GblaRCS Chpt 18

==Guided by the light of a (Red) Cameron Star - Chapter 18 -==
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"That the least clan-like of Khans produced the clanniest clanner of her generation via the iron wombs is an irony I'm not sure Sarah would have appreciated. For the last time Jennifer, would you please stop encouraging your friends to settle their disputes with a Trial of Grievance."saKhan Trish Ebon chastises her adopted daughter - 2832 CE
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===Squabbles and Bonding===
Capital City – Niops Association (Niops VII) – 2830
According to the sign outside the place was called 'The Great Hope American Diner', being named for the old capital city of Clan Wolverine back on Circe, but almost everyone just called it 'Gloria's'. This was despite the fact she didn't work there anything like full-time and the place actually belonged to her daughter.
Ironically most people who had lived there back on Circe didn't actually call their city 'Great Hope' either, to a majority of the population it was 'The City of McEvedy', 'McEvedy City' or even just 'McEvedy'. Gloria and her late husband, who had once run a diner there together, had never dreamed of naming their burger joint 'McEvedy's' however. The Khan herself might have gone along with it but you couldn't be quite sure of just how much of a reach the astronomically wealthy and infamously litigious chains of Terran fast food restaurants really had.
Just because a retired officer, Star Colonel Sanders of Clan Widowmaker, had seemingly got away with setting up a fried chicken place on Roche called Kerensky Cluster Fried Chicken (KCFC) didn't necessarily mean anyone else would.
Shortly after it first opened its doors Gloria had of course infiltrated Sanders's operation and had stolen the recipe he was using to flavor the chicken. A few years later it was now one of the more popular items on the menu of the Great Hope American Diner, though disguised by a misleading claim that the secret eleven herbs and spices used were intended to honor the 11th Army. It would totally destroy the business if anyone found out they were serving Widowmaker food.
Blissfully unaware of Gloria's darkest secret, Frederick Hallis politely held open the door to the diner to let Alice through first. "Working today, Gloria?" he greeted the old woman stood there minding the till. The place was less than half full, it would get busier later when people left work, and most of the customers were watching the viewscreen on one wall that was tuned into the news channel. The lead story was still the return of Thunderer and Rawhide a few days before, hauling much of Camelot Command back with them, the television news pundits arguing about how long it was going to take to get some of the production lines recovered from there running, and which should take priority.
"No rest for the wicked, Frederick." Gloria replied. "What's wrong with your face?" she asked, getting a better look at him.
"My eyes are a little too close together. It's all the Khan's fault" Frederick deadpanned.
"I meant the bruises, as you well know." Gloria replied, wagging her finger at him.
"Oh, yeah, those. Picked them up at an informal Trial of Grievance yesterday" Frederick explained. "Got some cracked ribs too they had to strap up" he continued. "Jennifer was sick of me not talking to Dave, said giving him three months of the silent treatment was more than enough, so she told us to settle our dispute in a civilized manner. I issued a batchall, we agreed to fight unarmed and unaugmented in the Circle of Equals and I won."
"Good for you. Best not to let these things fester for too long." Gloria replied brightly, the old woman's upbeat reaction to a pair of boys in their early teens beating each other to a pulp making Alice wonder once again if she had stepped through the looking glass when she came to this planet. The Wolverine people were just so damn strange, she thought to herself, far more alien in the way they sometimes thought and acted than the original population of Niops was, or even the Capellans that arrived later.
"Chilli cheeseburger to go?" Gloria asked Frederick, that being his usual order.
"Nah, two double cheeseburgers and a large fries to share." Frederick ordered. "We're eating in."
"Good choice, it's cold out there." Gloria replied. "Table over by the window there is free. Strawberry milkshake too?" she checked.
"Yes, please" Frederick replied.
"What about you, Alice?" Gloria asked the girl.
Alice opened her mouth to reply then close it. "How do you know my name?" she asked. "I've only been in here a few times before and I've never told you what it was" she said. For that matter she wasn't sure if the old woman had even been here during all her previous visits.
