And I Feel Fine: Book III: Thunderclap

[Liam's Ghost]

Coyote WarShip Stalker

The missiles were a bit of a surprise. Mattias's sensor feed indicated they were smaller and slower than the missile systems normally used aboard warships, which he supposed made sense for such a small craft.

Still, the Type 51s they'd faced in the Imperio had used naval lasers for their broadside armament, and the Clan's historical records indicated this was the standard loadout. This level of innovation was surprising.

Surprising, but fruitless. The Clan had learned from the enemy that had rained nuclear and biological fire on the homeworlds, and the Stalker was flanked by a pair of Ancile point defense drones, which made quick work of the incoming missile salvos. As their own guns began scoring hits against the lead ship, Mattias allowed himself a predatory smile.

One that faded as his sensor displays watched additional missile salvos streaking towards the Tracker. Star Captain Wicks had already recovered his drones when the enemy had arrived, and as the first craft finally launched, Mattias realized he was focusing on launching his fighters first.

This left him with no point defense when the first missiles reached his ship, Half a dozen warheads struck home in rapid succession. Fortunately, these appeared to be conventional warheads, not the nuclear ones seen so often during the scouring, so the blow was in no way fatal. Still, the hit was telling, and more missiles were descending the Tracker from three different directions.

Mattias supposed he would have to save Wicks from his own incompetence. "Helm, swing the bow six points to starboard," he ordered as the two near contacts mirrored his maneuver to unmask their own forward batteries. "All main batteries fire at will."

-----

HSDFS Lightning

The hull shook and damage alarms sounded as the enemy's guns found their target. Fortunately the Fredasa's massive nose gun hadn't scored a hit yet, but the Lightning was still taking a pounding from her larger opponent.

Their own guns and those of the Cyclone behind them were also scoring hits. More regularly actually. They'd opened up with the cluster of cannons in the nose firing at maximum dispersion, tightening their grouping as they found the range. But they were behind in raw hitting power, and their missiles were apparently worthless against whatever point defense was protecting the ship.

"Cyclone" Sommersville ordered. "Break off and form up with Providence and Joker. Concentrate on finishing off C1." The other Fredasa had already been roughed up by their fighters and was now being ravaged by missile attacks, their point defense apparently absent or inefective. Now was not the time to let up.

"Helm, keep our nose pointed at C2 for as long as possible. Keep his attention on us. All batteries, don't stop firing until you run out of targets or ammo." Acknowledging the situation he'd found himself in, Sommersville decided there was one more order to give. "Mahiro," he said, signaling the captain of the Joker, "Squadron command is yours."

The world seemed to explode around him as the main gun of the enemy Fredasa struck home.

-----

Coyote WarShip Stalker

The lead ship's guns were still firing, but it was clear it was otherwise dead in space. The ship behind it was trying to break off, or rather re-focusing on closing with the Tracker. Physics and inertia dictated she'd be able to briefly pull out of the range of their heaviest weapons, but it would only be a brief respite before the Stalker overhauled her again and shot her to pieces.

Unfortunately, it wouldn't be soon enough to save the Tracker. The other ship was reporting critical damage to all systems, including the main drive and maneuvering thrusters. And the two other gunboats had managed to close in and begin hammering away with their heavy forward batteries, the crippled ship unable to provide more than token resistance.

Worse yet, the enemy still had substantial fighter forces available, while their own forces were badly depleted. Facing two or three of these gunboats, with maybe two dozen fighters in support, were poor odds to gamble on for a battle already lost.

"Send to our Lyran opponents," he ordered. "I conceed this trial. My ships will stand down."

[Liam's Ghost]

Coyote WarShip Ma'li
Point Iga, 29.8 light years from Hood IV

She strode onto the bridge casually, her long, stocking clad legs quickly eating up the distance between her and SaKhan Erik Khufal. Her short black and white checkered skirt accentuated every sensual move of her hips. Her long silver hair swished back and forth in a breeze that only seemed to touch her, one stubborn strand reaching forward across her face in a way that wasn't actually possible. Her large, expressive pale green eyes eliciting an invitation as she demurely nodded towards the ready room.

SaKhan Khufal supressed an annoyed sigh as he kept his attention on the datapad in his hands. Data reports on first wave targets, materials expended, reserves rerouted to cover for the Black Phoenix Supercluster while they clean up their mess at Melissia. Paperwork was infinitely more desirable than dealing with her.

"Erik, dear," he heard her whisper in his ear, just centimeters away. "I have news."

This time he allowed the annoyed sigh free as he pulled a hands free communicator from his pocket and slipped it onto his ear. Purely for show, of course. "I will be in my ready room," he said as he undid the belt on the acceleration couch and came to something approximating a standing position in the microgravity. "Notify me immediately once we receive word from our scout ships."

She walked behind him as he floated towards the ready room, deftly avoiding the personnel that moved about the bridge oblivious to her presence. For a moment Erik wondered what would happen if she collided with one. Would the result be a confused technician who didn't know what happened, or would she go straight through him like the ghost Erik and his fellow Khans thought of her as?

Ghost might not be the best description. She called herself a simple servant. Bound to a master buried deep under the ice of Unity, the Clan's current homeworld. The renegades of the Society had found her and her master long ago and built a research outpost on the world to study them, one that would become a safe haven for the Clan as the Homeworlds died. She'd pledged herself to the Clan's service out of what she claimed was gratitude, but the IlKhan, for very obvious reasons, had neither trust nor love for this inhuman thing, an attitude shared by each of the Sakhans, the only others in the clan who were allowed to know of her existence.

"Why do you do this?" Khufal finally asked as he passed into the anonymity of the ready room. "This form, these mannerisms, why do you adopt them?" Nobody knew what this being's natural form might be, if it had one, though they knew enough from leftover Society documents that it was nothing like a human.

