-x-

(In front of the tree in the courtyard south of Base Boarhound Admin Building)

"Desmond! Is Desmond all right?" Nereus asked after the group piled out of the HMMVW.

"He's over by the tree, sir!" one of the recruits said.

"Make way for the boss!" one of the recruits shouted, and after a few moments they parted the way to the tree and the recruit.

"You all right, kid?" Hess asked.

"Yes, thanks to you, yes," Desmond said, still staring at the tree. "When I close my eyes, I can see through the tree, everything and everyone around it, and I know this tree is mine for I can see you with absolute clarity. I am the tree."

"And you're a helluva lot older than you look," Clint said, standing next to the damaged part. "I'm counting over 60 rings just in this visible area, and we're nowhere near the center of the tree."

"Enhanced Sensor Systems can get an accurate reading in a couple hours," Century Commander Vickers said as he approached from the other side of the tree. "Heard the conversation, sir. Is that seriously what runs through your mind?"

"I would be lying if I said no," Hess answered. "I simply strung together a long chain of my prior philosophical musings into something reasonably coherent on the subject, in the hopes that I could baffle them with enough brown material that they didn't charge me with heresy." Erich sighed. "So, at the cost of one bullet, an hour of time, ten minutes of philosophy, and some diesel fuel, we have saved a Dryad."

Hess was not expecting it, thus the massive cheer from the assembled Basic teams (at least 3) briefly startled him. On the other hand, he rolled with it easily enough as it segued into clapping for a minute. "So, now what?" Century Commander Vickers asked after the crowd calmed down.

"Well, for now this will be the residence of the tree. Once we have some territory secured that is appropriate for a Dryad's tree, we will relocate the tree again. If we find more Dryad trees, we may have to set up a dedicated grove. Second, Desmond, until you're healed up and the tree is properly repaired, you are on medical leave. Totally not sure how to repair the damage to the tree, though, my first aid and battlefield casualty courses did not include axe damage to a tree."

"I'll hit it with some of the common curative magicks, see how well those work," High Executor Nereus said.

"Thank you, sir," Hess nodded to the point. "Third, I need to get word to Xigon that the pylon worked, even if it wasn't an intended purpose. Also need to see if they can come up with some manner of more exacting solution for identifying root dispersion on a tree. I expect that if we rescue one Dryad today, we will have others to rescue in due time."

"I heard," Jeff Evans said by way of the radio. "I'm writing up a message to Xigon right now."

"For now, I'd say that is the measure of it, looks like we're done here," Hess said, then shrugged.

"Nope, one last thing," High Executor Nereus said. "Virtue, Nereus, please confirm that Dryad is not listed in the Star League Registry of Races."

Five seconds of silence gnawed at the persons around the tree, waiting for a response with baited breath. "Confirmed, Dryad or any similar race is not known to the Star League."

"We have some paperwork ahead of us, and Desmond has some time in research to come," Nereus said pensively. "The Protectorate of Sigma has just inadvertently discovered a new race. This is going to make some noise."

"Classic case of no good deed going unpunished, I daresay," Hess said, but was smiling heartily. "I suspect as we push deeper into the annals of the Trains and MercNet, we will find a lot more. And we shall fight for every one we find, for it is the right thing to do at the end of the day."

-x-x-x-

(28 March, Magi Year 14408 / Year SL 8838, 1515 Hours Local Time)
(Admin Building second floor, Base Boarhound, Terra 232)
(Day 11 of Campaign)

Dagger had moved quickly to claim some real estate in the Boarhound Admin, mainly on the thought that any bureaucracy would inevitably expand to fill any void, and she figured she would need an administrative office for her coming endeavor.

"This is a perfect example of no good deed going unpunished," Princess Alexandros said in echo of Sigma One's grump about his coming tasks. "Which is why I've called you all here. I'm going to need help to make this work."

It wasn't the whole group she had come to know well and work with in her travels, but it was the larger portion thereof. Red Amarant wasn't interested in the rescue detail, he figured (not impossibly) that the quickest way to a return ticket home was through the more traditional mercenary work. Quina, unsurprisingly, had signed up for chef detail and was leaning in that direction quickly. The others had remained: Eiko, Steiner, Vivi, Freya, Zidane, and Dagger had all signed up for her plan. As had some twenty others of mixed peerage and dubious skill.

Of course, compared to the feat of marksmanship that Sigma One had demonstrated in days past, Dagger doubted the ability of any person in the room to challenge him, should the need arise. It is one thing to do battle in close, or even at spellcraft ranges, but a different thing entirely to deal death from distances where the shot cannot be heard or located. On the other hand, given the way she intended to structure the support methods for the Rescue Rangers, Dagger entirely expected to call upon his riflework when needed. After all, few things could help resolve a hostile rescue and extract faster than a sniper who could drop a man reliably at a thousand yards.