"Maybe I overheard someone else saying it." Gloria suggested, smiling.
"Or maybe you're just inexplicably well informed." Frederick countered. "So, what's Alice's grandfather's name, Gloria?" he asked knowingly, testing her.
"Oh, Frederick. How could I possibly know that?" Gloria asked sweetly. "I mean I could randomly guess that it's Major Robert D. McArthur of the 295th Battlemech Division, but what are the chances I'd be right?" she asked rhetorically.
Alice blinked. "Is this some kind of magic trick?" she asked eventually.
"Not really. But rumor is that she's been known to make people disappear." Frederick said wryly. "You should have one of the strawberry milkshakes too if you haven't tried one before." he advised Alice. "They're good."
"Okay, I'll have one of those." Alice responded, giving the old woman a strange look as she took down their food order.
"I'll have your food brought out to the table when it's ready" Gloria told the teenagers as they headed for their table and sat down.
Alice put aside the mystery of the 'well-informed' diner owner for now. "So…" she began. "About what happened yesterday after school…"
"Sorry about that. I did say you shouldn't come and watch." Frederick apologized quickly.
"I didn't think you'd really fight him, I mean not fight him like that" Alice told the boy. "You could have killed each other."
"Nah. We were both pulling punches and not using any moves that might have resulted in anything worse than a broken bone." Frederick told her. "In a real fight it would have been all eye-gouging, crippling side-kicks to the knee and hitting below the belt."
"You throttled him!" Alice exclaimed.
"It was a choke hold, that's the idea. He tapped out before he went unconscious and I would have let go as soon as he did" Frederick explained. "We've hurt each other more than that just sparring" he told her. "He knocked out two of my baby teeth when we were little. I put them under my pillow at night and gave him half the money that was there instead the next morning. I'm pretty sure it was Star Captain Francis that put it there, not the tooth fairy though" he said, grinning.
Alice looked at him. "God. You people are so weird" she stated firmly.
"Yeah, we know" Frederick responded with a shrug. "We're not as weird as we used to be though, we've abandoned a lot of clan stuff, a most of what's left is just ceremonial for the majority of people, Dad thought it would promote social cohesion to keep a few traditions" he told her honestly before leaning closer and lowering his voice. "I asked you to come grab a burger because I really wanted to apologise about the other thing" he told her awkwardly. "I mean what I said before the fight after Clarissa Anderson said what she did."
"The part where she told everyone 'The boys are fighting over me' looking really pleased with herself, you mean?" Alice rightly assumed.
"Yeah. If she hadn't looked so freaking smug and self-satisfied I wouldn't have responded the way I did" Frederick told the girl. "It just annoyed the crap out of me. It wasn't really about her at all, it was about me being pissed at Dave for what he did. I wasn't jealous of him, I was…" he paused as he searched for the right word.
"Aggrieved" Alice suggested.
"Yes, aggrieved" Frederick replied, nodding. "Good choice of word, what with the Trial of Grievance and all" he added.
"I thought so" Alice replied drily.
Frederick really hoped he looked as remorseful as he felt. "All I could think of to shut her up was to say that we weren't fighting over her. Why would I fight over her? I already had a really great girlfriend who actually kept to her word."
"Yeah. There was one slight issue I had with that. It would have been nice if you had, let's say, asked me to be your girlfriend before telling everyone that I was" Alice told him, glaring. "Just because I went to the Christmas dance with you, and we've hung out a few times since, doesn't mean we were going steady" she said. In reality it had been more than 'a few times' however. He was good company being fun and likeable, but they certainly weren't dating or anything. If they were she would have been a lot more annoyed that he usually came here with his sibko friends and not her, not that they were normal enough to just call themselves 'friends', they were trothkin which sounded like it had been lifted from some High Fantasy novel about dragons.
