BeyHop Chpt 3

==Beyond Hope- Chapter 3 - The War of Rage ==
<<Previous Chapter - Return to Story Index - Next Chapter>>
----
===Recounts of Prelude attack against Running Deer Mountain===
----
"Watching the 171st Division attack a fortification, is like watching men leap onto an inferno strike to put it out. These Kowloonese are nuts. They're loyal to Lady Helena, and a problem for every other Flag officer in the SLDF…"
-Colonel Bertrand Myers, 
7th Andurien Heavy Cavalry,
SLDF Rallier, 2777.
----
“Castle Brian?” Helena asked Brigadier Tran Truk Ngo, a man whose position was not the same scale as the Colonel's pay he actually drew.
"Running Deer Mountain. On the list of objectives, General Hockstedder wants us to put it under observation until they can detail a Siege Engineers unit…you know how that's going to go. The 'mechboys will be late, and we'll have to try and take it like that mess on Eagle's Nest."
“****** that. We’ll take care of the problem ourselves. I’ll wrangle us some extra artillery and air cover.”
"Cu'ong's brought more strike fighters, 1st Squadron's got replacements, along with the replacements for the losses last week."
“Good, but there’s no such thing as too much air cover for something like this. So I’ll go beg, borrow, and steal from where I can anyway.”
"Order of battle has the nine-zero on our left, maybe Kerensky's Sledgehammers can spare some of those neat Powersuits?" he suggested, "You know, for the snoop-and-poop phase?"
“Heh. I think I know how to get their CO to part with a few of those too.” Helena chuckled.
“You aren’t going to try and drink him under the table again are you? Last time you tried that you nearly got alcohol poisoning.”
“It’s either that or I unzip my top to a suggestive level, bat my eyes at him, and you know how I feel about doing that sort of thing.” Helena said.
“Just ask. He’s not going to say no to his First Lord.”
“It’s a shame we’re both basket cases in our own way. Otherwise we’d make an incredibly awesome power couple.” Helena teased.
Tran held up his left hand, and pointed, "Married? I've actually got kids, though I doubt either of them would know me on sight, and my wife's endured eight years with me away, I have no idea how Marjie tolerates it."
“See? All the good ones are taken and have these ideas about ‘sanctity of vows’. But seriously I’m still a long way from actually being okay enough in the head to really think about that. Only thing keeping me sane and focused is this war.”
"Just means to me, that god hasn't brought you to the right person yet." Tran noted, "Did you know god has three answers to prayers? 'Yes’…'no'. And 'wait for it’, I'm thinking yours is 'wait for it'."
“Yeah. When I can sleep at night again. That’s when I’ll think about it.” Helena said.
'When we can all sleep at night. This might be my last campaign." he told her, "Dinh's twelve now, and Bao's going to be nine in October."
“You should at least take some leave and go see them.” Helena suggested.
"Ah, with our casual pace of operations?" he mocked teasingly, "Anyway, the dirt from the General Staff says Elbar's going to mark the last hard concentration Amaris has outside of the Hegemony itself, we're closing the loop on the Anaconda. Four divisions, a Brian fort, and intel says there's a couple of their warships plus a squadron of assault droppers…of course, you've seen all that, we're going in with the first wave."
“All the more reason for me to get to begging, borrowing, and stealing.”
"If you can find an unattached Assault Regiment we can borrow, it would be a kindness." he agreed, "barring that, our supply column's brought all our usual goodies, plus some lend-lease refurb stuff, Thumpers and Snipers-towed, but that just means we can use the shuttles instead of trying to find space in the dropships."
“Well, I’ll see if I can scare up some Long Toms anyway while I’m at it. Something tells me we’ll need the extra range and extra firepower.”
"Bright side?" he prodded, "We've got qualified combat engineers again! Fresh from Ia Drang, full battalion of bunker openers. Nguyen's in charge of 'em."
“Heh. Well then I’ll be sure we have a sudden shortage on section 8 forms.”
"No more than half my personnel would be medically disqualified due to being crazy…but if you could scare up some 'terps for us, I have like five percent of my personnel speak English with any proficiency. Either Viet Hmong, or Hebrew speakers would be excellent."
