- The Lucky Regiment -[]
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- Chapter 30 -
Meetings on Tharkad[]
A secure room deep below the Archon's palace
Tharkad, Lyran Commonwealth
24th May, 3027
15:00 Hrs local time
There were five of them in the modest but secure meeting room, Hanse, the Archon, the Archon's daughter Melissa, her spymaster Simon Johnson and himself. The person who he felt was obviously missing was Quintus, but the man couldn't be everywhere at once, and someone had to keep an eye on the Hasek-Davions. Ardan looked over at Melissa, she was young for this sort of meeting but was now at a stage in life when she needed to start understanding the realities and dangers of the Inner Sphere.
"It sounds worse than we thought, Simon." The Archon had a sad note to her voice, she had always tried to improve the lot of her people and it hurt deeply to know that Comstar were not the neutral party she had once thought they were. Hanse for his part didn't look so surprised, the development of the NAIS had already led to a few nasty run ins with Comstar's ROM service. That and Hanse didn't have a clean conscience with regards to upholding the contract with Comstar.
"In fairness it was always suspected our mail was being read."
There was a flash of anger on her elegant face. "Reading our mail is rude, but trying to keep us from rebuilding our technological heritage must have cost exponentially more lives than those they murdered on Sirius V. Just who the hell do they think they are?" Her voice raised angrily at the end. "How many of our people have died over the years because of a lack of food and safe water, or health systems lacking the right tools." Ardan knew that Simon now suspected Comstar was sitting on its own Star League Library, and had been for some time. The hypothesis made a lot of sense, especially based on what the Precentor had said whilst being interrogated.
There was silence, the Archon didn't normally lose her temper. She calmed down and then spoke in a measured tone. "And then we have the Silver Eagle business, were they involved there as well?"
It was Melissa's turn to look worried. "Mother what do you mean?"
The Archon nodded at her spymaster.
"Do you remember your planned trip to New Avalon?" Melissa nodded back at Simon. "We don't know how they knew, but somehow one of the jumpships along the way had problems, and by sheer chance a Kuritan ISF dropship and jump-ship was there to 'help'." Simon paused, adding a bit tension. "They inspected the Silver Eagle and then helped the jump-ship on its way, they evidently didn't find who they were looking for." The border region had admittedly become a mess at that point with numerous raids by the Federated Suns designed to keep the local Capellan and Combine garrisons occupied. An inspection wasn't entirely unreasonable in his view, but the timing was damning.
Melissa looked pale "I thought those shipping lanes were supposed to be neutral?" The routes by Terra were left in peace by custom as the worlds there changed hands quite regularly. It meant civilian travel between the Combine and Confederation was also unmolested, an unfortunate trade off.
The Archon still looked irritated. "They are, and we have politely queried the grounds for their searching the unarmed and clearly civilian ship, and of course thanked them for their help." For the Combine it was an awkward loss of face, and a breach of protocol that would have appeared unduly risky to the senior figures within the secretive state.
Simon looked over at the Archon's daughter "Melissa, we think the journey was compromised, and that Comstar may have leaked information based on the messages they had seen transmitted." He frowned. "Comstar wouldn't have known they were a couple of passengers short though, as you well know the cancellation was last minute. Our systems however would have been updated, which is where the original leak probably is.Thus the Kuritans were given out of date information, and embarrassingly for them they acted upon it, yet the original source seemingly did nothing."
"So somebody else is attempting to harm me?" Ardan knew there were a number of ambitious members of the Lyran aristocracy, even more than one faced within the Federated Suns. It was an unfortunate legacy of Katrina's dysfunctional predecessor.
"It does look like a new plot, so we'll need to stay sharp." Simon had his work cut out for him, Melissa had the look of someone who enjoyed a bit danger in her life. Hanse could probably provide that excitement, but that was some time away.
The Archon spoke again whilst Hanse watched silently, as usual considering how to play his cards to best effect. "Anyway back to Comstar, what can we do?"
Hanse stood up and looked at a large map that covered one wall. "We need time, things are changing in the Federated Suns." He looked at Melissa, the person who was about to have to start sharing the burden of command. "Helm will accelerate a process already underway, the NAIS is making good progress in getting some of the old factories running more efficiently, that will accelerate our capacity to rebuild our industrial base. In time that will translate into a far stronger economy and a capacity for more complex manufacturing."
"The biggest challenge right now is our heavy reliance upon Comstar, and thus their ability to read our messages. We can use more couriers and better codes, but to break free we need to the end the monopoly, despite the dangers involved." Ardan had heard Hanse's speech before, and now strongly agreed with it.
"How do you plan to do that?" In the past he was pretty sure the Archon would have been very wary about crossing Comstar, but times had changed and the knowledge that Comstar had wanted to destroy the priceless Helm library had infuriated her almost as much as the suspicion they could have been involved in an effort to harm her daughter.
"The 'Black box' project is proceeding well, it'll give us an emergency system. More effective will be replicating the Star League Defense Force's mobile transmitters, they don't transmit on the scale or distance of a large station, but we could build them in secret."
Katrina face broadened into a smile. "Is there something you wish to confess Hanse?"
"Helm didn't have any mobile HPG parts, unless you count some very generic parts for the vehicles. Artru on the other hand had a pair, along with a full complement of spare parts." Hanse looked slightly sheepish. He had shared almost all the knowledge from Artru with Archon, but had kept back the news of the recovery of HPG systems.
"Risky, very risky, I expect Comstar would interdict the Federated Suns if word gets out." Simon Johnson had a fair point, but with Comstar displaying distinctly unfriendly tendencies it was looking increasingly rational to take the risk.
"It is, and testing them will be problematic, but given a decade the team studying them believes they can replicate the devices, and before that we may be able to listen even if we can't broadcast." Existing technology could detect that transmissions were being made, and effective receivers were apparently a simpler technology than the transmission device.
"Hanse, I'll face a revolt if we get interdicted over this, too much trade relies upon Comstar's services to risk an interruption." The Archon didn't looked opposed though, merely keen to avoid a disaster.She had a reputation for being sensible, not necessarily risk-averse but careful in considering the balance of risk versus reward for her people.
"I understand." Hanse looked almost contrite.
"I do support it, but it'll need to happen on your territory, I just don't think we are as united as your government is." That was a rare acknowledgment that the legacy of Alessandro Steiner lived on in the form of disloyal officials and potentially untrustworthy members of the military. "TheBlack Boxes don't technically breach the agreements with Comstar, we can take more risks there." The black boxes didn't have the ability to transmit data on a level that competed with Comstar, and by all accounts couldn't scale up either owing to the narrow bands they used. Simultaneous transmissions simply garbled each other, and data capacity was low at those frequencies. They were a legacy of a research program that predated the clearly superior HPG system, the gap comparable to a telegraph system versus a digital radio.