Beyond Hope: a featurette brought to you by Cannonshop and Monbvol.

[Daryk]

That's an amusing framing of the Google problem, to put it mildly... ;D

[wolfgar]

I expect ComStar to try and hack me at random points of time, to try and track what i do online at any given time
in short be the central authoritarian government it dreams it can be

[Kyryst]

It feels like when they misjumped, Helena and Elizabeth got hit with the incompetence bat and the uptimers got hit with the hypercompetence bat. Somehow after working with the 171st and coast guard for years, they go limp and get swept up in the Coast Guard’s pace? And a Coast guard operating on shoe strings has enough ships to multiple ship jump around a target at one of many possible emergence points? The time lag involved means those ships were nearby when they jumped. And a Royal grade Lola-III gets rooked like that? Elizabeth should be ashamed, and Helena’s security detail should be flipping out.

I get that you like competent characters and the in character ability to overwhelm others, but this feels a little stretched to me. It’s saying Helena and Elizabeth and their crew went through and fought the Amaris War, and got overwhelmed and boarded by a budget non-combat Coast Guard without any difficulty at all. If for no other reason then gaining the respect of the Coasties they should have performed better. Right now, they should be regarded as dirtyfoot incomps.

This report goes up the chain and all people are going to see of them are fresh bait to be used and disposed of. A bit of a stronger start to show that the Camerons have competenece and ability as well would make this feel a lot more even.

[monbvol]

Some important points to consider:

1: The Camerons and their detail are all seriously confused and a bit out of sorts from a serious misjump.  Even without TDS that's something that puts people(and AI) on bad footing.

2: From their perspective the Coast Guard are allies.  So as their senses return and grasp the situation, what are their other realistic options?  Why would they resist?

[Kyryst]

It just seemed like a very mild reaction to being told “We don’t recognize you, we are taking and impounding your ship and putting you in a mental hospital.”

[Daryk]

That wasn't what I understood the conversation to be...

[Cannonshop]

Chapter 3: Fortuitous Meetings

Spider Moon…is nearly the size of Mars.  It's an airless body orbiting third out from the supergiant Boojum, a failed brown dwarf star that failed to ignite, because it wasn't quite big enough, sometime billions of years ago.  Most of Spider Moon is made up of ice, and rock, with a dead, cold core.

Spider Moon is home to over fifty million permanent residents scattered in and through its dense crust, a truly massive array of solar energy collectors, and the Kowloon Coast Guard's 'black' squadron.

The Black Squadron is the branch of that service that handles everything outside of Kowloon-the-inhabitable-planet's atmosphere.  This makes this place, the administrative hub for over half a billion people scattered from Hatter (a super-mercury orbiting the dual suns) to the system's outer Kuiper Belt equivalent.

It's a lot of territory to patrol, and the Black Squadron has to do so, using mostly Merchant class jumpships with dropships, most often carrying small craft and fighters.

Over the last few years, the budget's taken a pounding and most of the Services had to be sold off to keep the Guard in business.

Even from orbit, one can see the remains of better days.  The long 'shock crater' from an attempt, according to the in-flight reading materials, by Duke Karl Ngo, to build a surface to orbit tether.  The calculation had been wrong, the 'tower' fell, and if it had been over a normal, inhabited planet, millions could have died.

The sheer ambition was something Elizabeth admired, if not the execution.  Duke Karl had been in the 29th Century, one of the Dukes who nearly bankrupted the system with ambitious ideas that mysteriously failed in rapid succession.

"How are you feeling, Your Grace?"  Ms. Whyte asked.

"Nausea's done." Elizabeth said, "i might be ready to eat soon…how long did Li say it would take them to get that Warship out of our main traffic route?"

"They should be able to make the move later today, so we only need to worry for a few more hours.  The Mainstreet to Melissia run isn't due to stop in the system until tomorrow."

"Let's hope they aren't shaving time." Elizabeth sighed. "When we land, have everything we know about Helena Cameron from the war ready, I need to study up."

"Yes Your Grace, of course."

Elizabeth did the mental math.  She knew the last segment would have to be via a private, secured shuttle but the transit times from jump point to jump point worked out.

The tugs would have the Ferry out of line of sight of where they were bringing in the SLS Elizabeth Cameron.

"Your grace?"

"What?"

"Have you considered what you're going to do about the warship?"

"The report you handed me says it's sentient." Elizabeth noted, "Which means turning it over as military salvage to the Commonwealth's not on the table…and I don't know what to do, so yes, and no. I'm wrestling with it, but I don't have a good answer that isn't borderline on treason." she sighed, "Maybe I'll hire the ship and register it as a mercenary to get some legal cover, Ms. Whyte, but you didn't offer that option so I don't know if it works, and there's nothing in the law about offering citizenship to non-humans."

“That… might at least buy us some time at best.  But you’d still have to disclose its nature to the appropriate boards and the Archon.”

"I think for right now, we keep it politely quiet, and hope Lohengrin isn't poking around." Liz chewed a nic-tab laced with appetite stimulants derived from cannabinol.  "We'll find out more once I've had a chance to read up  and talk to these people…I hope."

“Yes, this situation is going to take some careful maneuvering.  One false step and we’re all in a lot of trouble.”

Elizabeth sighed, looked out the double-layer window, and said, "I wish it was me, instead of Pat, he would know what to do."

“I must admit it’d be nice to know what the right move is.  Eventually we will have to inform the Archon.  We’ll just have to hope she is in a good mood and we’ve got a good explanation why we didn’t do so right away.”

Elizabeth made a sour face, "Inform the Archon, and her grabby husband!" she snorted. “Why did she marry a foreigner anyway?"

“Politics.  Her mother wanted something different than the endless cycles of wars, border raids, and knives in the dark.  They were the only ones to answer that they wanted the same.”

"Yes, two succession wars and the war of '39 and now forty percent of the Nation's been invaded by…" Elizabeth glowered out the windows as the shuttle banked for landing.

"Nothing happens if you don't try." Ms. Whyte reminded her.  “No one could have predicted the Clans and at least they are contributing to the conflict.”

But Elizabeth glared at the universe and its fundamental unfairness anyway.

***

Waiting had proven useful for a lot of things, including a small set of almanacs detailing events over the last two hundred years for Liz Cameron to study.

It was a relentless parade of horrors.  Four succession wars with no visible end in sight, trillions dead, whole worlds gone, and frequent discussions about technological knowledge and industrial competency collapsing repeatedly over the centuries.

That, made the Coast Guard's operations all the more outright impressive.  How much do I tell Helena? Eventually all of it, but…

But.

"Helena…"

"Yeah?"

"They're impressive." Elizabeth Cameron said,  "I'm looking at these records they brought us, and they're damned impressive."

“No surprise.  They were damned impressive in the War.”  Helena shook her head.

"I…I don't think you're quite getting it.  I looked at this project-the one that failed."  on a display a string like tower stood on a wireframe model of the place they were going.  "I don't see why it failed, it should have worked, but that's not what makes them impressive."

“Is that what I think it is?  A space elevator?  Those were considered dead ends with the adoption of fusion rocketry.”

"They wanted to call it a 'port facility' and 'cargo transfer system'." Elizabeth said, "Everything about it, it ought to have worked, they were doing it because for a while, Jumpships and Dropships had been so savagely reduced that something like that could have been viable."

Helena’s eyes widened in realization.  “They got that barbaric?”

"Worse." Elizabeth told her.  Images popped up, "Kowloon's capital, the Spaceport, as it was in 2766…"  a modern, full service port, something you might find on a moderately prosperous provincial world, with facilities for hull-cooling, fast offload, and fueling.

"Nha Tranh spaceport today..."  A flat expanse of cracked ferrocrete, patched with common concrete, some sheds and shacks and sheet-metal hangars barely worthy of the term 'shelter'.

"The technological portions were stripped to keep facilities running at military bases outside the system….because they could not build it anymore."

“This…is horrible.”  Helena felt the conflicting needs to cry and punch someone in the face.

"Yes, it really is." Liz Cameron agreed.  "It's worse, their infant mortality statistics are worse than they were during the war, average lifespan is down to seventy years for upper middle class, and sixty for lower tier commoners, unemployment rates are over twenty percent, with under-employment over fifty…and according to these statistics, Kowloon's one of the better worlds on the edge of what is now the Periphery."

“Nononononono…”  Helena shook her head in disbelief.  “It went too far.  No one sane or rational would let it go that far…”

"Do you know what 'Ngo Industries' is? According to this literature?"

"What?"

"A salvage and refurbishment shop for industrial equipment.  They find broken machines, haul them back, and rebuild or repair them to sell them to major industrial concerns, and they do it well enough to be the largest Tooler in the Lyran Commonwealth-a nation renowned even when we were young, for its industrial capacity…because nobody knows how to make most of what they rebuild and sell, new."

“I don’t know how I’ll do it yet but I have to correct this.  This is too much to let stand.  I promised these people support, protection, and independence.  The least I can do is get their industry back up and running the way it should be.”

Elizabeth-the-AI nodded.

She understood.  Helena was giving herself a new mission.  Something new to focus on.  Perhaps an impossible task given their current situation.  Yet ultimately it was not a real solution.  No, she was using it to hide from her traumas again.

"What do we know about this Duchess?" Helena asked.

Images flipped on the screens.  "Born third in line in 3037, spent her first six years with her grandfather while her mother and father were being professional soldiers for the Lyran Commonwealth, two brothers both listed as 'deceased' in recent combat, and she seems to be almost obsessed with trying to do everything herself.  Twenty Two hour workdays according to the press…and she has not sworn in to the Archon yet after seizing her inheritance.  Most of these scandal rags are speculating on who's going to be given Guardian status, because at sixteen, she is radically under-age, she is not even an adult until she's eighteen."

Different sides of the same coin.  Elizabeth-the-AI thought to herself.

"Also juvenile record, arrests on Donegal for assault, drug offenses, and some sort of catch-all category relating to what amounts to delinquency.  Public record of a stint in rehab.  There is also something in her records about an incident at dependent housing in her youth but the specifics are in a sealed record."

"Sealed? By whom?"

"I…the files they gave us don't say, do you want me to ping the Ministry of Communications and see if their Intelligence Server has any data?"

"Can you do it without causing a panic?" Helena asked.

"They won't know we're in there…Samantha? Time to bring out your slicer skills."

The overrides Elizabeth-the-AI remembered worked perfectly over the short-range HPG link.

"They didn't change the access codes?"

“Seems not.”  Elizabeth-the-AI reported.

It took a few more minutes before the HPG on the other end came back with a positive lock, and then, it was time…

…in this case, around five hours for the HPG on Donegal, using First Lord's protocols, to provide the information from Hegemony Intelligence's servers…

The video was lurid.  "This wasn't her YOUTH, it was last year!"

Helmet cam from Provost officers responding to a report of gunfire in the housing area, a dead woman who shot herself in the chest, a girl in the bathtub, bleeding from a gunshot that went just wide of her spine and heart.

Helena and Elizabeth-the-AI just looked at each other silently.

A clip ran, of a woman in white, with white hair that had to be bleached, "...my client wishes for this matter to be sealed from the public, officially it is to be reported as a firearms accident, not an attempted murder suicide, you understand, ja?"

“The court is sympathetic.  We will seal the entire case.  No one will need to know the truth.”

Right on camera, money exchanged hands.

It was blatant corruption.  "Also, delay the assignment of a Guardian, Die Firma, I will take care of it, if you please…make it administrative, and how much will it cost to spare the Realm the aggravation of further…complications?"

"Administrative delays are…inevitable, Ms. Whyte.  The Archon need not be troubled by this matter for some time." the judge agreed, and the bills disappeared.

"Bribery, and I suspect, blackmail." Moshe commented.  "That's a lot of cash for a Juvenile judge, why didn't they bribe them in the rest of it?"

"Because the rest of it wasn't vital to the company or the planet." Helena identified. "Unless the system changed a LOT from when we were kids, our friend the Duchess needed a free hand, and a court appointed guardian wouldn't do it, and more to the point, she was removing a Royal Court appointed regent."

"What gets me is how blatant it is.  Shouldn't that kind of thing be…y'know, Subtle at least?"

“Usually it is.  Odd.  Makes me believe someone wanted leverage over both parties in the future.”  Elizabeth-the-AI stated.

"Or, like the slide in technology, things have just gotten that bad."  Bertha's normal vapid cheer was absolutely gone from her face and tone.

“Yes but I would still expect envelopes and disguising it as ‘court fees’.  Simple little tricks like that don’t require technology.”  Elizabeth-the-AI stated.  “No, for some reason one party or a third party insisted it be in the open like this.”

“It’s a cover.  If someone pokes around for the truth it makes both parties a scapegoat and keeps the Duchess clean.”  Helena determined.

"That…would be some fanatical level of loyalty there, if that's the case."  Moshe agreed.

"Or maybe it's to cover someone else."

"What do you mean?"

"The Archon. This…'Melissa Steiner Davion'.  She needed the regent removed but her hands clean, so…"

“Of course.  This would keep her hands clean too. So it is a double cover.”  Helena nodded.

"Core is charged." Elizabeth-the-AI announced, "We can make for the coordinates any time we're ready, assuming we get clearance to make the jump."

“Good.  Inform our guests.”  Helena commanded.

