Chapter Five
Whitting Conference
Marik, Marik Commonwealth
Free Worlds League
06 November 3064The debate in the council was fierce over the issue of the Lyran Alliances reintegration into the Federated Commonwealth. Both Thomas Marik and Sun-Tzu Liao demanded that the Archon be released from her confinement and Victor to return to the Federated Suns. Both also argued that the Archon-Prince was to lead an expedition to Terra to remove the Terran Hegemony troops on planet as they have not evacuated as per the orders of the council during the previous assembly. Thomas Marik called for the floor and announced his intention of bringing the Word of Blake into the Star League. Before Thomas could make his case Archon-Prince Victor stood up and requested the floor in order to provide evidence against the Word of Blake in order to convince the council not to invite the order into the Star League.
“Fellow Lords and Ladies of the council. Within the last year several grave matters have come to light. All of you are receiving the files that various intelligence sources have collected on the activities of the Word of Blake. Responsible for several attacks across both the Sarna March, Skye March, Draconis March various false flag operations into the Draconis Combine and Clan Occupation Zones trying to spark conflict.” The Word of Blake representative Precentor William Blane looked like he was about to interrupt when Thomas laid a hand on his arm and bade him to listen.
“These are just the most obvious of incidents. We also have proof contained in your files of their culpability in the death of my Brother Arthur on Robinson following a Blakist false flag raid on planet. While we do not know who the target was, we do know that the order financed an assassination within the Draconis Combine through my Sister Katherine. Victor said looking towards his friend Theodore Kurita the man who just surrendered the First Lordship to Christen Mansdöttier.
“We do not know who the target was, however we do know that it was successful.” Theodore Kurita gasped losing is normal combine reserve. This was not lost on Victor. “When Duke Ryan and his Hegemony forces stopped the Word of Blake’s invasion of the Terran System and rolled back both the Capellan and League invasion into the Commonwealth in ’57 the Word of Blake began an alternate plan.”
Precentor Blane was about to come out of his seat when Marik again held him down. Captain-General Thomas Marik leaned forward in his seat. “And what plan would this be Victor?”
Victor looked at him for a moment. “Of course.” Victor turned to the First Lord. “First Lord Mansdöttier, I would like to call forward from the gallery Lieutenant General Austin to continue this briefing please.”
At this Thomas Marik stood up. “I protest, the Hegemony has been removed from this body as an associated entity. They have still not complied with this councils’ orders to withdraw from Terra.”
Christen Mansdöttier looked up from his position to the gallery where the Hegemony contingent were standing awaiting permission to approach the council. “I will allow General Austin to join Archon-Prince Steiner-Davion. However, you will brief the council not him. You may consult with him on anything that pertains to the Hegemony but not anything else.”
The rest of the council almost looked bored. Chancellor Liao and Duchess Allard-Liao both watching the proceedings not yet understanding what was going on.
Victor took that for the partial win that it was. “Thank you, My Lord. General Austin will you please join us?”
General Austin made his way to the council lords tables and took the offered chair from Victor. Victor turned to the assembled Lords. “My fellow Lords, through exhaustive collection efforts from both the Commonwealth and the Hegemony we have identified not including the forces lost by the Word of Blake in their strike at Terra we have identified twenty-seven additional Divisions.” There was a gasp from several and a sharp look from even Thomas towards Blaine.
“We have identified four of these new Divisions as operating special advanced equipment with cybernetically enhanced infantry.” Victor stated shocking everyone. “In addition to this discovery we estimate a possible twenty to thirty Warships are missing from the Terran mothball fleet.”
“Where have they gone?” Mansdöttier inquired.
“We don’t know. They have been slowly disappearing over the last decade.” Victor answered. “The most disturbing is that deep embedded intelligence operatives from the Hegemony have identified at least seven League Military BattleMech regiments that have significant Blakist infiltration.”
“What proof do you have of these allegations?” Sun-Tzu asked from the Confederation delegation.
“In your files you will see transcripts from staff meetings and close surveillance provided by Hegemony Intelligence of various officers and other personnel from the units in question. Also, we believe that the Word of Blake communications liaison’s aboard League Warships are in fact ROM commando’s awaiting the opportunity to incapacitate the crews and take over the ships if needed. The LCCC and SAFE have been penetrated however we have confirmed that SAFE’s special forces are clear of any influence that we have been able to observe.” Victor stated. The rage on Blane’s face was too much to contain.
“How dare you insult my holy order like this!” He shouted. Thomas unable to contain the man’s rage any longer. “You claim evidence of any of this. What is your true evidence? All you have shown us is lies and speculation. Yes, we have a couple more Divisions than previously observed by anyone. We are growing our forces to protect our growing HPG network within the Confederation, Concordant and Magistracy. Do you announce to the Inner Sphere every new unit that is established?”