“Okay now I know what kind of havoc that can create. Adding that to my todo list too.” Ngo tossed a bottle of ijero to Helena. “For when you ‘ask’.”
Helena knew, the language barrier was the real problem most Ralliers and Regulars had with serving along side the 171. Vietnamese, H'mong-Khmer, or Hebrew were the dominant spoken languages among the enlisted, with only a tiny fraction speaking more common tongues like English or French. This caused a great many problems for Flag officers who didn't minor in almost-dead languages.
Helena herself as a royal scion had been forced to learn German, French, Greek, Latin, Mandarin, and Japanese. All terribly little help.
She'd learned Kowloon's mutated pidgin through exposure in the last eight years, but Ngo's English was better than her ability to speak HIS language.
"What did you say you did before becoming a rebel?" she asked.
"Engineering student, studied civil engineering at University of Coventry…until my passport was revoked in '65." he said, "I was going to build irrigation canals, levees and dams, but then House Amaris decided we needed to be 'contained' after a couple of minor car-bombings, they shipped me to the Dinh Diep recovery, to shovel sand on top of radioactive waste without protective gear-along with a few thousand others. The Stebbins people got us out in a jailbreak. Rads did wonders for my tan lines though." he smirked.
----
"...they're fine combat engineers, their aviators are…well, they do things we try to teach nuggets NOT to do, like breaking mach at less than 100 meters AGL, but they're good at it, so it's not that bad. I sometimes worry that Her Ladyship's got too much affection for the Kowloonese levies, but that usually vanishes, when you see the kind of casualties those guys swallow whole and just…replace. About the only Regulars who don't seem to have a problem with them, are the 90th Heavy Assault, those New York bastards seem to really 'get' the Loonies, and Her Majesty's intentions, without having much if any hassle about it. Thus, we tend to group them together…"
-Aaron Dechevalier,
"Memoirs on the Amaris War"
Unpublished, est. circa 2777
----
===Atrocities of Amaris===
----
"In 2766, in the 'election' held to confirm Stephan Amaris as the leader of the Terran Hegemony, the government of Elbar cooperated with the coup forces, sparing leadership and their families quite a lot of danger by actively cooperating with the new Amaris Empire. Each measure taken by the Amaris Regime, was enthusiastically supported by Elbar's seated government classes. This attitude of cooperation saved, for a time, the ruling class of Elbar from dangers, while steadily subjecting that world's population to ever increasing burdens and infringements. In 2771, this triggered a series of protests. The protesters were rounded up, and enhanced security measures were implemented to 're-educate' the 'criminals'.
Shortly thereafter, Elbar gained a new export product-medical supplies. These were not merely sent to Amaris aligned military units, but also to civilian hospitals throughout the Terran Hegemony, and included nearly every organ and organic material you can catalogue.
The demand was enormous, yet Elbar provided…"
-"Atrocities of the Star League Civil War"
----
Day 15, Elbar Liberation
“It’s true isn’t it, General?” Helena barked. “Take me to where I can see it for myself.”
“It’s not a green zone. There could still be snipers.” General remarked
“So put me in Private’s togs and point me at the site.”
“No. I know why you want this, why you demand this but it is still far too much of a trouble zone for you.”
“Then bring it here.” Helena relented. “If Mohamed cannot go to the mountain, bring the mountain to Mohamed.”
“That we can do.”
They took a liaison VTOL to a secured area that used to be a High school, and from the air, Helena could see prime movers unloading…
Civilians. The pilot banked and brought them down in a cleared area that once was a tennis court, now a helicopter pad.
These were ordinary people, frightened, confused, but ordinary, a little trace of privation on their faces and the troops pushing them off the trucks were ordinary SLDF light infantrymen from the 2344th Military Police company attached to the 7th Andurien, a Rallier formation.
The Trucks had the markings and bumper numbers of the 171st's transport and logistics company, and barely had more than a driver, and a spotter, the rest of the vehicle crammed with civilians of all ages, most looked frightened or stunned, a few were weeping.
<”Sergeant, what is going on?”> Helena asked in Kowloon Pidgin.
<"Ma'am, these are off the rail-cars, we're managing to get them clear of the machine guns guarding the entry, and the Rimjobs stopped taking the bait after the first ambush, General Ngo is planning a door-opening, so we're getting as many of the Civs out as we can before we crack the doors.”> the young NCO couldn't be more than nineteen, a recent arrival from Kowloon.