****

The Spider Moon/Boojum L1 was relatively empty, and traffic control directed them to a stationary orbit facing the gas giant over the actual rock.

To Elizabeth Cameron's 'eyes' it looked…almost normal. The skiffs and smallcraft going about their business were normal, the fueling docks and gantries? Normal.

"Huh…an extensive unpressurized yard complex."  The older Cameron sister had, once, a lifetime and more ago, been angling to get into the Star League Navy for her obligatory military tour, and after Richie had his kids, she'd wanted it as a career.  couple years of academy short of it though. 

Unpressurized yards, she panned her telescope, spotting what looked like around sixty percent of a Core Forge under construction…but no big final assembly pressure facilities.

With a little outside help and recovery thay could start making some interesting things.

"Huh." the remote mused.

"What?"

"They have about sixty percent of an industrial shipyard." Elizabeth said.

“Huh.  Well I guess that gives us an area where we can focus on helping them.”  Helena answered.

"I think it's supposed to be a big one." she clarified, "See those skeleton-structures? Those are null gee vacuum assembly docks, they've got…twelve? No, fourteen.  That's almost but not quite what O'Neill started with after the McKenna coup."

“Yeah…  And look at the way they have everything laid out.  It almost looks like the museum displays of what O’Niell put together.”

The AI enhanced the images.  "Those aren't restoration efforts, they're building them."

“Good on them.”  Helena nodded.  “But then again they’re not advertising it.”

"Maybe a contract with a rider for NDA?"  Samantha asked.

“And we can see why with the material they have provided us.”  Elizabeth’s remote shook her head.

"Okay, we've got a shuttle clearance to the surface, and routing.  HEY, the ALS system actually works out here!"

“Okay.  Jakob, Moshe, with me.  Everyone else, stay frosty until I get back.”  Helena stood up projecting more confidence than she actually felt.

The ride down was familiar to anyone who grew up with interplanetary travel in the 28th century-the automatics on the shuttle got the signals, reference and cross reference, and adjusted the controls to keep the ride down as smooth, and as simple as modern airspace control software and hardware can manage.

NOT like an abandoned concrete pad with tin sheds.

But then, she saw the base itself.

"That…is a prefabricated Star League Defense Base!"  she'd spent enough time in similar facilities during the war to recognize the outlines.

She was still surprised by it, despite it making logical sense they would have access to it, and thus use it.
The shuttle flared, and landed on a Lock-elevator, which clamped the landing gear as it lowered, bringing them inside using the route normally…well, in HER normally, the normally before they left the year 2780, anyway…would be used for transfer of Munition packs for Capital missiles, VIP shuttles, or dangerous cargo.

The flush of noble gasses, followed by a second flush of breathing-quality air meant only a few minutes before the concourse gate locked against the side of her shuttlecraft.

"Airlock is green."

Jacob pushed an emergency helmet at Helena.  It would keep her alive for a few minutes if pressure was lost and the facility became depressurized.

“Full paranoid mode?”  Helena joked.

“Always.”  Jacob nodded.

The lock opened on a short, secondary airlock corridor.  Helena noted that the 'beach ball' lockers had new inspection tags, and that the controls weren't touch-screens, they were big, knobby analog units that had to be aftermarket.

Which made the emergency helmet a lot more comforting.

Jakob was the first through the other door, and was met by spacers in tight-fitting 'skinsuits' that sported extra mass, covered partially by blue overgarments, those spacers had blunt, deep-lensed laser rifles of the same sort that Sithers and her team had brought aboard, their Officer was dressed in a tan overgarment over the same sort of form-fititng suit, helmets clipped to harnesses, ready for wear, but not worn.

"Welcome to Spider Moon Coast Guard Station, I'm Alicia Li, I'm in command here."

“Lieutenant Jakob Fletcher, Star League Defense Force.”

"Service number?" Li asked.

“Fletcher, Jacob Irons 98088871432.”

She checked a Padd, then, "Welcome, Lieutenant, I'm afraid it's going to be a while before we can locate your family, but thank you for your service." she then rendered a hand salute.  'You were at sea a while…did you bring Lady Cameron?"

“So I’ve gathered.  And we did.”

Li seemed satisfied, "Follow me then, Her Grace came all the way up from the Well to be here."
Jakob tapped his communicator twice to signal the all clear.

Li led them into the base, to an elevator that was not Star League issue.  "Don't worry, it's safe." she said, "or I'd be a damned idiot to use it.  We're going down out of the way of daily ops, into the 'New' sections of the base."

They boarded it and she closed the gates, before tripping the freight elevator's motors into action.

“Impressive facility.”  Helena complimented.

"We stole it from the Rimjobs during the Freedom war, then we've kept it up." Li ackowledged, "Which took quite a bit of work, I'm afraid we did let some of the finer details slip due to budget issues under the Regency, but then, that's happened before."

“I’ve been studying what my associates allow me to that you’ve sent over, I’m starting to understand what you mean.”

"Good, maybe you can explain it to my Liege." Li commented, "She spends too much time down on the planet, and not enough out here where most of her fortune is…" then Li amended, "Still, she's better than her father..." with a sad shake of the head.

The elevator stopped and the gates lifted, revealing a sealed-stone chamber with corridors coming off it like spokes.  "This way."

“The fabled archives?”  Helena asked.  “I heard about them from the volunteers but I never thought I’d see them myself.”

"Yeah, her Grace thinks it will be dramatic or something, I would've encouraged her to meet in the mess hall instead, and only bring you down here after a meal."

“No.  I appreciate it.”  Helena shook her head.

The tunnel they were in curved down, into a spiral with an open pit to one side, and spray-sealed wall to the other.

At intervals roughly ten meters apart vertically, doorways into old mining shafts that had been smoothed, carved, and sealed.

At the third one, Li took out a data key, and opened the door.

"Where…"

[Cannonshop]

"Hall of the 28th century.  She wanted to bring you all here, rather than meeting down on the bottom level-that's the level for the last fifty years."

“Of course.  The promises I made to get your people’s help in the war and my orders to them during the war make me responsible for a lot of the names in this section.”  Helena nodded as she allowed her gloved hand to trace the carved names on the wall.

Jakob could see names carved into the walls, ceiling, and floor as they entered.

So many names.  Some had other things, burned-images of people, or flat-dee images and candids sealed under the sealant.

The corridor led to another large open chamber, this one was filled with familiar items.  A Museum. Sitting on a stone bench near the middle, was Elizabeth Ngo, the Duchess, who was not wearing a pressure suit, she got up, and, with the help of a cane, Hobbled over.  "Tell me something only Helena Cameron would know…and make it good, because I've got this!" the girl held up a leather-bound journal Helena had seen Tran Truk Ngo writing in from time to time.

“We bonded initially over our mutual hatred of Amaris.  But what really cemented our friendship was the night he introduced me to ijeroo.  We got so hammered that Kerensky himself had to get us out of the local provost jail because they didn’t believe who we were.  After that, we just realized how much we understood each other.  If that’s not good enough, check the entry for 12 September 2773.  That was the day I detailed to him some of the horrors I faced with Amaris.”

The girl waited, her fingers having found a page, and held it down.  "And?"

Helena frowned, then realized, yeah there would be official reports…  "I left my key-card in a latrine, and he found it for me."

At this, the girl nodded, "If you're a fake, you're as good as the real deal, so I'm going to say you're real…."

“Strangely that is starting to become a relief and a curse at the same time.”

"Okay, I have a problem." Elizabeth said, "See, you showed up with a warship...and we're at war with people who tool around in Warships, and the Realm doesn't have any warships left, now officially, what I'm supposed to do as a good Lyran, is detain you all, report the ship to Mount Asgard, and wait for an RCT to come collect you…but I am NOT a slave trader and your ship is confirmed Sapient., further, you're a legend and you've got ties to my ancestor, and I don't want to do that."

“While I have no solution for you I still thank you for your discretion.”

"Right, you understand my problem…compound that problem with 'i'm underage', under-educated, and the third richest individual in the Lyran Commonwealth if you go by financial assets and debts owed.  The other two are the Archon, and the Brewer family on Hesperus."

“I want to help but I am only one woman with a small support staff.”

Elizabeth snorted, "You, are Helena Cameron." she said.  "Of those Camerons, you also managed to reach adulthood and finish high school before the universe dropped on top of you."

“Yes.  And that name in my time was also a curse.  Enough so because of my brother that many willingly flocked to Amaris’ banner and were more than happy to proclaim me a manufactured fake for the purposes of propaganda.”

"Yah, well, I'm not talking to Richard, am I?" the girl challenged, "I'm going to ask you if you want to stay, at least until you've got your feet down under you, but that means I need the help of the woman Tran Truk Ngo called…" she opened the diary, an translated as she spoke, "...an administrative genius who handles clashing personalities with aplomb'."

“Heh.  Somehow I’m suspicious that you’re skipping over his pet name for me.  “War Witch’ because I could be, well less than lady like when I was dealing with brass.”

"In case Commander Vu Dao or Commodore Li didn't get it across, we're in a war." Elizabeth underlined in her tone, "the Lyran Commonwealth has lost forty percent of our total territory to an invader claiming to be…and maybe confirmed to be, the descendants of the seventy five percent of the Star League's Defense Forces, and Ninety percent of the Terran Hegemony's defense forces, that followed General Kerensky into mass-desertion rather than deal with the aftermath of removing the Fat Man-they looted it, and took off and since then, we've lost so much…everything, that there are things that used to be common that we don't even have the words for anymore...which reminds me, did you bring books? PLEASE tell me you brought books…"

“Something tells me not enough of the right ones you’re looking for.”

"I want to take any of them you have, make copies, and put them in a library." the girl enunciated, "A Library, on the site of the old Ducal command center, because I don't really like living in a ferrocrete prison, but the grounds will make a LOVELY university."

“Can’t blame you about that.  I’ve spent most of my adult life in what is effectively a gilded cage.  It wasn’t so bad because I had my sister with me.  But it wasn’t until the end I had any freedom.”

"You knew him.  He said you knew…" she held up the book, "I have limited time and a lot to do, Lady Cameron.  REALLY limited time, I need your help, or I won't be able to get it all done…my 'goal' is to make people like me irrelevant here-but that means digging us out of this dark age we're in."

“I was afraid you had what he had.  Of course I’ll do what I can.  But these are your people.  Not mine.  Your name matters to them, like mine matters to you and perhaps a few romantics that still might be floating about.”

"They can be yours too." Elizabeth said, "My best option for an heir, had her face burned off during a TANK battle…but you still crop up in our folk tales, the stories people tell each other when the official education system doesn't tell it."  she gestured, "You're legends."

“I… Hate being a legend.  All the death in my name.  All the suffering it has caused.  All the suffering I endured for it.  But what you’re offering is something else isn’t it?”

"Maybe make it mean something?" the girl peeped out.  "Maybe make it worth it instead of doubling down on what's come before?"

“There’s still that war.  Which means I’m going to have to call for more death and destruction before it is over.  But what you want is to build.”  Helena nodded.

"Maybe you being here is a way to end it?"  Elizabeth pointed out, "THEY say they're here to restore the Star League, well…you're THE Cameron."

“Then let’s hope they are among the romantics that still think of the Cameron name in a positive light.”

"Meantime…" Elizabeth reached into a valise next to her bench, and handed something over.  "Those, are for obtaining identification documents…I'd offer you immigration forms but we still haven't figured out what those should like yet."

“If everything I’ve read is true, then there is no Terran Hegemony for me to return to.  That’s okay for now.  I’m not ready to face the demons waiting for me there yet.”  Helena nodded.

“Amaris?”

“He had me in his clutches long before the coup.  Long enough that I’m not sure if it is transference or if Richard was a willing participant.  Either way both their faces are in my nightmares as my tormenters.”  Helena admitted.  “I never even told Elizabeth that.  The only other person I told was my prior psychiatrist who’s been dead for a long time now.”

"Well, he can't blab your secrets." Elizabeth Ngo said with a wince that only comes when one has been betrayed that way before. 

“My sister thinks we’re different sides of the same coin, you and I.  I heard her whisper it once when I think she meant to only think it to herself.  Maybe she’s right.”

Liz Ngo shrugged, "Can't say, I don't know, what I do know, is that there are some things you need to know…which is why we're here and not meeting in Nha Tranh."  she picked up the valise, "Kommen Mit?"

“Yeah.  If we’re going to do this you need to know my baggage too.”  Helena nodded.

"Fair…I still have nightmares over the executions, and I can't leave the lights on when I take a shower anymore, and I can't stand to shower if there's anyone else in the house. I get panic attacks."

“The SLDF uniform, groups of more than ten, fence posts, and the obvious of anything with Amaris’ or Richard’s face on it.”

"Okay, so keep you out of town on Independence Days." Elizabeth suggested, "there's a pretty common carnival game where you throw hatchets at Steve Amaris' head, and they hang Slaver Bin Hawli from the Highway One bridge in Hue, just like they did the first time, then make bets on how long it takes the birds to finish the effigy and cut the rope."

“Now that might actually be therapeutic.”  Helena smiled slightly.  “The throwing hatchets part.”

"It's fun, two Phennigs a throw. I think they have a permanent booth in Tran Truk Ngo's hometown off Golden Lake."

They reached a corroded door, with the crests of the 171st Volunteers, and the 90th Heavy Assault.

