GblaRCS Chpt 42

==Guided by the light of a (Red) Cameron Star - Chapter 42 -==
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"There are two types of people in the galaxy, people with warships and people that have to be obsequious. We have warships."Admiral Jacob Bremman - 2845CE
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===Gunboat Dipolmacy===
Circinus IV – Circinus System – 2839
Still wondering if jumping into the Circinus system at the L1 Lagrange point like a pirate had been a little too much, even if her orders had been to 'make waves they can't ignore, literally and figuratively', brevet Rear Admiral Sarah Mbeki was nevertheless confident that having the James Sever floating in space only hours away from Circinus IV not days should concentrate the minds of the authorities on Circinus very nicely, both military and civilian.
The Illyrian's had been more a little surprised themselves when the Congress Class Frigate had previously jumped into their own capital system, broadcasting a message that their ride was here. Even though they had been expecting a warship, Niops had told them in advance it intended to send a message to Circinus via a show of force, they had assumed it would be one of the two destroyers Niops was known to possess and that it would send down a shuttle to collect them. The appearance of the vessel identifying itself as the NAS James Sever, a larger more heavily armed craft than any destroyer, which was hauling both a Titan aerospace carrier and a Lee class battalion transport along with it had caused something of a stir.
Sending the Lee down to the surface of Illyria III to collect their passengers, Mbeki had explained to them first via radio that if you're going to fly the flag then you send the flagship hence Niops dusting off its only frigate. Hopefully this should lead, or rather mislead, the powers of the Inner Sphere and Periphery into thinking that although they had clearly underestimated the size of the Niops fleet, if the James Sever was their flagship it wasn't like they had a bunch of battleships squirreled away.
A three-century old design, multiple Congress class frigates had once served in the navies of the Great Houses as well as that of the Star League, though how many of them were still operational after the great culling of warships during the First Succession War was unknown. It wasn't as if Niops had suddenly pulled an overpowered, modern, high-tech SLDF capital ship out of their ass, thus colossally freaking out the entire Inner Sphere, but it should at least scare the ever-loving crap out of the right people. The 'right people' in this instance being Circinus.
Of course, since the Congress class was known to be poor at dealing with attacks by massed aerospace fighters, it was specialized for taking on other warships and comparatively lacking in anti-fighter weaponry and point defense, bringing along a Titan with its three squadrons rounded out the package nicely.
Sending a heavily armed and armored Lee as well, instead of a 'mere' Overlord, was just plain showing off, as was loading it up with a reinforced battlemech battalion that leaned very heavy in tonnage.
Arriving at Circinus IV via a non-standard jump point, in this case the L1 Lagrange point, Mbeki made sure to broadcast that this wasn't an invasion, merely a diplomatic mission, although as they watched the frigate head straight towards them the locals were likely somewhat less than reassured.
 
Mbeki's further claim in a later transmission that the warship itself, two heavily-armed dropships, a combined force of thirty aerospace fighters plus the forty battlemechs emblazoned with the Red Cameron Star that had journeyed to Circinus should not in any way be misconstrued as a threat had reached the planet just before the frigate itself did.
The government and military leadership of Circinus likely gave that claim about as much credence as it deserved, but if they expected Niops to pretend to buy into their bullshit story then a little reciprocation was judged to be in order.
The James Sever positioned itself in a geosynchronous orbit directly above the planetary capital, conveniently placed for orbital bombardment and with the Titan and its three squadrons of aerospace fighters acting as a fighter screen for the frigate, the Lee and its various passengers headed down to the surface.
Circinus had a hot dry climate, indeed much of the northern continent was covered by the vast Ezo desert that made the Sahara on Terra look lush and verdant and even in the few areas suitable for agriculture, these being dry savannahs, temperate it was not. As the Lee headed for the designated landing ground outside the city that the locals assigned to them Mbeki made sure to remind her people that sunglasses were the order of the day, along with sunscreen for anyone paler in complexion than she was. Despite most people periodically using sunbeds back home to ward off rickets, not to mention depression, living under a Red Dwarf star wasn't exactly beneficial to maintaining a healthy tan.