"I know, and I'm really, really sorry" Frederick replied, wincing. "Your being 'aggrieved' about it is like, totally understandable' he continued, trying a weak joke.
"No. I think using your word 'pissed' is closer to how I feel about it." Alice told him, narrowing her eyes. "Beyond the fact it wasn't true, it was like you used me as a prop in a story." she complained as their food was brought out and placed on the table between them.
For once Frederick wasn't interested in his burger as the waitress left their table again, although Alice picked hers up and took a small bite before popping some fries into her mouth as well. She still missed Buffalo Meadows, it was her home where she was born, but the food was way better here. Especially given that you didn't have to grow it yourself.
She also still missed sunlight. Not that most people in the Inner Sphere would think Buffalo Meadows was sunny, not compared to a normal colony world orbiting a G class star anyway, but at least back home you didn't have to lie under a sunlamp every so often to fight depression and get enough Vitamin D.
It wouldn't be quite so bad if her damn freckles didn't always seem to come out with a vengeance after every session with the sunlamp, but they did. While getting changed for gym class one of the Wolverine girls had made a joke about her looking like she was completely painted up in disruptive pattern camouflage and it was just tragic that the bright orange hair ruined the innate tactical advantage nature had gifted her otherwise.
What passed for humor amongst the Ironborn took some getting used to, though not as much as them thinking that beating the hell out of each other was normal behavior.
"I don't know if it helps but everyone believed me because, well, you're really cute now without the glasses" Frederick told her. "Not that you weren't still cute with them" he added quickly. "I mean you're nice and smart too, and between the nice, the smart and the really cute then me not giving a crap about Clarissa Anderson sounded plausible I guess."
Alice suddenly laughed, nearly choking on her food. She managed to swallow and took a quick swig from her milkshake to stop herself coughing. "It's not as plausible as you think" she said. "I was asked earlier what I see in you."
Frederick couldn't think of a better response than "I hope you made something up" and reached for his own milkshake.
"What, so now you expect me to lie?" Alice replied, giving him a look of reproach.
"It would really help me out a lot if you did." Frederick pleaded. "Maybe you could tell people you dumped me because of the fight? That would get us both out of this fast."
"No." Alice told him flatly. Taking another bite out of her burger.
"You know that I'll look like an ****** if you tell people you aren't, or weren't, my girlfriend right?" Frederick checked.
Alice chewed and swallowed. "Yes" she confirmed. "I'm not your girlfriend and I won't lie and say that I am, or was."
"Crap" Frederick responded gloomily, picking up his burger and taking a huge bite. It tasted like ashes in his mouth, and ketchup.
"Ask me to be your girlfriend." Alice instructed him..
Frederick gulped down his barely-chewed mouthful of cheeseburger. "What?!" he gasped out.
"If you ask me to be your girlfriend, and I say yes, then I'm your girlfriend." Alice told him. "That way I can dump you and not be lying when I say you used to be my boyfriend."
That was the kind of rules lawyering that would have made Sarah proud, Frederick decided. Alice really was smart, and maybe more underhanded and sneaky than he ever thought she was. "Really?" he asked.
"Ask me" Alice instructed him.
"Okay… um… would you like to be my girlfriend?" Frederick asked.
"No." Alice told him.
"Eh?" Frederick responded in confusion, now looking utterly bewildered.
"Your face!" Alice said, giggling.
"Oh, come on!" Frederick complained when he realized she was yanking his chain. Nice girl my ass, he thought to himself.
Alice adopted a serious expression. "Okay, I've reconsidered. After further consideration I'm officially your girlfriend now" she solemnly agreed.
"Great. So do you want to dump me in front of other people because I totally deserve the public humiliation?" Frederick asked, pretty sure he did under the circumstances. Sometimes you just had to fall on your sword.
"I'll think about it. Until then, and as my boyfriend, you're paying for all my junk food because the cheeseburgers here are great" she enthused. "I've heard the fried chicken is good here too, so when you take me here next time we'll have that" she told him. "Also, you're taking me to the movies and paying for my ticket and popcorn, and…"
"What?!" Frederick exclaimed, cutting her off mid-sentence.
