TBoE-4

==Chapter 4 – The Best of Enemies==
“If the mind is to emerge unscathed from this relentless struggle with the unforeseen, two qualities are indispensable: first, an intellect that, even in the darkest hour, retains some glimmerings of the inner light which leads to truth; and second, the courage to follow this faint light wherever it may lead.” -- Carl von Clausewitz, Vom Kriege (On War)​​
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=== Part 1 ===
House of Scions, Forbidden City, Sian, Capellan Confederation
13th December, 2796
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Ilsa Liao nodded to the Chairman of the Capellan State Bank next to her as she stood before the gathered nobility of the Capellan Confederation. Her ornate robes of office shimmered with intricate silk embroidery while jewels glittered from her ears, hands, and neck like an empress of old. She hoped that she would portray the image of control, wealth, and strength mixed with compassion.
“As you know, the war that we have found ourselves in has been a drain on our economy. Our soldiers sacrifice themselves daily on the battlefields to defend the realm against foreign aggression, especially that of the so-called ‘Free Worlds League’. Our brave men and women need the State’s tax revenues to pay for their food and the weapons of war, to pay them so they can provide for their families as they defend them. Furthermore, the State owes the parents, spouses, and children of the fallen a debt that the Yuan of the Bereaved Parent can ameliorate but cannot truly repay, as I well know as a war orphan.”
A rising hubbub greeted her words and she raised a hand while the cameras zoomed in on her as planned.
“However, I do see the wisdom in letting the Scions take primary responsibility for setting tax rates in their home domains rather than the Prefects that they elect to manage our nation. Even the Chancellor cannot have her eyes everywhere to make the correct decisions to plan a harmonious advancement of the state.”
A wave of shocked and scandalized laughter greeted her words and Ilsa smiled.
“My beloved grandmother ordered me to listen to the wisdom of others in her final words, and it is the duty of a grandchild to obey her elders’ wisdom. To that end, I shall support your efforts to change the laws to make the necessary adjustments to the system of taxation for your home Prefectures and planets. Use your local knowledge so that the Confederation’s needs for men, mechs, and munitions in the budget for our survival, the resources needed for wise governance, and the necessary outlays for reconstruction of our damaged planets and industries can be met. Once the Eagle is thrown back from our planets, we will be safe to rebuild what has been torn down.”
As Ilsa left the floor an aide approached her. “Celestial Wisdom, the Director of the Maskirovka has news. He says that the matter is urgent.”
Ilsa sighed and then looked to the Chairman. “I must tend to this new crisis. Please extend my regrets and tender invitations for a working dinner to the Scions should they wish to send suitable delegations.”
“As you wish, Celestial Wisdom.” The bureaucrat bowed.
Ilsa looked at her aide. “Lead on, then.”
She was led to a secure operations chamber in the basement of an anonymous block of office buildings in the Forbidden City. Her court robes and jewelry with the symbols of the Confederation on them made her as out of place among the black-clad agents there as a peacock in a flock of ravens.
“Director Jiàn,” Ilsa nodded to her spymaster, “What new crisis do you have for me?”
“We have confirmed reports from the Suns, Celestial Wisdom. First Prince John Davion and his heir have been assassinated.” Ilsa sucked in her breath.
She took a deep breath to steady herself and then spoke slowly with dread in her voice. “Who then leads the Federated Suns?”
“The grandson of John Davion, a cadet named Paul Davion, is the new First Prince. Efforts are underway to gain knowledge of him and what this shall mean to the course of events.” A monitor lit up with the photograph of a dark haired European man, approximately Ilsa’s generation by her reckoning, wearing an AFFS military cadet’s uniform.
Ilsa rubbed her face with one hand as she sat down heavily in the nearest chair, smearing the makeup that she had worn for the holocameras recording her speech. “Gods of the Underworld, the timing…! I was hoping for a response to my offer of a cease-fire! Not this!!” She looked up and met Jiàn’s eyes after her outburst. “Tell me truly, was this us?”
Jiàn shook his head. “As per your instructions from last month, we have ceased our efforts at subversion and sabotage in the Suns to instead focus on covert information-gathering and intelligence. Their Department of Military Intelligence is incompetent enough to make anyone but us as a possibility for the hit, although the Kurita’s Internal Security Force and Order of the Five Pillars are the obvious suspects with the most to gain by elevating an untrained and untested boy as First Prince. I have already ordered an internal audit and investigation to ensure that your orders were carried out promptly and properly.”
Ilsa nodded along, biting her lip as she thought. “If the internal investigation turns up anything, notify me immediately and take the responsible parties into custody alive! But if we are innocent as we should be….” She trailed off and gave a small sly grin. “If you know of any individuals that you suspect may be of… mixed loyalties… ensure they know of our soul-searching self-examination and inquiries into who the guilty party might be! Then have a copy of the final report proving our innocence pass before their gaze so they can tell their masters. Subtly though, no need to trumpet that we are letting them know. This way, their reports to New Avalon will allow you to then use them unknowingly to pass what we want the Davions to know. All we lose is a leaked report that also will benefit us.”
