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Beyond Hope
- Chapter 38 - Operation: Crimson Shadow[]
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Poisoned a ruler against her people[]
Kowloon, Federated Commonwealth
3059
Jane woke Helena up. "It's B: 45, Jane!!"
"Incoming priority call from the Archon-Prince, Helena. Victor's up late too." Jane apologized.
“Okay, must be important and about Elizabeth if he’s calling me. At least hand me the fancy robe so when I talk to him I’m not completely unpresentable.”
Jane dug into Helena’s closet as Jakob stirred, making his way to the kitchen.
Helena quickly brushed her hair then donned the fancy robe.
As she made her way to the terminal and sat down Jakob placed something hot in a mug next to her. On the Holotank, Victor looked like he'd been deprived of sleep.
>>"Sorry about the time, I tried calling Liz too, but she's out with Arthur on some project and they're out of contact." Victor began, "but I realized the person I needed to talk to, is you, not Liz or Art."<<
“Well then let’s cut to the chase because I’m awake now.” Helena was holding back her frustration.
>>"Yesterday, our time, the Star League Council was presented with a complaint…"<< Victor began, and then proceeded to describe the complaint by Krupp International, and the apparent actual complaint, ending with >>"They think she's the reason you're avoiding Terra, Helena, they think my sister in law is poisoning you against your own people. We need to get ahead of this and shut it down."<<
“Oh boy…” Helena shook her head. “I’ve made peace with the fact that I’m almost three hundred years removed from Terra being my home or the citizens there being my people.”
>>"Tell Them that-oh, wait, maybe don't."<< Victor said, >>"Helena, three centuries gone and they still think you're their Lord, that you're their leader. Names have power, yours has more than most."<<
“I know Victor and there aren’t many that have the power that mine does and it can’t be denied. Especially since it got Marthe Pryde to talk. That news is spreading. But we both know I’m not fit for that. Not yet. Maybe never.”
>>"Helena, I just watched a man from Geneva almost have a breakdown in front of the Star League Council, and it wasn't faked. It's been two hundred and seventy years since anyone's issued Terran Hegemony identicards, but the head of Krupp was on the floor in front of me, sure to his bones that my sister-in-law's poisoned his ruler against her people. They don't know what Richard did to you and your sister, or what you really went through in the hands of the usurper, all they know, is that you're the Cameron left, and they want that back."<<
“Liz may have shown me some things I was never aware of before but really it was Amaris and my brother that ensured I would forever more have trouble seeing Terra as my home.”
>>"We need them to make this work, Helena."<< Victor pulled the card he didn't want to pull, >>"You can get the Word of Blake to the table with Comstar, you can draw the Clans to the table to negotiate. Theodore pretty much ordered me to deal with this."<<
“All right, Victor. If you can at least send the invites for me I’ll start figuring out what I’ll say to get people to calm down and talk peace.” Helena relented.
>>“All right. I’ll see if they’ll all come to the meeting. I’ll do that much for you, Helena.”<<
“Thanks, Victor. Ooh. Baby just punched or kicked me.” Helena winced.
>>“Subtle hint understood. On Kowloon. So you don’t have to travel.”<<
Preparation for Departure[]
The new anti-nausea drugs helped a lot. Instead of losing liters, Liz only felt slightly less disoriented in the post-jump…and they weren't even a danger to her babies.
"I wonder what Helena wants to talk about that required cutting short the Hatter trip?" Liz noted.
"It's probably got to do with Star League business, dear." Arthur said, helping her with Simon as the shuttle banked for the approach to Hue on Kowloon. "You gave her Henry's part of the inheritance once Spider Moon turned into a giant military base."
"It seemed only fair." Liz said with a yawn, "She likes Hue, I guess…it's good for her baby."
“Yeah, traveling with these two in microgravity has been…interesting to say the least. I swear Hannah almost took off with her bout of sickness.” Arthur nodded.
“Well I wasn’t going to leave my babies behind for the length of time the trip required.” Liz nodded as she gently hefted a sleeping Hannah to her shoulder.
“I know.” Arthur nodded.
"They say someday." Liz hummed softly, "someday morning we'll be free…" the Kowloonese lullaby was from the occupation years, a rebel song.
Helena was waiting for them, her own pregnant belly being just big enough she was wearing a modified uniform to accommodate.
“Look at you!" Liz smiled.
“I feel like I’m now bloated to the size of a small Dropship.” Helena nodded. “Welcome back. I wish I didn’t have to call you back so soon.”
“The uniform?” Arthur asked.
“I was covering for Liz for her tradition. A ship came back from the front sooner than expected.”
Elizabeth's good mood evaporated, "How many?"
“It’s always too many. I had to stop counting pretty quickly.” Helena admitted. “I’ll get a number for both of us.”
"Where?" she meant where did it happen.
