IWTTD Chpt 11

==If We Turn To Dust - Chapter 11 -==
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===The Grand Gathering on the hollow grounds of a former Battlefield===
PAOLO VERELLAS MEMORIAL CONFERENCE CENTER, SAN MARTIN
DIERON, FEDERATION OF SKYE, LYRAN COMMONWEALTH
DECEMBER 3TH, 3028
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Compared to when I'd left the planet a year ago, Dieron was barely recognizable.
 
Part of that, of course, was simply where we were; the glitzy district of the planetary capital would of course have little to do with quillar fields in the boondocks that happened to be in the process of being fought over. The couple hundred kilometers of latitude left their say, as well - the region around the city of San Martin had only the most decorative and the most indomitable imports thriving in its medians, yards, and parks, but which Terran imports seemed dominant was different.
 
Part of that was the difference in myself. Then I'd been miserable and afraid, trapped between conflicting impulses to self-castigation and rage at being wronged, and smothered under a tidal wave of fear for another. Now the relationship at the center of that storm of emotion had come through the fire, and there was a relaxation and reassurance in knowing that our marriage had stood up to no mean test. In knowing that we'd talked more deeply in that test's aftermath than we ever had before, and, as Hemingway would have had it, become strong in the broken places.
 
Mostly, though, it was the difference between destruction and reconstruction; between winter and spring. Mushroom clouds both nuclear and not were gone from the skies, and the vast tides of smoke that had followed them. Resources both local and interstellar had flowed into relief and relocation and rebuilding. The ugly molded concrete faux-pagoda roofs were still there, and the practically brutalist paneling beneath them, but the unrelieved black and red color scheme had vanished into a riot of decorations and variations - the earliest mimicking the older Combine-approved styles in new color schemes based around Steiner Blue, but more recent efforts spreading out more widely.
 
Though I hadn't been on planet long enough to visit properly, my Renaissance Development Corporation had set up in the former headquarters of a state-owned Combine mining firm, and I knew, because I'd signed off on the shipping charges and helped my oldest daughter with her entry, that RDC had sponsored every primary school attended by an employee's kid to create weatherproof ceramic tiles in the inimitable style of schoolkids everywhere. Looking out the limousine's window as we passed the building, past the watchful line of security forces, those tiles were being fixed to the concrete walls from knee height to a bit higher than a tip-toe reach, carefully sheathed in a clear protective layer. Plainer white tiles lay above and below those friendly rows, and as much as I could tell the workmen's mood from their body language, they seemed not merely willing but cheerful.
 
Even if upgrading the internals to a standard that didn't need constant repair and babying hadn't been costing more than the new facade, that would've made the project worth it.
 
The security grew thicker and changed in character as the limo pulled up to the torii that framed the steps leading up to the largest conference center on Dieron. That building, one of the points of pride of the District capital, was no shaped concrete imitation, but wood, tile, and paper rising over sloping stone walls. The shape was wrong, and the layout too simple, but damned if the outside of the conference center didn't look like a traditional Japanese castle.
 
The troops that had lined the roads thinned out, pulled back into a more distant perimeter. More, I knew, would be stationed on the rooftops of every building that overlooked the center - and more still guarding the stairways and elevators that accessed them, having already swept and cleared literally every room with a window view.
And overhead, loomed the 'mechs. Two Enforcers, blue along their flanks, red down their centers, and with white in between - the parade colors of the 1st Davion Guards. Two Griffins, a darker blue flanked in gold, the Commonwealth's - and the Rift's - own 5th Royal Guards. The mixed lance faced each other cat-a-corner over the row of symbolic gates, and I had a good view as I accepted the bodyguard's balancing hand as I stood up from the limo.
 
My boots were hand fitted and better to stand in than I'd have once believed possible, but if I wanted to look anybody else in the eye I had to put up with heels tall enough to be a pain in the ass. Or foot, as the case may be.
 
I reached into the open door and offered my wife the same helping hand up, though in flats she hardly needed it. She smiled up at me, faintly teasing me for my own expression as the moment overlapped in memory with another.
 
Ever since our first date on Hoff, I'd never been able to resist the sight of Sophitia in red.
 
As we reached the end of the all-too-literal red carpet - and the grand open doors of the center - the half dozen close guards of my own detail peeled off, letting a different set in suits of the severest version of New Avalon style, but Steiner colors sweep us with an utterly discreet security scan… and then stay where they were as we moved past into the great open event hall.
 
"Oh, look," I murmured under my breath as the public address system announced us, reeling off the entire list of titles, Duchess of Finmark, Warden of the Rift Approaches, etc, with a smoothness that felt much less quick than it was. "A prom."
 
With every eye on our entrance, Sophitia couldn't tickle me or elbow me, but she did pinch the part of our linked arms she could reach.
 
Looking around for the contractually mandated first stop on the equally obligatory Schmooze Tour made it, as always, easy to find Katrina - just look for blonde hair at the center of a feeding frenzy of social climbers - but I saw someone more or less on the way to her that I ranked even higher on the urgency scale.
 
A brush of a finger on my wife's hand and a flick of the eyes made the suggestion, and we drifted through the crowd of dignitaries - the ruling nobles or plenipotentiaries of more than twelve hundred planets couldn't be described any other way - appropriately.
 
"Margaret." I said in greeting and with a smile.
 
Margaret Aten, Duchess of Skye, Duchess of Summer, etc, looked up at me from the powered wheelchair that still held a small fortune of medical equipment - fortunately more insurance than necessity now, more than a year after the attacks that had come within a gnat's whisker of killing her - and smiled back. "Asha," she said quietly. Her voice would never project well again, even if the murmuring I'd heard about a working cybernetic lung panned out, but the brown eyes peering out from the middle of her mass of freckles were alive and sharp. "Thank you for coming. I cannot imagine that either of you were eager to return here - or to leave your daughters with their grandfather again."
 