"Okay, Commodore Li said she replaced the neutral gasses in here with breathing air, so it's probably going to smell funny.." she finished rolling hte mechanical combination lock, then spun the security handle to open a ten centimeter thick vault door.

“Practically lived on a Destroyer.  Sure there were never more than a dozen of us on board at a time total thanks to my hang ups but that’s plenty to get things to stink like a gym.”

"This is more like 'paper going over' smells." Elizabeth said, "This way…"

They entered a warehouse with racks upon racks upon racks of documents in preservation sleeves.

"We're going to be copying and printing for the next decade, to fill the Library's 'Kowloon history' section." Elizabeth commented, "The parts you're going to need are back…here…"

Helena saw a particular display that caught her eye.

"Terran Hegemony?"

"Yeah, troops with the Liberation recovered documents." Elizabeth explained.  "Not sure if anyone bothered to tell a Royal Scion but…"

“Then you have a copy of the Elbar proclamation after all…  I was still so angry when I signed that.”

"Three copies." Elizabeth said, "GIlmour from the nine-zero left one copy in his will to Dinh Ngo's widow after the 171 was wiped out trying to relieve Kentares, we've got Tranh Truk Ngo's copy, and we've got a copy picked up about seventy years ago at a pawn shop on Buena, we think it's one from one of the Rallier units."

“Maybe I can recognize the name of the signatory.”  Helena offered.

"That'd be cool…here we go…this is what I wanted to show you." Elizabeth held up a three ring binder.  "Is it familiar?"

“Let me see…  On the outside it looks like an ordinary three ring binder, any markings at all?”

"Open it up."  the girl sounded serious.

Helena carefully opened the binder.

“The mother doctrine.  It was hotly contested back in my time.  But this seems different than what I was brought up to believe it to be…”  Helena turned page after page.

The girl watched Helena, but Jakob watched the Girl.

“It wasn’t supposed to be like this…  It was supposed to be less…  Oh my god…”  Helena started crying as she slammed the binder shut.

"Now, you know why I made a point of telling you about the plans for a University, Helena." Elizabeth said,  "and d'you understand why I wanted you to see that?"

“So I’d understand…”

"So you'd react." Jakob interrupted, "that was it, wasn't it?" his tone was accusing, angry, "you wanted to what? See if she was in on it? If she approved of it?"

"Yes." Elizabeth told them,  "I have people, that if I declared the sky to be pink and purple with unicorn clouds, they'd not only agree despite the evidence of their own eyes, but they'd agree so well that I'd be at risk of believing it myself!!  Do you get that…Lieutenant Fletcher?  I need to know who I'm dealing with and I don't get the luxury of learning it the nice way most of the time." she turned to Helena, "I'm so sorry I had to show you that, that you had to find out that way…but it's why we don't use Comstar unless we have to."

“No.  I can’t do what I need to do if I don’t know the truth.”

The girl brought out something else and handed it to Fletcher, "this, is a list of names, like that hallway you came in through, only these aren't necessarily my people, they're people who pop up in a journal or magazine with a discovery, but their papers are nowhere to be found, and they died before they could finish publication…one of them, was working on what I have."

Jakob had a pained expression.  He clearly wanted to object but couldn’t.  The evidence was practically staring him in the face.

"Why?" he managed.

"Because we're in a dark age, and we have to get out." Elizabeth told him, "it's the only reason that matters-you either go forward and grow, or die…well, dying's inevitable, it's how far you go forward and who comes after that makes the trip worth-while….or we can let mankind shudder into the frikking stone age."

“Well I’d rather not live in a rock cage.”  Helena proclaimed.

Elizabeth nodded, "here's the deal-you, are charismatic with a magic name, but I can't make you do anything…hell, I doubt I have what it would cost to bribe you.  All I want, is for you to commit to one idea;  let's make it worth what it's cost, let's get us out of the muck and the dark age and the ignorance, and make it worth it.  Whatdday say?  You up to the idea of promoting literacy and..y'know, selling the idea of other ideas?"

“I gave my word a long time ago that I’d recognize your independence and see to your protection.  I will give all that is left of me to keep that word now as best I can.”

"I promise I won't ask anything of you I would not be willing to shoulder myself." Elizabeth told her, "so, let's go have lunch."

Helena simply nodded.

[Cannonshop]

It just seemed like a very mild reaction to being told “We don’t recognize you, we are taking and impounding your ship and putting you in a mental hospital.”

What would the first reaction be if, Decades after they vanished, Flight 19 showed up for a landing at Miami International Airport, circa 2023?  (they vanished in the 1940s)

Helena's playing this SMART.   She's in a position where bellowing threats or opening fire might not be immediately fatal, but it defines the idea of "reducing your useful lifespan  and limiting your future options".

[Cannonshop]

***

"...so anyway, the match is nearing the final three minutes of the round, and Henry's been keeping this big brute of a guy following him like an overweight dreadhundt..totally pissing some of the observers and judges off, because they're there to see teen boys pound the hell out of each other for points…He sidesteps, big 'un throws a punch with an arm as big as my leg…my brother ducked, came up, smooth uppercut and a foot-sweep, drops the Heinie bastard right on the damn moment the BELL rang!!"  Elizabeth Ngo was speaking of the dead at lunch-a favored brother, and a boxing match she'd attended when their parents did not.

"So what happened?"

"Collins, the judge from Sanglamore, docked Hank points because his opponent's other shoulder didn't hit the mat before the bell ended the round. It was total bullshit and my bro, he won that match…but they gave him second place."

"Seems unfair."

"No, 'unfair' is that I'd be off finishing high school if they hadn't extended Pat's tour past his post-Academy five." She said,  "HE would be the Duke of Kowloon, like Grandpapa taught him to be, and I could go be…anything but a duchess."  she laughed.

“Yeah.  I was the spare to the spare.  Yet I learned many things because I was suddenly the First Lord.”

"Spare to the spare, to the Heir, we'll still get you there, hey?" out in public, Elizabeth was Jovial, smiling, laughing.  Everything the serious creature in the Archive wasn't and could never be.

Helena only had to pause and collect herself twice as they moved through the busier parts of the base to the canteen.

Strains of instrumental music flickered into and out of being as personnel entered or left the Canteen.

"It's called the…'Oaken Cudgel?'?"  Fletcher asked.

"Pun on the english 'O-Club'...also a warning about getting too drunk, one of Grandfather or Mister Cartwright's jokes."

Helena visibly readied herself before entering.

Three or four spacers in the main room with the barman, a short corridor off the bar marked "The heads" and another marked "Private booths".

"Light?"

"Light." Elizabeth nodded, "Which is what happens when the Duchess is on-post, if there's anything that makes troops avoid public spaces, it's the risk of being spot-checked by brass…or that's what Pat told me in a letter from Tamar."

“I can handle this.  This is fine.”  Helena sounded as if she was more reassuring herself than Elizabeth.

Elizabeth angled them to a corner booth with a privacy screen, and summoned the Steward, with a bottle of reddish-brown and a tray of shot glasses.

"Aren't you a little…"

"Young? I can reach the bar when I stand on my tippy toes, and unlike any of you, nobody's going to ask me to drive."

“It still mars the brain at your age.”  Fletcher said.

She shrugged, "in Atmo, on a planet? I smoke enough dope to drop an armorbear just to be normal, it's not the brain I gots to worry about, it's my delicate little liver."

“She’s the Duchess here.  We’re her guests.  We shouldn’t pronounce judgment.  And I apologize.  Normally I am not so sensitive but it is a new environment for me so I seem to be more sensitive to my triggers than normal.”  Helena offered.

"You're all my guests." Elizabeth said, "Speak free, if I'm offended, I'll tell you so, besides, as a Teenaged Lord, there's a certain expectation I have to fill, you know, and I don't like going without undewear, so booze and drugs is it."

“My sister is still in that phase in her own way.  I think that is how she is reacting to how Amaris treated her.  She is super forward and sexual.”

"Helena, let me be as indiscreet and crude as possible for a moment…" Elizabeth said, "...according to the journal, your sister likes Girls, that's not 'damage' that's 'this is what she likes', and that's fine."

“Well that’s what I mean, I’m not sure she cares as long it has a pulse and two legs and she can have that kind of fun with it now.”

"By the Book of my Big Brother Patrick…" Elizabeth rolled her eyes like a preacher, "and thus, in the Service, They what has TWO X-Chromosomes and are of Officer grade are presented with a choice!"  she poured two glasses.  "Choice one…per my brother, and confirmed by his Fiancee, whom is my current heir? Is to be a Battleaxe, the second…" she filled the second shot glass, "is to be viewed as a slut, and lo, they both say this dichotomy, this Two Sided stereotype, goes back to the era when people were stabbing each other with bronze knives."

“And really I think it was the math that Sithers was putting into the navcom that was getting Elizabeth horny.”  Fletcher offered.

"Sithers…Linda Sithers? The Seether?" Elizabeth asked,  "I actually KNOW her…she dated Pat in high school.  She dumped him for the team captain of the ladies Futbol team before heading back up to live with her cousins on Sithers-Deen 41."

“She was the leader of the boarding party.  Egads.  I think you both might be right.  My sister might have just been hot for her dream girl.  A perfect combination of jock and nerd.”  Helena stuck out her tongue in mock disgust.

"Given the rumours, your sister could've had a go at her for the price of two black-and-tans and an evening movie…of course, those rumours are false."

"Oh?"

"Sithers plays bi, but she's straight.  It didn't work out with Cyndi, ergo, back up to the belts."

“And you’re probably also partially right Helena.  I hate to say it but one of the classic responses to sexual abuse is to become very promiscious and with what she is now…”

"Creature of pure intellect" Liz observed.

"What?" Jakob looked at her.

"She's a creature of pure intellect, no glands, no soft squishy nerve endings or weird chemicals in her brain anymore, ergo, for all WE know, she gets a sexual high off really good conversation…or really well done complex calculus-no endorphine receptors or endorphins or Dopamine."

“And as such the physical act is no big deal for her.  It’d be like shaking someone’s hand.”

"Bingo. I bet you can piss her off with crap poetry or bad music though…can't ya?"

“Yeah.  Poetry night got banned real fast after Rachel tried it drunk.”  Helena giggled.

"How's her prose?"  Elizabeth asked.

"Prose?"

"She's a Hattah."  Elizabeth said, "Most of the winners for the annual competitions out here, the story competitions? Are Hatters, something about living that deep in a hole results in some fantastic works of imagination…or it could be the chemical dust from the mines."

“Huh, well maybe we should get her to try again sober then.”  Helena smiled.

***

Doctor of Psychiatric Medicine Rhonda Lowenstein’s Office
Coast Guard Station Spider Moon
12 July 3053

“Give it to me straight Doc Lowenstien, you’ve interviewed them all now.  I would be stupid to not get a professional’s read on them.”  Elizabeth Ngo prompted.

“I know and in this context Doctor Patient Confidentiality cannot exist.  Helena has regressed badly from what I can gather.  This is not unexpected.  Her support structures have largely been torn away whether she realizes it or not.  I think she’ll make progress again soon enough.”

“There’s more.”  Elizabeth sensed it.

“Something they all have in common.  They’re using your proposal as something of a barrier, or crutch to help keep them from having to face their trauma at their new found isolation directly.”

“Even the AI?”

“Yeah.  The AI too.  She passes every test I can throw at her.  It doesn’t matter if she’s just really sophisticated computer code and hyper advanced hardware to carry it out.  The only reason I was able to tell I was talking to an AI not a real person is because some of the relays had trouble during our interview and even then the delay times because of the orbital distance gave a clue too.”

“Then I have one more talk before returning home.”

CiC SLS Elizabeth Cameron

“This could get confusing.  How about I start going by my middle name, Jane?”  Elizabeth Cameron  greeted her newest guest.

“Okay Jane.  First off, thank you for letting me aboard.  Impressive setup you have here.”  Elizabeth Ngo said.

“Thank you.  It serves us well.”

“I just have one technical question for you.  How well can you operate away from this ship?”

“Amaris spared no expense and no effort in my remote to make it as capable for his entertainment as possible.  So it allows me to experience a great deal and can carry more of my personality than other models but really I’d probably be about as useful as one of the really good, high end Dustball specials.”

“Infonets?”

“Infonets.  Some portions make you question if humanity is worth saving and then bam, cute cat video that makes you forget all about it.”

“My favorites are some of the videos done by a bunch of our vets that make fun of horror movies.”


“Yeah those are good too.  But I should bring us back on topic.  You’re trying to figure out how best to resolve how to best accommodate me without wrecking one of my sister’s last few coping mechanisms.”

“Yeah.  This would be a lot easier if I didn’t have to play a shell game with a Warship.”

“Our options then seem to be one: Remove my core from the Warship.  This could prove problematic as this is no small feat and would render this Warship useless as well as my core would not be easy to move around to stay with Helena in a meaningful way.”.

“When put like that makes it pretty much a non-starter.”

“Two: You’re hoping my remote has enough autonomy that it would provide the support mechanism my sister needs while my hull is tucked away in your so called ‘shell game’.  Maybe?  I’m not sure.  I’ve always been no more than about half a second of delay away from it which allows me to run it with full capacity but half a second is about the most that can be tolerated as that makes my reaction times slower than a typical soldier in a combat situation.”