"Did you really think I'd let you off that lightly?" Alice asked him. "I'm going to teach you a lesson bucko."
Frederick pondered what she was saying for a moment. "Couldn't you just punch me in the face or something instead?" he suggested as an alternate course of action. "I can get a medic to patch me up for free, but my allowance only goes so far."
"Not. That. Lightly" Alice repeated for emphasis.
Frederick sighed dejectedly then his expression brightened as a thought occurred. "So, while you're officially my girlfriend do we get to make out?" he asked hopefully.
Alice rolled her eyes. "What do you think?" she asked him sardonically. "We'd probably better hold hands sometimes to maintain appearances though."
Figuring his options here were sorely limited Frederick groaned and admitted defeat. "If I'd wanted to get manipulated and bossed around I'd have dated Jennifer" he muttered to himself, taking another bite from his cheeseburger.
The door to the diner opened again and a familiar face walked in. "Hey Dave" Frederick greeted him.
"Hey Fred, how are the ribs?" David Robertson asked.
"Kinda sore, not too bad though" Frederick replied. "No hard feelings about the chokehold?"
The other boy shook his head. "Nah, my own fault for letting you get close enough to grapple like that" he replied. "Best man won and all that, I knew I was being a jerk when I asked Clarissa to go to the dance" he admitted.
"That's why I knew I'd beat him. The fight is usually over before it starts, you've got to have your heart in it" Frederick told Alice, Dave Robertson nodding his agreement with that assessment.
Alice looked from one of them to the other incredulously. They hadn't said a word to each other in three months, and yesterday they were beating each other senseless, but now it seemed like they were right back to being friends. Jennifer had explained to her the clan concept of 'surkai', the right for forgiveness if you conceded you were wrong, but completely abandoning a grudge quite that easily just seemed outlandishly bizarre.
"Hey Alice" Dave acknowledged her. "If you ever decide to trade up for a better boyfriend look me up" he told her, giving her a wink.
"Seriously Dave? Seriously?" Frederick responded, shaking his head in disbelief as Dave went to order some food. "It's like he needs me to let him know who the hot girls are or something."
"I'm hot?" Alice asked in surprise, that was a step up from being cute earlier.
"Well not like Inferno Round hot but yeah." Frederick told her. "Part of that is probably the hair. Did you know that when it frizzes up in the wind and rain that from a distance you sometimes kinda look like someone set you on fire" he told her earnestly.
Alice looked utterly bemused for a while by what he had just said then frowned as she reached for the bowl of french fries again. He could just be a freaking idiot, but maybe he was being clever and was trying to get dumped sooner by saying something like that? "You should have stopped at 'hot' because then I might have reconsidered the whole 'making out' thing" she told him.
Frederick blinked. "******" he swore and dejectedly took another big bite of his cheeseburger as Alice hid her grin behind a handful of fries.
After ordering his food, Dave took a seat at the counter rather than join them. He probably didn't want to interpose himself between what he assumed was a couple, Alice supposed. Or maybe he didn't trust himself not to flirt and wanted to avoid the violent consequences Frederick possibly becoming 'aggrieved' again.
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===Breaking News and it's Impact===
"Can you turn the volume up on the TV?" one of the other customers requested, Frederick looking over to the viewscreen to see why and seeing that a 'Breaking News' banner was being displayed.
Gloria used her remote control to increase the sound level as a newscaster replaced the pundits. "We have just been notified by the government of important developments within the Inner Sphere." the newscaster began. "In the wake of full-scale offensives launched by the Draconis Combine against both the Lyran Commonwealth and Federated Suns, Archon Marcus Steiner has formally declared war on the Combine and has ordered full mobilization" he reported. "These developments, following in the wake of the continuing clashes between the Federated Suns and the Capellan Confederation over ownership of systems within what the Confederation calls the 'Chesterton Commonality', appear to indicate that the period of relative peace in the Inner Sphere that began with the end of the so-called 'Great Succession War' of 2786 to 2821 is now at an end."