"So, before we begin developing plans, let's go over what exactly we want to accomplish," she said a bit stiffly, then sighed. "First thing, this is going to be a loose organization. If I understand it properly, we're going to be mercenaries, but not line combat mercs," she explained. "We won't need the rigid command structure the main merc units will need, but we may have to call upon them."

"Okay, I like that," Zidane said, to which Steiner frowned.

"Second, like the combat merc units, we're going to spend more time in training and resting than actual operations — that is orders from Sigma Two," she explained. "We will need the training, given some of the mission requirements I've seen."

"Training will hone ourselves into the best we can be," Freya pointed out. "We will need it for our return home."

"True," she admitted. "Third, when we operate on contracts, we will work a full day of contracts, a lot of small ones or a large one, or a mix. Twelve or more hours of nonstop work rescuing people, though we don't stop until the last assigned contract is completed." Dagger wrote out the requirements on the room whiteboard. "This gives us a quick surge of contracts completed, with the flexibility to complete the last without having to call in another team."

"That is going to be a lot of work," Steiner said, having been involved in Dagger's pre-planning 'sand-table exercises' with Virtue, he knew explicitly what the contracts could lead to.

"How many of us will be needed?" Vivi asked.

"That can vary," Garnet answered. "Some contracts will just require one or two of us to go to a location and move that person to a different location. Other contracts may require several dozen acting in concert to rescue the captured persons. It will change from job to job," she admitted.

"Okay, that doesn't mean we're doing just assigned groups, right?" Eiko asked after a moment for the news to sink in.

"That will also change from job to job," Dagger answered.

"Fighting purposes," Freya pointed out. "What you are planning can't be done with a loose command and control structure, nothing would be accomplished," she explained the pitfall Dagger was swinging over.

"She's right," Zidane backed Freya up. "This is going to take a lot of coordination, both here and for the teams," he said.

"I get where Zidane's going," Steiner said, then stepped up to the whiteboard. "As we're out working one mission, we need staff to line up the next contract and manage the teams as they come in and out. The more teams we have, the more support personnel we will need."

"This…" Dagger bit off her sentence as she reconsidered it. "You are right," she admitted after thirty seconds. "I had been planning on a small administrative staff and research group, but we will need more," she decided.

"Have you considered reconnaissance groups?" Zidane asked. "We will need personnel to go out into the contract areas to check on the circumstances, make sure we're not working a false contract."

"I foresee a need for an armorer and at least a medic as well," Steiner pointed out.

"Bigger still," Dagger grumped.

Virtue defuzed the coming blowup. "Do not despair of ballooning personnel requirements, Dagger," the AI entity said. "In the army of the nation from which Sigma One hails, the common ratio is ten support troops to one combatant. Hess expects a similar ratio of personnel for his field units, due to the nature of the missions. Automation cannot always reduce personnel."

"Still, that cuts into the…" again, Dagger bit off her sentence.

"It is not expected for the units to turn a profit at this time — not for some months, and likely over a year before that happens. This is expected at every level of the command structure and in the Protectorate's sponsors. As we gain placement in MercNet and expand volume of contracts, we shall slowly even out the profit disparity until all sectors are making money."

"For now, we must focus on establishing the unit," Freya said. "It sounds as if Sigma is issuing us a blank check to achieve the structure we need."

Dagger sighed. "I signed myself up to rescue people, I wasn't expecting this size of a headache."

"Oh, we'll rescue people, plenty of them," Zidane said. "We need to get set up, first, and for that we're behind you."

-x-x-x-

(28 March, Magi Year 14408 / Year SL 8838, 1630 Hours Local Time)
(Northern METARgraphic field, Base Boarhound, Terra 232)
(Day 11 of Campaign)

"A wild day becomes truly wilder," Victoria gasped after she exited the HMMVW.

"I know," Clarence said to his wife.

"Expect some tough questions, guys," Clint said as he approached Sigma 3 and 4 with Hess in tow.

"Expect some tougher answers," Nereus said after he blinked in behind Sigma One.

"I suspect this will be a lesson worth remembering," Hess said.

"Pfft," Moira sputtered. "I know exactly where this is going," she said.

"I have my guess," Toni said.

Anastasia huffed at the obtuseness of the situation. "Why are we just standing here thinking about guessing about it?" She led off the entourage headed toward the training center that had been assembled by the METARgraphic field. On the inside, the classroom session for the group came to a quick halt once they realized who had entered.

"SIGMA ONE ON DECK!" Instructor Sun Parras shouted after she caught sight of Hess behind one of the smaller SSOs. The entire classroom was on their feet before the entire Sigma Command Staff was inside the room.

"As you were," Hess said after a moment to survey the class. He deliberately did not check the gender demographics of the class, only the racial demographics on the way to the field. His guess was proven correct, of 22 total persons in the room not an instructor, it was split almost evenly by the gender. On the racial side, he already knew courtesy of a similar conversation he and Toni had run with Virtue as had Moira and Clint this morning.

