Part XLI - Section 2 of 2----------
"You were talking about your government being concerned about the Palatinate rearming" Hallis brought the conversation back on track.
"Right, so not only are they upgrading the equipment they already have, now they're in a full-scale military buildup buying up brand-new equipment which rang a lot of alarm bells because the ruling families in the Palatinate don't like paying taxes, they're tighter than an airlock seal when it comes to money, so why are they suddenly ploughing cash into the military?" Cirion asked rhetorically. "It's not like they're expecting the Free Worlds League to suddenly invade, the Marik's have more than enough problems to deal with already and it's cheaper for them to buy the metal from the Illyrian's than occupy the Palatinate anyway."
Hallis rolled his eyes. "So, you're trying to convince me that you thought the Illyrian's were building up their military because they had a nefarious scheme to invade Circinus? What for? To steal your grain, because that's the only thing you export as far as we can tell."
"Like I said before
I didn't believe it, so don't go accusing me of pretending to" Cirion replied. "Although for the record Circinus is actually pretty mineral rich, unusually so in radioactives, we just didn't have the mining equipment to exploit it or the industrial base to make it. Like you just said yourself we're an agricultural society, but do you know who
does have a load of mining equipment and people trained to use it?"
"The Illyrian Palatinate" Hallis finished for her.
"Right" Cirion confirmed.
Hallis leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms. "Still not buying it" he said.
"Still not selling it" Cirion retorted. "We thought, and by 'we' I mean the Circinus military, that the Palatinate was just worried about pirates. There's been more and more pirate activity in our region of space over the years, the Succession Wars stripped a lot of planets of their militias and the majority of the former Rim Worlds Republic not annexed by the Lyrans is lawless making it easy for pirates to operate out of there."
"Well, you've got a point there at least" Hallis conceded. "Circinus was originally part of the Rim Worlds Republic and pirates
do seem to be operating out of there" he continued, smirking.
"Very droll Sir" Cirion replied, tone indicating she didn't think so. "The fact is, we're one of the few systems in the area that
doesn't have a pirate problem because we actually have a military worth the name not just a handful of militia. The Black Warriors might not have all your fancy upgraded mechs, but we're well equipped and well trained enough that buccaneers look for an easier target."
"An alternative explanation being that they don't want to stray onto another pirate band's turf" Hallis countered. "The flag of the Circinus Federation
literally has a skull on it, I mean hell your
currency is called the Skull. It's not like you're even being
subtle about it."
"This again?" Cirion responded, rolling her eyes. "Like I told your Major MacArthur the Black Warriors have used the Skull and Crossbones insignia
forever, we were already living on Circinus when the refugees from the Lyran Commonwealth arrived and the new civilian government just adopted the symbol of their adopted homeland, tweaking it a little to differentiate the armed forces from the state itself because we're not a military dictatorship" she said. "It's no different than Niops using a modified Cameron Star."
"The connotations are a
little different" Hallis drily observed.
Cirion looked at him askance. "Depends on your point of view, just ask the Taurian Concordat" she replied, making a pretty decent point though Hallis wouldn't admit it. "As for us calling our currency the skull, if you think you have trouble getting other people to accept the Niops Dollar then believe me we have it worse. I wasn't just guessing that ComStar probably try to screw you on the exchange rate to C-Bills, they look at
our money like it's carrying some kind of communicable disease."
"Ah, well they're not
always in the wrong I guess" Hallis replied, uncrossing his arms again and leaning back forward. "I'm still far,
far from convinced that your attack on Illyria was just some kind of pre-emptive strike because your government thought the Palatinate was about to invade. They don't even have the armed dropships they'd need to pull something like that off,
you're the one with military space-lift capacity, although I guess you're down a
Union and two
Leopard dropships at the moment, not to mention some starlift thanks to the jumpships we impounded as well."
