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Guided by the light of a (Red) Cameron Star (Cover Art)

Guided by the light of a (Red) Cameron Star
- Chapter 75 -
[]

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I have no interest whatsoever in involving myself in the current public debate about so-called 'M-Word Privileges'."

Former High Associator Giles Olson - 2850CE


Reflections fortunes gain and state of the Sphere[]

Capital City – Niops VII – 2849

Frederick remembered when the shopping mall next to the government offices in the center of town used to be completely packed out with kids of a Saturday afternoon, but while there were still a fair number of them hanging around, the literal teeming throng of teens and pre-teens that he remembered from his youth was certainly absent.

They didn't even have to queue up for very long at the food-court on the second floor, although he did have to wait longer for his burrito from the Mexican place than Judith did her Moa nuggets and Zach his cheeseburger from the FrancasBurger franchise.

Judith had wolfed down her nuggets, though Dad might not have liked the phrasing there, Fred thought to himself. Wolverines were more voracious eaters than wolves anyway so Hallis senior did have a point, he decided while his little sister gazed longingly at a display of brightly colored printed tee-shirts in the window of a clothes store nearby.

If she came home with one of those tee-shirts her mom would not be happy, Fred decided while he and Zach ate their own lunch at a more sedate pace, the table they were sat at overlooking the fountain on the floor below in the large open-plan building. Barbara liked to dress Judith up stylishly, often laying out her clothes for her while coordinating them with a careful eye for detail, and those tee-shirts Judith was looking at would fall far outside what her mother's finely-honed fashion sense would deem acceptable.

It was a good thing for their father that the man's job required him to wear certain clothes, or else the loose-fitting and scruffy SLDF olive green fatigues he favored would have been flung out with the garbage by his wife years ago. She was okay with his dress uniform, it was suitably well-tailored and spiffy, but to her chagrin he couldn't wear that every day, not with General Romanov preferring fatigues for everyday wear too.

A huge TriVid screen overlooked the food court and was currently displaying the news channel, subtitles scrolling across the image because the speakers throughout the mall were playing the kind of easy-listening music that nobody really liked but wasn't quite objectionable enough to cause too many complaints.

The Inner Sphere news of the day, and for the previous few days, was taken largely from CNN and concerned rumors that the long-hinted-at massive new offensive by the Lyran Commonwealth against the Draconis Combine was imminent. Archon Claudius, likely in an attempt to distract his people from domestic issues including the rising discontent at his deployment of the security apparatus of the state against his own people, had been building up his reserves for the operation which was expected to be spearheaded by a good chunk of his remaining naval assets.

Tharkad Class Battlecruiser (by Kirk Alderfer 2012)

Tharkad Class Battlecruiser, LCS Invincible

Ever since the sudden disappearance of the Lyran flagship from its usual assignment of guarding the Tharkad system some months before, keeping that under wraps for very long would have been tricky, people had been wondering what the big battlecruiser was up to and right now the most likely explanation was that it was about to be rammed firmly up the Coordinator's ass.

The Combine was believed to have more warships still in service than the Commonwealth, but they had never had anything that could go head-to-head with a Tharkad class battlecruiser. A small naval task-force led by the LCS Invincible probably could punch deep into Drac territory, clearing the way for a full-scale invasion, if Claudius was willing to throw the dice that is. There was always the chance that a big enough force of Combine aerospace fighters could overwhelm the battlecruiser's escorts and knock her out of the game with a nuclear strike. If that happened then the Lyrans would have permanently lost what had been their trump card against any attempt by the Combine, or even the Free Worlds League, to launch a deep strike against their capital.

Archon Marcus Steiner wouldn't have taken the risk, but 'measured' not being a personality attribute commonly attributed to his younger brother, and likely murderer, the usual rules weren't in play.

Not every commentator believed that Claudius was about to mount such a potentially risky offensive against the forces of Yoguchi Kurita however. Some thought it was actually just a massive campaign of disinformation and deception, and that the Archon was actually going to send the forces he was massing against Gerald Marik instead.

If Claudius could deal the Free Worlds League the knock-out blow that his brother had never quite managed, although Marcus had come pretty close, certainly closer than anyone on Atreus would like to admit, it would surely secure his reign politically. It would also perhaps see him remembered in the history books as the greatest leader to have ever sat on the Lyran Throne, something that his ego would relish to be sure.

