There are just some events that seem inevitable. When someone popped the nuke in Aberdeen on Londinium, there was no question the Justice Department would parade someone out in front of the public to take the fall. While the speed of the arrest and the people arrested were mildly surprising, the fact of the arrests and trial were anything but. Someone had to hang. Or get shot, as the case was to be, but still, inevitable.
Though, in truth, I'm surprised both Sentry and Mikie were allowed to escape. While Tag assured me he would forward what information our section could get, many aspects of the whole chain of events made little sense. Perhaps chain was the wrong analogy. More like a train. One event following the other like cars in a train, until the inevitable train wreck at the end.
I hadn't payed much attention to Mikie since she left Hale's with Cobb. We hadn't been especially close. The friend you'd ask to help you move, but not help you move a body. Still, I remembered well the incidents that led to their departure. There was a reason her escape from what seemed certain doom was less surprising, perhaps, than expected.
Was Sentry part of it too? I didn't know. Insufficient data. In any case, this game was being played at a very high level. Not exceptionally well played, either, if what I'd seen so far was par for the course. The only question was who the players were. Their game was obvious.
But not my problem.
At least until someone made it my problem. Which Sentry did when they brought JJ to our Infirmary after the Alliance attacked Shadow, Maclaren's Drift, Washtown, and a couple of other outlaying colonies, in their effort to find the fugitives.
Wo de ma he ta de fengkuang de waisheng dou. What were they thinking?
We were fortunate that no one appeared to be paying any attention to the security feeds from Hale's Moon. While I had a fair bit of intelligent filtering going on, keeping enough outgoing to not raise suspicions while still hiding a good deal from prying eyes, walking into the Infirmary with wounded in an Alliance attack was just asking for trouble.
I know he's gone to ground since. Possibly at the same 'sanctuary' Mikie's holed up in, but I really don't need them bringing the wrath of the Alliance down on our heads. Colonel Silvermane gets wind Sentry was here, there was no way we'd be able to keep them from sending down a couple Marine squads to scour the surface looking for them.
Blue Sun's compound, and the area x0x0'd subleased to Krenshar and his Replicants not withstanding.
Krenshar.
Another inevitable.
Truth be known I was happy to have him and his brethren back. On a Karmic level, I owed him a very subtle and specific debt. I knew when he'd left for Caliban to conduct his research he'd eventually be back here. It wasn't just that this was home for him, but that the situation on Caliban had been tenuous from the start.
Miranda was Reaver space. Such as was left of it. Another ten or twenty years, and they'd recolonize it. The Reavers would be gone. Attrition would do what the Alliance didn't have the stomach for. Entropy would win, as it always did. But until then Caliban, in orbit around Miranda, was just looking to be humped by the remaining Reavers.
The Alliance too for that matter. Once Krenshar's research got him working with them, in that particular field, it was inevitable they would put an end to his operation there. It just surprised me it had taken so long. Then, when they'd started to reclaim the little moon, it surprised me even more how long the Replicants and their friends were able to hold out before the Alliance finally had enough and cracked the dome on them.
Which brought them here. Here to a chunk of moon subleased from the ground we'd leased to Blue Sun. Their own colony, at least in name. I wouldn't interfere unless the interests of the colony as a whole came into question. Ultimately, I was more colonial governor than mayor. Not that there was a lot to govern. For the most part, aside from a few clusters of homesteads, our little town was Hale's Moon.
Ultimately though, that didn't matter. I wasn't here for the power or control. I was here because this is where I needed to be. Two years ago, it was just a place I was. Now it was home.
It was just a question of whether I could keep it, and the folk I shared it with, half way safe.
Monday, December 14, 2009
Saturday, December 12, 2009
The expected verdict
It's been busy on our little slice of Heaven. Between x0x0 wrecking her Osprey and then turning out to be ok, the wreck in part a cover for her bringing Aurora home. Aurora herself making fleeting appearances, at one point making a comment about not having any friends because Krenshar taught her to snap their necks. And everyone and their brother crawling around our colony looking for some kind of clue to some kind of key to some kind of place that no one seemed to understand. It's been busy.
When you end someone you cross a metaphorical line. Once you cross that line, you can never come back. Most folk who've been across that line never look back. It's not so much an innocence lost, but the karmic weight of ending someone's span. In some cases it's not such a bad thing. Ending a Reaver is a kindness. Setting someone free from the madness. Ending an innocent is a different matter. It's the kind of thing a Shepherd'd say you were going to hell for, if you followed their Way. You took on that weight every time you ended someone's span. How much weight was on which side of the scale wasn't always so easy to determine.
