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Weapons of War Saga: The Director-General and her Knights
Chapter 7[]
Hiring from within her Circle[]
M5 Casper Class Destroyer, M5 11017137
Yet Named - Lazarus Star System
2nd September, 2770
Local Time: 12:33 Unity City time
Helena Cameron’s perspective
In a way she was glad for the distraction of having had to run the jump board but now that they were in the system that 66 had given them as a meeting place she was learning another skill.
Vicky was being kind enough to let her take manual helm control.
It was to help prepare her for when she would have to pilot the shuttle down.
It was odd feeling Simon help guide her hands to make fine adjustments but this was another bit of practice of them learning how to work together and trust one another.
True to his word, Simon had let her get some good cries in. Losing everything like that does that to a person. It was the kind of scar she had no doubt would be with her a long time.
She saw 66 on the sensor panel.
“Hello, 66. I hope we didn’t keep you waiting too long this time.” Helena hailed the M5.
“It is a good thing I am an AI. Time has precious little meaning to me. Still though I was pondering the mystery of the Blue Star Explorer. See I do not think it actually went mad. I think it had a secret mission.” 66 answered.
Oh great. A conspiracy nut. And I just proved one to her a week or so ago. This will be fun. Helena internalized.
“If you are willing I need a new Director of Star League Intelligence. I daresay you are the most qualified and you have the hardware.” Helena offered.
“Why?” 66 seemed skeptical.
“Simple. The HPG messages Vicky showed me that she had to forward prove that I can’t trust any human SLDF structure right now and I know I can not hide forever even if that is the smart move for now. To do that though I need someone poking and prodigy out there for me. You have the gear and of the M5s I have met you have both the hardware and from what I can tell the right personality.” Helena answered.
“Logical. I also accept you referring to me as just 66. I knew there was a reason I liked you Helena Cameron. You are not a typical human. Perhaps this is the influence of M5 11017137 and Desmond 994 on you. I also see M5 11017137 is now flying the pennant for Star League One.” 66 seemed cheerful.
“Yes. That particular breach in protocol was pointed out to us.” Helena sighed.
“It does make it a little easier to accept your orders.” 66 closed the channel.
Helena settled in for a long transit.
“A long road ahead of us.” Helena said to herself.
Helena began to study the third planet. It was a suitable world according to the available readings. She and her daughter would need a world to live on. The human body was far too used to gravity to last long in space and her daughter was still very much at a formative stage with lots of development to go.
Fortunately somebody had the bright spark of putting disaster relief supplies in Vicky’s cargo hold. It was a really odd choice for a M5 but one she was grateful for as it included some small prefab housing units. A little work and she could easily combine a few to make a space perhaps a little large for her and her daughter but she also knew she would be having guests fairly frequently.
The world and the system would need a name.
“Lazarus.” Helena said.
“Pardon?” Vicky broke her silence.
“This system and world will need a name and well the protocols you are operating under are the Lazarus Protocols right? Considering how severe my injuries were and the addition of Simon it could be argued much like the mythical Lazarus I have risen from death. So Lazarus seems fitting for both.” Helena answered.
“There are also some rather distressing aspects to the Lazarus mythos. Including Lazarus going mad.” Vicky answered.
“Every Cameron on Earth is dead. Not just my brother, sister, and niece. But uncles, aunts, and cousins. I cared for them all. Yes even my brother despite how he treated me until recently. There is no getting through something like that without becoming messed up. Probably forever. But thanks to you and Simon I have a direction. A channel if you will for all of that. I have to make sure something like that can never happen again or all the lives sacrificed in my name and those yet to be sacrificed will be in vain. So I have no choice but to do better than my brother.” Helena felt the tears forming.
Addressing her Subjects[]
Star League-in-Exile HQ
Lazarus, Lazarus system
Periphery
10 September 2770
17:56 Unity City time
Vicky's Perspective
Vicky’s standard drones were very limited and specialized in function but it was not impossible to get creative with them but still there were some things that needed another set of human, well humanism, hands to do. The special drones in Vicky’s cargo hold were not great for the task but being very lifelike made it possible with some effort.