Frederick knew that both his father and General Romanov were firmly in the camp of those that expected Claudius to go for Gerald's throat, not Yoguchi's, as the fact was that the League was just a whole lot more beatable than the Combine. House Marik was still having trouble trying to recover the worlds it had lost during the chaos of the ComStar Interdiction a decade ago, let alone be in a position to restore all their holdings in the Bolan Thumb region previously lost to Lyran aggression in the First Succession War, and they lacked the vast industrial depth of the Commonwealth that allowed Tharkad to rebuild any equipment losses it took in a matter of years, not decades.

If it wasn't for the existence of the Capellan Confederation then the Free Worlds League would have been regarded as the whipping boys of the first two Succession Wars. Frankly Atreus owed a lot to Sian for making the percentage of it's former territory now under someone else's flag look reasonable.

Not being nearly as interested in the news as his brother Zach took a big bite from his burger and after chewing and swallowing washed it down with a swig from his cream soda. As far as the eight-year-old was concerned almost the best part of hanging out with his big brother was that Fred was perfectly happy feeding his siblings junk-food while his parents fussed about 'proper nutrition'. His attempted argument against salads that, 'Fred eats crap all the time and he's not fat' only got him told off for the swear and then his mother pointing out that Frederick was so heavily genetically engineered that he could probably happily survive on a diet of mouldy bread, lichen, rotten meat and a few tree-roots for fibre.

Survive, maybe, 'happily', definitely no. They hadn't tinkered with the DNA responsible for his tastebuds after all.

In any case despite what his baby brother thought, Fred did eat healthily most of the time because he mostly ate at the base canteen, or else subsisted on ration packs in the field, and the military liked to make sure what they fed the troops was appropriate to keeping them lean, mean fighting machines.

Apart from the new moa curry MRE's anyway. Those were quite obviously intended to build up the grunt's immunity to biological weapons, and judging by the effect they had on his digestion were certainly giving Fred's genetically-enhanced intestinal tract a decent workout whenever he had to eat one.

"When you said you were taking us to the mall, I thought you meant the new one on the other side of town" Zach said, picking up his burger again. "The arcade here sucks, they don't even have a battlemech simulator."

"When I was your age I loved visiting this place" Fred told him, looking away from the TriVid screen.

Zach took a bite from his burger. "When you were my age you were living on a spaceship running for your life" he replied, voice muffled by the food in his mouth.

"When I was a few years older than you I loved visiting this place" Fred corrected himself. "And don't talk with your mouth full. It's bad manners."

"Just because you look just like Dad doesn't mean you have to pretend to be him" Zach replied, rolling his eyes.

"I'm not pretending to be him. I just don't want to get sprayed with pieces of your lunch when you talk" Fred responded. "It's gross."

Now that was a reasonable argument Zach had to admit, at least to himself, and he made sure to swallow before he spoke again. "Judith's got company" he said, grinning. "Going to go scare them off like you did those other dweebs earlier?" he asked as Frederick looked over to see a couple of teenage boys apparently trying to strike up a conversation with her.

"Nah, they look more age appropriate than the last guys did" Fred replied, sizing up the kids that were hovering around his fifteen-year-old sister. Judith was a very pretty girl, taking a lot after her mother in looks, but also taller than Barbara had been at the same age thanks to their father being pretty tall, if not as tall as Frederick himself.

Giving the benefit of the doubt to that kid earlier, he looked to be at least seventeen, he might not have known how old Judith was when he tried chatting her up in the record store, but he sure as hell recognised Fred when he appeared, looming menacingly. Frederick Hallis looked just like Franklin Hallis and General/Khan Franklin Hallis's picture was in the newspapers and tv news a lot.

If you met a younger-looking copy of Franklin Hallis then you had just met his 'super-soldier' son, the really strong and fast one with all his aggression genes turned up to eleven. This could be very disconcerting even at the best of times, but when he suddenly came out of nowhere and growled, 'Do you know this guy, Sis?' people with a regular adrenal response to potential threats typically became nervous.

They shouldn't really, by Gamma standards Fred was reasonably placid by nature, with only Henry being notably more laid back amongst their peers, but sometimes it was fun to play up to the reputation and the kid Frederick was glaring at visibly had visibly gulped before making a hasty retreat.

Zach had thought it was hilarious, Judith not so much. It was bad enough that their Dad went out of his way to frighten the life out of any boy that showed an interest in her, having her big brother do so as well was totally egregious.