On the surface these civilians didn’t seem too abused. It was only when she saw how many were going into medical tents that she started to understand.
She went to a medical tent.
<”There's got to be a reason they've got thousands of civilians arriving in cattle cars. The Old man thinks they're doing something to them inside the mountain."> 
“Doctor, report.”
There are only three reasons you gather up civilians and keep them healthy.
"Most of them are in relatively good health, but… Lady Cameron, these people have been subjected to psychological torture, most are on some form of 'dammit be goods'...uh, how can I put it, 'pacification agents'. When it starts wearing off they start panicking."
She scowled, "What do you THINK is going on?" she asked.
"The 'Loonies didn't dose them, I've confirmed that." He evaded…"the drugs they're using are commonly used as surgical precursors, pre-doses to make Anaesthesia work more quickly, side effects include reduced volition and…suggestibility."
"Tell her." an NCO with the shoulder patch of the 90th's support group said, "Tell her or I will, sir."
"We think they're either going in to be subjected to behavioral conditioning-that's the optimistic estimation, but it doesn't fit, no crowds coming out the other end…and Elbar's shown up repeatedly in signals intercepts as a source for critical medical resupply."
“Then things are about to get a whole lot worse around here. We’re going to start getting people missing organs soon, that is if they can even be brought back here alive.” Helena concluded.
"What kind of resupply?"
"Blood, organ tissue, organs…" the man flinched as he said it. "Not just military either, sigint popped orders from hospitals on Terra, Luna, Venus, and Mars…civilian hospitals."
“Bastard. Amaris is going old school. Means either he’s taking more losses than the tech of the Hegemony can handle or he’s being cheap.” Helena cursed.
----
===Another attrocity, Price to Pay===
The garrison sallied at dusk, which opened the door just like he'd expected.
They sent out a company of 'mechs to try and secure the sally port. This opened the door for the Infantry, and gave their Mechwarrior comrades from the 90th something to fight.
And a reason to hold the door.
Around midnight local time, they had the first levels of the former Brian Fortress under control, and were starting on the internal locking-breaching armored doors or bypassing them with demolitions and mining charges.
By Dawn, they knew.
Tran Truk Ngo looked at rank after rank of cold-stored human organs, vats of blood separated by blood type, rolls of human skin, millions of eyes in climate-controlled cold storage.
"How many?" he asked.
Sgt. Nghien shrugged from the console, "based on the stock numbers?? I'd say upward of fifteen million people were parted out like a used rover. There's maybe three hundred thousand worth here."
"This…is a crime." Ngo said quietly, "Assemble the senior officers we captured on the upper levels, doctors too. Captain Chao, I want a company detail to find some two meter fence-posts, about…fifty millimeters to seventy, and start digging post-holes."
"Yes, sir."
He was cold inside. They sorted the eyes by color.
"There will be no court martial, intelligence can sift their records. This demands an answer."
At noon of the eighteenth day of the Elbar Liberation mission, fifty one post holes were dug, roughly one hundred meters apart, and fifty one senior officers and staff of Running Deer Mountain were brought to sharpened stakes, and put up, one after the other.
"What do we do with the other prisoners, sir?"
"Bayonet practice for any local who wants to join up." Ngo said, "find me volunteers. Their own goddam government cooperated with this. Find me every lost soul who's lost family in this place, give them a gun, and teach them to kill."
"Her Ladyship won't like this…"
"Son, once she's seen what they did here? She'll be on board with anything we do to the sons of bitches." He felt the spike in his head, and hurried to his command track, outside.
He made it inside before the seizure hit.
Pure agony, to match the emptiness in his soul, his body wracked with spasms to make up for pressing his own horror, his own horrified desire to weep for the victims of this place…penance for what he had ordered, and what he would carry out.
It lasted for five minutes.
Oh shit, I shat myself this time… he was getting further in the syndrome, he would need to step down before they found out how sick he really was.
----
===Standing up for the Punisher===
“You know what they did, Helena? They set those people up as bayonet practice!” Kerensky was fuming.
