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Beyond Hope
- Chapter 5 - Shockwaves[]
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Failure to Communicate the Important Things[]
Kowloon, Federated Commonwealth
3053
"Colonel Green..."
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Elizabeth Ann Ngo, Duchess of Kowloon
... I'd like to offer you an extension on your contract." Her Grace, the Duchess of Kowloon, sat across from Max Green.
"We…lost." the Mercenary said. "You hired better mercs and we lost. Why are you offering a contract extension?"
"Two reasons come to mind immediately." Elizabeth said, raising a finger, "one, because you need it. Two, because if you had decent gear, the mish-mash of mercenaries who helped me put the Regency down wouldn't have won." she leaned forward on her elbows, "You're better at it than I am. With adequate support you would have mopped the valley with us…and reason zero-you knew that the Regent was dirty, and you bunked the ball in Hue."
"I don't understand-"
"Ms Whyte, bring in the messages your friend at Department of Liaison provided please?" Elizabeth released the key on her desk, and her Majordomo "Ms Whyte" came in with a stack of offprints.
"Those are-"
"Classified, yes. 'Eyes Only' even." Elizabeth observed drily. Then jammed her thumb into her chest, "Me, Duke. I actually, legally Do have 'Need To Know' regarding communications between a Mercenary sent to stiffen my garrison, and the Lyran Commonwealth's Department of Liaison. Your complaints were categorized, sorted, collated and filed, and nobody bothered to read them above the level of the Officers who did the filing in Mount Asgard…and I think you knew that when you sent them, but the important part, is You sent them."
"And you're going to offer me a contract extension?"
"Sure. With Colonel Regent Stonecipher dead, along with two of his company commanders and several other higher ranking officers, we have a powerful lack of leadership in terms of military expertise-the Contractors I brought in are day players, they're outside my preferred range for funding and have bad reps. YOU have a good rep, even if it is old, and per your current contract, I can afford you…and you have a conscience, which is rare enough to be worth my money, or so I'm told by people who should know."
"What would we be…doing?"
"Cadre and Product testing." Elizabeth said, "Coincidentally that lines up nicely with 'you need lots of repairs and spare parts', and I'm willing to amortize part of your unit's pay in spares and replacement components…and possibly upgrades from our customers, whom are trying to get out of their loans by co-sponsoring this offer."
"You're going to let them do that?" he was a little shocked.
"I'm okay with letting Coventry Metal Works try to screw me on the 3045 factory update by paying me in goods instead of cash this time." she nodded, "but my Corporate representative has made it clear this time only. But to know what goods I need someone who knows 'mechs and what mechwarriors need, which means I need to hire an expert who knows what it is to fail and recover from it, and that's you."
"Why me? The AFFC-"
"Is being run by foreigners." she said snippily, "Corporate researched you, Max, you're a Sanglamore Graduate, class of 3020, you've been in this business since you mustered out in 3031, You hire good people but can't keep them. Everyone you haven't kept shows up somewhere else as a badass boss, that means you're an outstanding trainer and teacher...and I want that working for me. No more chicken rousting in the back-country or playing 'heavy' for a tax collection…" she laid each of his complaints down as she addressed them, "...unsupported bandit chasing…" she looked up, "Savvy? I'm hiring your expertise in recognizing, locating, teaching, and training 'mechwarriors and 'mechwarrior officers. There are only a couple conditions; First being, military chain of command. Your unit will be reporting to Evelynn Mosovich, Baroness Golden Lake and my replacement for the Militia chief of staff whose neck I had to stretch this week for dealing goods to bandits as part of Stoney's little criminal conspiracy."
"The Second?" he asked.
"I want you to make a list of everything you would need for a Battlemech regiment to defend Kowloon from the Clans, and I want it updated weekly, which means we're going to be funneling everything, every rumour, holocap, motion cap, gun camera record, report, and everything else I can get through my board's contacts at Mount Asgard, for you to analyze, pick apart, examine and dig through. The Clans are coming, by the time they come here I want my star system to be a goddam porcupine that sends them whimpering back to their hole with quills in their mouths…so I also want you coordinating with Evvy, and with Alicia Li to come up with a combined air/space/ground doctrine we can actually execute. no half-ways, My brother died on Tamar because his unit didn't have that, which put me here at far-too-young for the role. Until the Archon sees fit to assign me a Guardian-ad-lidem for the duration of my minority, I have to assume my actions are loosely permitted..so I'm acting. I want to keep you and your unit, are you okay with a contract extension or not?"
Papers signed, one copy to the Comstar compound for delivery to Outreach and the MRBC, this one accompanied by a letter of recommendation and glowing performance report for The Green Machine, to offset their loss of reputation in the aftermath of being defeated. One to Tharkad and the Dept. of Liaison detailing her decision to extend the contract on the mercenaries after buying it out, and one to her personal files.
