Interludes II
Interlude 4: Radio AEUG
The Cosmonaut, an underground bar that clung to existence two levels beneath the Granda City space docks, was filled with its usual sights and sounds: low chatter around the bar, cigarette smoke clouding around the ceiling and neon lights casting the rectangular establishment in a dull orange light. It was staffed currently only by a cook and a bartender, and filled with its usual haul of patrons: off duty dock workers and spacers. This place was a real hole in the wall, known only to the class she catered to, not one of those places that liked to pretend the same in order to draw in college students and the gullible.
The Cosmonaut lived, and would someday die, by the whims of the docks but she was a tough old girl. Of all the bars that had sprung up during the shipping boom of the late 0070s, only the Cosmonaut was still in business. She was an institution to this point.
It was the perfect bar for him, Pierre Badeaux reflected, peering into his glass of cheap vodka. He'd first been introduced to the Cosmonaut during his first milk run around the Moon and his routine from then on had been to pay the location a visit whenever the spacer's life took him back to port at Grenada. However, something had changed in the bar since his last port call. It had taken Pierre a while to realize it, but his latest bout of brooding had finally allowed him to enlighten upon enlightenment!
He glanced down at his near empty glass. Mayybe it was best to take a break from the vodka. But back to enlightenment: Pierre had realized that there wasn't any music playing in the bar. He peered through strands of cigarette smoke to look at the speakers mounted above the bar, to the left of a wall-mounted TV. It didn't look broken to him. But he wasn't a mechanic.
Looking about his corner of the bar, Pierre searched for someone he was familiar with from previous calls. It was slim pickings for his contact list to be honest. Only knew her name from a friend of a friend. He'd gotten into a fist fight with him. And that one eating, Pierre owed him twenty dollars, or gilla if you subscribed to the new youth slang, from a bet. Just as he was about to let it go and return to drinking, Pierra alighted upon a familiar, and friendly, face.
"Ey, Ali. Hey, Ali!" He half-whispered, half shouted to the man seated just a few stools to his right. "Ali! I know you can hear me."
His words finally registered to Ali, because his acquaintance jerked his head away from the television screen to look at him. The lean face cracked a smile around an unlit cigarette at the sight of Pierre.
"Ah, Pierre! Thought I saw you earlier." Ali grabbed his beer and moved down to sit next to Pierre. "So what's the reason for the call?"
"Know why the music isn't on?" Pierre asked, getting right to the point. Ali and him shared an appreciation for forthrightness, an aspect of the spacer's life rubbing off on them.
"Ah, that." Ali said, taking the cigarette out of his mouth and finishing off his beer. The bottle clinked as it was placed on the bar. "We're waiting for the broadcast to begin."
Pierre was confused. "Broadcast? Is the city announcing something about the docks? New regs?"
"Nah nothing like that, guess you just made port." Ali lit his cigarette with experienced hands, now adding to the smoke cloud above.
"Couple hours ago. Refueling and maintenance stop, not much use for a crane operator in that." He admitted. Even if the boss did make him stay onboard, they hadn't had much use for him in the last couple of months. Business was slow, deadly slow perhaps.
"Then you weren't around for the start of broadcasts." Another puff, more smoke. "It's become a bit of a spectator sport around these parts, spend the evening in a bar and catch old Fifth Wave's newest broadcast."
"Sounds political, what's it doing being given prime time at the Cosmonaut?" The question was extremely valid, most people, Pierre included, didn't want to muddy up their drinking hours with talk of politics of all things. A quicker way to incite a bar fight he couldn't think of.
"It's not entirely talking, the tunes Fifth Wave plays are better than what we'd get from the local stations." Ali shrugged. "But most people are here for the speech. The guy's got his fingers on the pulse of the people, speaks straight from the heart."
"You listen to the speeches of a guy who calls himself Fifth Wave?" Pierre asked incredulously. Was there a gas leak in the docks that were making him hallucinate? "It sounds like something my nephew going through his anarchist phase would refer to him and his friends as."
"The guy changes his DJ name every week, says it's to keep the Federation off his tail. Considering what he's saying on the radio waves, I don't doubt him."
Ali was about as apolitical as they came, concerned with his job and the things that affected his livelihood, but not much else. If he was giving this "Fifth Wave" the time of day, well, Pierre had to hear it for himself.