"Seventeen Million Civilians, parted out like used cars, the parts that weren't useful for transplants were disposed of by burning, like trash, no graves, no closure, nothing but heaps of greasy ash." she recited, "No…Uncle Alyks, no…besides, one of the most difficult things a military trainer has to do, is teach someone to overcome the urge NOT to kill. The 171 has recovered more than a battalion of recruits, but the volunteers keep showing up at their cantonment, looking to join the war against Amaris. And I’m not going to stop it."
"If you don't, Helena, who will? What happens when they run out? Who's next on the stake, Helena?" Kerensky implored, "The ends don't justify the means, the means will decide what ends you have to live with later."
“Fine, you want to go through the motions of trials, waiting for jurors to hand out the execution orders we all know are coming anyway.”
"No, god…just make him stop it, get them focused on fighting instead of seeking revenge! Amaris is doing it here, he may be doing it elsewhere!" Kerensky explaimed. 
“I’ll remind them of that. It might be enough. For now. But there has to be justice.” Helena stated.
-----
===Dismissal of a Patriot===
When Helena reached the cantonment of the 171st, she could see the bodies on the stakes outside the perimeter.
As she walked through the camp, she witnessed groups of men and boys, drilling with rifles they'd gotten from the Kowloonese, in SLDF pattern uniforms, locals.
An old woman came out of Ngo's modified personnel carrier.
"Tran?" she asked.
"In here." he said, he was smiling.
"Why are you smiling?"
"Because the locals have had enough of this." he said, "They asked me to stop!" he said it like it was good news. "I don't have to do it anymore, we can go back to fighting this war!"
Helena understood. As much as she hated Amaris and what he was bringing about she understood in that moment.
“Irony is Kerensky sent me here to get you to stop it.”
"He's not a bad man, Helena." Tran Truk Ngo said, "He's likely right…" he fumbled his coffee cup, sending brown liquid splashing on the deck, and she could see streaks of white in his hair.
“I know. I just hate Amaris and everything he stands for.” The fumble caught Helena’s attention. “You’re getting worse aren’t you. I know you’ll never tell me what it is but I know something is wrong with you.”
"Yeah. I've been forced to consider that I might not make it to the end of this war upright." Tran said
"How bad?" she asked.
"Panhaxyl Neuroin-55, two microgram dose, twice a day." he told her, "Soon I won't be able to hide it anymore, maybe…six, seven years if I'm lucky? Big problem's going to come if the General Staff find out. It's one thing to be here on a waiver, it's another to be a junkie on a waiver."
“Shit. Not many conditions that warrant that kind of medication. You should go home. Be with your family.”
"We'll finish Elbar first, then I'll hand off to Colonel Vanh from the Second Regiment, with Cu'ong being senior, she's better at keeping them disciplined than I am anyway."
“Okay, Tranh. I’ll do what I can to smooth over the paperwork.” Helena nodded.
"Thanks." he managed a wan smile, before adding, "Close the door on your way out…and leave soon? I don't want you to see it."
“Sure, Tranh.” Helena stood and closed the door as she exited.
She heard the grinding scream dimly, and the thumping.
-----
Anh Cu'ong was waiting for her when she got back to the Division headquarters.
"I'm sending him home." the Coast Guard officer stated, "Tonight. As of nineteen hundred hours, Brigadier General Tranh Truk Ngo is officially relieved due to medical causes…seems someone caught his drug shipment and he already owned up to the Big Man. They're going to expedite some medals and we're taking him home…which means, I now report to you directly, Your Highness."
“I’m sorry it had to happen this way. I hoped he could have the dignity of going home on his terms.” Helena said.
"I'm sorry too, I should've stepped up earlier and sent him home after Eagle's Nest. He's in stage two. Constant pain, narcotics, and with the narcotics, narcotic haze impinging on his judgment, the SLDF JAG has agreed that those constitute 'mitigating factors' and have consented to drop the war crimes charges for what he and the lads did to those rimjob ****** at Running Deer."
“We’re going to have a lot more payback coming.” Helena said.
"Aye Mum, we will." Cu'ong hobbled on a cast, "Unfortunately, I'm stuck here, in staff-land with you, at least until my lower leg-bones heal, so you'll have to just tolerate me, Mum."
“Good news is they make sure the chow I get is good. So you’ll probably put on some weight this tour.”