The girl teared up dramatically. "Erik... Am I... ugly to you?" she asked, then began to cry.

Erik could feel a headache beginning. "Enough," he barked. "Give me your report."

"Oh, I knew you cared!" the girl declared. "I was aboard one of the ships you lost, but only for a while. Star chart please?"

Erik complied, calling up a chart of the surrounding stars on the holotable.

"Let's see," the girl said, leaning over the table to get a close look. "Started here, where you call Melissia. Went to here." She pointed to an uninhabited star not terribly far away. "From there, poof, they jumped again and I couldn't follow."

"Couldn't?" That was surprising. From what he'd seen and read, the girl had the ability to appear on any ship in the fleet at will, regardless of distance. It was the only reason the IlKhan tolerated her. She was their fastest form of communication.

"I wasn't allowed," the girl said. "I was told not to."

"Told?" That was a potentially catastrophic thought. "Who told you not to?"

"I don't know who," the girl responded. "Or when they told me. But I have to obey. It's nobody you know, though. It's something like me, maybe very old, or maybe very new. Maybe both." She smiled and leaned closer to him. "Don't worry, dear, I would never cheat on you."

Khufal scoffed, more concerned with the idea of other things like her. "So you have nothing to tell me, then."

"I didn't say that!" she said. "Before the ship I was on left, one of theirs left first. I saw the ripples, their shape. I could tell where they came out."

She pointed to another star on the chart. "This one, here. That's where the ship is."

Khufal looked at the chart. Hood IV, in the Lyran Commonwealth. He'd already dispatched two ships there to try to locate them, but hadn't heard back. "You're certain?"

"Of course!" the girl said. "You know what else?"

Khufal waited expectantly, not willing to play her games.

The girl waited for a moment, then pouted. "Fine," she said. "I've seen the ripples they make before. Lots of them, around the stars your people came from, before you left them and came to me."

Her words were sometimes hard to parse. She blamed the limits of their language for it, and the fact that the IlKhan prohibited her from learning much of anything about human culture or technology. Still, some things came through.

"The jump signature," Khufal said. "You saw the same ones during the scouring?" The enemy that had attacked the homeworlds used exclusively one type of ships. Soyuz class vessels. The reports from Melissia reported a completely different WarShip type, but if they were built with the same core...

It was a potential lead they couldn't pass on.

He toggled the communicator clipped to his ear. "Action stations," he called out. "Navigation, plot a jump to the Hood system."

[Cannonshop]

shit is going to get REAL complicated.

[Daryk]

Because two ancient eldritch horrors simply weren't enough...  ::)

[Giovanni Blasini]

Whaaaaaat.  :o

[BATTLEMASTER]

Can someone please educate me regarding the hyperspace girl being employed by the Clans?  That's a new reference to me.

[Liam's Ghost]

Orbital Command Station Sirius

"The count is forty three dead, thirty nine rendered unfit for duty by wounds, Captain Sommersville among them. The Lightning has partially restored maneuvering control from the engineering section, but the command deck and fire control systems are a complete loss and overall structural integrity is shaky. She'll make it to a yard if she takes it slow, but she'll be stuck there a long time. Providence took moderate damage but is still structurally sound and able to fight. Cyclone and Joker remain fully operational, though all units are low on munitions, and we're down twenty nine fighters."

Not great, but not horrifying, Captain Fielding reasoned. Loss of over half their fighter complement was probably the worst part. Not that there was anything he could do about it. Commodore Devon got orders recalling him to Hood IV almost before the battle had ended. Fielding had been given command of the station, but nothing else. High Command had assumed direct control of system defense. Fielding and his crew now functioned as little more than a communications relay.

"The 'yotes are behaving themselves," the report continued. They requested we screen their personnel on the station first, under observation of their own medical personnel to learn our methods. I'm betting they want to verify we know what we're doing. Militarily, we disabled C1 and inflicted maybe moderate damage on C2. We also took out most of their fighters. If we can get resupply I think we can handle them if they get frisky again. Without it, things are iffy. Without reinforcements of our own, we have no chance of repelling an attack should additional hostiles show up."

Resupply they could do. Tenders were already standing by, ready to deploy to the zenith point. Reinforcements was a trickier prospect. Planetary defense had its own fighter wings that could be detached, but it would take time to get them from the bottom of the gravity well to the squadron at the zenith point. They had two more gunboats undergoing overhaul at the small shipyard not all that far from this station, but getting them put back together, crewed, and in fighting trim could take even longer than moving the fighter wings.

They could call for allied assistance. Kowloon was close, had ships to spare, and treaties covering mutual protection and quarantine enforcement, but... the Prime Minister's administration had been pushing its own message. They wanted to distance themselves from Kowloon's style of "extremism", mend ties with the rest of the Commonwealth, and enjoy what they called the "Peace Dividend". With Hood IV and the rest of the quarantine zone largely safe from Clan invasion (unlike the entire rest of the Commonwealth), now was not the time for dangerous militarism, or at least so the Prime Minister's administration reckoned.

So, even though the Kowloonese would send ships to defend Hood IV, Fielding reckoned it was long odds Hood IV would even ask, unless things got a lot worse.

"Burst transmission from the zenith point," The comm officer barked excitedly. "Another emergence wave detected. They say it's a Leviathan."

[Liam's Ghost]

Thus concludes chapter 2 of book three (did you know we were on chapter two?)

Next up, we jump to Tharkad for politics and plotting.

Can someone please educate me regarding the hyperspace girl being employed by the Clans?  That's a new reference to me.

I could dig up an image of the character that inspired her look and manerisms, but that might give it away.

[Cannonshop]

Trance Gemini?

