An act of powerplay

The incursion into Quivira space has taken its toll, and there is a growing unease amongst the Federation of pilots.

The first wave of assault sent in waves of mercenary pilots to weaken the infrastructure and prevent the departure of the civilian population. With this comes a greater latitude in the way that the mercenary pilots conduct operations and some of the more extreme kinds of attack that can take place. Overall there there is less coordination, less strategic thinking, and the intent is quite simply to inflict more psychological damage to the enemy.

There is also plausible deniability.

A golden fist inside an iron glove, and one intent on weakening spirits before an occupation force rolls in to assume command and control operations. Something didn't quite go right for Patreus this time though.

The population simply wasn't cowed by the naked aggression. Mercenary support as shock troops did not fully commit having already seen the naked ambition of this Senator in action, and the Quivira government had put in place a contingency plan for evacuation.

A mercenary force was waiting, and held the line.

There is speculation on how much of the interest on that debt is used to fund the war machine's operating costs, and a coalition of defaulters might do more harm than a thousand war ships. The iron first must squeeze tightly or others will default with a sense of impunity.

The cost of control of a system like Quivira will always be high. This powerplay by Patreus may still overextend himself, and the tower of cards may collapse in on itself as the iron first is a recruiting sergeant for rebellion. The Senate has also noticed the destabilising effect of a displaced population of Quivirans, and is concerned about the consequences.

Most of the civilians have escaped to nearby systems, and the displaced will place burdens that might themselves create a domino like collapse of nearby economies. The Senator's personal fleet has also arrived in Quivira, dominating the system in a way that can no longer be deflected.

There is some satisfaction in having deflected the intended blow of the iron fist, however the Quiviran's can no longer support operations, and so it is now time to move on.

The efforts here have allowed me to invest in a combined trade/combat vessel - the renown and reliable Python. Less agile than the Debitum Naturae, but a much more powerful gun platform. She'll participate in future action.

In the meantime I'll have to learn to fly all over again.

An act of strategy

An anaconda rumbles overhead, slowing under navigation guidance and nudging off the centre line towards a large landing pad. It twists to line up against the blinking focus of guiding lights, and for a moment there's a clear view of melted metal battle scars around the power plant. A battle hardened ship and fresh in from combat.

That one will be in repair for a while.

Direct line of sight with the Vestigial Echo is interrupted for a moment while the secure comms channel reacquires from a partial lock. Although it is difficult to intercept direct line of sight comms, this also makes it sensitive to what is happening in the surroundings. The pulses from the anaconda's thrusters are distorting the beam path and the software struggles to stabilise the data stream against the disturbance.

A monochromatic hand pointing at the data map flickers and de-rez's for a moment, and the sound breaks up like something is struggling to breath while gulping in water.

The Quivira military planners have given the Pilots of the Federation a relatively free reign to come and go at whim. The usual combat missions for a war zone are available on the bulletin boards, about the only advice on where reinforcements are needed and pointing the way to where combat zones have spilled up within close orbit of the nearby planets.

Scouts find a small group of enemy ships that are awaiting reinforcements in an unidentified signal source. If the scout escapes then an attack fleet is assembled from nearby forces and, guided from the intel, jumps in for an assault. The reinforcements that were called for arrive though not always in a timely way that can sway the battle decisively, and so the intensity ramps up to a bloody furball.

System wide tactical scanners identify the volume of space from the arrival of ships and outpouring of intense weapon discharge. The unmistakeable signature and number of power plants losing containment will mark it as a combat zone.

A profile emerges and battle lines are drawn. Appear strong where you are weak. Show weakness where you are strong. Moving to shore up this battle will hold those loyal to the whim of Patreus at bay. Applying an overwhelming force over there to force a local retreat that draws enemy forces away from elsewhere to create a weakness.

Time and only time allows more civilians to escape to relative safety.

The convoys of civilian ships leaving the station need protection and a chance to escape to adjacent systems. A nearby combat zone looks likely to spill over and allow the forces of Patreus to gain control and expand out into supercruise. That would dominate intersystem travel and lock down reinforcements.

The hologram rendering of Gearwright moves around the small tactical display and points at a volume of space around Quivira One. A natural staging area for ships jumping into the system that don't have capital ship assistance.

Gearwright and I are in agreement that this is a worthwhile place to apply effort to a containment operation.

The ship's computer chirrups the arrival of a message and, with a short nod from me, summarises its content.

"An update from station logistics: delivery delayed."

Pulling up the manifest and looking at the restock ETA for the Debitum Naturae raises a groan, and it's taken longer than originally estimated to find some shield cells for my Vulture. Credit where it is due though: the Quivira system government have opened up their stockpiles of ammunition and essential combat consumables to the pilots that have signed up. Those crews are very much overworked and will probably stay up until the end, on the understanding that their families departed to safety first. Brave souls.