"So long as I can still fit my flight suits." Anh noted. "The big push is to the Casares River, I've got three Regimental Combat teams who want air support, in addition to the 171. Here's today's loss reports." she handed over a file folder.
“No promises. But I’ll do what I can to get you some help, even including a good PT sergeant to help you burn off any weight you gain.”
"I also now am required to inform you we've got Infil teams moving up the river on skiffs." Cu'ong told her, "snoop and sabotage. Just like we used to do on the river systems back home…in about nine hours thirty minutes, should be a hell of a boom from west of here, might even be audible."
“Hand me the stack of forms. I’ve got paperwork for all the property damage you’re about to do.”
Commander Cu'ong did so, "We brought Marines with the last resupply run, our marines are going to make a minefield complex past-tense as the kick off for the offensive. They're working with Blackhearts from the nine-zero."
“Oh boy. Okay adding more stuff to the requisition forms and property damage reports.”
“No jokes?”
“Too tired…” Helena admitted.
"Get some rest, the fun begins in nine hours and believe it or not, mum, I know how to fill out the paperwork the Colonel didn't…" Anh reached into her pocket and pulled out a worn I.D.-one that expired in 2760, identifying her as an aviation officer off the SLS Blackburne. "I even have academy time."
“Well as long as it isn’t too obvious when you forge my signature.”
"I make it a point of pride to have all forgeries done by an expert, mum." Cu'ong said impishly. "Part of being organized, don't you know."
“Good. Then I’m getting a shower then collapsing into bed.”
----
===Brutal outcome of Running Deer Mountain===
In the space of the next seventeen days, SLDF forces from one royal Regiment, one Volunteer Brigade, a Rallier Regiment, and the combined air assets of all three, corralled, then destroyed, two divisions of Amaris forces and the collaborator planetary militia.
The offensive was brutal, and kept a brutal pace. Out of 15,000 Kowloonese, 8,000 were wounded or dead by the last day of the offensive….but the Amaris Empire didn't have more than a corporal's guard left on the planet, and while a few collaborator officials managed to escape, General Huxley of the 119th Amaris Dragoons, and his staff, were captured by the 90th Heavy assault's support company, after fleeing from the 171st in any vehicle they could find, in order to find someone 'safe' to surrender to.
-----
**********************ATTENTION TO ORDERS*********************
From: the desk of SLDF chief of staff
To: all Star League Defense force Personnel, volunteer personnel, and affiliated units
The Following orders are to be considered pre-eminent to any previous standing order.
The events and atrocities discovered at Running Deer Mountain constitute an act of attempted Genocide.
Genocide is a crime. The deliberate, calculated targeting of civilians by military forces for the purposes of harming those civilians, is a crime.
Such Conduct will not be tolerated in the Star League Defense Force, nor will enacting reprisals against civilian populations for the purposes of Terror, intimidation, or other reasons.
The punishment for acts of atrocity against civil populations is to be thus:
Step 1: investigation to verify the crime happened.
Step 2. Trial and prosecution for the crime.
Step 3: Execution by Lawful means where possible or feasible (Firing squad, hanging, or lethal injection).
The Accused will be given all appropriate means to demonstrate their innocence as per SLDF Judge Advocate Regulation 8879-21 part 35.
As such it is considered imperative to remind all units that the Articles of War are still in effect regarding the treatment of surrendering enemy forces and prisoners of war.
We are not Beasts, we are Soldiers of the Star League.
Signed:
Aleksandr Kerensky
Damien Truscott
Aaron Dechevalier
----
Helena Cameron (the live signature is highly eccentric and erratic, historians will long debate if it is really hers or not)
Unit Commanders O-8 and above, are directed to sign below and retain a copy with their headquarters, the original is to be delivered to Higher Command via standard communications channels.
Commander Anh Cu'ong signed her copy in Helena's office, handing one copy to Lady Cameron herself, and folding her personal/unit copy into a compact form to fit in her uniform blouse.
"You did that without blinking." Helena noted.
"Yeah, well, see, Running Deer was an ARMY operation, the Coast Guard wasn't involved in the reprisals." Anh said casually, "So no sore points on my conscience for putting those bastards at permanent attention."
