Victor took her aside at the reception...
...to an office just off the ballroom, guarded by grim looking men in uniforms.
"okay, Liz...Winter, and what happened there?" he asked.
"I only know what my people tell me." she answered.
"I'm aware, but they tell you things I doubt they would include in official reports."
she tilted her head, curiously, "What makes you say that?" she asked.
"My grandmother warned me about you...or rather, your family." he said. "So spill."
"may I?" she gestured to the drinks cabinet.
"Yeah serve yourself there." he nodded.
Elizabeth examined the collection of booze, and selected a dusty bottle from the back. "My grandfather must've given it to your parents...or your Grandmother." she said, holding up the bottle critically, "Ijero Liqueur...and it hasn't been opened." she crisply drew out two small tumblers and dropped two 'ice moons', one in each, before pouring. "one for you, and one for me...so...Winter..." she brought the drinks to the desk, and handed one to Victor.
"Yeah."
"Winter was a Rattenfick that we got lucky." she pronounced. "Half an hour either way and the First Patrol would've had to burn in newtonian, and gotten there in time to see the pirates leave. The local detection grid missed them, the sole and only reason Vu Dao was even looking the right way, was because she wanted to present a case for additional detection on the main bodies in the system, but that's not what JoBeth contracted Die Kanzlei for, and we don't have enough lines to produce them if she did...but Li and Vu Dao have both been on my ass since for detection grid equipment and licenses-which I'm going to have to pay Maggie Doons a shit-ton of money to get...because they're right."
"Mmm-kay...and the actual combat?"
"Being as I saw their reports before I forwarded them, to the best of my knowledge, you got the combat reports and they're accurate." she pronounced, "One Union unsalvageable, two crippled and brought under tow, and an Invader class Jumpship whose last owner was a Federated Suns military contractor that went under sometime in the forties. Per Salvage Law, and because it was in Winter's space, we're going to hold the Auction in September with proceeds split between the Von Schrakenbergs and my crews."
"None for you?"
"none for me, I didn't order it, authorize it, or participate." she held up her glass at eye level, meeting his gaze, "So prize law says I don't get a cut."
"change the law and you could."
"Then it's not a law." she stated. "Duchess complies with the Ducal laws, period, or they're worthless...besides, all of that wasn't the biggest score."
He sat forward. "What was?"
"The part you're wondering about-what I didn't forward and wouldn't speak of in public. We recovered prisoners...not Pirates, but the prisoners OF the pirates, and one of them is a navigator, who was working with a bomb in her neck and a needle in her arm to keep her under control-a slave, Victor...one that knows where Morrison keeps his stuff, where he keeps house."
"and you were going to tell me this when?" Victor asked.
"Telling you now." she asserted, "You're right, I'm my grandpapa's girl, and we don't trust Comstar or Terrans or foreigners, not with material like this-there must be a reason why multiple RCT's and Mercenary units have failed to nail down Hopper Morrison's bolthole or catch him firmly enough to keep him from escaping, and the best explanation is that he's got an informant or few dozen, feeding him intel on military movements. Being that the only way that informant could get info to and from him fast enough for his record to match? it's in the phone company, or they have someone who can spoof Comstar's security well enough, or they have a guy in every Ducal and baronial house along the border to inform them-any way you slice it, announcing what we picked up is a dumb damn idea. I keep it down-low and compartmentalized, and maybe we catch the slaving son of a bitch with his pants around his ankles for a change."
"Presumably not so that you can lead a proper FedCom RCT to his location." Victor said sourly.
"Uh, yeah, that IS the endgame-leading them right to where we found them." she said, "Why wouldn't it be?"
"Your nuclear stockpile." he said, "has not grown in six months, and I know you went ahead and produced them permissions or not."
"training shot and mining shot." she assured him, "Where do you think I'm getting all the exotic elements we need for the foundries? I can't pay Langenecker's prices with the production rate we're pushing."
"Um, 'training shot'?"
"Truce Line." she asserted, "Here on Tharkad, you're safe from the Clanners until sixty-seven, about twelve more years, but they can still show up in MY system with their warships without breaking the truce at any time. I do not intend to let them leave or live if they do that. Thus, my people get trained on the single most effective antishipping weapon known to man, because my dinky little cutters up against a Cameron or McKenna? leaves a slightly scorched paint job on the Battlecruiser and a bunch of dead cutters...unless we have an equalizer."
"How many have you got?"
"Nukes you know." she said.
"NO, how many trained operators?"
she sipped her drink, and watched him for a breath. "Six thousand so far." she said, waiting until he'd swallowed the drink before speaking.
"SIX THOUSAND!??"
"If you can't afford to lose something, you can't afford to use it-my Grandfather was explicit about that, and Tran Truk Ngo's war diary from the destruction of the Rimjobs also touched on the need to have a reserve that doesn't rely on something easily disabled. I need to have enough nuke-qualified gunner's mates to staff the cutters, because I might lose some. Ordnance techs also, because again, we might lose some, so make sure we have enough we can afford to lose them."
"Liz, there were only thirty thousand qualified nuclear ordnance techs in the entire AFFC!!"
"now there's thirty six." she shrugged, "If you include ours as reserves which your order set up explicitly is the case. It's not enough, but I have ongoing training going on in the outer belts and oort, so we should be able to handle losses and drafts...where I can't is getting enough talents for the Navigation role. I'm not in a position to compete with AFFC's recruiting department for candidates, and the testing is kinda high-end for the kind of thinker that can plot manual jumps Folk style."
"this is where you ask me for a favor." he said, "I can see Maggie Doons' fingers in your mouth."
"yeah, but not the one she thinks." Liz said, "I checked court records. our nation has approximately three hundred convicted Shipjackers, and another thousand or so convicted slicers in long-term incarceration-the Military wouldn't accept them and by the time they're released they won't be worth shit...but I can use those in the now."
"what do you need slicers for?"
"Electronic warfare games." she shot back, "I want them because they're already talented and their future is shit-which means my folks can train them our way, and nobody gets upset if a few of them die in training. by the time we're done, they'll be reliable enough to use, and indentured to the Service of the Nation, instead of eating resources in Hogfield, Blackgate, and Nelson penitentiaries."
"and to get them out you need me to draft pardons." he said.
"yep." she nodded, "it's a resource the Realm isn't using or likely to WANT to use, which means I get to keep staff when, not if, your Marshall of the Armies decides they need to loot my Coast Guard for transport drivers in the regular navy...and look! it frees up space to house dirty ****** Clanners!"
"I'm going to want someone observing your 'coast guard militia' training methods and sites." he told her, "I don't see expediting hundreds of executions as a bonus."
"Of course. who do you want to send?"
"Someone reliable."