I'd tried to instill in Aurora a respect for life, Organic or otherwise. I didn't want her to bare the same karmic weight I carried. If she chose it for herself when she was grown, so be it. But she was too young still, in spite of having knowledge far beyond her years, to cross that line. Only she'd chosen Krenshar as her role model, and Krenshar didn't have the same feeling on the matter as I did.
Seems I wasn't so good at this Motherhood thing.
Of course, that was personal. What wasn't so personal was the coverage the Cortex was giving to the Mikie and Sentry terrorism trial. I hadn't even checked the casualty count from Londinium when the first reports came in. I hadn't realized that the warehouse district in Aberdeen city was at the heart of an urban slum, so half a million dead wasnt' out of the question,
Was the kind of thing that left a knot in the pit of your stomach. It was the kind of thing that started wars, which was inevitably what the real perpetrator was after.
I had no doubt, at all, that this was a False Flag operation. The Dust Devils, the only faction in the Independence movement who'd consider popping a nuke on a core world, knew as well as anyone that the Alliance's urban poor were their best ally in the Core. Nuking them was the sort of thing a Hardliner might do. Would do. You'd foment a good deal of unrest in the Alliance population with the raw number of dead, and the fear and anger would override most folk's common sense when anyone who was Indie friendly protested they hadn't done it.
It was a good set up. Evil. But a good setup nonetheless if starting a war was what you were after.
The trial was for show. While I wasn't especially friendly with either Mikie or Sentry, history aside, they weren't bad folk. Neither of them were the kind of folk who'd resort to blowing up civilians to make a point. Military base, or a Cruiser? Maybe. An urban slum? Not a chance.
This was pure reflex reaction by the Powers that Be. Quick arrest and a show trial to make the public see just how powerful and unitized the Justice Department was, and then bury the real investigation under a few layers of red tape.
While I personally wanted to dig in and find out who was behind it, I resisted the urge. Not everyone in Parliament, the Military or Intel, were going to let this slide. Someone back there was investigating. Chances were they'd find the real culprit and quietly end their span. The public would think that Justice had been done, while Justice really was done behind the scenes.
Thing was, it wouldn't save Mikie or Sentry. They were as good as dead. Even if they somehow managed to avoid execution, there'd be folks hunting them down for the rest of their lives. Most Indie minded folk I knew hated the Alliance. But not a one of them considered blowing up half a million innocent poor acceptable. Either of them show their face on any of the Rim worlds, chances were pretty good someone would put a bullet in it.
Their only hope was being publicly vindicated, and even then someone was apt to take a shot at them. People were apt to believe that first report and act in kind. Either way, they were both likely to have a short span from here. Not something I envied.
Fact was, I had a measure of sympathy for them both. Didn't know Sentry's past well, but I knew Mikie had her share of history with the Alliance. None of it pleasant. Not that I could do much to help them. Though I had a gut feeling that some of the activity we'd been having around here of late was related to this whole thing.
Just being kept out of the loop. Plausible deniability.
Best I could do now was get a wave off to Tag and see if any of the Core units were on this. With all the compartmentalization, chances were he'd only be able to tell me a "Yes" or "No." If even that. Reality was there were probably several units looking into it, and none of them would know about the others.
There was more though. There were still some reasonable voices in Parliament. There were still some folk willing to listen to reason. It might take some time and favors, but there were still a few things I could do. A whisper in the right ear and maybe, just maybe, we could avert a war.
Butterfly wings flap
Voices of reason whisper
Dragon's gentle touch
When you end someone you cross a metaphorical line. Once you cross that line, you can never come back. Most folk who've been across that line never look back. It's not so much an innocence lost, but the karmic weight of ending someone's span. In some cases it's not such a bad thing. Ending a Reaver is a kindness. Setting someone free from the madness. Ending an innocent is a different matter. It's the kind of thing a Shepherd'd say you were going to hell for, if you followed their Way. You took on that weight every time you ended someone's span. How much weight was on which side of the scale wasn't always so easy to determine.
I'd tried to instill in Aurora a respect for life, Organic or otherwise. I didn't want her to bare the same karmic weight I carried. If she chose it for herself when she was grown, so be it. But she was too young still, in spite of having knowledge far beyond her years, to cross that line. Only she'd chosen Krenshar as her role model, and Krenshar didn't have the same feeling on the matter as I did.