Although Fred hadn't been there at the time, his battalion had been temporarily transferred to Francas to reinforce the garrison there as part of a deployment exercise, by all accounts the first time Judith brought a boy home for dinner had been utterly hilarious. Highlights included an story about what flamers do to human beings and an 'off-handed' comment that if he ever had cause to kill someone then Franklin could rely upon at least fifty thousand people for an alibi, all of who would swear blind under oath that he was with them at the time of the murder.

Being the head of what was effectively a cult had its privileges, even if Khan Franklin Hallis rarely if ever considered abusing them.

Judith had been embarrassed to the point of mortification, her mother livid at her husband while Zach meanwhile thoroughly enjoyed every excruciating second of the evening as his sister's new boyfriend sweated bullets the whole time.

That boyfriend now being Judith's ex-boyfriend, greatly to the benefit of the boy's life expectancy, and her father's blood pressure, at least she didn't have to deal with her big brother playing the psycho-super-soldier card on him as well now he was back from Francas, because he would have, mostly for the laughs.

Not having been born into Niops culture himself, and having spent quite a bit of time on other worlds during his military service as an adult, Frederick had observed long ago that there was a different social dynamic as regards adolescent courtship in the Association compared to most everywhere else. On most planets where society wasn't so biased towards academia it wasn't usually the smart, geeky kids that were the confident self-assured ones that approached the attractive girls, or boys, but in a society where brains very much ruled over brawn it wasn't the school jocks that necessarily dated the cheerleader.

Judith actually was a cheerleader, now attending Joseph-Louis Lagrange Memorial High School, the same one that Frederick had as a kid. Alas the school's gridiron football team she cheered for didn't win anywhere near as many games now as it had when the lineup had included the entire male contingent of sibko Gamma though, despite her own best efforts at motivating them.

With their origins as the 331st Royal Battlemech Division, the so-called 'North American Division' Clan Wolverine had always regarded American Football as their game, much like they did baseball, with their only real rivals being teams from the Ghost Bears.

If you thought that Clan Trials of Possession were played for keeps you should get hold of a copy of the old recording of the Bearcat City Gluttons going at it with the Cyaegha Ursines in the 2822 superbowl on Strana Mechty, no quarter asked for or given.

Thanks mainly to Jennifer and Katrina the girl's hockey team had used to win all the inter-school competitions too, the incident when a girl from another school had fouled Jennifer, who then had to stop Katrina throwing down with the entire opposing team at once should perhaps have been taken as a taste of things to come.

The kids talking to Judith over there right now looked more than a little dorky themselves to Frederick's eyes but he was willing to accept that his worldview was more than a little skewed and that his tendency to size up people as potential threats, it had been drummed into him from a very early age to do so, didn't necessarily make him the fairest, most objective observer of humanity.

In the debate of nature versus nurture some hold that warriors are born, not made, others believe the reverse. In the case of the extremely experimental sibko Gamma of 2816 they were both born and made, being the product of both Doctor Vaun's exceptionally skilled genetic meddling and plenty of psychological conditioning.

Frankly, it was almost surprising they could function as well in normal society as they did. Fortunately for them Operation Switchback and the flight from the Clan Homeworlds ended their conditioning abruptly before it was completely ingrained, and the insistence of the Niops government that the kits attend a regular school with regular kids from the age of thirteen onwards prevented them ending up terminally weird instead of merely a little 'off' sometimes.


Political Correctness and Unexpected News[]


Judith returned just as Frederick finished his burrito, clutching a tightly folded tee-shirt that she had bought herself after managing to break away from the boys talking to her.

"Why do nerds suddenly appear…" Zach began to sing as Judith sat down with them again.

"Every time, you are near?" Frederick joined in with his baby brother in an improvised duet, both of grinning.

"Because I'm cute." Judith told them both, interrupting their singing.

"Meh" Zach responded making a so-so hand gesture.

"Bite me, Tax Break" Judith responded, glaring at him.

"Hey, that refund sitting right there pays for your allowance allowing you to buy those clothes you have to hide from your mom" Frederick pointed out, nodding towards his brother. "And I'm sure he's got some other redeeming qualities I don't know about" he added, laughing.

"He doesn't" Judith told him flatly. "I wish Mom would let me choose my own clothes more often" she complained. "Her company literally makes this tee-shirt, I should get them for free, I shouldn't have to pay full retail price."