Sophitia's father, known everyone save his direct descendants by the nickname 'Boxer' Braun, had come a long way from the man I'd hauled out of a drug fugue in a literal dumpster largely for his daughter's sake, and had been spending most of his non-granddaughter time neck deep in developing the piloting curriculum for the Reyes Combat School even before we left Finmark.
 
"It's hard not seeing them." Soph admitted softly.
 
I squeezed her hand. "Under the circumstances, I don't feel particularly guilty splurging on a command circuit."
 
"I admit I'd wondered why you spent the effort to bring the Argo." Margaret said.
 
I made a little tossing gesture with my free hand, fluttering the painfully-white fabric of the dueling cape that draped over it. "Largely, that's a matter of showing off," I said, which she certainly understood since she'd arrived aboard Scathach, the Jormugandr-class that served exactly the same flagship and mobile headquarters role for Skye.
 
Just like Selvin Kelswa had brought Bengal or Candace Liao, Tiananmen. The skies of Dieron were crowded; dozens of carrier and assault dropships held position like pilot fish around the half-dozen hundred-thousand ton dropships that had brought the great regional lords of the Lyran Commonwealth and Federated Suns to this fresh-captured neutral ground - and dozens more swarmed around the far vaster whales that had brought our masters, LCS Invincible and FSS Pleiades.
 
"Besides," I went on, "for the rest of us, it's a place to keep our staff and records. Even before the last-second brainstorm, this was never going to turn out smooth."
 
Margaret Aten still had a giggle to go with her freckles, and if it didn't match the scars and eyepatch, so much the worse for those. "We should be used to it by now," she agreed, then raised a hand and made a little shooing gesture. "But go say hello to Katrina, do, and I can trap you for a talk about RDC projects later."
 
"If not today, there's sure to be a chance to do lunch sometime in this." I agreed.
 
I only got intercepted once on the way from Margaret to Katrina, which was doing pretty well. Especially since Hendrik Grimm the Third, King of Oberon, wasn't a man I needed to handle gently. He'd cleaned up and had a barber go at his overgrown mane and equally voluminous beard, but he was dressed in Oberon high fashion, which was gaudy and bling-ridden at the best of times. The most impressive part was that his tailor had almost made it look tasteful in spite of itself.
 
"Hello, your Wardenship!" he boomed, loudly enough to draw looks from fifty feet away. If it hadn't been a point of pride not to flinch, I'd probably have winced. "Your beauty was all the party of the century needed to be complete!"
 
"I'm sure most of us are still far short of the amount of alcohol needed for that," I said dryly. "How's your arm?"
 
Grimm and I understood each other; the first meet and greet I'd attended visiting his seat on Oberon IV, he'd grabbed my ass and I'd broken his arm. The next day, neither of us had said a word about it and he'd been careful to stay inside the real limits thereafter.
 
But the image he put up as a vassal, rather than an independent monarch trying for respectability, was boisterous and piratical, suited for the nominal lord of the division that had replaced the now-gone state terror group LOKI as the Commonwealth's most feared asset, and I played along.
 
"It hurts when it rains," he said, pretending to baby the wrong arm. "But that's good! Keeps the edge on a man!"
 
"Any time you want the other to match, let me know," I said. "But for now-"
 
I was going to say, 'Shoo, I need to talk to my boss', but the PA system interrupted. "My lords and ladies-"
 
I glanced at the door, saw a flash of purple, and thought to myself that either I'd been late or they were early. "Shush, this'll be good." I told Grimm.
 
"Duggan, The Marik, Captain-General of the Free Worlds League!"
 
"Fuck me running." Hendrik Grimm III breathed softly.
 
"Derrick Cameron-Jones, Earl of Fort Rorabracher, Viscount Zamzana, and Count of Regulus!"
 
"Blackwing, are they really fucking-"
 
"Sir Christopher Halas, Knight of Atreus, Baronet Morwood, and Grand Duke of Oriente!"
 
"-here to bring the fucking League in on this crazy-"
 
"Catherine Humphries, Duchess of Xanthe and Duchess of Andurien!"
 
"-new Star League scheme?"
 
I clapped him on the shoulder. "Peace in our time, Grimm. If we can manage not to fuck it up. I'm gonna go check in with Katrina." I let the smile slide away and added, letting my tone provide the open threat, "Don't start any fights that go past fists."
 
"No shit," he muttered. "I'm gonna go detox is what I'm gonna do…"
 
"Good boy." I said, with another pat, and headed off again.
 
"I'm still astonished he lets you get away with that." Sophitia murmured.
 
"It's more or less how he used to deal with his own retainers." I replied as we moved through the outer layers of Katrina's shell of groupies. They got out of the way without prompting. "He knows that, and he knows that he's personally made more money than the old economy of his entire capital planet had in its entire economy since he signed on. And what happened to Circinus when they didn't."
 
"That part makes sense. I'm just… puzzled by his pride allowing it."
 
"Whose pride?" Katrina Steiner, Archon of the Lyran Commonwealth, etc, etc, asked.
 
"Hendrik Grimm's," I replied. "And ultimately one of the points where his pirate act is true is what you'd call a keen appreciation for the difference between substance and presentation. We keep track of each others' substance… And the rest is just how he thinks of being friends."
 
Katrina's polite smile quirked around the edges with something more real. "Even if it's sometimes exhausting." she said.
 
"Speaking of exhausting, how many people in this room knew about this little bombshell of yours?" I asked, nodding towards the door - where it looked like Hanse Davion was in the process of intercepting Marik And Friends.
 
"Oh, it was hardly my idea." Katrina said playfully.
 