The local star was a type G5IV, not quite as hot as the G2V Sol in the Terra system but nonetheless rather large, so despite the habitable planet being the fourth one out from the star, rather than third, it still absorbed more sunlight than Terra did hence the high surface temperatures.
At least it wasn't quite as hot and arid here as it was on Westover. According to anyone from Niops that had been there while delivering PPCs to the Free Worlds League that place was absolutely hellish. Circinus meanwhile was merely far, far too hot for comfort.
The seventeen-thousand ton vessel kicking up a vast cloud of dust as it came into land, Mbeki let it all settle before she ordered the hanger doors opened and the loading ramps lowered. It wouldn't be diplomatic for the battlemechs to start to disembark so they remained clamped in their bays, along with the single squadron of aerospace fighters the dropship carried, although the Lee itself was hardly defenceless.
The multiple gauss rifles, ERPPCs, ER Large Lasers, AC/20 autocannon, LRM launchers and lighter weaponry that littered the hull of the Lee was had made it a formidable in the extreme even as originally built, but almost of its armament had been upgraded over the last few years and the tonnage and volume saved by using lighter, more compact hardware had been devoted towards adding Arrow IV launchers with concealed launch-tubes as well.
If the locals had thought the Lee was too far away from the city to hit it with anything from where they had instructed it to land they were badly mistaken. Although finding themselves under the shadow of the James Sever floating high above their heads it was not as if they were any happier in their ignorance.
Eventually the plan was to adopt a revised Lee, tentatively being referred to as the Grant, as the primary battalion transport of the SLDF. However, given the current surplus of Overlord class dropships already in the inventory, plus the need to prioritise producing cargo movers, the Grant was very much a longer-term project on hold. Maybe in twenty years after plenty of CargoKing and CargoMaster bulk haulers dropships were in service the Grant might look worth spending some money on, but for now it was just a paper-project, one being revised every time a new piece of equipment became available.
Ten minutes after arrival a number of expensive-looking civilian passenger vehicles appeared and pulled up next to the dropship, their drivers no doubt acutely aware of just how much firepower was pointed at them. A woman in a well-made business suit popped out of one of the vehicles and with a smile plastered on her face that put Mbeki in mind of a real estate agent, or perhaps a used car salesman, she approached the ramp where Mbeki was waiting. Introducing herself as a government representative the woman said she was there to escort the delegation from the Illyrian Palatinate, and of course the observers from the Niops Association, to where the President of Circinus and his staff were waiting for them.
Unable to resist the snark Mbeki observed that from the air the planets small capital city looked unusually well-planned and ornate for that of a small agricultural colony situated way out in the boonies, and that the farms on Circinus must be exceptionally productive for such a small amount of cultivated land under the plough generating so much food for export that they could have paid for all that expensive construction.
To her credit the woman's smile didn't shift one iota as she said that she wasn't really familiar with the prices of crops or anything like that but that she'd heard that there was a good market for grain from Circinus out in the Deep Periphery and it was taxing the income from that trade which paid for everything.
She couldn't actually name any of the planets in the Deep Periphery Circinus exported to however, saying that Mbeki would have to talk to someone from the Department of Agriculture about that, or maybe the Department of Trade. Day-to-day she mostly just ran errands for the President, kept his diary up to date, and handled his mail.
Later on that day, while watching them interact at the conference, Mbeki wondered if she handled something else for the President of Circinus as well, something his wife wouldn't be too happy about, but mentally she filed that under idle gossip not worth repeating.
Mbeki, along with Major Kirsten Mroczkiewicz from the army acting as her aide were technically subordinate to the professional diplomats the High Associator had assigned to this mission to represent Niops, although by the standards of the Inner Sphere both of them would have been regarded as extremely amateur rather than professionals in the strictest sense. The lead diplomat, a Gareth Jeffries, had basically stumbled into the career because he had minored in political science while taking a degree in a 'proper' science, that being physics, and found his minor more interesting ending up studying international politics at the postgraduate level as a result.