“Even with the sails you’d be spotted by somebody that close to Kowloon.”

“And you need Helena to be able to travel.”

“I do.”

“Then I know what I need to do.  It’s okay.  It won’t be perfect but it’ll be enough I think.”

“How bad is it?”

“Don’t ask it to run hyperspace calculus, plot naval gunfire, or anything really heavy like that.  It’ll also need memory cleared out about every three months.  Six if you really need it to push its limits and don’t mind if it starts getting a bit sluggish in responding.”

“I wish there were a better way.”

“So do I but this is the hand we have currently.  Oh how long it lasts before it needs charging depends on usage.  A typical cycle for me currently is 12 on charger 12 performing tasks.  We’ll have to see what can actually be maintained.  There isn’t exactly a standard service manual for my remote.”

“You’re sure about this?”

“Our options are limited.  This is the most feasible of them all.”

“I’ll do what I can to keep her around Spider Moon as much as I can at least so that it doesn’t have to be completely cut off from your relays all the time.”

“I know you will because the three of us all have one thing in common.  We were all forced to grow up too fast.  The journey may have been different but the destination is without a doubt the same.”

“You’ve been reading my files.”

“I am an AI and while your wrappings around my hull make it difficult at times I do have little else to do and fair is fair.  You’ve been reading ours and having a shrink interview us.  But this too gives us common ground I think.  So in the interests of future good relations I won’t share anything you don’t want shared.  I’ll ask first.”

Elizabeth hesitated.

"What is it?" Jane asked.

"This is temporary." Elizabeth said.  "It has to be, Jane. It's not right that you have to hide.  Once I've secured things, I'll try to make it so you never have to hide again."

"Don't make promises like that!" the AI scolded, "Don't make promises unless you Know you can do it!  If you're going to make a promise? Promise you'll do your best, don't try to guarantee a result until you know for sure you can deliver!"

"Helena."  Liz realized.  "She promised something and now she feels trapped."  The girl straightened her shoulders in resolve, "I'll do my best to make sure you never have to hide again…I have to get back, there's a lot of preparations and work to be done."


"There are times when Lizzie is almost Too smart, and then she does something catastrophically ignorant and naive, and we all get the reminder that she's not some 'super-woman' despite all her efforts to look like one, to act like some kind of Vorgesetzte, the female equivalent of Nietzshe's Ubermensh in terms of will.  Those of us who knew her as a girl, at boarding schools, or in the rehab clinic know better.  Even as a little girl, she somehow internalized the idea that she MUST, that she HAS TO burn it at both ends, that one hundred percent would never be enough, and that neither would she…"

-Daniel Brewer, Heir to the Duke of Hesperus
Testimony before the Archon's Special Commission
3055

[Daryk]

I think that went better than any of them expected... :)

[mikecj]

This is a very interesting branch of the timeline.  Thanks for sharing & the Bruce reference.

[Red Pins]

Wasn't going to read it.  Got sucked in anyway. More!

[monbvol]

[Co-Author]  Doing Cannonshop a solid so you lot have your daily dose.  [/Co-author]

"Lizzie? She's fun, always came up with ways to make our time in-patient at the Marsden Clinic less horrible…I totally believe her crazy mom shot her, Hope she's getting the good stuff in the Hospital.  I'm 145 days clean today."

-excerpt from the personal diary of Penelope Doons,
Entry dated November 18, 3051.

Chapter 4: Do you hear me knocking…

Spider Moon Baronial Annex 'Plateau Crate Houser",
January 11, 3055…

Elizabeth had been uncomfortable with forcing Helena to move to Kowloon's surface, not even with the improved remote.  She set up the First-Lord-in-Waiting at her own, personal estate, the one she would have had if Patrick had lived to come home, and installed 'Helena Drillson' on the identicard documents as a sponsored Noble-in-waiting with a land grant at the Ducal level.

For a while, as Helena and staff began to adapt to this new, more chaotic and primitive 31st Century, it was just nice to have a home where random callers really need to not be random, was kind of nice.  Helena could choose who came and who had to go, she could visit the Psychiatric specialists at the Coast Guard Naval Station, shop for goods on-line with the income stipend from Elizabeth's own, personal funds (and the funds generated by several small burrows on Spider Moon itself) and gradually get a handle on how things worked without being thrown, unprepared, into the kettle that is modern Feudal Politics…or, rather, the broiling froth of Kowloon's electoral politics, something the Duchess had reinstituted to help with the day-to-day operation of the system.

The setup pleased Alicia Li as both Commodore of the Coast Guard, and Senior Baron for the offworld.  As a candidate awaiting confirmation, Helena did not have to attend the System Assembly on Kowloon itself unless she wanted to, but there were plenty of 'civil administration' roles that the Duchess and the Senior Baron could hand Helena that don't require meeting with more than a handful of anyone at a time, having Helena out here with her (tiny) Estate of only 500 Kilometers by 1000 (by fifteen deep) ON spider moon itself, meant the Duchess had to spend more time in the orbitals, and on the outer (and deep inner) system settlements than her Grandfather had, and certainly more than any of the Regencies over the last 270 years had.

The surface level portion of "Plateau Crater House" was a marvel of architecture made of endosteel, star-slab, and Ferroglas, and overlooked a stark, unyielding territory that hid several large 'cave burrows' under Solatubes and reflectors, where valuable commodities like grain were produced in deeply-dug, reinforced underground farms.

Most importantly, Helena learned, some of her farms produced something extremely valuable within the in-system trade.

Meat.  Red meat.

Specifically, sheep and goats, their pastures in deeply buried, heavily reinforced bedrock bored caverns lit by 'solatube' prisms and fed by orbital mirrors. 

Red Meat out here, is kilogram-for kilogram more valuable to the Rockjack community than the metals they were harvesting and refining from the ring system and belts.

The offal produced by the livestock was also valuable as a domestic trade good, as was bacteria rich mulch drawn from the combined sewage systems-the waste that SLDF fleets dumped out before jumping, was worth roughly half as much as an equal mass of high-grade ore to the prospectors with their tiny, supply-dependent Burrows and pioneer stations.

The situation was a sort of pastoral near-retirement environment, Jane Cameron didn't have to run on extra batteries, she could link directly to the ship's AI core without more than the very rare interruption, while the ship itself was kept hidden in Boojum's ring, only a few light-seconds from the moon.  (or closer during certain periods of the year).

"When did they build this?" Helena asked on one of Elizabeth's visits.

"Oh…let's see…Grandfather said the Plateau-Crater was done sometime in the twenty-ninth century, it was going to be Duke Karl's palace-that was the Duke who-"

"-The Duke who wanted to move to the orbitals." Helena showed off her having learned much of Kowloon's historical oddities.

"Yeah…he wasn't wrong, the problems were more because he had to let Comstar know stuff-he wanted to lease a B-station out here, from them, to help tie the system together with mass communications.  That kinda went south when his vanity project made the Stripe a thousand kliks south of here and actually fractured a precontinental plate."

"The tower hit that hard??"

Liz shrugged, "The Stripe's there, so…it must've?  Karl's nephew took the Ducal seat at twelve, sat as an 'in waiting' while the Archon of the time used their Regent to 'secure critical assets for the realm' from Kowloon itself…you know, like the port facilities we still haven't got the gear to rebuild.  Duk Ngo put a stop to it right after he swore in, got the Archon Himself to end the looting, and was one of the better rulers my family has…but his uncle lost us a lot."

"I'm surprised your people didn't rebel against the Lyrans the way you did against the Rim Worlders…"

"Who says we didn't?" Elizabeth asked,  "We didn't have to go all 'car bombings and knives in the night' but then, Kowloon's entry into the Lyran Commonwealth was mostly voluntary-that is unlike the Rimjob conquest, we agreed to join and the treaty of annexation had actual Conditions unlike those poor bastards on Arluna-we retained a few of our rights, including a lot of our self-government…the big problem being, after Karl's Mistake, most of the time, leadership's kind of defaulted to nodding to Lyran norms instead of breaking with them…except Grandfather Dinh."

"Yeah…I'm kind of confused there…" Helena commented, "he and his brother ran your company and governed mostly by not governing until…"

"Oh… yah… Grandfather Dinh spent five years as a political prisoner, while Great-Granduncle Truk actually ran the firm.  He was locked up under Alessandro, and Katrina released him five years after, Granddad said it took three years for Lohengrin to admit they still had him alive after she ousted Alessandro and put notice to Freidrich."

Helena was so used to hearing such events, she no longer flinched-Elizabeth's first act as Duchess had been forcing the release of political prisoners, including opposition leaders who were even now making her job harder.

"What…what did they lock him up for five years for?"

"Hiding Katrina and her fiance from Loki kill teams." Elizabeth commented.  "I remember listening to Grandfather storming at my dad for choosing a uniform over his heritage, and dad rubbing his face in the fact that he broke three Lohengrin interrogators in five years and never once told them what they wanted to know.  When Momma would bitch about Grandfather demanding things, Dad called him 'The strongest man I've ever known'..." she sighed, "i wish I'd known him longer."

"He died in what, '46?"

"Yeah, I was with mom and dad on Coventry in '46, I'd just gotten tossed out of Groningen for bullying some foreigner's kid…I wasn't bullying him, I just didn't like him pushing the younger kids around, and he called me a 'zipperhead whore'...so I hurt him, apparently badly enough that his folks got the boarding school to kick me out.  Which is, I guess, what happens when you make a fat Feddie brat eat dirt and rocks for his pottymouth.  My brother Henry got the security record and carried it around until he went to Blackjack."

"Where is it now?"

"If it still exists? Probably somewhere on Blackjack, maybe the Clanners are watching it like a blooper reel?" Elizabeth laughed, but there was something empty in her eyes.  "How's your treatment coming, Helena?" she asked, "is there anything you need? Should I have corporate find another doctor? Are you okay with the counseling you're getting?  Are you comfortable with the staff and getting along with your neighbors?"

"Doctor Huyn is very…she's helping, I think." Helena observed, "what was her specialty before you assigned her to me?"

"Doctor Mai Huyn was assigned as senior medical director for the Coast Guard's Special Victims Unit under Commodore Cartwright, one of Grandfather's best men, she retired a few years before you showed up, so she was available and willing to help me with a very special victim."

"Me."

Duchess Ngo nodded, "yeah.  Amaris hurt you bad, I found the best qualified person I could find to help you get through it."

"What about you?"

Elizabeth looked out the panoramic window.  "My damage is organic, counseling won't make a difference.  When I start losing my marbles, it's because my brain's rotting from the inside, but you can be saved."  she met Helena's eyes, "what kind of person would I be, if I didn't do my best, while I can?  I'm still dormant-phase right now, early stage one at the worst."

"You're asking a lot of questions that would normally be handled by messaging, what's going on?" Helena demanded.

Elizabeth sighed, and dug a picture out of her pocket.

Three girls, younger even than the young duchess and Helena realized the small one was Elizabeth…much younger.  They were wearing identical white and blue, 'patient pyjamas' and the background was clearly a hospital ward.

"Your rehab?" Helena asked for confirmation.

"Yeah.  The redhead is Penelope Doons, two years older than me and already chasing Serpents on Bluerock, or Sezz.  The Blonde is Daphne Rowe, she stole her mother's Gieneh Roadster and a bottle of MacAllan's and tried to run her ex boyfriend over by driving through his house, while drunk…we were the Three Musketeers of Marsden Rehab. Best Friends for Life."

"Oh god, one of them died."

"Penny fell off the wagon and spiked herself to death in a spaceport bathroom after running away from her Grandmother's care on Donegal.  I…promised Maggie Doons I'd make it to the funeral.  We're setting up a circuit through our shipping interests to get me there in time.  I thought I should look in on you before I take off for what's going to be the third worst experience in my life thus far."

"Oh god, I'm sorry…but…"

"Nashan Enterprises is worth sixty seven billion Kroner per year to my company, which confers those contracts generate nearly three times that in employment revenue for the Kowloon system." Amanda explained,  "means even if Penny wasn't a friend? I'd still go if Maggie asked me to. She's an important client, and one of Grandfather's friends from the old days."

"What…what's 'sezzanine'?" Helena asked warily.

"Injectible raw pleasure." Elizabeth asserted, "Like one step below Neuroin itself, it's even one of the precursor drugs for making bathtub Neuro.  For me, it'll be 'early stage two medicine', but for a normal person who doesn't have what I've got? It turns you into a dog and then…it kills you.  It's horrible stuff, and the high? Is how it turns you into a dog-sezz isn't something you just 'kick'-the direct pleasure's too strong for normal people to handle, hell, there's an animal On Kowloon does the same thing but it has the decency to kill you before you can become a slave to it.  We hoped the treatment would keep Penny Clean, her Grandmother was moving mountains to try and help her stay off it…"

"I can help you, Liz." Helena steeled herself.  I can do this...

"Helena, your anxieties, your trauma-"

"Your friend is dead and it's tearing you up. I can help you." Helena insisted.

"Helena, there's going to be a lot of people there, and the press!" Elizabeth argued, "You need to recover Helena, not back-slide…are you sure?  We can't bring Jane with, Helena, she's got a Jump core and we'll be hopping freight runs and passenger ships back-to-back all the way to Donegal."

Helena regarded her.  "You're not taking a dropship?"