Victor took this in stride. “No, no member of this council announces to the universe when they establish a new combat formation. However, we do know about several things that no one else here does. Nor do the people in the Free Worlds League. We know who your Master is Precentor. We know more about the sitting Captain-General than any would care to make public. We haven’t because he truly is a great leader among the Inner Sphere and look to him to continue to do so. The only reason why I didn’t nominate him to be the next First Lord was due to his entanglements with the Word of Blake.”
The First Lord was clearly concerned about all that is going on. “Colonel Campbell have the gallery cleared. Precentor Blane, Protector Shraplen, Magestrix Centrella would you please excuse us. General Austin please remain as I have questions for you.”
Precentor Blane was screaming at this point as the Royal Black Watch cleared the gallery. Precentor Martial Focht watched as the incensed leader of the splinter faction of ComStar was escorted from the room along with his counterpart Cameron St. Jamais whom was more leveled headed and calculating from the look in his eyes.
As the room was cleared and the heavy doors secured with the Watch on both sides Mansdöttier addressed the assembly. “It looks like we need to discuss sever matters. Archon-Prince Victor, you stated that you knew something about the sitting Captain-General and the Word of Blake’s, what did you call him Master?”
“Yes, my Lord. I would ask that General Austin be allowed to speak on the matter as he is more briefed in. I do not want any in this body to think that what is about to be said is an attack on the sitting Captain-General and I support him in full as long as he continues to be a just leader.” Victor said nodding towards Marik who returned the gesture.
“Very well, General Austin you have the floor.” Mansdöttier waved.
“Thank you, my Lord.” He began with a slight bow clearly unaccustomed to it. “Lords and Ladies of this council. The Terran Hegemony-in-Exile has only ever operated with three guiding commands issued by our ruling family. First was to protect the people of the former Hegemony worlds as best we could. Second, to protect the innocent and smother evil wherever we find it. Thirdly, to rebuild the Hegemony and the Star League should we be capable of it. While I am convinced that we do have the combat power to accomplish at least rebuilding the Hegemony we would have to shatter the Commonwealth into two realms again in order to accomplish this and fight the rest of you. This would in the end destroy us and cripple the militaries of the Inner Sphere from being able to defend themselves from the Clans.”
“So, it was under our second principle that Duke Ryan ordered me to begin planning. I worked alongside many of your military forces and was integrated into operations during the Smoke Jaguar annihilation. While my troops did not face much combat during this period, we did establish the working relationships that would be key to expanding on future endeavors and joint operations. This is my back ground as command of the Hegemony’s II Corps.” Austin approached the center of the council.
“Hegemony intelligence had thoroughly penetrated ComStar and by extension the Word of Blake dating back to the organizations founding. General Lauren Hayes was once an officer assigned to Project LEGION and deployed forward to assist General Kerensky in defeating the usurper.” This drew several shocked looks from around the room even from Victor who did not know of this. “Since those days we absorbed the entire Hegemony and by extension Star League intelligence organizations. Some of the Star League Defense Force intelligence organizations did leave with the clans but they seemed to have fizzled out sometime afterwards. This is why we have been able to predict all of your movements and react with such speed. You have gotten lucky on flushing a few of our agents out. However, the CIA and DMI have been successful in penetrating all of your military and intelligence organizations. Our people are raised generationally to accomplish these tasks and we even have people serving on the bodyguard units of everyone in this room. They only report on your states of mind and other such things and are sworn to both us and you to protect you.”
The sheer panic on the Chancellor’s face that his body guards were penetrated sent a chill down his spine. “Yes if we wanted you all dead it would happen but we don’t and never would execute that order.” Austin approached the Captain-General leaned over to his ear and whispered. “The one thing that did surprise us was when the Archon-Prince informed us that you really were not Thomas Marik. But we don’t mind you are a much better leader than he is. We know where he is and who he has become.”
Thomas leaned back the color draining from his non-scarred parts of his face. “Truly, you know of this?”
“Yes sir.” Austin answered. “I am here as a representative of my government to provide any assistance in these matters as needed. I have the ear of the Duke as we are close friends since childhood. I am not a political appointee as I have earned my commission and each promotion. Right now my entire Corps is arrayed in staging areas prepared to either relieve the Terran Corridor of the Federated Commonwealth or to execute this councils orders.”
“And what orders would those be?” Coordinator Kurita asked.
“Yes General, what orders would you have us issue.” Asked Duchess Allard-Liao.