It wasn't as if Niops was exactly awash with people that had any relevant qualifications in the field, so when the Association started looking beyond its borders Jeffries had found himself in a senior role in the new diplomatic corps, despite being barely out of his twenties at this point.
Herself having a grandson who was older than Jeffries, Sarah Mbeki thought it was hilarious, and she fervently hoped that he wasn't going to present the 'deer caught in the headlights' expression to Circinus that he had when first meeting the delegates from Illyria, the youngest of whom was nearly twice his age.
Given their oligarchic political structure it wasn't surprising that all the Illyrian representatives hailed from one of the merchant families in the Palatinate, their chief negotiator was a first cousin of the current Administrator, as they called their head-of-state, but despite the nepotism they did at least seem to know their business and during the journey had discussed their objectives and game-plan with Jeffries. The Palatinate had no interest in going to war with Circinus, but they were equally clear that they wanted to leave no doubt in the minds of the opposition that if they thought Illyria could be pushed around without a fight they were sorely mistaken.
Much to the relief of everyone in the Niops delegation the Palatinate government didn't really believe the claims by Circinus that their failed raid was a pre-emptive strike resulting from a fear that the Illyrians were planning to invade them. It was just plausible enough that it might be true, providing everyone with a diplomatic 'out' from actually going to war if that was what everyone wanted, but as the aggressor both Niops and Illyria expected Circinus to be the one to formally apologise, make reparations and agree to terms set out by the Palatinate and the Association.
Since it was their planet that was raided, and their sovereignty violated, the directions given to Jeffries by the High Associator was to follow the lead of the Palatinate. If they were too amiable and lenient towards their hosts then Jeffries was supposed to let Rear Admiral Mbeki growl a little and make some vague threats but the Association didn't really want to potentially get tied down militarily this far from the Niops system, they just wanted Circinus to behave itself… or else.
After warning the Illyrian representatives that once on Circinus it was likely that they would be under electronic surveillance at all times Mbeki had provided them with both a White Noise Generator and a Bug Scanner for if they ever wanted to discuss something, and using a scanner of her own once she, Jeffries and Mroczkiewicz climbed into the vehicle that would transport them into the city she was happy to see her caution was justified as the device immediately detected an electronic listening device hidden in the car.
Not that they would have said anything in the car anyway, the driver could have overheard after all, but it did amuse Mbeki to loudly suggest the locals fumigate the vehicle because it was infested with bugs, the kind you needed EMP to exterminate them with not DDT.
After passing several grainfields and a large livestock ranch the vehicles reached the city and it looked as prosperous on the ground as it did from the air. As they pulled up outside the government building in the centre of town Mroczkiewicz observed while the car door was opened for her that the old saying was clearly wrong, crime actually did pay after all.
After a low-key greeting at the entrance the delegations from Illyria and Niops were led through into a rather grand hallway and then off into a side room where a man sat behind a desk was recording everyone's name, title and any other pertinent information into a noteputer and then printing out name-badges for everyone.
Apparently there was a buffet laid on in the next room where the local dignitaries were waiting. Under the circumstances it all seemed weirdly amicable, their hosts cordial and polite, courteous even, and Mbeki idly wondered if they had planned for eventually getting caught red-handed having contingency plans to smooth things over.
It all certainly seemed very organised at least, and letting the Illyrian's go first Jeffries patiently waited his turn to be registered, receiving his badge and then joining the Ilyrians again while Mbeki got hers next.
Kirsten Mroczkiewicz went last which was where the fun began.
"Another from the Niops Association I assume" the clerk behind the desk said in a bored tone, still looking down at his noteputer. "Name and title" he requested.
"Major Christine Brzęczyszczykiewicz" she replied.
The clerk froze for a moment and then looked up. "I'm sorry?" he responded, looking perplexed.
"Major Christine Brzęczyszczykiewicz" the SLDF officer repeated, completely deadpan.
The clerk blinked. "Can you spell that for me?" he requested.
"C.H.R.I.S.T.I.N.E." Mroczkiewicz obliged.
"No, I meant your second name" the clerk responded, increasingly sure she was yanking his chain.