"About three months' travel up the Exodus Road. They were brought back via the Express Routes. Replacements are being drawn from Inarcs and Arluna forces." Helena assured her, "It wasn't Evelynn's unit, it was second battalion of the 171st, and the Jenny Parker."
"We need to get the destroyer program going faster, that's the second large transport convoy that's been hit. Who did the hitting?"
"Clan Snow Raven. From the report, a McKenna class. Caught the convoy. They let our guys withdraw with the dead."
“They’re not who I expected. Any idea why they hit us?”
"The reports say they weren't expecting ours either-they were looking for stray Steel Vipers, something about a dispute among the disparate Clans over certain rights, but it could be a smokescreen." Helena told her, "once they positively identified ours, they stopped killing them long enough for the convoy to withdraw…but they had to leave the half-finished charging station behind."
“******.”
“Now for the worse news. We’re going to be hosting some VIPs from the Star League. It seems Krupp made a rather interesting stink.”
"How many months in advance do we have?"
"You don't. They're coming up an express route, should be here in under three weeks."
“******. That means their advance teams for security will be here before then and expecting us to have a venue secured for this meeting.”
The chill winds of early August were blowing faint traces of ice from the Plateau, making the jungle north of Hue look misty and mysterious.
"Honey, why not-"
"I know just the place." Liz said, and gestured up. "Ia Drang city, they've finished repairing the damage from the Steel Vipers and the mid and lower levels are kept temperate year 'round, while the Balcony is still the prettiest real-estate on the continent, even in blizzard conditions."
“We can hash out more details on the trip, because we should get your little ones out of this cold.” Helena gestured to a waiting ground-car.
They climbed into the car, and Helena asked, "SO….how was your trip?"
"We got a look at some new facilities, Arthur had to sit through a budget meeting with me, and apparently Deanne Li Dahn's claims of a cheaper process for making high-quality endosteel aren't entirely baseless. Her new forge design cuts something like twenty hours off the smelt time and the cryonic systems get it to glass-state on the outer layers without compromising the core of a machined casting. We're going to go through with helping her file the patent."
“Interesting. You and Arthur officially join the million kilometer club yet?” Helena probed.
"First year we were here." Liz said, "We're up to the billions, but so far the contraceptives work, we're not ready to give the kids little brothers or sisters yet."
“Yeah. How busy you both are, that would be too much.” Helena commented.
That was when Liz realized the expression on Helena’s face was fear.
“What’s the matter?” Liz probed.
“I’m scared. I’m scared that to fix the problems around us I’m going to have to lose myself again by doing something I don’t want to.” Helena admitted
“What’s going on?” Liz probed gently.
“It seems there are people that still see me as their rightful Lord. I don’t know what to say to them. I can’t do nothing. It’s my name that’s bringing them all here to talk peace instead of war. But I’m scared that the price of peace will be me being put in that position of power I so dread.”
"Helena…god, that must be terrible for you." Elizabeth sympathized. "What would Jane say?"
“She’s strangely quiet on the matter.” Helena admitted.
"That's because it's the people, not the officials or the civil servants, or social climbers, isn't it?" Arthur speculated. "That IS a terrible choice to have to make. You can dismiss the officialdom, but when it's…"
"When it's the Kleinevolk." Liz agreed, "the common folk, the regular civilians, however you want to put it. Gawd…I have a piece of advice but you're not going to like it."
“I know. If it comes to it, and if it’ll bring peace, a real one, I have to accept it.” Helena admitted.
"Listen to me, they want you to lead them…" Liz said, "...so, be the leader you wish you had, not the one you fear you might be. I had to face this after mom shot me, so I didn't really have time to get used to being free of the mess, but it's the advice my grandfather got from his. 'Be the leader you wish you had' instead of the leader you're afraid you are, or afraid you could become."
“I’ll be honest I really hope it doesn’t come to that, that I can figure out something to say to them that will satisfy them. But Comstar, Word of Blake, Kurita, Marik, Liao, Victor, Centrella, Calderon, Avellar, and even some of the Clans have all indicated they are coming.” Helena said.
"Imagine this…" Elizabeth said, "Thought experiment, Gedankenlab, Helena, imagine if you were not Helena Cameron, or Helena Drillson. Imagine if you were just a girl born into a working family…now, picture in your mind, the kind of Lord you would want to serve-not as a general, or admiral, or soldier, but as Helena-the-toolmaker's daughter, born in an arcology or small town where times have been hard, and imagine the leader THAT Helena would wish to follow of her own free will."
"Is that what you do?" Helena asked.
"Every day. Every morning." Liz confirmed, "Every day, I begin with imagining what Elizabeth-the-machinist's third daughter in someplace like Ia Drang, or Hatter number seven, or the Belts, would want to follow, the boss she'd want to work for, then I try like hell to be the person that would make that imaginary-me's life a little more tolerable and better."