"Uh huh," I replied skeptically. "All Captain Gars' idea, which is why you're in such fine form, I'm sure."
 
She had the temerity, at her age, to giggle at me, but I kept the unimpressed look up and she sobered enough to explain. "I have a couple of dozen ringers in, besides you, Margaret, and Selvin, and I know that Hanse does as well - but Marik arriving without prior warning is a way of bringing home to the Lords and Representatives that this is not merely a conference or a discussion or a show. It's real, and really a beginning. A new Star League."
 
I looked at her silently for a moment, then squared my shoulders and straightened. "I'll make the case myself," I said. "But we will not be having our own Forlough."
 
The Archon Of The Lyran Commonwealth met my eyes, marshaling all the indomitable will and icey imperiousness of Tharkad's masters… then broke the staring contest to look down at her glass. "Not while I live, Asha," she said quietly.
 
I sighed. "I know," I admitted, backing off in turn. "And I know that nothing's perfect, and that Melissa wouldn't stand for it either. But the price of this opportunity is the demand that we do better."
 
The announcement system started to reel off more names, less senior representatives of the Free Worlds League filtering in as the thunderous steps of two more battlemechs joined the honor guard outside the conference center.
 
"In the meantime, however," Katrina said, swirling her wine slightly and smiling playfully again, "Let's go say hello."
 
"Are you sure you want her there for that?" Sophitia asked. I glanced to the side at the way her green eyes were dancing, and got too distracted to realize that I was being teased until several seconds later when I realized Katrina was talking.
 
"-inevitable, so it's just as well to get it out of the way early."
 
Sophitia curtsied. "I'll do my best to keep the blast radius down, then. Wish me luck, Katrina?"
 
"The Commonwealth will honor your sacrifice," Katrina said, and held her right fist over her heart. "Know that the brightest hopes of the state go ever with you."
 
Sophitia just gave me the particular sidelong smile that meant, 'I wouldn't mind inviting her to bed with us.' Which in context was a joke, of course. If nothing else, Katrina was as straight as the proverbial flying dart.
 
Pity, that.
 
"You're both wicked women." I said, and kissed Sophitia on the cheek before Katrina went to one side and we went to the other to say our own polite greetings to the new leg of the three-cornered stool we were here to build.
 
When Katrina had finished being Properly Formal, I stepped in to be the next to talk to Marik - scooping a wineglass off of a server's tray to hand to him. "Should I ask how sincerely I should be wishing for your father's health?" I asked.
 
And yes, I realize how that repetition looks, but. My wife, meanwhile, focused on the diplomatic consequences, stepped on my foot
 
He gave me what started to be an angry look, then calmed when he took a better look at my expression. "I'm certain you've heard rumors." he deflected the question.
 
"All sorts," I agreed, "And from the outside, it's tricky at best to figure out which have any substance."
 
"So of course it wouldn't be appropriate to offer the same hopes in a case of overwork as in a medical misadventure, would it?" Sophitia tried to keep an easy smile and tone in her voice, but the strain was showing anyway.
 
Duggan Marik studied me for a moment - spent a moment more appreciating my bodice, modest as the cut was - and then sighed and took a drink of wine, saying, "He's… reconciling himself. His health is genuinely better than it was, and I think that it's helped him realize how hard he was pushing himself, and how that stress had affected his decisions."
 
I studied his face in return for a moment longer, then smiled and inclined my head. "Well, I hope his retirement keeps treating him well, then."
 
The smile was real enough, but behind it I was riffling my mental files around to get events in order.
 
One thing that every agent the existing two parties of the alliance agreed on was that Janos Marik had not been willing to reconcile with the Lyran Commonwealth, even with the possibility of the exact same kind of offensive that had shattered the Draconis Combine lurking ominously in the wings.
 
With what Duggan had just said… Well.
 
It made the most likely scenario Duggan himself putting together a coalition behind the scenes of the Free Worlds League's Parliament, selling them on joining the FedCom at a stage where they'd still have negotiating rights… And then, with their support quietly deposing his father in a relatively gentle but dead-earnest de-facto coup.
 
Which, if I took him at his word, Janos was no long apoplectically furious over, so that was nice.
 
"I hope so, too." Marik said, and something about it made me think he was actually sincere.
 
"See, Love? It's fine," I said, and leaned up to kiss my wife on the cheek - getting an elbow in the ribs for my trouble, and the glare that meant 'don't worry me like that'.
 
There was a moment of companionable more-or-less silence as we looked out over the crowd that was filling the conference center's concourse, broken by the sound of Catherine Humphries' laughter and Hanse Davion's playful protests of innocence. The hall was huge, more than enough for the number of people it was being asked to hold but that emphasized rather than hid just how many actual delegates we were seeing - probably not the full fifteen hundred-odd yet, but closing as the League delegates filed in to join the mingling and greeting.
 
"There's no way this will work as a Parliament." Duggan Marik muttered.
 
"The original plan was to have a working council, or cabinet, or group - one rep sent by each Lyran member state and each Suns march," I said. "So eight. Easy enough to expand if, say, Rasalhague comes in. Individual concerns through local estates, or councils, within those eight regions, and then a separate Estates General for-" I waved at the crowd. "-Constitutional conventions, forcing out a ruler, or the like, things that are too broad for a local view and slow-moving enough to get an avalanche pointed at. Theoretically the most powerful branch, but limited by its ability to coordinate."
 
Marik sipped at his wine again. "But you won't consider single-planet 'regions' to bring our provincial system in directly."
 
I made an unhappy face. "Personally, I'd listen to arguments, but I don't think it's a good place to be starting, with the trouble you've always had with much smaller disparities. I'd look at four or five regional parliaments as being the ideal option for the League, but it's not my knitting, I know."
 
