BeyHop Chpt 6

==Beyond Hope- Chapter 6 - Fortuitous Meetings ==
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===Sorting out Political Solutions===
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Spider Moon, Booja 3 Orbit
Kowloon System, Federated Commonwealth
3053
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Spider Moon…is nearly the size of Mars. It's an airless body orbiting third out from the super gas giant Boojum, a failed brown dwarf star that failed to ignite, because it wasn't quite big enough, sometime billions of years ago. Most of Spider Moon is made up of ice, and rock, with a dead, cold core.
Spider Moon is home to over fifty million permanent residents scattered in and through its dense crust, a truly massive array of solar energy collectors, and the Kowloon Coast Guard's 'black' squadron.
The Black Squadron is the branch of that service that handles everything outside of Kowloon-the-inhabitable-planet's atmosphere. This makes this place, the administrative hub for over half a billion people scattered from Hatter (a super-mercury orbiting the dual suns) to the system's outer Kuiper Belt equivalent.
It's a lot of territory to patrol, and the Black Squadron has to do so, using mostly Merchant class JumpShips with DropShips, most often carrying small craft and fighters.
Over the last few years, the budget's taken a pounding and most of the Services had to be sold off to keep the Guard in business.
Even from orbit, one can see the remains of better days. The long 'shock crater' from an attempt, according to the in-flight reading materials, by Duke Karl Ngo, to build a surface to orbit tether. The calculation had been wrong, the 'tower' fell, and if it had been over a normal, inhabited planet, millions could have died.
The sheer ambition was something Elizabeth Ngo admired, if not the execution. Duke Karl had been in the 29th Century, one of the Dukes who nearly bankrupted the system with ambitious ideas that mysteriously failed in rapid succession.
"How are you feeling, Your Grace?" Ms. Whyte asked.
"Nausea's done." Elizabeth said, "I might be ready to eat soon…how long did Li say it would take them to get that Warship out of our main traffic route?"
"They should be able to make the move later today, so we only need to worry for a few more hours. The Mainstreet to Melissia run isn't due to stop in the system until tomorrow."
"Let's hope they aren't shaving time." Elizabeth sighed. "When we land, have everything we know about Helena Cameron from the war ready, I need to study up."
"Yes Your Grace, of course."
Elizabeth did the mental math. She knew the last segment would have to be via a private, secured shuttle but the transit times from jump point to jump point worked out.
The tugs would have the Ferry out of line of sight of where they were bringing in the SLS Elizabeth Cameron.
"Your grace?"
"What?"
"Have you considered what you're going to do about the Warship?"
"The report you handed me says it's sentient." Elizabeth noted, "Which means turning it over as military salvage to the Commonwealth's not on the table…and I don't know what to do, so yes, and no. I'm wrestling with it, but I don't have a good answer that isn't borderline on treason." she sighed, "Maybe I'll hire the ship and register it as a mercenary to get some legal cover, Ms. Whyte, but you didn't offer that option so I don't know if it works, and there's nothing in the law about offering citizenship to non-humans."
“That… might at least buy us some time at best. But you’d still have to disclose its nature to the appropriate boards and the Archon.”
"I think for right now, we keep it politely quiet, and hope Lohengrin isn't poking around." Liz chewed a nic-tab laced with appetite stimulants derived from cannabinol. "We'll find out more once I've had a chance to read up and talk to these people…I hope."
“Yes, this situation is going to take some careful maneuvering. One false step and we’re all in a lot of trouble.”
Elizabeth sighed, looked out the double-layer window, and said, "I wish it was me, instead of Pat, he would know what to do."
“I must admit it’d be nice to know what the right move is. Eventually we will have to inform the Archon. We’ll just have to hope she is in a good mood and we’ve got a good explanation why we didn’t do so right away.”
Elizabeth made a sour face, "Inform the Archon, and her grabby husband!" she snorted. “Why did she marry a foreigner anyway?"
“Politics. Her mother wanted something different than the endless cycles of wars, border raids, and knives in the dark. They were the only ones to answer that they wanted the same.”
"Yes, two succession wars and the war of '39 and now forty percent of the Nation's been invaded by…" Elizabeth glowered out the windows as the shuttle banked for landing.