Seems I wasn't so good at this Motherhood thing.
Of course, that was personal. What wasn't so personal was the coverage the Cortex was giving to the Mikie and Sentry terrorism trial. I hadn't even checked the casualty count from Londinium when the first reports came in. I hadn't realized that the warehouse district in Aberdeen city was at the heart of an urban slum, so half a million dead wasnt' out of the question,
Was the kind of thing that left a knot in the pit of your stomach. It was the kind of thing that started wars, which was inevitably what the real perpetrator was after.
I had no doubt, at all, that this was a False Flag operation. The Dust Devils, the only faction in the Independence movement who'd consider popping a nuke on a core world, knew as well as anyone that the Alliance's urban poor were their best ally in the Core. Nuking them was the sort of thing a Hardliner might do. Would do. You'd foment a good deal of unrest in the Alliance population with the raw number of dead, and the fear and anger would override most folk's common sense when anyone who was Indie friendly protested they hadn't done it.
It was a good set up. Evil. But a good setup nonetheless if starting a war was what you were after.
The trial was for show. While I wasn't especially friendly with either Mikie or Sentry, history aside, they weren't bad folk. Neither of them were the kind of folk who'd resort to blowing up civilians to make a point. Military base, or a Cruiser? Maybe. An urban slum? Not a chance.
This was pure reflex reaction by the Powers that Be. Quick arrest and a show trial to make the public see just how powerful and unitized the Justice Department was, and then bury the real investigation under a few layers of red tape.
While I personally wanted to dig in and find out who was behind it, I resisted the urge. Not everyone in Parliament, the Military or Intel, were going to let this slide. Someone back there was investigating. Chances were they'd find the real culprit and quietly end their span. The public would think that Justice had been done, while Justice really was done behind the scenes.
Thing was, it wouldn't save Mikie or Sentry. They were as good as dead. Even if they somehow managed to avoid execution, there'd be folks hunting them down for the rest of their lives. Most Indie minded folk I knew hated the Alliance. But not a one of them considered blowing up half a million innocent poor acceptable. Either of them show their face on any of the Rim worlds, chances were pretty good someone would put a bullet in it.
Their only hope was being publicly vindicated, and even then someone was apt to take a shot at them. People were apt to believe that first report and act in kind. Either way, they were both likely to have a short span from here. Not something I envied.
Fact was, I had a measure of sympathy for them both. Didn't know Sentry's past well, but I knew Mikie had her share of history with the Alliance. None of it pleasant. Not that I could do much to help them. Though I had a gut feeling that some of the activity we'd been having around here of late was related to this whole thing.
Just being kept out of the loop. Plausible deniability.
Best I could do now was get a wave off to Tag and see if any of the Core units were on this. With all the compartmentalization, chances were he'd only be able to tell me a "Yes" or "No." If even that. Reality was there were probably several units looking into it, and none of them would know about the others.
There was more though. There were still some reasonable voices in Parliament. There were still some folk willing to listen to reason. It might take some time and favors, but there were still a few things I could do. A whisper in the right ear and maybe, just maybe, we could avert a war.
Butterfly wings flap
Voices of reason whisper
Dragon's gentle touch
Tuesday, December 8, 2009
Third time is enemy action.
It's a big 'Verse and people turn up missing all the Gorram time. It's the way things are. "Missing" is a relative term. Just ask any parent when they've lost track of their kid, even briefly. The folk out on the Rim tend to be of one of two types: Either the colonists or professionals who've found themselves a home and rarely leave it, or the folk who work in the Black and rarely stay in one place for long. Folk like that are, often as not, going to be 'whereabouts unknown' for extended periods of time.
Of course, none of that really applies when someone's taken from wherever they are by some level of coercion.
That sort of thing happens all the time. Fact of life. But when two of the folk you know get snatched the same day it's more than a little unusual. Of course, having a competitor of KHI's out here on Hale's, as well as a number of other Rim worlds, recruiting for 'security forces' a couple days before the incidents didn't give me the warm fuzzies.
I wasn't worried so much about the competitor. Like most of the major shipbuilding firms, they were competitive but played fair. That, and they weren't that big a player in KHI's markets. But the timing was still suspicious and the hiring had been referenced in the aftermath of the disappearances.
