Chapter 9:
New Kyoto, 1 January 3005, Black Cat PMC Main Base.
The Colonel, Samantha "Titania" Wylde
I watch out of the polarised windows as the Old Tomcat sets down on the pad we had for it. By now, the base had expanded to be able to accommodate the Brigade strength, PMC happily. Though we were honestly pushing closer to a division with our ground elements and support personnel.
We had expanded the base out four times in the four years we had been here, and it would seem like I might have to expand out again shortly. I also had the chance to get my hands on another Colossus-class dropship, potentially. Though it might cause more tensions. I will have to see if it is viable. The other option is to head for the Copurnicus border and have my Marines go raiding and commandeer a few jumpships and dropships. It is always easier to steal from pirates than to try and steal from the Great Houses.
My thoughts are interrupted as I watch the vehicle hatch on one of the Old Tomcats' bays open and disgorge one of the Heavy APCs that we use for the movement of personnel. Watching as the vehicle made its way over the steaming tarmac and up to the little terminal building that we had attached to our ATC, I thought about the coming meeting. Now I get to look the Mother of the FedCom in the eyes. I get to take a proper measure of the woman who swayed the future of the IS so much with only sheer grit and determination, even while fighting grief, depression, cancer and having to juggle raising her daughter and managing a massive empire.
It seems like it was finally time to take a look and see if she was everything she was written as in every story I ever read, or if she was someone who would fade from my considerations as anything other than a roadblock to my eventual peaceful life. I hope that I did not waste my time saving her only to have that screw the future.
I sent a message to have them brought straight to the HQ and left the terminal, taking my personal car, the Herra Outlaw from the Gacha. I had received numerous questions about where I found it, and had answered all of them that it was a custom build that I had commissioned with the caveat that there would never be another like it in any way, shape or form. Which was technically true until I personally made more or drew up blueprints.
The only modification made to it since then had been to swap out the standard engine for a Fuel Cell engine and to up-armour it further to withstand a single medium laser hit. I had spent more time tinkering with my Mongoose and the systems for military vehicles, so I had not gotten around to doing more work on it.
I arrived well ahead of my coming guests and started pouring myself a drink while I waited. It was not long, as five minutes later, there was a knock and my secretary let in Morgan, followed by my SOG Captain and then two other individuals. I was seated at the spread of couches and stood as they entered, heading to the small bar cabinet that stored my drinks in the office lounge.
"Captain, post up outside and have your team take up security positions, have the patrol teams double up into counter-intel groups and sweep everything within five clicks. I do not want anyone to know we have guests or who they might be." I order as I start extracting glasses from the cabinet. He snaps off an immediate salute before stepping outside, already vocalising orders to his team and the other teams on base as a brief tone plays across our comm systems, indicating an elevated state of alert and to start running counter-intel operations.
"Morgan, scotch from Donegal? I assume that the same will be fine with the two of you as well?" I state, looking at Arthur and Katrina. Katrina was four years older than me and was drop-dead gorgeous; everything about her hinted at everything ever said on the online forums of my old life. She would, if I had any say, remain the galactic number one MILF for a very long time.
Arthur, on the other hand, was the epitome of the handsome gentleman, and if I did not look like a child and was not related to Katrina in some way, I would almost definitely be trying to share their bed. Sadly, I had to face reality, and that was that I would almost certainly be without a significant other for the foreseeable future.
"Scotch is fine for me, what about you, Kat?" Arthur responds, before asking his fiancée what she would like to drink. Morgan had already made himself comfortable, and Arthur had pulled Katrina down onto the opposite couch.
"What else do you have? It has been a while since we could get something decent." She asks, clearly not expecting much but hoping that I would have a better selection than whatever transport they had been on for the last who knows how long.
"Whiskey, Bourbon, Cognac, Wine, Vodka, Mead, Port, Sherry, a dozen more Liquers and enough mixers to make most bartenders jealous," I respond, as I pour out two more scotches and then top my stein with more mead. Yup, I still drank my liquor strength mead, 35% proof, by the pint stein.
