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)

18. Not Quite Rest Or Relaxation

(Sigma Mercenaries, Story 0001, Chapter 18: Not Quite Rest Or Relaxation)

(3 April, Magi Year 14408 / Year SL 8838, 0215 Hours Local Time)
(Ladies' Transformation Hangar, Base Boarhound, Terra 232)
(Day 17 of Campaign)

"Virtue, Metallurgica Magica, we are approaching the hangars. Can you open up and activate the hangar lights?" Daniella asked by way of the radio installed on the work truck that had been assigned to the team.

"Hangar bay doors opening now on the Female hangar, lights are precharging and will be ready in 90 seconds," The Base AI answered a few moments thereafter.

"This is nuts, this is one Gods-damned big hangar," Yvonne said in shock after they rounded the corner and saw which specific hangar was opening up and lighting up.

"Easily twice bigger than the largest of the Dragons," Christina said with some reverence. "If they're not jerking our chains on this, I'm totally going to enjoy this project."

"You going to use it?" Daniella asked.

"Oh Hell yes," Christina said with a big smile. Being a Platinum Dragon herself, the thought of having a dedicated Transformation Rune and a space to do so properly without the possibility of a charge of public indecency to go along with the period of time before the transformation was entirely welcome to the draconic metalworker.

"That is something I want to see, big time," Brandii said from the back crew seat of the truck cab.

"Never seen the chief in her Platinum form?" Yvonne asked.

"No, only been with the outfit five years," Brandii pointed out. She was the second-newest in the team, brought on by Christina to help manage the paperwork and advertising side of the business, though Brandii also found herself to be a very good manager for purchasing, logistics, and was learning fast the intricacies of the welding equipment around the group. She was also the only straight human in the team, with only one other person in the team being three-quarters-human (Mickey, specifically, was the daughter of a human lady and a half-nymph man), which made her something of the group oddity but no less welcome for her efficiency in keeping the business flowing and the metal supplies stocked.

"It's been a few years since I stretched my wings," Christina said.

"Yeah, last time you did, it was just you, me, and Yvonne," Lise said from her bench seat behind the driver. Excepting the team lead, she was the oldest person in the vehicle at 66, but given she was a full-blooded Elven woman, she had all the appearance of a late teen or twenty-something Human and forty years experience extra for good measure. Among the team, her main bailiwick was safety, though she was also the team lead for smelting if Christina was on a separate task.

"Been about thirteen or fourteen years, if I remember correctly," Yvonne nodded agreement. "Looking forward to it."

The door to the hangar was fully opened by the time the work truck had arrived at the site, and the lights began snapping on as their front wheels crossed the drainage grates just inside the bay doors. "Look at that shit," Daniella said with some reverence to voice after the lights highlighted the areas that were taped off with caution tape.

"These are gigantic!" Christina was the first out of the vehicle as soon as it stopped, and fairly ran up to the nearest of the marked-off areas. "Unreal! This rune is easily bigger than the winglength of an Eternal Dragon!"

"Sweet mother of necessity!" Brandii said after she stepped up next to her boss. "I'm glad I tapped a major foundry for Bronze and Runestone alloy, we're going to need every bit of what I ordered and a helluva lot more!"

"These cavities are monster!" Yvonne ducked under the barrier tape and knelt down next to the outside ring. Nobody in the unit saw where she produced a tape measure from, but nobody expected she would be without one, either. "This is — holy shitbags, just this one segment is ten centimeters wide, four centimeters deep, and beveled an extra centimeter outward at the bottom! This is for keeps!"

"And that's just the border," Lise said. "The runic lettering font this is inscribed around is a meter tall per character, and each quadrant of the rune has two rows of characters with 15 and 35 characters each. We're going to be fucking busy tonight, ladies," she said.

"Good Gods, if I'm doing the math right, we're looking at about three, three and a half cubic meters of bronze fill per rune," Yvonne guessed, given the inner rings of the rune and the lettering were both thinner than the outer border ring. Her guess was almost exact, the volume of the runes would be calculated at 3.68 cubic meters per Rune after the final casting was completed.

"So fourteen cubic meters for the whole project?" Christina asked. "We can do that in a day if we use both smelteries and we stay hopping. You bought about 30 tons of material, right? That's about what we're going to need, it is a little more than two metric tons to the cubic meter for Bronze," The boss asked the team logistics trooper.

"Fuck no, ma'am! I bought two sows of Bronze and Runestone Alloy, I was sure as shit not expecting this!" Brandii said in clear exasperation. A 'Sow' of metal was similar to an ingot of material in common metals trading amongst the Star Empires, in that an Ingot was a standardized 1 metric ton of material (size would vary depending on the metal or alloy in question, but mass was always 1 ton) and a Sow was five ingots cast into one large transport ingot of 5 metric tons. "Two sows, and that damn near wiped out our bank account!"

"What's the going rate per sow?" Daniella asked offhand.

"76,000 C-bills each. And we need four more to get up to 30 metric tons of the shit," Brandii said.

"Fuck nuts!" Lise said after the enormity of their material deficit sank in. "Our whole yearly payroll between the six of us isn't the cost of one of those sows. The Hell are we going to do now?"

"If I may interject a suggestion?" the voice of the base AI asked over the speakers in the hangar.

"Okay, listening," Christina said after she took a moment to recover from the shock of the rather abrupt reminder of the presence of the AI entity.

"If you can identify a reliable supplier that can provide the material by ScrapNet transfer, I can purchase and deploy the necessary material to the ScrapNet interface below the Admin building and have it delivered as needed," Virtue said.

"Well," Christina said, then hesitated. "Well," she said ten seconds later, still considering it. "Okay, I can work with that, anyone object to working with customer material?" She asked her crew.

"Hell no, all the same to me," Yvonne said.

"Brandii, get online with your contacts and find us four more and an extra ingot or two just in case. What we don't use, chances are pretty good Sigma will find a use for down the road," Christina said with a nod.

"On it!" Brandii turned back to the work truck to get on her laptop and start tracking down the necessary alloy Sows or Ingots.

"Daniella, Yvonne, break out both smelteries and the two sows we have, get them melting down right now. Sooner we can start pouring, the sooner this gets done."

"Hell yes ma'am!" Yvonne half-shouted.

"Lise, figure out what order the pours are going to be done in to make this as fast and efficient as possible."

"Already working that problem, boss," the elven safety officer said deadpan. She had already freehand sketched the rune pattern on a piece of notebook paper and was working angles to determine where to put the mobile smelteries for most efficient pouring.

"Mickey, get your gear out and get it preheated, we are going to level and proof on the fly for this job."

"This is going to be one long-ass day," Mickey was smiling despite the complaint about it.

"I'm still convinced we can do this before midnight. Let's make it reality." Christine joined in with the smelters to begin the smelting process for what promised to be a long, hot, and hard day.

-x-x-x-

(3 April, Magi Year 14408 / Year SL 8838, 0600 Hours Local Time)
(Manor of Lacie Jestgrip, Planet Huntress, Multimage Dimension M-6382)
(Day 17 of Campaign)

Lacie Jestgrip was already up and operating at full steam by 0600, not an unusual occurrence for her in the slightest. She, like the rest of her family, was a predominantly early bird and loved operating mostly in the morning to take advantage of early trends in the markets, preferring the afternoon for sunbathing or other leisure activities when scheduled tasks were not at hand. (Lacie, in particular in her generation of the family, cut a striking figure in a swimsuit and was not afraid to flaunt it when the opportunity arose.)

What was unusual was the early-morning presence of her confidant and co-adventurer from yesterday, Violet. On the flipside, Lacie had already determined that what they were about to embark on needed not a business touch of management, but more of a military-level organization and execution to make sure the entire endeavor stayed together as one cohesive and well-provisioned system, separate to a significant degree from the main business ventures but not completely divorced from them.

In short, she needed someone who was military to handle the organization, and Violet's 12 years in uniform and ardent desire to do this duty made her the perfect person to call on for the high-level.

"So, you've decided?" Violet asked after the door closed.

"Yes, I came to the only reasonable conclusion on this: no business in their right mind would take something like this on and expect some manner of profit," Lacie admitted. She had gone to bed the night prior trying to work out ways that she could run it as a business venture and expect profit, but her only conclusion was the opposite.

"And that means it has to be run as either an operation of state or an operation of military, which is further limited by the fact that the State to which we are beholden is at least officially part of the Star League and cannot be involved. So, military it is," Violet sat down across from Lacie and sat a MRE entree on the table in front of her. "Time for a wake-up call."

Lacie picked up the MRE entree and read off the package label. "Steak strips and rice, not bad," the company CEO said. "Is this traditionally eaten with anything like hot sauce?"

"Hot sauce is a trading commodity among infantry, but I find duck sauce or wasabi are also good for the Steak Strips and Rice." Violet knew that her boss was a big fan of Duck Sauce, so she produced two packets of it for her and slid them across the coffee table to Lacie. A moment thereafter, she produced a full-in-package KaelFoods MRE. "I'll split the sides in this one with you."

"If I'm going to be off-and-on working with Sigma, I'm going to have to learn," Lacie said, though with a hint of worry to voice. She was not one of those dilettante-types that only ate a small salad two meals a day, and thus not concerned about the size of the MRE, hers was a concern about how the food was preserved and packaged (some preservatives had given her some severe bloating in the past).

"So, we're doing this as a military operation, with full military planning and execution?" Violet asked.

"Yes, that's the only way I can see this going forward," Lacie said. "This can't be a business venture, there is no expectation of a break-even and businesses are fluid entities — this needs to be tight, controlled, under-the-radar, limited access."

"Makes sense," Violet said with an approving nod. To the table she added a notepad and a pencil. "So, we are going to assemble this as a full-up military operations plan. So, this is broken down into five segments: Situation, Mission, Execution, Support, Command."

Making business decisions was nothing new to Lacie, but hers was more of a free-form decision process. The rigid planning process that Violet detailed out was something almost foreign to her, but a lesson she definitely wanted to learn in the here and now, since her effort now hinged on it. "So, what is each segment for?" Lacie asked after she received a pilot cracker and spooned some of the steak and rice onto it to create something of a dipped cracker to chomp.

Violet took a swig of her water bottle to clear her mouth and whet her throat for the coming explanation. "Situation is a run-down of what is going on in the area of operations, friendlies, neutrals, civilians, and hostiles. Background of the situation, intelligence, operational info, this is the high-level read on what we need to determine how and what we are going to do. Mission is the clear statement of what we intend to do, typically in one or two sentences. Execution is the detailing of how we are going to make the mission come to reality. Every sub-unit will have its orders, procedures, backup procedures, concepts and statement of intent and channels of coordination. Support and Logistics is everything we need to support the personnel doing the heavy lifting, everything from supplies, medical, transport, staging, housing, everything that will support the Railroad Agents in doing their job. Command and Control is a clear delineation of command from top to bottom, channels of communication, authentication, security procedures, dispatch and coordination of Railroad and Support units."

"There's a lot of moving parts in this," Lacie gaped between bites of her entree.