"And three larger divisions of the whole?" he suggested.
 
I made a worse face. "That will probably have to be it. We hadn't considered it our first option because part of the point was a full and equal amalgamation, without leaving the kind of fault lines that caused the First Succession War, but the League as a whole is too big to stand as a peer in the regional structure, and even Regulus or the Marik Commonwealth are too small - even if that didn't leave the problem of the single-world provinces."
 
"Would it surprise you to learn that we'd guessed your intent, in those regards?" he asked, with a hint of a smirk.
 
"SAFE has their moments," I allowed, and he raised his glass in a half-mocking toast. "So no, not particularly. By the sound of it, you have an idea of your own?"
 
"In fact," Marik agreed. "The prospects for the - regional parliaments, let us say? - that you mentioned aren't so dim as you thought. The requirement, though, I would put as - rather than resting local powers, trade and tariffs and regional militias, formally at the level of the regional parliaments, say that they may be seconded from their member worlds."
 
I tried to parse that for a moment. "Pardon me, I'm dense today. What?"
 
He paused, clearly hunting for a rephrase of the concept. "Say that most powers below the level of the overarching nation rest on individual worlds, which then may, but not must, cede those same powers to their overseeing regions."
 
The concept clicked. "So, for instance, all of the worlds of the Rift, being in the same region, would naturally cede those powers connected to their membership in the Approaches - but whichever region, say, Andurien ended up in would have many worlds that chose to behave more independently," I said slowly. "Legally it would work, I think. Certainly we've got worse faffs being cleaned up, and they were survivable. We'd need, hmm, a framework for when secondment could be done or revoked, rather than just willy nilly, and… I, at least, would want some similar kind of framework for governing trade or other cooperation across district lines. But… It's a starting point. A good starting point."
 
"To the Second Star League, then," Marik said, raising his glass in a toast - then pausing as my face went blank and Sophitia, unconsciously, stepped into a position to block any swings I might theoretically have taken. "Or not…?" he prompted, puzzled but game.
 
I took a breath, let it out, and grinned at him. "A case of historical perspective," I said. "Wherever I am now, and why, I was raised as an Outworlder, and none of the former 'Territorial States' will have he same perspective on those years. There were always three Star Leagues, huddled together under that mantle. There was the Star League you wished to invoke, the League of Albert Marik - a peaceful, shining hope for a brighter future for humanity, free of petty feuds and conflicts. There was the Star League of Ian Cameron, where the keys of power and society itself were hoarded jealously to maintain the careful balance of control whose collapse gave us the Succession Wars.
 
"And," I finished the impromptu speech flatly, "there was the Star League the Outworlds remembers. Amos Forlough's Star League, an engine of torture and rapacity lubricated by the blood of innocents and forever in search of not a reason, but an excuse to visit more suffering on its victims."
 
I closed my eyes, took a deep breath and held it for a count of five. Opened them and looked at the Captain-General of the Free Worlds League with a more sincere smile than you would have expected. "The Sphere we live in is a monument to the Star League's sins." I said. "And if we don't better it, we will go home having failed our duties to our people, our nations, and the human race itself."
 
He stared at me, thoughts moving behind his eyes, then deliberately relaxed into a smile of his own. "Well," he allowed, "I always did enjoy a challenge."
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===Dropping off the Goods===
KUROME PROVING GROUNDS, SHIMA DESERT
DIERON, FEDERATION OF SKYE, LYRAN COMMONWEALTH
DECEMBER 16TH, 3028
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The earlier plans for the Dieron Conference had called for a symbolic signing on New Year's Day, 3029, but that had relied on the years of pre-conference negotiations between the Commonwealth and the Federated Suns - it was a lot quicker to go over what was already agreed on, tweak a few minor details to say that you had, and call that done than it was to actually try to hammer out major factors that had been thrown off by the League's arrival at the table.
 
For instance, to name a minor factor - what about maps? There were actually legal specifications in all three surviving Successor States for what coloration and symbology should be used, the precise shade of yellow used for FedSuns territory, the purple for the League. But what color balances would be appropriate for the Federated Commonwealth? Or, for that matter, would it be 'Free Federated Commonwealth' or 'Federated Commonwealth of Worlds'?
 
Suns yellow markings on a Steiner Blue background had been the plan for the map, for the record.
 
But those were only examples; there were literally hundreds of other points and systems that had to be considered, and twelve thirteen-hour workdays later, tempers and concentration were both fraying badly.
 
It was time to play hooky for a day.
 
There were serious elements, of course. The mechs that we'd come to examine and test drive were the first generation of Inner Sphere omnimechs, and barring truly crippling teething problems, they'd become the mainstays of the new state's military. They were genuine weapons of war, whose influence would matter when the reckoning with the Clans came…
 
But let's be real. They were also New Toys, and the only members of the top-level delegations that were at the proving ground that day who weren't mechwarrior enough to take them for a spin were Melissa Steiner, neurohelmet incompatible from birth, and Margaret Aten, still recovering from her wounds.
 
With omnimechs, in a practical sense, there really wasn't any need for more than one platform in any given movement bracket… But for insurance and political pride reasons, each of the three regions wanted to have their own production and models, and the innate conservatism of military high command meant that there was a strong habit of thinking of mechs by their weight classes rather than their movement.
 
Perhaps ironically, the work that the LCAF had already done to standardize its own omnimech designs - doubling or tripling joint hinges and the 'long bones' of the frame to build up heavier chassis, reusing engines and gyroscopes and electronics - had made logistical minds trained by the desperate chaos of the the Third Succession War decide that three basic series was simplicity itself.
 
