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Chapter 66 - The Administrator[]
Exterior Hull Surface
Tharkad Naval Shipyard
Tharkad System
Lyran Commonwealth
January, 3148
"Measuring for curtains?" Sharon's voice over the suit comms asked.
Star Admiral Josephine Fetladral looked over her shoulder. "To do that, would require cutting holes for windows." she said, "I can barely see the Dire Wolf from here."
"A grand old vessel." Sharon said, joining her guest on the float above the hull.
"You are showing a remarkable level of trust in us. Not to sound ungrateful, but assigning thirty six cutters to our support seems...excessive, quiaff?"
"The word you're looking for is practical." Sharon stated, "It's in the listing right next to 'probably not enough'."''
"Our cousins have their own warships."
"They are also surprisingly not okay with the political situation." Sharon argued, "I'm not sure you won't have to fight friendlies when you get there, hence, 'not as many as I would like'."
"The Kells and the Exiles are famously loyal to the Commonwealth, Admiral."
"Everyone is famously loyal until they aren't. Just like everyone has a spotless ethical record until it isn't or everyone is rigidly honorable until they aren't." Sharon gazed out at the shipyard's gantries. "Over there, you see it? The LAS Invincible?"
"I see it. Also a grand old ship."
"It was a symbol of the Commonwealth, until it wasn't." Sharon said, "Now it's basically an unused warehouse for storing paperwork, with a hull coated in Lyran blood."
"I admit some surprise you did not choose to restore it."
"Outdated, obsolete, and structurally compromised. They spent billions of Kroner every year 'repairing' it." Sharon stated, "Cutting that restoration was one of the first things I did."
So Josephine did the mental math. "Every year?"
"For longer than I've been alive." Sharon told her, "The funds allocated to restore that ship could have built a hundred of them-not one pfennig actually went into work on the ship itself after thirty-eighty-nine, but funds were allocated through three administrations to do that."
"Where did the money go?"
"Defiance Hesperus, Krupp Interstellar, Blue Nose Clipperships, and Lockheed/CBM." Sharon enunciated. "Three fourths of it went into the Republic of the Sphere's pockets, the last quarter went to a corporation i'll only do business with at arm's length-with lots of oversight. I'm going to tell you a secret, Josephine."
"Listening..."
"Lean in closer, helmet to helmet."
She did so, and turned off her comms.
"Someone has been stealing from all of us."
"Do you know this for a fact?"
"I tested the theory, and it's tested out. massive amounts of wealth and capital have been funneled, not just from the Commonwealth, but from all of us. If the HPG network and the financial markets were still intact, nobody would be able to see it."
"I...don't understand."
"I shouldn't have been able to do what I've done in the last four years." Sharon's tone, while dimmed, was still clear. "My working theory is that it's been levelled at all the major factions. Someone has been very carefully keeping everyone...crippled. Successor State and Clan alike, and they've done a very good job of it."
Josephine felt an object being pressed into her palm, she held it up, recognizing the helmet-test lead. She plugged it into her own helmet, letting them separate.
"We shouldn't have been able to make this much progress, unless whatever was holding us back had been removed." Sharon's tone was much, much, clearer, "But someone turned up in the Quarantine Zone with a stealth warship-an unusual design, Clan design engines-the old Star League models but, new construction. They used civilian ships and local enforcement vessels as live fire testing targets."
"Engines you don't make here."
"Correct." Sharon said, "Weapons we don't make here either. The six hundred millimeter autocannon is an SLDF standard from long before the Amaris War, but these were evolved designs. They're better than the Word of Blake were using."
"How much better?"
"Twenty five percent lighter, faster firing, everything the Clans work toward with their ground and fighter weapons." Sharon noted, "The analysis of the wreckage did not include a black box recorder but, genetic analysis of the dead showed connections with every Clan that participated in destroying the Word of Blake, plus one Clan we can't identify. Unfortunately, we were unable to recover any survivors to interrogate but, the mystery Clanners were a familial genetic match to a group of saboteurs that tried to destroy the Boojum shipyard in thirty-ninety four, and those we were able to link to the Republic of the Sphere."
"Let me guess...they targeted whichever part of the yard was not civilian, Quiaff?" Josephine asked.
"Likely." Sharon agreed, "I understand there were a string of accidents over Tamar when Clan Wolf was trying to assemble a yard there, at about the same time. Would you be interested to know what went on when the Jade Falcons tried to assemble a repair yard over Sudeten?"
"We already know. Twelve thousand dead when the gantries...'accidentally' de-orbited. I was just starting Sibko training when that happened. How did you stop them?"
"They weren't Rockjacks." Sharon stated. "A shift foreman spotted them and alerted security, a team of workers followed them and disarmed their charges and sabotage devices. Nikki Minh apprehended them on their way to 'safe distance' by separating them from their pressure suits on the ferry-shuttle. No suit, no flight controls, they suicided rather than be arrested, but sources in the Metis identified two of them as part of the force that took Congress Station during the Republic's crackdown on the Belts."
"You have an agenda if you are sharing this with me." Josephine said.
"I do. During my housecleaning in the Commonwealth Navy, I managed to identify a number of ranking officers with ties to Republic Intelligence. It is my belief you may have a mole in your forces, in particular, your Clan Watch, because someone on Dire Wolf is having conversations with one of the moles I didn't remove. If your Khan is sincere in his desire to take the Terran system, having an enemy spy in your ranks is not the way to go about it. If it fits the pattern, this spy will come from a known bloodline and be Trueborn or close enough to pass for one."
"You allow a spy?? Why?"
"Because it will make it easier to get my enemies to do stupid things, if they think they have good inside information." Sharon told her. "I want them to do very, very, stupid things."