"Here, try some of the cheese spread on a cracker," Violet handed her another cracker and the packet of pasteurized cheese spread. "Just save me some, that stuff is good."

"Mhm," Lacie mumbled with a mouthful of steak and rice.

"Anyway, in terms of personnel and moving parts, the traditional equation is ten support troops of one stripe or another per warfighter. The Magi operate a slightly leaner force structure, eight to nine support per warfighter, but getting below that is effectively impossible. The problem is you can't automate everything, you still need men in the loop to make decisions, personnel to repair equipment or do subtasks that can't be automated, and so on. We'll have the same thing here: roughly eight to ten support troops per Railroad Agent."

"So, basically its own infrastructure, separate and shadowed from the main business ventures," Lacie brought it all together.

"That is probably the best way to do this," Violet popped open the dessert cookies and passed one to Lacie. "These will probably taste stale, but they are not. Just a byproduct of the packaging and processing."

"Sugar cookies," Lacie sniffed at it, first, then took a bite. "Not bad, I've had worse," she commented. "So, situation," Miss Jestgrip prompted Violet.

"Situation is as follows," Violet flipped to a new page on her note-tablet; "As Sigma unloads more of the Trains and conducts more raids to bust up the Slave Trade, they will necessarily need to offload at least some of the Hotels to other parties so they don't become bogged down in a refugee crisis. Additionally, to escape recapture by Slavers, dispersing the rescued persons is one sure-fire way to make it impossible to completely reclaim what they have lost should hostile parties get wind of what is happening. So, our mission, as I read it, is for a new sub-division of Jestgrip to work with Sigma's Rail Guards to extract willing participants from Terra 232, put them up in safe accommodations, and either integrate them into society in our territory or forward them to the next Station in the Underground Railroad. Is my read correct?"

"That's what I had in mind," Lacie said.

"Execution is where things start getting fuzzy, as we don't have a structure in place right now, we need to create this part from whole cloth. The concept I have running laps in my brainpan is four parts: One, we have a series of agents who work primarily for extraction, pulling willing participants out of Sigma territory and delivering them here. We can call them Offload Railroad Agents. Second, we have the Territorial Railroad Agents here and in our other territories, each assigned their own cover and location, who will receive, transport, house, provision inductees. Those inductees who remain with us will stay with their Territory Agent until they fully integrate into Magi society, persons who will not stay with Jestgrip become the dominion of the Transfer Railroad Agents, who will move them on to the next stop in the Railroad. Fourth group is the Contingency Railroad Agents, these are our best of the best, I would prefer we draw them from former military, especially special forces if we can get our hands on some. When something goes sideways, the Contingency troops are our rapid reaction force, in addition to calling on Sigma's troops. And, the Contingency troops are also our defense against retaliation operations by pissed-off Slavers against the rest of the Jestgrip holdings."

"It's absolutely screwed up that we're embarking on something so positive, yet we must cover our asses seven ways to Sunday because of the players involved," Lacie sighed.

"There is a phrase, 'Corruption makes justice look like insanity'. Ever hear it?"

"No," Lacie admitted.

"That's the big one that a lot of Magi have lived and died by, that when justice starts looking insane, search for sources of corruption and ferret them out. We embark on something so insane, yet here we are seeking only to do what is just and proper, and the loudest source of corruption thereupon is the Star League. It was often said amongst line Magi units that the corruption and graft at the heart of the Star League was so massive that it teetered on the edge of collapse into a black hole of its own accord. Corruption making justice look like insanity in real time."

"That phrase is mutable," Lacie pointed out. "Insanity makes corruption look like justice."

"Aff, and insanity also makes justice look like corruption," Violet pointed out a third permutation. "We'll need to establish the sizes of the individual force structures as we work out the requirements and ramp up operations. Now, on support and logistics, this is where things get tricky."

"Yeah, this will be hard enough to conceal with just the Railroad Agents in play, adding support services will increase the exposure exponentially."

"When we vet personnel for the Railroad Support, we will go through the same vetting as with the Railroad Agents. That should stop any problems aborning. And, to my mind, we need three good branches of support: facilities construction and maintenance, logistics, medical and psychological support."

"Wouldn't we also need coordination personnel to keep everything moving?" Lacie asked.

"That falls under Command and Control. Personnel to coordinate is a requirement, but we also need a delineated chain of command, such as Railroad Agents answer to Prefecture Agents, Prefecture Agents answer to Planetary Agents, and Planetary Agents answer to overall Agent Command, who answers to you. We also need to work out how we do communications and signals or codes, those are mostly technical matters."

"Well, I was thinking about asking you to handle Agent Command, since I like the structure and you know what parts need to be in motion for it," Lacie dropped her surprise decision on Violet.

"I, uh, well, erm," Violet hedged on the offer.

"C'mon, Violet. I know you and trust you, and more to the point, you're as disgusted by this business with Slaving as I am. That makes you perfect for the command position. Unless you had a better plan?" Lacie asked.

"I was thinking about asking your leave to join Sigma in clearing out the Slavers, actually," Violet admitted. "Now that this is on the table, though, I think I can do far more good for the effort here than in Sigma's Rail Guards units." Violet looked askance for a moment, then snorted. "Son of a bitch! That's an idea!"

"What?" Lacie had recovered fairly quickly from the shock of Violet wanting to jump headfirst into one of Sigma's more hazardous details, and was now curious about the tangent Violet just went down.

"The Rail Guards! They're perfect for this detail, after they retire from Sigma's graces they would make excellent Railroad Agents."

"Nice!" Lacie said with some cheer. "How fast can you get it written up?"

"Give me a couple hours and I'll have a draft document on your desk?" Violet guessed.

"Secure terminal in the office across the hallway. I'll have my IT guy set you up on it."

By the end of the day, the entire process would be in motion not just in the Jestgrip Foundation, but in multiple other companies and organizations throughout the territory of the Multimage Empire.

-x-x-x-

(3 April, Magi Year 14408 / Year SL 8838, 0730 Hours Local Time)
(Command Administrator's quarters, Base Boarhound Administration Building, Terra 232)
(Day 17 of Campaign)

"Empty magazines, magazine shingles, and that's it?" Toni asked after she unloaded the carton on the table.

"Aye," Sigma One said with a nod. "Since we are doing everything in simulation, it would behoove us to use simulated rounds. Saves on expenses, and we'll be racking up plenty of expense for this trial."

"Okay, that makes sense," Toni admitted. She pulled open her magazine pouches and started removing the live magazines, which she replaced with empty magazines for the day's spectacle / trial.

Hess had a more complex task on his hands, he had to start by removing the various .308-caliber pouches on his armor rig because the parameters of this test did not allow for the use of his Mk. 14 EBR, this was all close quarters and needed at most an assault rifle to maintain plausible deniability. So, he was going in with only his UMP40 and a rather significant amount of magazines, in this case he replaced the 8-in-line .308 magazines with shingles appropriate for 12 magazines of UMP40. Combined with his already existing 4 magazines, he now had a total of 16.

"And what's with the long gun scabbards?" Toni waved one at him.

"We'll be carrying shotguns as well, since this is close quarters a shotgun is a hell of a weapon for dissuading enemy forces and for utility purposes. There should also be shotgun ammo pouches in the box as well."

"I see them," Toni passed one to him, it was the type of pouch that unfolded in segments with shells in it. "So this is my first real lesson in carrying a heavy kit."

"This is where it starts, yes." Hess added the scabbard to the back of his armor panel over his right shoulder, the same as he used to use with the LBE he used to wear before coming to Terra 232. The shotgun shell pouch landed on the front of his armor hauberk, under his right arm. Toni followed suit, since she was also right-handed, to make sure she kept her kit as close to Hess as possible and thus engender less suspicion.

"Ready," Toni said after she slid into her armor and settled it.

"Just about ready with mine as well," Hess finished securing the last pouch change on his armor, gave it a pull test to verify steadfastness, and slipped the armor on. As he headed out the door, he started slipping empty magazines into his pouches to verify he had enough magazines to fill out completely. By the time the two were on the bottom floor, every pouch on his armor (except for flashbangs and frag grenades) had appropriate if empty magazines.

At the front door, they were met by Moira and Neinke. "Ready to go?" Moira asked.

"Let's do this," Toni said with determination.

"Last chance to back out," Moira prompted them.

"I said 'let's do this' for a reason," Toni answered.

"Okay, no need to get hot about it. Come on, vehicle's waiting." Moira led the way out the door and jumped into the driver's seat of a waiting HMMVW. Once the other three were inside, she wasted no time in moving out.

"Not going to ask for any hints?" Toni asked Hess.

"Hell no, I'm all for a surprise. I expect a lot of contracts we take on will have nebulous or shifting missions, especially open-ended contracts. Train like we have to fight, because sooner or later something like this will be our reality," Sigma One said.

"Good call, because I wouldn't offer any hints anyway," Moira said. "Hell, I don't really know the geography myself."

"So hints are a moot point regardless," Toni nodded. "Good to know."

"Before this begins, I want it clearly understood that I have not participated in this venture in any meaningful fashion, sir. I am still not convinced this is a necessary action," Neinke said with some trepidation to her voice.

"So noted," Sigma One said, playing off an air of not having discussed the matter with her in days past. "Anyone else in the Secret Service that was not involved, Moira?"

"We're all in, except Neinke," the SSO Green Dragon said staunchly. "Almost there."

"All right then," Hess nodded twice and settled down into a brief period of mental rest as the journey finished up.

At the southern METARGraphic field, Moira and Neinke joined the other SSO officers and the other three Administrators, Clint, Clarence and Victoria, in the command building for the simulation. Hess and Toni went into a parking lot nearby a simulated hangar building, specifically into a painted box on the ground labeled 'start here'. As soon as they stepped in, Hess could immediately feel the magazines in his pouch ratcheting as the simulation loaded them up to nominal capacity and his radio switched over to a dedicated frequency for the simulation field.

"Participants, stand to for simulation start in ten seconds." In the seconds after the declaration, a new structure started forming in front of them — both could easily recognize it as an industrial elevator after a few seconds.

"Game time," Toni said with her serious face on.

"Go mission," Hess acknowledged. A few seconds after he thought the time had elapsed, the door opened and a buzzer beckoned them to enter to take a trip underground.

(A/N: This segment continues with Chapter 7 of Sigma Story 0002 (Training The Trainers).)

-x-x-x-

(3 April, Magi Year 14408 / Year SL 8838, 1015 Hours Shipboard Time)
(Dropship Red Blackjack, Command Dropship of the Nuone Strike Force, roughly 54 hours out from the Zenith Jump Point)
(Day 17 of Campaign)

"It's the waiting that kills," Major Grant said. "Still, maybe we should think about using the Gate Mage Guild more often for the break-in phase. I know they are expensive, and creating that capability for ourselves is technically breaking the law, but still…" he deliberately trailed the sentence off.

"No two ways about it," Regent Nuone admitted. "We pay in one direction or the other, or the third," he continued in a soured tone.