“I honestly do not care. Should this council order me forward to disarm the Word of Blake I will execute that mission. If they do not, I will launch an invasion of the Free Worlds League and hunt down the Word of Blake along with any infiltrated commands should they prove to be a threat to the Hegemony and the Commonwealth as they already have proven to be.” Austin answered.
Precentor Martial Focht rose from his seat and walked around into the center to face Austin. “How have they proven to be a threat?” He asked.
“They murdered Duke Arthur Steiner-Davion on Robinson, Duchess Ryan and her son on Northwind and” Looking over to the Coordinator “Omi Kurita on Luthien.” He finished and heard the shout from Victor. Theodore Kurita looked like he was about to throw his table, Hohiro sitting next to him looked even worse. “This information only came to light in the last twenty-four hours to us and will be forwarded to you Coordinator Kurita for both you and the ISF to scrutinized. But this is our assumption based off of the intelligence gather and the orders we have seen passed around the Word’s ROM.”
Looking over at Victor he saw the loss that was echoed on his face as the Love of his life was just announced as being slain. Why hadn’t Theodore or Hohiro told him. It wasn’t his place to say such things. “We did not tell the Archon-Prince as it was your place sir.” He said with a deep formal Japanese style bow. Which the coordinator stood and returned.
“We lost most of our people in the Blakist ROM after we got that information out. We still have several one was compromised and has been terminated the others have gone to ground and will only inform us of anything significant to the defense of the Hegemony.” Austin reported. “Intelligence believes with certainty that the Word of Blake is building up to take over the Free Worlds League and seize Terra.”
“We have heard nothing of this.” Focht stated.
“That’s because the ComStar ROM is completely penetrated.” Victor took this one. “We know that some of your personnel are Bonafede. But most of them are not to include ROM’s command. I wouldn’t trust them for anything in interactions between ComStar and the Word.”
“Yes sir, I would like to send our counter intelligence people in to begin sweeps of your ROM however that’s like asking the Clans to guard Terra.” Austin stated sarcastically.
Focht looked hurt about it. “What do we do then if this is true? So far they haven’t done anything overt.”
“They do not have to.” Was the startling response from Sun-Tzu Liao. “They killed one of the Steiner-Davion’s. They killed your daughter Coordinator. They build a secret army and subvert the League military. They manipulate communications in my realm, and I believe are responsible for the deaths of the Concordats previous Protector.” Liao stood from his table. “I invited the Word of Blake in to spite ComStar. I didn’t realize at the time it would be inviting the wolf into the hen house. I would ask ComStar to take over again. But with the sympathizers that my own Maskirovka have been reporting to me.”
“I am not supposed to disclose this information. I will now in order to offer help in your situation Chancellor.” Austin announced drawing the attention of everyone in the room. “The Hegemony through its infiltration of ComStar and by extension Terra since the fall of the first Star League has conducted the same sort of operations against ComStar and now Word of Blake that they once launched against your houses. Elimination of key scientist and engineers, attacks on advanced industries and suppression of advanced technology. With this we have kept ComStar from advancing HPG technology and we have maintained control of the HPG grid. We can lockout anyone from the network. It was a failsafe the Hegemony had built into the HPG network in order to maintain control of it.”
Precentor Martial Focht was shocked. He would have to talk to the Primus about it later. “What do you expect to do about this?”
“I want to emplace a communications interdiction on the Word of Blake and any allies they have. Once in place II Corps supported by First Fleet will strike at all known Blakist forces across the Inner Sphere.” Austin revealed.
“And what if we told the Word of Blake about this?” Candice Allard-Liao spoke up.
Both Austin and Victor knew she would not say anything about this too them but someone in this room would. “Then those would be interdicted until the Blakist are dealt with.”
“The AFFC is amassing nearly fifty regiments and a dozen or more Warships. We are going in with the Hegemony.” Victor added. “This is not a land grab. As soon as the Word of Blake is dealt with we will withdraw back into the Commonwealth.”
During all of this Thomas Marik sat torn between his loyalty for the people of the Free Worlds League for which he has come to cherish and his commitment to the real Thomas Marik and the Word of Blake he commands. Maybe now was the time to set himself apart to break free of the shackles for which he placed upon his own wrist when he joined ComStar. Thanks to Duke Ryan Joshua was still alive. Also, thanks to Ryan Operation GUERRERO was an utter failure. That wasn’t his concern he was pushed into action by his keepers. Maybe with the Hegemony and Commonwealth in position to deal with the Word of Blake he could be rid of them.
“Victor,” Thomas began pausing for a moment “you are correct about me.” He breathed heavily. “However, I seem to have become a prisoner in all of this answerable to this faction.” Thomas chose his words carefully. “First Lord Mansdöttier, I propose standing down the FWLM confining them to their bases and allowing the SLDF to clear the Word of Blake from our nation.”
