WoWS3 Chpt 11

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==Weapons of War Saga: The Final March- Chapter 11 - ==
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===Fleeing Jade Falcon Tyranny===
New Lazarus System
Hidden Location in Inner Sphere
October 9th, 3142
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The ship that arrived was centuries old, and initially, they didn't answer challenges or hails, not until one of the Destroyers was within five thousand kilometers.
HOW old?? Old enough that no person living had been alive when it launched.
"Your ship is loaded past safe limits, 'captain' Vu Dao." The Lazarus Port officers had finished their health-and-welfare.
"Does that mean I can let them out and they won't be murdered?" The ship itself was commanded by a young woman of mixed ancestry, she wasn't really even 'pretty', resembling more or less a stretched human distorted by too many years in microgravity without regular planetary visits. "Because I really want you to say yes...we were on a shadow course for the OA and mechanical issues forced a divert."
"How did you know where to divert to?"
Trinh Vu Dao inclined her head, "That's because The Envoy gave us the routing." she said, "Same as the tip-off. I have two Dropships full of kids on board-not families, because these kids came out of an Iron Womb, and it cost me half my crew to get them off Sudeten ahead of their…Clan."
"You made the trip in…in this??"
"The short leg, yeah. The long leg was going from our usual routes in the Ender's Cluster region." Trinh explained, "We could try dead-heading for Marik space, but that doesn't get my passengers to safety, and Jade Falcon Naval units are chasing down my cousins and looking for our burrows, so sticking around near their territory is boku bad shit, so if you're going to turn us away, could you be a mensch and at least let us service the seals and refuel here? I don't have a lot of trade-bait or I'd ask for shipyard time…"
"Where's your Envoy?" Truk asked
"She died." Trinh stated, "During the evac. She left a set of coordinates with me, so…"
"There are some people you need to talk to, um, it is Captain Vu Dao?"
"Since dad was killed, yeah." Trinh confirmed. "Their warships dogged us almost to three jumps out from here."
"I can tell, your vessel appears to be held together with rigging tape and prayers."
"Ran out of tape, some of that's even MORE improvised. Look, I've got six and a half hours air total left, I need permission to offload."
"Granted, we'll handle that. I need you to come with me, Captain."
"Ayeh, Mum." and there it was.
"Vu Dao's not a common name in the Lyran Commonwealth…"
"Grandmama was with the Kowloon Miliz, got our family out ahead of the Blakies." Trinh said, "Right before they glassed the planet, but The Envoy, she called in an ancient mark…and so we went to Sudeten to get the children out."
"How many?"
"There won't be a Vu Dao lines running freight anymore in the Timbuktu region-we took all five of our Jumpships, lost two at Sudeten outright, along with the Dropships, mine got environmental system damage and a holed primary fuel tank, My cousin Tranh might've made it into OA space and maybe even to Kolossus…" she walked with some difficulty in the half gravity of the station deck, "Deen Li Danh lost four others, but three of their heavies made it out again fully loaded with refugees before the Falcon forces pinned their exit point down. They'll still be in business for a while assuming the green chickens don't catch them at a recharge."
Truk walked with her, "If you don't mind my asking…" the Station's AI-avatar began, "What old marker?"
"Elbar." she said, "The Envoy invoked Elbar and Kentares, said there was gonna be a systematic murder-purge of civilians and children by the Jade Falcons-a whole bloodline reaved, so it was a moral duty that we paid hard for. There won't ever be another Sithers-Deen ship out there, they're extinct thanks to Sudeten, same for the Maslany-Welles line and the Jennings outfit. The Falcon ship White Aerie even shot up the evac pods. I guess they were finishing what the Blakists began, wiping out our people, but we were there voluntarily, so I can't hate them more for it, now can I?"
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===Telling the Tale of Lost People===
"...the frame's a Tramp, but they sacrificed one of the collars for a flight deck, then apparently lost the fighters and crammed people in there." Truk explained to Helena Cameron, "the whole ship needs to be reprocessed for raw materials, I think they must have been putting splices on the splices in the frame, some of the pressurized areas are literally sealed with adhesive and mylar to keep the air in where they got shot up."
"And the conditions?"
"Most of the crew are malnourished, so are most of the passengers, she wasn't kidding about running out of fresh air either-half the environmentals on that ship show signs of fires and jury rigged repairs-they were running and weren't stopping since Sudeten. That ship wouldn't have survived another jump."
"Where are they now?"
"We've got the children entering into the Planetary social services network, most are in line for fosterages or adoption." 
"And the adults?"
"There are some mild issues there. These're spacers, so not much background to run a background check with."
"Give me what you have."
"Senior officers are all Kowloonese expats, most born after that world was flattened by the Word of Blake, junior personnel are mostly the same, though there are a few Mainstreeters and Timbies-contract workers from in the gravity well. I swear, not one of them was born before 3110."