Jiàn barked a knowing laugh for the precocious teenager who was trying to teach him how to suck eggs. “Truly the Maskirovka lost a great agent when your life took a different course, Celestial Wisdom! As for our activities in the Suns?”
Ilsa sighed. “Wait and watch. Get me the data on Paul Davion, but you have already ordered that. Truly, capable subordinates are a pearl of great value to a ruler!”
Her eyes returned to the photograph of the new First Prince in his cadet uniform. She allowed herself a moment to drown in her pain-filled memories while she compared the man in the picture to herself.
‘I wonder who had the more cruel fate? You to lose your father and grandfather in an unexpected instant as the burden of rule landed on your shoulders unaware or I to witness Lǎo ye slowly and painfully withering before my eyes as I dreaded the moment when the mantle would pass from her to me?’
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Finally, far closer to midnight than sunset, Ilsa reached her private rooms as the latest endless day came to an end. She blearily stared at the sword rack containing her dao while the servants helped her out of the crushing weight of her robes and jewelry.
“Leave me, please.” She croaked through her fatigue to her bath attendants.
Thankfully, she was obeyed, save for the ever-present surveillance on her by the guards.
This illusion of privacy, never the reality, is one of the prices I must pay as my service to the State.
She pulled on a plain cotton jacket and trousers, put her long hair up in a ponytail, and finished getting dressed with her belt of brown silk. She tied her brown belt with the knot that she had learned in one of her first Chángquán lessons and then bowed to the invisible presence of her sifu.
Feeling more centered and in control now, Ilsa took her dao in hand from the rack. She assumed a mǎbù horse stance in the center of the open space with her sword over her head in one hand. She closed her eyes and regulated her breathing, feeling the solidity of her center once more. At an unseen command from her invisible sifu, she began a slow set of katas.
Parry a thrust, lock the opponent’s blade leading into a side throw….
Behind her closed eyes, the images of the foes whom she was fighting against began to resolve themselves.
Kenyon Marik’s megalomania that was shown by that gaudy uniform, Jinjiro Kurita’s madness and bloodlust, Sandol Quinn’s ambition to be the general who reclaimed Chesterton….
Her movements sped up and became more fluid as she continued her lonely battle against the foes in her mind.
Téng Kōng Bǎi Lián standing lotus kick, spin into Pū Bù stance, follow up with a shift into the Èr Lù Máifú Second Way of Ambush hand and foot strike sequence.
Now she could see the people behind her whom she was defending, who counted on her, who relied on her to stand between them and her -- the Confederation’s -- foes.
Her cousin Mei Ying and the young girl, now named Mei Huiqing, that she had adopted once back on Sian after saving her on Mirach, her father, mother and uncle as they observed her from the Afterlife, her fellow cadets and students, all those whom she worked with to guide in harmony…. Her grandmother….
With that thought her eyes opened as she ended her evening meditation. She was looking straight at the memorial tablet in her room inscribed with the characters that her younger self, suddenly an orphan, had written on a sheet of rice paper stained by her tears. Characters that an Artisan had transcribed with his chisel into this book-sized slab of ‘mutton fat’ white jade and then filled with gold to honor those who would never return to their grieving daughter.
Her eyes filled with tears as a fresh wave of emotion surged through her breast from her wounded heart, just as the incense from the quartet of sticks burning before the memorial tablet endlessly rose to honor her dead family.
Uncle Barnabas….
Mother….
Father….
Grandmother….
Memory turned to understanding and understanding turned to action.
Ilsa called for her attendants.
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=== Part 2 ===
Strategy Room, The Fox’s Den, New Avalon, Crucis March, Federated Suns
17th December, 2796
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Paul Davion, First Prince of the Federated Suns, frowned as he looked at the assembled High Command in the underground bunker that was the nerve center of the AFFS.
Fresh news had come in from Kentares thanks to ComStar’s Precentor Kentares leaking all the data that he had received. The pace of the butchery had accelerated, and the AFFS was still too weak to do anything about it.
At least the distraction of the DCMS was giving the Suns a chance to catch their breath. Better, the spontaneous hatred and revenge fueled counterattacks had an effect. Delevan had been liberated and the AFFS victors were digging in to get resupplied and reinforced so they could hold it and perhaps strike further into the occupied zone.
“Right! What next, Ladies and Gentlemen?” He asked, remembering the first lesson he had learned while commanding his platoon of cadets.
Never let them see you sweat, and fake it till you make it.
Of course, the problems he had to unfuck now were so much bigger than dealing with Cadet Simmons’ latest serial fuckup. The scale of the stakes involved gave him the screaming willies whenever he let himself think about the consequences of getting it wrong.
Thankfully the palace physician was willing to prescribe him AFFS-issue sleeping aid tablets on the sly so he could actually get to sleep some nights.
“Some surprising news, Sir. The recruiting monthly numbers are in for the AFFS and they are… well outside our projections.”