Cirion sighed. "Our mission to Illyria was
expressly aimed at kneecapping their power-projection capability" she replied. "Word reached Circinus that the Illyrian Palatinate was building up a fleet of
Danais class dropships with the intent of converting them to armed
Trojan class vessels" she lied, although there
was just a tiny grain of truth in there. After they captured the things and took them home to Circinus the Black Warriors plan was to perform that very conversion themselves.
"Oh, come on!" Hallis responded dubiously.
"Our intelligence people didn't give the rumour much credit either until they looked into it and found out that the Illyrian's really
had stopped selling the
Danais class dropships they've been manufacturing for export since the Star League days but they were still making the things" Cirion told him. "A
Trojan might be a poor man's
Union but they're nearly the same size and with the right refit can carry a whole company of mechs or combat vehicles" she noted. "We're not industrialised like the Palatinate, we can't make any new ships ourselves, the fear was that eventually they'd have enough quantity to beat our quality if we didn't chop them off at the knees before they could."
"If you weren't trying to paint the
Illyrian Palatinate of all things as some kind of bogeyman regarding Circinus with envious eyes and drawing their plans against you, you'd be a little more believable" Hallis suggested.
"Double standards don't you think?" Cirion replied chidingly.
Hallis was confused. "In what way?"
"Your argument is that we're
automatically pirates just because we use a skull as our national insignia and paint them on our mechs, but the notion that a bunch of Scandinavian descendants who
literally use a Norse longship with shields arrayed along the side as their flag might have a hankering for some good old fashioned Viking action never so much as enters your mind" Cirion replied, looking somewhat pleased with herself.
Hallis narrowed his eyes. "Very clever" he said eventually.
"I thought so" Cirion replied. "Once again, I
personally didn't think that the Palatinate was going to invade us to dig up our mineral wealth, my government did based upon their reading of the intelligence data" she continued. "The President was persuaded that we needed to act before it was too late, seize or destroy the ships they had already built and wreck the factory that was building them while that was still an option. For a pre-emptive strike to work we had to make our move before the arms shipments from the Magistracy started arriving because we can't absorb heavy losses to personnel or equipment, we don't have the population or military depth."
"As the old saying goes, one man's pre-emptive strike is another man's cowardly sneak attack" Hallis responded. "If you'd actually identified yourself as being the armed forces of Circinus rather than behave like a bunch of pirates conducting a raid you might have a little more creditability here."
Cirion laughed. "You can tell that you guys basically sat out the Succession Wars and hid away from the rest of the galaxy in isolation, because you seem to have missed the memo being sent out that the old rules of war have been relegated to just guidelines these days" she replied. "How is what we did different than what the Great Houses do all the time?" she asked rhetorically. "Just look at the Dracs and their Chain Gang missions intended to keep the Davions and Steiners from recovering too fast from the First Succession War."
"You've got me there" Hallis conceded. "I can certainly see the similarities given that the Chain Gang missions were
also conducted by a bunch of criminals."
Cirion chose to ignore that jibe. "The Free Worlds League and the Lyran Commonwealth had an actual peace treaty in place, but that didn't stop Charles Marik attacking them in 2830 claiming it was because he'd learned they were planning to attack him."
"I don't recall the forces Marik sent to attack the Steiners at Dieudonné and New Hope failing to identify themselves like yours did at Illyria" Hallis countered.
"Okay, so I'm rude and we didn't fill out all the correct paperwork, that doesn't make us pirates" Cirion replied.
"Pretty sure I can find plenty of precedent for that getting people treated as pirates and hanged" Hallis replied.
"We would have identified ourselves to the Illyrian militia on the ground when demanding their surrender" Cirion lied. "We never got to that point because we were attacked by an unknown mercenary force that was presumably working for the Palatinate before we could" she added.
Hallis narrowed his eyes. "Unknown mercenary group? Seriously?"