"Nothing happens if you don't try." Ms. Whyte reminded her. “No one could have predicted the Clans and at least they are contributing to the conflict.”
But Elizabeth glared at the universe and its fundamental unfairness anyway.
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===Recounted the horrors of days gone past===
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Spider Moon, Booja 3 Orbit
Kowloon System, Federated Commonwealth
3053
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Waiting had proven useful for a lot of things, including a small set of almanacs detailing events over the last two hundred years for Liz Cameron to study.
It was a relentless parade of horrors. Four Succession Wars with no visible end in sight, trillions dead, whole worlds gone, and frequent discussions about technological knowledge and industrial competency collapsing repeatedly over the centuries.
That, made the Coast Guard's operations all the more outright impressive. How much do I tell, Helena? Eventually all of it, but… Elizabeth thought
But.
"Helena…"
"Yeah?" Helena answered her sister.
"They're impressive." Elizabeth Cameron said, "I'm looking at these records they brought us, and they're damned impressive."
“No surprise. They were damned impressive in the War.” Helena shook her head.
"I…I don't think you're quite getting it. I looked at this project-the one that failed." On a display a string like tower stood on a wireframe model of the place they were going. "I don't see why it failed, it should have worked, but that's not what makes them impressive."
“Is that what I think it is? A space elevator? Those were considered dead ends with the adoption of fusion rocketry.”
"They wanted to call it a 'port facility' and 'cargo transfer system'." Elizabeth said, "Everything about it, it ought to have worked, they were doing it because for a while, Jumpships and Dropships had been so savagely reduced that something like that could have been viable."
Helena’s eyes widened in realization. “They got that barbaric?”
"Worse." Elizabeth told her. Images popped up, "Kowloon's capital, the Spaceport, as it was in 2766…" a modern, full service port, something you might find on a moderately prosperous provincial world, with facilities for hull-cooling, fast offload, and fueling.
"Nha Tranh spaceport today..." A flat expanse of cracked ferrocrete, patched with common concrete, some sheds and shacks and sheet-metal hangars barely worthy of the term 'shelter'.
"The technological portions were stripped to keep facilities running at military bases outside the system……because they could not build it anymore."
“This…is horrible.” Helena felt the conflicting needs to cry and punch someone in the face.
"Yes, it really is." Liz Cameron agreed. "It's worse, their infant mortality statistics are worse than they were during the war, average lifespan is down to seventy years for upper middle class, and sixty for lower tier commoners, unemployment rates are over twenty percent, with under-employment over fifty…and according to these statistics, Kowloon's one of the better worlds on the edge of what is now the Periphery."
“Nononononono…” Helena Cameron shook her head in disbelief. “It went too far. No one sane or rational would let it go that far…”
"Do you know what 'Ngo Industries' is? According to this literature?" 
"What?" Helena asked
"A salvage and refurbishment shop for industrial equipment. They find broken machines, haul them back, and rebuild or repair them to sell them to major industrial concerns, and they do it well enough to be the largest Tooler in the Lyran Commonwealth-a nation renowned even when we were young, for its industrial capacity…because nobody knows how to make most of what they rebuild and sell, new."
“I don’t know how, I’ll do it yet but I have to correct this. This is too much to let stand. I promised these people support, protection, and independence. The least I can do is get their industry back up and running the way it should be.” Helena stated
Elizabeth-the-AI nodded.
She understood. Helena was giving herself a new mission. Something new to focus on. Perhaps an impossible task given their current situation. Yet ultimately it was not a real solution. No, she was using it to hide from her traumas again.
"What do we know about this, Duchess?" Helena asked.
Images flipped on the screens. "Born third in line in 3037, spent her first six years with her grandfather while her mother and father were being professional soldiers for the Lyran Commonwealth, two brothers both listed as 'deceased' in recent combat, and she seems to be almost obsessed with trying to do everything herself. Twenty-Two hour workdays according to the press…and she has not sworn in to the Archon yet after seizing her inheritance. Most of these scandal rags are speculating on who's going to be given Guardian status, because at sixteen, she is radically under-age, she is not even an adult until she's eighteen."
Different sides of the same coin. Elizabeth-the-AI thought to herself.
"Also juvenile record, arrests on Donegal for assault, drug offenses, and some sort of catch-all category relating to what amounts to delinquency. Public record of a stint in rehab. There is also something in her records about an incident at dependent housing in her youth but the specifics are in a sealed record."