"How may I be of service, sir?" the Instructor asked after the class had been seated again.

"Was intending to survey the ranks of the advanced test-out recruits," Hess explained.

"And come to an understanding of purpose," Victoria completed the thought.

"You wish to know why such veterans as us would remain with the Protectorate, my liege?" one of the ladies asked. Most strikingly, the lady in question had a hair color roughly the same as marble, not completely white but not far from it, which made her a Solar Phoenix if Hess did not miss his guess.

"Well, yes?" Hess replied, not expecting to be undercut so quickly. "I have read a few of your jackets (1), more than a few persons in this room are capable of besting us all in both military and command pursuits. Each of those I read has the spellcraft capability to teleport or gate oneself away from here. With both an escape option and categoric superiority, I can't begin to guess what brings you to hang around in this rube goldberg effort."

"Permission to speak freely, sir?"

Hess considered the gamble inherent to saying 'yea' or 'nay', and decided this was a room worth the shot. Whether reinforcing and encouraging or brutally honest, these persons were some of the few qualified to say so. "Have at it," Hess answered.

"You are over-analyzing the problem, sir, looking for complex reasons when the answer is much simpler," the trainee said. "The Executors and the Multimages trust you in this matter. You are nearly the same manner of crazy as the Old Emperor, willing to build an empire to do the right thing in the face of horrid opposition, which says plenty. And, as much as you downplayed it, you just used random Biblical philosophical musings to fast-talk the United States Cavalry out of a Dryad's tree, which you then relocated to the courtyard in front of your administration building. You may have a following of persons trying to survive, but you really have the loyalty of even more, because they can sense you're doing the right thing."

"Concur, sir," a different Phoenix declared (the group could tell by way of her golden hair). "The Executors do not put their faith in just any average joe off the street."

"Be warned, though, you are caught on deadly ground, standing between several massive political powers," the smaller of the two Aerial Phoenix ladies said.

"Aye, the Star League, the Executors, the Slavers, the Multimages, and every little geopolitical noisemaker we run a contract for or against," Hess counted off some of the tangos in his mind.

"The protections of MercNet will help to a degree, but there will always be someone who wants to take it personally," Nereus said deadpan.

"And for that there must be a solid guard here, in the home territory," Clint pointed out. "I know I'm looking at a wide group of talents here, but right now we need a QRF. How many of you can we call upon for immediate defense?"

"All of our asses are on the line, sir," the hands-down largest lady in the recruits answered. "We go where you need us, when you need us there."

-x-x-x-

(28 March, Magi Year 14408 / Year SL 8838, 1810 Hours Local Time)
(BEQ 7A21, Base Boarhound, Terra 232)
(Day 11 of Campaign)

The specific choice of what they wanted to do for her time in the mercenary unit was frustrating both Crystal and Alexandra. And both wanted to have this dialed in before they set foot in training (Alexandra) and academy (Christy) tomorrow, for fear of being harassed for indecisiveness.

The options were thin, all things considered. Sigma was just starting out, and its capabilities were minimal, which meant that its available military positions were thin, and with most of that forced thinness focused into infantry positions. On the other hand, there were training brackets available outside the usable formations right now, so…

"Geh, such a difficult choice," Christy complained. "Do I want to go Mobile Suit and thereafter Gundam, or do I want to go Battlemech?"

"This again?" Morris asked after he set a plate in front of each of the two ladies of the household. He was doing the cooking today, since the elder ladies had been out gathering supplies and learning the geography of the base over the past hours.

"I can't decide! They are both good careers!"

"What about you, Alexandra?" Morris asked.

"I've narrowed it down to something in the clandestine groups — Spy, Infiltrator, or Ghost," Alexandra said, after having been stepped through the decision process by Christy and reviewing footage of each type of trooper in action.

"Well, we did pretty good at hiding from the Slavers," Morris pointed out.

"This is different, though," Alexandra said. "There, we were hiding to survive. For this, we are hiding to take advantage and kill someone."

"Okay, what's the difference?" Marco asked after he bounded down the stairs from the bedroom level. "Upper shower is open."

"Dinner is on the stove, you're on your own," Morris said as he headed toward the bathroom.

"Okay, here's the deal. Spies move into a territory to, well, spy on the people. They're not really combatants, they just learn an enemy's weaknesses," Alexandra paraphrased what she had learned over the past hour.

"Cool, but I don't see you making that happen," Marco said. "You're not exactly the friendliest person around," he said as he was seating himself for dinner.

"Thanks," Alexandra flicked his forehead. "Okay, no dice on that, it's unanimous, I am not friendly." she shrugged. "Second option I've narrowed down to, Infiltration Specialist. These are combat troops, they sneak into a territory by multiple means, then hit an enemy in their weak spots from inside."