[Liam's Ghost]

Tharkad

Ships were descending through Tharkad's atmosphere, bound for points all across the planet. Not by choice, ideally it would be better to centralize the arrivals to ease the mess that would be cataloging their contents and directing them for distribution, but that was impossible. Tharkad's traffic control was already taxed just meeting the needs of the Commonwealth's existing shipping networks. Abruptly dropping over fifty large cargo dropships into it, along with the steady stream of shuttlecraft slowly emptying the holds of the two Potemkins in orbit, pushed it to the breaking point. Ships had to be routed to landing fields all over the planet. Storage space had to be located, surveyed, and secured to take on hundreds of thousands of tons of excess, unexpected materials. And the personnel needs... military, police, and ungodly amounts of civilian workers had to be scrounged up, assigned, and deployed to handle it all.

There was no expectation of secrecy, of course. The night sky was alight with dozens of unexpected drive flares. You couldn't hide that, in fact you had to advertise it. Public service notices were played on every station to reassure the public this wasn't an invasion from one of the Commonwealth's enemies. The ships descending, the behemoths already spotted in orbit by amateur astronomers and stargazers, the armada spotted at the L1 point, were allies bringing much needed aid to the Commonwealth. More details would come, they promised.

Still more police were on the streets, but they used a light touch. No riot troops or military personnel. Just out there to keep things calm, reassure the people the Commonwealth was still in control. Quietly deal with those who had either missed the broadcasts, didn't believe them, or decided they were a good opportunity for mischief regardless.

And of course there were the ones who didn't make noise, just watched intently, trying to pick up information wherever they could to pass on to other friends, who passed the info on to friends of their own, who passed them to ships lurking deep in the void. Counter-intelligence stamped them out where they could. A lot of relatively innocent looking dockworkers, laborers, low level bureaucrats, would turn up absent from work tomorrow with men in dark suits telling their employers not to ask questions.

Still, enough would be unnoticed for word to get out. An armada had come to Tharkad and apparently turned it into a massive supply dump. By simple math, it seemed the world was now home to the largest single concentration of military equipment in the Inner Sphere. Bugeyes operated by the Wolf Empire and the Jade Falcons would jump out to carry that information to their masters as fast as their drives could carry them. An Explorer operated by the Draconis Combine had the benefits of a functioning black box, which would give it an edge in message delivery. Other states would have to rely on more passive means as their agents aboard various merchant jumpships would pass their reports to others as they followed their regular routes. The news would reach them, but one would give even odds whether it would be their agents or the actions of the Lyrans and Terrans themselves that brought it.

[Liam's Ghost]

Office of the Archon

"The Director General's gift is an absolute nightmare," Leutnant General Heinric Diez of the logistical command insisted. "We don't have the space to store it here, and we don't have the ships to get it where it needs to go, at least not quickly."

"The Terrans aren't willing to transport it for us?" Archon Trillian Steiner-Davion asked. Hanse Davion's "gift", or officially his compensation for the Hegemony's casual disregard of the Commonwealth's borders, took the form of millions of tons of war material and a whole fleet of Mammoth cargo carriers. On the face of it it was an unbelievable act of generosity, or at least an immensely extravagant bribe, but the headaches were becoming all too apparent.

"According to General Hargrave, they can't spare the transports," Hauptman-General Markus Clarkston, commander of the First Royal Guards and at the moment the senior officer directly corresponding with Hegemony personnel, stated. "And I'm not certain I'd want them to do the job anyway. They have a huge amount of lift capacity, but it's primarily tied up in a relatively..." a chuckle escaped his lips. "Heh, a relatively small number of very large ships. Every extra jump capable ship they have is another world they can target when they go on the offensive."

"And there's the security angle as well," Diez pointed out. "If we use their ships, they can map out our entire logistical network and identify its weak points. They could cripple our ability to function in a single massive strike."

Trillian nodded at Diez's concern. Generosity and promises of aid and peace were one thing. Trust was another. Possible blood relations aside, Trillian didn't know this person claiming to be her great grandfather or the nation behind him. Even if he were really who he claimed he was, even if he did want to protect the Commonwealth, it wouldn't be the first time Hanse Davion had decided the best way to protect people from an enemy was to conquer them himself.

"The risk is already there," she pointed out. "They're letting us keep the Mammoths."

"Yeah," Clarkston confirmed. "And they've offered to put the crews under our command to man them. But we don't want to take that deal for the reason Rick already pointed out. We need our own people on those ships when we start moving them."

"Can you find the crews?" Trillian asked.

"Manpower should be easy enough," Diez said. "At least it'll be a lot easier than finding extra jumpships to move them around without breaking the courier network."

"And that's the real problem," Clarkston added. "We can't get this stuff off Tharkad, not quickly. And there's no way we could hide it. Our enemies will figure out its here very soon, and it's a huge temptation."

He hesitated before he continued. "And... that may be what the Hegemony is hoping for."

That was a chilling thought. And judging on the surprised look on Diez's face, one Clarkston had come up with on his own. "You think they're using Tharkad as bait?"

"It's... reasonable that the Hegemony wouldn't have known we couldn't handle all this material at once," General Clarkston said. "But Hanse Davion would have. He was intimately familiar with the logistical limits of a successor state. Some of his biggest victories were built on understanding and overcoming them. It seems inconceivable he would have put us in this position unless he wanted to."

Diez looked over to Clarkston, incredulous. "You sound like you actually believe he really is Hanse Davion."

Trillian sighed. It wasn't really a conversation she'd wanted to have right now. "Some of the details are highly classified, General Diez," she said. "But suffice it to say, we have more reasons to believe his claim than we do to doubt it."

"I..." Diez seemed like he was having trouble finding his words. "I have so many questions, Highness."