"Bartender!" he called out. "Another vodka on the rocks!" The mid-fifties, grizzled, bartender nodded in his direction to show that he heard Pierre.
"This better be good, Ali." It wasn't a very energetic reply, but it was all that Pierre felt like giving at the moment.
Half a drink later for Pierre and a full bottle for Ali, an unusual hush fell in The Cosmonaut. It wasn't the hush that happened when a new face entered, a hush of judgement. Pierre was feeling the hush of anticipation. The radio above the bar crackled to life, static briefing reigning supreme before the correct channel frequency was picked up. Despite his efforts, or maybe because of his best efforts to consume alcohol, Pierre could not help but to join in the expectant hush. He found himself leaning forward in conjunction with the others seated around him. And when had the Cosmonaut become so packed?
Then the show began.
"Hey everyone, it's ya boy Fifth Wave, back at it again with another dose of truth and reality in our increasingly distressing world. Welcome back to the source of the fifth wave of democracy and the home of the Anti-Earth Union Group, it's another episode of Radio AEUG!"
"So you, my listeners, might have heard that the Federation Assembly down in Dakar has just passed another Economic Relief Bill, because the last three worked out sooooo well. Pause for the applause. What's that? You're all completely silent, well me to listeners. This is yet another attempted by the Federation, by the Earth, to put more dough in their pockets at our expense! This version of the Bill is all about how the corporations planetside can put their boots on the necks of spacenoid trading corporations. So if you're working in shipping, get ready for pay cuts. And if you're in charge of shipping companies, well, I'd recommend you start looking for mergers or new career paths."
"Yes life's about to get harder for us spacenoids, my friends. Again. Expect the price of goods to go back, again. Expect everything to get more expensive while the suits back on Earth reap profits by the fistfold. Cause I'm telling you people, we're nothing more than a slave labor force to them. The people they kicked into space to die but instead we've survived and thrived. Here on the Moon, the Sides, the asteroid belt and Jupiter. We spacenoids have made this black void called space our own. So I say it's time for a change! It's time we finally put our feet down and tell the Earth that we will not tolerate this colonial relationship anymore!"
Fifth Wave took a while to get into his stride, Pierre noticed, but when he got going, every line landed. Soon the bar, Pierre included, where swept up in the message Fifth Wave was communicating. A message of spacenoid prosperity being leached away by greedy oligarchs on Earth, determined to maintain their wealth, status and power over their fellow man at any cost. A message of inevitable spacenoid independence that could not be stopped, now was the hour of their liberation if they had the collective will to reach out and grasp it. It was a speech, almost a tirade, that was inflammatory and inspirational as they come. If a more sober observer had been listening in, they might comment that Fifth Wave was drawing direct inspiration from the best of Gihren Zabi, a future dominated and lead by spacenoids for spacenoids, and the core message of the AEUG, that of an anti-earth political direction for spacenoids. It was the old demagoguery of the Universal Century retailored for a wider audience and universal appeal.
The end result was that by the time Fifth Wave signed off with a cheery "The Feddies haven't caught me yet, and I have no intention of letting them, so I'll see you folks tomorrow. Fifth Wave out.", the Cosmonaut, and other institutions like it across the many cities of Luna, was abuzz with revolutionary talk. Pierre, again, took part in these talks, reflecting with other people about the harsh fist of the Federation trade policy stifling the lunar shipping industry. Pierre didn't need to hear Fifth Wave to know that his employment had a high chance of being terminated soon, his wages had already been cut to the legal minimum and there were talks of liquidation. But Fifth Wave certainly helped him put his situation in context with the wider situation faced by spacenoids across the Earth Sphere.
Pierre, when the moment presented itself and his head a smidge clearer, leaned over to confide his thoughts to Ali. The arabic man offered him an enigmatic smile through the thick goatee he had cultivated since last Pierre had seen him.
"Thought you might feel that way my friend." Ali reached into his pant's pockets and withdrew a small metallic pin. Circular in shape, it has a red oblong cutting across the black horizontally. A blue sphere was set in the middle of the oblong, and a white circle surrounded the sphere. In that circle floated a smaller gold colored sphere, set at an angle away from the blue sphere. Pierre recognized the badge instantly.
"You're in the Anti-Earth Union Group? You...joined something?" He asked incredulously, Pierre had always thought Ali was a consummate loner. He had only done contract work since Pierre had known him.
