"Steal, buy, or Build?" (a Ngoverse piece.)

[Ramblefire]

1.1 trillion is a lot of money. A fraction of a fraction of the projected profit from that deal would pay for a protection detail that could conquer entire small periphery nations if so inclined.

[Blade4]

Good luck getting any of those people back any time soon. They are going to be priority targets to shank or kidnap and once there will be so valuable they wont be able to afford them leaving. At least not till they train up several generations of workers and techs. Though that is a sweet prize. Hope it is worth it when comstar starts sending ops in the systems or the clans realize a actual threat is on their borders.

[Cannonshop]

The Rack...

...that's what Morrison's Extractors call it.  It's February of 3056, and this world, as well as the capital the Extractors and their sub-contracters term "Pain" have been located.

The last piece to the puzzle landed when they hit Timbuktu. 

"We've got hull numbers and locations, this is the bulk of their fleet-zenith and nadir positions are indexed, mum."  Seether reported.

Giao Pham nodded.  "Okay...first, marines to boarding shuttles, fighter wings stand by.  Cutters 2-2, 2-3, and 2-1 are to move on the zenith point directly, orders are to take as many of those ships as you can in the next six hours.  Cutters 1-1, 1-3, and 1-4 move the Nadir point with the same orders.  Cut hulls, watch for high value captives and rescue any you can. If you can't secure the ship in six hours, cut their ****** cores in half. Cutters 2-4 and 1-2 are to move on the planetary orbital, dropship eleminination.  Destroy anything bigger than a sparrow that tries to lift.  Tenders for patrols one and two are to stand by at holding stations with their new Black Box comms on recieve and relay.  We do this by the book, once we've destroyed their spacelift and taken or destroyed the jumpships, we call in the Timbuktu Militia and the Crazy eights to land and take the ****** pirates on the ground with support from neutrino detectors on the cutters to locate enemy force concentrations.  Go is sixteen hours, forty minutes, match Chronometers?" she waited a few seconds, "Mark! and confirm."

This mission would be different from what 3 squadron was doing to Morrison's capital.  At Pain, Bianh Vu Dao was about to demonstrate Kowloonese Liberation Method One.

Rocks  were going to fall before the AFFC regulars from 7th Crucis  arrived.

Operation: Bug Spray was finally on.

[mikecj]

Loonies throwing rocks... Manny & Mike would be proud.  Now if only the targets were Terrans...

[Cannonshop]

Advisory Group, Cambiano, en-route...

"...training issues, mostly." CPO Dinh Levine commented to the 'guest' that boarded at the Tharkad turnover.

Naomi frowned, "Training issues?"

"Yeah.  We've been getting a lot of recruits who aren't really suitable, so there's issues, last class broke the five percent rule." he said, "mostly Dehteyfeet from cities, Her Grace started demanding anyone signing up go through Dive and Submariner training first to weed out the self-propelled bodybags."

"What's the...five percent rule??" she asked.

"Deaths in training.  Five percent or less is acceptable on the doctrine that a death in training prevents ten in the field." he stated blandly.  "Last course I ran, we had a kid from Coventry lose his shet on week eleven, opened his puptent and went for a walk without his helmet because he was so...he wasn't suited, so he unsuited in hard vacuum. Hell of a mess to clean up, traumatized the hell out of his shelter buddies, it was only eleven weeks in, too, so some of the shrinks in Recruitment got their pinkslips for missing the signs."

"eleven weeks in? what were they doing in hard vacuum only eleven weeks into training?" she asked.

"It's basic training." He explained, "For the first twelve weeks you live in your suit about three AU out from the system primary, on a rock, using survival tents, classes are held outside or in special facilities rooms.  everything you eat is recycled or added to the suit's cyclers.  it's really not a big deal, except planetborns sometimes lose their composure after a while, but yeah, eleven weeks was fast for it.  once you're through basic, then you move on to MOS training, which is another three months to a year, and finally Fleet Survival School for crewers or Marine SERE for Aviators and Marines, which is usually the first time after arrival that you get stuck on a planet.  Mine was at VDL on Kowloon, it was my first time on a habitable world with an open sky, I get why so many guys bug out about that, it really DOES feel like you're just exposed to radiation and about to lose air press, and everything DOES smell funny."

"How long were you there?"