Mroczkiewicz did so, the clerk's expression becoming ever funnier as she did so.
"That is not a real name" the clerk confidently declared, the damn Nee-oppies probably thought that having a couple of warships meant they could play games with anyone they liked, he thought to himself.
Kirsten Mroczkiewicz reached under her collar and removed her dogtags, throwing them down on the desk in front of the clerk. "Take a look and then apologise" she told him curtly.
The clerk picked up the dogtags and examined them carefully. In order to fit the excessively long name on the tags the letters stamped into the metal were absolutely tiny, the clerk assuming that the alternative would have been tags the size of a dinner-plate. "I'm sorry" he eventually said sheepishly, recording the name on his noteputer before handing back the tags.
"I hope you made sure to add the ogonek to the first letter e in my surname."
"The what?"
"The ogonek, the little tail underneath. It's a diacritic that effects how the letter is pronounced" Mroczkiewicz explained. "It might have been hard to see on the tags" she conceded. "If you left it off nobody would know how to say my name properly if they saw it written down."
The clerk stared at her. "Lady, if one person in a thousand can look at this name and have so much as a clue how it's supposed to be said out loud I'd be amazed" he told her.
Kirsten Mroczkiewicz, AKA 'Christine Brzęczyszczykiewicz', glared at him. "Is this some kind of anti-Polish racism or something?" she growled. "I heard that most of the people here are descended from families who came from the Lyran Commonwealth, and I can hear a trace of a German accent in your voice too. Is it just Poles you've got a problem with or any Slavs?" she asked accusingly. "****** Krauts" she muttered under her breath.
"Let it go Major" Mbeki interjected, mostly because the army officer seemed to be having far too much fun with her fake name.
"If you insist Ma'am" Mroczkiewicz deferred to her superior, she had already had her fun anyway though she did scowl at the clerk when he passed her the name badge he had printed out for her, in very small print.
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===Who do these people think they are??===
"You know, an awful lot of people changed the spellings of their names by removing the diacritics to make it easier for the Anglos in particular to cope, my own family included" a young man wearing something that approximated a military uniform broke into the conversation. "Originally our name wasn't Cirion, it was Cirión" he said, pronouncing the name the second time in a Spanish accent.
"Some of us aren't quitters." Mroczkiewicz replied sarcastically.
"Captain Zane Cirion at your service," the man introduced himself. "You may have met my sister?" he suggested, smiling.
Mroczkiewicz smirked. "So I assumed, I guess she was just following in the family tradition of giving up when she surrendered to our people on Illyria" she added.
"Not without putting up quite the fight first from what I've heard." Zane Cirion replied, still smiling.
"Enough to put my cousin Jacquline in hospital minus a few internal organs." Mroczkiewicz told him truthfully. Jackie Mroczkiewicz had been piloting a Wasp that got itself almost completely wrecked by a heavy mech belonging to the Black Warriors.
In retrospect asking for a transfer from the Skunk Works on Niops V where she had been the test-pilot for the prototype of the new model Hussar had not perhaps been Jackie's best ever decision, although it wasn't like anyone had expected the training mission to Illyria to end up facing actual combat. If they had Jackie would have likely volunteered anyway but would have insisted on bringing along the 'Winged Hussar' for proper live-fire testing.
With more armour, all that fancy electronics and a ER Large Laser to play with instead of the Medium Laser on the Wasp she might not have ended up in the infirmary wondering if she was lucky to survive or unlucky to need almost as much repair work as her mech did.
"Terribly sorry to hear that but C'est La Guerre." Cirion responded. "I hope her chances of pulling through aren't too bad."
"She'll be fine, she's just annoyed that it'll be a couple of months before they can clone her a new liver so she can drink again" Mroczkiewicz replied. "Where are my manners?" she asked rhetorically. "Captain Cirion, may I present Rear Admiral Sarah Mbeki of the Niops Association Navy."
"Charmed I'm sure." Cirion responded, formally bowing to Mbeki. "If it wasn't for the unexpected appearance of that frigate hanging above our heads I would have wondered if Niops actually had enough ships to warrant having a naval officer of that rank, but under the circumstances I guess you do."
