GblaRCS Chpt 70

==Guided by the light of a (Red) Cameron Star - Chapter 70 -==
<<Next Chapter - Return to Story Index - Next Chapter>>
"You continue to refuse to hand over the Von Strang's and now also my traitorous sister-in-law? If I could I'd raze Niops to the ground and sow the ashen soil with salt so nothing could grow back again afterwards. Luckily for you the entire Free Worlds League lies between us."HPG sent by Archon Claudius Steiner to the Niops Association - 2847CE
"Our position stands as a matter of principle. Moreover I'm obliged to relay to you that according to my military advisors the 'If' in your previous communique is carrying a lot harder than you think it is. Good Day, Sir.HPG sent in reply by High Associator James Murray to the Lyran Commonwealth - 2847CE
----
===Reflective Thoughts of a Widow===
Zenith Jump- Point – Niops System – 2847
Still surprised at just how good the coffee was aboard the massive Olympus Recharge Station, the beans were imported from a Hegemony world called Stafford apparently, Melissa Nin only sipped at hers savouring the taste while her bodyguard continued to choose not to eat or drink anything they were offered. "At least try one of the pastries, Sergeant" she advised the unusually tall and muscular woman wearing the uniform of a Lyran marine who had taken up a position standing nearby, her back against an internal bulkhead.
"I'm trying to watch my figure, Ma'am." the sergeant replied unconvincingly, she looked like she must spend half her waking hours in the gym, not that there wasn't plenty of spare time available for exercise during a long, tedious interstellar journey such as the one which had brought them here.
"Your loss" the widow of the former Archon of the Lyran Commonwealth responded, temporarily putting down her shatterproof space-safe ceramic cup and reaching for the plate of assorted patisserie that had been brought in for them while they waited patiently for the man from the Niops government to arrive.
Taking a small bite from the coquette she had chosen from the selection of pastries arrayed on the plate, she would have preferred a franzbrötchen or even a schneeball from back home but for some reason most places erroneously believed that French cuisine was better than German, Melissa Nin bit into the treat and savored the texture and sweetness. 
The quality and variety of the food available here had come as something of a surprise both to Melissa herself and her companions. It could have simply been a case of the usual Inner Sphere bias against the periphery to assume that they were unsophisticated and unrefined in all things, including their palates, but you could eat really well at one of the restaurants and fast-food places aboard the station that catered to its crew, those visiting Niops for trade, and people just passing through on their way to one of the Hegemony colonies further out. 
After months of living off naval rations, the Chinese meal that Melissa enjoyed when she first arrived at Niops had been heaven and braving what seemed to be local specialties such as moa burgers and tazqan, bell pepper and mushroom skewers, had been worth a little culinary adventurism.
She had however passed on the caviar, from genetically modified sturgeon introduced to the seas of Niops VII apparently, and as for the supposed 'beer' made from a grain called fonio it was an absolute travesty that would be a literal crime in much of the Lyran Commonwealth. The Reinheitsgebot, the now thirteen-hundred year-old Beer Purity Law which the German people had taken with them to the stars was serious business.
Perhaps she should have started a rumor that her accursed brother-in-law was planning to scrap it? He would have been hanging from a lamppost outside the palace within the day.
Despite much of the station's interior being far from austere, thanks to the larger of its grav decks having an immense diameter of more than twelve-hundred meters there was no shortage of internal living space, the waiting room she found herself in now itself was utilitarian in the extreme. It was all metal furniture and no pictures on the walls and thus almost resembled a cell, although there was at least a window that faced the local star. Initially, Melissa had thought the glass must be darkened but she soon realized that no, that was just how dim the thing looked, especially from this far out at the system's zenith point.
Not that the zenith point was situated remotely as far from the star here as it was in Tharkad or most other colonized systems. Niops was a diminutive Red Dwarf so it was safe to jump in, or jump out much closer to the star and its planetary companions that she was used to. That must be convenient at least she decided, no boring week-long DropShip rides to deal with routinely, and in her current situation it meant not waiting nearly as long for the official to arrive from Niops VII.