“Well, still it is only ink on a piece of paper so far. We’ll see how well it actually holds up.” Helena nodded.
"Gotta start somewhere, right?" Anh asked.
“True. It is at least a start. Maybe that’s all we need to make a change.”
"Your words to the ears of god, mum." Anh said, "I'm going to need you to intercede with Transport command-they're trying to take my Jumpships from the long highway mission to be troop transports, and that's going to cause delays. We're already cycling survivors back to help train replacements, and we took on a few thousand refugees who don't want to live here anymore after what happened."
“We can’t have that. Sounds like I need to yank on a yard master’s ear to find out what’s wrong with their regular transports.”
"Please do, I think the biggest one we've got right now, is an old Tramp class three-collar bird…and even chaining the ships like we're doing, it's slow moving droppers along the routes, and it's going to get slower if we have to divert a significant percentage of ships to support units outside our own area of operations."
"Where are you taking the refugees?" Elizabeth's remote asked curiously.
"The Plateau back home, most of them are Yisroel or Amerind descent, and the Elldees are willing to help stake them in the croplands. Up there, where the climate's not too terribly different from the better settled parts here."
"Um, 'Yisroel'?" Elizabeth inquired.
"Hebrew speakers, you know, Abrahamites, israelites?"
"Jewish."
"Yeah. should be kinda funny seeing them move in with followers of Joe Smith out by Brigham…but probably safer than leaving them next door to the people who sold them out to the government that was carving them up for spares. I expect some of the Rokkajakkah community will be taking in foster apprentices too, so it's going to be a boost to our population and they want to live with us, not dominate us."
"By 'funny' you mean…?"
"I'm just imagining there's going to be some minor frictions from cultures, mum, nothing big and nothing worth a riot over, but I kinda speculate there's going to be some big demographic shifts in a couple generations."
“Typical growing pains then when taking in a large population with their own culture and traditions.” Helena nodded.
“Likely. Well I’ll hope that is all it will turn out to be personally.” Elizabeth’s remote said happily.
“You two really sisters?”
“Yes and no.” Helena admitted.
"AH, yeah, I have a few of those back home. Half-sisters, 'sisters' by adoption. Cousins at the bottom of the well… got a whole branch of the family in New Saigon, they're all delinquents, do stuff so stupid you wonder if they're even sapient."
“Well our relationship is a bit more complicated. But something we don’t like to discuss too openly.” Elizabeth said.
“Well, she’s eventually going to find out you need a charger.”
Anh visibly paused…then, "So you've got cyber parts? That's kinda cool." she said.
“Whew. I was half afraid you’d make a joke about a certain other electrically driven device commonly used by women who need a specific kind of ‘attention’.” Elizabeth visibly relaxed.
"I consider THAT sort of thing something one hires a Port-Boy for." Anh said, "If one isn't contracted for breeding."
Elizabeth’s remote’s face took on a pained expression.
“I stepped on a landmine.”
"The engineers did good work then." Anh commented, "You can't hardly see where they had to use plastic. I've got a cousin-uncle who's got a titanium-aluminide left hand after he reached into a processor-that is, a fertilizer processor, on Boojum Four."
“Well I can’t have children anymore. Ever.” Elizabeth’s remote said.
"How sad…" she glanced at Helena, "So you've got her quota too? That's going to be rough, you're tiny."
Helena also visibly winced.
“Let’s just say I have a lot of issues to work through before I can even think about that.”
"Dude, artificial insemination, 'kay? You don't HAVE to give up girls, My second mom can't get it from a guy at all, she still turned out a half-sis from the race-bank."
“My plumbing is too wrecked for that.” Elizabeth said sadly.
"Surrogate, or adopt." Anh suggested, "I mean, I might have to do that if I get too old. You find some nice place with lots of orphans, and pick one to raise…wait, I forget, you're dettifeet. It's not like the old days though, there's lots of legal ways to get a kid to carry on your traditions, if not your genes. You don't HAVE to go looking for homeless orphans to spirit out to the stars."
It dawned on Helena then, just how prominent the whole concept of starting a family was for Anh's home culture-and how different from planetborns her mind really was.
That’s when something else caught Anh’s attention. For how important Helena was, her staff area was tiny, almost no one around.