"Sealed? By whom?"
"I…the files they gave us don't say, do you want me to ping the Ministry of Communications and see if their Intelligence Server has any data?" 
"Can you do it without causing a panic?" Helena asked.
"They won't know we're in there…Samantha? Time to bring out your slicer skills."
The overrides Elizabeth-the-AI remembered worked perfectly over the short-range HPG link.
"They didn't change the access codes?" Helena asked
“Seems not.” Elizabeth-the-AI reported.
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It took a few more minutes before the HPG on the other end came back with a positive lock, and then, it was time…
…in this case, around five hours for the HPG on Donegal, using First Lord's protocols, to provide the information from Hegemony Intelligence's servers…
The video was lurid. "This wasn't her YOUTH, it was last year!"
Helmet cam from Provost officers responding to a report of gunfire in the housing area, a dead woman who shot herself in the chest, a girl in the bathtub, bleeding from a gunshot that went just wide of her spine and heart.
Helena and Elizabeth-the-AI just looked at each other silently.
A clip ran, of a woman in white, with white hair that had to be bleached, <)"...my client wishes for this matter to be sealed from the public, officially it is to be reported as a firearms accident, not an attempted murder suicide, you understand, ja?")>
<(“The court is sympathetic. We will seal the entire case. No one will need to know the truth.”)>
Right on camera, money exchanged hands.
It was blatant corruption. <("Also, delay the assignment of a Guardian, Die Firma, I will take care of it, if you please…make it administrative, and how much will it cost to spare the Realm the aggravation of further…complications?")>
<("Administrative delays are…inevitable, Ms. Whyte. The Archon need not be troubled by this matter for some time.")> the judge agreed, and the bills disappeared.
<("Bribery, and I suspect, blackmail." Moshe commented. <("That's a lot of cash for a Juvenile judge, why didn't they bribe them in the rest of it?")> 
"Because the rest of it wasn't vital to the company or the planet." Helena identified. "Unless the system changed a LOT from when we were kids, our friend the Duchess needed a free hand, and a court appointed guardian wouldn't do it, and more to the point, she was removing a Royal Court appointed regent."
"What gets me is how blatant it is. Shouldn't that kind of thing be…y'know, Subtle at least?" 
“Usually it is. Odd. Makes me believe someone wanted leverage over both parties in the future.” Elizabeth-the-AI stated.
"Or, like the slide in technology, things have just gotten that bad." Bertha's normal vapid cheer was absolutely gone from her face and tone.
“Yes but I would still expect envelopes and disguising it as ‘court fees’. Simple little tricks like that don’t require technology.” Elizabeth-the-AI stated. “No, for some reason one party or a third party insisted it be in the open like this.”
“It’s a cover. If someone pokes around for the truth it makes both parties a scapegoat and keeps the Duchess clean.” Helena determined.
"That…would be some fanatical level of loyalty there, if that's the case." Moshe agreed.
"Or maybe it's to cover someone else."
"What do you mean?"
"The Archon. This…'Melissa Steiner-Davion'. She needed the regent removed but her hands clean, so…"
“Of course. This would keep her hands clean too. So it is a double cover.” Helena nodded.
"Core is charged." Elizabeth-the-AI announced, "We can make for the coordinates any time we're ready, assuming we get clearance to make the jump."
“Good. Inform our guests.” Helena commanded.
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===Wonders of Spider's Moon===
The Spider's Moon/Boojum L1 was relatively empty, and traffic control directed them to a stationary orbit facing the gas giant over the actual rock.
To Elizabeth Cameron's 'eyes' it looked…almost normal. The skiffs and small craft going about their business were normal, the fueling docks and gantries? Normal.
"Huh…an extensive unpressurized yard complex." The older Cameron sister had, once, a lifetime and more ago, been angling to get into the Star League Navy for her obligatory military tour, and after Richie had his kids, she'd wanted it as a career. couple years of academy short of it though. 
Unpressurized yards, she panned her telescope, spotting what looked like around sixty percent of a Core Forge under construction…but no big final assembly pressure facilities.
With a little outside help and recovery they could start making some interesting things.
"Huh." the remote mused.