"Oh, three months, but it felt like three years." he laughed, "I'm a Hatter-born boy, our ancestors painted the ceiling blue and white but it just isn't the same thing at all...okay, Miss Cadet Midshipman, your suit inspection's complete per AFFC guidelines, no tears, no delams or abrasions.  I'm going to step out into the corridor while you get naked and put your guest-bag on."

"Guest-bag?"

"Well, you're AFFC regulars-or at least, you will be when you graduate NAIS, your suit's AFFC issue...which means it's not a fitted skinsuit like mine." he tugged his overgarment to show her the helmet-ring connections  "So it's like the P-suits we give kids or visitors, aka a 'guest bag' because it's baggy, right?"

"You...wear it everywhere?"

"Like a second skin." he confirmed, "Coast Guard regs, ma'am, Pressure suits are worn at all times with helmet kept close at hand, even on surface duty or guestscort duties, I can shuck for maintenance in a secured environment, but otherwise while I'm on duty the suit is on me, same for the rest of the security detail."

"How awful.."

"Not really, the skinsuit's got thermal exchangers and fluid scavenging to keep the cyler fed and prevent skinrot, which also results in being warm and cozy down to minus 250 celsius or plus sixty with the helmet on, which when you're stuck on a Planet means you don't run the risk of hypothermia on a world like Winter, or heat stroke on a planet like Kowloon in High Summer..and with the right overgarment? being planetside and moving around helps to recharge the power for the passive systems at a better rate than the piezos in the mid-skin can do it otherwise.  It also works as a dive suit down to negative ninety fathoms with the right rebreather.  Marines are expected to perform in all environments, kinda like you 'mechwarriors, only we don't have to lug around thirty five to ninety tons of armor and weapons."

"My Land Air 'mech is only fifty tons." she said.

"right." he grinned, "Anyway, the CO wanted me to give you a thumbnail walk-through of procedures, and that means you need to suit up, so if'n you will excuse me, milady, I'll be in the corridor when you're suited up."

[Cannonshop]

A note about Kowloon's Coast Guard training...

...for "Blackwater" or space service. 

it's ungodly expensive.  how expensive is it? it's expensive enough that a five percent loss rate is considered 'acceptable casualties' in BASIC training, with another five percent being acceptable among those who survive basic, when they go through the final phase or 'Planetary biome survival' training.

IOW it's expensive enough that even with the best efforts to prevent it, people die.

routinely.

It's ungodly expensive for other reasons too.  Equipment per trainee is worth several hundred thousand kroner, there's the transportation costs, the costs involved in breakage, the costs involved in treating injuries and 'near death experiences', costs paid out to families of the maimed or killed.

what do you get for all of this?

Well, you get (with Marines in particular) Infantry that can operate in any reasonably hostile environment as if they were out in the open in a clear day on a nice, temperate world, trained in both regular infantry tasks, and more specialized tasks such as recon, electronic intrusion, data warfare, regular warfare, EOD, Demolitions, small unit AND large unit operations, field investigations, Criminal investigation, civil affairs, minor engineering tasks, or major engineering tasks.

All at roughly four times the price of an AFFC regulars formation ten times the size.

Marines fall somewhere between 'Regulars' and 'Special Forces' in terms of quality after they finish their initial training tour.

This, is because all of that training is to fill the role they were recruited for, which is a broad-based generalist role in any environment, where the mission parameters can change in a heartbeat and the equipment is by necessity limited.

Where they really SHINE is in close quarters or vacuum combat, or null gee environments.

and the cost is horrific by any reasonable military standard of the 3050s, eclipsed only and solely by the expense of training actual 'mechwarriors.

Thus, there aren't (Proportionally) a lot of these guys running around compared to, say, Royal Guards formations or Crucis Lancers, both examples of proper military formations whose training may not be nearly as expensive, but whose military utility is far more easily demonstrated for the expense.

[Intermittent_Coherence]

Just pointing out that there aren't any canon 45-ton LAM designs.
Stinger and Wasp are 30, Phoenix Hawk is at 50.

[glitterboy2098]

(never mind)

[Cannonshop]

Just pointing out that there aren't any canon 45-ton LAM designs.
Stinger and Wasp are 30, Phoenix Hawk is at 50.

Good catch, text fixed.

[Cannonshop]

"You can't do this to me!! Don't you realize who...