"You need a bigger staff, you're doing too much of your own scutt-work, I'll get you set up right."
“I know. It’s just that I have…trust issues. Ones that make it hard for me to be around a lot of people.” Helena answered.
"Then we'll find you people you can rely on, even if you don't start off trusting them. You're a FLAG OFFICER, you don't have the staff of an O-3, and you really need the extra bodies to prevent unwanted interruptions and meetings. A good staff means you don't have to speak to anyone you don't actually NEED to."
Helena just meekly nodded.
Elizabeth made a face, "Like a privacy wall?" she asked
"Exactly like a privacy wall. Put it this way, I don't have to actually talk to that jackass Howe from 7th Andurien unless it's directly related to operations, which also means he doesn't sit there making insensitive jokes about the storied sex-habits of Spacers in front of me, which saves me SO much aggravation. Instead, I make him talk to Sammy Long, who gets me the info I actually NEED from the man, without either of us being insulted by the other."
“There are other certain constraints we would need to insist upon. If they are going to be part of Helena’s staff there is something they will need to be read in on and we need to be sure they can act appropriately in light of that information.” Elizabeth said.
Anh nodded. "Everyone has secrets. Ngo was on Neuroin, I have panic attacks if I'm outdoors on a planet without a suit. Colonel Vanh's got his secrets, you have yours."
Helena nodded at her sister.
“Very well then, as our first staff candidate we wish to read you in. Are you interested?”
"I'm running most of a service branch already, I'd love to take a cush staffer, but I have my own job. BUT… I can find some discrete people for you to fill the necessary G-slots, if I know what you need kept quiet."
Helena just nodded again.
“Helena was sexually and physically abused by Stephan Amaris himself. One of his games was to also pass her off to his guards or supporters dressed up as SLDF personnel, especially the Royal Black Watch. It makes it tough for Helena to be around so many people wearing the uniform.”
Anh nodded, "We guessed that, now I owe my Intel chief a round of quiet drinks."
"WHAT??"
"It's an open secret you were a Prisoner of the Fat Man, we know what they do." Anh confirmed, "You weren't his first victim."
“See Helena, you can trust her. She knew already and didn’t make it weird.” Elizabeth said.
"I didn't 'know-know', I extrapolated on the son of a bitch's history." Anh said, "So you need people who can work with their uniform 'inside' instead of 'outside'-that is, disciplined people who don't lose discipline while in civilian attire."
“And I still have problems with groups.” Helena finally spoke weakly.
"Tiered organization helps there, we can limit WHO you have to directly interact with." Anh said efficiently, "probably a more prussian example rather than the French model."
“Doctor Hutchinson would be proud of the progress you made today Helena.” Elizabeth smiled.
Helena simply nodded.
"Let's outline what you need…"
By the end of the day, they'd outlined a set of basic functions, and an organizational charting showing what tasks to delegate, which to retain, and how many the minimum would have to be to fit into Helena's needs.
“Thanks, Anh. Now you know why me and Tranh got along so well. A couple of ****** up misfits that had plenty of reason to hate Amaris.”
"Ugh, you're not ****** up, Helena, you're reacting like a human being reacts…so stop torturing yourself, finagle knows the universe will do enough of that for you. I'll have people on the way over by lunch tomorrow, they'll be briefed on the bare bones minimum necessary so you can decide how much YOU want them to know."
“I know this much I don’t want people that feel like they have to walk around avoiding stepping on eggshells. I want them to be able to speak their minds, even if it brings up a bad memory for me.”
"Fair." Anh nodded.
-----
"...the Elbar Declaration's signature requirement was an added layer of personal accountability. Despite this, it was a failure, and the foremost violator was Aleksandr Kerensky himself. By ordering the 'root and branch' annihilation of anyone with a scrap of Amaris in their DNA, he ordered a genocide…precisely in violation of his own standing order. That his followers carried it out, is recorded history. Notably, by then, the 171st Volunteers had already shipped for Kowloon and their homes, content in the death of Stephan Amaris himself…"
-Vu Dao, Bianh Jane.
Grade 7 paper, Public School 129
Spider Moon Burrow 4, 3037, Kowloon system.
----
<<Previous Chapter - Return to Story Index - Next Chapter>>
3