Honestly though, neither of the snatchings were much of a surprise. Sentry had a list of enemies as long as he was tall. With the sort of business he did and the company he kept, it wasn't much of a surprise. Folk on either side of the law were apt to want a piece of him and, technically, I couldn't blame them.
With Mikie, my first thought was "Wait. What? Again?"
While I doubted most of the folk living on Shadow now knew of her past, a fair number of us out in this little corner of the 'Verse remember well her being spirited off by the Alliance. What a lot of people didn't know was what happened in the aftermath of that incident. How the locals from Hale's Militia and a few friends raided the Sun Tzu to get her back. Or how the Operative in charge of the whole mess was found dead, pinned to the bulkhead with his own blade, after the rescuers had gotten clear. Except they never published the pinned to the wall part.
Now, it was possible that the two incidents were coincidental. Just a fluke of timing. Once is an accident. Twice is coincidence. Third time was enemy action. And there wasn't a third time. Until a couple days later when x0x0 went missing.
I was used to her coming and going fairly often, so it wasn't a big surprise when she called in saying she was coming to see me after landing. But then interrupting to say she'd been hit and was going down.
With a damaged boat on final, there wasn't a lot you could do except prep the rescue teams and hope the pilot could work a miracle. Which, in this case, seemed to be x0 making it to an escape pod and punching out before her Osprey broke up West of the colony. The rescue team got to the boat and prelims looked like she'd fired the self-destruct charges.
The escape pod made it clear and landed fairly hard not far from the Blue Sun compound, but when the rescue team got there the pod was open and x0 was no where to be found.
Now that was odd.
While it seemed unlikely, it was the classic 'third time,' which implied enemy action of some firm. But just who was the enemy? And what had x0 meant by "dropping off the girl" before her boat went down? They'd found a stuffed animal in the wreck, hadn't yet identified who it belonged to. Was someone after Aurora? Or was there someone else involved?
Hopefully, she'd turn up soon. Whether I wanted to admit it or not, I'd grown rather find of x0x0. I didn't want to see her hurt.
Of course, none of that really applies when someone's taken from wherever they are by some level of coercion.
That sort of thing happens all the time. Fact of life. But when two of the folk you know get snatched the same day it's more than a little unusual. Of course, having a competitor of KHI's out here on Hale's, as well as a number of other Rim worlds, recruiting for 'security forces' a couple days before the incidents didn't give me the warm fuzzies.
I wasn't worried so much about the competitor. Like most of the major shipbuilding firms, they were competitive but played fair. That, and they weren't that big a player in KHI's markets. But the timing was still suspicious and the hiring had been referenced in the aftermath of the disappearances.
Honestly though, neither of the snatchings were much of a surprise. Sentry had a list of enemies as long as he was tall. With the sort of business he did and the company he kept, it wasn't much of a surprise. Folk on either side of the law were apt to want a piece of him and, technically, I couldn't blame them.
With Mikie, my first thought was "Wait. What? Again?"
While I doubted most of the folk living on Shadow now knew of her past, a fair number of us out in this little corner of the 'Verse remember well her being spirited off by the Alliance. What a lot of people didn't know was what happened in the aftermath of that incident. How the locals from Hale's Militia and a few friends raided the Sun Tzu to get her back. Or how the Operative in charge of the whole mess was found dead, pinned to the bulkhead with his own blade, after the rescuers had gotten clear. Except they never published the pinned to the wall part.
Now, it was possible that the two incidents were coincidental. Just a fluke of timing. Once is an accident. Twice is coincidence. Third time was enemy action. And there wasn't a third time. Until a couple days later when x0x0 went missing.
I was used to her coming and going fairly often, so it wasn't a big surprise when she called in saying she was coming to see me after landing. But then interrupting to say she'd been hit and was going down.
With a damaged boat on final, there wasn't a lot you could do except prep the rescue teams and hope the pilot could work a miracle. Which, in this case, seemed to be x0 making it to an escape pod and punching out before her Osprey broke up West of the colony. The rescue team got to the boat and prelims looked like she'd fired the self-destruct charges.
The escape pod made it clear and landed fairly hard not far from the Blue Sun compound, but when the rescue team got there the pod was open and x0 was no where to be found.
Now that was odd.
While it seemed unlikely, it was the classic 'third time,' which implied enemy action of some firm. But just who was the enemy? And what had x0 meant by "dropping off the girl" before her boat went down? They'd found a stuffed animal in the wreck, hadn't yet identified who it belonged to. Was someone after Aurora? Or was there someone else involved?