"Given that I'm not even the highest ranked naval officer in the fleet you might want to revise your estimates of our ability to project power a little higher still" Mbeki replied evenly. "Should I assume that your father, Colonel Cirion, is also here?" she asked, looking around.
"He'll be along later, once negotiations for an end to hostilities are formally underway. I was dispatched for the meet and greet in his stead" Cirion replied. "On that note I should probably go and say hello to the delegation from the Palatinate. It's been a pleasure meeting you both, and I hope that you've been treating my sister and those under her command with equal civility and the proprieties they deserve."
"We're fairly sure she deserves facing the gallows so no." Mbeki replied, smiling sweetly.
If she had been expecting an angry reaction she didn't get one. "Sounds like you've met her for sure" Cirion" replied, smiling back. "For a girl named for the angels she tortured me rather more like a demon would have when we were growing up together." he joked. "I'm sure we'll get the chance to talk again later. Admiral Mbeki, Major Brzęczyszczykiewicz" he bowed to each in turn before heading off towards where the buffet was.
Kirsten Mroczkiewicz blinked. "I can't believe he got that right." she said quietly to Mbeki.
"Smooth little bastard." Mbeki whispered back as Jeffries rejoined them looking perplexed. "Something wrong Sir?" she asked the diplomat.
"ComStar is here." Jeffries told here. "I just ran into a Precentor and a couple of her stooges."
Mbeki raised her eyebrows. "Why the hell would ComStar be here? They don't have an HPG station on Circinus."
"They say they're here as diplomatic observers" Jeffries told her. "They're also talking about adding Circinus to the network as a matter of priority."
"Why? Hardly anybody lives here?" Mroczkiewicz queried. There were periphery systems just as close to the Inner Sphere that were both considerably more populous, and far more important to interstellar trade than Circinus that ComStar had never bothered with.
"Something about the 'misunderstanding' between Circinus and Illyria demonstrating how vitally important good interstellar communication is" Jeffries replied dubiously. "I can only assume that their Precentor on Illyria clued them in on what was going on."
"Yeah and wasn't the timing of the HPG stations in the Free Worlds League that Illyria and Niops are linked up to suddenly working again just then one hell of a coincidence." Mbeki observed sardonically, it being generally accepted that ComStar was still trying to get Niops to hand over control of NHCOMNET to them, being deliberately awkward as a result. "Other than Oriente we must have been practically the last systems reconnected, and Oriente has the excuse that its station had been blown up."
"ComStar does have a record of inserting itself into diplomatic negotiations between the Great Houses, and between smaller polities too on occasion." Jeffries noted, cautioning against an assumption that they were always self-serving and Machiavellian. "They like to portray themselves as being fair-minded neutral brokers and that plays into that image."
"I suspect the new Captain-General would laugh his ass off if anyone referred to ComStar as 'neutral' after they provided intel on the Free Worlds League to their enemies" Mbeki replied wryly. "Or he would if he wasn't still sore about his father's untimely demise."
Jeffries nodded. Although officially Charles Marik's death had been from natural causes there was a very strong suspicion that someone in the upper echelons of power within the Free Worlds League had gotten him out of the way because he was refusing to make peace with ComStar. It might have even been his successor Gerald Marik who now ruled that was responsible, House Marik didn't have the best record as regards familial loyalty. The smart money however was on the League's Parliament removing Charles from the equation after failing to get him to back down to ComStar despite the FWL heading rapidly towards military and economic collapse.
That wasn't to say that the Free Worlds League had just rolled over during their negotiations with ComStar to end the interdiction, Garth Marik, Gerald's little brother, had taken a fairly hard line with Raymond Karpov and the First Circuit, refusing to accept any greater financial penalty than the one Karpov's predecessor Conrad Toyama had originally demanded before his own death. Analysts on Niops considered it possible that the League's refusal to kowtow, rather than merely bend the knee slightly to Comstar was partially down to the shipments of PPC's from the Association strengthening their military position a little, but that was just supposition.