"That's the point," Captain Watters said heartily. "Every direction is given a cost associated to it, to make it prohibitive for upstarts such as us to prosecute rapid assaults like the big dogs can. We pay for the Guild Gate Mages, we pay hefty fines for having our own Gate Mages, or we are condemned to take the slow boat from objective to objective."

"The 'big dogs' don't have to pay," Major Grant pointed out.

"The 'Big Dogs' don't pay because the Star League can't force them to pay, or bad things happen," Helena Watters pointed out the disparity of logic. "The Magi have been fined several tens of trillions of C-bills for having unlicensed Gate Mages in their territories every year for the past five millennia since the Guild structure was codified. They also have never paid a damn coin of those fines since they were first levied, because the Commandos flat-out told the SLGC that if they ever forced collection, the Commandos would 'expropriate' one world from the Star League's Held Territories for every Trillion C-bills or fraction thereof."

"Hrm," Major Grant nodded to the point. "When Stanythe Agrippa makes those kinds of threats, you know damn well he has the capability of doing it four or five times over and the will to do it, Hell or High Water notwithstanding," the Special Forces Major nodded again. "So, he basically neutered the Guild's financial enforcement mechanism by holding the Star League itself hostage. And that's why I never batted an eye when this assignment came across the desk."

"Why so?" Ulysses asked the Spec Forces Major.

The Major sighed. "The Star League can't exist with being restrained by the Magi and picked apart like the Sigma of today and the hundreds of Sigmas to come in the future. Just won't work, it will collapse and leave the many worlds, many states, voiceless in the face of the Big Six. And shortly after we lose our voice, we will lose our freedom because the Star League has effectively forced the Big Six to become inactive, passive, non-aggressive with minor states. Once the Star League is gone, it becomes open season on any Empire out there, any world out there, maybe even a return to the Star Empire Wars of years past."

Holy fucksticks, Major Grant has his understanding of history so ass-backwards it could spank the north acre of his left ass-cheek without ever spinning him around, Captain Watters thought but made sure not to broadcast telepathically.

He continued: "So, yeah, we have to start here, because once this train gets up speed and mass, it will demolish anything that tries to derail it. We'll pay a price for it, no doubt, but we have to pay that price or everyone pays a far worse price at a later date."

"What do you think the Magi will do in retribution?" Regent Nuone asked.

"They will demand the safe release of anyone we are holding, they will demand the Duchy withdraw from Terra 232, and they will probably embargo us at the minimum," Helena Watters answered coldly. She had mastered her reaction to the grossly incorrect analysis from the Major, but she could not bring herself to be brutally honest with the Regent about the coming price tag for this campaign.

On the other hand, Captain Watters was bested by someone in the coldly cynical realism department on the ship, and he stepped up to prove his chops: "The Captain sells the Magi short on this one, Highness," Retainer Ludwig Barto said in an even colder voice. "When we started planning for this campaign, I was directly honest with you about what would transpire. Nothing in the past days has dissuaded me from my opinion on this matter. If we follow through with this campaign, the Magi will come down on the Duchy of Three Rivers like the hammer of the Old Gods: absolutely unstoppable by mortal man, and that includes the edicts of a largely powerless Star League just the same."

"You think the Magi would risk tearing apart the Star League?" Major Grant asked.

"I think they have been seeking a reason to sunder the decrepit Star League, and win or lose on this adventure we may inadvertently give the largest of the Big Six just exactly that," the older Retainer said with finality. "I will follow you wherever you take us, Highness, but I only ask you to understand that this campaign, once started, will assuredly cost us the Duchy. And, given the footage of their commander in action, our victory over him is most certainly not guaranteed."

"Something new?" Major Grant was immediately excited to see more from the Merc, as it better fleshed out his intel read on the enemy commander.

"A ComStar contact of mine forwarded me some hot video from a non-contract operation yesterday to free some slaves that were being used as farmhands. His rifle work is bested by only the strategic acumen under which the compound was taken and the enslaved persons extracted."

The Retainer flicked a video file from his tablet to the viewing monitor in their lounge area, and with it Captain Watters was quickly reminded that they were playing a game against a man who had no compunction against burying any threat to his objectives. Even if that threat was 1400, 1500, 1600 meters from where he stood.

Nobody in their group realized that ComStar had 'leaked' the footage to them in a controlled fashion because they knew what the Regent intended and were trying to warn them against taking a deadly course of action.

-x-x-x-

(3 April, Magi Year 14408 / Year SL 8838, 1200 Hours Local Time)
(Barracks F-A-12, Base Boarhound, Terra 232)
(Day 17 of Campaign)

"Yamato! In here!" The Star Commander over the Training Group shouted from her office.

"Ma'am!" Recruit Takeshi Yamato set aside his ration can and jumped up to jog into the Star Commander's office.

"Close the door, Marine," she said while still looking at some paperwork in front of her. After the door closed: "At ease, recruit. Here," she tossed him a ration bar, this one flavored with (surprisingly very good) nacho cheese. "Since your can is likely to disappear, and you won't be hanging around to finish it, that'll suffice until tonight's meal time."

It was only then that the Marine realized someone else was in the room, and Takeshi immediately recognized the leaf of a Major on his collars.

"So, by now you noticed this is a three-man conversation, so I'd like to introduce you to Major Ellsworthy, the flight boss for Sigma."

"Sir!" Takeshi saluted as the Major stood and saluted at the same time.

"As you were, Marine," Ellsworthy said.

"With your passing result from this morning's battery of tests, you have officially tested out of Basic. Since your listed path is Aerospace, and you have time in fighters in the Marine Corps of the United States, that puts you in his hangar," Star Commander Rossale said.

"Understood, ma'am, when do I leave?" Takeshi asked.

"As soon as you collect your gear and load it on his vehicle."

Major Ellsworthy nodded. "HMMVW 06, north door, pilot. We'll talk on the way out to the air station."

"Yes sir!" Takeshi said with a smile.

The Star Commander stood up and offered her hand across the desk to Takeshi. "Congratulations, Marine, and good luck. It's a big jump from conventional aircraft to Aerofighters."

"Thank you, Star Commander." Takeshi was quick to give her hand a shake.

"Dismissed."

On the way out the door, Takeshi pocketed his ration bar and made a quick jog over to his bunk. "Hey, Takeshi, what's up?" Recruit Sango Charrest asked.

"Tested out," Takeshi said as he arrived at his bunk. Much as was expected, the can rations he had been almost done with were gone, one of the other recruits had disposed of it before the Drill Sergeant could rip them a new asshole for leaving trash in the barracks bay. "Headed to the airbase for my next leg of training."

"Good luck!" Recruit Alyson Ierne said.

Of personal effects, Takeshi only had one barrel bag of clothes issued by the outfit and his lockerbox. Getting everything together was simple enough and he was on the way to the northern door out of the barracks.

"Hop in, Marine," the Major said after Takeshi opened the rear passenger door and offloaded his gear into the back seat. Takeshi was quick to get in and seatbelt himself for the drive north to the airfield area.

"Thanks for the lift, sir," Takeshi said.

"Don't mention it, Captain," Major Ellsworthy. "Beck Ellsworthy, '86 to '98, flew Whiskey Cobras in the Gulf. How about you?"

"2010 to 2014, Super Hornet and cross-trained as a Combat Mage," Takeshi answered calmly. "985 flight hours total, 460 in the 18-E when I jumped on a Train to try to find my sister."

"Sister got kidnapped? That's no good. How long ago?"

"Five, nearly six years ago," Takeshi judged. He had not been on the 133628 train long, but it had been more than five years before he had a crack at a Train after his sister had been dragged onto one.

"Damn. We'll probably have to track her through sales records, if we ever capture the Train that she was pulled onto. In the interim, you're thinking about flying some unfriendly skies?"

"Intend to make them friendly by way of superior firepower," Takeshi admitted. "At least for now. I've also been thinking about cross-crafting, anything in the regs against learning a new trade?"

"Not really, what are you thinking?" Beck asked.

"Mobile Suits, maybe Gundams if I can master it," Takeshi said somewhat nonchalantly.

"I can tell you now, it will take some work. I took a shot at a sim pod for a basic MS, the GM Ground Type, and after several hours I was able to make it walk across a hangar without falling down. Nevermind anything like maneuvering or shooting," Beck admitted. "Still, if you want to give it a go in your downtime, I'm interested in seeing how far you can make it."

"All right, then, what's my requirements for fixed-wing fighter positions?"

"For now I have only two ladies in the aircraft group, both working on transports. You will be the first dedicated fixed-wing combatant, so when you get in you're going to start training in on atmospheric ops with a Wasp Medium Fighter. Heard of it?"

"No sir," Takeshi admitted. In Basic, he had not had much in the way of research time to study up on airframes while the Instructors were hammering the recruits into the ground.

"Read," Ellsworthy passed the new guy a tablet computer. "Decent airframe, very good speed for its mass, well above average armor for its weight class, fixed weapons on board are a good mix of short, medium and long range but it does have a slight overheat issue if you lay into the triggers. 4000 kilos onboard fuel and up to 8000 kilos external stores."

"Nice, not far removed from what the E-type Super Hornet can carry," Takeshi said.

"She's 10 tons heavier than the max takeoff of a Super Hornet, and 18 tons heaver at max takeoff itself, but the frame also has 10.2 tons of Ferro-Aluminum armor on it — enough armor to resist up to 4 strikes of a 205mm Gauss Rifle on the nose and fuselage. The same 205mm Gauss Rifle will go front-to-back on two Super Hornets and bury itself in a third."

That fact was very surprising to Takeshi. He had grown up in the Super Hornet with the mantra 'Speed is Life', and with the expectation that any kind of hit to it was likely to ruin his day and potentially permanently end his day. Now, with Star Empire aerofighter technology around him, he could take the kind of abuse that A-10 Warthog pilots would shy away from and expect to make it back to base. And oh, by the way, he wasn't losing anything on speed, maneuverability, or payload capacity AND he now had a fixed arsenal included that was more than just the one M61A1 Vulcan rotary cannon. With the lasers onboard, he could theoretically keep fighting until he had to head home for fuel, not just how long his guns and missiles lasted.

"Damn, I can see going places and doing things with this one," Takeshi admitted after a few moments.

"You got it. You're going to do sims for today, get yourself familiar with Star Empire avionics and the flight profile of your craft. I already have some time on the sim field listed for you for today. Check ride on the sim is tomorrow at 0800, and if you pass that, check ride on the real deal is 1400 tomorrow afternoon. Good to go?"

"Yes sir!" Takeshi said with gusto.

The HMMVW stopped at the air station headquarters. "Get your gear offloaded to your quarters and meet me at my office for a meet-and-greet with the other pilots."

-x-x-x-

(3 April, Magi Year 14408 / Year SL 8838, 1215 Hours Local Time)
(Sigma Support Services Building, Base Boarhound, Terra 232)
(Day 17 of Campaign)

Finding the building was a bit difficult for Captain Gladys until Virtue had provided nav instructions for her. Frankly, she was surprised by the sheer amount of office buildings on the east side of the military base, and silently dreaded the necessity of the bureaucracy that would have to occupy them. ZAFT was a bit more efficient than the Earth Alliance in terms of REMFs (1) bloating the military rolls, but even in Carpentaria Base there was a big wing of the facility dedicated to just the support and admin staff. So went it here, though Talia guessed that the SLDF was far more bloated with REMF personnel than either ZAFT or any other nation on her homeworld. Time would prove her thesis horribly right.