"What?" Helena commented
"They have about sixty percent of an industrial shipyard." Elizabeth said.
“Huh. Well I guess that gives us an area where we can focus on helping them.” Helena answered.
"I think it's supposed to be a big one." she clarified, "See those skeleton-structures? Those are null gee vacuum assembly docks, they've got…twelve? No, fourteen. That's almost, but not quite what O'Neil started with after the McKenna coup."
“Yeah… And look at the way they have everything laid out. It almost looks like the museum displays of what O'Neil put together.”
The AI enhanced the images. "Those aren't restoration efforts, they're building them."
“Good on them.” Helena nodded. “But then again they’re not advertising it.”
"Maybe a contract with a rider for NDA?" Samantha asked.
“And we can see why with the material they have provided us.” Elizabeth’s remote shook her head.
"Okay, we've got a shuttle clearance to the surface, and routing. HEY, the ALS system actually works out here!"
“Okay. Jakob, Moshe, with me. Everyone else, stay frosty until I get back.” Helena stood up projecting more confidence than she actually felt.
The ride down was familiar to anyone who grew up with interplanetary travel in the 28th century-the automatics on the shuttle got the signals, reference and cross reference, and adjusted the controls to keep the ride down as smooth, and as simple as modern airspace control software and hardware can manage.
NOT like an abandoned concrete pad with tin sheds.
But then, she saw the base itself.
"That…is a prefabricated Star League Defense Base!", she'd spent enough time in similar facilities during the war to recognize the outlines.
She was still surprised by it, despite it making logical sense they would have access to it, and thus use it.
The shuttle flared, and landed on a Lock-elevator, which clamped the landing gear as it lowered, bringing them inside using the route normally…well, in HER normally, the normally before they left the year 2780, anyway…would be used for transfer of Munition packs for Capital missiles, VIP shuttles, or dangerous cargo.
The flush of noble gasses, followed by a second flush of breathing-quality air meant only a few minutes before the concourse gate locked against the side of her shuttlecraft.
"Airlock is green."
Jacob pushed an emergency helmet at Helena. It would keep her alive for a few minutes if pressure was lost and the facility became depressurized.
“Full paranoid mode?” Helena joked.
“Always.” Jacob nodded.
The lock opened on a short, secondary airlock corridor. Helena noted that the 'beach ball' lockers had new inspection tags, and that the controls weren't touch-screens, they were big, knobby analog units that had to be aftermarket.
Which made the emergency helmet a lot more comforting.
Jakob was the first through the other door, and was met by spacers in tight-fitting 'skinsuits' that sported extra mass, covered partially by blue overgarments, those spacers had blunt, deep-lensed laser rifles of the same sort that Sithers and her team had brought aboard, their Officer was dressed in a tan overgarment over the same sort of form-fititng suit, helmets clipped to harnesses, ready for wear, but not worn.
"Welcome to Spider Moon Coast Guard Station, I'm Alicia Li, I'm in command here."
“Lieutenant Jakob Fletcher, Star League Defense Force.”
"Service number?" Li asked.
“Fletcher, Jacob Irons 98088871432.”
She checked a ComPad, then, "Welcome, Lieutenant, I'm afraid it's going to be a while before we can locate your family, but thank you for your service." she then rendered a hand salute. 'You were at sea a while…did you bring Lady Cameron?"
“So I’ve gathered and we did.”
Li seemed satisfied, "Follow me then, Her Grace came all the way up from the Well to be here."Jakob tapped his communicator twice to signal the all clear.
Li led them into the base, to an elevator that was not Star League issue. "Don't worry, it's safe." she said, "or I'd be a damned idiot to use it. We're going down out of the way of daily ops, into the 'New' sections of the base."
They boarded it and she closed the gates, before tripping the freight elevator's motors into action.
“Impressive facility.” Helena complimented.
"We stole it from the Rimjobs during the Freedom War, then we've kept it up." Li acknowledged, "Which took quite a bit of work, I'm afraid we did let some of the finer details slip due to budget issues under the Regency, but then, that's happened before."
“I’ve been studying what my associates allow me to that you’ve sent over, I’m starting to understand what you mean.”
"Good, maybe you can explain it to my Liege." Li commented, "She spends too much time down on the planet, and not enough out here where most of her fortune is…" then Li amended, "Still, she's better than her father..." with a sad shake of the head.