"I get to choose my own clothes" Zach said, "Mostly."

"Only because trying to make you look presentable would be a waste of time and effort" Judith told him. "Meanwhile I'm going to be cursed with being Mom's pretty dress-up doll until the day I die."

Frederick shook his head. "Nope, only until she does. You two will be around long after we are, we never got the jabs when we were little like you did."

"I don't want Mom to die" Zach said glumly. "Or you, or Dad."

"Relax Sport, I'm not planning on dying until I'm at least a hundred and your Mom isn't that much older than I am. It's not like we've got crappy healthcare here like in most places these days, just because we're not going to make it to the 31st Century like you might doesn't mean we're going anywhere anytime soon."

"I guess" Zach replied, seeming less than reassured.

"You know, your mom use to buy a lot of my clothes when I was a kid" Frederick told his sister. "Now Alice does."

"Only because if they didn't you'd only wear fatigues, on or off duty, just like dad would" Judith replied.

"That's just because olive green matches our complexion so well" Frederick joked.

"Miss MacArthur told a funny story at school about how you came home once late at night still wearing camouflage paint" Zach told him.

"Not intentionally, I just forget I put it on and nobody on the VTOL jet coming back from Reykjanes told me, they probably thought it was funny not to" Frederick replied. "And it's not 'Miss MacArthur' and hasn't been for six months. It's 'Mrs MacArthur-Hallis' now, which you should know because you were literally there when she stopped being 'Miss MacArthur'."

"Be fair, he's not the sharpest bayonet in the armory" Judith 'defended' her little brother using one of their father's phrases. "It probably took him two years to stop calling her Alice at school."

"It took you a while to stop doing that too as I recall" Frederick reminded her.

"The kids at school think that she should have just called herself Hallis when you got married" Zach told his brother, ignoring the dig from his sister. "Most of them because 'MacArthur-Hallis' is too long."

"If she had a brother, or any cousins, she might not have been so insistent but she doesn't so she wanted to keep the MacArthur name alive" Frederick explained. "Also I kinda hoped it would make her grandfather lighten up about her marrying a Hallis."

"Did it?" Judith asked.

Frederick shook his head. "Not yet, but I figure if I name my first-born after him there's still a chance" he replied.

"He likes you more than grandma does" Zach observed.

"Yeah, but your grandma probably likes the virus that causes Childus Fever more than she does me" Frederick replied. "I was astonished she accepted the wedding invitation" he told them, not adding that if he had considered it a possibility he probably wouldn't have sent her an invite.

"Free food at the reception and an excuse to get a new dress?" Judith suggested.

"Eh, maybe" Frederick considered, it sounded plausible at least. "What do you guys want to do next?" he asked. "Alice is out with her mom all day, and I'm not on duty again until Monday, so there's no rush."

"Arcade" Zach requested.

Frederick looked at him askance. "I thought you said the one here sucks?" he responded quizzically.

"It does compared to the arcade in the new mall but it's better than no arcade." Zach replied.

"Okay. Wanna try and beat my score at one of the shooting games?" Frederick asked.

"No. You're a freak of nature" Zach replied immediately. "Maybe the pistol one if you only use your left hand" he added after thinking about it.

"Don't call Fred a freak of nature" Judith chastised him.

"Thanks, Sis." Frederick said, smiling.

Judith grinned. "He's a freak of science as you well know" she corrected the dig at her big brother for the sake of accuracy.

Frederick sighed. "I love you both too" he said wryly.

"I don't care what we do as long as I get home in time to watch the new episode of 'Life in Exile', it's all the girls at school talk about" Judith requested.

"Is that the show about the freaking Von Strang's?" Frederick asked in dismay, just managing to say 'freaking' rather than what he would have said.

"And the Humphreys" Judith replied. "I love Amelia-Grace, she's always scheming, and her uncle James is really cool" she enthused. "My friend Angie has the biggest crush on Terrens though."

"Your friend has a crush on Terrens? Terrens Von Strang?" Frederick responded nonplussed.

"Yeah, he's this weird mix of weird, dorky and also hot because he exercises so much" Judith confirmed. "Last episode he was doing all these one-handed pull-ups because Amelia-Grace bet him he couldn't."

Frederick looked at her in utter bemusement. "I can't believe you watch a show about that family" he told her. "Dad and I crossed the entire Inner Sphere to put those Amaris-worshipping goons back in their box."