"Shuttle can find more bays than a dropship can find empty collars, Helena." Elizabeth said, "I need to be 'going' from one ship that's arrived to another that's about to leave, that's timetables, timing and advance warning to shippers I either own notes on, can hire, or can bribe to get there.  It's a sprint, not a marathon, and I'll be a shitty traveling companion because my TDS means I'll be puking so often that I'll be spending more time with a sickness bag over my face, than not, and that's if we don't have a Corpsman from my detail just put me in a medical coma for the trip there."

“Then we’ll be miserable together.  Doctor Huyn says I need to start challenging myself with more social situations, not keep hiding.”  Helena proclaimed.  “Plus it’ll help that I’ll be with a friend.”

Elizabeth relaxed.  "Thank you." she said.

“You’ve been here for me when I needed it and setup everything just the way I wanted, even if it is not exactly the sort of thing I should do to actually get better according to Doctor Huyn so the least I can do is be there for you.”

"I wasn't about to push you into in-patient." Elizabeth admitted.  "I know how horrible in-patient treatment can really be.  But thanks for coming with me, I don't know how I'll face Daffy without losing it, and Maggie…"

“Like my sis says, we’ll take it one day, one step at a time.  Put me down for day three for the betting pool for ‘traveling incident’.”

Elizabeth laughed hollowly, then, "pack light,  we'll have to get formal wear for the actual funeral on Donegal, Penny would criticize endlessly if I showed up to her f-f-funeral in last year's…" she started crying.  "I should've been there for her, maybe if I'd been there I could've seen it couldovestoppedher!!!"

“I can’t make it better but I can understand.”  Helena hesitantly reached out to Liz, then in a jolt hugged the smaller girl.  "You'll be okay…" she said.  Hot tears soaked into her blouse.

***

The shuttle Elizabeth chose was…well, the ST-46's aren't known for being exactly roomy and part of Helena's mind thought the girl should've somehow bought or obtained a K-1, she had the money, after all…and even owned a few, but the aerodynes ARE fuel efficient for what they are, and they're relatively quick fliers in good hands, without needing the extra care that a tail-standing K-1 needs, making the transfers a little bit faster between jumpships.

Over Coventry, three jumps in twelve hours, three different Jump-ships  Corpsman Nguyen had to sedate his Duchess, and put her into deep sedation.

"She WILL recover from this, won't she?" Helena asked, concerned.

"Ayeh mum, the Docs calculated her doses to account for her stage of progression, body weight, general health…and I've got antidote and revivication drugs if we need them."

“Good.”  Helena was trying to hide how much anxiety she had herself.

The strangers, cramped confines, it was challenging to say the least but she was holding together for Liz.

"You're better than her mother was." the strangest of the strangers was sitting in one of the jump-seats next to the bar.  Evelynn Mosovich almost didn't look human, with medical grade cameras for eyes, and a face made of myomer and lately, colored Synthex latex, not quite as good a job as her sister's remote, to cover the kind of wounds that even in the Amaris war, were usually lethal.

“She’s been kind to me, so I’m doing my best for her.”  The strangeness of the woman was actually almost a relief in a way. That panicked animal portion of Helena's psyche didn't see 'one more person' there, it saw something mechanical and safe.

"It's good that Lizzie has you." Baroness Mosovich noted, "I couldn't get her to open up after…after Tamar.  She kept up this 'wall' where she tried to always show a positive face to everyone, or at least, a decisive face.  You got her to at least start to grieve."

“She is a lot like an old friend and a lot like me.  So I probably have an unfair advantage.”

"I'll take that unfair advantage any day over wondering when the pressure, and her bottled up trauma cracks her, Lady Helena." Mosovich observed, "besides, it helps that you treat me like I'm still a person, and not a freak that must be tolerated on Her Grace's word…or a creature to be pitied the way the AFFC liaison does."

“Well you’re easy for me too Evelynn, you don’t trip my triggers.  So I can be straight with you in a way I can’t be with most people.  And that cuts away a lot of the bullshit, so yeah.  You’re a person.”

"Pat would've loved having you around." Mosovich managed to communicate 'fondly' despite the vox-box and expressionless pseudo-face.

“Some days I think I was meant to be born Kowloonese.”

"Well, not everyone can be that fortunate…" the crackle of what passed for Evelynn's laugh would have been startling several weeks ago.

“Of course Doctor Huyn would probably dissect it and say it’s because you all don’t trip my triggers quite the same way.”

"I expect she'd be right." Evelynn noted, "I served with guys who had issues with me back when I had a face-asian eyes, right on the Drac border.  Not bad guys per-se, just…traumatized."

“Yeah.  Good old prejudice never seems to go away.  Even if it is due to trauma.”
"We all have to work through it in our own ways, Lady Helena." Evelynn said, "it's funny how much clearer things get, when you realize it.  Pat and I had the paperwork filed, but the General used her pull to keep us from tying it in the post Chapel, then Liz had to sic Miss Whyte on them to prove that we'd filed at all."

“Damn.  I know Lyrans can get weird but that’s a new level even for me.”

"Nah, the problem boiled down to a Davion from New Syrtis in the Personnel Command who got his kicks hassling certain ethnic minorities, because of the Cappies, you get used to it, when you live with it long enough…though I'm never going to really get used to losing Pat.  He died a hero, he called down artillery on his own position to buy the Armor time to get the lady Heir out."

“I’m sorry.  No one should have to deal with that.”  Helena found herself suddenly lost in thought about all the people who she condemned to death due to her orders and those they left behind.

"You're musing." Evelynn said, and opened the drinks cabinet.  "If you're going to brood, we can brood together over a drink."

“Sorry.”

“Nothing to be sorry for, during that fight, I ordered a recon section into a position I knew they'd be killed, lost good friends there.  It's not a sacrifice if you don't value them, Helena.  It's a crime, it's murder if you don't care, okay?  Command is different from what the holotapes or the Academy pretends, there's a moral dimension, sometimes you're forced to put your people into a position to get killed, so you better care about it so you don't do it maliciously or frivolously."

“I know.  And I know there’s a really good chance that I’ll have to order people into battle again to do what Elizabeth wants me to do.”

Evelynn passed her a filled bulb.  "THAT, comes with the title, the job, and the position.  As Tran Truk Ngo said…" Evelynn took a drink, "...if it doesn't hurt, you're not human anymore'."

“So it does, and that’s why I spend time with people like Doctor Huyn.  So the hurt doesn’t swallow me whole.”

Evelynn nodded agreement. In the windscreen, the next ship, this one belonging to Langenecker Plastisteel, loomed, the pilots turned and docked smoothly, the bay closed but didn't repressurize, because they'd be pulling right out and going to the next one at the next point.

"Here's to making sure the hard calls, stay hard.  Here's to keeping our humanity." Evelynn raised her bulb.

Helena raised hers in response.  “I’ll drink to that.”
Discontinuity

***

Helena awoke.  "We're in Donegal orbit."  Elizabeth Ngo said, "So wake up, sleepyhead."

“Uggh.  Wow, this must be a first, you waking up and being ready before me.”

"Evvie got you drunk after the corpsman mickied me, so drunk you passed out and they gave you an IV to keep your fluids up for the final twenty four hours."

“Right, so I should prepare myself for a lecture about combining booze with my meds when I get back.”

"Well, you, and Evvie.  She wasn't exactly not taking some of the same scrips." Liz said impishly,  "When Doc Huyn talks about her Thursday?" the girl glanced at the still unconscious…? Evelynn Mosovich.  "PTSD, or so they say in the paperwork. I of course, don't have to take THOSE drugs, I get my own."

“Yeah.  That tracks.  I think I have that somewhere in my diagnosis too.  Probably part of why we shouldn’t be left unsupervised like that.”

"Anyway, we're in the orbital approach pattern, could be half an hour, could be tomorrow before they clear a lane." Liz explained, "Donegal's a major world and they've got the same problems all major worlds do-everyone shows up all at once and wants to land or take off, we're in the queue behind an AFFC regimental team who gets priority since they're lifting for the Clan Front."

“Wish I could help but all my authorizations for priority clearance would make them think someone was punking them.”

Elizabeth leaned back, and said, "Money works, I just won't use it when they're going to fight Clan Wolf."

Helena nodded.

"As for helping them, remember that problem I asked you to help me with? The Groves contract?"

“Yeah.  What do you need me to do exactly?”

"You did it, you gave me the solution that un-****** that product line, so those soldiers leaving Donegal?? They're shipping with full ammo bins on-time and on-budget because you told me what to do about the shipping problem.  You're helping."

“Hangover is a bitch.”

Elizabeth passed her a bottle of something orange.  "Alcohol? No, how about a nice, refreshing sports drink!"

“Yeah.  Time for us to start putting on our game faces.”  Helena sipped the drink slowly.

Money talks, but not Lizzie's money.  "Kowloon Six Three One, this is Donegal control, you've been cleared corridor Six One Alpha, welcome to Donegal, enjoy your flight."

"Must be Maggie." Elizabeth scowled, but nodded to the pilot.

"Huh?"

"That's a diplomatic priority corridor." Evelynn WAS awake, "i'd say Her Grace Lady Doons decided she wants us to be on time, and made it happen….did you tell Helena who Margaret Doons really is?"

“No.”  Helena gave a playful glare at Elizabeth.

"Elizabeth is the richest teenager in the Commonwealth, minus the Heir and his siblings." Evelynn said, "Third richest individual in the Commonwealth, loads of money and inherited influence.  Maggie Doons is probably third most influential industrialist in the Commonwealth, but she's number eight on the money scale-and she turned Nashan from a small radio-and-sensors maker with a couple of contracts, into the AFFC's choice for all the support electronics Macintosh won't take, is a personal friend of the late Archon Katrina and still family friends with the Steiners-she can tell, and has, in the past, told, Marshalls of the Army to jump and watched the air go under their feet.  She made the Brewers change their contractor for their product lines."

“Proper lady mode for my visit then, got it.”  Helena nodded.

"She gives Hans Davion investment advice." Evelynn continued, "And he takes it.  Hence, we got clearance while everyone else gets to wait."

Elizabeth rolled her eyes, "right, and she's got Death Himself as a side-piece.  When Maggie Doons cries, the tears cure cancer, but she never cries…I've heard the jokes before, Evvie."

“Some of them aren’t jokes.  Hans really does take her investment advice.”  Evelyn chuckled.  “Or so I have on good authority.”

"Yeah, but the Steiners wisely didn't take her advice on how to raise the heirs, or Victor would be a waste, Katherine would be a junkie…" Elizabeth argued, "They aren't, so Her Majesty Melissa didn't copy Maggie's parenting style with her own offspring."

"What?"

Elizabeth sighed, "Penny was with her grandmama because her own parents are oxygen consumers.  She got on drugs because her father was absentee, so was her mom, her aunts have longer records than I do...They're perfect examples of what rich kids become when their…parental guardians don't guard, but instead, indulge them and cover up their mistakes."

Helena frowned but said nothing.

"You turned out mostly okay, Liz."  Evelynn noted.

"Yeah, well, I had Grandfather Dinh for the first seven years of my life!" Elizabeth observed, "So did you, and for a lot longer thanks to you and Pat being…like…close until you were teens!  Penny had nobody but contract au-pairs until Maggie realized something was wrong and stepped in!"

Helena felt the tears beginning to form in her eyes.  “Excuse me, I’m going to the little girls room before we have to secure for orbital insertion.”

"Here…" Elizabeth handed her a handkerchief "you've got something…in your eye, okay? Maybe I should help you with the touch up?"

“Thanks Elizabeth.”  Helena nodded.

"I'll guard the bar…" Evelynn said, as Elizabeth followed Helena to the shuttle's tiny head.

“Wow.  I almost made it to Donegal before breaking down into tears.”  Helena admitted.

"Progress!" Elizabeth said, "you can do this."

“Thanks Elizabeth.”

"You're keeping me up, I'm keeping Evvie up.  She drinks too much now." Liz commented, "had to get the aviators to water the wet-bar down."

“Game face.  Time for my game face.”

"Yes, game faces."  Liz pulled out a small compact, and started touching up Helena's makeup, before holding still to let Helena touch hers up.  "We gotta look good for the parasi-I mean, the press."

“Uggh.  I hate them.  You know because I was putting on a bit of weight at the time combined with a comment by my sister and I was declared pregnant.”

"Ick…they really are creeps, aren't they? There you go, smears all cleaned up and fresh mascara…"

“Worst part is the rumors continued well past, well you know.”  Helena nodded.  “But that’s not important right now.  I’m supposed to be supporting you and we need to secure for orbital insertion soon.”

On a certain level Elizabeth knew she would eventually have to stop letting Helena deflect like this, but she was hardly objective herself.

“Yeah come on.  Time to get to our seats.”  Elizabeth smiled.

[paulobrito]

So, Hanse Davion is alive in 3055? Interesting change.

[monbvol]

So, Hanse Davion is alive in 3055? Interesting change.

Ooops, missed some tense errors there.  But might make the Chuck NorrisMaggie Doons facts funnier, that he still takes her investment advice despite being dead.

[Euphonium]

Maybe Maggie advised Hanse to invest in Voodoo, so being dead has only slowed him down a bit...

[Cannonshop]

Maybe Maggie advised Hanse to invest in Voodoo, so being dead has only slowed him down a bit...