The big downside of living in such a system however, beyond what must be a fairly depressing lack of opportunity to sunbathe, was that the star's lack of luminosity meant it took much longer for a JumpShip to recharge its drive, hence the Niops Association choosing to splash out some of its considerable financial resources in building this enormous recharge station.
Even a standard Olympus class facility massed a million tons and tended to dwarf any ships close by, but this particular one was even larger than that, Niops having slightly increased the size of the main repair bay so that it could service a wider array of vessels. It still wasn't big enough to house one of the warships stood guard, but it was nonetheless likely one of the largest orbitals in the Inner Sphere these days and certainly one of only a handful of comparable scale that had been constructed anywhere this century.
That said it wasn't the size of the recharge station which caused many foreign visitors to feel perturbed when they arrived here, nor even the warships, it was the multiple squadrons of Voidseeker drone fighters that could be seen buzzing around which made the hair stand up on the back of the neck of anybody who knew about such things.
Before setting out on what might well be a one-way trip Melissa had downloaded all the information she could find on both the Niops Association and the new Hegemony they had founded out here onto her noteputer. Much of what was publicly known about them was merely conjecture, even what Niops had let slip about the Association themselves being veiled in an opaque cloud of seemingly deliberate disinformation, both exaggeration and understatement, amidst the telling of tales that were so fishy they must represent a veritable school of Red Herrings.
They practically made ComStar look like an open book, ComStar. 
Niops was like ComStar in other ways too. Like the jumped-up phone company itself Niops still knew how everything worked while unlike ComStar they didn't pretend not to, or outwardly profess some kind of pacifist creed of ideological strict non-intervention. The Association's general policy towards the Successor States was broadly one of neutrality and isolationism, although they clearly found the Capellan Confederation and the Draconis Combine politically distasteful and they traded freely with the Free Worlds League while enjoying a reasonably positive relationship with the Federated Suns.
To the chagrin of her late husband that trade with the Mariks had included providing them with shipments of PPCs for a while, a type of weaponry in short supply in the Free Worlds League to the benefit of the Lyran Commonwealth, but he had accepted that some of the blame for that should be placed squarely at the foot of ComStar and with the end of the interdiction the flow of military supplies from Niops to Atreus had ceased.
They also had a praiseworthy humanitarian streak that had helped improve Archon Marcus Steiner's opinion of them, one that was most evident in their freely providing life-saving lostech designs to those in need, something that ComStar pointedly did not do, despite it being generally, and reasonably, believed that the people currently occupying Terra itself must possess the blueprints for such things as well. 
The well-meaning vibes of the humanitarian streak were however heavily tempered by a cultivated air of '****** around and find out' when it came to military matters, they even utilized a latin motto espousing such a position. The Niops Association was not New Dallas, nuke them and they had the power-projection required to nuke you right back, and they would, and they were entirely forthright about it. It was about the only thing they didn't ever joke or obfuscate about in their dealings with outsiders.
Just what the previously mentioned 'find out' might entail other than their nuclear deterrent had only increased with the revelation that their fleet of warships and armed Jumpships was even larger than was already established. It wasn't just that it was now known that they possessed a hitherto unsuspected Carrack, and that the Royalty they had taken as a prize was in considerably better condition than they had let on which ruffled a few feathers either, it was that they felt secure sending both to the other side of the Inner Sphere rather than keeping them at home to guard their colonies.
It was exactly that kind of confidence that had led Melissa Nin to accept the suggestion from a supporter of hers within Lyran Intelligence that she should seek safety in Niops controlled territory. Fewer people than ever before were likely going to be willing to 'find out' the hard way if Niops could actually back up their bullshit or not, it might even give her deranged brother-in-law pause for thought and most importantly they might be the only place Loki couldn't easily get to her if Claudius let them off the leash. 