Trillian shook her head. "Later," she said. She had a feeling it was a conversation she was going to have with a great many people. "So if he's using Tharkad as bait, what is his end goal?"

"Tharkad is the most heavily defended planet in the Commonwealth right now," General Clarkston said. "We have the better part of three mech regiments and dozens of conventional units onworld, and we've been fortifying our position since the last invasion. And now the Hegemony is lurking around. If the Falcons or the Wolves want to take these supplies or destroy them, they'll have to commit a massive force. Maybe enough to stall any other operations they have going. If Davion can catch them here in a decisive battle, that could very well be game. He could cripple them so badly that they can't even resist his counterblow."

Effectively end the war in one stroke. It made sense to Trillian's ears, but... "With Tharkad caught in the crossfire. How much damage could they do to the planet before the Hegemony puts them down?"

Clarkston shrugged. "If we're fighting the Wolves the damage would probably be recoverable. In fact if we could guarantee fighting the Wolves, I'd be all for this plan. If it's the Falcons though... If that Khan of theirs decides she's in a trap, or if she decides the numbers aren't in her favor, or if she's just feeling spiteful... I don't know. Thousands? Hundreds of thousands? Maybe millions dead depending on how many nuclear weapons she brings with her."

For a moment Trillian wasn't certain what to say. She couldn't fault Clarkston's reasoning. The atrocities of Malvina Hazen were well known. Given so large of a target, put into so desperate a situation... yeah, Trillian could see it happen.

"Well," she said finally. "I suppose this will make for interesting dinner conversation."

[JA Baker]

It's always a pain when family stops by unexpectedly....

[Daryk]

Heh... her generals are full of reservations, but not solutions...  ^-^

[Liam's Ghost]

Tharkad University Hospital

Despite the assurances of the Hegemony personnel, the shuttle was met by a full military escort, including a squad of battle armor, heavily armed infantry, and emergency response teams on standby. Civilians had been cleared from the immediate area, both for security and their own safety in the event of an explosion.

"Behold," Colonel Lilly Adams said quietly as she stepped down the ramp behind the wheelchair bound invalid and the nurse who pushed him along. "The most dangerous man in the inner sphere."

The invalid, Benjamin Emory, once known as Precentor Berith, looked back at her with an absent smile. According to his doctors, he never spoke, he probably didn't have the ability to anymore. He was only vaguely aware of his surroundings and certainly didn't have the cognition to understand any of it, but he seemed to like to hear voices.

"All this for him?" the nurse asked incredulously, in awe of the shear number of armed men waiting for them.

"His people managed to kill billions back during their holy war," Lilly explained as they slowly approached the delegation at the edge of the landing pad. "The things attributed to their cybernetic warriors, to him in particular, wander into the mythic. He's like a terrible legend given form to them. Maybe they just didn't comprehend what that legend would look like."

What he looked like was something the population of the Bastion had left behind long ago, an aging, decrepit being clinging to life by the barest of margins. Benjamin Emory was almost 116 years old, and unlike Lilly (who had him beat by just under forty years), he actually looked it. Basically immobile, his vital functions maintained by machines, a combination of the cybernetics he had implanted and external medical devices connected to him when those were no longer sufficient. By all rights he should have died long ago, but he continued to hold on, even when his mind was lost.

Well... not lost, Lilly decided. It was more accurate to say his mind vacated his body. Living on in digital form and finally avoiding whatever eternal punishment his soul so richly deserved. But better not to dwell too much about that around the Lyrans.

At the bottom of the ramp were their Lyran counterparts. An officer with Komandant's insignia on his collar, a doctor and medical assistant... and someone she would prefer to not recognize.

"Colonel Adams," Star Captain Fallon Kerensky of the exiled Wolves said in acknowledgement as they approached. Lilly had dearly hoped that beating him soundly in Hanse's little "weapon demonstration" would have been the end of their interaction, but apparently her luck wasn't that good.

"Pulling guard duty?" she asked without even hiding her disdain.

"I wished to see the legendary Berith for myself," Fallon responded.

"Is it everything you hoped for?" Lilly turned her attention to the Lyran officer and saluted. "Colonel Lilly Adams, Terran Hegemony Armed Forces," she said. "Here to turn over custody of Benjamin Emory, as promised."

The Lyran Komandant returned the salute. "Komandant Frederick Utz, LCAF," he replied, then motioned the doctor forward. "Doctor Cross here will take responsibility for his assessment and care."

The doctor and his assistant stepped forward as Emory's nurse offered them a datapad.

"His medical history," she said. "He's non-verbal, but alert and responsive. He likes it when you talk to him."

The doctor accepted the datapad and nodded. "We'll take good care of him," he said reassuringly. "Whatever he may have done, he's entitled to the same care as everybody else."

Lilly couldn't help but wonder how many people would actually feel the same.

-----

THS Baku
Geosynchronous orbit

A ding emitted from the console next to him as Hanse Davion observed the video feed of the transfer. The text on the screen read: What happens if they find out about me?

Berith had requested the chance to watch the handover of his old self to the Lyrans. "For old time's sake," he had said. A request Hanse had decided to grant, arranging for the transfer of the ten ton box that housed his personality to the Baku to let him observe the feed in real time. Berith always had a motive for everything he did, but security around him was as tight as it could possibly be.

"It's not a question of if," Hanse said. "Lilly's dad was terrible at keeping secrets, and he couldn't even keep yours consistent. Too many of our people already know about you, and enough of them can recognize the difference between your drones and the person we just handed over. As long as we're working with the Lyrans, it's only a matter of time until they learn about you."

So then what?