Or a nifty little bio-research outfit named Umbrella?  (no, not really, but if you're going  to milk the joke...)

[Hotpoint]

Or a nifty little bio-research outfit named Umbrella?  (no, not really, but if you're going  to milk the joke...)

Hah! I knew that the crazed bioscientists of Project Sagitarius Umbrella were still up to their old tricks!

 

[Daryk]

Argh... if Google wasn't such a bitch, I'd have said the ST-46 is a little small for most of this.  A K-1 one would indeed have been a better choice... :/

[Cannonshop]

****

A diplomatic route meant reception by honor guard.

Helena had prepared for this as best she could.

Lyran blues, not Star League grays.  See?  They’re keeping their distance.  I’m fine.

Helena was repeating variations of this mantra as they walked down the ramp and through the secure zone.

Elizabeth hobbled, (step-tic-step-tic) with her hair pulled back from her face, and her black 'walking suit' she looked like a miniature-like a teen playing business boss, right down to the cane, a black composite thing capped with a steel handle in the style that some Terran Nobles, long ago, thought looked distinguished.

The Girl's natural pace was never going to be met-somehow she hobbled as fast as the two taller women with her.

"You okay Hel?" Liz half-whispered as the Lyran troopers raised their sabers to form an arch for the party to pass through.

“Yeah.  I’m okay.”  Helena nodded to Evelynn and the two with practiced precision adjusted their positions to block the photographer’s best shots of Elizabeth.

"Should've brought you a mobility scooter, Lil'bit." Evelynn muttered.  "I can hear you huffing from here."

"Spent too much time in Lowgee."  Liz noted, "I gotta do something to get better communications in the system…"

They reached the end of the column of troops right as the 'outside' gained a decorative ferrocrete wall where private vehicles sat.

Duchess Margaret Doons was resplendent, even in mourning clothes, a hard-eyed, gray-haired woman who exuded both 'Lady' and 'Authority' without moving a muscle.

"Elizabeth Ngo!" the older woman barked, which made Liz freeze for just a moment, before Maggie Doons softened her tone and smiled "It's good to see you girl, Miss Whyte hardly says anything in her missives…"

The head of Nashan Industries glided with a walk of such pure authority and grace she could be a Ballerina.

"Evelynn,  Elizabeth, you said you would try to help your sister-in-law!!"

"It's hard to find the experts, and I'm not going to let Lizzy drag me off to the Magistracy with our world in crisis!" Evelynn, despite her earlier warnings was unhesitant in her response, adding belatedly, "Your grace."

"Well…I understand that…and who is this?"

"Helena Drillson, Ma'am, I sponsored her to take over some of my Belt holdings since I have to do the Ducal duties."  Elizabeth answered, "She's a fantastic administrator and a personal friend…I hope you don't mind?"

"I am pleased you've made more friends than enemies, Elizabeth." Maggie stated, "There was some doubt after your 'debut' last year.  Many in the peerage are calling you 'duchess headshot' in polite company and grimmer, darker things privately."

"Her Majesty the Archon endorsed it after the fact." Liz commented, "I have the letter sent via courier from Tharkad…"

"Yes, which is set to make things slightly more difficult for you in December, when you must present yourself to the Archon for swearing in."  Maggie Doons warned, "I should have taken you in after your mother's…death…"

"Too close." Elizabeth said, "you told me and Penny at the hospital, that we could be friends but my firm's position plus yours, would trigger a cascade of corporate and business attacks from anyone who might imagine getting hurt by Ngo-Nashan juggernaut, including most of my other clients."

"So I did." Maggie said.  "Her majesty, however, made the call in a private meeting between myself, Ms. Whyte, and Her Majesty-I was not to sever ties, but you would not be fostered on Donegal while your homeworld and system collapsed."

"We're not collapsing anymore." Liz observed.

"So it would seem…god, Lizzie…She was injecting in her inner thigh! How did we miss it?"  By now, they were in the back of a limousine-conversion Personnel carrier with armed guards riding along-side, leaving the port.

"Who was her hook-up?" Elizabeth asked, "Your guys at least found that, didn't they?"

"The supplier of the drugs has been identified, yes, and his over-boss in the Malthus syndicate.  Lohengrin is balking.  The drugs trace back to an LIC operation and some of the involved are 'critical assets' for intelligence in the occupied areas.  I was told to 'drop the matter'."

"By the Archon?"

"Not directly."

"So…someone close?"

"No."

Elizabeth fidgeted, fist clenching.  "So…?"

"Accidents will be unavoidable." Maggie stated.  "I am sure of two things: Melissa is unaware that elements of LIC are moving drugs into our cities to fund operations in the Clan held territories, and using criminals as assets…and, I am certain that this…incident…has more to do with distracting me during the negotiations with GM over the 'Omni-mech' programme."

"So is the guy who ordered it outside our border, or inside?"  Elizabeth asked.

"Still undefined, Elizabeth."

"Hmmm… You're telling me this for a reason."

"Your corporate security is good Lizzie, but you don't have the resources to cover up a street war and you lack the grace and position to wage one without losing your Titles.  I am warning you off of trying to get 'payback' for Penelope directly.  So let me handle it."

Helena found herself deep in thought, looking out the window.

If this were 2780 still I could help them both, uncover the truth.  But it’s not and I’m effectively a nobody.  For now the only power I have is by riding on Elizabeth’s coattails.

Before either Elizabeth could react Maggie Doons stretched out a hand and made contact with Helena’s shoulder.

Helena, caught off guard as she was, recoiled from the sudden contact.

“Apologies, you seemed rather distracted, I merely meant to get your attention.”  Maggie Doons offered.

“No, I apologize, Duchess Doons.  I was being a poor guest.”  Helena offered.

I nearly punched her in the face…  Nearly.  How ****** up is it that this is a good sign?  Helena smiled.

“Let’s just agree we both made a mistake and accepted each other’s apology.”  Maggie smiled.

“Yes.  That would be acceptable Duchess Doons.”  Helena put on her best diplomatic smile.

I’ll need to talk to this one privately, away from her companions.  But that will have to be later.  Maggie returned the smile.

The vehicle kept going for what seemed like hours, and Helena noticed that the buildings grew more…separated, smaller, until fields began to replace structures.

Helena felt the tension melt away with the city.  It wasn’t Unity City but it was enough she had been on edge.

"Penny talked about a horse-farm…" Elizabeth said idly.

"Yes.  She loved it there…until the cravings got too strong."  Maggie said.

"So the innovative treatment didn't work."

"Not really.  I've dismissed Mister Hallowell, he is not to be harmed for being a quack, the destruction of his reputation and career are sufficiently in hand." Maggie said darkly.  "If there were ever any sign he was anything but wrong, if there were any possible malice, he would be fed to the stone-crabs a piece at a time…but he was just wrong, and too stubborn-stupid to realize it."

"I understand.  'Save vengeance for those who deserve it'." Elizabeth recited it like a memory, "Was there anything good from what he sold you?"

"You're interested in a quack?  I thought you swore you would never let yourself end up like your Great Uncle!"

"If I can extend my due-date even a few days, Maggie." Liz said, "a few days of clarity before I have to go, a few hours even? It might make a difference, so I'm obliged to at least try."

"I'll hold off on ruining him and let you have access then." Maggie allowed.

"Wait, you know??" Helena asked.

"Yes."  Maggie Doons said, "I also knew her Great Uncle.  Brilliant man, Dinh was too, but Truk was outright gifted, the best engineer I've ever met."

“Of course you know.  You’ve known Elizabeth longer than I have.”  Helena shook her head.

"We keep it quiet, even Penny wasn't told, and so far, Daphne hasn't figured it out." Liz stated, "i…didn't want Daffy to go into one of her crusade-fugues trying to cure the incurable, not with her family problems and her career aspirations."

"How is it that YOU know then?" Evelynn asked.

"Because I have a friend in AFFC personnel, who saw Elizabeth's test scores for pre-academy, got excited, had her physical done, and it tripped red flags-what Lizzie has, is a bar to enlistment in every single Great House and most of the Periphery, and everyone still tests for it."

"Money keeps it from being Public." Liz said, "because nothing is worse than being pitied by everyone who sees you."

"There's worse." Evelynn pointed out, "but not MUCH worse."

“And we’ll help keep it quiet here.”  Helena declared.

Another piece slid in, "You let the Papos gossip about your drug addict past, because it distracts!!"

"Yep."  Elizabeth nodded, "I've even paid to plant rumours that I'm on the strong stuff."

"WHY??" Evelynn exclaimed.

"People are more comfortable thinking a young noble is a waste of skin who indulges too much, than they are with the idea that their particular noble is dying of an incurable hell-disease." Elizabeth pointed out.  "So we manage it, I go out and do things like swinging wildly at a papo with my cane and fall on my ass, it reinforces the idea that I'm just a druggie who's going to have to clean up, a noble 'wild child' who's no threat to anyone."

“Crash courses in being a noble and managing optics.”  Helena said sagely.

Maggie snorted, "It also helps you be underestimated."

"Given I'm eighteen on the nineteenth of February, that's not a bad thing-I know I'm not ready for the big game, but I'm still on the field…and I have to play, because lives and livelihoods depend on it."

Helena smiled slightly but remained silent.

Maggie Doons did not react but she noticed the knowing smile.

"Sports metaphors, Elizabeth?" Maggie asked, "remember when you are at Court on Tharkad, the social generals will adore talking about Solaris games, or cunning business deals, but if you let slip you're a Rugby fan in some areas of the Triad, they'll peg you for a brute."

"I watch Futbol too!!"

"A sport favored by enlisted and lower class commoners, Lizzie, how is your chess game these days?"

"Ahm…can't tell, Helena or her sister are the only ones who can give me a decent match, and I think Helena lets me win sometimes."

“Polo and Lacrosse would be good too.”  Helena offered.

"Very true! Penelope adored Polo…"  Maggie said, and Helena saw Elizabeth slip back into her personal 'mask'-that blank expression of hiding whatever feelings she was actually feeling.

Helena looked at Elizabeth.  “I’m sorry for bringing up a bad memory.”

"No, it's fine." Elizabeth said, and offered a weak smile, "I visited Penny when…before the shooting, she tried to teach me to ride, it didn't go well."

"It went hilariously!" Maggie, too was trying for that false cheer.  "I have a selection of embarrassing pictures of Lady Ngo falling off of riding horses! The docile ones!!"

“So Equestrian would be a painful experience.  But I could try teaching you.  I learned when I was younger.”  Helena smiled.

"I'm just not good with animals." Elizabeth commented.

"Hah! Not good with animals?? Helena, when Lil'bit here was five, her Grandfather and my dad were discussing business in the main house at my family's place near The Folly, I was supposed to be babysitting her, she got away while Pat and I were…in the barn, making out.  I went to find her for lunch, she was sitting on her five year old ass playing with a fursnakes by one of the tower-coolers we use for livestock!  She had the Mother wrapped 'round her shoulders like a stole and the young cuddling on her legs!! They were purring!"

"Um, 'fursnake'?"

"Venomous, one bite you'll die in seconds having the best day of your life.  Mammalian marsupials, legless, social."

“That’s right, you were telling me about them before we left.”  Helena nodded.

"Slinky was my friend…" Elizabeth argued, "Grandpapa even let me have a keeper's outfit and yard after that!!"

"Point being, Lizzie is good with some animals…she just has too much predator smell for the horses." Evelynn concluded, "she also spooks the sheep."

“Well that would explain a lot.”  Helena chuckled.

"Dinh let you keep venomous animals at five?" Maggie asked curiously, "That's…mildly more progressive than the man I remember."

"Yeah, but he made me release the whole family in the southeast part of the Folly my last winter before Mom and Dad dragged me off to live in dependent's housing." Elizabeth sighed, "can't take them off world no matter HOW many experts say they've been domesticated.  The Vanhs took them, and I guess they're part of the wildlife control on Janey Vanh's south forty now…"

"Because Fursnakes can hunt and kill Browardbeast young before they get too big."  Evelynn explained to Maggie.  "The Vanhs are good people…Chuck came back from the war missing an arm, Liz."

"Oooh…ouch.  Why hasn't he come by to see me?"

"He's got reasons.  His wife's been doing a lot with the Granges these days, she isn't running for the rep but…I'm trying to encourage her to do that."

Helena said nothing.

The car's attitude shifted as it left the macadam of the provincial highway and slid gracefully along a tall stone fence bordered by manicured trees to a wrought iron gate ten meters tall and topped with "Nashan Retreat" in faux iron letters.

A man in a long-tailed jacket and tall hat opened the gates with a nod to the drivers, and a non-salute attention as the motorcade passed his position.

Helena had a brief memory of visiting the Drillsons as a little girl, Seth Drillson, her mother's brother, insisted that all his staff wear nothing military, and that nothing military looking be brought to the estate in Kentucky where she'd learned to ride horses.

Helena let herself smile, a truly happy smile.

Uncle Seth had almost won the struggle with Uncle Alyks for custody…and he doted on the girls as much as their guardian doted on Richard.

The motorcade stopped at a single-story house with vaulted roofs, solar panels glittering in the setting sun, near a corral full of Horses, and staff in long-tailed formal costumes handling them.

"Welcome to Penny's favorite place in the universe…or it was, anyway…once upon a time." Maggie said sadly.  "We'll be staying the week in the main house, when the other guests have arrived, they can use the guest houses."