Paul groaned inwardly and restrained his urge to rub his temples or start pulling his buzz-cut hair out by the roots. Remember, fake it till you make it and never let them see you sweat. He reminded himself it was far too late to grow a beard to run down to the recruiter himself with a fake ID to sign up for the Jump Infantry spearhead ‘One And Done’ units. Besides, Davions didn’t run no matter what. Dammit.
He felt everyone looking at him again, took a deep breath to control himself and then placed Cadet Simmons’ dopey look over the Field Marshal heading the Department of Military Education so he could use his best ‘Father of his Men Voice of Authority’ tone while wondering what kind of a fire he would have to scramble to piss on. “How bad is it now, Marshal de Bocarme?”
“We’re actually ahead of projections and needs, Sir. By... 857%”
You could have heard a pin drop as Paul boggled at the display of the AFFS manpower intake. He wasn’t alone either.
The graph’s steady curve toward the bottom had not just reversed into an upswing but looked like someone had just strapped a dropship engine to it and lit it off at full burn.
“...right. So, what are we doing with the excess?” Paul finally said, still boggling at the unexpected good news.
“We have made our quota for November AND December. And have a waiting list for slots to open. For that matter, on Panpour, we had a group of men and women break into the recruiter’s office before it opened just so they could sign up first that day to avenge Kentares.”
Paul turned to the Marshal commanding Military Administration. “Get them on the rolls ASAP and get some money shaken loose to expand our training programs. I’m not looking this gift horse in the mouth. Let’s start to make good our losses, folks! Rotate out what cadre we can from shattered units as we pull them off the line to get them to pass the lessons on to the rookies. I’ll get Baroness Maclin at Ways and Means to start another war bond subscription to pay for it all. According to her, they’re selling almost as fast as she can issue them, if not faster. Just make sure that we don’t wreck the manpower pools in our critical industries to supply Mechs and munitions to win this war.”
As the staff made notes, Paul looked. “What’s next?”
“Communique to the First Prince from Sian, Sire.” Countess Cunningham, representing the Department of Military Intelligence, pulled out a green laserdisc labeled with the Capellan seal. She slotted it into the terminal and the display of AFFS manpower fuzzed out in static.
The static reformed to show a young Asian woman dressed in a martial artist’s plain gi robes with her hair up in a ponytail held by a pink scrunchy. She sat in a Capellan-styled hardwood chair in front of a painted rice-paper screen showing butterflies and flowers in an Oriental style. The woman had clearly just been pulled from her exercise and looked almost as worn out as Paul felt.
She bowed her head gracefully in a clear sign of respect to the audience.
Cunningham spoke up. “That’s Chancellor Ilsa Liao herself.”
Ilsa spoke in fluent English, with the faintest trace of her native Mandarin Chinese in her quiet and pain-filled words.
“Chancellor Liao says to me and I quote:”
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“Greetings, Paul Davion. I wish to offer my personal condolences to you, your younger brother, and to your family for the loss of your father and grandfather to base treachery. I too know the pain of parents who departed from me too soon. All I can say from my own mourning is that those departed from us still watch over us from the afterlife to comfort us. Your honored dead will be proud of you if you follow their example of bravery, honor, and civilization as I strive to do in my own life for mine. 
I regret greatly that the history between our nations and our dynasties has made us enemies from birth, but I wish you to know that I hold no personal animus toward you and your family. 
My offer of cease-fire to your grandfather before his untimely death still holds for you as well, should you choose to accept it. But regardless of the necessities of state that must guide your decisions on that and all other matters between your nation and mine and you and I as rulers, you shall have my personal sympathy and prayers in your time of grief as one orphan of this war to another.”
Ilsa closed her eyes and bowed her head once more as the first tears fell. Paul listened as she then recited from memory a Chinese poem. A golden DMI caption identified the Chinese as the famous death poem of the Ming general and patriot Yuan Chonghuan.
“Yīshēng shìyè zǒng chéng kōng, bànshì gōngmíng zài mèngzhōng. Sǐhòu bù chóu wú jiàng yǒng, zhōnghún yījiù shǒu liáodōng.”
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Her haunted eyes opened and she gave him a sadly compassionate smile as tears trickled down her cheeks.
Paul took a deep breath as Ilsa Liao’s image froze at the end of the transmission. He rubbed his suspiciously shiny eyes and whispered a prayer under his breath as his generals gave him a moment of time and privacy to be the orphaned young man that he was.
Then he took another deep breath and visibly squared his shoulders, as the man that he was gave way to the First Prince that his nation needed in the crisis.
Paul Davion looked at the assembled staff and spoke decisively. “I need a read on Chancellor Liao’s character and current Capellan activity ASAP from DMI. I also need a copy of this cease-fire proposal of hers so I can look it over. Finally, draw up a preliminary staff estimate to see what troops and supplies are available if we can draw down the Capellan March garrisons to fight in the Draconis and Crucis Marches. Let’s see what we can make of this overture from the Capellans!”
He took another deep breath as the wheels were set into motion. “Right, what’s next on the agenda?”
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