TBntG-2 Chpt 4

=The Bull and the Genie=
==Chapter 4 - Book II - The Ninety-five Theses==
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===On the Precipice===
Oberon Confederation - Periphery, Coreward the Inner Sphere
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Where are the pirates?, Mary wondered. They couldn't have all vanished with the collapse of Ryan's idiotic move. Plans to go after the pirate space facilities were on hold—Star's End didn't just have a lot of asteroids to hide in, but a very complex "terrain" when it came to KF drives.
The naval contingent wanted to use the slow and steady approach, and Mary couldn't blame them. Nobody wanted to explain to the Protector why an expensive Jumpship had been turned into origami.
And that means that the only fights I've been in have been working with Grimm's people, to try to turn them into an organized combined force military, and fighting between the science astronomers, the 'we're going to find Kerensky astronomers,' and of course, the reason you're here to chart out the worlds, finding out what is actually in this neighborhood instead of relying on hundred year old rumors.
They'd already found out some good information. There was a world that hadn't been on any records just twenty light years away, orbiting a red-dwarf in life zone, and when they'd had a look see, they'd found a partial DOME terraforming job, along with about 22,000 people, descendants of the survivors of a misjump. They'd been doing fairly well, though it'd taken some time to convince them that the exploration team weren't pirates. Only a few of the original crew and passengers were alive, and, most of the descendants weren't that interested in leaving a hard but certain life. Probably because they were mostly descended from Combine political prisoners who were being sent to…
Well, it had been eighty years ago, and Mary couldn't be certain they were from the Combine, despite the coincidental language similarities, and in any case, everyone knew that there were no religions save those approved of by the Coordinator, so obviously a bunch of people of the Mormon faith couldn't possibly be from the Combine. They'd left a battalion and engineering company to give them a hand with digging some much needed irrigation systems.
With that potential catastrophe solved, Mary had gone on to other work. Six months of sweeps through near space, made difficult by the fact that Comstar's unusual generosity regarding mobile HPG units had vanished with the Potemkin, hadn't shown a lot. Mary hadn't expected it to. Pirates didn't like to fight, and they'd be laying low, but by letting everyone know that this RCT wasn't just going to show the flag and run away, they might find that just laying low wouldn't work as well as it had in the past.
Which left Mary negotiating little issues like the noise complaints.
Yes. The bandit kingdom of the Oberon Confederation had discovered the joys of letting the people petition their government for the redress of wrongs, such as too much work in their compound, leading to too much noise for the neighbors.
Mary had eventually resolved that issue by agreeing to shut down all work by 11:00pm local time, subject to emergencies, at least until they could get proper enclosures finished. The king had laughed.
Grimm was an interesting sort. Loud, fat, enjoyed eating, but shrewd, and while he was aging, no slouch in a Battlemech, though like a lot of leaders, and not just in the Periphery, he tended to head for the shooting rather than control his people.
And while he was definitely in charge, or rather nobody had been so stupid as to try to overthrow him (especially since things were pretty good, compared to the past), a lot of decisions were left up to the people, like say petitioning Mary.
Or, in one case she'd seen, wandering out and grabbing random people to form a jury for a man accused of rape. The argument had been that since nobody knew the trial was even going to start, nobody would be able to stack the jury. An hour later, the Jury heard their evidence, the judge had ruled that since he'd been found guilty of knifing someone last year, good riddance to bad trash, and there was a new body dangling from a street light. That had required some massaging of the Taurian reporters with them, with weasel worlds like a "young society" and "informal justice."
And in a lot of places, not all of them on the periphery, the fact that she was a hooker who said "no" would be enough to get him off.
Still, Mary had to admit that in some ways the world reminded her of growing up in Brannis, building what they could, and figuring out who to work around what they didn't. Grimm wasn't the worst leader but...
Well, I probably won't be stationed here when it comes time to see if they can find a successor as good as he was. I—
"General, we just got a drop from the HPG station. You're going to want to see this?"
"Food fight at Hanse's wedding?" Mary ask, then felt a hollow feeling in her stomach at the captain's expression.
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A few moments later, she was staring at the video.
(("My dear... I give you the Capellan Confederation."))
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Goddamn Davions. They just can't leave well enough alone.
"Orders, General?"
"Taurus already knows. But send FLASH messages to all deployed units by jump courier. We are to continue operations, but if they are working with any participants in this conflict, they're to immediately declare neutrality and withdraw. We're here to fight pirates."
"And if we come across a battle?"
We shouldn't. The reason we're here is to free up units for their next war, but…
"Humanitarian relief only." Mary gestured at the chaos of the wedding reception. "Force to only be used in self-defense. Any injured persons we care for will be held with us until I can get some further orders from the Concordat." She glared at the screen. "And on that note, I have to yell for orders from Taurus.
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The orders had been sent before the Liao delegation had even left Terra. Sorted through several stations, they came to Samantha. A number of routines, normally used for sorting mail were triggered, including some normally restricted to ROM. A certain Precentor noticed them, but let them pass. After all, need to know was a thing and ROM had been keeping watch on the Concordat.
But this did not go to ROM. The man who received it was wearing the face of a man whose corpse moldered in a shallow grave. A man with no close family. A man with unimpeachable credentials of hostility to the Davions.
A man tasked with crewing the Dropship that carried the Protector and his family.
Had he been a Davion, the Concordat might have caught him. But the Concordat—and the Protector—were looking in the wrong direction, and so the Taurian Concordat would be plunged into the worst crisis since the Reunification Wars…From "Fifty-thousand Ghosts: The Samantha Atrocity and the Forging of the Modern Concordat."Luthien Republic Press, 3140
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Book 2 - 04