"It felt like the right moment when I was approached." Ali responded. "And I think it's the right moment for you too, Pierre. There's a meeting tomorrow and I'd like you to attend." Having proved his point, Ali stowed his badge of office.
Life was defined by the leaps of faith a person takes. Forging out into the unknown based on nothing more than a gut instinct as your guide. For Pierre Badeaux, instinct screamed at him to take the leap.
He gulped the watery dregs of vodka in his glass. "Alrighty Ali, you have a deal. But you're paying for the next round."
Interlude 5: Riah Restoration Movement/Riah Independence Movement
"If the gentleman would please initial here and here, then place his signature there." A finger tapped the relevant spaces on the contract. I looked at the page with distaste. If this isn't the last one, then drastic action would be required, Anaheim's lawyers had a damned fetish for contracts.
Despite an all encompassing feeling of tiredness, I put down my initials and signature. At the very least, I had the chance to utilize my underutilized skill at cursive. The parts of the contract requiring myself were dotted with elegant F.F. initials and looping Full Frontal signatures, and while it wasn't a competition between Pepe and myself, my handwriting was much more refined in appearance.
The lawyer lifted up the page to examine it's freshly inked additions, squinting at from behind a pair of honest to God spectacles. The cutthroat man was evidently pleased with what he saw, because the page was placed into his briefcase, which was then snapped closed and locked. I felt like giving a breath of relief that this ordeal was over but that would have been rude. Instead Pepe and I shared a relieved look. He looked like a stiff breeze would tip him over into the comforting void of sleep, so worse off than I. Pepe's lawyer, well… if I couldn't see the man's chest rising and falling, I'd proclaim him to be dead. Drained of all life by the vampiric nature of excessive paperwork.
"That will conclude our business gentlemen. Anaheim Electronics extends you a hand of congratulations for this profitable venture the parties have joined." The lawyer's slightly nasally voice managed to make the plain and deliberately non-offensive words sound condescending.
"The Riah Restoration Movement is pleased to have found as stalwart an ally as Anaheim." Pepe gave his own parting words, and then our party ushered itself out of the room, we were the guests after all. The accountant took her co-worker down the hall, presumably searching for a caffeinated beverage to inject life back into him.
A heavy sigh came from the man beside me. It has been a long process getting the RRM into a contract with Anaheim and it was only the presence of Neo Zeon vouching for the good character of our sister organization, and providing them with a line of credit, that made Anaheim willing to come to the table to hear Pepe's offer.
"I don't know how you've dealt with these people for days without going mad, Full Frontal." He confided, lighting up a cigar. "I've only had to sit through one of these, yet I could happily go the rest of my life without another one!"
A mighty smoke ring punctuated his statement. Interestingly enough, the social standards around smoking that I was familiar with had either devolved over time or never existed in the first place. That is to say, people smoked indoors at their convenience and nobody gave it a second glance.
"I suppose this is the point where I make a quippy remark about the vigor of youth? Then you respond with a remark about respectively your elders?" I asked jokingly.
"Just so! Just so." That got a chuckle out of him. "Well at the very least I can report back to my colleagues that this has been a success, if more expensive than we anticipated. I also must thank you for the, ah, donation Neo Zeon made. It provided the means to meet their required down payment."
I already knew all this, but it was always nice for someone to recognize the favor done for them. "Our struggle requires us to do away with the natural frugality ingrained into us. Money is made to be funneled into the war machine." I shrugged. "That's the way I look at it."
"Makes sense. Although I'm going to need a steady stream of wealth to appease Anaheim now." Pepe responded. I gave a commisating hum.
"Luckily my comrades in the homeland have just the method: fundraising" A confident smile stretched across his mustachioed face.
"I suppose there's more to this than standing at the corner and asking people to donate to the rebellion today?" I quirked an eyebrow.
"No, no. You see we've made our own political party back in Riah to add new fuel to the cause. It's actually where the rest of your donation was put towards, the Side elections are scheduled for this fall and we're looking to make a return to the political arena." He informed me. "We've consolidated the splintered nationalist parties that survived reintegration back into a unified whole. And we're making considerable progress despite entering late in the game. Any additional donations the party gets can be funneled to pay Anaheim at the intervals they mandated."
"It's...not a bad plan at all Pepe." I admitted. "Anaheim's power makes the possibility of being caught zero. Your comrades are a crafty bunch, I'll give them that."