"And Captain Trinh?"
Truk's expression turned serious, "Free Stars." he said. "I confirmed it with our liaison from Golden Hind. The crewmen under her too, which is why there are twenty three adults off that ship who aren't getting job offers despite…what they did…"
"You want to hire them?"
"I want us to hire them, Majesty." Truk confirmed, "but it's going to create some friction with the traditionalists in our Golden Hind allies. The Free Stars faction doesn't have a good reputation among other Spacers. They're still seen as Militant Extremists by other spacer-born factions."
“Well, Militant Extremists just might be what we need right now. Malvina has clearly gone mad. We can’t stop her with sunshine and rainbows. So yeah I got jobs for them.” Helena nodded.
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===New Hire===
"Your group of volunteers lost more than ten ships." Helena Cameron observed. "How many would you have lost if you had been properly supported?"
Trinh frowned thoughtfully, "Fewer." she agreed, "We had to dump our fighters to make space on the flight deck for evacuees, lost good people doing that…why?"
"Will you go out again if you can?" Helena asked.
"Considering the alternative is letting innocent people be murdered by Mad Malvina? Yes." the spacer nodded, "I would…if I had a ship that could survive another jump."
"Something will be arranged. I want to hire you-into the real Star League Defense Force." Helena told Trinh
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Placement examinations put Trinh Vu Dao at roughly the experience equivalent of an O-4 by SLDF standard testing range in 2766. This is based on a lack of adequate Gunnery knowledge for a Warship officer. Side-exams on subjects related to Navigation and KF maths, however, moved her 'points' under the old system off the end of the testing scale.
The Woman knows jumpspace maths.
It takes a lot to impress a Warship's AI.
"For the time being, you're going to fill a subordinate role, you never had formal military training." the AI explained. "Do you have a problem taking direction from…"
"From you? Your ship, Mum." Trinh said, "Well, to be more precise, you're THE ship. I don't know what I can add that you don't already out-class me in."
"You can call me Stacey, okay?" Stacey Cameron Roberts insisted, "If I can call you 'Trinh'?"
Trinh gave a mild chuckle, "won't that be bad for the discipline of the crew? We should stick to ranks and formal address, Captain."
"Okay, Commander Vu Dao…I just watched you take a pencil and paper and plot a nonstandard jump point into a theoretical system without so much as a calculator. Now, that might not impress anyone if I did it. But you? You're human and can do it."
"Someone had to figure out the maths before they could write the program." Trinh shrugged, "I had to learn the maths to avoid…interference while I was growing up, but Dad did say I've got a good head for it."
"You really don't have a problem working under an artificial intelligence? Most people-"
"Most people who have a problem with that, have no problem murdering children for who their parents might have been." Trinh said tiredly, "I take great comfort in not being like 'most people'."
"How bad is it really, out there?" Stacey asked, "I fought in the Plunder War..but that was.."
"My family readopted some of the Old Ways." Trinh said, "After Kowloon…died. We would sneak a few out here and there from that massive bandit kingdom that took over the Lyran periphery. Used trade ops to cover it sometimes. Most of the time we stuck to the 'legal side'-Lyran routes in Lyran systems. Legitimate cargoes and contraband both. Out there, it was running guns to border worlds that didn't have enough swing to get LCAF support more than a few weeks out of the year."
"So how does that turn into joining a massive hostage rescue right in the heart of the Falcon OZ?"
"Elbar." Trinh said, "Kentares. Alarion, Odessa…" she shrugged, "My ancestors were volunteers for Kerensky against Amaris, chose to stay behind and honor their word instead of joining Exodus. You might say it's in the blood to do mind-blowingly stupid, noble acts that ****** us over. I had to argue with Dad to join the Sudeten operation, and he died there-he didn't even want to be there."
"Do you regret doing it then?" asked Stacy
"I regret how we did it." Trinh asserted, "We dumped our best weapons to make room, and we lost ships because of it. We needed heavy weapons, but that would've required sacrificing room for the people we were there to save, so we went in with almost NO cover, and it cost us big. Doing it? That's just being a decent person-we found out what they had planned for hundreds of innocent kids-not just Roberts kids, but other lines that Malvina deemed 'garbage', so we got them out…but we lost sixty percent of the volunteer ships who went, including whole families that survived centuries and the death of a homeworld."
They reached the door they were coming to.
"Admiral Foster's office." Stacey said, "He's the last hurdle before we can call you a Star League Officer. I’m pretty sure you already know this, but Helena is intent on if there is to be a Star League it is to be one that actually keeps its promises and never uses violence or oppression on its citizens."
“Yet she is also clearly not naive enough to believe such a utopia can not be created or sustained without those like us.”
“She does preach that there is a difference between peaceful and helpless. She wishes to be the former but never the later.”
“Then we’ll be just fine.”
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