After managing to get off Tharkad just before she could get snatched by Loki, it was no surprise that they would favor having Claudius on the throne as he would surely give them free rein to do whatever they liked in the interests of 'national security', Melissa had been initially successful in throwing off those pursuing her and had traveled from system to system trying to raise support against the new self-appointed Archon. Unfortunately, her efforts had mostly come to naught as the large majority of the military units that might have been willing to side against Claudius were tied down on the front lines, either holding back the ongoing invasion of the Commonwealth by the Draconis Combine or blocking the series of counter-offensives being launched by the Free Worlds League to try and take back the systems they lost during the ComStar interdiction.
Finally concluding that her own real option was to flee the Lyran Commonwealth entirely, and after taking some advice on what her option were now, Melissa had embarked on the somewhat roundabout six-month-long journey that had skirted the periphery and eventually brought her to Niops.
It had only been during that time that she really had the opportunity to properly mourn her loss, as until then she had been far too busy to just sit down and do so. This had made the trip all the more melancholy as she contemplated the prospect of never seeing her homeland again as well as her beloved husband.
The worst of it was she couldn't help but wonder how things would have turned out if Marcus had chosen not to dismiss the clamor from all the courtiers and advisors who had called on him to divorce his seemingly barren wife and then quickly remarry in order to produce a suitable heir for the good of the Lyran Commonwealth.
If he had been a man of less rigid principles who didn't believe in keeping to his vows, or if he hadn't genuinely loved his wife, Marcus Steiner might well still be alive right now and the Commonwealth saved from what was surely going to be the rule of a tyrant.
Life was far from just or fair, be you commoner or noble, and in the bigger picture any objective observer of the Inner Sphere would likely conclude that if anything it had been getting progressively worse for the majority of people for at least the last century-and-a-half.
Unfortunately, you couldn't just blame it all on Amaris either, it took a team effort for humanity to go from a golden age to a new dark age within a single Terran lifespan.
Claudius Steiner being very much a cheerleader for team entropic collapse in Melissa's opinion while conversely out in the periphery the Niops Association at least seemed to be making a stand of sorts for team 'So, just throwing this out there, but how about we don't let the light of civilization go out? Okay, so it's a little radical we know, but if you could mull it over a while before dismissing the idea outright and going back to turning each other's worlds to radioactive glass we'd really appreciate it. In the meantime here's how you purify water cheaply so you don't all starve'. 
From what Melissa could tell the station she was on was run by the Niops Association Militia rather than the Star League Defense Force, although the uniform worn by the station commander who had met her at the docking port, a Lieutenant-Colonel Mary Heath, was little different in style than those worn by the SLDF pointing to the Star League and Terran Hegemony origins of the colony.
The warships positioned nearby, the captain of the Jumpship she had arrived on informing her that they were a Lola III class destroyer and a larger Congress class frigate, were very much SLDF crewed and operated however, and despite not actually pointing their guns at her own vessel currently received beamed power they were clearly there to remind everybody concerned who exactly it was that ran this corner of the galaxy.
According to the 'legitimate' government on Tharkad, Melissa Nin herself, the handful of servants and staff who had fled the Commonwealth with her, the company of marines and the crew of the Lyran flagged Invader which had transported them to Niops were renegades and traitors. Given that the 'loyalists' back home were the willing lackeys of a fratricidal lunatic Melissa regarded such accusations of being a renegade as a badge of honor, though at least she knew that some of those who professed loyalty to Claudius only did so out of fear not devotion.
The majority of his most vocal supporters, at least among the military, were to be found among the ranks of the so-called 'social generals' that had hardly prospered under the reign of her husband. Marcus Steiner, being one of the more competent Archons to have sat on the throne of Tharkad, had been more inclined than some of his predecessors towards promoting officers based on their battlefield performance, not simply how much money they had or who they were related to, a policy that had definitely rankled in certain quarters back home.
Just so long as you kissed his ass and obeyed his orders without question Claudius didn't care so much if you had much in the way of actual ability or not, and that was the kind of Archon an awful lot of uninspiring and tactically inept upper-class twits in ornate uniforms could happily get behind.