"You wouldn't happen to have any Tharkad Ice Wine, would you?" She asks, leaning forward a little. Apparently, the potential for a taste of home is a little more enticing than I had thought. That or she was desperately trying to figure out just how much I knew about them.
I pulled out a glass for her wine, a small silver goblet with a wooden stem, and withdrew a bottle from the freezer of the wine section. "I have around two glasses left of the bottle the Daimiyo gifted me when we were negotiating for the sale of a Titan-class dropship and its accompanying ASF contingent. It was a good vintage, I hear, straight from his cellar." I say as I pour a precise measure into the goblet.
I bring the drinks over and pass them out before settling into the armchair that sits at the apex of my lounge's circle of furniture. Leaning back in the chair and taking a drink. Just letting things proceed at the pace that Katrina and her group set.
It does not take long for the silence to be broken, the culprit being the obvious one in Morgan Kell. "Colonel, the Captain says that I should be through the CPS training by the end of next week. He asks that you administer the tests yourself to ensure I do not, and I quote, 'Fuck up by the numbers'." He says, looking over to me and drawing the attention of his cousin and Katrina.
I sigh as I set down my stein and rub my brows, "I will set aside six hours on Friday of next week, Lieutenant, ensure that you are ready by then. Did you also pass on the message I asked of you, or was that forgotten in the joy of meeting with family and friends again?" I ask, already assuming the answer. An assumption proved correct as Morgan gets a grimace followed by a shy and abashed smile.
"Ah, I may have forgotten to pass the message along, Colonel." He replies, embarrassed at having failed such a simple directive, but also aware that I don't really give orders to him.
"Of course. I guess we can do that now, then." I sigh, leaning back in my chair and switching the focus of my attention from Morgan over to Katrina and Arthur. "Whichever of the two of you decided that coming here was a good idea is a moron," I state without preamble and a bluntness that actually causes Morgan to choke on the sip he was taking.
The offended looks and raised eyebrows from the two who were now the focus of my attention were expected, as was the building outburst that was looking to come from Katrina. I held my hand up to forestall it and ploughed right over her before she could get started. "You were categorically informed that stopping off here would potentially result in a raid in force by the FWL or other parties that wanted you dead. And decided to come here anyway, despite the advice not to." My look was withering, and even with my curses, the weight of my disappointment was enough to cause both of them to straighten their spines as if back at the academy under an instructor.
"I can appreciate curiosity, I can appreciate wanting to find out if there are costs associated with the rescue, hell, I can even appreciate wanting to find out where my teams acquired their gear," I say, looking at them while slowly leaning forward, my aura of menace causing all three individuals in the room to tense slightly. "What I cannot understand is doing exactly the thing you were told increases the risk to not only yourselves, but an entire planet for something that could quite happily have waited another year or two to find out, so what in the devil's hairy rotten nutsack were you thinking?" My voice is stoic, cold, and calm to a degree that is scary to me, which just has the others even more on edge. Morgan and Arthur both have their hands near weapons, while Katrina is fighting between indignation at being addressed this way and the embarrassment that comes from your drill instructor dressing you down in basic for failing to follow simple instructions as they gave them.
I let the silence hang in the air for a moment before I leaned back in my chair with a sigh, taking a long draw from my stein. "All that said, you are now here, and I can guarantee that both SAFE and ROM have figured that out, meaning that there will almost definitely be an attack. I just hope it is by the Cappellans and not the FWL because then I can't blame it on you lot."
The three of them relax slightly, and Morgan takes a nervous sip of his drink, making sure that I am not about to make him start choking on good whiskey again. Arthur has laid a hand on Katrina's, and she is sitting there with emotional whiplash at the way I am talking to them.