The LCAF had sent a pair of production Sigurds, sixty tons and capable of sixty-five kilometers an hour, and the first two Rossweisses - twenty tons lighter and thirty-five kph faster - out of Defiance's new Hesperus line. The AFFS Fetches were handbuilt prototypes, but by the reports from our own technical people in that program, they were feature complete, including high-temperature myomers with self-heating capability that let the fifty-ton machines' Nissan 200s get them to eighty-seven kph.
 
The last pair of machines, which the Free Worlds League Military were calling 'Regulus' after one of their founding states, were forty-five tons and no faster than our own Sigurds, and were not - yet - actually Omnimechs rather than hand-built 'frankenstein' battlemechs… But their bones were endosteel, pre-Succession War advanced composites that the League had managed to get back into production from a standing start in less than a year since the capture of Terra and her databanks.
 
(See what I mean about New Toys?)
 
The day's event was each of us dignitaries taking one or another of those eight mechs out into the proving grounds' training course and putting them - and us - through their paces, and those were… not bad, actually. I'd passed on seat time in the Sigurds, since I'd had a chance to try them before, but the Fetch was a very smooth machine indeed. I'd gotten to run the 'Charlie' config, and despite the arm mounting of the thing's Class Twelve - a stand-in for the LB-12X cluster gun that was supposed to be coming Real Soon Now - it didn't have any of the side-twist I'd felt in, say, a Zeus.
 
The Regulus, despite looking like a Box On Legs With Bits On, in the best traditions of such League classics as the Flea, managed the impressive feat of being responsive without seeming twitchy to my heavy-trained instincts. At least, when it wasn't bucking and seizing mid-motion; I'd've worried about that, but Sophitia, who'd been neck deep in the testing for the Rossweisse, swore up and down that that was apparently normal for machines so early in their development. Anyway, the Regulus 'C' I got to try was pretty clearly based off of a hybridization of the 55-ton 'standard mediums', the Wolverine, Griffin, and Shadow Hawk - the AC9 the Wolverine and Shadow Hawk shared, and a four-tube SRM rack midway between theirs, a medium laser - and then the 1N Griffin's ten-tube LRM rack.
 
The accuracy was… not great, at this stage, but as the day wound down I'd come to the conclusion that the Mariks were definitely on to something with it. Climbing out of the cockpit and onto the gantry at the 'field base' that had been set up for the variously overbred and overpromoted tender buttocks of the day's guests, I jerked a thumb over my shoulder. "I left the helmet on the rack," I told the tall, skinny stick of a planetary militia Gefreiter. "Took a swipe with one of the cleaning clothes, but you'll probably want to do your own pass before you park it."
 
"Thank you for that," she said, black eyes wide under a haircut only one step short of a buzz cut. I only had a moment to wonder where the hell I recognized her voice from, before she bowed deeply. "And, far more," she finished, "thank you for sparing my life, Blackwing-sama."
 
I blinked at her, and then it clicked. "You were the Locust pilot." I said.
 
"Hai," she said, straightening. "I had requested this duty… hoping that I would have the opportunity to speak to you."
 
I looked her up and down. Good health, clean. In Lyran uniform, and no more afraid than anybody else talking to a Duchess for the first time. "It looks like you've made good on the opportunity," I said, and smiled. "Keep that up, and nothing more need be said."
 
She looked down, face flashing into more serious worry, then took a bracing breath and met my eyes, back straight. "There is a certain man, on Dieron. Now. Who had been on Luthien… and who… I believe the Eyes of the Gauntlet have not seen, yet. An agent of his knew of my request and… Commanded me to pass a message to you. He wishes to meet."
 
...That was… interesting. In a what-the-fuck kind of way. "I presume that this man has a name." I said quietly, and saw her manage to straighten further and pale in the same moment.
 
"Hai, Blackwing-sama. He is-"
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===Making Provisions for Salvation===
KUROME CITY, SHIMA DESERT
DIERON, FEDERATION OF SKYE, LYRAN COMMONWEALTH
DECEMBER 16TH, 3028
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"Hajimemashite, Blackwing-dono. Watakushi no namae ha Tetsuhara Minobu. Douzo yoroshiku onegaishimasu."
 
I returned his bow. "It is a pleasure to meet you at least, Gunji no Kanrei," I said, following him into Japanese. "Please, take a seat; will you take tea?"
 
Tetsuhara settled into the comfortable chair I'd offered, dark features still as a statue. "I would be grateful," he said. "Though… I admit that that title is bitter to the ear, now that I have failed so badly."
 
I began to pour for both of us. "Sadly, I think it cannot be helped." I said, rather than the truth that the offensive that had shattered his nation had included stopping him, personally, as one of its primary goals. His wasn't the kind of pride that would be comforted by it. "But, truly, I think that the choices that might have changed it were never yours to make. If the Dragon would have had peace…"
 
I trailed off, leaving the might-have-been unspoken.
 
"Would you have trusted that, with all that had been between you?" he asked.
 
I shrugged. "It was not an easy choice as it was; I think that we would have waited, instead. Not from faith that the Coordinator truly desired a lasting peace, but in the knowledge that he had the judgement to see the odds and bide for another day, or another lifetime."
 
"Sou ka." he whispered, and lifted his cup with his remaining hand to sip, eyes closed. "It is good tea," he murmured reflectively, then lowered the cup to the table and met my eyes. "I stood as my Lord's second," he said. "It was one of the last three requests he made of me."
 
I waited; condolences for his loss would have been the Lyran or Outworlder formula, but not the Combine one - and my grieving for Takashi Kurita's death would have been too false a note even for diplomacy.
 
"My second charge is to see to the health, and education, of his granddaughter, the last heir of his bloodline remaining in the Inner Sphere."
 
That phrasing… "His last living descendent?"
 
"My words were those he used," Tetsuhara said. "And third he bade me to arrange my Lady's marriage into such a family as might consolidate power in those spaces which were the Dragon's."
 