Melissa knew there was a very good reason why her husband had never formally declared his brother as his successor, despite their own failure to produce an heir. Marcus Steiner knew his little brother too well to think the Commonwealth would be safe in his hands and had been hoping like hell that either his wife would finally bear a child or that maybe Elizabeth Steiner, the young daughter of Claudius, would grow up more trustworthy to sit on the throne than her father.
Marcus and Melissa had even discussed once what his little brother's reaction was going to be when Claudius's daughter reached her teens and was named heir to the throne instead of himself. They had jointly agreed that it was probably for the best if Elizabeth was on a different planet than Claudius when that happened because watching her father suffer some kind of rage-induced seizure probably wouldn't be good for the girl.
----
===Negotiations for a safe haven===
If the death of the Archon hadn't been so sudden, and Claudius hadn't moved so fast, Melissa was pretty sure that the majority of the members of the Estates General would have moved to try and block her brother-in-law from taking the throne. Harlan Dinesen the speaker of the assembly had practically told her as much as he hinted that she herself would have been the obvious choice to rule, at least until Elizabeth was of age anyway, but since Claudius stole a march on everyone else by quickly moving regiments loyal to him to Tharkad, those in the Estates General who were rather less than enthused about the situation had to keep their heads down, metaphorically, for fear of losing them, literally.
Personally decapitating Karl Von Strang had probably given Claudius a taste for it too, Melissa thought to herself as the door to the waiting room opened, though she was willing to accept that she might be a teeny bit more inclined to think the worst of the man than was strictly fair.
Melissa immediately recognized the man who entered, he was about the only person from here that she might have, and it was reassuring that their government had seen fit to dispatch what must be one of their most senior diplomats, you didn't send a nobody to meet the Pope in Rome after all.
The expensive looking suit he was wearing was made in the Italian style, so he probably got it made there during his stay, although Melissa herself always thought that when it came to men's fashion Terran designs were a little dated. 
"Gareth Jeffries, Niops Association Diplomatic Corps" the man introduced himself redundantly. "Before we begin do you prefer to be addressed as the Lady Melissa Nin or the Lady Melissa Steiner? I wouldn't want to offend." he checked, smiling.
"Either will be fine," Melissa replied. "My husband didn't insist on me using his surname though I often did so at official functions." she continued. "Or we could just put aside the formalities and you could simply call me Melissa instead" she suggested.
"Melissa and Gareth it is then" the diplomat accepted her offer of a more relaxed form of address. "And you are?" he asked her bodyguard.
"Sergeant Melinda Geisler" the marine replied. "I would much prefer to be addressed as 'sergeant' rather than my given name, or ideally not to be involved in the conversation at all" she stated firmly.
"As you wish, Sergeant Geisler" Jeffries responded before turning back to Melissa. "I do hope you realise the awkward position you've placed us in by coming here and asking for asylum?" he asked her rhetorically. "The policy of the Niops Association as regards our diplomatic relationship with the Lyran Commonwealth has always been one of broad indifference for the most part. You're not really close enough to represent either a potential threat or a particularly valuable trade partner, although on the flip side we also didn't regard your internal political or social structure to be morally objectionable to the point that we felt obligated to castigate you for it."
Melissa smiled. "For what it's worth my husband found some of the cutting remarks your government has made in the past regarding Houses Kurita and Liao both inciteful and wryly amusing, although I strongly doubt you would be very welcome on either Luthien or Capella, particularly the latter given your government's habit of describing the servitor system as chattel slavery with exams."
"I've always preferred describing their society as 'Socialism with Capellan characteristics' myself , those characteristics being chiefly neofeudal slaveocracy, but I'm an academic by background" Jeffries replied, smiling back. "I think it's safe to say that no matter what you called it, that trying to fit it into his model of the way societies develop over time would have driven Karl Marx to distraction."
"Interesting. So how would you describe the Draconis Combine?"