"Careful, we're probably being spied on by ROM agents right this moment." Jeffries cautioned.
"You could be right, in that case let me just state for the record that Jerome Blake was a jumped-up telephone repairman, Conrad Toyama made up all the stuff he said Blake told him on his deathbed, and anyone that thinks it isn't at all suspicious that Toyama died from a stroke so soon after he named Karpov his successor is a freaking idiot." Mbeki responded, grinning.
"And with that some poor ROM agent somewhere is having a heart attack because it's his job to repeat all that to his superiors" Mroczkiewicz said, laughing as they made their way towards the buffet, confident that the locals were unlikely to try to poison them.
Unbeknownst to Mroczkiewicz it was actually two ROM agents that were listening in via a directional microphone, one of them turning to the other saying, Not it with a pained expression on his face.
Since by jumping into a non-standard jump-point the Illyrian and Niops delegations had arrived about a week ahead of schedule, no seven-and-a-half day journey on a dropship from the Zenith or Nadir points for them, it had been assumed that the locals would be caught on the hop, unprepared to get underway with negotiations immediately. Putting Circinus on the back-foot still further by them not being fully ready to respond when Illyria and Niops made their case should have worked to counter the home team advantage somewhat it was hoped. Annoyingly however they seemed fully prepared and organised already, and were only too happy to begin the formal proceedings when the Palatinate representatives requested they move forward with the business at hand immediately.
A large conference room had been fitted out for the occasion, opulently decorated and furnished. While at the buffet Mbeki had managed to find a government official from the local Department of Trade and had queried just how a small agricultural colony managed to pay for all this finery, without missing a beat the official claimed that Circinus had been selling on resources and technology stripped from Camp Amber, the old SLDF facilities on the planet situated under the Ezo desert. These dated from well before the Amaris War, when the Rim Worlds Republic was just another loyal Star League member state and had later been fought over during Kerensky's campaign against the usurper.
Camp Amber had been a major fortress, one that it had taken the SLDF some time to wrest back from the RWR Army that had taken up residence after much of the Star League military was recalled back to the Terran Hegemony by First Lord Richard Cameron, this being at the behest of his 'friend and loyal advisor' Stefan Amaris. It was certainly plausible that enough valuable equipment still remained behind after the fighting for Circinus to turn a tidy profit from salvaging technology from there, but Mbeki thought it more likely that the wealth on display was ill-gotten gains from illicit piracy and that what remained of SLDF resources and facilities on Circinus was devoted towards keeping the Black Warriors fighting fit.
For all Mbeki knew the vast underground facilities of Camp Amber were piled high with stolen loot. Piracy was rife out here, the opportunities for successful raiding had been extensive since the fall of the Star League, with planetary militias near the periphery stripped of men and equipment as they were deemed better needed on the front lines as the Great Houses bludgeoned each other into a stupor.
According to their prisoners back at Niops the only reason the Black Warriors had not joined Kerensky's Exodus was because the notification reached them too late, lacking an HPG and with regular interstellar travel still disrupted the message had only arrived at Circinus by courier months later so they were accidentally left behind.
Ironically something similar had happened with Mbeki and the 295th her naval squadron was attached to, though in their case they weren't so delayed that they still thought they might be able to catch up with the main group and had tried to do so. If not for accidents of fate both her people and the Black Warriors might have ended up in the Pentagon Worlds as the 331st had done, though the history of the latter indicated that wouldn't likely have worked out for the best either.
Fate was a fickle thing, Mbeki idly considered as their hosts announced that the armistice and treaty negotiations would begin shortly.
"They look confident." Jeffries whispered to Mbeki when the President of Circinus arrived, accompanied by Colonel Cirion, effectively head of the armed forces.
"It's just bluster but you look nervous" Mbeiki whispered back. "There's no need, we're not the ones in the weak position. In the worst case scenario we just decide, 'to hell with this diplomacy shit' and just crush them like a bug." she told him, grinning.
Jeffries smiled. "I'm not sure the High Associator would approve." he replied.
