TBC3

==Chapter 3 - The Broken Commonwealth==
Spider Moon Complex
Boojum 3, Kowloon System
Coventry Providence, Lyran Commonwealth
Early 3145
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Her Mother's infatuation with undoing everything Elizabeth Ngo accomplished led to the upper levels being stripped of equipment, but the catacombs below had been walled off with quickset Ferrocrete.
This took not any time at all to drill past.
Sharon walked corridors lined with names, the vestige of a national identity that had been delicately buried by a previous administration.
"How long to restore it?" she asked.
Commander Cu'ong's face wasn't quite visible in his helmet.  "A few weeks-we were lucky, the wall around the entry was blank before.  Why restore this now, though?"
"People will need something to rally around." she said, "Something to remind them we have a heritage, an identity."  
They turned a corner and her helmet lights picked up another door.  This one, welded shut, but it still had the triple insignias of the 171st, Coast Guard, and 90th Heavy Assault.
"Something like this." she stated.
"Something I never understood-why was your mother so obsessed with burying Kowloon's history?" he asked.
"Because, Commander, it was in her nature." Sharon stated,  "Mother wanted desperately to be seen by High Society as worthy of their company,  and my father encouraged this heavily. To be fully 'accepted' in court." her tone dripped with scorn, "To be considered 'worthy' of higher society, it was very much who she was."
"But not you." Cu'ong commented
She paused, "No. Not me."
"How did they really die?" she asked quietly.
"It's in the police reports." she stated, "An accident on the way home from Tharkad, they were the only casualties."
"That report is so full of holes that-" the Commander went on
"It hardly bears examining." she stated coldly.  "But you may consider that a consequence of letting a nanny raise your child, is that the hand that rocks the cradle rules the future of the world, and Mother was ever more interested in attending parties off-world, than spending time with her daughter.  I cried harder when Alicia Li passed, and have no interest in digging into what may, or may not, have been the reasons my parents were the only people killed when a commercial liner's hull ruptured, beyond removing the one force that would leave us totally unable to resist what is coming.  If only Uncle Patrick had chosen to come home, instead of leaving with The Folk for the great beyond, maybe I would care more.  He chose a Spacer bride over his birthright."
"What if he comes back?"
"I will gladly step aside for him." she said, "He would know how vital it is that we see to our own defense...but he isn't coming back, and as we sit now, I'm rather envious of him for that.  Have the section sealed off, pumped with neutral gasses, and free that door.  we need the archives now more than ever."
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