TBC1

==Chapter 1 - The Broken Commonwealth==
Ngo House, Ia Drang plateau
Kowloon System
Coventry Providence, Lyran Commonwealth
3145
A Nation out of Control...
-----
"They've lost control."  Duchess Sharon Ngo sighed.  "The Steiners have lost control, and they're losing."
"What's that do for us?"  Commander Dao Trak Cu'ong asked. "If the nation is falling, what happens?"
"Well, it means you'd better look good in lime green, for one thing." Sharon said, "For that matter, so had I, because the alternative is becoming a sock-puppet for pirates."
'Your grandmother would be shocked at that statement." Cu'ong told her
"My grandmother died at thirty one and never knew me." Sharon stated.  "Mom was too busy trying to keep us from being punished for what Grandmother did for the nation.  We are screwed."
"What can we do?" she asked
Sharon looked out from the deck overlooking the Little Yangtze valley, two kilometers down the sheer cliff of the Ia Drang plateau, and a thousand cliks from her nominal planetary capital.
"We make guns." she said, "We make guns, and we make weapons, and we pray they don't come for us before we have enough of either." she turned to her planetary militia's commander.
Kowloon's militia was built around a naval force. "Everything your predecessors modeled, I want in place as soon as possible, we must pray the Clanners focus on their 'ilclan' competition, and that we don't look too tempting a target for the neo-Rimjobs.  We're on our own again."
-----
Return to Story Index - Next Chapter
Category:Works by CannonShop
Category:The Broken Commonwealth Chapters