TBntG-2 Chpt 34

=The Bull and the Genie=
==Chapter 34 - Book II - The Ninety-five Theses==
----
<<Previous Chapter - Return to Story Index - Next Chapter>>
-----
==Chats by the Fire==
Officer of the Protector - Taurus, Taurian Concordat
-----
Edward was used to unpleasant surprises. 
But this… he stared at the Precentor of Comstar, the man sitting in his highly secured setting room, sipping tea like someone just hadn't tried to murder or kidnap him.
 
The man who had casually revealed…
 
"You're either insane or incredibly confident." Edward finally said.
 
"I can back up the information." Will said. "All you have to do is look at the records you have when we blew that battlecruiser to hell. You're welcome, by the way."
 
"Welcome? Welcome?!" Edward took a deep breath. "You know some of my people died?"
 
"If you'd reactivated it, it would have been a matter of when, not if, the Inner Sphere found out. ROM analysts estimated a seventy percent chance that the Federated Suns or Capellan Confederation would have tried to destroy or seize it, and 10 percent chance it'd go to the use of WMD's—possibly including strikes on infrastructure." 
 
"And that excuses it?" 
 
"Depends on what you want to do, Protector." Will had come in, and then asked to check some things, and when Edward had given him permission, he'd shaken his head. "Two priority messages to the First Circuit. One speaking of my unfortunate death, in a Comstar Code. One in a one-time pad format, know idea who that went to, but it confirmed my suspicions."
 
"Which were?"
 
"Rush job. Normally, you wouldn't send anything unusual like that, but I expect Myndo is planning on securing her power base. So she needs to move fast. She'll succeed, at least on Terra."
 
Edward got up, and started pacing in the room. "So why should I care? You just told me about how Comstar had been murdering scientists. How the Sirius Atrocity was an atrocity in scale, but if you could have—"
 
"Arranged an unfortunate accident for Carlyle, or hell, just bribed him to let us check the obviously defective core? We wouldn't be having this conversation."
 
"Do you realize how many people died for that?"
 
"Well, I don't know about Holy Shroud. Most of our operations were handling scientists who were working on CASPER tech." Will shook his head. "The rest? That was all the house lords. You have yearly observations of the day the first confirmed case of the Brisbane Virus was detected. Why is it so important?"
 
Edward didn't roll his eyes. "Because it was the first example of biological warfare during the Reunification War."
 
"We don't remember the first day a bioweapon was dropped on Inglesmond because there was nobody left to remember it. The citizens of New Dallas, Lone Star, hell, a dozen different worlds don't have ceremonies, because here's nobody on those worlds today." Will glanced at Edward and for a moment Edward thought he saw something terribly old in the man's eyes. "ROM keeps its academies on the dead worlds, and part of every agent's education is burying the dead."
 
"What?"
 
"You kill a planet, and you leave a lot of dead behind. Every new trainee goes to a service, either for Comstar or whatever his or her faith is, then they go out to a section that's been demined and cleared of danger, with a shovel, headstone and laser scriber. We find the dead and we inter them, and then say words over them. Since they have nobody else to speak for them." Will paused. "You don't have to worry about us running out of bodies, men, women and children, a lot of them didn't get out when the House Lords decided that if they couldn't have those worlds, nobody would. Every one wants the shiny and they forget that the first thing Hanse Davion did with his industrial recovery was to start a war of conquest at his wedding."
 
"So why are you here?" Edward finally asked. "You don't sound very remorseful." 
 
"Because you blew the status quo up. I don't know if you'll be praised as a saint or dammed as a madman by future historians, but there's no going back. And I'm not a hypocrite—I've killed people. But killing people for no purpose, that puts a bad taste in my mouth and Waterly is likely to try and kill people in job lots to stuff the genie back in its bottle. She likes power and she's panicking which is never a good combination."
 
"Panicking?"
"Sure. This kind of wild stunt? Panic. Now maybe it's someone else, and if you believe that, I have a bridge on Terra to sell you. But Comstar on Terra has been out of touch long enough that they both can see the danger, and don't really understand it's not something they can stop."
 
"And that you can?"
 
Will paused, shook his head. "Stop? No. Maybe try to keep us from going down the same damned route the old Star League went down. You have contact, neutral or friendly contact with every House Lord but Janos, and this is going to need a unified front."
 
"So then what? We go back to normal?"
 
"Would you like to pay for all of your HPG stations?" Will asked. "You know we run half of them at a loss. I can see a role for Comstar, but it's not the old role and it's not what Myndo wants." 
 
Edward nodded. "With what you've told me, why shouldn't I just lock you up, talk to the House Lords and invade Terra with them? This is more than enough cause."
 
"Do you really want to be at the table when they try to decide who gets the goodies?" Will asked. He took another sip of tea. "Oh, and then there's Comstar's WarShip fleet."
 
The room silent for a moment before Edward said a single word.
 
"What?"
----
<<Previous Chapter - Return to Story Index - Next Chapter>>
Book 2 - 34