“I’m still scared I’ll slip back into old bad habits doing that.” Helena admitted.
"Helena, you've got me, and Jakob, and Arthur, and all of our friends, your friends, mine, we won't let that happen. You explained it to me, but it's reciprocal-we are there, to catch one another when we fall or stumble."
“Yeah. Yeah we are. And we’ll take it one day at a time.” Helena nodded. “Courage isn’t the absence of fear, it is acting in spite of it. And my friends give me courage.”
"We'll get you through this." Liz asserted.
“So what’s the venue you have in mind?” Helena asked.
"Ia Drang, the conference center overlooking the Balcony." Liz replied, "I think it's about perfect for something like this, and it'll serve as a decent advert for future tourism. My imaginary self always wants the people around her to prosper and gain, after all, being Lyran and all." She smirked.
“Yeah. That sounds like you alright. Me, I hope to keep everyone safe.”
“The two states are not mutually exclusive.” Arthur added.
“No, I suppose not.” Helena smiled as Simon started audibly snoring.
Visiting true Arcologies[]
5th October, 3059
Springtime in Ia Drang. The rebuilt Ia Drang flood control and hydroelectric systems still had to deal with spring runoff from a deep winter this year, making the Falls below the Balcony a truly epic sight of cascading white-and-brown waters arching out almost to the western rail, to thunder two and a half kilometers down to the Little Yangtze.
The closest approximation Helena could think of, was Angel Falls, which is bigger, on Earth, but doesn't have a city built around it, or a near-city-sized shopping and tourist trap built directly out from that city, to overlook it.
“It’s perfect, Liz. How much is it costing us to rent out the space on such short notice?” Helena smiled.
"You really don't want to know, Helena." Elizabeth said, "Because if you knew, you'd cry-let me just say this conference is going to be rescuing a hell of a lot of people from poverty."
“Ouch.”
"On the plus side, the line-item in the Star League budget isn't even a fraction of a percent of what it costs to maintain the League offices in Unity City." Liz added, giving her friend a side-eye, "in other words, think 'cheap', not expensive, especially on the scale of something like this conference."
“Yeah. I get why they want to run the Star League on Terra, but I can’t help but think it’d be cheaper or better to find somewhere else.”
"Costs of living." Liz interrupted, as a bold teen with a cloth and aluminum tubing hang-glider launched off the balcony. "A good job here, is poverty wages there, even after you manage the exchange rates."
“A world of excess and waste that cannot appreciate what it has anymore.” Helena nodded.
"I'd say it's more like 'what do we have to do to feed, house, and clothe ten billion people on one tiny planet'." Liz observed, "We've got Ia Drang, here, it's the closest thing to an arcology on Kowloon proper, or in the system. North America alone has more people than my entire star system, not including the off-world stuff, I think we're maybe competitive with…oh…Luna maybe? More demand, prices have to go up for everything if you can't increase the supply, and Unity's real estate is in high demand."
“And all sustained by feeding off the rest of humanity.”
"That's a given, it's why the Outer Reaches Rebellion broke the Terran Alliance." Liz noted, "I understand they're at something of an equilibrium on Old Earth-at least, that's the claim, but I wouldn't want to be one of the people born into those Arcologies."
“Unity City wasn’t so bad but yeah some of the trips we took, it was strange visiting some of the true Arcologies. Since I was old enough to start asking those kinds of questions I always wondered how they were sustainable long term.”
"I imagine lots of careful, active management." Liz observed, "Maybe drugs to keep the population tractable, and I doubt seriously there's much respect for ideas like civil liberties in the larger ones, though I can BET they all make a lot of noise about respecting them. The best prisons keep the locks on the inside of the doors."
“I think the scariest part to me looking back on it now is where was the population growth? I know the war did a lot but really with that many people it should have been a constant stream of emigration.”
"Contraceptives in the food maybe? A universal health care that 'flags and fails' at set times? The Clans had to get their ideas about how to treat old people from somewhere and it wasn't Colonial experiences. Their 'up or out' system fits a little too well with overcrowding and lack of room to grow new resources…but that's dirty speculations." Liz finished, as shuttles passed over head bound for Ia Drang Aerodrome and the secured landing fields there. "Not something I'd mention to the Clan delegates, especially not the Nova Cat, Ghost Bear, Jade Falcon, or Phelan's exiles."
“Uncomfortable truths do have a habit of making those who are too entrenched in their own narratives double down or react poorly.”
"Are you really ready for this??" Liz asked, her, "If you aren't, we can fob it off on staff…and Arthur's ready to volunteer to bore them with the science in ways I can't…"
“Probably not but I really should do this now.”
Liz got up, and helped Helena to her feet, then fussed at her friend's lapels and uniform the way only a mother can-cleaning up spots of tea and breakfast biscuit, "Alrighty then…You look good, Helena, now let's go knock them into next week."
“Thanks Liz.” Helena smiled.