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Chapter 69[]
Can you tell me where can we start over?[]
Nha Tranh
Kowloon, Lyran Alliance
3066
Henry walked into the Assembly building. He hadn't seen the place in person since he was twelve, and there was plenty of sign that remodeling and repairs had been done.
A check of the directory and a quick look at the visitor's map and he was walking to the Speaker's office.
The Capital police spotted his Jade Falcon uniform, and instead of reaching for sidearms, they parted with a nod.
He returned it silently and kept walking.
Charles Vanh was elected from the 17th District. A rural area from the edge of Vin Drin Lap to the far side of Minsky's Folly, a canyon complex and badlands suitable only for cattle ranches and ijero groves. Being a minor district with about the minimum population to have a seat, the 17th wasn't one of the 'big power' districts. Charles being Speaker had a lot to do with his family's relationship with the Ngos, and having a seat on the Ngo Industries governing board.
This didn't get Chuck Vanh's office out of the basement with the other small districts.
Henry knocked before entering.
"Come in!" a female voice called.
He opened the door. Representative Vanh's 'staff' were mostly volunteers and interns.
The two girls manning the reception desk looked up together.
They were in their teens, one was almost skeletally thin. The other was broad and showed off a bodybuilder's musculature in her business-casual sleeveless blouse.
"Leni, is your boss in?" Henry knew better than to address Sophie. The only sign language he knew being field combat hand-signals, which would make communicating with Sophie Martenberg about as useless as trying to speak to a rock.
"He's in, you want me to buzz you through, Star Colonel?"
The door to the man's actual personal office opened..
"Holy Shit, Henry!!" Charles Vanh and Henry had been good friends as children. Charles now was clearly short one arm below the elbow. He walked on a 'useful' prosthetic where his right leg ended. "You know you should'a called ahead. Come on in. Lennie, clear my appointments for the next while."
"...the hell happened, Chuck?" asked Henry
Chuck snorted, "Some of your colleagues." he said, "Back in '51. I was one of the lucky ones from the infantry battalion-they already had me on the dropship when the Generals called the retreat. You actually make that green monkeysuit look good, Hank. Want some Vodka?"
"Sure." Henry looked over the office. "I would have thought you'd have more venom over..."
Charles sighed, "Don't go there, I can still pin you down and noogie your skinny ass. How's Liz?"
"She is in critical condition...the Galaxy Commander has questions on the status of the Trial."
"Your team was up two points when the game was called due to gunfire." Chuck stated, "Taken to the natural outcome, Jade Falcon would own Hue anyway. You gonna take up your Granddad's apartments in town?"
"Probably. The Mark Harris precedent being what it is, Jesus, they did a number on you."
"You should see Evvie Mosovich." Chuck told him, "She lost most of her face to a Wolf Elemental's small laser through the vision blocks of her tank, and the docs that did the reconstruction were a lot more concerned with keeping her from dying than giving her a face that...you missed a lot, Hank."
Henry looked down as his old friend slid a water-glass half filled with something that had a faint smell of alcohol solvent. "I know. I keep waiting for someone to point at me and yell 'collaborator'..."
"There are areas where that'll happen." Chuck said, "Have you shown your friends the Archive?"
"No." Henry quietly answered
"Don't, please." Chuck said, "Not yet, anyway."
"Why?" he asked
"Because I want them to see Dinh Diep first." Charles told him, "Granddad's hobby project excavating the site uncovered a lot."
"The Clan is not...as obsessed with the past as you might imagine." Henry said carefully, then amended, "There ARE clans that are."
"Good relations with yours?" Charles asked.
"eh..not so much, but not bad. Their more neutral."
"We'll table it then. How long are your people going to keep her?"
Henry thought his answer over carefully, "At least three months." he finally said. "The Galaxy Commander wants to have the facility and the work done here for strategic reasons, but he is likely to get push-back from the Clan Council over investing that much in an enclave in 'traitor lord' territory."
"What's the politics look like?" Chuck asked.
"The Khans are in agreement with Nathan Roshak. I think Marthe Pryde sees Kowloon and Blair Atholl as a means to influence public opinion in the Inner Sphere toward the positive, and thus make renewing the Crusade easier. Some of the more conservative voices in the Clan are concerned that it may have the opposite impact-that of eroding the 'purity' of the Clan's culture...as if we were not already doing that." He said with a half-smile. "I'm proof of that at least."
"Practical concerns. They can't make enough troops to go in purely by force and have anything worth holding when they're done." Chuck suggested.
"Exactly. Hue is to be a model of why joining the Clan is superior to remaining...not clan."
"Ambitious."
"How's your mom?" Henry asked.
"Dead. She went quiet after Vien came home in a jar." Chuck said.
"Jesus, Vien was-" in shock Henry try to talk.
"Vien was eight and you were twelve and he was a pest. Back then, he grew up and joined the service. He was in the middle of his Academy time when his fighter was shot down over Coventry. There wasn't a lot of body to recover, so we buried a vial of ashes in an empty coffin." Chuck stated. "By then, Mom was pretty old, she went to bed after the funeral, and she just...didn't wake up."
"Wait, Vien went aviation?" Henry asked
"Henry, you missed a LOT. Dad had him flying the Hummingbird for roundups by the time he was thirteen. He graduated high school at the top of his class and had a full-ride scholarship at CMA. He just didn't survive going up against trained front line enemy personnel as a cadet. I blame the officers that sent him up, not the pilot that shot him down. They should've known better."