"That's not a bad job," Marco said. "And the others?"

"Ghosts come in several types, and they're all part of the Armored Infantry. Assault Ghosts are front-line invisible troopers. Infiltration Ghosts are Armored Infantry versions of the Infiltration Specialists. Ghost Demolitionists specialize in getting inside structures, ships, complexes, and destroying them. Ghost Snipers and Ghost Armor Snipers use long-range weapons to kill high-value targets."

"Okay, one big question," Marco said, waving his fork at Alexandra. "Do you think you could operate one of those massive armor sets the Mages use?"

The eldest of the two ladies scrunched her forehead at the youngest of the two guys. "I — oh," Alexandra cut herself short after she realized what he meant. "Oh, wow, yeah, no way I can handle that armor, not as I am right now," she admitted.

"So that eliminates the Ghost positions," Marco chided her. "And that leaves only one, the Infiltration Specialist. Unless you want to do sniper?"

"I looked at that, the mission requirements for that… " Alexandra let her sentence trail off. "Oh, wow, I thought that was hard, but the Infiltration job is just the same, only I have to get up close and personal, rather than keep range."

"Yeah," Marco smiled. "Same job, different distance."

"Okay, you have a point." Alexandra huffed and slunk down in a hunch, which caused her shirt to dunk into her soup. "Oh, damnit!" she groused as she wiped at her shirt.

"Eh, don't worry about it, I'll do laundry tomorrow." Marco waved his hand dismissively.

Alexandra huffed again, but returned her focus to the decision process. "Okay, narrowed to two. Infiltrator, Sniper."

"The job roles are similar enough, you could do both?" Christy pointed out.

"Maybe, but if I had to chose, the Infiltrator sounds like where I'd go," she said. "That's what I'll do, I guess. You, Christy?"

"Gundam Pilot," she answered. "If I go there, I can drive Gundams, Mobile Suits, and Mobile Armors all the same, the skills are interlinked. That would make me very useful to the Protectorate, and thus well-employed for years to come."

"Nice," Marco said.

"We know where we are going now, so we get to have some fun starting tomorrow," Christy said. "I'll just have to harden up if I want to make Gundam pilot."

"We've got a lot of hardening to do to survive, something this big and wonderful has already attracted enemies," Marco said, referring to the Protectorate.

-x-x-x-

(28 March, Magi Year 14408 / Year SL 8838, 2115 Hours Local Time)
(Barracks F-C-31, Base Boarhound, Terra 232)
(Day 11 of Campaign)

"Only 400 cars into one Train, and the population of this place is well in excess of 3000 people. I can't imagine how much more expanding we have to do before they're done," Angie A. pointed out the major news of the day.

"Yeah, that's some serious shit," Bluma S. agreed on the point. "What do you think? 6500 before the Train is done?"

"That or more," Their 'group' lead pointed out. Mihaela had quickly found Angie and Bluma in the morass of recruits into Sigma's burgeoning force structure by way of sensing their desire — literally. She was very much self-aware of thoughts directed at her because of her psionic skills, and capable of defending herself with spellcraft but not much else. Her weapons skills were abysmal, and her personal strength was 'underwater' according to the training standards, nevermind the unintentional pun from that phrase given that she was a Nymph, not a human.

Bluma snorted at her fast friend's statement. "It's nuts. Two weeks ago, all I had to look forward to was looking out the windows on the Train, maybe dodge some Slavers, now I'm signed up to eventually become a Mobile Armor Pilot. Sigma One, is he sane?" Bluma was the 'odd one out' of the Trio. Human, of a more modern vintage (1980s Europe), she had even less going for herself than Mihaela did. Most of Europe was 'gentrified' (polite term) in that era of its history, utterly untrained in the arts of war, with only token armies in place and a large unstated guarantee of safety in case anything 'bad' tried scuttling out from under the Iron Curtain. On the flipside, Bluma was the largest of the three, and the most easygoing of the three in most respects, a mellowing influence to the edginess of her cohorts.

"Sigma One is not sane, he's an American. They are a special breed of insane, capable of the most wondrous and terrifying feats when roused," Angie answered the standing question. "And that's why I signed up. When he said he will protect all rights, I believe it. Americans are crazy enough to try."

"God protect the man," Bluma said. "We need champions of all personal freedoms."

The southern door opened to the Barracks. "Speaking of God…" Angie said crossly after she saw who had entered.

"This will be trouble," Mihaela said. "Be ready to bolt," she continued, given the interloper had come with a posse.

"I can't run, not far at least," Bluma admitted.

"We're screwed," Angie came to the inevitable conclusion.

The three ladies, clustered around the causeway between two of the bunk beds, simply watched and waited as the posse came upon them. There would be no running, this was a problem to be dealt with directly, there could be no running from it. Not that Mihaela particularly wanted to martyr herself for any cause, but this one was better than some and not as bad as most.

