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Beyond Hope
- Chapter 75 - Consequences[]
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Taking advise from friends Long gone[]
Alarion, Federated Commonwealth (Lyran State)
February 8th, 3066
Was dying. This had not been a warship strike, in fact, it was no visible attack at all…but Alarion was dying.
The outbreaks began at the docks and in the spaced based industrialplexes. It was fast-moving and it was lethal, highly contagious, and so far, immune to antiviral and other medications.
Galedon was also dying.
"Whoever designed this, learned from all the lessons of the succession wars, and they learned all the wrong lessons damn them.' Admiral Wells sat in Helena's presence, because the damage to her base had required cutting her legs off to get her out.
"How bad?"
"Level one, maybe Zero biohazard. Doc Huyn thinks it's not the same one you tossed in the sun at Arluna, but who knows? I need First Lord's permission to send a coast Guard team to escort biomedical specialists into the hot-zone. We lost the central archive on Tharkad when the Blakists took the capital, as well as most of the senior people from CMC."
"My permission?"
"I can't ask Victor, but technically you outrank him, and that gets us legal cover for sending those teams. We need to know what the hell we're dealing with and what to do if it's spreading."
“Do it. If need be we can ask for forgiveness later.”
"Ayeh Majesty." Wells saluted with an abbreviated hand, then typed in a signature order. "I'm glad we can agree, I would hate for you to court-martial me for acting out of turn. The 22nd Marine Battalion, company A is en-route for Alarion right now-they're NBC specialist qualified with the 111th MASH, and the 41st jumped off this morning." she met her Sovereign's eyes, "If you'll kindly backdate the order, ma'am?"
“Been a while since I had to get this sort of underhanded but given what’s going on I’ll probably have to do worse than backdate orders in the very near future.”
"Better, Mum, pray it's better." Wells said, "Pray we're on time, and can do something good with this. I have boys and girls running toward the fire. Maybe we can save a few lives."
“I’ll be sure to add that to my list of things to pray for. If you need anything, anyone starts grousing about supplies, or any other sort of obstructionism let me know. I’ll set them straight.”
"Ayeh Majesty…I've got work to be doing." Wells glanced at the Cadet who pushed her wheelchair in, "Debbie, get me to the office."
"Ayeh Mum." The girl's hillfolk accent made it sound like she was gargling marbles even with only two words said. Cadet MacAulliffe helped the admiral's chair over the hatchway after Helena dismissed them.
Helena narrowed her eyes, then closed them in thought.
Another war.
"You didn't think it would really be that different, did you?" Tranh Truk Ngo sat on a filing cabinet. "They've played their cards now, just like you suspected they would." the dead man reminded her, "earlier than you expected, but you knew it was coming."
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Tranh Truk Ngo
“I did. This is the hell I have made for myself and now I must manage it as best I can.”
"Hold on there, Helena. You didn't make it alone, you didn't really make it at all." the ghost of a dead man dropped silently to the floor, "Trust me on this, I made enough hell for the both of us. This isn't your mess, but it is yours to clean up. It comes with the fancy job title and the half-decent food."
“One I never wanted. One I want to give up. But now… Now it’s going to be my curse to bear for the rest of my life.”
"If you quit, Helena, Amaris wins." he reminded her, "So don't quit, okay? That fat son of a bitch doesn't deserve a victory, not after what he did."
“I know. I know I can’t stop. Not now. I can’t even stop the others from changing the rules to let me stay First Lord if that’s what they want to do to keep me to my promise.”
"If you'd been First Lord in the first place, we wouldn't have had to fight the independence war, Helena, because there'd be Justice...but that's somebody else's mistake too, and a mess you gotta clean up-you've done a hell of a job fixing things already."
“Jane would have been First Lord back then, not me. I had too much to learn still. Much of it not until after.”
"Yeah, but she'd listen to you, and it's almost as good." he smiled, "Neither of you were weak like Richard." the ghostly image passed a ghostly bottle across a half-remembered table, and the memory snapped into place.
“That bottle we were supposed to share, I shared it with Liz.”
"Yeah. you remember the O-club at Ross?" he asked, as the office changed
“I do.”
"You suppose those slowboat colonists are bending the knee to Terra? Or are they resisting?" he asked, "if they are, might do some good to send 'em some help, wouldn't you say?"
“Either way it is a mission that needs done.”
A glass appeared in front of Helena, and the waitress…Liz? "What do they want, ma'am?" the barmaid who looked like Elizabeth Ngo asked, "What are the enemy trying to do, and why? It doesn't fit a pattern, does it? Not the pattern your staff are going to see, anyway."
The clues were there. The group that came to Kowloon, it didn’t have nukes because of a clerical error and had been deployed anyway.
“Their plan… Someone upset their time table and now they’re scrambling to make the best of it.” Helena reasoned.
Aaron DeChevalier took a drink, "Napoleon said 'never interrupt when the enemy is making a mistake', right Sam?"
Sam Winters nodded. "Yah, you turn that mistake sideways and ram it right up their ass."
Helena sat up, she was in the office again, a puddle of sleep-drool on her desk.
"I know what they're after!!"
“Ma’am?” Samantha asked as she stepped into the room.
"I think I know what they want, how they think they're going to get it, and how to turn it sideways and ram it right up their asses." she smiled a nasty smile.
“Care to explain for the rest of us?”
"Not yet, one should never interrupt the enemy when he's making a critical mistake, it's impolite…get the staff working based on War Plan Alabaster, Version three. See how much of the last month's activity matches the predictions."
“Yes ma’am.” Samantha nodded as she tapped the requests into her portable noteputer.
"Sam? Also, right after you start that? I want the Board of Ngo Enterprises in my office, along with Chuck Vanh and Evelynn Mosovich, don't tell them why, just tell them where."
“I’ll mark it urgent and eyes only. Should get them here in a hurry.” Samantha nodded.
Okay, you bastards, I get the message, it's your fault you made me do this. Don’t go blaming me or complaining when I put you to the fire.
With Samantha busy, Helena opened a private terminal, and started composing a letter…
"...incredible sense of pride, when they raised that banner. It felt like we had, in fact, finally come home to the True Star League…I stand behind a True First Lord, and the day that banner was raised, was the day I and my trothkin were more than mere Warriors…"
-Theresita Schmitt, Clan Blood Spirit (Commander, SLS Blood Oake Valley}
"I am a Star League Marine. We go in to the worst, and we go in first."
-Lt. Debra MacAulliffe, (3041-3065)
Company B, 111th Combat Medical Support, 2nd Division,
Star League Marine Corps
Inscription from her headstone, Fulton County Cemetery, Arluna (body unrecoverable)