On the plus side, the inside of the building was not ostentatious, given that it was the residence of only about two dozen persons so far.

"Captain Gladys!" An older lady said from one of the first offices off the main lobby area. "Clint sent word you'd be coming over today," she said. "Subaru Annoe, Engineering department." The lady extended a hand for a shake.

Talia gave her a crisp handshake. "Engineering? I guess that means I'm starting under you, then."

"That's what Jeff said would happen, but he didn't say what you'd be working on. I'm guessing warships?" Subaru said.

"That is the plan," Talia said. "We start small and work our way up to heavy hitters. I discussed it with Sigma Two earlier today and he is on-board with building a navy up one classification at a time."

Subaru waved the Captain over to her office and closed the door behind her. "Please have a seat, Captain. Tea or coffee?"

"Coffee, always," Talia said with gusto as she took her seat.

"So, my question is, which group of the warship bracket do we start in? Are we doing wet naval, atmospheric or interplanetary ships, interstellar ships, submarines, or something else?" Subaru asked plaintively as she provided Talia with a cup of the military-grade coffee she had quickly come to love.

"Well, the first thing I need to do is review the engineering plans for the Minerva-class that my crew provided to Sigma," Talia said. She was internally a bit miffed by that arrangement, but she was very thankful that it had been used for the purpose of rescuing the wayward crew and had apparently cemented goodwill with their hosts. Nevermind the whole 'vengeance for Durandal' schtick that was running rampant in her crew, which she could scarcely deny she felt just the same. "I think, all other considerations in play here, starting out with the kernel of a navy in Atmospheric Ships might be a good way for Sigma to harden up and expand."

"The Contract circuit is not super-thick with naval contracts, but they are there — and they are big money if we play the cards right," Subaru said. "Anything we earn builds back into the unit and the Protectorate, and the bigger it gets, the sooner we get to building a proper space navy — what we need to take out the Privateer-class ships."

"Did the command section put any limits on this?" Talia asked.

"No hard limits, but a word of caution to be reasonable with designs." Subaru tapped twice on a tablet that Talia could see had an orthographic view of her ship on it. "Designing big ships is all well and good, but it's going to be years, maybe decades before we can field anything bigger than a frigate."

"True," Talia had said as much to Sigma One yesterday and Sigma Two this morning. She sipped her coffee before she continued: "Which is why I believe the Minerva-class is a good starting point once adapted to Star Empire technologies. It's relatively small, well armed, highly mobile, and needs only a fraction of the crew inherent to heavier ships."

"I know," Subaru levered the tablet off the surface of her desk in such a way that Talia was able to confirm that she was looking at the structural rendering of the Minerva. "I've already been looking at it, but I'll admit that my field of expertise is Mobile Army engineering, ships are something new to me."

Talia nodded. "Gifted amateurs have broken open many a project in the past, that's how ZAFT's navy started," Talia admitted. "What thoughts do you have so far?"

"First, I had Virtue go over the weapons with a fine-tooth comb, and we came up with a couple changes and a couple questions. First, the 'Tristain' dual beam cannons on the front quarters, we did the calculations and we can replace the 8000 tons of Dual beam cannon with 7200 tons in four Medium Naval PPCs, which increases the damage output per turret assembly by 20%, reduces recharge time, and generates only 45% of the waste heat per salvo, which cuts back on the cooling grid. Virtue, please display on holovid left,"

Talia watched the render of the change and nodded. "That's a significant improvement, better damage, less heat and mass. I'll go over that change with a microscope, but it looks excellent to me."

"Next, on the bow of the ship, there are four installed torpedo launchers. Does this ship have underwater combat capabilities?"

"Limited," Talia said. "You would not want to go toe-to-toe with a hunter-killer sub, but it can fight underwater, especially with the front torpedoes and the multipurpose missile tubes loaded with torpedoes. ZAFT had designs on the drawing board but they were never in place due to the early launch of the ship."

"Okay, limited underwater combat options, nice," Subaru checked something off a paper notepad. Talia didn't recognize the language she was writing in, but brushed it off. "Next, we took some of the weight savings inherent to the changes and added another eight multipurpose missile tubes. We also added four LRM 20-silo small missile launchers for intercepting fighters off the rear of the ship."

"Good, swarm attacks by mobile suits and fighters have always been a threat to us," Talia said. "The ship was always intended to have onboard Mobile Suits to protect against that, but it isn't a perfect solution."

"Speaking thereof, we've also changed up the Mobile Suit berths to now number 16 plus the Impulse Launch Bay. That said, I was thinking: the Minerva has a Grav Deck installed, which is a bulky piece of spacefaring triptych that is really outmoded by Star Empire technologies. Ever hear of the Gravitic Lattice?"

"No, but the name alone has me wondering," Talia hedged her answer.

"The Gravitic Lattice is a very compact and very effective technology for controlling localized gravity effects. Most Star Empire ships that aren't Dropships have it installed to give a constant, non-motion gravity effect in an area, and it can be turned off in areas where you have to move heavy equipment or cargo as an example. The typical install mass is one percent, and it has a price tag but is considerably less bulky than a rotating gravity block."

"You're thinking about eliminating the grav block to extend the Mobile Suit bays?" Talia asked with a smile.

"The grav block and the two forward cargo bays, sacrificing them would allow us to put in the Gravitic Lattice and expand the MS count to 20 in the MS bay and berths for 3 total Impulse Gundams. Also, gives us the advantage of rationalizing crew quarters, eliminates having to waste space for a rotating chunk, and increases the onboard Marines on the ship from 30 to 40."

"I'm not a huge fan of losing the cargo space," Talia said. "We need supplies when out on campaign. Does the command section have a good grasp of logistics?"

"The Administrators have put considerable planning and effort into logistics support for the troops," Virtue answered the question in Subaru's stead. "Underway replenishment is high on Sigma Two's list of priorities for capability development or acquisition."

"Good, I'll need to design a fleet tender ship for us, then," Talia made a mental note to do so.

"Here," Subaru passed the Captain a paper tablet and a pen. "Once we get our hands on more electronic tablets, I'll lift one for you."

"Thank you," Talia was quick to add her thoughts on UnRep and fleet tender ships to the tablet.

"So, any questions?" Subaru asked.

"When do I get started on reviewing the engineering aspects of these changes, and where do you want me to set up shop?" Talia asked. There were a lot of changes to be reviewed, but Virtue's involvement would make things easier and faster, Talia was sure.

"Next office down, already had the Janitor go through and get it ready for you. Welcome to the engineering group, Captain."

-x-x-x-

(3 April, Magi Year 14408 / Year SL 8838, 0905 Hours Planetary (Duchy of Nuone) Time)
(Mansion of the Regent, Planet Nuone V, Duchy of Nuone, Star League Freehold Territory)
(Day 17 of Campaign)

Duchess Lia Nuone sighed about the report from Sigma territory. She had received the same video as had the Retainer, and much as he did not realize the significance of the leak, she did not put much thought into why she received it, only into the sheer hazard of it.

"That was absolutely terrible!" Estelle, handmaiden and chief assistant to the Duchess, gaped at the raw carnage they had witnessed.

"I maintain no illusions about war, but this is something entirely too terrible. This man is a savage among barbarians! He never offered defiance or surrender to them in any fashion!" Merri, the assistant handmaiden under Estelle, said.

"He never would have," Lady Ursa shot that line of thinking down in a hurry. Annabelle Ursa, in addition to being Knighted herself, was the chief security officer for Duchess Lia Nuone. "The man in control of that rifle is no ordinary soldier, he is a sharpshooter on a moral crusade. Did you read the accompanying write-up with that footage?"

"I glanced at it," Estelle said, which equivocated to a 'no' answer.

"This was a non-contract operation specifically to free slaves being held at this plantation. He had to take out the sentry towers or the riflemen within would shoot the slaves before they could be extracted. Is his conduct ungentlemanly? Definitely, but it does not matter in the face of his crusade." Lady Ursa handed Estelle a tablet with the write-up on it. "He did what he had to do to save the lives of the Slaves, nothing more or less."

"We put an end to all vestiges of slavery on this world, as we came across them, for this I cannot fault Sigma," the Duchess said. "Tell me, Annabelle, what are your thoughts on the campaign my husband has undertaken?"

"If they can force close quarters and capture Sigma One quickly, maybe they can make it work militarily. The Magi will be a serious problem on the ground, and the aftermath will not be pretty," Lady Ursa said.

"You side with Retainer Barto," Estelle said, though hers was a statement, not a question.

"Oh, most certainly," Annabelle took a moment to pour a cup of water into a hanging flower pot in the sunroom they were convened in. "Ludwig Barto may come off as taciturn some days, but he has his head on straight on this matter. He lived abroad in several of the Star Empires in years past, including the lands of the Magi. And I did a tour with their Infantry in years past to learn the ways of the Armored Infantry for my own armor set, so I have taken their measure just the same. His counsel is not wrong: this campaign will end with Magi troops on our world, mark my words."

"They would defy the Star league so blatantly?" Merri asked.

"Quite the opposite, Merri," Annabelle said. "This is the Star League using us to defy the Magi. The only way this can be justified is if you completely ignore the orders of the Executors and the existence of the Slavers."

"And we will pay a dear price for that defiance," Lia Nuone sighed once more. "What else do you have on this man? This Command Administrator? I want to know the man who will go head-to-head against my husband."

"Here's one, a short recording of a celebration ceremony for the completion of the clearing of the second Train. It is a holovision recording." Annabelle uploaded the file to the holoprojector in the room, which would have no trouble putting out the image in question, and took a moment to activate the electrostatic dimmers on the windows of the sunroom so it was easier to see.

The scene recorded was that of a team of troops being provided shots and toasts by the Command Administrator. It only lasted a few minutes, and for all the banter shown, one thing was very clear to the Duchess and the Knight in the room:

"They would follow him to the Gates of Hell," Annabelle put words to the matter.

"No doubt," Lia agreed with her SPO. " 'For these things, we stand where others will not, we fight where others would allow depredation, we succeed where others have already given in to despair or are wont to allow the problem to continue.' Words of that nature are seldom said nowadays." All too often, they are said by people that are not part of the Duchy, she thought but did not say.

"What he said in that last toast proves what I feared: he is on a crusade, and the looks in the eyes of his troops, they are in on the crusade just the same. Our men are not walking into a handful of rabble, my lady, they are walking into a den of vipers and potentially every person therein would take up arms against an attack," Lady Ursa said. "I only wish there was some way to convince the Regent of the sheer horror he is about to unleash."

"I had my misgivings about this Campaign, but bowed to the consideration that the Star League would protect us. Today, I am neither convinced that it can be won on the grounds of Terra 232, nor am I convinced we will survive the wrath of the Magi in the days and weeks thereafter." For not the last time today, Lia Nuone sighed, though this one was a wearied sigh, resignation to the coming nightmare.