"You have questions, I gave what answers I could to Morgan, and he can give you a debrief over the next few days. Don't expect to lose the team that has been shadowing you; expect them to do so even more. This base is watched by members of every intelligence agency of the powers that be, which means your presence will get out eventually. I hope that you make this a significantly short stop before heading on to Tharkad and replacing Alessandro. Concentrated Weakness is going to rapidly fail if you do not clean out the Social Generals, and I would rather not have to face the raids and invasions that will result from that." I say, placing my now-empty stein on the coffee table and looking between Arthur and Katrina.
"What do you mean it will fail?" Katrina asks, clearly happy to move on to something she is comfortable with. Military strategy and tactics.
"The idea behind it was imbecilic from the get-go. Lyran military doctrine is entirely unsuited to working QRFs across multiple fronts. Especially as you do not have anywhere near enough mercenary forces to cover those fronts while concentrating offensive capabilities." I respond, standing and pulling a noteputer from my desk and plugging it into a hidden port on the coffee table, causing it to light up and display a holographic map of the Lyran border.
Katrina, Arthur and Morgan all leaned forward, looking over the displayed map and wondering where I got the tech for such clear fidelity.
"If you ever wish to make any form of offensive movements, then you need to be fortifying one border solidly enough that they could withstand twice their number for six to eight months," I say, highlighting the FWL/Cappie border of the Commonwealth. Multiple unit numbers came up along with everything within two jumps of the border. Then the numbers doubled, with several different colours on each planet, with nexus points within jump range of multiple systems tripling or quintupling.
"From there, you concentrate units that are going to be most effective for a blitz, meaning a mix of heavy and medium or lights with ample ASF and artillery support, built up into three prongs hitting the Combine border along three paths, with a minimum of four jumps between those paths, if not more preferably six to eight." I show the buildup in the three locations along the border of the Combine, looking similar to the buildup along the more rimward border but with slightly higher concentration points.
"This is followed by a blitz exactly three jumps deep to significant worlds, before fortifying and working out a single jump deeper and then back-filling to the border, meeting with the originally holding units who move forward to clean up behind the invasion corridors, keeping the logistics free to move men and metal as needed." I show the two sides moving to meet each other, before consolidating around the three chosen worlds and basically filling in like a lattice between the corridors of the invasion as appropriate units flow in from the border guards as the border moves further into the combine.
"That's a rough outline for the most effective way for the Commonwealth to fight; anything else is too reliant on things going perfectly, and generals that have competence instead of social connections. The way 'Concentrated Weakness' works has you playing QRF to put out fires while the forces you drew away go and fight somewhere else entirely. It does not work; all it does is leave the door open for someone to come in behind you if they have enough dispersed force." I finish as I have the map now, change to mimic how concentrated weakness behaves, and the easiest way to beat it. This shows rapid losses along both borders unless they get reinforcements from the attacking forces, causing the invasions and assaults to stall out and eventually reverse.
"That is an interesting observation of the strategy deployed. How did you come by your numbers?" Katrina asks looking over the now pulled-up side-by-side comparisons of the plans. I could see her comparing things to what she remembered before going off to explore for a year.
"Average estimates based on projected sizes and available metadata. You would be surprised what can be put together by aggregating the general consumption data that is freely available to anyone looking at market movements." I respond as I sit back down, letting the scenarios move on to play out in variations that the AI thought were appropriate to win.
This was actually a simulation based on a hyper-advanced game AI for a strategy game that I had uploaded all the different data into. Funny how games could be used to do things like this without people being aware.
"And you could use that data to get these numbers? They are worryingly accurate for locations that should be hard to acquire data for. These DCMS numbers also cannot be right. They are lower than anything we had on record, last I checked. Similar things could be said about the FWL numbers; they are higher than I remember and definitely show increased readiness compared to what I would expect," she continues after my comment, taking in the different ways the scenarios could play out and watching as they develop.