"Jesus Christ. There are still worlds out there glowing from all the nukes thrown about last time these morons went head-to-head" one of the customers observed, groaning. "At least the Free Worlds League isn't involved yet."
"Just you wait. As soon as they figure the Lyrans and Capellans have their hands full they're going to try and take back the Bolan Thumb" Frederick spoke up. "Those systems had been under Marik rule for centuries before the Steiners kicked them out during the Great Succession War. There's no way that the Captain-General on Atreus doesn't want them back" he stated with certainty. "The League might try and take even more territory off the Confederation too if they get the chance" he added. The Capellans hadn't done too well for themselves last time, some of the worlds that the refugees who sought shelter on Niops were originally from were well inside the borders of the Free Worlds League these days.
"I guess we're not going to be calling it the Great Succession War any longer though." Gloria wryly observed. "They'll have to change the history books to call it the 'First Succession War' now" she supposed, wondering how out-of-date the news was, days or weeks? Admiral Bremman routinely sent civilian JumpShips into the Free Worlds League disguised as periphery traders, mostly for the purposes of gathering intelligence of course but it was also an opportunity to purchase small quantities of goods not readily available to the Association. These goods happened to include some of the spices required for her fried chicken recipe, it paid dividends knowing the spooky intelligence types running the operation.
"Maybe it'll be their own people that they get killed in droves this time not innocent Terrans." someone said darkly. "Kerensky should have stayed and taught them a lesson."
"If he'd known that many people were going to die maybe he would have." Gloria suggested, not being entirely sure either way. Aleksandr Kerensky had certainly expected war to break out with the SLDF gone, but maybe not at the scale it actually did. When they reached the Inner Sphere the Wolverines had been shocked to discover to the death toll of a war that had only ended a few years earlier at that point. More people had died in the Great Succession War than in every other war humanity had fought since the Bronze Age combined, with some worlds having populations that were once counted in the billions now effectively dead. If Kerensky had only been expecting something more akin to the so-called Age of War that existed prior to the formation of the Star League he had badly underestimated what was going to happen.
Back in 2412 the deaths of a mere three-hundred-thousand civilians as a consequence of a nuclear exchange on Tintavel had so horrified the Great Houses that they signed the Ares Conventions. During the Great Succession War the deaths of a third of a million people was just a Tuesday.
That so much death and destruction had apparently not convinced the Successor States that they should probably find a better way to settle their differences did not speak well of their morality, let alone their intellects.
"The Hegemony Worlds are going to burn again aren't they?" Alice asked quietly.
"Any of them that still have enough industry and resources to be worth fighting over. Yes, probably." Frederick replied sadly. "They've razed entire cities, whole planets even, just to stop the other side getting them in the past" he said. "Do you know if you have any family living in the Hegemony still?"
Alice shook her head. "I don't think so. According to my parents most of my family were from Lone Star, Killbourn and Lockdale. They're all basically dead worlds now" she said. "I might have some really distant cousins on Terra still I suppose. You?"
"Not in the Hegemony, but maybe elsewhere in the Inner Sphere." Frederick told her. "My Dad's older brother didn't join Kerensky's Exodus, he went to live on Royal in the Federated Suns when the Star League started to collapse. The Drac's took Royal off the FedSuns early in the war and they took it back later on, so if they survived both invasions I might have family there" he said. "I don't know if they'd consider me family though, what with being made in a lab."
Alice forced a smile. "Come on. Genetically you're probably the most Hallis, Hallis that ever Hallised" she joked. "Unless you had ancestors that were brother and sister that is."