I took a sip of tea as a bid for thinking time. "Does that make any more sense to you than it does to me?"
 
He took another sip of his own. "Because I am now attached to my Lady's branch of the Kurita family, I believe it in her interest that you know of the Genyosha Contingency. At my Lord's word, I and the Warlord of Pesht gathered several regiments of troops, and such tooling and technicians and teaching materials as might be useful in building, anew, a self-sustaining technical base… and their husbands and wives, as well. All chosen for youth, and health, and loyalty. Everything from lathes to the key portions of the jumpship yards at Chatham, and the dropships and jumpships to carry them, repaired and provided spares and supplies for the longest possible voyage."
 
"A jump into the 'black ocean', fleeing the Inner Sphere entirely," I said, "to build a new center of power and one day return." Which made the bit about little Omiko's marriage make sense. "Reuniting with the other Kurita line you were to establish to provide a starting point for the reconquest."
 
Tetsuhara bowed slightly. "Such is my belief; I was not required to know the full details."
 
I thought about it for a few more seconds. "The man was mad." I pronounced. "The number of failure points… That barely even qualifies as a plan. Let alone the fact that he could've provided a much better base by staying and surrendering, himself."
 
That got a flicker at the back of Tetsuhara's eyes, anger quickly controlled. "Doing so would have tarnished the Dragon's honor, and hindered the future return, as well as greatly easing the consolidation of the - of your strength."
 
In other words, Takashi Kurita had killed himself precisely to dump a feuding, cancerous shit-show in the laps of his conquerers. And probably to create confusion that would let his 'contingency' flee undetected.
 
"...Let it be," I said after a moment. "It's done. You were saying, sir?"
 
Tetsuhara went on as instructed. "In any case, my duty to that plan, and my duty to my Lady's line of the greater house, run in harness, and to your roof."
 
I sighed and reached for my tea again. "While it might have reached the Dragon's ears that I was a voice for the match between Melissa and Morgan Hasek-Davion, my more general policy is that the children of noble houses should arrange their own partnerships, even if Omiko, a babe in arms, was not far too young for consideration. Even in that case, with all the stakes riding upon it, the greater factor was that they, themselves, wished the match. The stability of the household raising a future leader is more important than a single facet of an alliance."
 
Despite everything, he twitched as I dropped the so-far-unmentioned name of Takashi's granddaughter, but he inclined his head. "I had calculated as much. And had other matters gone as they should, some parallel to this conversation should have happened some years since. But the Black Dragon Society had their own plans in motion from the moment of my Lord's death."
 
The most fanatically militant and brutal element of the already ferocious Combine by any measure, and power-hungry traitors by most, the Black Dragon Society would have ranked Tetsuhara, an honorable and straightforward reformer who shamed their existence with every breath, as more passionately to be hated than even me. "And by the time you had Omiko safe, it was too late to contest their control of Luthien, and with it, the power base that you were intended to bargain with."
 
"I took some small injuries in her rescue," he said, as though the pinned sleeve and cane were trifles barely worthy of mention. "And when the physicians thought it wise for me to wake again, we were well offworld."
 
He took another sip of tea, then looked me in the eyes. "Which made it time and past time to re-evaluate those measures which might serve my lady, in the world that was rather than what was planned."
 
"And so… you come to me?" I prompted.
 
"I cannot protect my charge," Minobu Tetsuhara said unflinchingly. "Therefore I must find one who can, and would be willing to. Her name will win her enemies of resource, and so her protector must be a ruler. A ruler would, must use their control of her life and education to their own ends. Of those men and women of power in today's Sphere, two would use her with more care for her well being… And your reach is longer, and your resources greater, than Avellar's.
 
"Your code of honor will demand that, by my entrusting her to you, you raise her alongside your own… and that place in your household will place her to make her own marriage arrangements within your circle."
 
"Or," I said, "I could change her name and have her fostered as a commoner, forgotten somewhere in the Rift, to live out her days innocent of the sins of her fathers."
 
He bowed slightly. "You could," he acknowledged. "But that would deny you her name as a tool to win peace in the spaces which were the Combine… And, while those resources which remain to me are not sufficient to protect her life without aid, they are enough to be of use to you and your Lady."
 
I stared at him… then sighed. "You understand that any participation in her education on your part will be conditional? And that the place we will guide her is nothing your late Lord would have wished?"
 
"My duty, now, is to her," Tetsuhara said. "The rest, cannot be helped."
 
"...Very well, then," I said. "Let us speak of precisely what you can offer…"
----
===Pledge of Loyalty===
PAOLO VERELLAS MEMORIAL CONFERENCE CENTER, SAN MARTIN
DIERON, FEDERATION OF SKYE, LYRAN COMMONWEALTH
JANUARY 17TH, 3029
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There were reasons for holding 'The 3028 Conference On The Formation Of A Multilateral Combined Government' on Dieron. There was the symbolism of its having been won from the collapsing state that historical interpretation was already shifting to revise into a larger and larger share of the war guilt of the Succession Wars - and therefore, as the place where the current (presumptive) peace began. There was also a symbolism to the fact that it was not a world that had ever previously been held by any of the three states attending, making it as near to neutral ground as anywhere so central might have been - presuming that Terra was disqualified for the ComStar connection, as indeed it was.
 
There were also practical reasons - someplace central was needed, to control travel times, and an established, significant world with at least one major city capable of absorbing a temporary population increase in the tens of thousands. Even as it was, there wasn't an empty hotel room left in the entire city of San Martin.
 
And, the last, most easily overlooked and yet most critical - a presentation or concert hall capable of holding fifteen hundred delegates plus security, which was less trivial than it sounded when you included evacuation and security requirements, and the fact that the Succession Wars had been as hard on cultural patronage budgets as they had been on everything else.
 