See, Neo Zeon would pay Anaheim on a purchase by purchase basis, considering that we'd be buying in large enough bulk to appease their ledgers. The Riah Restoration Movement, lacking the ability to buy like Neo Zeon, had been forced to use a much more constraining type. They'd be paying Anaheim as one would pay off the mortgage on a house, except instead of a house they were paying for war machines. It was a relationship that was heavily inclined to favor Anaheim but at the very least Pepe had managed to work the contract so that the RRM had the ability to choose which mobile suit model was produced for them.
That reminded me. "I'll have to head off shortly, need to be at the south pole in four hours for an inspection, but before that, one last donation to my friends in Riah." I pulled out a device that looked like a floppy disk. It wasn't one, it was just made that way. It was a very small computer with an inbuilt holographic interface and projector. This projection device I gave to Pepe.
"I dug up what information on old AEUG mobile suits Neo Zeon still had in the databases from the Gryps War era. Since you need a suit other than Axis cast-offs to equip your militant arm, I figured an old standby of the AEUG could be brought back into the service once more." Pepe thumbed the projection device on at my prompting, causing the design schematics of a mobile suit to appear before us.
"Behold the MSA-004K Nemo III, upgrade to meet modern mobile suit specs of course." I proudly presented the results of a sudden bout of inspiration and the overtime of Neo Zeon designers that went over my ideas to make sure they wouldn't cause the machine to blow up. In other news, there was a very large outstanding bar tab back on Palau that was in my name. "It's the end of the Nemo line designed by Anaheim for the old AEUG and I'm fairly certain the design never went into mass production. But it's integrated beam cannon on the shoulder gave it more range versatility than the original Nemo and the wing binders mounted on the back should allow you to meet the GM III on an equal or better footing. My people have lowered the amount of armor to account for the development of modern beam resistant coating and the fact that ballistic weapons are now a rarity on the field."
"Internally, the reactor's a step above what the Federation uses, so are the sensors. The cockpit will have the swapped out for a Zeon model to account for our pilots being trained with them. The Nemo III's standard beam rifle is two generations behind, so replace them with the model our Geara Dogas use. Overall, it's a modern mobile suit that will serve Riah well in war and in peace. And keep her purse from emptying out too fast." I finished my speech and leaned back against the wall, awaiting Pepe's judgement.
"And it's orange!" Pepe exclaimed, intently looking over the design. "It's the national color, it will go over well with the troops."
"So I take it, you're pleased?"
"Of course my friend. It looks like a fine piece of machinery. I'm not one for the technical aspects myself so this has to be reviewed by the other high ranking members of the restoration movement but I don't see the approval process taking that long. Thank you once more my friend." We shook hands, an air of easiness around us. "You've shown once again that you are a true friend to Riah and if you ever are interested in a career change, we'd be happy to have a man of your skills onboard."
I let out a friendly laugh. "I'll keep that in mind Pepe. See you for the return trip to Palau."
During the flight down to the Moon's south pole, I received an email from Pepe.
"My friend, there is one final matter that you should be involved in. It's regarding our shared ward, the Princess Mineva. From the reports given to me by her tutors, her education hasn't suffered the slightest from the years on the run and she possesses a very sharp mind for one so young. It is the recommendation of the tutors that she be progressed to more advanced subjects typically covered in the last years of secondary education. They, and I, feel that it would keep her more engaged in lessons. The final decision rests with you however."
I actually hadn't given the last Zabi much thought recently. More important matters had demanded my attention ever since our brief first meeting. But this news presented an opportunity. If I could hook the princess onto a future that she could lead separate from Zeon and her family history, then she just might buy it. If nothing else, schoolwork could be loaded onto her to keep her too distracted from rallying Zabist support among the ranks.
It was a dearly held desire of mine that I not be forced to fight children down the road and this might be the chance to steer Mineva clear away from anything political.
Yet a darker side of me, the side everyone liked to deny existed, that castoff from more barbaric times, whispered that should push come to shove, I wouldn't be thwarted by a pair of meddling brats. The future of mankind depended on it.
A/N: So these interludes are meant to wrap up the business of the Moon and to help move the story closer to Operation Left Hook, which itself will take two chapters to cover its events and combat will once more return to the story. Otherwise, any thoughts about the Nemo III being up into service as the main Neo AEUG mobile suit? Comments and whatnot are appreciated as always. See you soon.