"True. I'm also probably the most Hallis, Hallis that ever will Hallis, because after they turned out the first generation Ironborn they decided it would be a bad idea to let anyone be routinely made from much more than fifty-percent of the DNA from one donor in future. Too much long-term risk of the kind of problems inbreeding can cause."
"That worried people on Buffalo Meadows" Alive told him. "Not enough children being born to avoid us all being related just a bit too much for comfort in another generation or two."
"On the plus side, you'd have had the best six-fingered banjo-playing inbred rednecks in the whole periphery, which is really saying something because the Taurian Concordat exists." Frederick joked.
Alice giggled, smile not forced this time.
On the television the newscaster momentarily looked down at the noteputer in front of him. "The High Associator has issued a statement saying that the SLDF is not planning to raise their alert status at this time, but may do so later if the Free Worlds League also mobilizes for war" he said. "Given how far we actually are from the borders of any other Successor State, and therefore any likely zone of conflict, this in itself would only be a precaution since it is deemed highly unlikely that there will be any fighting within two hundred light-years of the Niops Association or its protectorates."
"If Charles Marik goes to war he'll move any regular formations and warships he has near the periphery up to the front lines" Gloria reasoned. "Anyone want to annex Romita?" she joked, that Marik controlled system was actually the closest inhabited world to the Association, less than half the distance than Alphard was and the only one that lay less than one full jump away.
"Nah. We should take Revel and Stettin, make the maps look tidier." one of the customers responded, grinning.
Frederick thought about that. "That would make the maps look tidier." he had to agree. Because of those systems the Free Worlds League claimed ownership of space to either side of Niops making the Inner Sphere/Periphery border in that region of space less than ideal for the Association if they ever went to war with the League.
"Who do you think will win? The new war I mean" Alice asked Frederick, it seemed like something he would know a lot about.
"The Dracs wouldn't stand a chance if the Lyran's weren't so bad at leveraging their industrial superiority into battlefield success" Frederick replied after a moment's consideration. "They've just got too many senior officers who only got to where they are because of their connections and a noble title, not actual ability" he told her. "The FedSuns are much better led, but they're going to be overstretched fending off the Capellans at the same time as the Combine is at their throats" he reasoned. "My guess would be the Dracs will do pretty well at first, they never really demobilized after the last war so they're hitting the ground running, but it could really bite them on the ass that with the League staying out of it for now the Steiners can shift forces from their border with the Mariks to reinforce the front lines."
Frederick took a gulp from his milkshake. "The longer it is before Atreus gets involved the worse it's going to be for Luthien. They might not be able to general their way out of a wet paper bag but once they've pulled their finger out of their ass Tharkad will just throw their wallet at the problem and all the Bushido Code in the Inner Sphere won't help against that."
"Doesn't the Draconis Combine know that too?" Alice queried.
"Yes, of course, they just don't care" Frederick told her. "It's a honor thing. You know, 'Duty is heavier than a mountain, death is lighter than a feather' that stuff" he explained. "I wouldn't mind betting that a lot of their General Staff advocated hitting either the Lyrans or the FedSuns to knock them out of the war first before opening another front" he opined, "but others deemed that suggestion cowardly because it implies that Combine valor couldn't triumph over Steiner money and Davion tactical skill at the same time."
Alive pursed her lips. "Who do you want to win?"
"Personally you mean?" Frederick asked, receiving a nod of confirmation in return. "They're all ****** to a greater or lesser degree but I can't see the people running Tharkad or New Avalon ordering their troops to do something like the Kentares Massacre, or their troops actually doing it if they were ordered, so they're a lighter shade of grey than Luthien at least" he said. "Of course, they've all deployed WMD heedless of causing massive civilian casualties so that's not saying much. If I had to pick someone to lose than that's easy, Sian."
"The Cappies not the Dracs?" Alice responded, mildly surprised.
"They don't even treat their own people well, Servitor is just a fancy word for serf or even slave, so you can bet that the people on any planet they conquer are going to be worse off than they were before" Frederick justified his answer. "As to their police-state of a society, well they really put the 'total' in totalitarian. It's like they read 1984 and thought to themselves, 'this Big Brother guy is on the right track but he's just not authoritarian enough'."