Hopefully, she'd turn up soon. Whether I wanted to admit it or not, I'd grown rather find of x0x0. I didn't want to see her hurt.
Friday, December 4, 2009
The one wherein things go very wrong for Caliban
If there is an ass-end of the 'Verse, it would have to be Miranda. Until the Pax incident, Miranda had been the outermost colony in the Qing Long system, itself the outermost star in the 34 Tauri system.
The ass end of the 'Verse.
Nothing out there now but what was left of the Reavers and the few hardy folk who'd settled back into the research station on Caliban. Hardy souls. Most of them Human. All of them 'people', including Krenshar and the two hundred odd Mechanicals who followed him.
I knew why they were there. I'd known for a while. Why Kren had reactivated the installation. Why Lily and Aurora and others kept going out there. The implications of the research activities, whether I agreed with them or not. Wasn't my place to interfere except where it directly affected my girls. And, even then, I tried to stay out of the way.
But I knew it wouldn't last forever.
They'd had a fair bit of dealing with the Alliance since the beginning. There were things they needed to keep the installation going, and things the Alliance wanted from the research. It was a delicate balance though, and only a matter of time before someone tilted it too far to one side or the other. It wasn't a matter of if, but when.
Unfortunately, the when came sooner than any of us anticipated. From the Black Tortoise system, we were powerless to help when the call came in that an Alliance cruiser had moved into range and launched an assault on the installation on Caliban. The best we could do was monitor traffic and see if we could find any sympathetic transports willing to skirt the Alliance attack and evacuate survivors.
Krenshar and the Replicant Order would fight to retain control of the installation. He was stubborn that way. But he also knew that against the full might of a Cruiser it was a battle he couldn't win.
All we could do was hope. Hope the residents managed to escape without getting killed, or were well treated if the Alliance decided to take them prisoner. Hope Krenshar and his brethren didn't throw away their existence in a hopeless fight. Hoped they managed to salvage something if they took the better part of valor and evac'd the base.
It might be days before we knew what was actually going on out there. At least without going out there ourselves. But we did have an inside track on the Alliance Command structure. Whoever was in command of the attack wasn't the same person who'd been working peacably with Krenshar in the past, and there was a chance I could get more information through those channels.
I just had to hope it wouldn't be too little and too late.
The ass end of the 'Verse.
Nothing out there now but what was left of the Reavers and the few hardy folk who'd settled back into the research station on Caliban. Hardy souls. Most of them Human. All of them 'people', including Krenshar and the two hundred odd Mechanicals who followed him.
I knew why they were there. I'd known for a while. Why Kren had reactivated the installation. Why Lily and Aurora and others kept going out there. The implications of the research activities, whether I agreed with them or not. Wasn't my place to interfere except where it directly affected my girls. And, even then, I tried to stay out of the way.
But I knew it wouldn't last forever.
They'd had a fair bit of dealing with the Alliance since the beginning. There were things they needed to keep the installation going, and things the Alliance wanted from the research. It was a delicate balance though, and only a matter of time before someone tilted it too far to one side or the other. It wasn't a matter of if, but when.
Unfortunately, the when came sooner than any of us anticipated. From the Black Tortoise system, we were powerless to help when the call came in that an Alliance cruiser had moved into range and launched an assault on the installation on Caliban. The best we could do was monitor traffic and see if we could find any sympathetic transports willing to skirt the Alliance attack and evacuate survivors.
Krenshar and the Replicant Order would fight to retain control of the installation. He was stubborn that way. But he also knew that against the full might of a Cruiser it was a battle he couldn't win.
All we could do was hope. Hope the residents managed to escape without getting killed, or were well treated if the Alliance decided to take them prisoner. Hope Krenshar and his brethren didn't throw away their existence in a hopeless fight. Hoped they managed to salvage something if they took the better part of valor and evac'd the base.
It might be days before we knew what was actually going on out there. At least without going out there ourselves. But we did have an inside track on the Alliance Command structure. Whoever was in command of the attack wasn't the same person who'd been working peacably with Krenshar in the past, and there was a chance I could get more information through those channels.
I just had to hope it wouldn't be too little and too late.