-x-x-x-

(3 April, Magi Year 14408 / Year SL 8838, 1400 Hours Local Time)
(Abandoned Cattle Ranch and farmland territory, area northeast of Base Boarhound, Terra 232)
(Day 17 of Campaign)

"God damn," Engineer Bobbi Zachs grunted after they got closer to the curious objects on the ground outside of the main residence of the Triple Bar Ranch.

"Yeah, they've been there for a minute or two," Stephen Zellet said. Even at distance, it was quite obvious that decomposition had set in long ago.

"Gods rest them," the lead on this project said with some reverence.

"This explains why the residents of this ranch were completely unaccounted for in the chaos of evacuations," the Engineer noted as she parked the HMMVW and shut it off.

The four persons in the vehicle exited and walked up to the two deceased persons. A wallet was found a couple meters from the head of the deceased man, and on inspection Stephen found the ID intact inside still, though a complete lack of cash or charge cards was to be expected. "Confirmed, this ID belongs to the former owner of this ranch," he said after he compared the ID picture to Virtue's records. "Now what?"

"I have a couple spades in the back of the HMMVW, we owe them a proper burial if nothing else," Bobbi said.

"Let's check the other buildings, make sure there are no other casualties," Clara recommended. Clara Horst was the first volunteer from the general pool for the ranching project being spearheaded by the two men in their group.

"Play it safe, we don't need any other casualties to bury today." Bobbi drew the charging handle on her M4A4 back.

"Roger that," Odin reached in under the handguard of his G36, flipped the charging handle to the left side, and gave it a yank to chamber a round. Next to him, his co-conspirator (Stephen) racked the slide of his Mossberg 590A1, which drowned out the sound of Clara running the bolt on her UMP45.

Odin Vincent Vargaran waved his partner toward the barn, equipment shelter, and small storage sheds, while the two ladies made for the rancher's house. Odin snorted at how quickly this was developing apace, but decided to focus his mental effort on checking the buildings to verify cleared. Since his discussion with Rail Guard Officer Leander on the 423 Train, Odin had been working hard toward this day, researching possible abandoned ranches, searching for volunteers to join the effort, and even had to get Sigma Three to help back the startup, but it was now in motion.

"If this is clear, this is damn good real estate," Stephen commented in a quiet voice.

"I know, not far from Boarhound, so we'd be able to bring our cattle and leatherworks to market quickly. Good rolling plains, lots of open territory, we could easily do a thousand head out here," Odin commented as they approached the equipment shelter. Two tractors filled the facility, with berths for at least four more. "If we can get these up and running, we're in business."

"No joke," Stephen said as they neared the first of the small storage sheds. The two former Delta Mafiosi took positions next to the door, Stephen yanked it open, and Odin checked it. Since the shed was less than five meters deep, there was no walking into it, he simply 'sliced the pie' to get a look at the contents, then dropped a glowstick at the end of the small ramp to signal it had been cleared. The next shed was roughly the same dimensions, and had roughly the same outcome: when opened, no persons inside, though in this case he had to contend with a raccoon that scampered through a hole in the back of the shed and away from them. Again they verified no persons in the outbuilding, then dropped a glowstick in front of the door.

"So, no persons or threats in the equipment shelter or sheds, time for the barn," Stephen said. "Who goes first?"

"Your turn," Odin grabbed the handle of the small personnel door on the side next to the large barn door, then hauled it open. Stephen wasted no time on entry, and immediately began his search as Odin entered behind and went down the right-side wall of the building to do his side of the search.

Partway through the search, the two ranchers-to-be heard the telltale of an improper whisper and some kind of impact sound in the loft above the northern calving stalls. "Who goes there?" Stephen shouted after he pointed his shotgun in that general direction.

"Come on down from there, kids!" Odin ordered after he had a moment to sense out the involved persons with his common-grade telepathy. "Ryan Hauptmann, Oscar Abbens! Both of you come on out of there, nice and easy!"

"WHAT THE FUCK?" One of the two shouted. "How the actual fuck do you know our names, mister?"

I can read your minds, kids, Odin told them telepathically.

"Oh my God, we're busted," the other of the two kids said.

"We're not doing anything wrong!" the first kid said. To Odin's ear, he sounded older by several years.

"True, you haven't done anything wrong, but by the same token you also aren't doing anything right, either," Stephen said. "Now, come on down from there, kids, and let's have a chat."

"Okay," the kids answered almost in unison. Odin found a semi-concealed position where he could cover their descent from the hay loft, and the two kids came down slowly and without any provocative actions. "Okay, mister, who're you?"

"Name's Odin," he said. "We're looking at this ranch for starting up a cattle ranch and leatherworks. What about you two?"

"We're wanderers," Oscar (the older one) said. "We don't mean any harm, mister, we'll leave quietly."

"Dunno," Stephen said. "You wander 'cause you want to, or you wander 'cause it's how you survive?" The much older ranch-hand asked the two teens.

"Survival, we've been wandering since the Star League left the world a collapsed shithole," Ryan said. Odin could easily tell he wasn't lying.

"What do you think, Steve? Think we could use a couple more hands?" Odin asked.

"Hell yes, if they'll stay on, that is," Stephen qualified his thought. "What about you two? Want to pick up a trade?"

"What's the job?" Ryan asked in a hurry.

"Cattle-hands," Stephen said. "You work for us, you help keep the herd intact and in good shape, we'll provide room, board, equipment, and a salary. It'll be long days of some hard work, but you won't have to scavenge for meals again and you'll be picking up a trade that can be used pretty much anywhere throughout the Star Empires," he explained.

"Damn," Oscar said. "We get to be real-world professional cowboys? Serious?" he asked in some shock.

Odin took a brief moment to check the kids out thoroughly, and he liked what he saw in their minds. Both were very sick and tired of scrounging, barely finding anything to eat day over day, and both were rather enthralled to be offered positions as cowboys. Technically it was unethical for him to be prying like this, but he knew he had to check to make sure he could trust them. This was a literally lawless land, and he needed to know who would have his back or who would try to knife his back.

"Well, modern-day cowboys, we'll be working with better equipment than old-days cow-hands, but the job is pretty much the same," Odin said before he slung his rifle back behind his back. "You two in or out?"

"Definitely in, sir!" Ryan said. Both the teens shook hands with the veteran cow-hands.

"We'll have to take you two in to Boarhound to register as refugees," Engineer Zachs said from the personnel door. "House is in good condition, no other deceased persons. Just needs a good cleaning and some new furniture in a couple places. I think you have a good ranch here."

"And now that we've got two more volunteers, we're on our way to starting a new herd," Odin said with a smile. "Welcome to the Triple Bar Ranch, guys."

-x-x-x-

(3 April, Magi Year 14408 / Year SL 8838, 1930 Hours Local Time)
(Ladies' Transformation Hangar, Base Boarhound, Terra 232)
(Day 17 of Campaign)

Hess had moved the meet with Nereus out to the hangar to be used by the lady avians for transformation as something of a dual-purpose meet: one, to discuss the general state of affairs of dealing with the nonhumans, and two, to discuss the coming challenges of the New Underground Railroad. That, and Hess wanted to see the result of the Runes once they had been cast and cooled.

"It is one thing to discuss the plan in abstract, entirely different to see these inset into the ground and ready for use," Nereus said by way of greeting. "The size of these runes are truly colossal, and are stunning in appearance with the bronze and runestone inlay."

Hess grunted and nodded acknowledgement. "Next steps, I believe, should be enchantment and testing?"

"Indeed, I already have one of the Rail Guards lined up for the enchantment, given he is already very adept with Runic Magic," Nereus explained.

"So I heard. Yesterday's bid wars on Amulets he generated has coughed up roughly 800 million in profits," Hess said. "Less some assault 'mechs purchased at the end of day yesterday, we are still well in the green for just that much."

"Billionaires bidding on one of the rarest of resources," Nereus chuckled. "I heard about Lacie Jestgrip."

"How much do you know already?" Hess asked.

"Just that she assembled some sort of plan, no word on what specifically she pitched to you," the High Executor prompted Hess.

"Plan is called New Underground Railroad, or UGR2. Heard of the original?" Sigma One asked, to which Nereus shook his head negative. "US history, 1850s and 1860s before the Civil War. The Underground Railroad was a decentralized network of persons spanning the breadth of the country, who freed slaves from the slaveholds of the south and clandestinely moved them north to territories where they were not subject to be recaptured. It was cited as one of the aggravating factors for the South when they declared war in the 1860s."

"So an extract, evade, escape operation."

"Exactly so," Hess said.

"And your new plan is something similar?" Nereus asked.

"Somewhat similar. We don't have the whole 'largest part of the Southern States are trying to recapture escapees' issue, but we do have the possibility of Slaver groups trying to retake escaped persons and we do have the looming refugee problem. The UGR2 plan is that sponsor companies will draw off personnel to resettle through their company, and conduit those personnel to other companies that are involved in the process as a way to decentralize the resettlement of persons who want to migrate to one of the Star Empires. They take them in, they hide them, they provide necessary counseling and reintegration, and eventually the refugees join as citizens of their respective Empires."

"That is absolutely outstanding," Nereus said with some cheer. "I was somewhat worried that Sigma would receive little or no outside help from other parties for the first couple years, but this sounds like it is the start of at least one solid partnership, and maybe more than that."

"Could expand, Lacie was thinking she would pass the idea around, see if anyone else wanted to join in," Hess said. "My question is, what kind of protections can be afforded to the member companies and personnel of the UGR2? If the Star League gets a whiff of this, they'll go apeshit on anyone they can reasonably reach, either directly or by proxy."

"Contract it," Nereus said. "If they are under contract to you as subcontractors, they are afforded the same protections and freedoms as Sigma itself for all affairs pertaining to your contract duties," the High Executor pointed out. "And it is no huge leap of imagination to draw a link from the Train Clearing project to resettlement of the refugees, so any reasonable man can understand where the UGR2 groups would be contracting in under you. And, of course, there is an expectation that you would defend your subcontractors and parties rescued by you over the years, by any means necessary."

"Oh, I was expecting to have to use extreme violence to dissuade retaliatory strikes against the member companies of UGR2," Hess admitted. "Thank you for the idea on the contract, though. Is it possible to create a classified subcontract off an existing public contract?"

"I do not know, I have never heard of such," Nereus admitted. "I shall acquire with the Precentor of the HPG station, she may know."

"It is reassuring to know I'm not alone in this mad crusade," Hess said with some fervor.

"Stuff like this," and Nereus pointed at the transformation rune in front of them, "is why you are not alone. You listen to people and try to solve problems. Even the really strange and nonstandard problems. That's why, the longer this goes on, the more allies and comrades you shall have."

"Hrm," Hess grumbled. "Surviving that long is going to be the interesting part."

"You are worried about an attack on the Protectorate in its infancy?" Nereus asked. Hess simply nodded agreement. "I am worried just the same. Still, what comes is walking into a pisser of an ambush, whether they know it or not. We will bleed in such a scenario, but they will be broken — badly broken — and that is even before we count the Magi or myself in the equation."