"Yeah, but it's not like Terrens was a tyrant like his dad was." Judith pointed out.

"Only because he never got the chance" Frederick countered.

"Maybe" Judith conceded. "But you can't hold something that someone might have done against them" she argued. "The boys at school all drool over his aunt Arabella, seems like she's almost always lying next to the pool wearing a swimsuit when they interview her."

"Jesus wept" Frederick muttered to himself, shaking his head sadly.

"You'd like Baron Humphreys. He doesn't seem to get why the show is so popular either. He's always going around with this confused expression and saying stuff like he wouldn't have agreed to allow it if he'd had any idea how much of a hit it was going to be" Judith told him. "He's nice though, whenever the film crew follow him around when he's out meeting people, like opening new buildings or attending charity events or whatever everyone on Islington seems to like him. It was great when he told Charlotte, Terren's mom, that having one person bowing to him out of respect was worth more than a hundred people doing so out of fear. She's kind-of a stuck-up bitch though, so I don't think it sunk in at all. You can tell the servants don't like her, even if they're too professional to say."

"I don't watch that boring show." Zach interjected.

"That's because you only watch cartoons" Judith responded, dismissively.

"No, I like that new show about the kids marooned on Hunter's Paradise that have to fight dinosaurs too" Zach replied. "Forget the Solaris Games, someone should put a Megalosaurus Tyrannus against a Thunderbird in an arena, that'd be so cool."

"You thought they should organise fights between the animals at the zoo" Judith responded, rolling her eyes.

"They should" Zach enthused. "Getting to ride a mammoth was fun, and seeing that four-ton Chameleon Sloth appear from nowhere when they threw food into its enclosure was great, but Thraxan Snow Bears fighting Terror Birds would be awesome."

Frederick himself wasn't keen on the new Terror Birds at the zoo, they reminded him a little too much of Thunderbirds, albeit it at a much smaller scale. A full-grown Folly Terror Bird, one of Alpheus McEvedy's projects before he went completely nuts, massed barely more than half a metric ton and came in under three meters in height. Essentially a resurrected type of extinct Terran Phorusrhacidae they had been thought to have gone extinct, again, due to predation by the much larger Thunderbird until a couple of breeding pairs were found and relocated to Niops.

According to the geneticists rescued from McEvedy's Folly, the ones who had rebelled against Alpheus and fled to the 'safety' of the wilderness before being rescued by the first Niops expedition there, there had even been a scheme to breed and tame the Terror Birds as riding animals at one point. While this sounded a little unhinged, the Terror Birds were carnivores after all and humans were meal sized, the people of Brasha used the native Tariq in much the same way.

Thanks to the feathers Terror Birds could handle cold climates a lot better than the lizard-like Tariq could, making them more adaptable. Fossils of several species had even been found in Antarctica, although admittedly from a point of time when it wasn't as cool as it was now, if still far from warm, and domesticating and exporting the Folly Terror Bird certainly hadn't been the craziest notion Alpheus McEvedy ever held, far from it.

If you were planning on riding one to herd animals with you'd want to make damn sure they wore a muzzle though unless you didn't mind them occasionally snacking on the herd, or you.

"Making the animals at the zoo fight wouldn't be so much for the animals, don't you think?" Frederick suggested.

"Eh, I bet they'd enjoy fighting for their next meal more than being fed a bunch of dog food or whatever it is they give them" Zach disagreed.

Frederick chuckled. "Why not a Roman Arena with gladiators fighting wild animals instead?" he suggested, tongue-in-cheek.

Zach thought about that one. "Even better" he agreed, nodding enthusiastically.

"Maybe when the Hegemony is run by an Emperor, not a High Associator" Frederick told him, amused. "Maybe you should ask dad to cross the Rubicon and declare himself Caesar?"

"Cross the what?" Zach responded, confused.

"The Rubicon, it's a river in Italy, on Terra" Judith started to explain before Frederick could. "Julius Caesar led his legions across the Rubicon so he could overthrow the senate and declare himself dictator of Rome. When he crossed the river he said 'Alea iacta est', the die is cast, because there was no going back after that."

"Almost right" Frederick told her. "He didn't say 'the die is cast' in Latin, he said the phrase in Ancient Greek because he was quoting a play by Menander" he said. "At least according to Plutarch."

"Really?" Judith responded dubiously. "That's not what the teacher said at school."