"Anyone can paint a few mechs olive drab, slap on a Red Cameron Star insignia and
say they're the Niops military, it's not like the machines I was looking at backed up the claim. None of MacArthur's machines were late Star League designs that might have given the assertion some credence" Cirion argued. "Hell, it's not like people
pretending to be the 295th Battlemech Division isn't a thing, the first thing we heard about Niops is when your General Romanov was sending out rants bitching about Raymond's Redcoats lying about their origins and besmirching the good name of her command. If we'd arrived at Illyria and found a
warship there I'd have believed MacArthur's claim, but a bunch of mechs and tanks dating back to the Reunification War or earlier isn't as convincing."
To describe Hallis as less than convinced would be an understatement. "If you didn't believe MacArthur's unit was SLDF then why surrender like you did assuming you would be treated according to the regs?" he asked reasonably.
"I thought I was going to die and get the rest of my people killed into the bargain. A Hail Mary play seemed like a good idea at the time" Cirion replied, truthfully although she hadn't ever really doubted that MacArthur's unit was from Niops, just sowing the seeds of doubt. "You're not seriously trying to dismiss the idea that sailing under a false flag isn't something that happens are you? I mean,
we've heard stories about groups raiding planets who are clearly pretending to be us. Our assumption has always been if it's Lyran worlds getting hit it's the Marik's and vice versa, but it's not like we can prove anything, it could just be a genuine pirate band cashing in on the fact we
do paint something that looks like the Jolly Roger on our mechs."
Cirion inwardly smirked. Maintaining a semblance of plausible deniability over the decades had been a cornerstone of the Black Warriors approach to not getting crushed by an angry Successor State. If not for that then the Free Worlds League in particular would have most certainly come calling after the First Succession War petered out freeing up some of its military for such operations.
Hallis was about to respond when he was interrupted by a knock on the door. "Enter" he said loudly, wondering what this was about.
The door swung open to reveal Lieutenant-Colonel Heath wearing a bemused expression. "Can I have a word with you outside General Franklin?" she requested. "It is rather urgent" she added.
"I'll be back in a minute. Make yourself comfortable" Hallis told Cirion.
Cirion rattled the chain securing her to the desk. "How?" she asked reasonably, Hallis ignoring her question as he got up and followed Heath outside into the corridor, closing the door behind him.
"What is it Colonel?" Hallis asked the NAM officer.
"We've received a government communication, along with a note General Romanov tagged on" Heath replied. "The HPG net is live again between here and Illyria, ComStar must have gotten the station on Hednesford running again, we're not sure of the specifics but the Palatinate government made contact with Circinus and after being told we had captured their raiding force their government confirmed sending Cirion and her people to Illyria."
"Nice of Circinus to not just disown them I guess" Hallis replied. "Of course, seeing as how it's her own father that commands their military then daddy might have leaned on their government not to hang her out to dry by denying all knowledge."
"Yeah" Heath agreed. "Here's the awkward part, Circinus has said themselves they launched the raid to pre-empt the Palatinate invading them, and given that it failed they are seeking negotiations and a diplomatic settlement."
"I suppose its too much to hope for that the Illyrian Palatinate just told them to go ****** themselves?" Hallis replied.
"Not really their style, their government sees the galaxy in terms of trade and war is bad for business after all" Heath replied. "They'd prefer just to return to the status quo."
"After they lost people? After we did too?" Hallis replied nonplussed.
"Oh, they're seeking financial redress for their losses, and they expect us to do likewise, they just don't want to deal with an actual full-scale war I guess" Heath replied. "We could beat Circinus into submission pretty quickly ourselves of course, but our government sure as hell doesn't want to occupy the place or end up having to defend it from other people because we robbed them of their defence capability."
Hallis frowned. "It would be more like robbing them of their
offence capability" he responded.
"No arguments here Sir" Heath concurred. "Unfortunately it's being taken out of our hands because the politicians and diplomats are taking over" she told him. "The Palatinate have requested our government to act as a mediator and guarantor in their negotiations with Circinus, and according to her note General Romanov thinks the High Associator will agree."