"The Warlords of the DCMS are happy to blow smoke up the Coordinators' ass to keep their heads, so most reports are going to be fudged numbers. ISF generally misses it as well, as their focus is mostly on ensuring the loyalty of the people above, making sure the Military matches the numbers they are given." I say as I bring up the DCMS numbers and show the different discrepancies that are aggregated out to give rough estimates for numbers and potential force distribution.
"The FWL, however, is easier to figure out, simply by watching market trends and finding out which commands are where by checking the mercenary boards. Funnily enough, you can quite accurately track who is where by doing that, as well as having individuals at the large mercenary halls to track your techs and other support personnel." I continue bringing up detailed breakdowns of mercenary movements, market data, and command contracts and who acquired them.
"This sort of data should be available to anyone in the planning staff, and thus anyone at high enough clearance, especially as it is publicly available, if a bit tedious to summarise as efficiently as the scenarios you are seeing," I say as the maps reset and new actions play out, showing a different line of offence for each side and the resulting movements from the enemies.
"How are you simulating the results of each engagement, and the overall commands that lead to the approaches taken?" Arthur asks as the three of them watch the next set of scenarios play out. All of them have forgotten their drinks and are now focused entirely on the holographic display showing different potential invasion and defensive plans.
"General battle reports for engagements are available to anyone working with the LCAF, so I just pulled them all. Then fed them through a data gathering software that scrubbed for the given actions, and ignored the embellishments. Cross-referencing data between different reports from all levels. The results are 80% accuracy in pictures of all engagements and the actions taken by all actors." I reply with a shrug, "This gives me a general model for the actions of the individuals in charge, as well as showing me where field promotions would allow for better control of the field and more decisive actions by bypassing incompetent leaders."
The discussion of tactics and strategy continues for another two hours before I have them ushered out to their accommodations on base. It is only as they are leaving that Katrina and Arthur both realise that I had managed to distract them both enough to forget their burning questions and the reason they had come here in the first place. Katrinas glance over her shoulder told me this was not over, but I was sure that I could keep them occupied for long enough to get them off planet before anything went wrong.
New Kyoto, 10 January 3005, Black Cat PMC Main Base.
Katrina Steiner
Today was the day I cornered the Colonel and got some straight answers from her. Arthur and I had been on this base for just over a week, and in that time, the Colonel had managed to keep us occupied such that we never managed to get a straight answer. Never managed to get her alone long enough to ask our questions before she managed to distract us. No more, today I would get my answers, and I would not leave the Colonel alone until I did.
Which is part of the reason why I was now waiting outside her office, like some solicitor come calling on someone who is dodging calls. It was a novel feeling being the one waiting; the only people who had ever really had reason to do that to me were my father and my instructors at the Nagelring. Eventually, the soldier sitting at the receptionist's desk, and he was definitely a soldier and not a mercenary, the Colonel had apparently made it clear to her people that this was a private military, not a merc outfit, buzzed the door open and let me in.
As I entered, I was once again thrown off by the image that the Colonel painted. Seated behind the large desk with several paper reports and stacks of secure-commpads, she looked like someone's daughter playing at being in charge. This was then juxtaposed by the stoic, almost deadpan demeanour that seemed to be her default, not a resting bitch face, but more of a lack of emotional display, like she maintained a permanent poker face that was as blank as a fresh sheet of paper.
Her strikingly distinct features did not make it any less of a Juxtaposition in the image. She was small, but all of her proportions were perfectly in line, right up until it got to her more feminine assets, which immediately clued one in on the fact that she was not a child. And then there were her eyes, those striking, electric eyes that were a deep amethyst purple, matched with hair white as new paper or snow. Everything about the Colonel painted a picture in contrasts and set people on edge, unsure how to deal with her.
Straightening myself while standing, I regally glided towards the couches and armchairs set in a circle around a coffee table. The Colonel, for her part, finished the document she was working on before standing and immediately heading to the cabinet that held the drinks for her office.
