TBntG-2 Chpt 20

=The Bull and the Genie=
==Chapter 20 - Book II - The Ninety-five Theses==
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==Mary's Fun New Job! (Narrator's voice: It was not a "fun" new Job).==
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===Change Orders===
In Transit
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Mary and her small staff weren't being summoned back at emergency speed, so this time… they traveled in civilian DropShips. Monarchs to be precise.
 
Mary couldn't remember the last time she had quarters this luxurious. The ship even had a spa, and screw the legends that Taurian soldiers enjoyed sleeping on rocks, she had indulged herself.
 
The fact that the DropShip detached, even if it didn't have a JumpShip to dock with immediately, just so the captain could keep swanning around at 0.5 G for the comfort of the passengers was a little overdone, she thought.
On the other hand, having a desk big enough to spread out the paperwork was a nice change from normal troop quarters, and Mary had a ton of paperwork.
 
Did anyone bother to ask us before they told Edward to take this on? Not even thirty and she was being handed an AO larger than any Taurian officer since the Reunification War. She couldn't do the planning work in public, hell, they'd installed their own safe for the documentation, but some idiot news reporter had dropped her reassignment, and that meant that every time she was eating, someone tried to get her to tell the real scoop. Mostly politely. The Lyrans seemed to have declared that she was one of them, largely because of the fact that she'd been in overall command when they'd taken down the Warship, though Thomas was going to be surprised if he came through—it seemed like he was the long lost twin of Jaime Wolf for his ground victory.
 
Her intercom beeped.
 
"Yes?" Please don't be another invitation to a party. The ship's purser was supposed to screen those calls.
 
<<"We've received an urgent message for you. From, ah, the Protector, but we can't decode it. Do I have permission to send it to your terminal?">>
"Yes, please."
 
Edward? What the hell? She pulled out her decoder unit, then entered her cipher. A few minutes later, Edward's image appeared, along with indicators confirming that it was using the right ciphers to tell her unit it really did come from Edward.
Mary had an unpleasant feeling in her belly. It was less than three weeks before she got home to accept her posting, so something had blown up.
(("General Cheng, I'm sorry to hit you with this, but we have a serious situation. About one week ago, there was a Free Worlds League raid on Sirius VII, which as you know is part of the Federated Suns, albeit a autonomous part."))
 
Right. Ridzik's little fief. He'd been enroute when the TDF had hit Sian and had wasted no time in washing his hands of his insane master's war. And if you believe that… Still, I guess knowing which way the wind is blowing is a vital part of any ppInner Sphere]] noble's survival set. But why the hell…
 
(("The raid was carried out by the Grey Death Legion, and in the aftermath of taking the capital of Tiantan, they evidently set charges in the environmental domes. Nobody can be certain of the death toll, as yet, but it's higher than 15 million civilians. As far as anyone can tell, they have returned to their land hold on Helm."))
 
Mary stared in disbelief. There hadn't been a single event causality like that since the First Succession War. But Edward was continuing.
 
(("We're talking over a fourth of the total deaths from Kentares and that took over five months to carry out.")) Edward leaned forward. (("Why does this concern you? Because of a minor little bit. The Tikonov Free Republic may be autonomous, but it's sworn to the Federated Suns, and Hanse Davion, which means that he just got the message that fifteen million people he had sworn to defend were just murdered by a crazed merc unit, for no damned reason anyone can find. Said unit just headed back to the FWL, and the FWL informed him they'd handle it. He's not taking it well, and over the last two days, words like "Genocidal attack" "weapons of mass destruction" and "Right of retaliation" have been moving back and forth between the two states. The Free Worlds League has sent some messages implying that this was done by a rogue unit working for Hanse, to give him a reason to keep the war going, and you can imagine how that went over."))
Fine, but what the hell does it have to do with me?
(("You've got a rep, and I have a request on my table, from Katrina Steiner, along with Melissa Steiner's agreement, and Hanse Davion's acceptance, that when captured, the leadership of the Gray Death Legion will be transported to a neutral site, specifically Samantha, where a board of inquiry, representing all the impacted states, will meet to determine what happened, and who is at fault. For some reason, Hanse ruled out Terra for this. Of course, to do that, we need to ensure that they show up here alive, and since all concerned might have a reason to kill them…"))
Don't say it… don't say it…
(("I have offered your services and that of a small security team, to take them into custody, ensure their safety, and make certain nobody uses this as an excuse to escalate this even more than it has been. Good news, I think Katrina understands the spot this put us in, and I just got notice that our collaboration on the Rommel and Patton Heavy Tanks are going through, for which armor commanders are likely to thank you."))
Oh, lovely.
(("The last bit well… there's not enough time to move a full unit to you. And we don't have any to spare, not with the Police Zone eating up everything. You know as well as I do just how bare the cubbard is. I've managed to cut loose the powered armor company that led the Sian arrest operation, they're good, and if they're not mechs, hopefully you won't have to use them. But the mech unit that will be going in with you, hopefully just to land and look imposing is…" He shook his head. "Ardan Sortak and the First Regiment of the Davion Heavy Guards, and you can bet that's a message. But he has orders to turn the Gray Death Legion's officers over to you."))
 
If he… Mary shook her head. The price of betrayal would be damaging the relationship between the Federated Suns and the Lyran Commonwealth.
 
(("Just one last thing. We've gotten some input from MIM, which looks legitimate but could be an attempt to manipulate us."))
 
Mary nodded. MIM was good and sneaky. She had a feeling the intelligence was both legitimate and an attempt to manipulate them.
 
(("There's some information that a Lord Garth of Irian has been on Helm, but MIM claims they don't know why. But if the League is entering one of their civil wars, the people on the world may not have heard the message that this is supposed to be a quiet arrest with enough firepower to convince Carlyle to back down."))
 
Mary wasn't certain he would back down. There was only one punishment for a crime like this, and the Duke might be there to just try and arrest them and get the glory and if they died in the process…
 
(("I wish I could send more people with you, but I can't. I tagged you, because to be blunt, you have a good record working in politically fraught situations, and you're from Brannis and haven't had an entire childhood being told how the Davion's secretly drain the blood of Taurians to make their skin soft and wrinkle free. More seriously, as difficult as this is, it's important. Not just for our relationships. If they live, to go to a trial—not a jumped up lynch mob, but a real trial, well… It might change things for the better. Thank you, General."))
 
Lovely. Mary stared at the information scrolling down. Estimates on the numbers and firepower of the Gray Death Legion, information about Ardan Sortek, along with promises that this wasn't going to turn into an invasion of the Free Worlds League…
 
But… Janos normally wouldn't do this. Letting the Suns into the FWL like this will hurt him. Which meant that he possibly didn't have any idea what had happened, and was worried enough that Hanse really wasn't kidding with his threats…
 
If there was one truism about the Free Worlds League it was that the people supposedly in charge often weren't. And more than a few Leaguers might want to take a shot at them for any one of a dozen reasons.
 
(("Don't forget the Davions who are coming to get someone who murdered fifteen million people, and you're the one ordered to keep him safe and comfortable…"))
 
Mary leaned back, checked the schedule. Nodded. She would put this back into the safe and think about it in three hours.
 
But given what she knew was about to happen, she goddamn well deserved a spa treatment.
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