An opportunity to talk about secure communications then. I must admit to not being too happy about the content of the private message from Gearwright that brought me here. It contained location details and a holiday invite to a system known to be in trouble with Patreus.

The conversation is short and Gearwright listens patiently. It's been a while since I've done this and the message cleanup protocols for secure comms over a channel that is assumed to be monitored and broken are a bit rusty.

"...And so the use of imprecise language and strong hints of past conversations will obscure the message to a heuristic scan. When our previous engagements with an adversary are a known factor then a system with known adversary activity will raise a flag."

Gearwright nods. He's noticed I've avoided naming names and fallen into the same pattern of talking.

"A few tweaks here and the message has picked up a banality that should look like a natural banter between friends, rather than a statement of intent." 

The computer chimes in again helpfully: "Message analysis: 97% probability of match against message rejection filters."

The hologram flickers and dies again as another ship passes overhead, though I'm pretty sure that the corner of his mouth tightened up in a smirk first...

An act of terror

There's a lot of traffic going through Quivira these days.

Civilian ships duck and dart in between the weary combat vessels. Shuttles pour up from the planet's surface bringing more people to the station, full of families separated under duress and carrying their precious lives with little else to speak of. Fearful of the unknown and frightened of what the future holds.

The luxurious Orca passenger ship emerges from the depths of the station and wobbles as it launches from the pad. Such ships are normally commissioned by the rich for tourism and luxury trips through safe systems. As the ship passes by I look across. The view panels are transparent, forgotten in the rush to leave and there is no privacy. Frightened children cling to their mothers. One young face drawn haggard with fear looks up, finding my gaze and seeking what from me I do not know.

A nearby pad that has been holding quietly picks up a sudden flurry of activity as a viper war machine launches rapidly. Station navigation control scream at the ship to move to a safe holding area within the station, they were just as surprised and try to reason with the pilot. The exit is already busy and nearly overloaded, and another ship vying for the same space as the Orca would just be too much.

The shields of the viper glow a brighter reinforced blue and the engine thrusters bleed white as the boost kicks in. Heading straight for the passenger vessel at ramming speed there is no room left to manoeuvre, and the collision spins the Orca into the side of the entrance. The hull snaps in half and bodies start to pour out. Some back into the station while others drift helplessly out past the atmo shields and out into the vacuum of space.

Klaxxons sound and a quick witted tech has started lowering the blast shields. Somehow the viper manages to escape out of the station and the stunned weapon crews struggle to bring their external station weapons into tracking arc.

Ships stop dead inside the station. Hospital shuttles and jetpack crews scramble to recover those floating inside the station. Those left outside turn to scan the wake of the viper, posting their data feeds back to the station before jumping out in pursuit.

Chaos reigns and the co-ordinated escape is disrupted for several hours while the Patreus war machine moves ever closer.

Scanning the bulletin boards has some new missions arrive from system command: fight in this combat zone, hunt that command officer, more supplies needed. Urgently. Always urgently. For once though a delivery time of tens of minutes through the blockade will make a difference here. A special mission has been raised for that viper pilot. I'm tempted.

The Quivirans have surely lost their home world; the Patreus war machine won't be stopped here and now. Help the people flee. Help the people survive.

The conflicted mercenary and the tail of the tiger

I didn't think they'd trust me. Certainly not at first given my somewhat chequered and difficult past.

Now there's an understatement if I ever heard one, even though I'm only telling myself that crock of... spin. At least that particular turn of phrase is running more easily through my mind, and I might soon start to believe it.

That isn't what brings me into HR 706 though. I'm following a hunch.

The focused battle at Kui Hsien left me angry and drained. That Senator Patreus sold the survivors into slavery as a business decision was something I had not anticipated. The mercenary in me was paid, but the conscience did not rest so easily.

The next contract didn't quite fall into my lap the way they normally do either. A GalNet news article on the Emperor's assassination attempt, and a call for assistance in investigation from the Princess Arissa Lavigny-Duval in a nearby system.

Only two jumps from the carnage I left behind in Kui Hsien. Two jumps from Eotiensis, the home system of Senator Denton Patreus. And finally, with the Senator's patronage of HR 706, I feel I am only two jumps away from making a connection with the Emperor's assassination.

Patreus would not be the first ambitious Senator kept young by the longevity drugs that are the favoured of the rich. Nor the first to have laid an envious eye on the highest position of power in the Empire. Such thoughts against a Senator who has declared himself loyal to the Empire would also be treasonous in their own right, and they are buried deep while I play a dangerous game.