Victor raised his hand for a moment. “I don’t think it should be the Word of Blake. I don’t believe the SLDF is the solution in all of this. If we deploy the SLDF to remove the Word of Blake at this point, then it would be no better than using them to conquer the St. Ives Compact.” Victor looked towards Sun-Tzu. “I am not digging old wounds Sun-Tzu, I am just stating that if we are to keep the Clans at bay, we need to use the Defense Force as it was intended.”
Sun-Tzu nodded, Victor seeing the change in his demeanor over the last decade most likely thanks to the economic and military trade between the Hegemony, Confederation and Compact let alone his own Trinity Alliance. “I agree with Victor, I propose a joint task force between the Confederation and the Compact” he said looking over to his aunt and cousin at their nations table “along with any of our Periphery allies that wish to join and placed under the command of General Austin and his II Corps.”
Victor thought about this for a second and saw the opportunity in it. “General Austin, what do you think about that?”
Austin thought hard for a moment. “I would suggest placing them under General Mendez and III Corps as they will be operating from the Sarna March and closer to the region of the join task force. I believe it will take too long for them to link up with my Corps elements prior to kicking this off.”
“Sun-Tzu?” Victor asked.
“I know General Mendez and respect him. I can agree to this.” Turning to his aunt. “Aunt Candace, would you join this effort if I placed the task force under Kai’s command answerable to the Hegemony’s III Corps?”
Duchess Candace Allard-Liao turned to her son and heir Duke Kai Allard-Liao and he nodded. “I fully support the Chancellor in this endeavor.”
Coordinator Theodore Kurita asked for a moment on the floor and approached both Victor and Austin. “I will place a Task Force under the command General Austin and yourself with Hohiro in command.”
Before Victor or Austin could even answer First Lord Mansdöttier answered. “Coordinator Kurita, Hohiro cannot command a Task Force in this matter if we are to leave the Star League out of this. As the Commanding General of the SLDF he would be seen as an endorsement from this office and council.”
“Very well I will place them under the command of Sho-sho Yodama.” Theodore adjusted his plan off the cuff.
“Very well we will not be waiting on the troops to arrive before we jump off. I will place them into the reserve and bring them up with them.” Austin agreed nodding turning towards Victor. “Sir, do you agree with this sir?”
Victor nodded to himself. “Yes General, this will work out it will show a united front in this. Should we call the other associated powers back in and break the news to the Word of Blake?”
“Before we do that.” Thomas began drawing everyone’s attention. “Lord Mansdöttier, the Word of Blake was going to have me put forth a motion to sponsor them to become members of this council.”
Mansdöttier thought about the situation. “Thomas, I want you to put forth the motion of inviting someone to the Star League. However, when we ask you who you wish to invite, I want you to propose inviting the Magistracy or another power. We cannot invite the Terran Hegemony as they do not possess any territory at this time. Their Home worlds hidden and not available accessible to those of this council.”
The council lords looked around at each other. “If the Word of Blake has so thoroughly penetrated the Free Worlds League as you say General Austin. Then we need to approach this delicately.” Candace Allard-Liao said getting the attention of everyone. “We need to give them a chance to draw our ire. So far, they haven’t done anything they cannot play off as fabricated evidence. Bring them in. Go through the vote to add them to the League and watch it fail.”
First Lord Mansdöttier and Precentor Martial Focht both thought about it for a moment. Talking discreetly between the two. “Captain-General, what is the loyalty of the League’s Military?”
Thomas thought about it for a moment. “Until a few minutes ago I would have vouched for all of the federal troops. Now I am not so sure. I want you to vote against me when I propose the Word of Blake be entered into a probationary membership period, I want you to shut it down hard.”
Mansdöttier looked around the council and saw the various faces and nodded. “I put forth secret council resolution 3064-01. Joint operation to remove the Word of Blake from the territory of the Free Worlds League in cooperation with the Terran Hegemony. All in favor?”
Thomas stood. “The Free World’s League votes aye.”
Sun-Tzu moved to his feet. “The Confederation votes aye.”
Candace Allard-Liao stood. “The St. Ives Compact votes aye.”
Theodore Kurita stood. “The Draconis Combine votes aye.”
Victor was still standing in the middle. “The Federated Commonwealth votes aye.”
Mansdöttier didn’t even need to vote on behalf of his nation. “The decision is unanimous. The Word of Blake will be ejected from the League by a combined effort of Star League members operating under the command of the Terran Hegemony Armed Forces. This resolution will be disavowed and never to see the light once we let the others back in.”
Everyone looked around in shock as they had all agreed to something so easily.