But the Concert Hall at the PVM Center had twenty-four hundred seats on the ground level alone, excellent acoustics…
 
And, at the moment, three gobsmackingly enormous banners hung from the rafters and pouring down to pool their feet on the stage. On the left, the fisted gauntlet on Steiner Blue; on the right, broadsword and sunburst on what I'd've almost sworn was actual cloth-of-gold. In the center, primacy by right of age and winning the coin toss, the Marik Eagle blazoned on rich royal purple…
 
And before those multi-ton symbols, side by side and holding hands openly, the two young people who'd chaired the conference in place of their elders - Melissa Steiner and Morgan Davion, the Hasek connection formally and regretfully abdicated.
 
Below the stage, I sat, widely separated from eight others, in the second row - able to look ahead at the back of Katrina's head, or to the right at Hanse Davion or Duggan Marik in the front row.
 
"Aaron Sandoval, Duke of Robinson, you have the floor," Melissa said, the PA system barely needing to touch her clearly projected voice in the near complete silence. "Having consulted with the rulers and worlds under your command, are you prepared to transmit their judgement of the proposal in its current state?"
 
"Miss Chairman," he replied, rising. "I am. By binding vote of the worlds of the Draconis March, we approve the measure in full."
 
"So noted, Your Grace, thank you."
 
Sandoval bowed, and sat again.
 
"Candace Liao, Duchess of Sian, you have the floor…" Melissa repeated the formula.
 
"Nerise Hasek, Duchess of New Syrtis…"
 
"Derrick Cameron-Jones, Count of Regulus…"
 
"Christopher Halas, Grand Duke of Oriente…"
 
"Catherine Humphries, Duchess of Xanthe…"
 
"Selvin Kelswa, Duke of Tamar…"
 
"Margaret Aten, Duchess of Skye…"
 
"Asha Blackwing, Duchess of Finmark, you have the floor." Melissa said, her splendidly trained voice ringing louder in my ears entirely thanks to my own nerves.
 
Showtime.'
 
"Having consulted with the rulers and worlds under your command, are you prepared to transmit their judgement of the proposal in its current state?"
 
I stood, and managed to fight the urge to fiddle with my clothes. "Miss Chairman, I am pleased to report that the Rift has chosen to approve the proposal by a vote of one hundred and six in favor and nine abstentations."
 
Even in that room, that got a murmur of surprise. Rulers or not, no matter how serious the context, there was almost always one authentic wacko convinced that he had to save the Sphere from the conspiracy theory du jour.
 
And no, the Rift wasn't an exception. I'd half-persuaded, half-blackmailed the seven would-be 'nos' into abstaining instead, for the symbolic value.
 
"So noted, Your Grace, thank you." Melissa repeated one last time, and nobody who didn't know her would have been able to pick up the hint of a waver in her voice.
 
"Hanse Davion, First Prince of the Federated Suns and Duke of New Avalon, you have the floor." Morgan Davion's voice was a little less polished than Melissa's, but resonated like a king bell in the hall. "Having consulted with the rulers and worlds sworn to you both directly and indirectly, are you prepared to transmit their judgement of the proposal in its current state?"
 
"Mister Chairman," Hanse replied, and damned if he didn't seem on the edge of happy tears, choking and all. "I am. The worlds and people of the Crucis March have approved the proposal by an overwhelming margin. All territories of the Federated Suns having approved, we are ready to proceed."
 
Morgan took a subtle breath. "Thank you, Your Highness. Please approach the table with the Federated Suns' copy."
 
Slowly, reverently, Hanse Davion mounted the steps onto the stage and laid the rolled parchment his attendant had handed him on the table for his nephew and future niece-in-law to examine.
 
"The Federated Suns' copy of the document is in order," Morgan reported formally, after a minute and a half of singing silence as he and Melissa both reread every word. "Your Highness, may we beg your indulgence in remaining a moment?"
 
"With pleasure," Hanse said.
 
"Duggan Marik, Captain-General of the Free Worlds League and Ambassador Plenipotentiary of the Marik Commonwealth. Having consulted with the rulers and worlds your represent both directly and indirectly, are you prepared to transmit their judgement of the proposal in its current state?"
 
"Mister Chairman, I am," Marik boomed, rising in turn. "The worlds and peoples of the Marik Commonwealth and neighboring spaces have chosen to approve the document by a margin of two to one, concurring with the greater judgement of the Free Worlds League."
 
"Thank you, Your Excellency. Please approach the table with the Free Worlds League's copy."
 
It would be a lie to say that Duggan Marik 'snatched' his copy, or 'raced' up the steps, but there was a surprising, tightly controlled energy to the way he moved to lay out the treaty and take his place next to Hanse Davion while first Melissa, then Morgan reread it for what had to be well past the thousandth time.
 
"The Free Worlds League's copy of the document is in order. Your Excellency, may we beg your indulgence in remaining a moment?"
 
"Mister Chairman, I am at your disposal," Marik replied.
 
"Katrina Steiner, Archon of the Lyran Commonwealth and Protector of Donegal," Morgan went on for the last time. "Having consulted with the rulers and worlds sworn to you both directly and indirectly, are you prepared to transmit their judgement of the proposal in its current state?"
 
"Mister Chairman, Miss Chairman," Katrina said, "It is my pleasure and honor to report that the Protectorate of Donegal, like the other member states of the Lyran Commonwealth, have decisively approved the document in all particulars."
 
"Thank you, Your Majesty," Morgan Davion said, golden voice as even as ever. "Please approach the table with the Lyran Commonwealth's copy."
 
Katrina stood and climbed onto the stage, formal parchment laid across her hands like a holy relic.
 
