SotU2 Chpt 24

=Chapter 24=
==State of the Union - Book 2==
----
Kirin River, Irian
Free Worlds League
18th September, 3065
----
Alys stared at the latest report from her sources. How had this not come up before? No, scratch that. The Word of Blake had probably been keeping it quiet, But it wasn’t good news.
She grabbed her comm and called a number she’d been using almost daily. “Isis,” she greeted her cousin abruptly. “we need to talk. Can you meet me in the war room?”
“I don’t see why not.” Isis replied
Cutting the call, Alys checked her appearance in the mirror before leaving the small office that made up part of her suite and heading for the stairs. She was wearing the Krusher’s uniform, something that made her stand out amongst the civilians and the FWLM officers present.
The ‘war room’ was simply the same repurposed dining room that had been used to brief in their first military allies. Adjacent rooms had been converted for an expanding staff but it was plain that the demands of running what was essentially a small interstellar state and army would quickly reach the point of overflowing Isis’ mansion.
It was only a few moments before Isis joined her, wearing a military-style jumpsuit.
“I didn’t take you away from another crisis?” Isis asked her cousin
“No, just target practice.” Alys told her cousin.
Alys wondered if Isis imagined that the targets she was shooting at were Corinne or Kirc. Or perhaps her so-called father. “I’m sorry to cut into that.” She meant that sincerely. Isis didn’t have the military education or experience of most of those they were working with. Bridging the gap with time spent at the firing range wasn’t as frivolous as it might seem. “However, I just got news that we might need to consider.”
“Do tell.” Isis took a seat at the table.
“My source is on Gibson, but he has another source of his own that told me the rest.”
“Gibson?” Her cousin arched an eyebrow. Gibson was the center of a small province near the Principality of Regulus. Historically it had been heavily influenced by Kirc Cameron-Jones, but it had become the center of the Word of Blake presence in the Free Worlds League, moving it into the Captain-General’s party, and it remained a major strategic location even though the Blakists now controlled Terra and had centered their leadership on the homeworld.
“Yes.” Alys highlighted the world on the map and then did so again on Terra. “It turns out that the warships that hadn’t declared themselves yet have been converging on both these worlds.”
“Not an attack?” Isis exclaimed.
A direct attack by the FWL Navy on the Gibson might provoke an interdiction that would cripple what was left of the League’s political infrastructure. Depending on how it was targeted, it could decide the outcome of the Civil War overnight. But an attack on Terra would be even worse, because that would signal the war spilling outside of their borders. It was entirely possible that Christian Mansdottir would have little choice but to commit the SLDF as peacekeepers, something that could leave League worlds occupied by foreign troops.
“Not quite that bad. They’ve been turning themselves in for internment, claiming that the Blakists represent a neutral power.”
“...what?” Isis’ face reflected Alys’ own confusion.
“I know!” she exclaimed. “But that’s what I’m hearing. Both the carrier groups...well, except the Gawain.”
Isis nodded. FWLS Gawain was supposed to be escorting Frigate for the carrier FWLS Corinth but it had inexplicably been missing when the carrier and its other escort had been last sighted.
“Both the carriers, five different corvettes… Even the Xanthos has reportedly reached Terra and surrendered itself rather than be deployed against the crew’s countrymen.” Alys slumped into a chair facing Isis. “This makes no sense!”
The cousins looked at each other and then Isis frowned. “I think we can safely assume that more than a dozen warships wouldn’t all spontaneously decide to do this. We’re looking at the crews having been subverted by the Word of Blake.”
“Key members, at least.” Alys commented
“Right. But in that case wouldn’t it make sense for them to be sent to support Corinne? We’ve been assuming that she was their new ally and that the Blakists were backing her. Taking them out of play doesn’t help that.”
“You’re not telling me anything I don’t already know,” grumbled Alys. “are we wrong about Corinne?”
The younger woman’s eyes narrowed. “Not entirely...someone launched a coup in her name, so she must have been at least tacitly complicit.”
“Maybe after the fact.”
Isis tilted her hand back and forth. “Conceivable, but she’s been too active for her to be a figurehead. Even if someone had hostages, she’s doing too much.”
Alys didn’t want to think about the possibility that Corinne’s daughter Giselle could be a hostage to keep the new Captain-General under the thumb of the Blakists. Or perhaps someone else… “But in that case, why not drop the hammer. That’s enough warships to cripple Cameron-Jones outright and blaze a trail light years wide towards Oriente. If she broke Regulus, she’d have momentum on her side.”
“Then there’s something we’re…” Isis paused in thought. “What if we’re over-simplifying?”
“I.. don’t follow.” she told her cousin
“Organizations aren’t monolithic” her cousin reminded her. “and there are factions within the Word of Blake. My… my actual father is a prominent Toyamaist, or so I’m told. It’s likely that he and Uncle Paul are both behind Corinne to some extent. But there could be other factions that want to support Thomas, or even simply want to pull out of the Free Worlds League and focus on Terra.”
“Then… are the ships being interned to keep them from being used against…” Alys looked for the right words. “...against fellow Blakists?”
“That would make more sense, wouldn’t it?” Isis told her
“It makes a frightening amount of sense,” she admitted. “But in that case there could be two separate but parallel wars being fought here: the one we’re all looking at, and then another one behind the scenes of the Word of Blake. What can we do?”
“Directly, I don’t think we can do much.” Isis decided after a moment. “On the face of it, the ships being sequestered backs the position we’ve been taking: keeping as much of our military power out of the civil war as possible. In theory, once there’s an uncontested Captain-General the warships would be returned and we’d have the core of a navy again, even if everything else was destroyed.”
“If it’s a less temporary measure. As temporary as a,” Alys stopped and snorted. “as temporary as a ComStar rate hike?”
“Then the Blakists may have more than doubled their fleet.” Isis pushed herself to her feet. “Which should worry some people I can think of. So we may have some leverage there. If nothing else, it may persuade the Sirians that they can’t keep stonewalling us. They’re very near Terra and I think they hoped that some of the ships would be siding with them. Now that’s off the table and they’re a potential stick for the Blakists to use in order to influence neighboring worlds.”
“And the Sirians are closer to Terra than the rest of the League.”
“Exactly.” answered Isis
The two women studied the map again. The four worlds of the Sirian Concordat formed a small salient that separated the Lyran side of the Federated Commonwealth from the remains of the Chaos March. Fortunately, there hadn’t been any aggressive action yet but something told Alys that if there was, it would be right there. It was the ideal strategic target for Peter Steiner-Davion.
“Maybe...” she began, and then realized Isis had spoken at the same time. “Sorry, you first.”
“I was about to say that we should reach out again to the border provinces.” Isis manipulated the controls, lighting up not only the Sirians, but also the Border Protectorate and the scattered members of the Silver Hawks Coalition. “One of the Protectorate’s regiments has been refusing orders to return home. I wonder if that might also be the influence of one of the Blakist factions.”
“It could be,” Alys admitted. “My own thought was that it might be time to appeal to the First Lord directly. If we request SLDF intervention ourselves it would be more under our control than if the request came from our neighbors.”
Isis Marik stared at the map and then nodded. “The two plans aren’t contradictory. We can do both. In fact, it would be better that we didn’t spring SLDF peacekeepers as a surprise to the provinces we’re trying to win over.”
“Good luck convincing the Silver Hawks of anything,” warned Alys. “they’re institutionally wary of any measure a Marik proposes. They were formed to help their members resist any pressure from Atreus, after all.”
“I do have an idea.” Isis told her with a smile and started to explain.
----
Previous Chapter - Return to Story Index - Next Chapter
Category:State of the Union Chapters