Unlike the posse, Mihaela clearly saw two of the Basic Instructors had crept up behind the posse and were in a position of advantage should anything go down. In military parlance, their flaw was called 'tunnel vision', allowing themselves to be outmaneuvered during operations.

Of course, the mouthpiece of the unit was a known noisemaker and proselytizer that had chewed the ladies out as recently as the day prior. "Mihaela, Angie, Bluma, you three stand accused of grossly immoral conduct," Montgomery said after the five came to a halt at the foot of their bunks.

"Everything worthwhile in life is illegal, immoral, or fattening, so what's your point?" Bluma replied in kind.

"You three have held improper relations amongst yourselves," Montgomery continued.

"Not illegal, so?" Mihaela pointed out.

"You three have been rumored to have intimately known each other," their accuser continued.

"Also not illegal," Mihaela answered the charge.

"And you, Mihaela, have been accused of witchcraft," he concluded.

"Which, in case you have forgotten where you stand, is considered a valid military and civilian skillset, so it also is not illegal. Do you have any real crimes to charge me with?" she asked in counter.

Montgomery apparently ignored the challenge. "The proscribed punishment for such conduct is purification by pain. Make this easy on yourself, and we shall be quick about it."

"And who died and made you God?" Angie asked, which she would not understand until well after the fact was nearly the worst thing to say to the son of a Catholic Inquisitor from the 16th Century.

"I will tolerate no more such blasphemy!" Montgomery said before he brandished a stout length of metal rod.

Their interloper took no more than one step before the sound of a shotgun pump caused everyone to freeze in dread. "Stand fast, recruit!" Instructor Prentice shouted as he approached the group from the north entrance to the barracks. "What the fuck is this stravag bullshit? On what authority do you have to threaten another recruit?"

The sound of two SMG bolts from roughly behind the posse made it infinitely clear that the posse had allowed itself to be surrounded. "Drop your weapons." Instructor Dom ordered.

"This isn't over," Montgomery said before he threw down his metal bar section. "The divine wrath is slow to action, but makes up for its tardiness in severity."

"Been there, heard that, not impressed," Instructor Dom said as he approached from behind to secure the five-man team. "Virtue, alert the MPs, transport needed for five to the Brig, and inform Sigma One of this incident. I am unsure at what level it needs to be handled."

"Acknowledged, Instructor," Virtue answered. "Alerts have gone out."

In the space of thirty seconds, Dom and Prentice had secured the five tangos. None had dared to resist when confronted with three firearm-wielding Multimage Basic Training Instructors. "You are unharmed, recruits?"

"Disappointed," Mihaela answered. "I knew Montgomery put his beliefs first, but I figured him intelligent enough to check the local laws before trying this," she admitted.

The speakers in the building popped. "Instructors, be advised that MP transport will be on site in two minutes. Sigma One acknowledges the incident report, he advises stockade for the offenders and have all involved parties report to the Admin Building METARgraphic range tomorrow morning 0730 for review of the incident."

Mihaela figured that a rather unusual location for an airing of grievances, but nodded. After all, she knew she had done nothing wrong, but the choice of venue was strange to a rather significant degree. She reminded herself that this was an American, they tended to think different, which probably created some unusual confluence. She would be proved correct on both points.

-x-x-x-

(28 March, Magi Year 14408 / Year SL 8838, 2230 Hours Local Time)
(Hess' Quarters, Administration Building, Base Boarhound, Terra 232)
(Day 11 of Campaign)

Hess, as was coming to be routine between himself and his SPO, had second run of the shower for the end of the day and was again treated to a rather impressive view when he left the bathroom. Deliberately, he forced his thoughts away from what he found himself quickly thinking, and onward to something else. "No workout tomorrow, Clint's orders. Whole command section and SSO section is in morning sims in the METARgraphic field."

"Oh?" Toni asked, and in so doing lowered her tablet, which gave Hess a rather good view.

"Yeah, mandatory weekly drilling for us, going forward, unless out on contract. Tomorrow is room entry and clearing, we're doing paired drills, one SSO and one command level operator."

"Good, we need the work," Toni admitted.

Hess didn't bring himself to tell her that Clint was also planning on including both the Secret Service Group and the Command Section in training rotations. That would be a rather unpleasant surprise for coming days, but something he intellectually knew everyone involved needed, not just a Foxtrot Oscar day that somewhat doubled over as some training.

"And this incident in the barracks?" Toni asked.

"I watched the incident on the viewscreen while I was in the shower," Hess said, which displayed a rather unusual ability to multitask in very unusual situations that Toni didn't think him willing to go to. "That was something I considered possible, but holy crap if it hasn't landed on our shore with all the aplomb of a beached whale."

