TGoaW-93

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==Chapter 93 - The Glow of a Worm inside a Child's Eye==
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"It's hell-no not an equitable...
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...trade Pat." Elizabeth snarled once she was alone with her brother again.
"Did you notice the last few cargo runs?" Patrick asked.
"Heavy equipment movement, destinations on the ground? Yeah, but I've been busy being a bureaucrat for Her Majesty. Why?"
"They think they're facing disgraced ex-clan warriors in Inner Sphere gear." He explained, "What we didn't bother to tell them, is that once samples were dismantled for examination, the AFFC needed to do something with all that Clanner hardware, and we've been testing high-end prototypes based on some of it for almost two years now. First Brigade's gotten all that front-line Jade Falcon gear back...along with some of the specialty gear the Fedcom developed, and they've been testing."
Elizabeth's jaw dropped. "You rigged it."
"WE rigged the contest, Liz." he said, "improved doctrine, plus equal gear. Assuming Clees doesn't bolo on purpose, the odds are better than favorable that we'll pull a win in their Trial, and we'll have leverage when it's over. Victor and his friend Kai helped me plan this out...which is why it's good to make contacts and friendships, little sister."
"...but Roshak said-"
"I anticipated their initiative and co-opted it." Pat explained, "It's one of those duties a Noble has to remember-know your people, know what they'll do, and why they do it, and take a half-baked, stupid idea? and turn it into something that works. We win, they have to fill the bet, which means they'll need things stable to honor their word...which gives us a chance to work on their mentality and that means gaining leverage."
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Camp John Training Range...
...was situated in the basin just east of the iron Hills, north of Minsky's folly (a massive canyon badlands) and south of a highland that slopes down to the coastal areas of the Little Mekong basin and New Saigon.
Basically, it's a scrub desert and a possible indicator of pre-settlement asteroid strikes of the sort that render whole biomes extinct.
Which makes it a pretty good area for running lots and lots of mechanized warfare exercises on land nobody wants to live on.
Which is what it's used for.
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