...I am??" the prisoner almost screamed.

Corpsman 1st Class Nick Quhon adjusted the restraints.  "I really don't care." he said, "You're a patient, but you're also a prisoner. My job is to keep you alive for trial."

The man glared at him, and spat at him.

Nick caught the globule of snot and saliva with a mini-vac, then prepped the IV needle with only a mild expression of disgust.  "If you struggle, I might have to stick you twice." he said, "if you struggle enough, your arm will look like hamburger, I'll have one of the Marines shove a nitrous mask over your shouting mouth and trust me, Corporal Linklater can break bones without breaking skin or other blood vessels, and she likes to do it, which means you'll wake up at trial with your mouth wired shut."

The Prisoner's eyes grew more frenzied, and Nick added, "Which will make speaking in your own defense at sentencing a lot harder to do, so how about we relax a little bit, so I can keep the inhalants for the trauma cases, hmm?"

The man thrashed more, trying to get the restraints to...what? break? slip off? Nick nodded to the mentioned Corporal.

Daisy Linklater, two and a half years ago, was a hog farmer in the inland side of Arluna.  Two years of Marine training had just about knocked back her accent to something understandable, but the girl had a gift for controlled violence.

She proceeded to employ this gift, in restraining the prisoner's head, and forcing a rebreather linked to Anesthesia over the man's nose and mouth-without breaking the man's nose, or jaw, then forcing the mouth open with pressure to the base of the jaw bone.

The prisoner went limp, which let Nick slide the IV into place, and start the drip that would keep Hopper Morrison quiet until he could be delivered for Arraignment.

"He's a slaver." she drawled.

"I know, but Her Grace wants this one in front of a Judge, and some cameras."  Nick replied, "So...we make sure he arrives alive and un-damaged so the public can watch him flail and scream before they hang the son of a bitch."

"You sure y'caint jes slip up a little so's he don't wake up? This'n bastahd maht get a free ride f'um Lohengrin 'r Loki." she mused.

"No." he said, "Daisy, we don't do that, not without orders, and I don't do that at all, you know this."

"Ah knows." she nodded, "but et's a nahce 'maginin, seein scum lahk thes go to god direc."

"Judge not, lest ye be judged." Nick said grimly, "Mortal justice isn't the Lord's justice."

She eyed him, "Ayeh, et ain't.  God don't hafta live with gettin' et wrong, nor with the crimes these precks done to th' innocent, but we do."

He looked pained.  "It's not my place, nor yours, Corporal...but yeah, it's a fun fantasy.  Let's get this guy into a pod-shell.  He'll be in a medically induced coma on monitoring until we get back, and then, you can tell me more stories about what it's like to grow up on a planet, okay?"

"A'raht."

Some rough edges don't get sanded off in two years of Marine training and Coast Guard Service.

[idea weenie]

Good luck getting any of those people back any time soon. They are going to be priority targets to shank or kidnap and once there will be so valuable they wont be able to afford them leaving. At least not till they train up several generations of workers and techs. Though that is a sweet prize. Hope it is worth it when comstar starts sending ops in the systems or the clans realize a actual threat is on their borders.

One idea might be getting Victor to take personal oaths from the Belter organizations that are offered to live if the FedSuns half.  The key is to make it where the Belters are a separate force to avoid any of the local Dukes from trying to tax them.  Victor gets a small separate source of income and the Belters get access to the full Davion markets (selling refined and Zero-G materials while buying foodstocks and similar stuff).

He may have to limit them to uninhabited systems, and if they go into an inhabited system they are treated as a corporation selling materials to the local noble.

Liz might be happy that the Belters have a fall-back position in case something happens on her side of the Inner Sphere.  Belters might like it as having a backup is always a good idea.

[Cannonshop]

Profiles in local powers: Arluna and House Diego

House Diego descends from the commander of the LCAF unit that subdued and conquered the Rim Worlds Republic planet of Arluna sometime during the Steiner push to claim the corpse of that defeated nation.  As with most of the lesser houses on that world, all of whom trace a lineage back to that conquest.

Thus, the official languages spoken in most of the urban and wealthy areas are either German, or Spanish, which is taught in all planetary schools from preschool up to grade 7.

Arluna has some of the most pleasant beaches and resorts in the Periphery March of the Federated Commonwealth, as well as dense jungles near the world's equators, and temperate highlands.