"Yeah, I'd call that about as subtle as an Atlas stomping through a rose garden," Toni gave her judgment on it. "I counted Terroristic Threats, deprivation of liberties under false pretense, and attempted false arrest."

"Couple more. Inciting Mob Action, Assault with a weapon, Disorderly conduct, and conspiracy to commit gross bodily harm," Hess listed off. "Purification by Pain is not something I would want to go through, and is not always survivable."

"Assault? He didn't hit her, I think?" Toni pointed out.

"He did not. Assault is the threat of attack. Battery is the actual attack, unless the action warrants more severe charges such as manslaughter, murder, or attempted murder, but assault and battery can still be counted in as lesser included charges," Hess explained how Protectorate Law was codified on the subject. "I could throw the book at him, all 2000 pounds of book at him, or I think I can make this a teachable incident."

"I gotta hear this," Toni said before she sat up straight in bed.

"Oh no, no spoilers," Hess said with a raised finger in caution. "And no cheating, unless you really want the fun spoiled for you," he commented on her psionic skills indirectly.

"Oh foo!" she grumped and laid back in bed.

Hess considered something of her demeanor, and decided a gamble was in order. "You've been dodging asking a question since this afternoon."

Toni sighed in resignation of having been caught in such a fashion. "Did you really mean what you said today?"

"I said those were randomly-strung-together philosophical musings of mine for a reason," Hess answered immediately, given that was the question he anticipated from someone (not, strictly speaking, what he expected her to ask). "The truth runs deeper, though, and is actually a philosophical problem throughout my homeland, and as we just saw in the barracks a couple hours, threatens to be a problem here."

"Listening," Toni said quickly.

"You talk to a thousand people on the street, all but maybe a dozen will tell you they have an open mind. In reality, all of those who answer yes, with the exception of maybe a dozen, are bullshitting themselves and thereafter answering you with a bullshit answer. Greater than 99 percent of people you deal with do not have an open mind and are unwilling to understand foreign concepts, despite their claims otherwise. Some will be willing to flex a little, some will be willing to flex their philosophies to a median degree, but truly flexible persons, those who are truly willing to understand the universe at its core as it is, without prejudice or preconception, those persons are almost as rare as an honest politician."

"And you are," Toni said definitevely.

"I try," Hess admitted. "Occasionally I find myself at war with my own stances, but I can force myself to step past those biases as needed. For the most part, I am at ease with Existence because I am willing to admit that Existence is as it is, not as I believe it should be. And that belief, what a person believes should be the proper shape of Existence, that is what we witnessed in the barracks incident. A guy, convinced of another person's wrongdoing based on his own belief, not because they have acted in any other fashion illegally. That is a pitfall we must make damn sure the Protectorate never falls into, because when you begin legislating beliefs rather than rights, you are become the banana republic in all but name."

Toni was silent for a few moments, considering her response carefully. "So you're not Christian, I would guess?"

"I declined to answer that today for a reason," Hess said. "More to the point, I cannot in good conscience allow such rigid principle to cloud the state of affairs here, when my intention is to cut the Protectorate free to enjoy their natural liberties as they deem fit. I will accept Existence as it is, not as I or someone else wants it to be."

Toni nodded her understanding of the point, since it also meant that he was at least mentally predisposed to going in new directions, which she could naught but consider a good thing. It meant that her being a Phoenix did not directly sink her personal intentions…

"So, how far are you willing to seek the horizons, then?" Toni asked as a way to test the waters.

Hess eyed her for a moment. "How tolerant are you of metal music?" he asked after a moment. "Symphonic Metal, if you want a specific subclass."

"No objection," Toni answered truthfully.

"Virtue, please start tonight's overnight music with Endless Forms Most Beautiful, by Nightwish," Hess requested as something of a roundabout answer to her final question.

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Author's Chapter Afterword:

And another weirdo joins the cast!

In all reality, as was pointed out, Desmond was in the group from the word 'go', but unaware of his heritage. The Dryads are long-living beings, and can actually be 'artificially' created by using a certain subset of druidic runic magic, a tree, and a person, though this is very high level magic (divine-level or above) and is technically lost to the known areas of the Star Empires and Star League. This does not mean that it won't be discovered at a later time, of course. Sigma will be going places that none of my more sane and stodgy stories will go.

The Dryad genome is Bilineal Dominant, meaning that if either parent is a Dryad, the child will be a full Dryad. This is a side effect of the inherent magic behind the Dryad condition, and given that most Dryads will live for hundreds or thousands of years, they can quickly expand their numbers if they are of a mind to. The flipside is that most Dryads are rather reclusive beings, given that their tree presents a facet of them that is very much stationary and vulnerable to something so plebian as a woodcutter's axe. On the other hand, the life of the tree is the lifespan of the Dryad, and the relationship between the two doubles or triples the lifespan of the tree, so a good Dryad could easily rack up several lifetimes' of experiences.

