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Chapter 85[]
Can you tell me where can we start over?[]
Dinh Diep
Kowloon, Lyran Alliance
3067
"This is it." Star Colonel Henry Ngo explained, "Dinh Diep."
"It looks like a wasteland like any other." The honored guest of the Khan was Nelson Elam, from Clan Goliath Scorpion.
"Tt looks like this, because it is-now." Henry held up a rad counter, "We are still several kilometers from the original site of the municipal reactor site."
He nodded to the other Clan guests. "If you use your eyes...or rather, look at this area without assumption with Falcon eyes."
Some of the others looked more carefully. "Savashri...those are not trees." one of Elam's entourage announced.
"We are standing roughly ten meters above the ground level of the original city. Those are the bones of buildings." Henry stated, "The upper floors. One million political prisoners of the Amaris regime were sent here to cover the grave of this city between 2729 and 2735. The entrance to the dig site is this way, Khan Elam."
"You are native to this world, quiaff?" Nelson asked.
"Aff."
"A descendant of Colonel Tranh Truk Ngo himself, quiaff?"
"AFF." Henry said, "My sister and I are the last direct-line descendants of the Impaler of Elbar. It makes no sense to be ashamed of a history you forget."
The dig itself was a shaft with a safety rail and an elevator. They descended.
"Welcome to the McKenna Street public transit station." Henry said, as they stepped off the lift. "A snapshot of Star League era governance before the Amaris Coup."
The space opened into a large chamber, with shops lining tiled walls. With signs in English, and a mural on the far wall displaying the same image as a famous SLDF recruitment poster.
Propaganda posters in armored glass declared a golden age for mankind under the Star League, right beside other posters celebrating the partnership between House Cameron, and House Amaris.
"This was all sitting here when it was opened. She has not even sent a restoration crew in." Henry stated, "Just a team to try and identify the bodies."
"The bodies?" the Khan asked
"Were removed." Henry told them, "To be studied at the University, and then interred in hallowed ground. There were nearly two hundred people who suffocated in this structure when the blast-wave buried the entrances and ventilation. Those have been cleared, it is safe now."
Down near the end of the platform, a group of students were working to catalogue something.
Nelson pushed past his host, and walked up to the group of young people.
He almost stumbled when he missed a drop-off in the uneven shadows, and a girl built like a shrunken Elemental caught him.
"Careful, sir. That step was damaged in the blast wave. We think-the floor went uneven here." she didn't seem the least bit afraid of the Scorpion officer.
"Thank you." he said absently, then looked closer. "What is your name?"
"Friends call me Lenni, it stands for Eleanor." she told him, "You're interested in Old Star League history?"
"You could say that...Eleanor?" Nelson asked
She gives him a crooked smile, "Well, we're almost finished unpacking an SLDF recruit depot circa 2729, if you're interested, sir."
"In a subway?" he asked.
"Um, according to the docs we found, it's one of five in the city. This one was actually part of the building upstairs, they kept spare documents and a few admin offices down here.With it, a second entrance with a gift-shop."
"A gift shop?" Nelson questioned the Cadet.
"Sure, like a mini-Post Exchange." she said, noting finally that her interlocutor was Clan. "Stuff to convince people how cool the SLDF was and why they should join it directly, instead of waiting to be sent as a tithe by the House Lords."
He followed her through the doorway.
"From what we pieced together, they went into lockdown when the uprising started." she continued, "We've identified a few bodies, but some of them were in rough shape-Sophie doesn't think the violence was a result of being buried."
"Sophie?" he asked.
"My sister...here do you know sign language?" she asked.
"No?" Nelson answered.
"I'll translate for you." Lenni told him. She then tapped a much smaller, thinner girl with shocking red hair on the shoulder.
Then signed to her
.
The girl put down the artifact she was bagging and tagging. And then gestured first to Leni, then to Elam.
"She has introduced herself, Sophie Vanh-Koenig, position Graduate Student of Archaeology." Lenni said, "She greets...Khan? Nelson Elam of Clan Goliath Scorpion??"
"You did not know??" he asked.
"No! but Sophie did?" she signed something fast. The redhead signed back firmly, then reached into her packsack.
"A history of the 172nd CAAN regiment, SLDF, Exodus to Conclusion" and held it up with a stylus.
"I wrote that years ago!" Nelson said.
"She wants an autograph, sir." Leni said.
He took the book gingerly, noting that it had the 'approved for distribution' mark used by the Jade Falcons to mark approved academic reading material.
A little spike of pride hit him. Seeing proof that even the ever-proud Falcons respected his work, if not his Clan.
He signed the cover with a flourish, and the thin girl beamed.