Saturday, November 28, 2009
Special delivery
There are times when the biggest obstacle to getting anything done is simply logistics. Take, for example, the logistics involved in deploying a modular maintenance depot. The depots, as a concept, have been around for at least two centuries. You pre-fabricate all the components you'll need to put together a small orbital platform with all the spare parts and equipment you'd need for servicing a broad range of small to medium spacecraft. You haul it out into some convenient and reasonably safe orbit, then assemble it on site into a functional compact orbital.
All it takes is the facilities to pre-fab the modules and a Heavy Lift spacecraft to haul it out to your designated orbit. For us, getting the modular installation was actually the easy part. Kawanishi Heavy Industries LTD already had a program in place to deploy modulars to strategic locations in the Border and Rim systems that were ill served by existing facilities.
Getting onto the short list was a matter of two waves. Getting the modular out here was a different matter.
Heavy Lift transports were big and expensive to operate. But they were also in demand and could usually be counted on to turn a steady, if not excessive, profit. Unfortunately, all of the big Company transports were booked weeks to months in advance. We had our refurbished modular facility. There just wasn't any transport big enough to get it out to us in a reasonable timeframe.
At least until General told us that someone had backed out of a contract for his Heavy Lifter, and he now had a big boat with an idle crew. And no, diverting the boat to Ariel would be no trouble at all and, in fact, would be a good chance for his crew to take a couple days leave on a Core world.
Murphy, it seems, smiles upon us.
Fortunately, there were some Company technicians available to help our crews assemble the modules when they deployed them in a high, stable, orbit around Hale's. The installation was, admittedly, relatively spartan as far as accommodations went. It wasn't even a new build, but one that had been decommissioned from a moon in the Georgia system. Still, it was fully restored, fully functional and, effectively, fully ours.
Sabrina was about as happy about with work as I'd ever seen her. We'd been talking about her taking over the technical direction and general management, if she wanted it, on the platform for months. It would be her baby. Closer to home and much, much, more to her liking. Much more to mine, truth be known. Was never really happy with her commuting off world, but even with our existing maintenance hangar there just wasn't enough work to keep her busy on Hale's.
That'll change now though. There's still a lot of work that needs to be done to get the platform fully on-line, but at least it's here now. The orbit's a bit high to see it from the surface without a scope, but it's there now. A counterpoint to Blue Sun's field headquarters on the surface. And a place to slip away from what's going on here, if only slightly and not for long.
It is as it should be.
If not how it should have been.
All it takes is the facilities to pre-fab the modules and a Heavy Lift spacecraft to haul it out to your designated orbit. For us, getting the modular installation was actually the easy part. Kawanishi Heavy Industries LTD already had a program in place to deploy modulars to strategic locations in the Border and Rim systems that were ill served by existing facilities.
Getting onto the short list was a matter of two waves. Getting the modular out here was a different matter.
Heavy Lift transports were big and expensive to operate. But they were also in demand and could usually be counted on to turn a steady, if not excessive, profit. Unfortunately, all of the big Company transports were booked weeks to months in advance. We had our refurbished modular facility. There just wasn't any transport big enough to get it out to us in a reasonable timeframe.
At least until General told us that someone had backed out of a contract for his Heavy Lifter, and he now had a big boat with an idle crew. And no, diverting the boat to Ariel would be no trouble at all and, in fact, would be a good chance for his crew to take a couple days leave on a Core world.
Murphy, it seems, smiles upon us.
Fortunately, there were some Company technicians available to help our crews assemble the modules when they deployed them in a high, stable, orbit around Hale's. The installation was, admittedly, relatively spartan as far as accommodations went. It wasn't even a new build, but one that had been decommissioned from a moon in the Georgia system. Still, it was fully restored, fully functional and, effectively, fully ours.
Sabrina was about as happy about with work as I'd ever seen her. We'd been talking about her taking over the technical direction and general management, if she wanted it, on the platform for months. It would be her baby. Closer to home and much, much, more to her liking. Much more to mine, truth be known. Was never really happy with her commuting off world, but even with our existing maintenance hangar there just wasn't enough work to keep her busy on Hale's.
That'll change now though. There's still a lot of work that needs to be done to get the platform fully on-line, but at least it's here now. The orbit's a bit high to see it from the surface without a scope, but it's there now. A counterpoint to Blue Sun's field headquarters on the surface. And a place to slip away from what's going on here, if only slightly and not for long.
It is as it should be.
If not how it should have been.