Hanse shrugged. "By both Lyran and Hegemony law, legally you don't meet the definition of 'person', much less Benjamin Emory. Agreeing to hand him over doesn't apply to you. In fact, you're proprietary, classified Hegemony technology. By all normal standards, it makes perfect sense to keep you secret."

These aren't normal standards, the next message read. You think the Archon's going to accept that?

"I'm sure she'll be bitter," Hanse said. "The more firmly established we get, the easier it will be to smooth over ruffled feathers. So try not to do anything stupid right now."

What could I do? the text asked, somehow conveying shear innocence through words on a screen. You put me in a box, in a faraday cage, in a safe, in a vault, in a nuclear resistant bunker, in another faraday cage. The only output I can manage is text and the only input I get is what you personally feed to that terminal. I'm harmless.

"If I were stupid enough to believe that, I wouldn't have put you in that box," Hanse said. The sad truth was that Hanse kept Berith around primarily because he knew he couldn't actually kill him. The computer core that Berith occupied was big, cumbersome, but it could be copied, and Hanse and his intelligence services knew it had been copied. Where, how many times, they didn't know. Until they could figure that out, identify and eliminate all of them, well...

Working towards the same goals as the Hegemony made Berith slightly less dangerous than having him as an enemy.

----

Tharkad University Hospital

"Colonel Adams," came the call from behind her as they made their way back to the shuttle. Lilly winced in frustration. Almost away too.

She turned around to face the speaker. "Fallon," she said. First name only, they hate that.

If Fallon were irritated as her dropping his bloodname, he didn't show it. "Why did you keep him alive in that state?"

She rolled her eyes. "We talked about that before..."

"I do not mean execution," Fallon said. "With all your technology... Your Director General far exceeds him in age and is as fit as a young warrior. Surely you could have repaired him."

"He didn't want to be repaired," Lilly said. And technically it wouldn't have been possible. What Emory had done to his brain in the quest of digital immortality was beyond anybody's ability to repair. "We told you that, too. The blakists didn't want longevity treatments."

Fallon still seemed confused. "Then why leave him in this state once his mind failed? It seems useless and cruel to do such a thing to him."

For a moment, Lilly almost thought that sounded like compassion. "It was his choice," she said. "Before his mind failed he left strict instructions that his life be preserved by any means necessary. I think he liked the idea of making sure he outlived all of his enemies."

Fallon seemed to contemplate that for a bit. "He knew his mind would fail then, and chose this path. I cannot fathom it."

"I imagine that's a common problem for you." Lilly said. "If that's all..."

"There is one other thing," Fallon said, strangely sounding a bit nervous. "You fought with skill in our mock battle. I would like to face you on the battlefield again in the future, in perhaps a more even contest."

Lilly desperately tried to stifle a laugh. Oh god, is this how clanners flirt? "I don't think I can handicap myself enough to make it an even fight," she said, turning away and walking up the ramp.

[Liam's Ghost]

Class A Hyperpulse Generator Station
The Triad


"Ping!" the teenage girl sitting at the console said triumphantly. "There it is, he's pinging the system."

The other observers, two LCAF technicians, two experienced HPG technicians (former Comstar) and Lieutenant Ashely Krentz (Lyran Intelligence Command) watched the feed on the monitor in amazement.

"Team Two," Ashely said into his communicator. "We're getting a signal, can you confirm?"

"We can," the team at the hospital monitoring Emory reported. "His communications implant is active and transmitting"

The girl, Warrant Officer Niki 94GG6451 ("Niki is fine"), THAF, smiled with supreme smugness, rendered only slightly creepy by the cable running from the computer on her lap to the base of her neck. "And it's answering," she said. "Told'ya."

"That is so surreal," one of the HPG technicians said. "Comstar purged these systems after the Jihad. And there's been dozens of system updates since then."

"Sure," Niki said. Her 'uniform' consisted of form fitting shorts and a short top, her hair was unruly and blue, nothing about her said military discipline, and she definitely enjoyed being right.  "But you used the same hardware. Even when you replace parts, its the same architecture. It's got the same back doors the League built into it in the first place, so as long as one HPG on the network has the package, every one on the network will eventually. You'd have to tear down and rebuild the entire control system from first principles so it can't even recognize the old protocols before you can close that hole. And basically rebuilding and re-tuning every HPG in the Inner Sphere? No way Comstar was gonna do that. Heck, it cost us a fortune to do it and we didn't even have that many. Had other benefits, though."

This piqued Ashley's interest. "Such as?"

Niki winked at him. "Secret!" she said. "Here we go, his master code. Handoff in 3, 2, 1... go!"

"Got it," one of the technicians said. "We're in." They'd come here hours before Emory was set to be handed over, bringing the inactive HPG station's main control systems back on line and rigging it up for Niki's little stunt. The basics were simple, monitor Emory's attempt to communicate with the HPG and, using the data the Hegemony had gathered studying him and his followers, piggyback on it to get access to the secrets the Blakists had hid long ago in the HPG network.

And it seemed to be working. Terabytes of data were being pulled off the mainframe, information nobody had even known was there, running through a custom written decryption program (once again, using data provided by the Hegemony) and being beamed to secure servers nearby. Everything the head of the Manei Domini could have gotten, they now had.

"He does this all the time?" Ashley asked. When the plan had been first explained to him, he'd assumed they'd somehow have to coax the largely unresponsive Emory into consciously accessing the data, not just wait for him to do it himself.

"Reflexively," Niki said. "He's constantly prodding those implants. Or at least the connectors where some of them used to be. The communications implant and the connectors for his old suicide implant in particular."

That was surprising, and unsettling. "Like he's calling for help and trying to kill everybody around him."

Niki shrugged. "Maybe. That's more of a doctor thing than a sysadmin thing, though. Hey, when this is done, you wanna get drinks afterwards?"