In those highlands, the language is a dialect of English spoken by the descendants of Arluna's original settlers-the ones from the Rim Worlds Republic, the ones who lost the planet, and the war.

Every world has an equivalent, even worlds that were not conquered, but instead, settled.  In some places they are called 'rednecks' or 'hillbillies' or some local language variant.  On Arluna, they are known as "Hillfolk" and that's the most common perjorative off-world as well.

They are a permanent underclass, in some ways still being punished three centuries later for Stephan Amaris and the crimes of the Rim Worlds Republic (though nobody would openly admit it, least of all Duke Jesus Don Diego, planetary noble steward of Arluna in the name of the Archon).

The Diego family own a number of recreational and industrial concerns on Arluna's surface, making them 229th out of the Lyran State's inhabited system leaders post-Clan invasion.

House Diego's militia is heavily slanted toward mobile Infantry and conventional forces optimized for domestic control, but they do maintain a battalion of Battlemechs as the formal Planetary forces, along with a wing of Aerospace fighters based mostly on the coasts.

Prior to the Archon Prince's decree in 3055, the Arluna System's belts contained a remnant Rim Worlds Republic naval facility that was left to rot unused and unrepaired.  The Kowloon Coast Guard claimed that facility, and renamed it the rather unimaginative "CNAS (Coast Guard Naval Air Station) Arluna-one."

this has, within only a year, increased tourism to Arluna and bolstered trade, as the Coasties were able to get the inspection and repair station up and running quite quickly, making this world slightly more important to local trade routes, and thus, much more profitable.

Duke Diego has permitted Coast Guard recruiting stations to be set up in Ciudad Oxford, Ciudad Madrid (his capital), Ciudad Glasgow, and Ciudad Folsum in the Hill country (this last one co-located with the already existing LCAF/AFFC infantry recruiting station, which has been generationally known as one of the ways to escape poverty for Hillfolk willing to leave Arluna).

Despite frequent complaints from nongovernmental groups such as "Human rights Now!" and "the Center for ethnic equality", Arluna's internal divisions are not seen as a significant issue by the Commonwealth Courts, nor by Lohengrin or LIC's domestic branch, and the relatively high rate of willing recruits to LCAF (and now, AFFC) infantry forces from the Arlunan hill country are simply dismissed as 'outstanding patriotism' rather than an escape from brutal Rural poverty conditions imposed by a planetary culture that still to this day, disdains those who lost the war and despite laws to the contrary, still maintains a form of apartheid based on ethnic origin in the region.

All of which, Duke Diego has, at times, either justified, or refused to acknowledge exists.

it is known, however, that Hillfolk troops tend to make military service a lifelong career, and rarely return to the world of their birth without very, very, very, good reasons.

[Cannonshop]

"The recruits from Arluna aren't...

...necessarily bad, your Grace, plenty of our pre-recruits from AFFC rejects are doing fine in service as we speak, but..." Alicia Li let it hang.

"But?" Elizabeth asked.

"But, we've had to put in remedial sections to get them up to basic standards." the Commodore of the Coast Guard stated.  "They're good fighters, most learn fast enough, but there are significant gaps in basic understandings and education."

"So don't recruit there?" Liz suggested.

"I'd rather NOT do that.  They're capable enough once you get them through a few basic classes they should be getting at home and aren't."

"You wouldn't care about that if there wasn't something else bugging you, Li." Elizabeth rolled a shoulder, wincing at the strained tendons from her latest 'accident'-the one now adding anti-seizure drugs to her daily intake of pharmaceuticals.  "Out with it."

"I perused some of the old complaints from...humanitarian nongovernmental organizations." Li told her.

"and?"

"And they match what we're seeing." Li frowned. "this is not right, in the old days, in the REAL old days, they'd be prime for our ancestors to be adopting the old fashioned way."

"You mean, the way that got Beltas and The Folk that legend about kidnapping children." Liz scowled, "The way that Levine001 founded two co-ops, one of which became the Deen coop?"

"Ayeh."

"We don't do that anymore, Li." Elizabeth stated, "They're not enslaved dammit, we don't have the rights."

"I KNOW." Li said, "but...Your Grace, those people are being suppressed and abused, and their government is covering it up, and maybe worse."