A third time, the two young people who would be bearing the focused weight of the second largest state in human history read the treaty, and contract, in front of them word by painstaking word, while the audience in the hall barely breathed and the larger audience watching through the cameras didn't either.
 
"The Lyran Commonwealth's copy of the document," Morgan Davion reported at last, "is in order. Your Highness, Your Excellency, Your Majesty, you may sign at your leisure."
 
Silently, each of the three rulers took up the pens that had been laid out ahead of time and inscribed their signatures - then, smoothly and equally wordlessly, they shifted positions to sign the other two copies in turn.
 
At last, they stood aside - and Morgan and Melissa rose, probably completely unconscious of the way their hands found each other to clasp as they faced the audience, and the cameras. "Ladies and Gentlemen, and all people of three realms, I, Melissa Arthur Steiner-"
 
"-and I, Morgan Elias Davion, by the grace of your will and Divine Providence's, do together recognize and declare the formation of the Federated Commonwealth of Worlds."
 
They'd made the switchover mid-sentence without a bobble, and now they spoke in perfect unison. "We swear for all time that we and our heirs will owe our allegiance, our unceasing efforts, and all the fruits of our labors to the well-being of the citizens and people of the Federated Commonwealth of Worlds, sparing nothing for ourselves, and accept the deadly and awesome responsibility of rule. Should we fail in or betray this charge, may every living hand and wind of fate turn against us."
 
Hanse Davion took three steps backwards and went to one knee, the knuckles of his half-fisted hand resting on the floor before him as he bowed his head. "I, Hanse Adriaan Davion, hitherto First Prince of the Federated Suns, do with joyful and honest heart pledge the eternal allegiance of myself, and my kin, and all our works to the service of Morgan Steiner-Davion and Melissa Steiner-Davion in particular, and House Steiner-Davion in perpetuity, to serve at their will and at their pleasure, in whatever capacity we be required and subject to all the penalties and disgrace of oathbreakers before the eyes of men and Providence."
 
Duggan Marik took the same three steps, the same kneeling pose. "I, Duggan Stephan Marik, hitherto Captain-General of the Free Worlds League, do humbly pledge the eternal allegiance of myself, and my kin, and all our works to the service of Morgan Steiner-Davion and Melissa Steiner-Davion in particular, and House Steiner-Davion in perpetuity, to serve at their will and at their pleasure, in whatever capacity we be required and subject to all the penalties and disgrace of oathbreakers before the eyes of men and Providence."
 
Finally, Katrina Steiner joined them. "I, Katrina Sophia Steiner, hitherto Archon of the Lyran Commonwealth, am proud to pledge the eternal allegiance of myself, and my kin, and all our works to the service of Morgan Steiner Davion and Melissa Steiner-Davion in particular, and House Steiner-Davion in perpetuity, to serve at their will and at their pleasure, in whatever capacity we be required and subject to all the penalties and disgrace of oathbreakers before the eyes of men and Providence."
 
"Rise, Mother." Melissa said softly, into the oppressing stillness.
 
"Rise, Hanse Davion. Rise, Duggan Marik." Morgan echoed.
 
Together, they spoke the response: "We, Melissa and Morgan Steiner-Davion, as heads of House Steiner-Davion and rulers by acclaim of the Federated Commonwealth of Worlds, accept your oaths, and swear in return-" Melissa's voice grew quieter, fading into the background behind Morgan's, "-to ward you from harm-" and then he faded, still speaking but letting her take the lead, "-and care for your interests as your liege lords." Morgan again. "Your enemies shall be our enemies," then Melissa, "your children shall be our children, and while you keep faith, our swords shall ever guard you-" and then Morgan, "-as they shall chastise should that faith be broken."
 
Finally, both together, perfectly matched. "Rise, and join us in forging a new future for our people."
-----
===State of the Inner Sphere - 3029===
Post Fourth Succession War map of the Inner Sphere as of 3029
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===Sins of Your Forefathers are Your Sins===
FEDERATED COMMONWEALTH OF WORLDS WARSHIP VEGA, ZENITH POINT
HUNTRESS SYSTEM, CLAN SMOKE JAGUAR, KERENSKY CLUSTER
SEPTEMBER 27TH, 3048
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The flag bridge of the Capital-class battleship FCWS Vega was quiet around me; the big master display flickering and flashing as her sensor systems drank in the environment and pinpointed everything they could, and telemetry showed the dropships punching free from her sister Robinson and the dozen corvettes and four destroyers escorting them. For now, it was only the other occupants of the zenith point, one Texas class, her own escorts, and a half-dozen jumpships. Planets, and everything orbiting closer to them, would follow later, as would our carriers and their escorts.
 
The tech on the far side of the pickup gave me a thumbs up, and I started to speak.
 
"Warriors and citizens of Clan Smoke Jaguar, I am Asha Blackwing, Duchess of Finmark, Warden of the Rift Approaches, and plenipotentiary of their Imperial Majesties, Melissa and Morgan Steiner-Davion in the name of the Federated Commonwealth of Worlds. Two hundred and sixty four years ago, the soldiers and leaders of the Star League Defence Force deserted their sworn duty to their state and people, condemning everyone they had bound their sacred honor to protect to two hundred years of war and suffering."
 
"Not content with this, they and their successors, down unto you yourselves, have built a society which is a mockery of all decency and valor, which torments and butchers and spits on every value the Star League was created to strive for. In your cathedrals of pity you have defiled the better angels you presume to revere and made yourselves worshipping monuments to Forlough's sins."
 
"At the command of my Lord and Lady, and in the name of all those your ancestors betrayed, I name you and yours oathbreakers, outcasts, attainted. In eternal rejection of any claim or kinship between us and for your final and irrevocable exile from the greater community of humankind, let this be our battle challenge."
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