“Thank you for sharing this with us.”  Helena nodded.

"I prefer Penny's friends, and their guests, to my son and his concubines." Maggie said, "Dexter can stay in a guesthouse."

Helena just nodded slowly.

[Daryk]

It's going to be rough for Helena... and my editing soul weeps at Google's intransigence... :/

[monbvol]

[Co-Author]  Yup going to do another solid for Cannonshop because after most of a week where work ahs been making me actually work a bit I now findmyself with almost two hours of shift left and nothing work related to do.  [/Co-author]

***

Helena found herself alone in the kitchen.  She shrugged as she grabbed some sliced bread.

"Can't sleep?" Maggie asked from the doorway, dressed in a rather frumpy flannel nightgown that was the platonic opposite of her public persona.

“Getting used to the day night cycle still I guess.”  Helena lied.

"I would imagine so…would you care for some chamomile? It always helps me adjust to Jump-Lag."

“Sounds lovely.”  Helena put some bread in the toaster.

The head of Nashan Enterprises proceeded to demonstrate kitchen skills that would outdo some professionals in the hospitality industry. 

"You're in your thirties." Maggie began, "Clearly not Kowloon native, how did you come to be one of Elizabeth's closest friends?"

“Yes.  Short version is my ship misjumped.  There were some complications that meant I had nowhere to go so she was kind enough to take me in.”

"I imagine so, you have a Terran accent, Helena, thicker than Dow's, and he's nearly unintelligible."

“Yeah.  I grew up there.”

Maggie winced, and fished a pot of reddish honey from a cupboard, adding a dollop to the tea, and to a piece of toasted bread.  "That's…so when did you decide to run away from Comstar? What did they do? Do you have enemies my-that is, that Elizabeth should know about in their dirty-tricks division? Who's looking for you?"

“To be honest I’m not entirely sure how to answer that.  Brain is a little scrambled from the misjump.”  Helena lied again.

"I imagine it is…if you're in hiding, then…I will help you, but if you're a spy looking for an advantage, I'll warn you now-Heimdall is watching, and they've beaten Comstar's intelligence people before, in the war of '39."

“No, there’s one thing I know about myself for sure.  I like Elizabeth.  I want to help her, not hurt her.”

"You'll need to work on your accent, or avoid speaking in english." Maggie explained, "Terran accents in English are distinctive, and Comstar goes after runaways."

“Ich spreche Deutsch.”  Helena smiled.

"Yo Habla Espaniol?" Maggie countered, <your German accent is terrible, and will be caught instantly, can you speak in spanish? It's the Commonwealth's third language, better yet, have you picked up any Kowloonese Viet??>

<”Yeah. I learned some.”>  Helena answered in her best Viet Pidgin.

<"Stick with rare languages for now, it will cover your stumbling in German."> Maggie advised, "very few Lyrans, never mind anyone else, can speak Viet with any proficiency, never mind catching the different accents and dialects, having her elevate a Rokkajakkah to the peerage would be on-brand for the Ngos, and having 'stumbling' german can give you some advantages against manipulators if you're aware enough to use them."

<”I will.  You care a lot about Elizabeth.  You’re wanting to scope me out.  That’s fair.”>  Helena answered.  <”I’ve shared a lot of what I remember about myself with Elizabeth.  No offense but I don’t know you well enough yet to share with you yet.”>

“You’re a good liar.  You’re slipping in just enough truth to make it tough for me.  But I do believe you when you say you don’t want to hurt Elizabeth.”

“But you still think that I might, not because I want to but because I’d be forced to.  Spies can be like that I admit.  It is no lie when I say I honestly do not know if anyone is looking for me.  I don’t think they are.”

“Your choice of name, I know it’s an assumed name.”

“Elizabeth’s idea actually.”

“Hmmm.  Just tell me one thing.  Do you love her?”

“We’re definitely close but, no.  I’m not interested in that sort of relationship one way or the other.”

“You did admit you remember more than you have told me and have told it to Elizabeth.  There’s something in that history isn’t there?”

“Yes.  And I think we’re starting to understand each other.”

“Here’s what I know, you’re high society.  You have too many tells.  And the way you jumped when I touched you, that means you’ve got some baggage.  So yes.  I think we are and I don’t need to worry about you.  I’ll eventually get your real story though.”

“Well here’s a hint.  Because it is time for some of my meds too, especially since I’m eating.”  Helena pulled out her pill organizer.

“Antidepressant, anti-anxiety, and an antacid.”

“And this is a good day so only half dose for the antianxiety meds.”

***

Despite grim warnings, the guest list wasn't particularly long, and the grave site was well away from the public, sited on the crest of a rolling hill overlooking the horse farm.

A short list, and not everyone on it, came. 

"Danny Brewer can't come, but they weren't really close." Lizzie noted, "I didn't expect him…" her fist clenched. Unconsciously. 

“We’ll find a way to let him know there are still certain obligations.”  Helena nodded.

"Danny really was never a problem there, Helena." Liz said, "like I said, I half expected he'd duck this.  But Daphne..."

“You’re still angry and he could have at least sent a letter.  It would be the least expected of a noble.”  Helena was laser focused.

"Elizabeth!" Maggie snapped, "Stop it.  Daphne Rowe has a reasonable reason not to be here!!"

"She could get leave from Sanglamore." Liz grumped.  "It's not like they're short of 'mechwarrior candidates who can take her-"

Helena understood, it was someone else that should have at least sent a letter.

Lady Doons laid a hand on the angry girl's shoulder, "This is neither the time, nor the place, Elizabeth!"

"Yes'm." The girl sulked and fumed as the horse-drawn cart brought up Penelope's casket.

Helena tried to keep it circumspect when she reached for Elizabeth’s hand and gave it a reassuring squeeze.

Liz tippie-toed up and whispered "Penny loved Daphne best."  It was  a child's secret, and the younger girl's irrational anger finally had a context.

<”Then we’ll have to send her a letter ourselves.  Later.”>  Helena whispered back in her best Kowloon Viet Pidgin.

The weather at the grave site didn't cooperate. Instead of being drizzly and overcast, the sun burned bright over head, with a pleasant breeze as a Lutheran Priest spoke the ritual in german.

Helena held the oversized umbrella for the both of them so that Elizabeth could support herself on her cane properly.

Penny's 'father' and his current tabloid bait-nearly the same age as the daughter he was burying, were impassive, the man's 'guest' looking genuinely confused at the whole proceeding.

"Who's that?"

"Tridee star and model of some sort." Evelynn muttered, "I've seen her before in adverts."


Penny's biological mother, on the other hand, showed that mix of grief and irritation Helena had seen on distant relatives when her uncle died-the grief-for-the-cameras, and the irritation of being thwarted in some fashion. 

The actual servants showed more genuine emotion at the burial and the loss, than either of the people whose biology created the girl in the coffin.

Elizabeth was given a few words to say at the loss of her friend, she said them, and tossed the first bit of dirt on the coffin on Magaret's behalf.

Then the staff went to work filling the hole.

Helena found herself staring at the emotionless parents the entire time.  She wanted to do something but she knew she shouldn’t cause a scene.

***

"You're late.  We already buried her." Elizabeth Ngo stood in front of a tall, walnut-skinned 'boy-man' with curly, long hair in a modified 'mechwarrior dreadlocks style.

"I'm sorry Liz."

"She did like you, y'know, just not that way."  Elizabeth continued.  "You came, and Daffy didn't."

Daniel winced.  "I think that has more to do with Rowe-McClaren's director, Liz.  Her father wasn't shy about thinking the two of you were a bad influence on Daphne.  He almost convinced my parents to-"

"Yeah. You made it to the wake at least. Come on, I want you to meet a friend of mine."

Helena was making herself a small plate of things to nibble on from the available foods at the bar before returning to a table where she had a nice herbal tea waiting.

“Daniel Brewer, this is my friend, Helena Drillson.”

“Hello.”  Daniel smiled.

“Lyran blues.”  Helena said louder than she intended.

“What was that?”  Daniel asked.

<”Sorry, I meant to say ‘hello’.”>  Helena smiled.

“Okay where’d you find this one Lizzie?  She speaks almost like a native but she looks all wrong.”  Daniel raised an eyebrow.

“Found her on the float.  She’s a quick study.  Maybe smarter than I am even.”  Elizabeth said with a smile.

Daniel Brewer is a handsome young man, two years older than Elizabeth, at twenty he's just started filling into his frame, he took a knee and said, in french, "Madame, vous êtes aussi mystérieuse que belle."

"Danny!"

"The buyer from AFFC said it was just a greeting..?" he said impishly.

"Only if you watch Feddie 'adult products' holos! Besides, in those, doing it right wouldn't you be trying to kiss her hand?"

He shook his head, "Belter manners-she's avoiding being touched, it would be tres rude-even I know that!"

Which made him twenty again.

"Have you started actually doing your job yet?" Elizabeth demanded of him.

He stood back up, met her eyes, and sighed.  "I'm not ready."

Elizabeth got up to her tippie-toes and jammed a finger into his chest, "Bullshit, Danny.  Absolute bullshit, you ascended two years ahead of me, so we both took our inheritance at the same age, and you need to be doing your job.  are you still dinking around trying to become an Immortal Warrior contestant?"

"Lizzie, unlike you, I have a good Regent to handle things!  General Gareth's not a crook, he's helping me-"

"He's using you, Danny." she scolded, "That's what you get with appointed regents, people don't get those jobs because they're 'good', they get those jobs because they're 'good for someone else's pocketbook', usually at your expense! The only way to be safe is to be in charge!!"

"I don't want to end up being-"

"Being Duchess Headshot? Don't worry, Danny, boys get a pass on that stuff!!  it's expected for a man to take the charge and pull the trigger!  You could line up a dozen crooked cronies like I did, bang-bang-bang and people would just call you strong, not psycho! But you don't have to kill anybody, all you have to do, is tell them who's boss and threaten to fire a few people! Or threaten to give them bigger bonuses!  You can be a 'mechwarrior and still be the Duke you're supposed to be!"

"Why do you care, Lizzie?" he asked.

"Because Penny liked you and Dapnhe had a crush on you, you're one of us, Danny,okay?  I care because you're one of ours, one of us.  Marsden Clinic Class of '48…are you still clean?"

"Every day. You?"

"I've wavered." she said, "but I've held on for now, press notwithstanding.  You, me, Daffy, we have to prove it, because we ****** up before, remember?"

He looked ashamed, "Yeah…"

"Come on, let's go get some snacks." she said, taking his arm "I want to hear all about your latest adventures in 'mechwarrior training."

"It bores you."

"Yeah, but it didn't bore Penny and we're here for her, not me."  She led him away.

"Unspoken." Maggie said from Helena's side in sotto-voce.

"What?"

"Daniel Brewer was sent there because his parents thought he had a problem, he never used anything more potent than sports drinks and aspirin.  Thus he was out of there ahead of the girls."

"What she said about his regent?"

"Free Skye ties, and more than a little bit of stealing from the coffers, but mostly because Brendal Gareth helped Krupp rook a sixty seven billion Kroner upgrade contract out from under Ngo Industries…only to have the entire upgrade package delayed repeatedly over the last four years.  Daniel wasn't involved in the negotiations, Elizabeth takes some of that personally.  She doesn't know about the Embezzlement or the ties to domestic terror groups…and she won't, as long as we keep our mouths shut and keep letting the Archon give them rope."

"Rope?"

"With which, Brendal will predictably hang himself after revealing his contacts and co-conspirators…or so Lohengrin's domestic people think."

"You don't agree."

"I don't agree, Helena." Maggie stated, "I really don't agree."

"Which part do you think offends her more?" Helena asked cautiously, "about the contract…?"

"She's publicly offended that her family's firm lost the contract, but, knowing her as I do?" Maggie smiled, "She's more offended that Krupp didn't deliver on time, and that Def"Hes is using a foreign supplier instead of Lyrans.  It's her grandfather's influence on her thinking.  She won't do business in the 'federated' side of the Federated Commonwealth at all-she funnels equipment through Coventry Metal Works or another subcontractor instead, and refuses to do warranty work outside the nation…which I admit, has given Nashan Enterprises a wonderful in as proxies, but she's skipping over good money as a matter of principle.  This will hurt her firm's standing."

"You don't approve."

"I don't approve, I really don't." Maggie agreed. "Let me tell you a secret, Helena…Ngo Industries sells 'repaired salvage'...so much of it, that the salvage would have to weigh in at more machine tooling than was produced prior to the second succession war.  Her people are making the products they sell…and lying about it."

"Assume I'm not going to storm off in offense at the implication, why?"

"To avoid having their facilities reach ten thousand degrees in under a second, the way most of the companies that existed before them in the business of manufacturing tooling did." Maggie said,  "So keep it under your hat until you're alone with her, but let her know, people are figuring it out."

"No deceptions last…" Helena put it together.  "...who suspects?"

"Melissa Steiner-Davion for one, and I suspect her Husband Hanse Davion has spies that are telling him the same thing one of my brain-trusts worked out…which means she's going to be facing increased demands at the Archon's Ball, in the traditional closed-door meeting, because the realm needs the expansion and she refuses to sell outside the Commonwealth….and we are at war with an invader."

“And you need the ally, so selling directly would help solidify that.”  Helena figured.