"This time next year he'll be retired and boring people with stories about how he used to be in charge, so don't sweat it" Mbeki advised. "Who cares if Circinus doesn't like our brand of gunboat diplomacy as long as they keep out of our way?" she asked rhetorically.
Jeffries nodded and then straightened up, adopting a calm demeanour. "Oderint dum metuant" he quoted. "Let them hate as long as they fear."
"Who said that?"
"Caligula, not the nicest or sanest Roman Emperor to be honest." Jeffries told her. "Machiavelli meanwhile said it was better to be feared than loved if you couldn't be both."
Mbeki chuckled. "It wouldn't take a particularly perceptive person to realise you're an academic" she told him. "Just try not to make your speeches and arguments sound like a doctoral thesis being presented" she advised. "Let the Illyrian's do the heavy lifting unless they're not up to it."
"Good Afternoon everyone" the ComStar Precentor said loudly loudly as everyone filed into the conference room and took their seats. "At the request of the Circinus Federation, and as a neutral party in this dispute, I will be presiding over the negotiations" she announced. "Assuming there are no objections?" she added, looking around.
"Can I just clarify something first?" Jeffries replied.
"What exactly do you need clarification on?" the Precentor queried.
"Are we supposed to be voicing possible objections as to your presiding, or to the laughable notion of the absolute neutrality of ComStar?" Jeffries asked sarcastically. "It wasn't too long ago that you were caught out feeding intelligence data on the troop dispositions of the Free Worlds League to its enemies" he stated flatly. "To be honest, this all makes me wonder in fact how Circinus seemed so well-informed as to arms purchases being made by our friends in the Illyrian Palatinate from our friends in the Magistracy of Canopus." he added.
Attaboy, Mbeki thought to herself as the Precentor glared daggers at him.
"Such accusations are completely unfounded and I demand they are withdrawn!" the ComStar official replied angrily.
"Merely supposition, not accusation on my part." Jeffries replied in an off-handed manner as if it didn't really matter. "Without proof of any malfeasance by ComStar in this matter an assumption of innocence follows as a matter of course. As such the Niops Association voices no objections to the Precentor taking the role she has been requested to undertake in these proceedings." he said. "Though we will of course monitor for signs of possible bias in favour of one party or another and may revise our opinion accordingly later" he added, now looking thoughtful and deliberative.
"The Illyrian Palatinate has no objection to ComStar's representative presiding." their chief negotiator added for his delegation.
"Fine. Then shall we begin?" the Precentor asked, still glaring at Jeffries. Were these people always so lacking in decorum or was it only when they had a warship above your head making them think they could be as obnoxious and imperious as they wanted and get away with it.
Who did they think they were anyway? The Terran Hegemony?
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==Chapter Notes==
*;Notes from the Author : Circinus IV is another hot, dry planet like many of those in the periphery that have a breathable atmosphere but a low population. If the Star League hadn't fallen it might have been eventually terraformed into a nicer world but without that it's not exactly a paradise. The old SLDF facilities of Camp Amber under the Ezo desert were fought over during the Amaris War and would have been very useful to the Black Warriors later on.The Lee Class dropship was pretty much the final word in SLDF battalion transports when the Amaris War broke out. It was better regarded than the slightly larger Colossus and very heavily armed. Replacing much of the armament with the lighter 'Improved' early-clantech versions frees up some weight to add more heat-sinks and Arrow IV missile launchers.Given that the communication from Kerensky inviting the Black Warriors never got to them until it was far too late my assumption is that Circinus lacked an HPG at the time (it may have been destroyed during the fighting). It had one later on in canon but by then it was the capital world of a multi-system polity not a single-planet agricultural colony that only officially exported food (the exports of raiding missions and imports of pirate booty were somewhat less public).Niops lacking an experienced diplomatic corps led to people like OC Gareth Jeffries here being drafted into the role. He's actually pretty sharp but nonetheless rather inexperienced, this leading to him being a little undiplomatic... and ironically blunt.Cirion is not a real name, it actually comes from a character invented by Tolkien, however Cirión is a real name so I'm assuming someone from the family changed it at some point.Feel free to speculate what ComStar is up to...
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