The elevator stopped and the gates lifted, revealing a sealed-stone chamber with corridors coming off it like spokes. "This way."
“The fabled archives?” Helena asked. “I heard about them from the volunteers, but I never thought I’d see them myself.”
"Yeah, her Grace thinks it will be dramatic or something, I would've encouraged her to meet in the mess hall instead, and only bring you down here after a meal."
“No. I appreciate it.” Helena shook her head.
The tunnel they were in curved down, into a spiral with an open pit to one side, and spray-sealed wall to the other.
At intervals roughly ten meters apart vertically, doorways into old mining shafts that had been smoothed, carved, and sealed. 
At the third one, Li took out a data key, and opened the door.
"Where…"
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===The Archives===
"Hall of the 28th century. She wanted to bring you all here, rather than meeting down on the bottom level-that's the level for the last fifty years."
“Of course. The promises I made to get your people’s help in the war and my orders to them during the war make me responsible for a lot of the names in this section.” Helena nodded as she allowed her gloved hand to trace the carved names on the wall.
Jakob could see names carved into the walls, ceiling, and floor as they entered.
So many names. Some had other things, burned-images of people, or flat-dee images and candids sealed under the sealant.
The corridor led to another large open chamber, this one was filled with familiar items. A Museum. Sitting on a stone bench near the middle, was Elizabeth Ngo, the Duchess, who was not wearing a pressure suit, she got up, and, with the help of a cane, Hobbled over. "Tell me something only Helena Cameron would know…and make it good, because I've got this!" the girl held up a leather-bound journal Helena had seen Tran Truk Ngo writing in from time to time.
“We bonded initially over our mutual hatred of Amaris. But what really cemented our friendship was the night he introduced me to ijeroo. We got so hammered that Kerensky himself had to get us out of the local provost jail because they didn’t believe who we were. After that, we just realized how much we understood each other. If that’s not good enough, check the entry for 12 September 2773. That was the day I detailed to him some of the horrors I faced with Amaris.”
The girl waited, her fingers having found a page, and held it down. "And?"
Helena frowned, then realized, yeah there would be official reports… "I left my key-card in a latrine, and he found it for me."
At this, the girl nodded, "If you're a fake, you're as good as the real deal, so I'm going to say you're real…."
“Strangely that is starting to become a relief and a curse at the same time.”
"Okay, I have a problem." Elizabeth said, "See, you showed up with a warship...and we're at war with people who tool around in Warships, and the Realm doesn't have any warships left. Now officially, what I'm supposed to do as a good Lyran, is detain you all, report the ship to Mount Asgard, and wait for an RCT to come collect you…but I am NOT a slave trader and your ship is confirmed Sapient., further, you're a legend and you've got ties to my ancestor, and I don't want to do that."
“While I have no solution for you I still thank you for your discretion.” Helena commented
"Right, you understand my problem…compound that problem with 'I'm underage', under-educated, and the third richest individual in the Lyran Commonwealth if you go by financial assets and debts owed. The other two are the Archon, and the Brewer family on Hesperus."
“I want to help, but I am only one woman with a small support staff.” Helena commented.
Elizabeth snorted, "You, are Helena Cameron." she said. "Of those Camerons, you also managed to reach adulthood and finish high school before the universe dropped on top of you."
“Yes and that name in my time was also a curse. Enough so because of my brother that many willingly flocked to Amaris’ banner and were more than happy to proclaim me a manufactured fake for the purposes of propaganda.”
"Yah, well, I'm not talking to Richard, am I?" the girl challenged, "I'm going to ask you if you want to stay, at least until you've got your feet down under you, but that means I need the help of the woman Tran Truk Ngo called…" she opened the diary, an translated as she spoke, "...an administrative genius who handles clashing personalities with aplomb'."
“Heh. Somehow I’m suspicious that you’re skipping over his pet name for me. “War Witch’ because I could be, well less than lady like when I was dealing with brass.”