"As a very large scale and elaborate Tokugawa period theme park with battlemechs." Jeffries replied, still smiling. "If they weren't so damn earnest about it, and hadn't killed so many people, everyone would regard them as a big joke."
"Ah, but would you tell that to them to their face?"
"I would love to say yes, but honestly that would depend on whether I was within katana reach or not." Jeffries replied. "Unfortunately they're also pretty keen on getting their cosplay as accurate as possible" he continued before crossing his arms. "Much as I enjoy friendly banter, perhaps we could move onto the main reason I jumped aboard the first DropShip heading here from the capital as soon as word reached us of your arrival. Your request for asylum. Or more specifically your justification for why we might grant it, that being your declaration that it was your bother-in-law, the new Archon of the Lyran Commonwealth, that murdered his predecessor, your husband, thus making his succession entirely illegitimate."
"That is my position, yes." Melissa confirmed.
Jeffries uncrossed his arms and leaned forward in his chair, now placing his hands on the table in front of him fingers meshed. "I hope you realize that if you can't back this accusation up with some convincing evidence that my government is almost certain to reject your application" he responded in a serious tone. "If you had asked for asylum without making such a claim it might have been accepted regardless, but by doing so I guarantee that if you can't back it up then you'll be shown the door post-haste because the Niops Association does not appreciate being flimflammed." he told her sincerely.
Flimflamming other people was practically their national policy of course, but it wasn't like Niops had a monopoly on rank hypocrisy.
Melissa Nin sighed. "What do you know about the death of my husband?" she asked.
"Only the official story, that he was killed in a DropShip accident." Jeffries replied. "I'll confess that like the majority of the people my automatic reaction was a suspicion of foul play given that he was a head of state, a head of state in wartime no less, but accidents do happen so I'd really need to be shown some actual evidence that it wasn't just bad luck, bad timing or bad maintenance to blame."
"I can provide you with proof that the DropShip was sabotaged" Melissa told him. "Black box recordings and physical evidence of mechanical tampering found at the crash site."
Jeffries frowned. "We'll want to see it of course, but while that might prove that someone had your husband assassinated that wouldn't mean Claudius was responsible" he replied. "I mean, while I'm a firm believer in the principle of asking the question, 'cui bono?', when considering such matters, and Claudius most surely benefits since he clearly desired the throne, to be frank the list of alternative suspects would be rather lengthy" the diplomat continued dispassionately. "For a start I'll remind you that SAFE almost succeeded in assassinating Archon Richard Steiner by proxy thirty years ago, and your father-in-law never got nearly as close to delivering a knock-out blow to the Free Worlds League as your husband did, so they're bound to have been gunning for him even more."
"It wasn't the Marik's that killed my husband." Melissa replied flatly.
"Not saying that it was, just giving an example" Jeffries responded. "Historically Mariks have a much better track record of doing away with other Mariks that they do major rivals from outside their family, although on that note I must observe that for its part House Steiner has generally refrained from such shenanigans which is why there is always going to be a healthy scepticism to any claims that Claudius has been channeling many a Marik heir."
This time it was Melissa's turn to cross her arms. "The reason I know Claudius was behind my husbands death lies with how swiftly he moved to dispatch regiments loyal to him to Tharkad." she stated.
"Although it was, let's say unseemly, at how quick Claudius was to move troops while he should have really been mourning his brother I'd argue that being callous, power-hungry and self-absorbed only makes him an ******, not a murderer" Jeffries responded.
"And if I told you that at least one of the units concerned started loading onto DropShips to head for Tharkad to secure the throne for Claudius before word reached the world they were on of my husband's demise, what would you say then?" Melissa asked drily.
Gareth Jeffries raised his eyebrows, remaining quiet for a few seconds before frowning. "I would say that I'd every much like to see the proof of that being the case, and, contingent on whether or not your claim is borne out by said evidence or not, I might well conclude that at least one of the people involved in plotting your husband's death was an outright ****** moron."