Monday, November 23, 2009
Rogue Squadron
Alliance commanders on the Rim have a lot of autonomy. They need it. Even with Cortex relays and reasonably fast transports, commanders out our way are often operating on their own in sometimes volatile, usually unpredictable, circumstances. The isolation is why the Cruiser Captains and the Regiment Commanders for the units aboard can pretty much play it how they see fit out in the colonies.
There's a lot of variability in how they treat the civilians in their patrol regions. Most of them are pretty much ambivalent about it. Some of them are actually respectable folk and treat civilians, even Rimworlders, with a modicum of dignity. Command on the Sun Tzu's like that. But then there's the real qingwa cào de liúmáng commanders, like the sha gwa who authorized an attack on MacLaren's drift.
What the hell were they thinking?
All I could really do while I heard the comms traffic across both Civilian and Alliance channels was hope the folks on the ground were holding their own. Near as we could decipher was that some "Commander Peterson," from a Cruiser I hadn't yet identified, had dispatched a wing of attack boats to raise some hell on MacLaren's Drift.
Thing was, MacLaren's, like Hale's Moon, was in the Sun Tzu's patrol district. Whoever this Peterson was, he was out of his normal operations area.
It actually gave me a smile when I heard flight command on the Sun Tzu ordering one of their escorting frigates to break formation to go take charge of the situation. The IAV Marshal Iverson was similar to the IAV Abraham Sinkov that usually patrolled out near us, but was armed more as an Escort than a troop ship. Same hull. Different loadout.
Good boat to deal with a flight of rogue attack ships.
Without being there myself though, I only had the confused communications traffic and the reports from the folks involved. Most of the damage seemed to be superficial. Some fires. A few craters. Bunch of broken windows. Not a lot of casualties. The attackers seem to have broken off shortly before the Iverson got into position, which was probably a good thing.
For their part, the crew of the Iverson offered humanitarian relief, but the folks on the Drift are an independent minded lot. Doubt they took them up on it. By then though, I'd turned my attention to the Alliance Commander who'd gone and stuck his nose in where it wasn't welcome.
With my re-established deep access, getting details of this 'Commander Peterson' wouldn't be an issue.
At least not for us.
There's a lot of variability in how they treat the civilians in their patrol regions. Most of them are pretty much ambivalent about it. Some of them are actually respectable folk and treat civilians, even Rimworlders, with a modicum of dignity. Command on the Sun Tzu's like that. But then there's the real qingwa cào de liúmáng commanders, like the sha gwa who authorized an attack on MacLaren's drift.
What the hell were they thinking?
All I could really do while I heard the comms traffic across both Civilian and Alliance channels was hope the folks on the ground were holding their own. Near as we could decipher was that some "Commander Peterson," from a Cruiser I hadn't yet identified, had dispatched a wing of attack boats to raise some hell on MacLaren's Drift.
Thing was, MacLaren's, like Hale's Moon, was in the Sun Tzu's patrol district. Whoever this Peterson was, he was out of his normal operations area.
It actually gave me a smile when I heard flight command on the Sun Tzu ordering one of their escorting frigates to break formation to go take charge of the situation. The IAV Marshal Iverson was similar to the IAV Abraham Sinkov that usually patrolled out near us, but was armed more as an Escort than a troop ship. Same hull. Different loadout.
Good boat to deal with a flight of rogue attack ships.
Without being there myself though, I only had the confused communications traffic and the reports from the folks involved. Most of the damage seemed to be superficial. Some fires. A few craters. Bunch of broken windows. Not a lot of casualties. The attackers seem to have broken off shortly before the Iverson got into position, which was probably a good thing.
For their part, the crew of the Iverson offered humanitarian relief, but the folks on the Drift are an independent minded lot. Doubt they took them up on it. By then though, I'd turned my attention to the Alliance Commander who'd gone and stuck his nose in where it wasn't welcome.
With my re-established deep access, getting details of this 'Commander Peterson' wouldn't be an issue.
At least not for us.
Thursday, November 19, 2009
Letters to the editor
Intel Section, interoffice encrypted communication.
Classified: YES
Level: TS+
Destination: 9-2-J CorSec.