The sudden shift in the conversation caught him by surprise, and military discipline, the age difference, and the fact that she seemed okay with a cable sticking out of her head told him it would be a bad idea.

But his instincts as an intelligence analyst said otherwise. "Absolutely."

[Cannonshop]

liking Niki more.

[Daryk]

Another Galatea girl?  ???

[Liam's Ghost]

Dropship THS Haystack Rock
Camp Julia, outside Tharkad City

Lilly was already out of the shower and drying off when she heard the door of the adjoining stateroom open, inspiring just a bit of deja vu, though this time the door of their shared washroom was fully closed. Remembering just how last time had ended up, she didn't say anything, quietly opening the door to her own room, wondering if she could, or should, get away unnoticed.

She could hear Hanse moving around in the other room, but he didn't call out to her, so she concentrated on dressing, having decided on a conservative navy blue skirt, tights to ward off that damnable Tharkad chill, and a white blouse. Nice and professional, but nothing that could be seen as military.

It's fine, she told herself. She wasn't avoiding him after all, she was off duty now. He wasn't going to think it was weird.

Her accessories helped distract her. Handbag, wallet, a portable sat-phone. Small concealable pistol for self defense, distress beacon concealed in a fashionable bracelet for emergencies. The essentials.   

"What's to talk about, anyway?" she asked herself quietly. He'd already know the handover went well. Someone would have already brought him the initial assessment from Gibbs, or if they hadn't, well, she was off duty.

She sighed as she walked back to the washroom and crossed through to the other side. Hanse was sitting at his desk, reading over sheets of hardcopy.

"You need anything before I leave?" she asked.

Hanse looked up from his desk. "Got the investigator's initial thoughts from Gibbs," he said. "Admiral Dwyer accepts full responsibility for the loss of the Revenge." He looked her over. "Civies?"

"Seemed appropriate for seeing the town," Lilly said. The Lyrans had granted permission for Hegemony personnel on planet to leave their ships, but they'd requested things stay low key until they were ready to release more details about their allies to the public. "Isn't taking responsibility what he's supposed to do?"

"Well yeah," Hanse acknowledged. "But he made a pretty good case for it too. Says he put too much faith in the ship's point defense, and if he'd kept his dropship screen around him or stuck closer to the Redoubtable so they could cover each other it probably wouldn't have happened. Initial investigation agrees. The Falcons launched around thirty missiles as them, scored three hits. One conventional missile and one glancing nuclear hit on the Redoubtable, plus the one that killed the Revenge. Basically, Dwyer got cocky, didn't realize it in time, and it cost him."

It was a brutal assessment, made worse so by the fact that Dwyer had delivered it against himself. "So, we looking at a court martial?"

"Three hundred dead, two hundred wounded, and the pride of the fleet lost against a ship less than half its size." Hanse said. "You'd think so, but no. Problem is, everybody else was just as cocky. Nothing he did went against our tactical doctrines, and nobody else caught the vulnerability. The Senate would want someone to nail to the wall for it."

Probably. Court politics is like that. Everybody wants people to see them properly outraged. "But the senate's a thousand light years away, so..."

"So we leave it as a teachable moment," Hanse said. "I'm having the assessment, including Dwyer's own words, distributed through the fleet so we can learn from this. Hopefully we won't get caught like this again."

"Sound's good," Lilly agreed. "So was there anything else, or..."

Hanse sighed. "Don't want to keep you, but..." he hesitated. "How are you doing?"

Lilly looked away. This was precisely what she didn't want to deal with. "I'm... I'm fine."

She could feel the concern in Hanse's eyes even when she wasn't looking at him. "Are you sure about that? I know it's a lot to take in."

Lilly looked back and tried a disinterested laugh. "Which part? The fact that Satan's real, an alien, and a whole lot more messed up than we were taught in church, or that part of our mission is to save the human race from things somehow worse than him?"

"Well," Hanse said, clearly searching for something comforting to say, "not literally Satan, at least we don't think so."

Lilly rolled her eyes. "Not helping," she said. "So yeah, it's a lot to take in, and I just want to decompress for a bit."

Hanse nodded. "Do what you have to do," he said. "You need to talk, I'm here."

Lilly nodded and made for the stateroom door. That should have been all that needed to be said, and yet she still found herself stopping at the door, one hand resting on the door frame.

"Thing is," she said softly. "It was terrifying. Not just him. I mean, he was terrifying. Just looking at him I knew he was somehow wrong and terrible. It was hard just keeping it together. But somehow... you were worse."

"Lilly," Hanse said, again at a loss for words.

"You were so calm," she said. "Faced by this... thing... you never batted an eye." She looked back at him. "Don't tell me you were just faking it. We were married for forty years. I know you. I know when you're doing your wall of ice act. You were dead calm, then you told him to get the hell out. And he did. He was actually surprised, Hanse."

"Lilly," Hanse said. "It's not a person. It doesn't have human emotions. You can't take anything it does at face value."

"I know," Lilly said. "And I'm not, but..." She sighed again. "I also know there are still things you haven't told me. And I get it, I do. I've been in the service a long time, I understand need to know. And I..." she hesitated, "I trust you. I trust that when I do need to know, you'll tell me."

She turned away again. "But..." she said. "It's like you said, it's a lot to take in."

Then she left.

[Liam's Ghost]

Author's note: The "yesterday" they're talking about was posted almost four years ago. Because my capacity for consistently getting stuff out rivals George R.R. Martin.  :D

[Cannonshop]

Author's note: The "yesterday" they're talking about was posted almost four years ago. Because my capacity for consistently getting stuff out rivals George R.R. Martin.  :D

LMAO!!!