"What do you want me to do, Li? I can't send in a taskforce to...****** , I don't even know!"

"Could you talk to the Archon maybe?" Li asked, "Get someone neutral to have a look down there?"

"I don't have the influence, but I know that Rowe-McClaren has a facility on world, and I know Daphne Rowe would be horrified if what you're suggesting, is going on near one of her father's facilities."  Liz winced, "I'll...I'll talk to her, okay? maybe she can put the arm on Diego if he IS mistreating a whole ethnic populace."  dammit Maggie, you're right about needing to bury the hatchet!!

[Cannonshop]

Trianna loved to watch arrivals...

...at the Zenith point,  the Anti-Spinward Routes especially.  Ships from foreign stars, distant and exotic places she might one day go, once she was old enough to join the AFFC.

"today watch closely, Trianna." her Mother said.

"What's today?" Trianna asked.

"Someone who hasn't come this way in your lifetime." her mother told her, "If you see it, and you can guess, there's a surprise for you."

It was enough to have the young girl camped at the telescopes on her family's burrow, watching instead of reading romantic stories of 'mechs and distant places.

The first arrivals weren't interesting-just the usual ships from Boeing Galax doing their shake-downs, or the usual litany of tramp ships.  She could identify the usual shipping lines, but today, there were two ships of The Folk, distant cousins of Cambriona's Belters-spacers without a State, carrying Cargoes in trade for food or fuel, often such ships stopped here, because other ports brought out armed patrol ships searching for contraband.  When the Wars start, the Folk flee is well known-and she knew, justified by the habit of every major Power seizing their ships and demanding services other than carrying peaceful cargo.  Two Folk ships meant that the Cappie border was quiet, and the Draconis Combine's border was quiet-a sign of good fortune for billions.

But Folk ships had been coming-and going-for months now, so that wasn't what her mother wanted her to see.

The Detectors went off, announcing a huge thermal bloom-and she perked up, checking time by reflex.  21:30 Universal Time Index she noted.  What could it be??

The flash was...off, and then, at the Zenith point, floated five ships, four of them didn't have drop-collars.  The fifth, the one in the middle of the formation, was loaded with six large dropships (Mammoth copies?).

"MOTHER!!!" she felt her breath hitch for a moment, seeing the small fleet at the Zenith point, because a fleet is what it looked like.

Four of them the identifier was flashing between Type 51 gunboat and Unknown variant and she dialed up the magnification.

All five ships had a single roundel on the bow-the four odd variants of an ancient combat vessel, and the Tramp class in the middle of the formation with an added 20 meters of length.

The Roundel, was a stylized black-and-white fish? or just an abstract design or...

"see?" her mother said in her ear.

"What's the design on their markings mother?" Trianna asked.

"That is a representation of Orca Orcinis." her mother told her, "The killer Whale, enemy to all sharks."

"That..." her memory frantically searched through her history classes.  "Killer Whale...Orca...you mean-those?? They're...mother, what line uses that mark?"

"Not a line, dear." her mother told her.  "Those are ships from Kowloon."  Mother told her, "They are Rokkajakkah ships, like in the history of the Amaris war...and the last time ships with that mark came this way, it was to kill the Amaris Empire with General Kerensky."

"where are they going?" she asked.

"Cambiano." her mother told her, "up the Galax route."

"Why? did someone do something terrible there?"

"no dear." her mother told her.  "Nobody has done something terrible there."

Trianna watched through the telescope as the foreign ships opened their sails, which she could barely see, at first, because they were so...light-eating black, like fairy tale monsters or beasts from dark legends of a past almost lost.

Kowloon's ships in Elbar's space once again, the Avengers of Elbar's holocaust come for a visit after centuries away. 

"Remember this-they did come back." Her mother told her, "They are still out there if anyone tries it again...now, back to your proper studies young lady! the AFFC doesn't accept applicants who aren't top form!"

[Cannonshop]

Naomi got up early...

... and wandered to the mess-deck of the KCG Lady Maria.  They'd decorated the mess deck with banners and a small menorah near the starboard bulkhead.

"what's going on, Chief?" she asked, "Why the decorations?"

"We're charging in the Elbar system." the CPO told her, as if that explained everything.

"I...I don't understand."

"History." he said, "Don't worry ma'am, we'll be back on schedule after this, but first the Honor Detail has to go down to the Planet."