The thing with the tree is the unusual part. A couple weeks after conception, a Dryad's tree seed will be formed from the soul of the mother and the child and physically form itself above her heart while she sleeps. The mother has roughly 20 weeks to get that seed planted in a safe, supportive location, because that seed has to begin growing before the child is born or the child dies. The tree has to survive for the life of the newborn, or the child dies. As such, with Desmond, planting the seed out in the middle of nowhere in South Dakota as the Train made a random stop was a perfectly prescient move, as there would be nothing in the area to threaten it until some random lumberjack swung by and attempted to turn it into a house. Oops.

Now, the critical factor is that there are more Dryads throughout the Cadets, but the only known amongst them is Desmond and he was not really aware of his heritage until just now. The others are aware of their nature, and at least one of them may be angling for a scenario that would put Sigma on the map for discovering more than a few subspecies of Dryad. It will also put Sigma in a position to take territory in combat and evacuate more Dryads to Terra 232, but...

And that's just the one section. The big one for the day is that the Star League is working itself up into a frenzy while creating a patina of justification for dealing with the 'upstarts' in Sigma. See, here's the problem: the Star League, as was originally written into the charter, is not authorized to conduct offensive actions except in cases of protecting the territory of Star League or its Member States or gross humanitarian issues. Given that the Protectorate was apportioned under a Star Empire and assigned territory by orders of the Will Transcendent, territory integrity is a dog that cannot be used for this hunt, and given that the Sigma / Magi alliance is improving conditions on Terra 232, they can't use humanitarian reasons without fabricating those reasons in the court of public opinion. So, the propaganda campaign has to begin with government action and the willing cooperation of surrogates in the media, willing to either fabricate more lies or distort half-truths to the agenda.

The true noisemaker of the day is Princess Garnet Til Alexandros. The increasing scale of operations for the Rescue Rangers changes how Sigma will play through the small contracts, and therein changes the fate of the Unit as a whole. Dagger's initial intention was to form up a small unit, mainly centered on her cohorts, mainly to improve and augment her personal skills in preparation for eliminating threats back home. With the changing landscape of her unit, the blossoming effort of persons who go out and Rescue Ranger the hell out of multiple contracts in a day, Dagger's sphere of influence is going to quickly exceed anything she could expect to command as the monarch of Alexandria. Remember, Alexandra was one geopolitical nation-state on an undersized world, under Sigma as Rescue One, Dagger will easily have command over a force well in excess of the entire national population of Alexandria, as well as titular command authority as a Subdivision Marshall (which puts her one step below the Sigma Command structure). In short, she's about to put her training in command and governorship to work well before her coronation.

That's all for the story notes. Pay attention to the second-to-last and last sections, they will echo in a very unusual fashion in the next chapter.

On the writing front, I am being delayed to a degree by a major remodeling project at home and also by a near-zero motivation to write at all. I'm delving through Sigma mostly right now to force myself to keep writing in spite of my lack of motivation, but even that is not a guarantee that I will resume normal ops shortly. For now, expect a load of Sigma stories while I grind my way through some pretty serious personal shit and work out the database for Sigma. When I return to normal writing, though, expect some good stuff to come down the pike.

That's it for the chapter. NEXT UP: More extremely unusual arrivals drop in on Sigma, one by Train and one by chance.

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Review Replies: 4 Reviews for Chapter 11. LOVE IT! Thank you for the input, peeps!

Knives 91: Character sheets and a listing are entirely possible, but would be a bit difficult given the very jumbled nature of Sigma at this time. I'll have to work on this. Also, keep in mind that most of the characters are background characters, only showing up briefly.

As to A-10s, oh hell yes, and also the Soviet version (Frogfoot). Then Jeff Evans will derive a new craft or three using Star Empire tech, so…

K-Phoenix: Your assessment of the MercNet scene is very close. Essentially, after the reclassification, Sigma is the lead only applying to small contracts. The graduation is Heavy Forces - Small Forces - Lone Wolf / Ultra-small contracts - Support and Noncombat Contracts. This will change again as the nature of MercNet's use evolves, but you can expect Sigma to be present in a lot of it.

You are correct, in that Hess would not see an operational need for immortality or eternal agelessness as of right now. Depending on how things work out, Toni may accept this or try to change his mind, or some outside factor may force a change of heart on the matter.

Direct voting is a thing amongst the Magi, hence the technical term of 'military-executed, constitutionally-limited direct democracy' as to their government model. The limitations of that voting are very strict, however, in that the government cannot be dispelled by the voting system,

WinBlades: As of right now, this is about the only writing I'm motivated to do, so you can expect more. Thanks for the accolades!

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The Gripe Sheet:

None for the last chapter. Thanks to Takeshi Yamato, Sieben Nightwing, and Necroblade for editing my crappy copy into something worth posting!