"Force multipliers, certainly, but leaning on the Magi or the Executors is, well…" Hess trailed his sentence off, not sure how to phrase what he wanted to say.

"It is what it is," Nereus said. "I know you want to stand on your own, but even you know that is not reasonable or expected with not even three full weeks on the job."

"True, I keep coming back to the thought, the ethos of the American Minuteman, but even that is a hollow reed in the face of heavy hitters. Time can level the field, but I wonder how much time I have before those heavy hitters decide they are done waiting and come down to play."

"Time is the most valuable commodity, always," Nereus said. "At least you are using it to the maximum. I cannot say the same for some other startup Protectorates I have seen."

"Hrm, we'll see how well our use of time holds in the face of the first newcomer."

"Speaking of first newcomers, I was thinking about Desmond and his tree," Nereus changed subjects in a direction Hess had not considered in a significant length of time.

"Dryads?" Hess asked. "What are your thoughts?"

"The Dryad housing situation is going to go in three directions as far as I can think of it. First, you are going to have civilian Dryads who live from their tree and that's it, don't want a modern house or apartment or anything of that nature. Second, you'll have civilian Dryads who do want the trappings of a more modern and community-based life. Third, the military Dryads."

"Had not considered the possibility of Dryads who do want their own house or apartment or similar, but it would make sense. Naturally, they could move their tree in on their property so their tree is at home, or in the case of apartments with no real grounds for a tree, they could park their tree in a Dryad Preserve or a town park nearby their residence. Military is a gimme: forest areas on larger open bases or a nearby Dryad Preserve."

"What I was thinking, and for the Dryads who don't want the modern trappings, we set up communal facilities for them if they want them. Communal bathhouse, dining hall, bunk house, however they want to work out the shared spaces was my thought on the matter." Nereus sniffed at the thought. "Thinking of these things was not something I expected when I swore the oath of the Executors, lo those many centuries ago."

"It is what it is, sir," Hess said in counter to Nereus' use of it earlier. "At least in this case, it's unusual planning for unique situations not seen elsewhere in the Star Empires."

"Far too true," Nereus said. "I look forward to what strange and unique situations we find ourselves in next."

"Oh, there will be more, plenty more. The universe rotates on too perverse an axis for this to be the top-end of oddity and insanity, there must be more out there," Sigma One said with finality. Time would prove him both fantastically and horribly correct.

-x-x-x-

(3 April, Magi Year 14408 / Year SL 8838, 2045 Hours Local Time)
(Manor of Lacie Jestgrip, Planet Huntress, Multimage Dimension M-6382)
(Day 17 of Campaign)

For Lacie, the day had started with drafting the plans for the New Underground Railroad, but that was not the longest part of her day by a long shot.

In the hours after Violet had taken up her office residence to write everything out, Lacie had started making phone calls. Calls that were, while not the most bizarre of calls she had ever made, certainly different from her norm. Calls largely to female persons on the far end of the line but not in every case. Calls that always started with one simple question, and that answer determined how they spoke after the fact.

"How much do you like the Star League?" The question was echoed to Lacie by the new arrival on her back patio.

"Tyrone!" Lacie stood up and faced the new entrant, but found he was not alone — "And Hana?"

"Aff, me as well," Hana Stater, present CEO of Optifree Laser Technologies, acknowledged. Her personal wealth lagged behind Lacie and Tyrone, but her personal prestige bested both of them by an order of magnitude — Optifree Laser Technologies was one of the larger laser manufacturers in the realm of Mobile Warfare amongst the Star Empires. "Before you say anything, he recommended I come and talk to you after our conversation fizzled out." Her pointing at the much larger Tyrone was almost accusatory. "I'll admit that your question threw me, girl, and after mulling it over I called him to discuss it — turns out you had called him before me."

"My idea," Tyrone Clarence Kimball, though he looked like he would have been military with his physique and clean-cut appearance, had never been in uniform. A large and swarthy man, his appearance concealed his razor-sharp mind that he used to rival Lacie's corporation in the business realm — but outside of the futures and trading arenas, the two CEOs were fast friends. "After we discussed it, Hana probably fits the bill more than I do."

"Come, please, let's discuss this," Lacie waved them over to her patio table. "Ralphie! A round of Black Russians, please," she asked of her bartender.

"Three Black Russians, coming up!" The bartender immediately set to mixing the drinks for the lady of the manor and her guests.

"I'd heard you were off the radar yesterday, you missed a couple good morning opportunities," Tyrone prompted her.

"Oh yeah, I saw the reports after the fact, but I spent my morning pursuing a personal goal, learned a horrible truth by noon, participated in a wild, wild operation in the afternoon, and had a planning session with one hell of a statesman in the evening, so I wasn't making my usual noise on the business scene but I was definitely busy."

"Personal goal? That reproductive thing you have going on?" Lacie nodded affirmative to Hana's question. "Did you find some Amulets?"

"They caused a nasty bid war when they hit the market, but I soaked up ten of them," Lacie confirmed. "And that's where it started. I called to confirm these Amulets are the real deal, and heard the story of how they were generated."

"Do tell," Tyrone said as he received his drink from the bartender.

"Have you heard of the Interdimensional Jumper Trains?" Lacie asked.

"Heard of them, especially since the flap with Sigma started," Tyrone said.

"One of the Trains landed outside of one of my factories," Hana said. "Some of the Train denizens got off and tried starting shit with the workers, which resulted in a ten-minute gunfight between the staff and security forces and them. We had a couple funerals and at least one person missing, we think she was dragged onto the Train before the shooting began in earnest. Investigation was hushed up by the Star League, since it was their Train they took point and practically pointed it into the ground."

"I've seen the inside of one of them, after Sigma's troops cleared it out," Lacie said. "The investigation at your factory was buried because the Star League does not want it known that they are sponsoring and executing a slavery racket from inside the Trains."

"So the contracts given to them by the Will Transcendent are legitimate," Hana nodded thoughtfully. "Gods Damn, they are scum."

"Hrm?" Lacie half-prompted Hana.

"The Star League. Had one of their Magistrates try to have his way with me while I was on a Star League world for a trade show and conference. Only thing that stopped him was my SPO put a .45 to his head and ordered him to get off me before she blew his brains out." Hana sighed. "So, the Slave Trade is real. And that's related to your quest for Amulets?"

"Oh yeah," Lacie took two stiff sips of her drink to fortify herself. "The Slavers that roam the Trains normally don't like surrendering, even in the face of Sigma's entry teams, the Rail Guards. Unfortunately, they don't get much traction in the way of shooting it out, the Rail Guards are straight-up murder on armed punks. Those that aren't smart enough to surrender, they get disposed of by way of the Funeral Rune, and one such rune produced the Amulets that I bid on. It was an expensive day, but ultimately worth it."

"Good to hear, children are something every lady should have a shot at," Hana sympathized. "So, what else happened?"

"I went with them on an operation to free some sold-off slaves, specifically the Captain of a Warship who had been sold off as a farmhand, though the operation netted close to 40 rescues. I was in the command vehicle as the ground action was played out, serving as an 'Operator' while one of my staff drove the command vehicle." Lacie said matter-of-fact. "It was kinda scary at the time, but looking back on it, I wasn't at much risk."

"That's crazy," Tyrone said. "Got any footage?"

"Oh yes, I have the scope camera from the heavy sniper. It's pretty gory, he was using a big-bore rifle," Lacie warned them.

The warning had the exact opposite effect: "Better and better," Tyrone said.

"I'm not going to lose sleep over slave-owners being cut down," Hana acknowledged.

Lacie flicked the video file from her tablet to an outdoor television. The video was only a couple minutes long, the length of time that the shooting was going on, but told plenty of tale nonetheless.

"The man behind that rifle is no joke," Tyrone said.

"That man, oddly enough, is the Command Administrator of the Protectorate," Lacie pointed out. "And he is every bit as sharp behind a desk as he is behind a rifle, despite his size and appearance."

"I was beginning to believe the press line that he was a dunderhead hired by the Executors to do a dirty and malicious job, but you say otherwise?" Hana asked for clarification.

"Definitely don't listen to those oxygen thieves," Lacie said with a derisive snort. "Remember that the same losers who are busy bashing Sigma also deride the Executors, routinely insult the Empress, and somehow believe that the Star League Grand Council is good governance."

"Lesson received," Tyrone acknowledged the point readily.

"Sigma One has the right idea but he has a growing refugee crisis on his hands. He has a world to expand into but nothing near the resources or personnel necessary to organize and protect it. That's where, if you accept my plan, we come in to assist with the displaced persons from the Trains and rescue missions."

"Hit me," Hana said after a stout pull of her drink.

"Underground Railroad. We funnel refugees out of Sigma, those that want to leave, we set them up as immigrants under our sponsorship, we integrate them into Magi society with new lives and good prospects. If they don't want to stay in with our company, we transfer them to the next Station on the Railroad — another company that is involved in the project. In this way, we take up the slack from the troops doing the heavy lifting, we give these people a shot at a new life, and we piss on the Star League in a way they may never know is happening."

"I like this plan," Tyrone said. "Any room for us to help Sigma directly?"

"Maybe, I'll ask the Command Administrator when I next talk to him," Lacie said.

"Do you have a plan written up for this?" Hana asked.

"My Railroad Commander just finished it up a couple hours ago." Lacie reached down into her briefcase and pulled out two envelopes. "This is the SIOP (3) for the Underground Railroad 2. I'll give you a couple minutes to read it over."

Tyrone and Hana both took about five minutes to go over Violet's write-up, and both came to an agreement:

"When do we start?" Hana asked for the two of them.

-x-x-x-

(3 April, Magi Year 14408 / Year SL 8838, 0400 Hours Local (Taiwan) Time)
(ComStar ROM Station Taiwan, downtown Taipei, Multimage Star Empire Homeworld Terra-02)
(Day 17 of Campaign)

"This where the 232 group is meeting?" a rather nondescript and somewhat nerdy guy asked after he peeked his head in the door to the secure conference room.

"Affirm, this is our new office," the man at the head of the table confirmed. True to the head guy's word, not only was this a conference room, but it also had integrated cubicles and display equipment aplenty. "You are part of the group?"

"Yes sir, Specialist-5 Germund Maculay, Document processing," the Specialist entered and offered his hand for a shake.

"Senior Demi-2 Pavel Lubberk," the team lead introduced himself with the diminutive of his full rank (Senior Demi-Precentor-2). "Hallestrom put me in command of the team. Twenty years in counterintelligence for ROM. You?"

"Four years in Documents, two years in publishing," the fresh-faced Specialist said.

"Grab a seat, we're outstanding one right now, then we'll do introductions, mission, and get started on hashing out our processes," Pavel waved him down the conference table, where he took a seat next to a lower-ranked Senior Demi-Precentor-8 from the Counterintelligence division. (2)

The last arrival was not long, only about a minute behind Germund. "I bring coffee for this party!" She announced herself in a very unusual fashion for anywhere in ComStar, and certainly for a hush-hush group such as the 232 Team. True to her word, she had two boxes of coffee from one of the local coffee shops.