Honor Detail?  "You mean there's a landing party?"

"Not so much. Just a select detail." he told her, "Here to render respect to the fallen, Mum. It's the first time in over two hundred years, but honors must be rendered."

Her mind raced, disconnected bits of history classes and..."Elbar, you said?"

"Ayeh Ma'am." he said firmly.

the picture clarified in her mind's eye.  "Running Deer Mountain-the Battle for Elbar! the Liberation!"

"Aye Ma'am." he nodded. 

Breakfast began with a prayer in Hebrew, for the millions murdered for their parts by the Amaris Empire.  fourteen million people carved up for spares before Kerensky's armies put an end to it...no, before KOWLOON's volunteers put an end to it-and crucified the perpetrators. her memory reminded her. 

They weren't here to honor the soldiers, they were here to honor the victims their ancestors couldn't save in time.

it was far different from  the almost perfunctory mentions in her military history classes-one more atrocity by Amaris was dwarfed by Kentares, after all...but it meant something to these people.

The benediction ended with the ship's company repeating the last words, and then, the food for this shift was served.

[Cannonshop]

In the north highlands of the Ia Drang plateau...

...Elizabeth Ngo knelt and bowed her head. one of the many hidden tasks a Duke of Kowloon must observe, is attending the Elbar memorials held here on Kowloon, and the best one for a Duke to attend, is held at the Kahanist Synagogue overlooking New Tel Aviv.  The place wasn't even open to gentiles most of the year, but on Elbar Day, it was open to any and all native Kowloonese, and thousands made the trip up Highway Two through Hue and Brigham City, across the almost-arcology of Ia Drang Canyon city itself, into the high country where so many Elbar survivors came as refugees after the liberation centuries ago, to attend and pay honors and respects. 

Not to the soldiers who died in the fighting to liberate Running Deer Mountain and discover the atrocity within, but to honor those who died before they could be saved.

Her father hated it, but her Grandfather instilled it in her that this was important to her soul before she learned to read, and so, she honored it now as she always did, and at the end of the benediction, she, like so many others, repeated the final words.

"Never Again."  and for a moment, she could feel it in her bones, in her soul, the Promise, the oath, all too often forgotten.

No more holocausts.

Her own study of her world's history showed that Colonel Tranh Truk Ngo's oldest son died with the rest of the 171st trying to reach Kentares in the First Succession War, trying to honor that promise when the Lyrans refused to move because it was a 'davion problem' and her ancestor Marjorie had been unable to persuade the archon of that time to do more than permit the transit.

Their ships had been destroyed by the DCMS two jumps short of their goal, a forgotten footnote.

but she felt the weight of that promise today, especially.

A patrol of the Coast Guard would be in Elbar's system, the first time in centuries, and she hoped Captain Deen would stop and render honors, that Tradition was strong enough...

Because Kowloon would need all the luck they could get, sooner rather than later.

She could feel it.

[Cannonshop]

Werner Siegfield...

...had enjoyed his relationship with Hopper Morrison.  He'd enjoyed the privileges he'd gotten on his visits, the special treats the Pirate King gave to his most effective business partner, and the access things forbidden in his normal duties as a Comstar Acolyte.

Especially the tasty morsels his intel granted him from Morrison's captures.

"Werner Siegfried, Adept, Comstar...you are bound by law."  The young man standing at his door wasn't with ROM.  "How did you get in-"

"We were admitted after providing evidence to your superior. you are bound by law, your writ of immunity has been suspended by your superior on Tharkad, and confirmed by the First Circuit.  You are to be arrested, and brought to trial for..." the young man raised a Padd, "Sixty four counts of gross perversion with a minor, one hundred twenty counts of sexual assault against adults, and one hundred eighty four counts of first degree murder.  You have the right to remain silent, you have the right to request an attorney at your arraignment, you have the right to legal counsel, and the right to spiritual counsel upon your conviction, do you understand these rights as I have read them to you?"

"What!??"

"We're also going to charge you with conspiracy and espionage, along with providing aid and comfort to enemies of the human race." the young man commented, "you can resist, if you think it'll work, because I really would like to just beat the hell out of you all day, and all night...but procedure dictates I'm required to give you the option of coming along quietly, you sick ******. You disgrace the human race by existing."

Werner apparently decided that he might be able to take a man twenty years his junior in supreme, conditioned health.