Begin encrypted communications:
[Start Standard Header Block]
[Security Classification: SCI Delta ++]
[Special Compartment ID: F92R]
[Outer Algorithm Category: K2]
[Inner Algorithm Category: VV]
[Primary Encryption Key: 8e1a9964c26f8a2e4d083bb6b0728173]
[Signatory Encryption Key: 2f6aa1d4c96cb9378156eaa2ffdfe97c]
[End Standard Header Block]
Fr: Lt. Colonel S. Kawanishi - Field Operations
To: General L. Taggart - CorSec Command
General Taggart,
As you were no doubt aware it would be when you asked me to take this assignment, coordinating field operations is somewhat challenging when other Intel units in the region have not been informed of your position in their structure, or, in fact, of your very existence as an Intelligence asset. While I understand the need for operational security, it is a serious obstacle to me doing my job.
Over the last few months, I have identified at least three factional organizations operating across a fairly broad swath of both the Border and Rim regions. These factions all have direct interaction within my area of operational responsibility. Where they are acting openly as Alliance personnel, I do not have sufficient Intel to determine their line of demarcation with Justice, Intel, or High Command.
The broad operational territories indicate a disregard of jurisdictional boundaries typical of what we encountered with the Aegis Group and 22 Sigma in the period shortly after the war.
While I only have access to limited out-region resources, it appears that at least one of the groups is operating under the auspices of a local Planetary government. Additionally, there appears to be a measure of Hardliner influence. Unfortunately, the few assets I have here are already deployed within my OpSec area, which means either assigning me additional assets or tapping Major Lau's team, or someone from Ortega's group, to confirm that assessment.
I have not yet spoken to Colonel Silvermane of the 1st Marine Raiders regarding my position here. Though she has proven herself to be a competent and honorable officer, with openly Moderate leanings, I am reluctant to enlist her cooperation in my Intel capacity. I know you've read the previous reports involving the incident with the Loyalist Black Ops group. Given her less than stellar opinion of Intel Section, I believe it best to maintain my current relationship with her as a Colonial leader, rather than as an Intel officer.
The bulk analysis data is attached. Let the analysts earn their keep. They will probably be able to tease more information from the raw data than I could.
My regards to your wife.
-S
[MACHash: 951cefd3ca5cb6773251e773379ff26a]
[EOL]
Classified: YES
Level: TS+
Destination: 9-2-J CorSec.
Begin encrypted communications:
[Start Standard Header Block]
[Security Classification: SCI Delta ++]
[Special Compartment ID: F92R]
[Outer Algorithm Category: K2]
[Inner Algorithm Category: VV]
[Primary Encryption Key: 8e1a9964c26f8a2e4d083bb6b0728173]
[Signatory Encryption Key: 2f6aa1d4c96cb9378156eaa2ffdfe97c]
[End Standard Header Block]
Fr: Lt. Colonel S. Kawanishi - Field Operations
To: General L. Taggart - CorSec Command
General Taggart,
As you were no doubt aware it would be when you asked me to take this assignment, coordinating field operations is somewhat challenging when other Intel units in the region have not been informed of your position in their structure, or, in fact, of your very existence as an Intelligence asset. While I understand the need for operational security, it is a serious obstacle to me doing my job.
Over the last few months, I have identified at least three factional organizations operating across a fairly broad swath of both the Border and Rim regions. These factions all have direct interaction within my area of operational responsibility. Where they are acting openly as Alliance personnel, I do not have sufficient Intel to determine their line of demarcation with Justice, Intel, or High Command.
The broad operational territories indicate a disregard of jurisdictional boundaries typical of what we encountered with the Aegis Group and 22 Sigma in the period shortly after the war.
While I only have access to limited out-region resources, it appears that at least one of the groups is operating under the auspices of a local Planetary government. Additionally, there appears to be a measure of Hardliner influence. Unfortunately, the few assets I have here are already deployed within my OpSec area, which means either assigning me additional assets or tapping Major Lau's team, or someone from Ortega's group, to confirm that assessment.
I have not yet spoken to Colonel Silvermane of the 1st Marine Raiders regarding my position here. Though she has proven herself to be a competent and honorable officer, with openly Moderate leanings, I am reluctant to enlist her cooperation in my Intel capacity. I know you've read the previous reports involving the incident with the Loyalist Black Ops group. Given her less than stellar opinion of Intel Section, I believe it best to maintain my current relationship with her as a Colonial leader, rather than as an Intel officer.
The bulk analysis data is attached. Let the analysts earn their keep. They will probably be able to tease more information from the raw data than I could.
My regards to your wife.
-S
[MACHash: 951cefd3ca5cb6773251e773379ff26a]
[EOL]
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