"Warm drinks or something strong today, Cousin?" The Colonel asked, taking her by surprise. That was the first time she had been addressed like that by the younger woman.
"Cousin?" I asked, raising an eyebrow and a slight frown on my face as I noticed the Colonel looking over to me.
"In time, hot drink or strong drink? Or maybe a hot and strong drink for this conversation, seeing as I know that you are now going to hound me until I give you answers and not leave until you get them." She says, letting out a sigh and starting a kettle going for hot water while pulling a French press out and scooping coffee grounds into it.
"Just a coffee for me, please, a bit early to be drinking, regardless of the topics, I think," I replied, noticing the Colonel pulling out two coffee mugs, though they were each distinct and different in size.
The Colonel merely nodded along, placing both coffee cups on a tray with the French Press, which she had filled with hot water from the kettle. Next onto the tray were two separate cream pitchers and a sugar cube bowl, though one pitcher had a cover where the other didn't. The Colonel placed the tray on the coffee table, pouring out a cup of coffee for her and then another for me.
"Well then, let's get as much of this done as I feel comfortable with and then I can hopefully get you and the others out of the system before we get hit." She says, using the covered cream pitcher to pour a caramel coloured cream into her coffee.
"You still believe that? That my presence is going to lead to a raid or attack of some kind?" I ask, looking at the Colonel as she sits back and slowly sips her apparently alcoholic coffee, if the smell of that particular pitcher is anything to go by.
"I put around 70-80% odds on an attack arriving by the end of the month," she replies, setting her cup down before looking me in the eyes. "That number goes up the longer you are here until we hit March, at which stage every week takes 10% off until we go into '07 at which stage, unless the idiocy of 'Concentrated Weakness' is dealt with, we move back to an almost guaranteed invasion. So yes, I still believe that." She replies, in that same flat, calm, unshakable tone as always.
"Well, putting that aside, why greet me as Cousin now, why only when it was me here alone?" I ask, trying to gauge her response, trying to figure out why she believes she can claim such a relation.
"Easier than calling someone older than me grandniece. Or is it Great-grandniece, honestly, that one is weird, and the removes make it difficult to really work out relations, so Cousin is easiest," she replies, still bland and without any emotional inflexion, even though she is essentially claiming to be a more senior relation of the Steiner family, and an undocumented one at that.
"That is impossible, we have the complete tree, I would know if I had an Aunt that much higher up the family seniority, you basically are claiming to be an aunt to my mother's parents. That is impossible if you are only 24." I reply, trying to figure out where she fits, how she could be a Steiner, and what the ploy is with the comment and the way she is addressing this.
"Anti-ageing treatment means that folks can live a long time, and have kids relatively late, that age goes up when you include artificial womb tech, and genetic tweaking. Needless to say, I don't claim the Steiner name because the kids of Bastards will always be Bastards themselves, even if that Bastard got to use the Steiner name." She replies, taking up her cup and taking another sip. Her words caused my mind to freeze and stutter. Who among the Steiner lines were bastards, and how did her family possibly have access to the technology that she was claiming they had?
"Which Steiner gives you claim to the family then?" I ask, still trying to work out how the relation could be possible. Sure, the Family was large enough for there to have been a few indiscretions, but most, if not all, had been adopted in at their majority or married into branch houses.
"Kailne Steiner, illegitimate son of Paul Steiner." She responds as if talking about the weather. The name, however, rattles around in my mind until old lessons finally click into place.
"Impossible, Kailne Steiner went with General Kerensky and left the Inner Sphere," I whisper, looking at her with more scepticism than before.
"Yup, and being the bastard son that he was, he went on to sire his own bastards, against the wishes of the society that was founded. Who eventually made it back here, along with a few remaining bits of tech that my family maintained for 'Traditional' reasons. Needless to say, there is a story there, and I have no intention to share it. You can do a genetic comparison if you want, but it will definitely show familial relations if removed by several generations." She responds, throwing any argument out the window. If she is sure enough to offer genetic samples for matching, then she must be very sure of the results.