"Check if you don't believe me" Frederick replied. "Teachers aren't infallible, and if they were omniscient then Alice wouldn't have married me in a thousand years" he joked. "Seriously though, sometimes they just simplify things to make it easier to teach."

"I'm still going to tell the teacher he was wrong" Judith decided.

"Okay, you be you, but don't expect it to do you any favors" Frederick advised. "Jennifer used to argue with the teachers a lot and her usually being right didn't mean she wouldn't have been better off personally by keeping her mouth shut" he said. "I guess that was genetic determinism in action."

"DNA isn't destiny." Judith replied.

"Yikes, they really are teaching you some drivel at that school you go to, aren't they?" Frederick asked rhetorically. "So, are you looking forward to having a little nephew or niece in a few months?" he asked having told them a couple of weeks ago that Alice was expecting.

"No" Zach replied honestly, why would he care about babies?

"No, you'll probably want me to babysit them, like mom and dad make me babysit that" Judith added for herself, pointing at her little brother with distaste.

"Oh, you'll definitely be babysitting" Frederick told her. "It'll be my long-awaited revenge for having to having to change your diapers a few times when you were little."

Judith grimaced. "Gross" she said. Fortunately for her she wasn't that much older than Zach, so she had avoided ever having to do that in his case.

"Dad said it would be character building for me, took me longer than I care to admit to realize it was just an excuse so he didn't have to do it so often" Frederick told her. "You should be pleased that I'm being completely upfront about my true motivations in your case."

"I'm ecstatic" Judith replied sarcastically, narrowing her eyes at him. "What makes you think I'll agree to ever babysitting for you?"

Frederick smirked. "Like your mom would let you say no" he responded confidently. "Don't think that you'll be getting away with it either Zach."

"I'm too young to babysit" Zach replied smugly.

"You are now, but Alice and I might decide we want a tax break of our very own and Iron Wombs make that easier so don't go thinking you're getting out of it forever. I had to change your diapers too, baby brother." Frederick told him.

"It's indentured servitude. That's what it is." Judith complained.

"Only if I don't pay you by the hour" Frederick countered.

"How much?"

"Not nearly enough that you're totally okay with changing diapers. That would go against the whole spirit of why I'd want you to do it, which is revenge, like I said earlier" Frederick told her.

"Can we go to the arcade now?" Zach asked, becoming bored with all the talking.

"We sure can, Tax Break" Frederick replied, standing up.

"I'll join you after I've looked around the bookstore" Judith told them.

"You kids today and your books, in my day we had to read text files off a noteputer and we were grateful for it" Frederick told her.

"It's not the same reading off a screen, I don't know why but it's not" Judith responded, standing up herself as Zach practically jumped off his chair. Paper in Niops was made from seaweed, harvested in massive amounts from the oceans of Niops VI and VII for all sorts of purposes, much of it being ground up for fertilizer or more recently used to feed herds of tazqan imported from Thraxa, or Giant Moa from McEvedy's Folly.

The animals seemed okay with it, and as a plus it made them taste a little saltier than they would otherwise which most people said enhanced the flavor and meant you didn't have to add much extra seasoning to meals yourself.

"Just remember, if you're approached by any strange men come find me" Frederick instructed his sister. "Or cute boys, I don't want you talking to cute boys either."

"So you're saying that men that aren't strange, or ugly boys you're okay with me talking to?" Judith checked.

"Revising my earlier instruction, if anyone with an XY chromosome that you don't know approaches you, come find me" Frederick ordered. "Also don't rules lawyer me."

Judith gave him a look. "You do know this place is full of security cameras right?" she asked rhetorically. "And that I go here, with or without my friends, all the time, without managing to get abducted even once? She continued, sarcastically.

"One thing I do know is that dad would have me flayed if I let something happen to you" Frederick replied. "And if I lost Zach I'm sure dad would be really angry about it until he could get a replacement tax break from an Iron Womb" he added, Judith finding that addition a lot funnier than her little brother did.

"I'm irreplaceable" Zach contended, pouting.

"We could clone an exact copy of you, not that we'd want to." Judith told him.

"They could clone you two as well." Zach retorted.

"Not me, I'm already too close to being a clone myself, there are strict laws about cloning clones, genetic diversity is important" Frederick told him. "Look at Frobisher. Huge ocean, shallow gene-pool. If not for the Iron Wombs and access to our genetic repository they would have all been cousins in a generation. So inbred they would have needed to invent underwater banjos to play with their webbed, six-fingered hands."