It did not go according to his plan.

Sargeant Lee Moskoski managed to keep from killing the perp...barely, though he did decide that preventing an escape when the man came to consciousness was a priority in his mission, so he used his bayonet to cut the pervert's hamstrings and the tendons in the pervert's arms, making for a slightly overweight bundle of screams and groans as he and his fireteam carried the disgraced Acolyte from his quarters and out to a waiting Fennec class armored rover car.

"Hope they let us stake this ****** after the trial." Lee said.  "Stand him up as an example to the rest..."


To Sgt. Moskoski's chagrin, there would be no impaling the fallen adept-Comstar insisted on Extradition after the trial to face a Comstar court for related offenses, and the Archon Prince signed off permitting it.

[Blade4]

One idea might be getting Victor to take personal oaths from the Belter organizations that are offered to live if the FedSuns half.  The key is to make it where the Belters are a separate force to avoid any of the local Dukes from trying to tax them.  Victor gets a small separate source of income and the Belters get access to the full Davion markets (selling refined and Zero-G materials while buying foodstocks and similar stuff).

He may have to limit them to uninhabited systems, and if they go into an inhabited system they are treated as a corporation selling materials to the local noble.

Liz might be happy that the Belters have a fall-back position in case something happens on her side of the Inner Sphere.  Belters might like it as having a backup is always a good idea.

Problem is primarily two fold. Why swear fealty to a dirtyfeet who has no ties of kinship and knows nothing of their culture or even existence? And ties into second problem of can they trust his successor? Kowloon is trusted because they have blood ties and they know that in 20 years it will still be there and a home. Like one of the latest updates states Folk flee when war starts because it only ends badly for them. Can they trust that in twenty year that Victor will not ****** them over for his states advantage? Will who ever come after him?

[Daryk]

AAAAAA!!!  I couldn't finish reading before I left for work, and there was MORE when I got home!  :o

Such good stuff about Elbar...  :'(

Too bad about the ComStar Acolyte... I fear he'll return among the Manei Domini...  :-\

[DOC_Agren]

Glad to see that there are still those who remember, so will we see Trianna in the coast guard if this story goes that far out

[Daryk]

I think Cannonshop has established that "Real Spacers" exist... that they exist elsewhere in his universe is a given...  ^-^

[Cannonshop]

They'd been preparing to take...

...it apart for reverse engineering when Daphne Rowe showed up and halted all work.  "We've got missiles." she'd stated, then waved a simple Geiger-counter along the relic weapon's length, looking at the readings, "and those vents aren't hardened against exhaust heat, so I'm going to suggest this is a gas delivery or biological delivery system, so let's NOT go mucking about with it in an uncontained area without prep for persistent chemical or biological agents?"

"but it's Star League tech!"

"Yeah, but not all of that is safe to handle, or dismantle.  Dad gave me authority on this, and I'm saying lock it up somewhere safe until we are absolutely certain we're not re-enacting the play about the cavemen and the radio...given that none of the markings match anything we've got on SLDF munitions, I'm also gonna insist we don't mess with it on an inhabited planet at all.  There were some real nightmares unleashed by every side in the first succession war, and some of them were because the side that set it loose didn't know what they were handling."

Daphne Rowe's major was 'mechwarrior, but she'd minored in 'History', specifically military history, with a slant toward learning from the mistakes of the last two and a half centuries.

The kind of perspective you NEED, if you eventually want to make General.

Daphne desperately wanted to do that, it would give her a means of standing out in the Family, and regaining parental approval after a much-younger-youth dabbling in juvenile delinquency just to be noticed at all.

"Crate it up, and ship it to the orbital." she ordered, "We'll find somewhere...not filled with someone else's listening devices and NOT dangerous to a nearby community, to do the dismantling."

There was grumbling, but the workers packed it while she watched, and she escorted it to the local drop-port, and rode the torch from surface to space with it.

After all, some of the unlisted ordnance was unlisted for a reason, and Daphne Rowe learned one thing, if nothing else from the Nagelring: details matter.

for example, once the unknown ordnance was securely locked away in a depressurized cargo bay, safe from being messed with, she contacted a cousin in a senior post at Lohengrin, and handed over the results of her little survey of conditions on Arluna. 

The real ones, not the ones that the unit the local duke had suborned were reporting.

