Coventry system, one week later.
"...request your presence Duchess Ngo, in person if you please." The voice of Hanse Davion on the comm sent a shiver through Liz, and drew concerned looks from Nick and Jack, who'd had to endure her TDS for the last week thanks to not having enough Tyllium in the tank to pull the same stunt, and the shipping routes being disrupted.
"Answer it, tell him we're on our way." she said.
Nick nodded.
"Where are we going, anyway?" she asked.
"Landing pad at Coventry Military Academy." Jack told her.
the deck crew got their instructions, and so her Raptor had clear flying out the lock.
"We could just use the jump?" Nick suggested.
"I want to keep that one a secret a while longer, Nick." Elizabeth said, "while spreading the info would sure as heck get Tyllium prospecting up and create infrastructure, I want to see if Li's people can work out a way to get the wattage out of a fusion pack instead-if we can remove Tyllium from the equation..."
"I understand." he flew the shuttle out into the black.
from above, Coventry was a glittering blue marble covered in white clouds with the green patches and ocean swatches of an inhabitable world.
at re-entry plus eight minutes, they were joined by a pair of Stuka aerospace fighters in AFFC livery.
The landing pads at Coventry were for spheroid dropships and K-1 shuttles, the Raptor was tiny by comparison with either one. Nick touched it down on the designated pad, and powered down the engine before opening the outer door.
Jack led the stepping out, which made the guard detail nervous enough to level their Federated Long Rifles at him, and for the support PPC's and machine guns to be readied.
Elizabeth got out with Jack's help, and then waited for Nick to come out and stand beside her.
"careful, those guys are the First Prince's bodyguards." she said, crossing her arms and waiting for someone else to make the first move.
Hanse Davion was accompanied by a boy roughly her age. "Hello, Elizabeth. Sorry for the sudden summons." Hanse told her as soon as he was in range. His bodyguards didn't lose their alert pose, until he motioned for calm and gave the all clear.
"Yeah, lucky me, I was in the neighbourhood." she said, "I'm still pissed at you about Stoney-it wasn't your plan, but technically it was your man. What does the leader of the Federated Commonwealth, and his..crap. Nick, you're supposed to warn me when I'm being inappropriate!"
"sorry mum." Nick replied, "but Jack is your carer."
"right."
"Um Carer?" the boy asked.
"I care so she doesn't have to." Jack and nick had begun doing this routine every time now.
"Unaccompanied minors need protection." Nick continued.
"We keep the creeps off of her." Jack added.
"they're my bodyguard unit for now, Highness." Elizabeth stated.
"Did you hire them for the humour then?" Hanse asked, while advancing.
"Long trips, alone, it gets dull." she said with a shrug. "Hanse Davion, First Prince of the Federated Suns, Husband to the Archon of the Lyran Commonwealth, This is Warrant officers Jack Slaesh and Nick Choppah-don't ask me why they picked those spellings, I don't know. They're my staff on this trip...and most of the time." she sighed, "what does the Federated Commonwealth Alliance need me to do?"
"Elizabeth Ngo, Duchess of Kowloon, this is my youngest son, Arthur, He is accompanying me on this trip, and he won't be accompanying us into the secure room where I need to speak with you."
"Nick, guard our ride." she said, "Jack, you're on me."
"Yes mum."
"Guard our ride?" Hans asked, "From what?"
"it's not home yet, has several prototype technologies on it, and my people haven't finished filing patents on those. This is a Miliary academy and it bears a close resemblance to a jeep. I don't want Marines stealing it or rifling through my underwear." she cracked.
"I swear I heard Katrina make that joke once-or something like it."
"I heard it from my dad. anyway, it's not strictly mine, it belongs to the Kowloonese taxpayers, and therefore, while it is loaned to me, I have to make sure it's cared for. Nick's my pilot and he's also a Kowloonese citizen, thus, one of the taxpayers whose property it is."
"Father, what is she on about?"
"Civics, Arthur. Unless I mistake it, Elizabeth believes the power of the Nobility is not god-granted, but instead, granted by the citizens they govern?"
"correct." Liz said, "A ruler who forgets that usually ends up strung up from a lamp-post the first time they have to rely on that grant, we can only govern by the consent of those we govern, the people invest that authority and woe to the people who choose wrongly, and to the ruler who abuses it."
"You've been very busy since you took over." he said as the doors to the field building closed behind Jack, who trailed the two flanked by Davion troops.
"I have limited time." She said, "staying busy is kind of a job requirement, lots of messes to clean up and problems to fix."
an aide opened the door to a room containing a chamber. "mind leaving the bodyguards outside the room, Duchess? and Arthur, you need to stay out there too. Hang out with Jack for now."
"Yes father."
she followed him in.
there were holoprints and images on the table.
"You're probably right about stationing 'nick' to watch over your ship." he said.
there were sharp images of the Raptor, then the flash, and then it gone.
"I did mention prototypes." she said. "I was...compelled to get to Arc Royal by the fastest route available, that meant an unscheduled test flight."
"I heard. Good work straightening that mess out." he told her. "Tell me, when were you going to announce this?"
"I wasn't." she said, "Not until we can keep it working reliably. There's a reason I only used it to go from Jumpship to Jumpship. The energy source is...rare is an understatement. We either figure out a way to make more, a way to find more, or that's the last time it'll be flown."
another image he laid down. It showed a spiny, anemone-like shape in orbit over a planet.
"This?" he asked.