"What's next?" she muttered, and opened a file on her office terminal, "Oh, right, taxes…"
She has accountants. As owner and chairwoman for Ngo Industries she has accountants just to watch her accountants. This is what happens when you're the top Tooling supplier for the Lyran Commonwealth, and the Duke (Duchess) of Kowloon. You get to do everyone's taxes every three months to the Realm.
Well, the civil servants do it, "I just have to check their work before sending it forward…"
"Milady?" four hours into digging through the claimed deferrals and exemptions, Elizabeth looked up. "News from out-system…It's urgent."
Liz sighed and considered, before speaking, "is it 'duke' business, 'business' business, or 'military' business?" she asked.
"Duke business, maybe military." Lt. Hoang Li Phan, who was like the second-shift for Ms. Whyte when Liz was pulling a long day, said formally.
"Give it over then…"
Elizabeth read the cover letter first, then…"A Warship shows up and nobody tells me?? How am I supposed to do my job if nobody tells me things??"
Hiding is no longer an Option[]
“I think Sithers knows.” Elizabeth Cameron said in a scant moment of privacy now that they had guests aboard.
“What?” Helena Cameron asked.
“You know what. You don’t have to hide it from her. She’s almost certainly figured it out.” Elizabeth decided
“Still doesn't mean I’m ready to talk about it with another stranger.” Helena said
“You actually liked Doctor Hutchinson.” Elizabeth realized.
“Yeah. He actually understood without judgment. ****** I’m going to need a new shrink for my happy pills.” Helena glumly stated.
“Considering how few true friends we had, how small the family was, this is not as easy as I thought it would be. Being displaced in time.”
“Still, if what they say about Uncle Alyks is true…”
“We don’t want to admit it but we both recognize the truth when someone says it.” Elizabeth nodded.
“Spider Moon…”
“You don’t need me to hold your hand like a little girl there. Just like during the war. We can be apart without being separated. Besides you know what I will do for you if they get some idea about whisking you away to be married off to one of the Archon’s sons.” Elizabeth told her sister.
Helena curled up and put her face in her knees and just started crying.
Elizabeth understood. She no longer had the War to hide behind, to focus on, so now all her trauma was coming back like a massive tidal wave.
Elizabeth’s remote sat beside Helena and just held her.
Dealing with unwanted Photographers[]
Somehow, in spite of more than half a decade of gross malfeasance, extortion, neglect and theft of funds, the Ferry system was still working enough that Her Grace, the duchess, could find a scheduled run out to Boojum 3 on the F:45 (26:45 local time) return leg.
"Hey! Duchess!" Flash!!"
She wasn't two steps out of the car when she was flashed in the face by a Paperazzi with too much light amplification for a mild winter day.
Elizabeth lashed out. She had been shorting her sleep, and working too hard perhaps. Maybe the trauma of carrying out over a dozen executions in the last week had finally dug claws into her psyche, or maybe she just tripped.
Her cane went up…and came down, and the Photographer's equipment bonked off the concrete of the sidewalk.
Her Grace the Duchess, on a dozen or so tri-dees that weren't over the 'secure line' formed by her bodyguard detail, caught Her Grace, sprawled on the concrete, saying some decidedly impolite words, all dignity stripped temporarily.
The hands of staff, helped her to her feet, and found the 'daily use' cane nearby.
"I'm sorry, I should be more careful!" she said to the rather shocked looking journo, before she hobbled-hurried to the spaceport's secure gate.
Unlike the Regent, or even her Grandfather, the Duchess of Kowloon was riding commercial, and following the posted timetable.
Her intent was to show people that things were 'returning to a better normal'-by foregoing the use of Ducal assets for her trip to Spider Moon.
This, is not the impression. Not with the stumble in public and her history of drug abuse.
It didn't take five minutes for the press to begin speculating that Elizabeth Ngo had fallen off the wagon again.
Duchess destroys photographers livelyhood and falls down in public! The drunken scandal inside!
Is it the drugs again? Under Age Drinking? All the details in our comprehensive segment!
Elizabeth fumed but found herself too curious and looked deeper.
It was all speculation and blowing out of proportion her very public record of having been in rehab, the official reports of the incident that led to it, and borderline defamation about a possible drinking habit.
Part of her was actually kind of impressed they managed to gather and publish that coherent of a segment in such a short period of time. She figured they must have a readymade template with whatever they could gather from her public records.
Of course there were certain details not available in public records. Those she was glad had not come to light yet.
She turned to the sports and comics pages to continue her distraction for this leg of the journey.
“When will Hans learn that Lucinda will always yank the ball away at the last second?” She chuckled.
The liftoff from the surface caused her leg and chest to hurt from the magnified gravity.
As soon as it got into orbit and could throttle back to something resembling normal gravity she reached for her cigarette case. Since there is no smoking on the shuttle she pulled out a piece of gum laced with a pain killer. It wasn’t as good as the smokes she had but they would have to do for the remainder of the journey.
Spacers got grumpy about all the chemicals of a good cigarette fouling up their air filters and the threat of fire in contained spaces.