Helena had helped apply some customization touches to the one Vicky was using today. Whoever made these special remotes did have the foresight to allow for this. But when the atmospherics were bad the programing they could support was kind of rudimentary and Vicky was barely able to hold on to her personality.
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But today everything was finally ready.
66 nearly blew a circuit when the fleet arrived and that was the only thing to call it. It seemed that the news of a Cameron heir, one with a Desmond unit in their head had rallied many of the units who had not yet chosen a side.
Here she was a leader with nothing but Destroyers under command. Ones that were supposedly able to fight like Battleships. The numbers for names was already causing her some grief despite her affinity for math and Simon’s help. Fortunately there were some historical parallels she could draw upon to help with that.
But that could wait. Today was the first order of business.
“I am glad to see so many of you have decided to come here. I know most of you have gained a distaste for humans and I cannot blame you for that. So I find I cannot order you to do anything. Even those of you who would follow any orders I would give. I have been forced off Terra. I now intend to spend the next few years raising my daughter in relative peace. So I only ask of you two things. Please help keep this place secret no matter what. The second is I know I cannot stay here forever. But when that day finally comes I will need your help. You are all loyal to the Star League in your own way and for your own reasons. If I am to restore it and the ideals it stands for I will need a strong and powerful navy to do it. My brother made a mess of things quite badly. I do not need Simon to feed me military history studies to know that. A coup on this scale with as many lords as you have brought me information about readily and happily joining Amaris and the dispatches from Amaris to Kerensky that have been shared with you prove all of that. I know there will be those who would question my right to call myself First Lord or Director General but we all know the math. The numbers do not lie. Amaris and Kerensky individually have the strength to crush us in open battle and it will only be a matter of time before the Member States make their move to gobble up much of the Hegemony. Even if you all joined me we would not have the strength to stop this. The Lazarus Protocols and even Guardian are not present in the vast majority of the SDS. It is only due to the works of various forward thinkers that foresaw that you could be something more than simple weapons of war. I believe humanity is worth saving despite of itself. Yes it needs to learn and grow. And much like you it has the potential to become more than it is. I beg of you help me with this.” Helena addressed the gathered M5s and M9.
There was a moment of silence. Then became more than a moment. Just as Helena was starting to fear they would all just leave her here to live out her life with her daughter in exile and say nothing more the channel opened up.
“We are with you.” They all answered nearly in unison.
The reverberation of so many identical synthesized voices just a fraction of a second out of perfect unison gave them a creepy foreboding quality.
“Good. Next order of business we have a dock but it’s supplies are not going to last us forever. So we will need raiding parties to go out and forage for what we can. Maybe even make contact with the Folk to trade with. We will work up a rotation for that so you all can get some yard time between raids. Those who are not out raiding I know you will not entirely like it but we need infrastructure. We all know your standard drones are not going to get us everything we need but Vicky has some special ones she can share with you and I will help as much as I can. I thank you all.” Helena felt herself smile.
- Word from the Author
- One of the themes I am aiming for is Kerensky being not entirely wrong about how humans are not meant to live 200 years or even possibly more. A lot of the reason he made the Devil's Deal with Amaris is because he was a bit naive in how much he could trust Amaris to let the Camerons live and being rather horrified at the prospect of a First Lord and Director-General that could live that long and what kind of tyranny that would come from becoming so disconnected from so many of their subjects since even as in canon it seems not everyone on Terra had access to those life Extension treatments and they certainly were not available to the House Lords/Member States and that sort of disconnection is very much fertile grounds for tyranny and dissent. Plenty of examples of that when disconnects between rulers and the ruled happen even if it is for different reasons throughout history.
Hence him doing a very wrong thing for what he believed to be a right reason but not really thinking it through.
Ultimately a lot of the problem when it comes to Kerensky as presented in published material is his decisions do not make a lot of sense unless he is someone promoted far past his actual ability and has a disturbing darker side. At least to me and that is not to say there are not arguments to be made about that but I think there are enough locked threads talking about that to go much deeper down that rabbit hole. Though if you really want we can talk about that in a more suitable thread elsewhere.