Act 1 - Anger[]
With A Bared Sword[]
Chapter 9[]
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Fortress Loudon, Fort Louden
Tamar March, Federated Commonwealth
18 February 3055
Galen stuck his head through the door. “Time for the meeting, Victor.”
Victor hit pause on the video letter from Kathy and then closed down the comm unit. It seemed that they were both facing problems with bandits - her with the attack on Bryceland and now Kooken’s Pleasure Pit had been hit by another group. The more things changed, the more they stayed the same.
Shrugging on his uniform tunic, the prince buttoned it and then followed Galen through the headquarters building to where his visitors were waiting.
There were two of them, both at the table already. Victor noted to his displeasure that the ComStar Precentor had taken seat at the head of the table, positioning himself as the mediator. Still, at least the man rose respectfully as Victor entered.
The gray-clad mechwarrior sat on the far side of the conference didn’t give him that courtesy. “You didn’t have to dress up for me, Victor, no matter how pretty the dress uniform makes you look.”
“If you wanted this to be informal, Phelan, you wouldn’t be wearing your formal leathers.” Victor nodded to the Precentor and pulled out the chair facing his cousin. “But thank you for not bringing the Halloween mask.”
Phelan grinned unrepentantly. “They are surprisingly comfortable.”
“Perhaps we should get down to business?” Galen suggested. “Khan Ward did come in peace.”
“Indeed.” The white-robed Precentor was Klaus Hettig, one of the trusted aides of Precentor Martial Anastasius Focht. The ComGuards were almost entirely focused on maintaining the current truce, which meant far more coordination with the DCMS, AFFC and Kungsarme than had ever been the case before. Officers like Hettig were critical to those arrangements. “The Precentor Martial is gravely concerned about the threat posed by the Red Corsair’s raids on Pasig and Kooken’s Pleasure Pit.”
Victor nodded noncommittally before looking over at Phelan. “And the ilKhan’s position?” His cousin’s meteoric rise to junior Khan of Clan Wolf made him close to being Victor’s equivalent within the Clan - but Victor didn’t make policy decisions yet, and he doubted Ulric Kerensky allowed even the experienced Natasha Kerensky to direct his Clan, much less someone born outside their ways like Phelan.
The former mercenary nodded. “Ulric did not see the problem until Focht raised the matter, but he is convinced that this is a genuine threat to the Truce of Tukayyid.”
Victor pursed his lips and said nothing.
“The attack on Morges last year had a full Jade Falcon Cluster trying to push us offworld,” Galen observed. “I don’t think anyone in this room is happy with the damage done to the Federated Commonwealth’s people by the raid, but how seriously can we take them in comparison to the threat the Jade Falcons and the other Clans pose?”
“It is not the direct damage that we are concerned about, regrettable as it is,” Hettig replied. “It is true that the Jade Falcon’s testing of your strength - and similar probes launched by your own forces -”
Galen tapped his chest like a fencer acknowledging a hit.
“- keep tensions high, but the clashes there are something both sides understand. They are not so different from how the Great Houses pressed each other even under the Star League, not to mention the Succession Wars.”
“Or how the Clans are always testing each other in the homeworlds,” Phelan added. “You hit them, they hit you back… tit for tat. But with the Red Corsair, she hits you and you do… what?”
Victor frowned. “She got lucky on Kooken’s Pleasure Pit. If the Grave Walkers had been just a little faster, they could have caught her.”
“Was that luck? Or was it information?” his cousin asked.
Hettig nodded. “The same could be said of the Red Corsair attack on Pasig, and similarly on the Jade Falcons. She hit with the right timing to avoid opposition that could have cut her campaign short.”
“Once is luck,” Phelan told them. “Twice could be a coincidence.”
“But three times is enemy action.” Victor narrowed his eyes. “You believe she has sources on both sides of the border?”
The precentor spread his hands. “That is the best explanation.”
“How do you mean best?”
Victor turned to Galen. “Or one side is feeding her easy targets to back up the claim she’s just a pirate, while using her for deniable operations against the other.”
“Exactly. It does not have to be true,” the ComStar representative continued, “It only has to be a persuasive argument.”
Victor sat back and folded his arms in thought.
“They only took food,” Galen observed, “And prisoners. Those aren’t high value targets. One reason we haven’t made her a priority yet.”