"Excellent! We will need every drop of it and more before the day is done," Pavel said. "Grab a seat, Penny, we've got a lot to go over for this inaugural meeting."

"Can do!" Penny sat down, poured herself a travel mug of coffee, and passed it down to the next operator next to her. The other box of coffee went across the table to Germund, who was quite happy to pour a cup and pass it down the line.

"Okay, you all should know why you are here, Primus Hallestrom needs a team to scrub the take coming out of Sigma so we don't inadvertently blow their operations. There are some very high-level eyes on the Protectorate, up to and including Will Transcendent Eric Atrebas, and it would not do the holy order any good to compromise them on the Star Empire stage. How copy?" Pavel asked.

"Clear, sir," one of the Military Analysts said crisply.

"So, our mission statement is we shall review all media coming out of the Protectorate, determine airworthiness, intelligence value, operational value, and possibility of identifying personnel, sources or methods, and scrub any take for release or bury it if it cannot be reasonably cleaned up." Pavel was pleased that several of his subordinates were writing the mission statement down. "Any questions?"

"How much of a dog do we have in this fight?" One of the military analysts asked.

"The Primus has chosen sides in this conflict, and we are 120 percent backing Sigma against the Star League. Anybody in this room object to that? Speak your peace now, because in this room we are not impartial reporters, we have men and missions to protect and I need to know if any of you are going to have a beef with this before we begin."

"I don't necessarily object, sir, but I also don't know why," Lorant Jensen, the other Specialist from Document Preparation, asked. Germund knew him because he sat five cubicles down from Lorant and played volleyball with him two times a week.

"I just got read in on this a couple hours ago, and you will have full read-ins on the intelligence side in the coming days, but I am cleared to inform you that the purpose of this is to assist Sigma in the eradication of the human trafficking being orchestrated by the Star League. ROM has ascertained that the Slavers Guild does exist, numbers at or around 375,000 involved persons with full Guild membership, and generates net profit for the Star League to the tune of 3 billion C-bills in a year in addition to supplying manpower to some of their other corrupt ventures. In short, the contracts issued by the Master Executor to Sigma are completely legitimate and the Primus has determined that the only moral course of action for ComStar is to do our damndest to assist Sigma in this endeavor."

"Good Gods almighty," one of the News Analysts said in shock. The group had two, both Junior Demi-Precentors, and both were in serious shock about the matter.

"Now, with that on the table, any of you want to walk out, I will understand your decision. ComStar has an eon of impartiality in its reputation, and what we are about to do is going to piss on that impartiality with a fire hose. That said, the Precentor Martial said it best yesterday: 'any hill worth dying on is also a good hill to site your artillery on' as he explained to the top level. I think this is a hill worth dying on, though I understand if anyone else in the room does not agree and wants out."

"3 billion C-bills a year in slave trade profits," the other and older News Analyst gaped. "And Sigma is fighting to dismantle this?"

"Exactly so," Pavel said. "In less than a month's time, they have already cleared two Trains and rescued nearly 10,000 displaced persons or Slaves from the Trains. They have conducted non-contract operations to free Slaves that had been sold off. Fuck, they've even discovered a whole new race of beings that existed in legends last month, but are very real today."

"These guys have done more to un-fuck the situation in Existence in the past month than can be said of most of the Member States of the Star League in the past five years," the Intelligence Analyst in the group said. "I'm already read in on both the Slavers Guild and Sigma, and I volunteered for this gig as soon as word started circulating that the Primus was putting a team together. No way in hell am I backing out."

"Anyone want out?" Pavel asked.

"No sir," the senior of the two Military Analysts said.

"All right, since this is a permanent working group until someone is transferred out, time for meet and greet. I'll start with you, Penny, given you are the highest ranking person in the room. You're not going to have any issues taking orders from me?"

"Pfft, no," Penny said. "Primus put you in command for a reason, and I respect that. I'm Penny Poskovel, Intelligence Analysis Division of ROM, 63 years in service to the holy order. Prior to joining ComStar, I did 80 years in the Touman (4) as a Mobile Suit pilot, topped out as a Star Colonel. And no, you don't have to 'sir' me when we're working together, any of you. I'm not a fan of the formality, as long as we're reasonable about it." Amongst the other persons in the room, there was no expectation she was lying about her seniority: the long ears pointing roughly 8 centimeters out from the sides of her head very clearly illustrated she was full-blood Elven, and her middle-age appearance bespoke an age well in advance of 200 years young.

"Aveline, we'll do you next," Pavel pointed to the other Counter-Intel person in the room.

"Aveline Chastain, 6 years in the Counter-Intel Division, I trained in under Pavel," the other Counterintelligence Analyst in the room introduced herself. "Prior to doing spook seeking, I was HPG Maintenance. Nothing special."

"Thank you. Our gentlemen from the ComGuard?" the team lead asked.

"I shall start," the senior Military Analyst stood up. "Sawatumo Izanagi, Demi-Precentor-6," he introduced himself in the more formal Japanese style. "Did twenty in Battlemechs for the Magi, now sixteen for ComStar as a military analyst and consultant on mobile warfare. And I fully back Sigma on this matter, the Star League and their holier-than-thou State-over-everything attitude needs to be hammered down a few leagues."

"Ivar Grimaldi, Demi-9" the junior Military Analyst said, using the super-short form of his ComStar rank. "Star Colonel of Ground Armor before I came to the Holy Order. 12 years in ROM, primarily in the photo-recon division. I have lost friends and family to the excesses and failures of the Star League, so as far as I am concerned we should burn it to the ground on the way through and suborbital the char to make sure the cockroaches do not survive to tell the tale." There were a few flinches from the others for the blatant overkill in his recommendation, but not a word was said in counter to it. Truth be told, better than half the persons in the room agreed with it to one degree or another.

"Next, news division?" Pavel requested. So would continue the introductions in the early morning hours on Terra-02, and the administrative stuff would be completed before 0700 for the team. The team would find a significant dump of material waiting for them once everyone was properly read in and ready to begin, and with it a start to their work in aiding and abetting Sigma from the shadows.

So would commence their duties, but none of them suspected (yet) that their duties were about to get very interesting when they became spectators in a grand show to come in days hence.

-x-x-x-

(3 April, Magi Year 14408 / Year SL 8838, 2245 Hours Local Time)
(Mens' Transformation Hangar, Base Boarhound, Terra 232)
(Day 17 of Campaign)

"Ease up, Lise, I think we're almost there," Christina ordered of the lady controlling the fusion-powered smelter.

"Easing up," Lise pulled back on the ladle a couple degrees. "What do you think, boss?"

"Ease up a little more, give me a trickle," Christina said. Molten Bronze did not flow with the same viscosity as water, it was much heavier and hence would pile just as often as it would find the lowest points of a cavity, but with enough of the stuff in play it would readily fill the gaps and level out at the surface.

"Down to a trickle, boss," Lise had the dump gate nearly completely closed.

The boss was silent for well over a minute, simply watching, calculating as the metal continued flowing through the cavity and filling it up. "That's enough, cut it," on Christina's word, Lise closed the dump gate and brought the ladle to vertical. "Keep it hot, any extra material will need to be cast, weighed, and returned to customer."

"Another perfect pour, boss," Yvonne was 'proofing' the work in realtime as it began cooling and hardening in the cavity. "You've got a millimeter and a half of bubble above the surface, given expected shrinkage we're looking at a half-millimeter countersinking after cool and shrink."

"Fuck. Yes." Mickey slapped her gloves down on the ground, though well away from the last cavity they filled. "That's the last one, chief."

Christina clicked the radio lapel microphone she had been wearing for the past ten hours, a gift from Barret Goodwin to make things easier in terms of communication. They had been set up with their own radio channel that the AI entity was tied in to for monitoring purposes. "Virtue, Metallurgica, Time check, please,"

"Present time 2252 hours," the AI entity answered crisply.

"Hot damn!" Brandii shouted from the seat of the forklift. She had never received any formal training on a forklift, but with the compressed schedule for today she had learned very quickly how to handle the heavy equipment and how to proof a pour. "Whole project in 20 hours! That's gotta be a damn record!"

"Slightly more than 31 metric tons of pour bronze in 20 hours? Bet your bottom c-bill that's a record!" Daniella said quickly.

"May not be a record for larger outfits, but this is the fastest job we've ever laid in by a wide margin," Christina levered herself up by way of the tracks on the Siebalt 4K5 Mobile Smelter. Her prior three hours had been spent exclusively on her knees, and her kneepads were worn through (she used cloth kneepads, not the heavier rubber and hard shell pads that Yvonne loved). When standing, she keyed her microphone again. "Virtue, Metallurgica, reporting all pour operations are completed and metals are cooling. Area should be safe to traverse tomorrow morning."

"Affirm, standby one," Virtue said. Thirty seconds later: "Metallurgica, Virtue, report of completion is received by Sigma One and congratulations are in order. Rune Enchanter is also informed and will begin preparation tomorrow. On return of remaining customer material to the ScrapNet system, remainder of Contract fees will be paid out as well as a 5,000 C-bill bonus for beating your time estimate by 50 percent, how copy?"

"Copy all," Christina answered. The 5000 C-bill bonus would certainly go well with the team, and the total contract fee would help them get a rebuild for their Samarkand 3305 Mobile Smelter, which desperately needed it. (The Siebalt 4K5 was considerably newer, having had only one owner prior to Christina acquiring it. The Samarkand 3305 was almost 300 years old, had been through nine different companies, and was only operating on pure luck at this point in its career.) "Payday time, girls! Let's get the rest of the customer material cast, weighed, and palletized for storage. We'll have to leave the heavy equipment here for the evening to cool off, but I doubt anyone is going to steal two heavily-used mobile smelteries."

"Break out the bar molds!" Yvette stepped into the extra-dimensional storage room that Christina had created for the team's gear and material warehouse, entered the side-alcove for molds, and came out with a pallet jack transporting ten large bar molds for ten kilogram bars each. Once the other ground personnel had the molds on the ground, Christina and Daniella began the process of pouring off the remaining Bronze and Runestone Mixture into the first set of molds while Yvette pulled out a second set of molds.

Within ten minutes, the remaining material had been poured into the ten-kilo molds and was cooling. A little material remained, poured into 1-kilo molds very carefully, and it was set aside to cool as well. With air cooling, it would be another twenty minutes before they were set enough to pick up and transfer to the flatbed truck for transport to the ScrapNet pad.

"Hey boss, got a minute?" Daniella said after she had parked the Samarkand mobile smelter and locked it out. It was 30 meters away from the Men's Human-to-Avian rune, and thus would not interfere with the enchantment process to any degree.

"What's up?" Christina said as she waved a hand over the cooling casts.

"Got to talking with one of the Rhomson boys while we were on lunch, they love the bronze cast by the way," she prompted the Platinum Dragon that ran the outfit.

"They did some good cutting for us, not too smooth and not too rough, just right for making sure once it cools it would need a jackhammer and a blowtorch to remove."