Alice seemed surprised by how animated he seemed to be about this. "I've never heard you talk politics before" she remarked. "I didn't think you cared this much about it."
"I wasn't very old when we escaped Nicholas Kerensky's Brave New World but it left enough of an impression on me, and the people around me, that the right to criticize the people in charge without getting put up against a wall and shot is kind of a big deal" Frederick told her earnestly. "Just think about the news channel playing up there. You can tune in most days and listen to people saying how they think the High Associator is screwing up and we think that's normal. The thing is, for most people these days that's not normal at all" he stated flatly. "Having a democratically elected government, an independent judiciary and a free press is an outlandish notion in a lot of the Inner Sphere but it's our reality and I'm not sure enough people appreciate just how lucky we really are."
Frederick suddenly laughed. "Sorry. I must sound like Jennifer when she goes off on one of her rants." he apologized. "There's reason we call her the standard-bearer for the Far Center."
"The Far Center?"
"You know. There's a political Far-right and Far-Left, so why not a Far-Center?" Frederick explained. "Give me political moderation or give me death!" he declared, grinning. "Imagine thousands of angry people at a demonstration chanting, 'What do we want? Gradual change. When do we want it? As soon as reasonably practical' and you're kinda there" he joked. "Or you could think of it as an ideology based on being really suspicious of people with radical ideologies based on some economic theory or another, those that want to remake the world in a hurry without properly considering the consequences or entertaining the possibility they might be wrong. There's no flexibility in any system whose faith in itself verges on religious dogma."
"Sounds like the Clans" Alice knowingly observed, finishing her cheeseburger and washing it down with her milkshake. Frederick still had some food to finish off, he had been talking more the last few minutes. Probably more than she had ever heard him talk before to be honest, the girl assuming this was just something he cared about.
"Damn straight. Sometimes they couldn't even arrange enough food production because it was so damn hard to move people between jobs" Frederick told her. "According to my Dad, Khan McEvedy once got her knuckles rapped for putting Mechwarriors into Agromechs to ensure a better harvest the following year." he said before munching on a French fry. "One day they're going to have a ****** famine and they'll let people starve rather than change course, because that would be admitting their utopia has flaws" he said. "There are some advantages to having a Planned Economy like the Clans or the Cappies, you can really get shit done fast when you have to, like organizing big infrastructure projects, but you need to be able to tear up the plan when unforeseen events pop up and bite you on the ass" he continued. "If adaptability is restrained by chalcas then chalcas is a flawed concept."
Alice didn't know that word. "Chalcas?" she queried.
"Something, or sometimes someone, that is unacceptable to clan culture and challenges it." Frederick explained.
Alice nodded her understanding. Just another weird clan word she thought to herself, adding it to her mental list.
There was definite irony in just how critical Frederick and his compatriots from Sibling Company Gamma were of much of clanner society given that they seemed to have kept more clan traditions alive than most anyone else on Niops. It was likely a result of their unique history, not merely being the first generation of kids, or 'kits', to come out of the Iron Wombs, but also having made the journey to the Inner Sphere on Yukon rather than with the rest of the fleet. While Franklin Hallis had relaxed enforcement of most clan laws almost as soon as the Switchback fleet departed Clan Space, scrapping some entirely, the Yukon, it's passengers and crew continued following the old ways for another two years until they reunited with the rest of the Wolverines.
Not merely trained from birth to be the ultimate clan warriors, but actually created for that purpose, and steeped in clan tradition and culture for most of the first decade of their lives, it was too engrained to let it go as readily as most had. The majority of the civilian population had only been Wolverines since Operation Klondike, less than two years before the secession, and because the clans themselves only even came into existence in 2807 even most of the adult warrior caste had memories of their lives before.