[Daryk]

Well, it doesn't feel like it's been that long...  :)

[JA Baker]

Author's note: The "yesterday" they're talking about was posted almost four years ago. Because my capacity for consistently getting stuff out rivals George R.R. Martin.  :D

Please: I've got stories I haven't touched in more than ten years in my "to get back to some day" pile.

[BATTLEMASTER]

I remember reading a character analysis topic about Berith about how his legacy could live on through the soldiers he trained.  But the TH copying his mind to a computer?!  That seems like a very poor decision.

[DOC_Agren]

Author's note: The "yesterday" they're talking about was posted almost four years ago. Because my capacity for consistently getting stuff out rivals George R.R. Martin.  :D

Because you know his is a standard all authors should work by

[Liam's Ghost]

Hanse waited until she was well away before he spoke again.

"Captain Nekotan," he said. "You listening?"

"Yes sir," came the response through his communication implant. "We'll keep eyes on her."

It wasn't surprising. It was literally Nekotan's job after all, but Hanse still felt a bit more comfortable with the confirmation. "The Lyrans will be watching too. Be careful, don't pick any fights."

"I am the very personification of the cat, sir," Nekotan replied mischievously. Those produced by Project Galatea's breading program were free to choose their own names. They usually kept the given names they were assigned at birth, but there tended to be a wide variety of surnames among them. Some kept their batch numbers, some adopted the surnames of one of their donors (with the consent of those donors), some dumped the idea of a surname entirely. Others picked a surname based on their own particular whims and personalities. According to her batch-mates, trainers, and everybody else who knew her, Captain Beverly Nekotan had chosen a very fitting name.

"Doctor Grove wanted me to ask you when you were coming in, by the way,," Nekotan said. "He also wanted me to politely remind you that he's the only person for a thousand light years that can legally remove you from duty if you don't."

Hanse sighed. Another thing not to be surprised about. "Busy day, and I've got dinner with the Archon in a little over an hour. I'll stop by in the morning."

"Understood," Nekotan said. "I'll tell him. He won't like it, but I'll tell him. With respect sir, make sure you do. He's this close to sending me after you."

Hanse chuckled darkly. "It won't come to that," he said. But that too, was part of her job, the ugly, beyond secret part of her job. Not just securing them, but securing everyone else from them, just in case their contact with the alien had unexpected consequences. Stories about this one's particular influences were never pretty, though it was hard to say where the story stopped at the truth began when it came to millennia old stories related by people in the throes of madness...

"I sure hope not," a different, disapproving voice said.

Hanse looked up at the ceiling in frustration. "Captain, what are you doing patching other personnel in on the call?"

"I told him like I said I would," Captain Nekotan replied. "He wasn't happy."

"You've got an hour before dinner," Doctor Grove said. "Lilly found time to get this done, the least you could do is follow her example."

"I still have to get cleaned up, changed, and across town," Hanse said. "There's not really space for a full workup in there."

"Self care and spatial awareness is still good," Doctor Grove said. "Vocals are good, you can still answer questions. Probably even while showering."

"I'm beginning to think these implanted communicators are a bad idea," Hanse said as he moved to the washroom.

"They're quite convenient," Doctor Grove replied. "Do you know today's date?"

"January 24, 3146," Hanse replied. "Thursday by the Terran Standard Calendar."

"Very good," Doctor Grove said. "Do you know where you are right now."

"Aboard the dropship Haystack Rock, hoping for a nice relaxing shower. At the Lyran military base Camp Julia, outside Tharkad City, on the planet of Tharkad, orbiting the star also called Tharkad. Donegal Province, Lyran Commonwealth."

"Do you know who the Director General is?"

"Me," Hanse said.

"Do you know who you're having dinner with?"

"Archon Trillian Steiner, leader of the Lyran Commonwealth, and my great granddaughter. Do you need a genealogy?"

Doctor Groves ignored that question. "Are you having thoughts of inflicting harm on yourself or others, outside of your duties as a military leader?"

"Thinking about smacking Captain Nekotan in the nose, but aside from that..."

"Note: patient is considering punching a heavily augmented special operative. Possible self harm ideation. Also note: patient is bitter about said operative doing the job he assigned her. Possible sign the patient is being an ass."

Hanse winced. "Point."

"Well," Doctor Grove concluded, "That bit aside, you seem to be presently sane enough to continue your duties. We still need to do the full scan and workup. I want you in first thing in the morning. No excuses, or I'll send both Nekotan and Lilly after you."

Lilly was probably the scarier thought. "Understood," Hanse said.

[Daryk]

I like Dr. Grove...  ^-^

[croaker]

I honestly don't know what's scarier.

That they're genre-savvy enough to have frequent sanity checks in a Cthulhu universe...

... or that Hanse has given them reason to check.

[Liam's Ghost]

The Lyrans had arranged base transport for those Hegemony personnel that wished to go into town. In Lilly's case that took the form of a staff car generously provided by the base commander. Her status as the Director General's aid gave her some benefits it seemed. Though not enough to get a solo ride, it turned out.

Warrant Officer Niki 94GG6451 was already waiting in the car when she got there, and the driver informed them they were still waiting for another person. A couple minutes later, Captain Beverly Nekotan turned up, dressed in plain clothes.

"Hi big sis!" Niki called from the car. Both her and Beverly were GG series, which made them genetically siblings, even though they were seperated by ten years and four production generations. Beverly smiled and waved in response.

"Captain Nekotan," Lilly said in acknowledgement, trying to keep her annoyance to a minimum. "Decided to get some fresh air?"

"Seemed like a good idea," Beverly replied. "Figured we could make it a girl's night out." "Niki's still securing," she added over the communication implant.

"The more the merrier, I suppose," Lilly said as she waved Beverly into the car.