"That's what I told 'em, good to know Sigma can hire decent contractors. Anyway, the three of them have decided they're going to put down roots here on Terra 232, that way they don't have to rely on DropShip travel to get from job to job or world to world."

"Sigma would let them use the Gate Drives?" Christina drew the necessary conclusion almost immediately.

"That, and since they are pissing on the Guilds, Sigma's forming up a cadre of Gate mages as well. Nothing official yet, but mobility is a big possibility. And, as Jerry pointed out, there is a huge amount of business potential on this planet," Daniella said.

"Go on," Christina said. Today's payday would suit the team well for a few months of payroll, but they'd be back to hungering for a big job before the end of summer. Unless…

"We just cast in four transformation runes in one base on planet. As the population of Sigma expands, Sigma is going to need more runes, spread far wider than just this base. How much business do you think we'll gin up just doing casting for Avian Transformation Runes? Or other permanent inset runes?"

"Civilian demand for this service is also going to go apeshit as soon as it catches on," Christina thought aloud. "What about our other business ventures? Piercings, metals for forging, specialty metalwork?"

"Piercings, not sure about yet. Specialty metalworks will expand as the population expands, it always does. Forging, well, I asked Virtue about that, and I think we have something special there."

"Listening," the Platinum Dragon in human form said.

"Relic Manufacture is going to be an up-and-coming part of the processes here, Sigma One is pulling no punches. He wants his specialist troops to have the highest density of relics per formation of any mercenary company on the books, and they have been kicking around considerations of troop specialties that are entirely reliant on relic arms and armor. And they will need someone to supply metal, forge it into weapons or armor, and prepare it for enchantment."

"Hot damn, boss, sounds like we have a winner here," Brandii said as she approached the two.

"Okay, you sold me. We'll talk to Sigma One tomorrow. If we can get a transport allowance and an in-road on bidding for future projects, we'll start looking for space to set up our smithery and home base," Christina allowed. "Get the rest of our gear stowed in the pocket dimension, these bars will be cool enough to transport here in a few minutes."

---

Author's Chapter Afterword:

Plans and personnel in motion…

In all reality, this chapter is kind of a quiet one, no contract work, no major happenings, just a training session bracketed by projects and advancing conspiracies. Next chapter will have some more contract work, Rail Guard team 2 will be doing some work and possibly the Rescue Rangers, but the big thing going on right now is going to be training and that is going to stay reality for quite some time in Sigma's near future.

On the matter of training, one of the bigger scenes in terms of echo is the scene with Takeshi. As strange as that sounds, Sigma picking up its first dedicated fixed-wing fighter pilot is a very big deal. The reasoning is simple: while the main bent of Sigma's air forces right now are in Helo teams, specifically transport and attack helicopters, there is a critical need for aerofighters and other combat craft that can bring other capabilities to the table. Specifically, helos are excellent for supporting troops on the ground and for hunting armor, but for missions beyond that or for missions requiring long-range fast interdiction they are limited or have no capability. Granted, the Apache IIM series of attack helos can change up capability with different external stores (external weapons), but even that has limitations.

By now starting to deploy fixed-wing craft, Sigma is now beginning to push their reach out past a maximum of 200-300 kilometers. The extended reach gives them extra options on the contract circuit, but more to the point gives them the starting kernel of capability for fighting both extant air forces and enemy naval assets. The big thing brought to the field is bombing capability — while helos have missiles and rockets to work with, their options to carry bombs are near zero, and for their destructive capability, a bomb is more blasting force for far less per unit than a missile. Just as one example, a common 1-ton Mk. 84 unguided bomb has a purchase cost of 900 C-bills per unit, and a single 2000-lb bomb is capable of ripping up a good swath of an outpost, not just one unit. For reference, a single AGM-114 Hellfire missile has a per-unit cost of 15000 c-bills, and that is only the basic laser-guided version, not any of the more modernized radar-guided units that cost even more.

The other two big points of the chapter is that Sigma now has a cadre of partners that is growing quickly, specializing in moving out personnel that don't want to go to their prior home or stay with Sigma. The infrastructure build-up necessary for this will be happening over the next couple chapters in both the Jestgrip Foundation and the other businesses, and you'll also see more businesses get in on the matter as word starts quietly spreading of the project.

The last major point is the internal strife of the coming campaign against Sigma. There are voices in the Duchy who know that the Star League's promise of protection is bullshit and tried to head this campaign off before it began. Unfortunately, the promise of being able to step up to the 'big leagues' is too much allure, too much a prize for some hotheads in play, and the chance for Senator Glivenne to profane the Executors by hammering on one of their pet projects is a big waving flag for the Senate. Naturally, protecting the Star League Guilds is also a huge motivator, as the income from illicit activities makes the potential hubbub with the Magi 'worth the hassle' in their opinions. The problem, though, is that making a miscalculation based on a miscalculation based on a third miscalculation means that when reality catches up to the involved parties, it will most certainly not match the expectations in play.

Of course, the two minor points of the chapter, the completion of the physical side of the runes and the presence of now two very handy specialist teams (Rhomson and Metallurgica) creates a coming situation par excellence for the Protectorate. Though internally it is well established that Sigma is rather solicitous to nonhumans, that noise is not yet too visible outside of Sigma itself, and hence there hasn't been much in the way of movement for the nonhumans to start headed in their direction. That will change in the coming chapters, after a ComStar report on the presence and use of the transformation runes hits the HPG networks and goes viral. When the details of how the runes were done comes out in a follow-up story, the influx of specialist teams to the Protectorate will be significant.

On the writing front, this past six months has been a clusterfuck of monumental proportions. No two ways about it, I have been hovering on the borderline of giving up all writing because of stress and time factors. Finding my way back to Sigma has been something of a touchstone for me, a way to keep writing and keep myself motivated to write when all I want to do is chill out and de-stress by other means. Now I need to start branching back out to my other works again, see if I have any motivation to continue in other places or just keep going here until I do find that motivation. Story at 11, as they say.

For now, I have nothing else to mention. NEXT UP: From finished casting, to enchanted, to first trial use, Sigma puts itself on the map for avian nonhumans in less than 24 hours, and in so doing wildly incenses the Star League for flaunting their rather racist anti-Phoenix laws. Even still, preparations for the coming battles march on, both for and against Sigma…

---

Review Replies: Two reviews across chapter 17. THANK YOU FOR THE FEEDBACK!

NHO: Well, right now the Slaver's Guild is only 375,000 known and sworn members, but the ringers and acolytes that do not have official standing do number about 8 million. And, as the Senate frees up more funding for the Guilds, you can expect those numbers will expand significantly before Sigma starts putting a real dent in them.

HolyDragoon: Well, while IRL Frigates ride the lines between Corvettes and Destroyers, in Battletech the two classes pretty much overlap. If you want a good example, check Sarna's listings for the frigate classes Eagle, Riga, and Wagon Wheel, then compare to the Destroyer classes Lola III, Essex, and Whirlwind. The overlap between the ships of these two classes makes them pretty close to interchangeable, hence my apparent classification faux pas in Chapter 17. At least amongst the navies of the Star Empires, and hence the navy-to-come for Sigma, the overlap will be reduced enough to make differences between the two notable and worthwhile.

Of course, that having been said, when it comes to hunting down the Privateer-class ships, destroyers and frigates will only be the escorts and scouts, not the main event. (Hint, hint.)

THANK YOU BOTH FOR THE REVIEWS! I love the questions and the challenges, keeps me motivated to keep my numbers straight and keep on writing!

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The Gripe Sheet:

No errors in the last chapter. Much thanks to Takeshi Yamato for keeping my writing straight, if not necessarily prompt.

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Footnotes:

(1): REMF refers to personnel whose job is to support the combat troops, though in most common uses the term is disparaging. Broken down, it specifically refers to Rear-Echelon Mother-Fuckers, and is commonly used only when referring to personnel who are not liked by the combat or combat support branches. In polite or friendly company, the common term is 'Loggies' or 'Support Troops'.

(2): The rank structure used by ComStar in Battletech is Acolyte - Adept - Demi-Precentor - Precentor - Primus, with 10 ranks of each rank counted up from 10 (lowest) to 1 (highest). Thus, a Demi-Precentor-10 outranks an Adept-1, but only barely.

The ComStar that was formed of the Magi's adventurism during the Divine Wars era uses an expanded set of ranks to cover for more variability in job positions: Acolyte (6 ranks) - Adept (6 ranks) - Specialist (10) - Junior Demi-Precentor - Intermediate Demi-Precentor - Senior Demi-Precentor - Junior Precentor - Intermediate Precentor - Senior Precentor - Primus. All Precentor, Demi-precentor, and Specialist positions are 10 ranks. It is not uncommon for solid workers to receive two or even three promotions in a year, though pay graduation between ranks is not all that large.

(3): Single Integrated Operations Plan, a plan essentially meant for use by multiple separate groups so they are operating from the same playbook to minimize confusion and streamline cooperative efforts.

(4): Touman in this case is referring to the armed forces of the Multimage Star Empire, who sometimes refer to the entire force by the Clans designation for the entire force (Touman).

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ADDEMDUM: Calculations for the Rune Volume and necessary fill material

All rings and characters are cut down into the stone, trapezoidal (wider at the base than the top). ALL cut heights are 4cm deep.

62.83m circumference Inner Ring (10m) (4cm top / 5cm base) - 113094 cm3
188.5m circumference Middle Ring (30m) (4cm top) - 339300 cm3
314.16m circumference Outer Ring (50m) (4cm top) - 565488 cm3
376.99m circumference Final Ring (60m) (10cm top / 12 base) - 1658756 cm3
50 characters per quadrant (200 total per rune) - avg 1.8m per char - 6cm top and 8cm base - 1008000 cm3

Total volume — 3,684,638 cm3 OR 3.684 Cubic Meters per rune. 4 runes == 14.736 Cubic Meters.

Bronze — 8.73 g/cm3 density

Bronze with Powdered Runestone — 8.44 g/cm3 density

Total mass of Bronze — 31,098,344.72 grams OR 31,098.3 kg OR 31.1 Metric Tons of Bronze w/ runestone.

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Included Works:

—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.

—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.
—Anime Gundam SEED Destiny: Mentioned briefly chapters 13 and 14, though more to be seen in Sigma 0003-06 is the presence of Athrun Zala and Meyrin Hawke, as well as a goodly portion of the crew of the Minerva. You can rest assured this is an issue that will echo going forward into the rest of the story. As of Chapter 17, roughly 40% of the ship's crew is in the Protectorate and has joined for the purpose of vengeance, including a rescued Captain Talia Gladys.

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

—Cartoon: Chip 'n' Dale's Rescue Rangers is mentioned in this chapter 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))

—Game: Dark Cloud and Dark Chronicle (Dark Cloud 1 and 2 in English): The concept of Chronicle Relics is derived from the Chronicle Sword and Chronicle II from the games. The specifics of these weapons, their purpose and powers, will be quite different from the games but the form factor is roughly the same (though individualized by each relic). (Shown in chapter 15 and will be fleshed out significantly in Chapter 20 and 21)