It was a good thing that Sarah McEvedy's approach to how the sibkos of her clan were raised favoured promoting rather more freedom of thought than other clans or the Gamma kits would have found adjustment even more difficult.
Alice smiled as Frederick resumed eating. "So, are you planning on going into politics?" she asked him in jest.
Grimacing theatrically when you were trying to swallow a mouthful of burger wasn't easy but Frederick managed it. "Joining the army as soon as they'll let me, staying in the army until they say I'm too old and boot me out" he told her. "Ideally getting killed in action the day before forced retirement."
"My gast is well and truly flabbered" Alice replied wryly and upon witnessing his confused look in response she giggled. "You know, as in I'm flabbergasted" she explained. "It's something my Dad says."
"And people say we talk funny, query affirmative?" Frederick replied, grinning.
"Affirmative" Alice replied, smiling. "I'm surprised you didn't request surkai when you apologized earlier."
Frederick raised his eyebrows. "I didn't even know you knew what that was, but you're not part of the clan anyway so it wouldn't really be binding on you even though I did admit guilt and request punishment" he told her.
Alice smiled evilly. "So, if I offered you a choice of forgiveness without making out, or still being in my bad books but with making out which would you choose?" she asked sweetly.
As he tried to determine which was the lesser of two evils Frederick's pained expression of distress and mental anguish made her giggle once again. "Oh, come on! There's no right answer to that!" he protested eventually after thinking about it for an extended period, impaled on the horns of a dilemma between his ethics and his hormones.
"Unless that was the right answer." Alice suggested.
"Was it?" Frederick asked, nonplussed and extremely confused.
"I'll let you know later."
"Just to make absolutely sure, is you just punching me in the face to make things square between us completely off the cards because I'm not sure I can handle this" Frederick told her honestly.
"Think of it as character building." Alice suggested.
"Having to escape millions of deranged clanners that wanted to murder me before I was even ten years old was character building." Frederick replied. "Trying to choose between those options was soul destroying."
Alice rolled her eyes. "And people say teenage girls are overly dramatic." she retorted, reaching for her milkshake.
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==Chapter Notes==
*;Notes from the Author : Exactly how clan a Wolverine on Niops is going to be will vary enormously on a case-by-case basis. Someone from the Pentagon Worlds who had only bee integrated into the clan after Operation Klondike in 2822 is going to be barely clanner at all whereas someone born into the warrior caste in the Kerensky Cluster after 2807 (when Nicholas Kerensky founded them) will be very clanner indeed. There's going to be great variation even within the former warrior caste as well. To give an example, Franklin Hallis might be the Khan but he was already a full-grown man in 2807 and was raised in a Terran Hegemony/Star League cultural environment, that is not true of Frederick Hallis (and the rest of sibko Gamma) who were raised in very different circumstances. Letting go of clan culture is going to be easier for some people than others.The kits of Sibling Company Gamma are no fans of Nicholas Kerensky (they know he wanted them killed) but they're still carrying his cultural baggage more than most.In some ways the First and Second Succession Wars were actually one long conflict, naturally they didn't call it the 'First Succession War' until the second one broke out, untl then it was the 'Great Succession War' although some people refer to both wars together as that. The fighting never really completely stopped between 2821 and 2830, it just scaled back significantly for a while and then started to ramp back up until it was another full-blown conflict with WMD being thrown around again. The Free Worlds League was the last of the Successor States to get involved (though only a few months later) and being the one closest to Niops it's the one they're most concerned with.With the Inner Sphere about to become too busy to notice what's happening in the periphery Niops is now in a position to start making some larger moves.Finally, yes Sanders is a Clan Widowmaker bloodname and while a Star Colonel Sanders setting up a chicken place called KCFC would be funny, the real tragedy for potential mirth is that Sanders isn't a Clan Jade Falcon (or perhaps Snow Raven) bloodname instead. Star Colonel Sanders secret recipe would never remain so with Gloria on the case!
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Chapter 18