<<Next Chapter - Return to Story Index - Next Chapter>>
Chapter 31 - Self Configuring Modular Robot[]
3047, Elizabeth Ngo is Ten, so is Arthur Steiner-Davion...
The Robot Plague has swallowed half a dozen more worlds near what had been the core of the Star League, destroying border systems in the Free Worlds League, Federated Commonwealth, and the very tip of the Draconis Combine.
Word of issues in the Capellan Confederation is sparse, but intelligence analysis shows that Chancellor Romano Liao has begun pulling back from claims in the former Terran Hegemony.
There is a cancer growing in the Terran Corridor, and it's resistant to traditional means of combat.
Obedient to their orders, Jaime Wolf and Natasha Kerensky have different interpretations of what to do. Jaime's plan of gradual readiness and 'naturalistic' advancement no longer looks viable to the Black Widow, and this new threat, this silicon plague, well...
It may not be a traditional alien, but it fits the broad definition of 'An external threat' in Natasha's Warden mind.
She visited Tharkad, with the Black Widow Battalion, a data-core copy, and a pair of Warships.
She was not there to conquer.
"You are the Archon of the Lyran Commonwealth, which is a member state of the Star League. You have also got an active claim to the First Lord's position." Natasha said, "I have things you need to know."
While the children played in Arthur's Tharkad Apartments, now-coronated Archon Melissa Steiner-Davion sat in a secured room. Just her, Natasha Kerensky, and a few thousand teraflops of data for twelve hours.
The end of that, saw the Archon step from the room, shaken and pale.
"Call up the reserves, and I want a secure line to New Avalon." she ordered, her companion for that time stepped out second, but not so subtly as to avoid the Archon's eye. "General Kerensky, report to Mount Asgard, get my gott-damned forces in order, and tell my beloved Aunt that she may retire."
"Yes, Your majesty."
Melissa turned to her diplomatic attache, "Fetch these messages-" she flourished a stack of datachits-"to the Ambassadors from the Draconis Combine, Free Worlds League, Capellan Confederation, and deliver copies unedited by hand to the Taurian Concordat, Magistracy of Canopus, and Free Rasalhague Republic. THIS is of utmost importance."
"Wait, you're sending a mercenary to take over Mount Asgard?"
"I'm sending a Mercenary to sort out the LCAF's High Command and brief them on an impending threat that endangers the entirety of the Lyran Commonwealth and threatens the stability of every other nation in and around the Inner Sphere. General Natasha Kerensky is to be observed, she is to be kept under Surveillance. Her orders are to be carried out rapidly and intelligently until such time as I deem those orders counter to the survival of this realm, at which point, she is to be terminated. Am I understood?"
"Yes, Your Majesty."
"Good. Off you go then. Send the Director of the Office of Liaison, tell him I want Jaime Wolf in the throneroom by next Tuesday, no later than Sixteen Hundred hours, and I don't care about how much it will cost. I also want my cousin Morgan Kell here at the same time, and see if you can find a way to drag anyone else with a major Regiment we can either contract, or have under contract, by that time."
"Yes, Your Majesty...why?"
"Because in two years, we're going to be invaded, and if the projections are right, if we don't deal with a specific present danger on our inner border? We'll want them to invade to save us all. I do not want that eventuality to come true, so we're going to put together a response that works. and works in the present." she snapped.