"Something else to add to his legacy when he steps down next year" Hallis replied, sighing.
"Given the circumstances I think it's safe to say we won't be doing anything with the prisoners until the diplomats sort things out" Heath replied. "Orders from up high say treat them as if they were POW's not pirates, but make sure they're told we don't
officially recognise them as POW. It's an academic distinction but they'll probably be happy to hear they're not going to be flushed out an airlock anytime soon at least."
Hallis sighed again. "Anytime soon is right, diplomatic negotiations can take
years even if both sides actually want to strike a deal."
"These ones might go a little faster" Heath replied. "Negotiations are supposed to take place on Circinus, we'll be transporting the delegation from Illyria there ourselves, and I don't think it'll be in a civilian jumpship if you catch my drift."
"What makes you think so?" Hallis asked.
"The fact that we've been picking up a bunch of transmissions from Naval Headquarters to
Rickenbacker, sorry I mean the
James Sever."
"Ah, so
gunboat diplomacy" Hallis concluded, smiling.
"You can usually depend on getting better results with a kind word and a Congress Class Frigate than you can with just a kind word" Heath rightly observed.
Hallis nodded. "Nothing like the possibility of facing orbital bombardment if you ****** around to concentrate the mind" he agreed.
"I still think it was all just a pirate raid gone wrong though" Heath opined.
"Yeah, but I'll have to give them credit, they spin a good yarn" Hallis conceded. "Just plausible enough to make you wonder, even if you're still pretty certain it's just bullshit obfuscation."
"Muddying the waters has probably paid off for them a lot in the past" Heath commented. "I've got to give them credit for being pirates pretending to
not be pirates while literally using pirate iconography. If the name wasn't already taken they should have gone all-in and renamed their planet Tortuga to really rub people's noses in it."
"Hard to believe they're an old SLDF unit."
"Don't you mean sliddiff?"
"Is it wrong that I find that term more offensive than the damn skull and crossbones flag they use?" Hallis asked rhetorically. "Sets my teeth on edge."
"It gets worse, I've heard them call us 'Nee-oppies' Heath told him.
Hallis grimaced. "That in itself should be enough to hang them" he stated firmly.
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Note from the Author:Although the Jolly Roger definitely screams 'pirate' the fact is that a Skull and Crossbones or Totenkopf motif has been used by an awful lot of military units over the years (including some within the Battletech universe) so the Black Warriors choice of unit insignia can't actually be taken as a slam-dunk proof of them operating as pirates. The Circinus Federation itself uses a related symbol, and even named its currency the Skull, which isn't exactly subtle, but they've never been stupid enough to outright declare they were a pirate kingdom like the Tortuga Dominions did.
In canon the Black Warriors had been playing pirate for decades but they managed to keep that under wraps, successfully enough in fact that when they found out in 2853 the Eridani Light Horse (ELH) who ended up working with them were surprised. To me that indicates the Black Warriors were pretty skilled at covering their tracks and had a decent intelligence operation going. Having contingency plans in case everything went wrong on a raid feeds into that.
Use of the term 'sliddiffs' for former SLDF units by Anjelica Cirion and her people comes from Dying Dignity (the ELH didn't seem to like it either).
Circinus IV is fairly rich in certain minerals, including valuable gemstones and radioactives, but unlike the Illyrian Palatinate their economy isn't centred around mining. Stealing off other people must have better profit margins.
At this point in history the Circinus Federation only owns one system which itself only has a small population and by comparison the Palantinate is in fact much larger and with far more people, however despite their Viking Longship sigil the Illyrian's aren't agressive towards their neighbours (which is not to say they're pacifists, when the then nine-system strong Circinus Federation invaded the Palatinate in 3034 the Illyrians won).
Cirion does have a point about the rules of warfare being mere guidelines by this point in Battletech History though (and converting Danais class dropships to Trojan class military vessels is very much a thing, if not something the Palatinate planned).