"In case Commander Vu Dao or Commodore Li didn't get it across, we're in a war." Elizabeth underlined in her tone, "the Lyran Commonwealth has lost forty percent of our total territory to an invader claiming to be…and maybe confirmed to be, the descendants of the seventy five percent of the Star League's Defense Forces, and Ninety percent of the Terran Hegemony's defense forces, that followed General Kerensky into mass-desertion rather than deal with the aftermath of removing the Fat Man-they looted it, and took off and since then, we've lost so much…everything, that there are things that used to be common that we don't even have the words for anymore...which reminds me, did you bring books? PLEASE tell me you brought books…"
“Something tells me not enough of the right ones you’re looking for.” Helena explained.
"I want to take any of them you have, make copies, and put them in a library." the girl enunciated, "A Library, on the site of the old Ducal command center, because I don't really like living in a ferrocrete prison, but the grounds will make a LOVELY university."
“Can’t blame you about that. I’ve spent most of my adult life in what is effectively a gilded cage. It wasn’t so bad because I had my sister with me. But it wasn’t until the end I had any freedom.”
"You knew him. He said you knew…" she held up the book, "I have limited time and a lot to do, Lady Cameron. REALLY limited time, I need your help, or I won't be able to get it all done…my 'goal' is to make people like me irrelevant here-but that means digging us out of this dark age we're in."
“I was afraid you had what he had. Of course I’ll do what I can. But these are your people. Not mine. Your name matters to them, like mine matters to you and perhaps a few romantics that still might be floating about.”
"They can be yours too." Elizabeth said, "My best option for an heir, had her face burned off during a TANK battle…but you still crop up in our folk tales, the stories people tell each other when the official education system doesn't tell it." she gestured, "You're legends."
“I… Hate being a legend. All the death in my name. All the suffering it has caused. All the suffering I endured for it. But what you’re offering is something else isn’t it?” Helena aske.
"Maybe make it mean something?" the girl peeped out. "Maybe make it worth it instead of doubling down on what's come before?"
“There’s still that war. Which means I’m going to have to call for more death and destruction before it is over. But what you want is to build.” Helena nodded.
"Maybe you being here is a way to end it?" Elizabeth pointed out, "THEY say they're here to restore the Star League, well…you're THE Cameron."
“Then let’s hope they are among the romantics that still think of the Cameron name in a positive light.” Helena commented
"Meantime…" Elizabeth reached into a valise next to her bench, and handed something over. "Those, are for obtaining identification documents…I'd offer you immigration forms but we still haven't figured out what those should like yet."
“If everything I’ve read is true, then there is no Terran Hegemony for me to return to. That’s okay for now. I’m not ready to face the demons waiting for me there yet.” Helena nodded.
“Amaris?” Elizabeth asked
“He had me in his clutches long before the coup. Long enough that I’m not sure if it is transference or if Richard was a willing participant. Either way both their faces are in my nightmares as my tormenters.” Helena admitted. “I never even told Elizabeth that. The only other person I told was my prior psychiatrist who’s been dead for a long time now.”
"Well, he can't blab your secrets." Elizabeth Ngo said with a wince that only comes when one has been betrayed that way before. 
“My sister thinks we’re different sides of the same coin, you and I. I heard her whisper it once when I think she meant to only think it to herself. Maybe she’s right.”
Liz Ngo shrugged, "Can't say. I don't know, what I do know, is that there are some things you need to know…which is why we're here and not meeting in Nha Tranh." she picked up the valise, "Kommen Mit?"
“Yeah. If we’re going to do this you need to know my baggage too.” Helena nodded.
"Fair…I still have nightmares over the executions, and I can't leave the lights on when I take a shower anymore, and I can't stand to shower if there's anyone else in the house. I get panic attacks."
“The SLDF uniform, groups of more than ten, fence posts, and the obvious of anything with Amaris’ or Richard’s face on it.”
"Okay, so keep you out of town on Independence Days." Elizabeth suggested, "there's a pretty common carnival game where you throw hatchets at Steve Amaris' head, and they hang Slaver Bin Hawli from the Highway One bridge in Hue, just like they did the first time, then make bets on how long it takes the birds to finish the effigy and cut the rope."
“Now that might actually be therapeutic.” Helena smiled slightly. “The throwing hatchets part.”
"It's fun, two Phennigs a throw. I think they have a permanent booth in Tran Truk Ngo's hometown off Golden Lake."
They reached a corroded door, with the crests of the 171st Volunteers, and the 90th Heavy Assault.
