TBntG Chpt 2

==The Bull and the Genie- Chapter 2==
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===Revelation===
3015 - Taurus, Taurian Concordat
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Thomas wasn’t unused to being called into his mother’s office. As the heir apparent, he already was the effective co-protector, but having a thick folder tossed at him was unusual.
As was the: HARDCOPY ONLY. DO NOT TRANSMIT OR SHARE ELECTRONICALLY.
“Sorry to spring this on you, Thomas, but it’s looking like you won’t ascend to the protectorship like we’d planned. I have another job for you. A more important one.”
Thomas blinked. What could be… Shaking his head, he opened the folder. Stupid questions could wait until he was finished.
Forty-five minutes later, he felt like he’d been punched in the gut. 
“And this is… confirmed?”
“We’ve had a team looking at it, highest security, of course. MCMURDO level.” 
A team which agreed to indefinite isolation. Well, if anything was worth that, this is.
“This is…”
“The holy grail,” his mother said. “Designs for human sized powered armor—we didn’t even know it existed outside of rumors. Designs for every weapon in their arsenal. Complete files on cutting-edge Hegemony research, from direct neural interfaces to mini-battlemechs. The complete database for the SDS system, including CASPERS. We could dedicate every one of our R&D departments to examining this, and it’d be years before we even scratched the surface.” Zarantha shook her head. “And that doesn’t even get into the civilian benefits.”
“Which we’d need,” Thomas said. At his mother’s raised eyebrow, he chuckled. “Yes, you pounded into my head, mother, but to make use of this, we’ll need capital, and that means finding things that make money.”
“Yes.”
Which shouldn’t be that hard, Thomas thought. After all, mankind hadn’t forgotten the science—there wasn’t a coreworld where you couldn’t find a course on theoretical KF interactions. It was the ability to take that abstract knowledge and turn it into reality, the endless engineering techniques needed to make processes cheap, that had been smashed along with their factories and schools. Even today, you could probably find… Not all, but much of what was in the core, but it was scattered in a million lost bits, a million books gathering dust because the other books needed to make them useful were somewhere else. And of course nobody was going to invest in a big factory that would take decades of painful development and might be destroyed next year.
But if it was all in one place…
“This could destroy us,” he quietly said. “The successor lords might be murderous bastards, but they’re not stupid. This technology was what allowed first Terra, then the Hegemony to dominate known space. If we get it, and develop it, all of it… We’d be equal, maybe superior to every other nation out there, no matter how much bigger they were.”
“And nobody would want to risk someone else taking it from us,” Zarantha said. “We could go the way of the Hegemony core worlds.”
“So what’s the plan?”
“We’ve found an old Star League cache,” Zarantha said. “Or, well, that’s the story, and you, as my son, will be sent out to supervise converting it into a new base for our colonial expansion. Of course, everyone knows that you and I have clashed on that, so obviously, you’re being sent into exile, while I keep my withered fingers on the levers of power.” 
“What world?”
“Brannis,” she said. 
Brannis… right. “Well, given how hard Amaris nuked it, it’s easy to sell that a base got lost in the shuffle.” 
“And a billion people living on it, early 20th century technology, And we’ve been engaged in uplift operations so moving heavy equipment won’t look odd, to say nothing of the exploration base.”
Thomas nodded. “We do the R&D work out there, maybe some limited production, and claim it was reverse engineered.”
“Right, it’ll be slower, but hopefully we’ll have what we need before anyone realizes it, and be able to defend ourselves. If I tried to do it on Taurus…”
“Everyone would know,” Thomas agreed. Price of living in a free society, but it’s worth it. 
“I’m also going to force through some more aid money for Brannis. They’ve got a fairly well educated population, and that can pad out our numbers without having to fake the deaths of our entire graduating class at Taurus U.”
“Yes, that would raise eyebrows.“ Thomas smiled. “So, shall I play outraged, calm, or just accepting of my fate.”
“Thomas, just think about that time I stuck you with those Davion missionaries. Remember, the ones who seemed surprised we weren’t painting our faces and marching around with a pig’s head on a stick?” She laughed. “Now that’s the expression you need.”
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Taurius HPG Station - Taurian Concordat
Comstar HPG complexes came in two flavors. On worlds where pirates were a thing, they were fortified. On worlds like Taurus, they were open, airy complexes, including libraries, lecture halls (available for rental), and in this case, a petting zoo that a previous precentor had installed, including a wide range of animals from across the Inner Sphere. After all, nothing could keep an established power from taking an HPG complex, nothing short of sticking it in a Castle Brian, but an established power had everything to lose from antagonizing Comstar.
It was a sign of the relationship between Taurus and Comstar that the permits and quarantine fiasco ranked as one of the greatest battles between the two states, with harassed adepts having to get permits from everyone from the Concordat Department of Agriculture to the local humane society. 
Still, it was a popular destination for most primary school children, so…
“Hearts and Minds, Will.” And now I have another group of bright-eyed children to deal with. With that, he breezed into an auditorium that didn’t look at all like a high-security zone, although even the best ROM agent would be hard pressed to eavesdrop. 
He should know. He’d spent time in ROM.
“Hello,” He said, watching as the small group tried to stand at attention while sitting. Kids. “You’re our newest cadre of ROM agents, and you’ll be reporting to your department heads after his meeting. I’m Precentor Will Chang, and as such, responsible for you. Please don’t take this personally, but far too many of our new ROM members seem to have spent a little too much time watching ancient James Bond flicks, when they should have been boning up on economic doctrines. This has lead to the occasional interruption of my day in having to go bail some bright-eyed agent out of jail for trespassing on what he thought was a secret plot to infiltrate our sacred order… Which in fact turned out to merely be one of our Adept’s interest in extreme bondage roleplay.” Will didn’t have to hide his wince at that. “Keeping that out of the vids cost us six months free HPG time to the Taurus Weekly World.”
“What happened to the agent?” The woman ducked her head as Will looked at her. “Sir.”
“I’m told he makes an excellent cup of coffee back on Terra. Probably the highest qualified secretary in the Denver broadcast maintenance department.” 
Everyone winced. Well, you don’t go into ROM for the paycheck. ROM’s final year Academy wasn’t on Terra. That bounced between the dead worlds of the old Hegemony, so everyone could understand just what they fought for.
“ROM’s job, specifically yours, is to keep your head to the ground and listen. Not act. That involves decisions at a higher level than you, or for that matter, I normally function at. But remember, sabotage, assassinations, and such, well, we’ve done them, but today, they’d be counter productive. They worked in the Second Succession War because everyone else was doing the same thing—Today, if we see a proscribed technology being worked on, we have other tools. Interest rates, accidental disclosures to competing companies. Publicity campaigns.” Will chuckled. “There’s a reason we’ve worked to ensure that every movie involving a warship has a frothing lunatic for a captain, who at some point orders a planetary bombardment, and who is then killed by a brave and selfless mechwarrior. So, no adventures on your part. Not unless you want to risk your precentor coming in just in time to find you being beaten senseless by the sextoys of some outraged adult roleplayers.”
The chuckle was nervous.
“But beyond that, enjoy yourselves. The Taurans are prickly, especially given how many Inner Sphere citizens refuse to accept the fact that they’re just as advanced as anything you might find on New Avalon or Tharkad, but they’re thankfully, not interested in rocking the boat. At risk of violating my reputation for being suspicious of everyone, they’re good neighbors. Now, dismissed, check in with your department heads, and remember—this is your first off-Terra assignment, so be diligent, but don’t forget to have fun.”
As the crowd dispersed Will shook his head. Was I ever that young? The answer came back. Sure. Probably right when McKenna ordered his coup.
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