Liz bit her lip. "They're very nice people." she said.
"They're where you got the drive for your little 'space jeep'?"
she nodded.
"And I assume Nick and Jack outside, are these aliens too?"
"They're not the Clans."
"No, the Clans are human beings. I'm feeling like I'm in a science-fiction movie. You're not making alliances with alien races, are you?"
"I don't have that authority. it's a business relationship...mostly. but it's also taking in refugees, as detailed under Kowloon's Planetary Constitution."
"Refugees...jesus, Elizabeth, I thought you had some sense." he shook his head, "you should have come to us."
"I was going to, just as soon as...as soon as the realm wasn't locked in a war with super-advanced lunatics, we've already had an alien scare, and these guys are decent people."
"and you're using them to help rebuild Kowloon." he said.
"yeah." she looked at her shoes.
"Comstar gave me those images." he told her, "THey think these guys are a threat."
she looked up.
"I'm not sure." he said, "I've had evidence that Comstar is a threat."
"The interdiction during both wars, and the 'loss of communication' in the occupied zones?" she hazarded.
"Lost communication before they hit each world." Hanse corrected her. "you've done an okay job keeping this quiet up until the Arc Royal trip, do you think you can spin this or keep it quiet a little longer? and what do these aliens look like outside those armors?"
"A lot of them look like us, Highness." Liz said. "a funny accent, and that's really it. The guys in the armor? can't take it off."
"Oh?"
"Yeah. very sensitive to environments we're comfortable in, lethal to them." she emphasized, "they kind of have to stay in the suits for their whole lives. They had to fight to be free, Highness-they used to be slaves."
"Hence, refugees." he said.
she nodded. "yeah, some place in the deeps past the periphery. You know I have a moral duty on that."
"yeah. Article two of your world's original constitution." he said. "Alright so you have contact with refugees from an advanced alien civilization and you're pumping them for technical data while you're sheltering them...when were you going to share it with the rest of us?"
"Cy-Lon industries." she said, "Medical department, those new artificial eyes? the prosthetic limbs that are better than myomer implants because they feel?" she touched the holos on the table. "That's phase one. I've got people at the Groves subsidiary working with their engineers and the tech for those...'encounter suits', to develop a counter to the Clans' battle armor-something we can build in large numbers that isn't a crude copy."
"Go on."
"The prototype drive on my shuttle's one more angle, only we need to fix the power supply problem." she looked up, "once we've licked it and fixed it, we might be able to fit it to a fighter-sized platform. Imagine being able to launch an air-raid on the damn Jade Falcons from five Light Years away, and appear too close for them to scramble before your strike fighters have knocked out their airfield? we can't do it now, we don't have the go-juice, but when we do...you'll be able to re-write the whole rulebook, Highness." she found a student's desk, and flopped into it, "Or, we fail, the FedCom hasn't lost any money investing in a dead end technology and I die of embarrassment before the Cholmann's kills me."
"What are their weaknesses? besides the 'allergy'?"
"Well... they don't understand a lot of their own gear." she said, "it's going to take us years to reverse engineer a lot of it, especially the drives, their radar's pretty good and their Lidar systems are great, their computers are top-notch but we're not tooled up to produce them in quantity yet, armors?" she made a tipping gesture, "Not so great, they've got some light autocannons that are very light, but dont' hit very hard, and they have nuclear missiles, but not much in-between, no directed energy weapons to speak of-no lasers, no PPCs of any kind. Conventional missiles are about like ours, we've done engineering for conversion to use the dimensions of munitions already in production here in the Commonwealth, and Groves did some testing that showed promise on a selectable field missile system for vehicles-something like a launcher that can fire our short range, their missiles, and our long range missile munitions without jamming-but that's prototype level stuff still, barely past tool room proof of concept."
"How bad?"
"Well, an SB-27 can carve up that base-star pretty quickly assuming it can survive the flak and doesn't get pinked with a mini-nuke."
"You make machinery that makes armor plate." he noted.
"Yeah, and they're immigrating." she said, "becoming citizens. heck, Nick and Jack pay taxes."
Hanse sighed heavily. "I want progress reports." he said.
"Excuse me?"
"WE want progress reports, Melissa and I, and an observer on Kowloon to make sure these aliens aren't up to something shady." he clarified.
"We can take care of that!"
"I'm sure you believe you can. On the other hand, having a FedCom RCT ready to deploy in case someone decides you can't, or that, god help me, your friends need to vanish in a mushroom cloud? Yeah, I want observers, On Kowloon, and regular reports on your progress, Elizabeth, this isn't negotiable."
"You just said you don't trust Comstar. How am I supposed to report?"
he walked to a briefcase, "Let me introduce you to the Black Box." he opened it. "portable, unjammable, completely outside the grasp of the Robes."
"if we put one of those on every ship..." she mused.
"not every ship." he told her.
"How about just..oh...hmm..who would be too pedestrian...How about a contract to build them?" she asked.
Hanse stopped. "What??"
"a contract to build them, and to make spare parts. I bet I can set up a production line that will be able to guarantee every RCT on the Clan front has this faster-than-light communications in place, you'll be able to coordinate units further, faster, and more securely than ever before."
"I'll consider it. for now, you'll take this black box, you won't let anyone else use it, I want weekly to monthly updates." he told her, "my man will go with you on your shuttle back."
"Not negotiable?"
he shook his head.
"Gonna be cramped...okay." she knew she was between the rock, and the very hard place.