"It might be more accurate to describe them as incapable of adaptation to changed circumstances or showing initiative, but 'moron' would do at a pinch" Melissa concurred. "To be clear it wasn't that they started to deploy ahead of everyone else, it was that because of a technical fault that occurred when the Tharkad HPG station tried to transmit the notification of the Archon's death to Upano and because Upano itself only has a B class HPG station this wasn't noticed for some time" she explained. "I assume you know about ComStar's A and B class stations?" she checked. "I'm aware you people operate your own network."
"Our links to the Inner Sphere are routed through the ComStar network via a couple of their B class stations on Hednesford and Thraxa, so we're well familiar with how long a message can sit with them before being passed on unless you're willing to put your hand in your pocket and pay for the premium rate service" Jeffries replied. "Our own NHCOMNET stations are what you might call A+, they transmit every four hours or so, although you'd be surprised at how much of the data being transferred is to do with pictures taken by telescopes these days" he said, recalling a memo sent out by NHCOMNET that crossed his desk bemoaning how much of their bandwidth was being leeched off by High Associator Murray's pet project.
"Still pretending that those massive 'orbital telescopes' of yours aren't weapon platforms are we?" Melissa asked sardonically. "My husband didn't buy that implausible cover story for one second."
Jeffries sighed, just about the only time the Niops Association was telling the unvarnished truth about something they were up to and nobody believed them. Most of the Inner Sphere seemed convinced these days that all the DropShip sized telescopes being constructed and deployed by Niops must be part of a budget SDS, each 'telescope' housing a naval laser and a fighter bay full of Voidseeker drones.
To be fair, given that the Great Houses had effectively been in a near-constant state of war for six decades, and that orbital manufacturing capacity in the Inner Sphere had been blasted down to a mere fraction of what it used to be, for them to find it somewhat difficult to accept that someone was devoting that much effort towards civilian 'pure science' research with no military application was pretty understandable.
"You know they really are just telescopes, our M9 Pavise battle stations are disguised as JumpShips" Jeffries told her, always temper your truth with a lie.
Mellisa Nin rolled her eyes at the ridiculousness of both claims. "According to my sources the Duke of Upano, who commands his own militia regiment, followed his secret instructions on when to start mobilising his forces to help support Claudius's move on Tharkad to the letter, but that letter failed to spell out what to do if news of my husband's death didn't arrive when it was supposed to, so in lieu of further instructions he mobilised anyway."
"Ah, yes. The famed military genius of the Lyran officer corps at work" Jeffries quipped earning a glare from both Melissa and her bodyguard.
"Perhaps we're just not as well practised at organising and carrying out proper coups as our rivals" Melissa found herself defending her people despite herself.
"You should be grateful that it all sounds more plausible than it really should" Jeffries responded, thinking to himself that at least Capellan and Combine troops had the excuse that they feared they would be summarily executed for displaying excessive amounts of personal initiative, the tactical failures of the LCAF was simply a result of being cursed with a surplus of often staggeringly incompetent officers.
Normally that wouldn't matter quite so much for a regiment based on Upano, a system situated far from the front lines, but in this case when a little more nous on the part of the duke would have come in handy they had evidently come up short.
Jeffries looked thoughtful. "Naturally we'll want to see some proof of all this, but beyond that I might point out that just because there may have been some dastardly cabal who assassinated your husband to put his brother on the throne that doesn't necessarily mean that Claudius himself was the instigator, or that was even aware of the plot."
"For all of his faults my brother-in-law is no fool and certainly no puppet" Melissa responded dismissive of the idea that he was merely the pawn of others. "I can only suggest that you inspect the files and documents that I will have brought over from my ship and that you reach your conclusions based upon them."
"I've got to wonder, why not simply release this information to the public back in the Lyran Commonwealth?" Jeffries queried.
"Because Claudius would have claimed it was all forgery and lies, with his troops occupying Tharkad and the other core worlds of the Commonwealth, with Loki supporting him, and with the bulk of the military in no position to disengage from the fighting on our borders in order to wade into a potential civil war how well do you think that would have gone?" Melissa asked rhetorically. "Many within the Estates General have been made aware of what I've told you, they're just not in a position to do much about it other than pray that Claudius suffers an 'accident' of his own."