"Okay, Commodore Li said she replaced the neutral gasses in here with breathing air, so it's probably going to smell funny.." she finished rolling the mechanical combination lock, then spun the security handle to open a ten centimeter thick vault door.
“Practically lived on a Destroyer. Sure there were never more than a dozen of us on board at a time total thanks to my hang ups but that’s plenty to get things to stink like a gym.” Helena commented
"This is more like 'paper going over' smells." Elizabeth said, "This way…"
They entered a warehouse with racks upon racks upon racks of documents in preservation sleeves.
"We're going to be copying and printing for the next decade, to fill the Library's 'Kowloon history' section." Elizabeth commented, "The parts you're going to need are back…here…"
Helena saw a particular display that caught her eye.
"Terran Hegemony?"
"Yeah, troops with the Liberation recovered documents." Elizabeth explained. "Not sure if anyone bothered to tell a Royal Scion but…"
“Then you have a copy of the Elbar proclamation after all… I was still so angry when I signed that.”
"Three copies." Elizabeth said, "Gilmour from the 90th left one copy in his will to Dinh Ngo's widow after the 171th was wiped out trying to relieve Kentares, we've got Tranh Truk Ngo's copy, and we've got a copy picked up about seventy years ago at a pawn shop on Buena, we think it's one from one of the Rallier units."
“Maybe I can recognize the name of the signatory.” Helena offered.
"That'd be cool…here we go…this is what I wanted to show you." Elizabeth held up a three ring binder. "Is it familiar?"
“Let me see… On the outside it looks like an ordinary three ring binder, any markings at all?”
"Open it up." the girl sounded serious.
Helena carefully opened the binder.
“The mother doctrine. It was hotly contested back in my time. But this seems different than what I was brought up to believe it to be…” Helena turned page after page.
The girl watched Helena, but Jacob watched the Girl.
“It wasn’t supposed to be like this… It was supposed to be less… Oh my god…” Helena started crying as she slammed the binder shut.
"Now, you know why I made a point of telling you about the plans for a University, Helena." Elizabeth said, "and d'you understand why I wanted you to see that?"
“So I’d understand…” Helena nodded as she acknowledged young Duchess.
"So you'd react." Jacob interrupted, "That was it, wasn't it?" his tone was accusing, angry, "You wanted to what? See if she was in on it? If she approved of it?"
"Yes." Elizabeth told them, "I have people, that if I declared the sky to be pink and purple with unicorn clouds, they'd not only agree despite the evidence of their own eyes, but they'd agree so well that I'd be at risk of believing it myself!! Do you get that…Lieutenant Fletcher? I need to know who I'm dealing with and I don't get the luxury of learning it the nice way most of the time." she turned to Helena, "I'm so sorry I had to show you that, that you had to find out that way…but it's why we don't use Comstar unless we have to."
“No. I can’t do what I need to do if I don’t know the truth.”
The girl brought out something else and handed it to Fletcher, "this, is a list of names, like that hallway you came in through, only these aren't necessarily my people, they're people who pop up in a journal or magazine with a discovery, but their papers are nowhere to be found, and they died before they could finish publication…one of them, was working on what I have."
Jakob had a pained expression. He clearly wanted to object but couldn’t. The evidence was practically staring him in the face.
"Why?" he managed.
"Because we're in a dark age, and we have to get out." Elizabeth told him, "it's the only reason that matters-you either go forward and grow, or die…well, dying's inevitable, it's how far you go forward and who comes after that makes the trip worth-while….or we can let mankind shudder into the frikking stone age."
“Well, I’d rather not live in a rock cage.” Helena proclaimed.
Elizabeth nodded, "Here's the deal-you, are charismatic with a magic name, but I can't make you do anything…hell, I doubt I have what it would cost to bribe you. All I want, is for you to commit to one idea; let's make it worth what it's cost, let's get us out of the muck and the dark age and the ignorance, and make it worth it. Whatdday say? You up to the idea of promoting literacy and..y'know, selling the idea of other ideas?"
“I gave my word a long time ago that I’d recognize your independence and see to your protection. I will give all that is left of me to keep that word now as best I can.”
"I promise I won't ask anything of you I would not be willing to shoulder myself." Elizabeth told her, "So, let's go have lunch."
Helena simply nodded.
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