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Footnotes:

(1): Jackets refers to a person's military record in the plural (persons, in this case).

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Included Works: (New entries in bold)

—Real Life Armaments — too many to name, that is most of the arsenal shown.
—Real Life Combat Gear — the vests and gear carried by the Militia troops are easily constructible from stuff you can buy on Amazon or Cheaper Than Dirt. No, Seriously, Look it up. Do a search for "UTG Modular 10-Piece Complete Kit", and you have a good look at a starter kit for any serious gearhound.
—Real Life Concepts
—Real Life Time Period: 1930s New York City (Shown in Chapter 2, referenced in chapter 3)
—Real Life Equipment: The Caterpillar equipment showcased in the chapters is based on real life designs or equipment from said manufacturer. (Shown in earlier chapters)

—Real Life Mythology: The Phoenix race of beings are derived from the mythological Phoenix (Egyptian) and Thunder Bird (Native American). That said, I have made some serious modifications to the whole principle that will be revealed in coming chapters.
—Real Life Mythology: The first of many Valkyrie have joined the blossoming Protectorate. That said, do not confuse the Valkyrie with the term Valkyria — separate work, separate purpose. (Shown in chapter 7)
—Real Life Mythology: The Dryad featured in this chapter (and in a helluva lot more chapters to come) is a derivation of the ancient Greek mythos around Trees and Tree Spirits. Specifically, the Dryads used in this story are akin mostly to the Hamadryad of older mythos.

—Personal Works: The Star Empires are mentioned briefly here. Additionally, the Magi Empire is named specifically.
—Personal Works: The nations of the Jokers Wild are mentioned in Chapter 6. There is a very good reason for that.
—Personal Works: The Star League is a derivation of the Star League from Battletech, but founded by Queen Sora Serenity (Executor-Queen Sora Takenouchi).
—Personal Works: The Executors are specialized Mages who have transcended a minimum of twice (Gods and Goddesses are a minimum Transcendance of once) and are specially commissioned to defend life and honor amongst the Star League territories or member states.
—Personal Works: The 10mm Kurz cartridge is a shortened / lower velocity / lower weight version of the 10mm BG round, developed by the Magi for 'crowd pleasing' against large masses of Negaverse troops, most of which were unarmored during the Star Empire Wars. It quickly became a favored heavy machine gun round for multiple purposes after the fact. (Shown in Chapter 1)
—Personal Works: Gerald Lightbringer is most famous for his participation in my Jokers Wild series, but his history is far stranger than either story properly shows. (Last seen in chapter 5)
—Personal Works: The last section of Chapter 6 makes it clear that the Jokers Wild, Sigma, and Multimage Chronicles are interconnected at multiple levels. This WILL come back to haunt everyone involved, in multiple ways.

—Anime General: the oddball hair colors, especially endemic to nonhumans.
—Anime General and D&D: the nonspecific concept of Elves, Nymphs, and Sylphs.
—Anime Trigun: Vash The Stampede, Millie Thompson, and Meryl Strife took the wrong train, ended up hanging out, and now are tagging along with the Militiamen.

—Cartoon Publishing Group: Disney Works in general are mentioned in chapter 11, but have not made an official showing yet.

—Cartoon: Chip 'n' Dale's Rescue Rangers is mentioned in chapter 11 as well, and due to the show mechanics may not actually make a showing except as a show within a story, but you can rest assured that it will influence things going forward.

—Game: Battletech: You are starting to see some serious discussion of Battletech units and force concepts in this chapter. They will become more prevalent as the story marches on. (Happens off and on.)
—Game: Dungeons and Dragons (First Edition): A lot of the spellcraft will be drawn from D&D as well as other sources to be named.
—Game: Dungeons and Dragons (First Edition): The concept of the Dragons of many colors is drawn from the D&D First Edition
Monster Manual. Some mods were made (the Platinum dragon is not unique, and the Eternal Dragon is a wholly new class).
—Game: Final Fantasy IX: The player cast of the game (Zidane, Dagger, Steiner, Freya, Vivi, Eiko, Red, and Quina) were residing in one of the dining cars, but are now members of Sigma's Basic Training Group.
—Game: Infantry Online (Sony Online Entertainment): The CAW from the early section, and named in the stinger, is a different-manufacturer version of the Kuchler A6 CAW. (Shown in Chapter 1)
—Game: Call Of Duty MW2: The Remington ACR in use in this story is based on the Magpul Masada / Bushmaster ACR / Remington ACR in use in said game. Hey, even if it was pooh-pooed in real life, someone in an alternate dimension would do it right, ne?
—Game: Command And Conquer Renegade: The Infantry Ion Cannon (Portable Ion Cannon) is a personnel weapon from Renegade, and is considered a mainstay amongst the Star Empires. (Seen in Chapter 8, to be seen frequently in the future))