“That very uncertainty as to her goals has already been picked up in some circles,” Hettig informed them. “Ryan Steiner’s mouthpieces within Free Skye have begun to speculate that she may be an LIC agent, using these raids as cover to pick off potential supporters for their cause in what remains of the Tamar Pact.”
“That’s ridiculous!” Victor exclaimed reflexively.
“I have to say,” his cousin warned, “I’ve heard stranger tales of Loki activities from my father. And he didn’t invent them.”
The prince grunted unhappily. On reflection, his cousin was not wrong. “My mother would not order such things. But as you say, it does not need to be true.”
“The optics are even worse among the Clans,” the khan continued. “They are a very open people, whether that’s why they issue batchalls or if the practice is what started it I can’t say. They look down on deception and subterfuge. If the Red Corsair is a bandit that the Federated Commonwealth is allowing to operate, that is bad enough - it is not impossible that they might initiate operations without regard to where they go. You can imagine how that would escalate.”
Galen steepled his fingers. “I hear a worse possibility implied.”
Phelan exhaled slowly. “False flag operations are unthinkable to the Clans, the only historical reference they would have is the Hidden Wars of the Star League, the dishonorable behavior of the Star League Council that preceded the Amaris Coup. If they are convinced, and some of the Crusader Khans might wish to be convinced, that the Red Corsair is actually an agent of your family then an argument could be made for them to resume the invasion.”
“Despite the truce?” asked Victor.
“Possibly they would restrain themselves to seizing worlds above the truceline.” A helpless shrug from the gray-clad man. “Or perhaps not. Elias Crichell would very much like to displace Ulric as ilKhan and if he can find grounds to overturn the truce, it would do a lot to weaken the Warden’s position.”
The prince nodded slowly. “Neither of those sounds welcome.” He had no illusions that the truce would last forever, but the Federated Commonwealth wasn’t ready to resume the war. They needed time to upgrade more of their forces using recovered Star League technology, not to mention the many other preparations that would have to be made. “Are they able to do that?”
Phelan looked reluctant. “Yes. Some of the Clans have yet to recover fully from Tukayyid. But the Jade Falcons sprang back faster than we expected. Right now, Clan Wolf is the only Clan in the Inner Sphere who can match them and there are too many Crusaders in our own ranks to be sure how the Clan would fall if it came to a fight.”
“Then the solution is simple: we need to destroy the Red Corsair,” Galen said bluntly. “I’m not saying that it would be easy, but I’d say this changes our priorities.”
Victor smirked. “The name annoyed me anyway. There was only one Red Corsair, it offends me that there’s a pretender to the name.”
Phelan laughed and the two cousins just smiled at the inquisitive looks from the other men. Both knew that Victor’s grandmother had been the legendary pirate queen, during a period of desperate exile before she seized the throne of the Lyran Commonwealth from her tyrannical uncle. Phelan’s father had been one of her right-hand men, along with Victor’s grandfather. But that wasn’t something ComStar needed to know about.
“The main challenge is finding her,” Galen said once it was clear that the private joke would not be explained. “But after that there is the truceline. If we take the Revenants after her into Jade Falcon space, we could provoke the conflict we want to avoid. Unless the ilKhan can get us free passage…”
“The Jade Falcons won’t give you anything, you’d have to win transit rights for every system you ran into them, which would whittle you down.” Phelan shook his head. “However, the Jade Falcons are a prideful bunch. Normally hunting down a pirate would be a task for their secondline forces, but if they hear that Prince Victor Davion is personally hunting the Red Corsair then suddenly her capture would become worthy of their best warriors.”
“It still leaves her able to slip away from us by crossing into other worlds. Not to mention the Steel Vipers worlds…”
Phelan nodded. “The Vipers are uncooperative, but I have arranged to challenge them for the prize of immediate reports of any sightings of the Red Corsair. What I suggest you do is the same. The Jade Falcon Loremaster leads their Watch, their equivalent of the Intelligence Secretariat. He is visiting worlds along the border. If you challenge him with a prize of sharing all reports, then we will have everyone on either side of the border sharing reports of the Red Corsair’s sightings and no matter where she goes, someone will be out for her head.”
Victor nodded. “I like it. But can we trust the Jade Falcons to be honest in sharing the information.”
“I only wish they would be as stupid as to lie,” Phelan said complacently. “Remember what I said about the Clans hating deception? If they got caught trying to hide the Red Corsair, then they’d be politically castrated.”
“That was an unnecessarily lurid way of putting it,” Hettig complained.