Preventing the man from desperately using some unknown hyper-weapon seemed to her, to make good sense, what with a punitive expedition of the 11th Arcturan Guards on the way to relieve House Diego of their landhold and an LIC team coming to figure out how much of the local administrators can be allowed to continue to exist.

Treason never prospers, for what is the reason? because if it prospers, one dare not call it treason...which is why this had to stop NOW.

[glitterboy2098]

and thus the Arluna plague no longer is.

[Liam's Ghost]

and thus the Arluna plague no longer is.

No, thus the Arluna Plague is currently contained.

Until it's been destroyed, it remains an existential threat.

[Blade4]

Though that only is a big deal because the source is in the hands of not stupid people who actually realize that it is a bio weapon of some sort so it might be studied or it might be just flicked into the nearest sun.

[Daryk]

SO glad to hear the Arluna plague is averted here... and VERY interested as to where this goes!  :thumbsup:

[mikecj]

Nice butterfly on the plague

[Ramblefire]

Probably best to just flick it into the sun. There can be an argument for nukes, but biological WMDs are basically all bad all the time.

[DOC_Agren]

Nice butterfly on the plague

We hope..  Just because Daphne Rowe was smart doesn't mean everyone else in her employee will be

[Cannonshop]

Cambiano system, February 3057...

"Well, did you learn a lot on your exchange trip, Naomi?" Tiffany Knight asked her daughter.

"Yes!!" Naomi said, "mom, it was Weird and strange and some of it was amazing!! did you know they stopped at the elbar system to lay a wreath for the victims of the Atroicty there? and their jumpships don't have any safeties at all on their jump controllers, and they used Ryan ice-ship techniques modified to bring us here and I saw what nonstandardinsertionslooklikeand-"

"Slow down." her mother admonished. "What do you mean they don't have safeties on their jump drive?"

"oh, The Kowloonese chief said it's for efficiency." Naomi took a breath, "It's for efficiency , because they were hitting nonstandard points almost all the way here, except at Tharkad, New Avalon, and Elbar."

"HOW nonstandard?" her mother prodded.

"Um...Suzi said we hit a couple of sub-ten-minute windows crossing through what she called 'old terran territory'."

"Were these crews belter by any chance?" her mother asked.

"They call themselves 'Rokkajakkah'." Naomi managed to not-mangle the accent when she said it, "though some of them were Arlunans, and Winterites, and Hoodies, and Jessies..mostly the non-navigation crewers."

Her mother looked to her father, "You KNEW that our daughter would be among..."

"It's good for her to see other cultures, Tiff." His voice was almost dripping apology.

"They didn't try to recruit you, did they?"

"Oh no!" Naomi said, "Nobody even suggested it...why?"

Her mother sighed, "In the past, when my side of the family were all Beltalowda there were some divides between us-different factions, you know about The Folk, and the Jarnvolk?"

"Of course, you even took me to see a Jarnvolk ship visiting our system when I was very small."

her mother nodded, "And remember when your Grandmama would tell stories aobut the Exodus years?  she said there were militants, who didn't want to go with the concord?"

"Yes." Naomi nodded.

"The Rokkajakkah were those militants, dear.  They believed Beltas should be taking a more active role dealing with the conflicts of the innahlowda, the planet-borns, some of them even thought they should forcefully take over."

"oh."

"Not all of them, dear.  The Rokkajakkah were divided...this was, hmmm, around the era of the Exodus.  One of their factions wanted to force the Innahs into a submissive role, the other faction,  wanted to interfere by helping certain oppressed groups to flee Earth and the Terran Alliance-those were the ancestors of the people you rode here to Cambiano with, they were called 'Free Stars', and they had some of the most legendary Pathfindahs in the service."

"What happened to the other faction mother?" Naomi asked.

"We don't know. Once our ancestors headed spinward far enough, news of them...went away. there are rumours they might have persisted through the fall of the Alliance and the formation of the hegemony, but by the Star League Era, nobody knew anything about the Manei Deo-the hands of god faction were just a story, even your Uncle Lews didn't hear anything when he made the journey to Ross 128 with the Heppler line."

"So why were you upset that I traveled with...'free stars'?"

her mother sighed, "I'm not honey, I'm more surprised, they don't usually come spinward at all, not since the Star League's collapse."