So I find myself in a resource site of a nearby system, helping to calm the criminal elements in this nearby sector of space. Listening to the lawless go about their business and gathering transmissions, data on time and location, and then finally their bounty as well. Sifting and searching on my own meagre resources before feeding it up to a much larger organisation with wider reach and better capabilities that I could ever muster.

Hoping to find a tremor on the spider's web of deceit that leads me ever further on. One of us will see it first.

The data processing techniques of the Princess have impressed. A rapacious thirst for knowledge that can correlate data at that pace would raise eyebrows and could even have constrained AI capabilities. Though it is no straightforward task to keep them occupied and distracted with puzzles to solve. At the moment it pays to be indifferent to these things, and it certainly wouldn't be healthy to inquire further.

I'm not entirely sure that I'm trusted yet, but I know they're willing to accept the discerning information that I bring. Some do occasionally seek me out for my skills and contacts, but this time it is given freely with an ulterior motive on my part. The mercenary inside me is most satisfied however, for the pay is very good indeed.

Another payload of data dropped off at Laming Orbital. Another paycheck. But still nothing that satisfies.

The GalNet news overflows with speculation once the HR 706 chapter of the Emperor's Grace was found by the Princess to be operating without sanction. Though their protests to the Senate did delay these findings, as the guilty are wont to hide behind the protection of process and assumption of innocence, it did buy time for another operation to complete.

Kui Hsien fell. Hard.

Any leads that might have led there from HR 706 and then back into the adjacent system of Eotienses, home world of Senator Denton Patreus, have now been utterly decimated. Its people scattered to the corners of known space as slaves where they have no voice, and no presence.

The business decision to sell the assets of Kui Hsien now makes perfect sense. It severs a connection.

That the Senator did eventually intervene to allow the investigation into HR 706 goes a long way to establish credibility and distance from what might be discovered. However when there are conspiracies inside conspiracies then the assassins are themselves ultimately expendable.

For now the trail has chilled beyond my ability to follow.

The conflicted mercenary

I rescued a slave girl once. A very pretty slave girl. She saved my life and didn't even know it. At least that's what I believed at the time.

Nothing is ever as it seems.

I shake my head to try and remove the unwanted intrusion, and the recollection of events past falls away as I store the powerful memory back into a locked chest I would much rather leave untouched.

With the memory suppressed my anger returns with nothing to distract it. Boiling and seething inside me at the goddamn feckin' arrogance of an Imperial Senator. Thousands dead and an oh so simple change of plans that wasn't telegraphed at the start.

Used, exploited, and discarded is how I feel and that should never, ever be the outcome of a mercenary contract. The slaves of Kui Hsien weigh heavily on my conscience.

Defaulting on a debt is no small matter, though knowing this the small colony of 30,000 people on Kui Hsien refused to accept a one sided rate increase imposed on them. All of this is normal for the business world of a wheeling dealing senator like Patreus. A debt only has meaning when it provides a return on investment.

That the entire colony is then crushed under the weight of a cadre of loyal or mercenary commanders is a text book response. All the commanders involved are looking for a profit and have been handsomely rewarded once the dust has settled. They probably don't look any deeper.

That Senator Patreus has expended huge amounts of money to achieve this makes little business sense though. Over 10 billion credits in combat bonds and probably the same again in personal reward. The interest increase and remaining debt could not have been worth spending all of that, could they?

Apparently so, for it has happened.

Yet this must have been foreseen as one possible or even desirable outcome, for it would not be a good business decision to have started the campaign otherwise. The asset foreclosure is also a normal part of business, and huge tracts of land are sold with a tidy dowry of slaves to a Senator who has a penchant for slavery as a profitable business.

The memory of the slave girl intrudes again unbidden, raising a dam against the flood of my emotions and changing their course.  The adrenaline rage struggles weakly before acquiescing again, and the memory tries to nudge me towards something I can't quite see yet.

A pretty slave girl is easy on the eyes and quite the distraction. There are many uses and some are even documented in the contract, and invited as an easier way of life than many of the alternatives out there, but...

A moments silence hangs heavily in the air as other recent events play back through my mind, and for the second time I put the memory of the slave girl back into the past where it belongs. This time it is different though: a connection has been made. The raging emotions that had clouded my mind are gone; replaced by a cold and calculating view of the universe that demands facts and evidence to go any further.

What I've imagined would be treason in the Empire at the highest level.

I'm stunned. Could a Senator be so bold?

It would be quite the powerplay for a senator in waiting. A young senator who is going places and isn't known for patience or compassion.

Signposted by the enslaved of Kui Hsien, a new path opens up in front of me.

[Note: the link back to an earlier blog entry is, at this point in time, an unfinished background story. I'll get around to writing the rest of it one of these days...]