"Ja, you get it, I'll ask you to make sure she gets it, from me, it would sound self-serving even when it's in her best interests." Maggie asserted, "the business mind must be suspicious, Helena, and she has a very sharp Business mind. Inexperienced, but sharp."

“I’ve noticed.  She thinks she needs me, but really she doesn’t.  Still so she doesn’t have to burn the candle at both ends I still do what I can.”

"If she thinks she needs you, it's probably real, but not in a way you might expect." Maggie commented.

“You’re probably right, she needs me in the way I need her.  Not to do a job, but to be a friend.”

"It is VERY hard, at our level, to truly keep friends.  Treasure it, Helena."

“I think you already know I understand that better than you can imagine.”

"If I could ask of you one other, small favor? I can't eject my son if he doesn't cause a scene…I don't suppose you could…influence the event, ever so slightly, now that he's drunk enough of my booze?"

“There is something I’ve been wanting to say to him…”  Helena nodded.  “Be back shortly.”

Helena stood up and marched over to Alfred Doons.

“Es insulsa carnis humanae vastitas, ostendens funus filiae tuae sine lachrymis.”  Helena broke out her seldom used latin.

“What?”  Alfred said drunkenly.

“Uneducated and drunk.  I said you are a tasteless waste of human flesh, showing up to your daughter's funeral without shedding a tear.  Which is wrong now I see, I should have said useless instead of tasteless.”

Alfred stood there befuddled for a moment as his intoxicated brain took entirely too long to register the insult.

“How dare you…”  Alfred slurred.

“No.  How dare you.  This is your daughter’s funeral and it’s just an excuse for you to get drunk.  You’re not in mourning.  With all the vocabulary in all the languages I possess I see now that there is no word sufficient to describe your lack of worth.”

Alfred got red in the face and threw his glass at Helena.

Helena easily dodged the drunkenly tossed glass.

“That should do.”  Helena nodded.

He stepped forward suddenly, and lashed out with his back-hand, only to have it stopped with a crack.

Alfred Doons yowled, and bent, gripping his forearm in pain, as Elizabeth Ngo brought her cane up between his legs with a vicious snarl, then down on his shoulder, driving him to the floor. "Iss es! Iss den Dreck!! Iss es! Du widerwärtiger kleiner Mann!!"  the girl dropped to a knee, using the cane as leverage to hold him to the floor by his neck.  "You…broke..guestrite Alfred!!  You offered violence to your Mother's guest, in her home!!"


The girl's tone sounded like she was condemning him for incestuous cannibalism or something equally horrid.

"Elizabeth? I can take this from here…Daniel, would you help her to her feet please?"

"Yes Your Grace." Daniel Brewer came over from the punch bowl, and helped Lizzie to stand and get her feet under her.  Liz turned her eye to Helena, "You're alright? He didn't actually touch you, did he?"

“Yeah, he didn’t even come close.”  Helena nodded with genuine relief.

"You ****** up, Alfred, she's a Belta, a Spacer, if I decided, she could demand your life for this." Maggie scolded, "I will, instead, grant her your absence.  You're cut off, have what you can carry out of the condo by tomorrow, and where you go I do not care, but get you from my sight until you can remember how to be a Gentleman!! I'll leave you only what you've earned on your own from the interest on what you've been taking from the Trust."

“Thanks Elizabeth.  I wasn’t sure how I’d actually react but I was prepared to let him hit me there for you and Maggie.”  Helena said at almost a whisper to Elizabeth.

"Well I didn't want to find out what you'd do either." Liz confirmed sotto-voce,  "we'll call this even for now, and a favor owed by Maggie-she's been wanting to get Al off the apron strings for longer than I've been alive."

“I gathered as much.  I’m glad I could do that for her and for you.  So deal.”  Helena smiled.

"Uhm, Liz? You're not that strong how-?" Daniel asked.

Elizabeth showed him her cane, "Powered." she said, "Shocks like a stun-wand, only has a few charges in it.  A girl can't be too careful."

"Sweet." he approved.

“Never know when trouble might find you.”  Helena found herself mentally checking for her self defense items she had hidden on her person.

"The only problem is, I may have canceled any further grandkids…" Liz said mock-sadly.

"I'll deal." Maggie told her, "Maybe I'll just adopt next time."

“Something tells me if you had your way you’d already have your candidate.”  Helena smiled.

"Yes." Maggie said, "but sometimes, I cannot have my way, a lesson that was hard to learn when I was younger."

“Indeed, that is a tough lesson to learn.  My brother never really learned it.”  Helena let slip.

Lizzy jumped in, "He destroyed her family's firm by being demanding AND incompetent, it cost him everything including, rumour has it, his life when his partners turned on him."

"Ah…a classic story." Maggie nodded sagely.

“Well now that the drama is over I believe I was eating lunch.  Excuse me.”  Helena smiled as she returned to her table.

“You two need to work on your cover stories better.”  Maggie said sagely.

Elizabeth checked the room, then said, "i'll tell you later, the truth is infinitely less believable than the cover, but only if Helena agrees."

“Fair enough.”  Maggie nodded.  “Now I best make the rounds with my other guests to smooth over the drama.”

One by one Maggie went to the handful of other guests who all politely excused themselves.

Elizabeth and Daniel joined Helena at the table.

“Daniel, why don’t you get us some real drinks.  I think we all need a little something to sooth our nerves after that.”  Elizabeth created some privacy.

Helena nibbled on a sandwich.

"So…some unbelievable truth?" Maggie asked.

"Can I tell her, Helena?" Liz asked.

“Yeah.  I think she’s already picked apart our cover story.”

Elizabeth got to her feet, and hobbled over to a desktop terminal, "First, some context."  she said, then muttered "history class…"

The display lit with the logo of UW Donegal's history department.

Search Term: House Cameron, Circa 2765

Subset: Images

The Royal Family of the Star League appeared, as they had appeared the year before the Amaris Coup.

"This is necessary to put things into context…" Elizabeth narrowed that window, and brought up visual imagery of the Caspar M-5.

Then, she narrowed that window, and brought up a link to the Physics department, and from there, to the elementary KF theory classes run by the UW Donegal.

"Okay…so…about a year ago, right after I executed Jim Condit and put down most of his confederates…in the outer system of Kowloon…"  she expanded the image of the M-5, "one of these popped into existence.  It had passengers."

Margaret gasped, "You didn't report it."

"There are complicated reasons for that." Elizabeth said, "Family history reasons, even…one of those passengers…" she reduced the window, and brought up the Cameron Family Portrait, then outlined pre-Amaris Helena's face, expanded it to half a wall size, "was Helena Cameron.  I had a means to confirm it, that was in only one record nobody else keeps…and now, she's sitting at a table in your house, and it's because…" she flipped to the Kearney Fuchida equations, and highlighted one that was incomplete, "of something to do with Kearney's 19th theorem.  The one Gerhardt Brimes was claiming might be tied to how inertia and time are impacted by the Jump Core's field-his lost papers after his accidental death in the 2950s."

“Surprise.”  Helena said with a half hearted chuckle.

Maggie studied the image, then Helena.  "You're almost thirty now…and the girl in that image is sixteen…but…"

“My sister saved me and got me off Terra.  Kerensky sheltered me.  Looking back, yeah I see how I became a rumor or chalked up to a propaganda piece.  A story to keep the troop’s morale up in a difficult time.  So I became dismissed by the official histories.  But I was there.”  Helena said softly.

"Your proof, Elizabeth?"

Liz dug into her jacket and produced a worn, ancient diary.  "Tranh Truk Ngo's diary, from Elbar." she said, "She knew something that was kept from everyone else…details of it even."

"That… is a hell of a secret, Lil'bit." Maggie said, using the girl's pet-name.  "One hell of a secret, no wonder you concocted such a story to hide it…you're getting subtlety!!"

“I honestly don’t know if Comstar even knows I exist or what they’d do with me if they did.  I just know I have a lot of baggage when it comes to Terra and I’m not ready to go back there yet anyway.”

"Backing."  Maggie asserted, "you're a woman out of time, and your existence challenges a lot of established ideas, you alone in Comstar's hands? Probably would end up vanished into a gilded cage without backing.  WITH backing, that's still a risk."

“I know.”

"Who else knows?" Maggie asked, "The fewer who know, the easier it is to keep a secret."

"The contact team, Alicia Li, Evelynn…"

“Three can keep a secret if two are dead.”  Helena found herself saying.

Maggie nodded, "yes, it will get out then.  So …we need to prepare for the revelation, if the word on the Clan Invaders is true, you're going to be important whether or not you wish it, Helena, if they find out, they will come looking for you as well."

“I just hope they can be reasoned with.”

"DUDE, Elizabeth?" Daniel Brewer hadn't been as distracted by the distraction as they'd hoped, he was standing in the doorway.

"Danny, come in, sit down, close your mouth and listen." Maggie ordered him in a tone somewhere between "mother" and "Drill Instructor".

He complied.

"Elizabeth, go back to the start, use small words, Daniel is only a man, after all."

Liz nodded, and began again.

***

"...you’ve been sheltering the last heir of the Star League, Lizzie!" he said after being caught up.  "That's HUGE."

"It's huge, and it's dangerous Danny." Liz told him.  "Hell, I might've signed all our death warrants letting this out."

Daniel nodded slowly, "Shit…"

"You still need to get your house in order, Danny." Liz continued, "I don't trust your Regent and he's in bed with Comstar, whom you know my family never trusted."

“Focht is cleaning house and airing a lot of Comstar’s dirty laundry.”

"Focht is one man, and…" she hesitated, "...and he can be disappeared or die tomorrow too, or worse, he might be just…I don't know." she shook her head in frustration, "He's a foreigner! I don't trust him!!"

Helena spoke, "Elizabeth…so am I." softly

"You're different!" Liz insisted.  "Not the same thing at all!"

“Am I really?  His German accent is way better than mine I’ll admit but he strikes me as a man who is dedicated to his cause.  It’s how I’m even functional.”

"We need to choose when to reveal."  Daniel said, "and where.  It's too big to keep it a secret and it's going to be found out, Lizzie.  Maggie's never wrong about that stuff."

“Your swearing in.  I think that is our deadline whether we like it or not.”  Helena surmised.

"Is the warship fully functional?" Daniel Brewer asked.

"She's fully functional."

"She might look good painted up in the right livery, and it would definitely draw attention if you showed up with such a vessel." Brewer continued, "You know, to underline things when you make the reveal."

“We’ll still have to have safeguards in place so it isn’t so easy for the Archon or her husband to just demand the Warship.”

"You're doing tooling for Alarion, Liz, for the new RX-79 program…" he speculated, "Also, aren't you in the running for the update bid at Lockheed, for the rumoured Cruiser-size program?"

“That might be our best play.  Maggie suggested I try and bring you around to the idea of selling directly to the Federated Suns.  If you make yourself indispensable by dealing with them directly it’ll give you political leverage.”  Helena offered.

Elizabeth winced as if in actual pain at the idea.  "You know, if you weren't my friend, Helena, I'd tell you to go ****** yourself…fine.  We'll deal with Federated Boeing..." she said the words like she was spitting out something particularly vile, "and with General Motors… but only because Jane can't be stashed in orbit with just a caretaker crew forever, and it will give you gravitas with Her Majesty and the Estates General."

Helena recognized that kind of hate.  “Thank you Elizabeth.  I may not know why you hate the Federated Suns so much but I recognize that pain in your heart.”

"I don't hate them, god I'm not a bigot...it's just…I don't want to deal with them, but I will..and I'll deal fairly…I promise."

“No one’s asking you to be a pushover Elizabeth.  So give them hell and rake them over the coals but in the end make the deals.”  Helena smiled.

This got a smile from Liz, "if I didn't, I wouldn't be a proper Lyran, now would I?"

Which made Maggie Doons giggle a bit.

To Be Continued

[Daryk]

There's an italics tag problem in there somewhere, but VERY interesting story so far!  It'd be even more interesting if Liz shows up to the Archon to report she's unable to swear in unless the FedCom swears to the First Lord first... ;D

[monbvol]

Fixed.  And oh my would that be a trainwreck...

[Daryk]

This has Liz Ngo and time-jumped CameronS in it... train wreck is the LEAST to be expected! ;D

[idea weenie]

Pity that Elizabeth Cameron doesn't have a spare fully-understandable Helm+Dallas+Prometheus core, but what she has will definitely help out.

Perhaps Elizabeth-Ngo could claim they were able to recover a large memory core and present that to the Archon during the swearing in?  Along with bringing lots of copies for rapid dissemination.

"Archon, here is your copy of the memory core that werecovered.  And if my timing is right, several other nobles in this hall are getting their copies of this core delivered to their homeworlds about this time too.  Along with the FedSuns ambassador."

[willis]

I am thinking that in the other stories with the AI Alabaster, that system was based throughout the HPG net / have Helena enter into the HPG system to search the archives on Terra and find the databases system by accident and have it all downloaded - transferred to Kowloon for their university....and have it that even ComStar did not know about it / only a First lord would know about it....

[worktroll]

Monvbol, that was a solid, powerful piece of writing. Well done!

[monbvol]

Thanks to google docs me and Cannonshop do a lot of back and forth.  He writes a line-chunk, I write a line-chunk.  The end result is pretty entertaining if I do say so myself.