Gareth Jeffries straightened up in his chair. "If you have any notions that we will allow you to mastermind some kind of counter-coup from within the Niops Hegemony then I'm afraid I must inform you that we will not permit, that regardless of whether or not we accept your application for asylum" he told her. "If we were in the business of helping to knock off governments we don't like we'd have no time to do anything else and frankly Claudius Steiner would not even be at the top of the list."
Melissa smirked. "You 'knocked off' the government of Von Strang's World" she pointed out.
"We did, but only because they were entirely bereft of support in the wider galaxy, so the diplomatic fall-out would be minimal, and furthermore to that because Karl Von Strang was at the top of our list" Jeffries responded, amused. "Our idealism is restrained by our pragmatism. Although we might greatly annoy them on occasion for one reason or another, violating Lyran sovereignty by flying a warship through your territory without permission for example, for reasons of self-preservation we're not actively trying to antagonise the Great Houses" he stated with resolve before his expression shifted like he was reconsidering his previous words. "Well maybe the Combine on occasion" he admitted. They were just ****** on so many levels and they were far enough away that saying so wasn't likely to lead to an invasion.
"If my application for asylum was accepted would my people and I be settled on your capital world, Niops VII I believe, or one of the other two habitable worlds in this system?" Melissa suddenly queried. "I ask because I'm told Niops VII is very cold."
"It is, although it's still got better weather than the other two." Jeffries replied. "However, you wouldn't be allowed to live on any of the planets in this system" he told her. "For security reasons all of our worlds here are closed to outsiders."
"You mean I'd have to live here on the station?" Melissa asked with a grimace. As space stations go it was very nice, but it wasn't somewhere you'd want to live in the long term.
"No, we're hoping that the government of Stafford would be wiling to accept you." Jeffries replied. "There's a couple of reasons for that, firstly because they also operate a system of restrictive immigration, making it easier to keep infiltrators and spies out, and secondly because it's where we based the Blackhearts mercenary regiment, and their presence is likely to give even Loki pause for thought if Claudius decides to sic them on you."
"Special Forces?"
"Very special forces, specialists in counter-terrorist work and Black Ops work. They're better than any of our own people at that stuff to be perfectly honest." Jeffries told her. "If Stafford won't take you then we might have to improvise."
"Your own government can't simply overrule a decision by one of your colonies?"
"Only if they try and do something totally unacceptable like reintroduce slavery, or stop holding elections" Jeffries replied. "Their immigration policy is entirely up to them, we're not the Terran Alliance, just because we're the only system in the Hegemony with warships doesn't mean the rest of them are just vassals we can rule over with an iron fist and a threat of orbital bombardment. They're citizens not serfs."
"How progressive of you."
"Yeah, it's a somewhat radical notion in this day and age we know." Jeffries responded with a shrug.
----
==Chapter Notes==
*;Notes from the Author : The fact that Marcus Steiner did not name his younger brother his heir despite having no children himself, and given that in canon the Estates Generation wanted to put Melissa Nin on the throne as Archon, despite her lack of political and military experience, my assumption is that an awful lot of people in the Commonwealth knew that Claudius was a really, really bad choice.While beer made from fonio grown on Alphard might be popular in Niops it would definitely fall afoul of the Reinheitsgebot.The Lyran Commonwealth is arguably cursed by two things. The so-called Social Generals who so contribute to the infamous levels of military incompetance ascribed to the LCAF, and Loki, their extremely competant (and deeply unpleasant) intellgence agency that very much found its niche during the reign of Claudius Steiner.Loki all too often functions like its a terrorist organisation operating under a letter of marque, they are rightly feared in many quarters. Niops respects their abilities enough to believe that only the Blackhearts running interferance would represent a stumbling block for them. 
----
<<Next Chapter - Return to Story Index - Next Chapter>>
Chapter 70