"You need new material, the banjo thing is worn out" Judith advised him. "And it's offensive to people from Frobisher."

"Philomena makes that joke." Frederick told the girl.

"People from there are allowed, like they're the only people that can use the M word." Judith told him sternly.

"The M word?"

Judith looked around to make sure nobody could overhear. "Merfolk" she whispered.

Frederick blinked. "Now that's just political correctness gone mad." he opined before a newsflash appearing on the TriVid screen caught his eye and attention away from his siblings.

"Holy shit!" Judith exclaimed. "Are pirates really trying to raid Comstock?" she asked incredulously, reading the headline. "Are they crazy?"

"Watch your language" Frederick chastised her. "And yes, they surely are." he added as the subtitles explained that a Jumpship that had appeared in the Comstock system was demanding tribute and the SLDF garrison along with the local militia was mobilizing.

"They must have missed the memo that you don't try that… stuff with us." Judith observed.

"Must have." Frederick agreed.

"Wait? Francas too?" Judith said, staring at the screen as the headline changed to indicate that a second hostile Jumpship had appeared in that system as well.

"That's… smarter I guess, if they were thinking that we couldn't properly defend both systems at the same time" Frederick said, frowning. "Not many pirate bands with two Jumpships these days, not this far from the Tortuga Dominions anyway" he noted. Thanks to HPG communication, and this kind of thing being a high-priority message for NHCOMNET to get back to Niops, this might be practically a real-time developing situation.

"You're not going to be called back to camp and sent to go fight the pirates are you?" Zach asked.

"If I left now by the time I got there it would have all been over for weeks, so no" Frederick told him. "The garrisons on Comstock and Francas might get rotated back early if they take losses so I might end up being sent there later on though" he added as the headline now changed to an announcement that the High Associator had ordered the destroyer NAS Protecteur currently acting as guardship at Alphard to head for Comstock, the NAS Cape Bon to replace her at the Alphard station.

If this was some kind of ruse to lure warships away from Niops in preparation for an attack there then as well as the frigate James Sever that an opponent would still be expecting to run into at Niops, the navy also had the battlecruiser Michigan and the cruiser Buccaneer ready to stomp them flat so redeploying the destroyers wasn't a risky move by any means.

Niops had reserves, at least it did if they all kept running until the shipyard was fully up and running, not just operational enough to repaint the Zughoffer Weir and swap out some worn out parts with ones salvaged from the Thorin as was happening now.

By the time Frederick got his little sister and baby brother home that evening Judith was weighed down with books that she managed to get him to pay for, and Zach was sick from eating too much candy because he complained that if Judith got money for books then he should get money for snacks.

Barbara was there on her own when Frederick returned her children, and annoyed because her husband had been called in to discuss the Comstock and Francas situation by General Romanov. To her this seemed like an Admiral Bremman thing to handle, and she certainly didn't appreciate being told by Frederick that when Romanov retired that everything would be a General Hallis thing to handle.

"All I wanted was one day of just Franklin and me time." Barbara complained before Zach loudly announced that the new clothes Judith had brought herself were cool, dashing away before Judith could throw a book at him.

Any chance there might have been of Frederick taking the kids off her hands again a week later were dashed by the entirely unexpected, and extremely unwelcome arrival of the Tharkad class battlecruiser LCS Invincible in the Stafford system, both her husband and stepson becoming a little too tied up with more pressing issues than their personal time when that occurred.


Chapter Notes[]

  • Notes from the Author
    Children, they grow up so fast don't they? Frederick Hallis is now over thirty (and recently married with Alice now expecting their first child), Judith is well into her teens and young Tax Break Zach is eight. Life on Niops has changed a great deal in the two decades since Frederick arrived there in 2827 as an eleven-year-old.

    Claudius Steiner is not a measured man, nor is he one to accept a perceived slight with good grace. He also has what he thinks is an ace up his sleeve, the Tharkad class battlecruiser LCS Invincible (and some help from outside the Commonwealth).

    There's no way that Alpheus McEvedy wasn't making Terror Birds given all the other prehistoric animals he was splicing together. Think of the Folly Terror Bird as being akin to the battletech-canon Tariq as a riding animal, or maybe a carnivorous Chocobo.

    Rapping is big on Niops, but only Frobisher rappers get to use the M word.

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