"Their network transmitter is blind," Niki reported via implant. "Any receivers sensitive enough to pick up our implants are instead getting a steady loop of Gradually Watermelon's entire machine trans discography. We aren't going to get in trouble for this, are we?"

"It only counts if the surveillance is on the record," Lilly reassured her as the car started up and pulled away from the landing pad. "Spying and counterspying is just part of the politics game. Did Hanse send you both to chaperone me?"

"Normal security protocol for senior officers," Beverly assured her, though that was probably for Niki's benefit, who wouldn't know the details. "Just me, though. Niki just happened to be an asset who was handy."

"I got a date!" Niki said, her excitement coming through the implant. "Leutnant Krentz and I are going for drinks."

That was enough of a surprise that Lilly actually looked over at the young woman. "The Lyran intelligence officer? Is that really a good idea?"

Niki smiled. "Probably not, but he's cute, he's interesting, and he's in my age range."

"Niki is what we Galatea girls call 'boy crazy,'" Beverly said. "You ask me, she's the one who needs a chaperone."

"What's that supposed to mean?" Niki demanded defensively.

"I heard what you said to the Lyrans," Beverly responded. "You gave them a hint about the HPGs."

This time Lilly managed not to visibly react. "What did you do, Niki?"

"Nothing they shouldn't have already figured out," Niki insisted. "The architecture problem is absolutely basic. If they're not past that part, then their understanding of the technology is so limited that I don't know if I could reveal anything useful to them."

Lilly leaned her head back with her eyes closed, trying not to contemplate the headache that was threatening to form. "How about you try not to find out?" she asked. By all rights, she should probably tell the driver to go back to the ship and have Niki confined. "How about it, Beverly?" she asked.

"She didn't give up anything classified," Beverly replied. "And her assessment jibes with what intelligence tells us about the Inner Sphere's efforts towards fixing their HPGs. She is technically correct, but it was still careless."

"And I guess if I kick you out of the car now, the Lyrans will wonder why," Lilly concluded. "We'll leave it at a warning for now. Just keep in mind that Beverly and I will both be watching you from now on."

[Liam's Ghost]

Project Hellenstern Secure Facility
Underneath the Triad

Data surrounded her on all sides, above and below, walls, floor, and ceiling of file names and computer code. Her helper sprites moved through it all, tagging and sorting it, identifying context and cataloging it into a useful format, slowly building a directory structure according to her parameters, turning a monstrous data dump into something useable.

The Blakists hadn't been careless with all this information. Beyond the physical difficulty of accessing it, beyond the monstrous encryption the Hegemony girl's programming had cracked for them, the information's final layer of encoding was that it was written for the Word of Blake's proprietary data structure, or rather that used by their augmented Manei-Domini soldiers. The dump had given them the files, even translated them into something recognizable, but full context would take time to put together.

But that was something the machines could work on. Her cybernetically augmented mind was focused elsewhere, reviewing information on hyperpulse generator operations, theories, practices. Everything she could pull out of every electronic library she could get access to (which was nearly every one on Tharkad). The Hegemony girl's words nagged at the back of her mind. "Had other benefits, though."

"Anya," she heard a voice call from outside her world of information. "It's time for your medication."

She sighed as she paused her feed and mentally willed away the world around her. Light stabbed jolts of pain into her head as she opened her eyes. Walls of data were replaced by the sterile environment of the laboratory. The aches through her body began to reassert themselves without the connection to distract her, and her anxiety of being a frail mortal girl on a short clock came back full force.

"How are you feeling?" the orderly asked, holding a tray of medications; narcotics, anti-seizure medications, plus highly classified drugs meant to counter the long term affects of using a direct neural interface.

"That Hegemony girl," Anya said, not really caring that the orderly would have no idea who she was talking about, "I wonder if she's like me." She took the pills one at a time, washing them down with the water. "Did she have a choice? If she did, did she really understand the choice she was making?"

She looked back at the orderly, who seemed completely lost. "It's okay," she said. "I just like to talk to myself. You can go now."

The orderly beat a quick and uncomfortable retreat. Bad enough to have to deal with a dying girl, worse if she was crazy.

There was a click of a speaker initiating. "Try not to spook the orderlies like that," it said. "Menial labor with security clearance is hard to come by."

Anya laid back in her chair. "I want to learn more about them," she said. "I need to know if they're monsters or..." She found herself struggling against both fear and hope in equal measure. "Or... if maybe they can save me."

The doctor on the other end of the speaker seemed as uncomfortable as the orderly. "You... you shouldn't get your hopes up."

"I know," Anya said. By the time LIC had found her, she'd been implanted and using the interface for over a decade. The damage to her nervous system was too extreme at that point to fix, she was too dependent on the system to safely disconnect. All she could do was keep using it, hoping to do some good before her time was up. "They're probably monsters anyway. Could you please send me everything we can find out about them?"

"The director wants you to focus on the information we got from Berith."

"You don't need me for that," Anya said. "That's data sorting. It's what a machine brain is good for. I don't want to waste time on it."

There was a pause. "You were looking up HPG data just now. Why?"

"Their HPGs work, don't they?" Anya asked. "I thought I might get an idea how."

Another pause. "Any luck?"

That got their interest. Not particularly surprising. "I don't have the requisite knowledge to construct a complete hypothesis."

"But you have speculation."

"Simply that if an HPG does not work, it's because it can't work. Given the records covering past attempts to restore functionality, there are fundamental problems with how the system is designed. In short, core assumptions for how the system is supposed to work are flawed."

"But these core assumptions, as you call them, did work for hundreds of years," the doctor said skeptically. "Why would that suddenly change?"

"I don't have the requisite knowledge to answer that," Anya said. "And I am concerned that neither did Comstar."

[Daryk]

Heh... she's not wrong per se...  ^-^