"If you don't claim the name, then why greet me like that this time, when I am alone and no one else will hear it?" I am curious now as to why she would do such a thing. Never in the entire time I have been here, or in the reports that Morgan gave, has the Colonel ever tried to play politics; in fact, she seems to hate politics.
"Because it may very well become relevant in the coming years, especially when I start making waves that require you to start thinking about rewards on the scale of Duchies and Marches. People will ask questions, and eventually someone will get a sample and run a test, before accusing you of some form of familial favouritism. Better to head that off ahead of time than to have you stumble into it blind." She replies, clearly understanding politics and how they play out far more than her reticence to engage in them would indicate.
"You think that you could actually give enough to the realm to be given a Ducal title, or the title of Margrave?" I ask, my eyebrows climbing as I think about what one would need to do to receive those sorts of titles. Conquering enough planets to constitute a March might do it, but even then, it would only give you a Ducal title and seat. To become a Margrave would require something that shows that you should be as near to independent as someone serving the Commonwealth can be, while still being under the Archon.
"I could do that now if I wanted, but it is a pointless exercise as I would get little of actual value from it, easier to build myself up till it is already a de facto fact than to have it be a mere empty appointment for the sake of someone looking good. I mean, what do you think quintupling the output of Jumpships and hextupling the dropship output would be worth? How about being able to put Warships back into production, with the only bottleneck being getting the raw materials on site? Retooling all of the automation at every Factory across Commonwealth space so that they produce parts and vehicles at twenty times their current rate?" She asks, listing things that would each individually get her a Ducal seat. Together, they would essentially allow her to take over as the leading economic power of the Commonwealth, even eclipsing the Steiners in wealth and economic power.
"And you think you could do these things? And on a timescale that is actually feasible before you are old and grey?" I ask, hiding my shaking behind a sip of coffee. This could be massive, the amount of metal that we could start fielding, even if she only delivers a fifth of what she is saying.
"I mean, sure, and those are the things that I need time for, one-offs, I could probably give you another half your active regiments in metal, as well as spares to refit all of your current metal back to SLDF standards, with maybe three or four full Royal regiments worth of refits." She says, as if a lostech find of that size would not immediately catapult her into having multiple regiments of metal herself. "That also comes with a Prometheus-grade core, though not exactly; it is the closest thing you will find outside of Comstar's hidden archives." That finishing statement has me choking on my coffee.
"A Prometheus core? Even most of one? You know where to find one?" I ask, staring at her like she had grown a third head, not just two but three, and was speaking the language of aliens from beyond known space.
"I mean, sort of, General locations, for enough information to rapidly move back towards having Star League era knowledge. Though if you want to keep it, you will need to disseminate it as widely as you can, and still keep it secure." She says, shrugging as she takes the final sip of her current cup, before pouring herself another.
"More than one location?" I ask with a strangled voice. That level of knowledge, the amount of good it could do, the advantage it could offer us. My mind is already spinning out all the different ways this could benefit the Commonwealth.
"Yup, not going to be releasing them or going after them until such times as Alessandro is gone, you have stepped up, and I am securely in charge of my future and no longer have conditions attached to my inheritance hanging over me. In another two years and we can look at moving on to all of the things." She replies with actual nonchalance coming through her voice. Two years! She wants to wait and thinks no one else will find these things first!
"Why wait? The finds you are talking about could make your inheritance completely pointless; there would be no need to hold onto it!" I say, heat coming into my voice as I think about the wasted time.
"Nope, the company would get the gear, meaning that if I lost the company, I would lose anything that I had found as well. Part of the stupid will, to prevent me from just using up the metal I started with to get other metal and slip the will's clauses." She replies, making me go wide-eyed. Her father was apparently very insistent on the will being carried out or the recipients not getting anything.
"Besides, no one is going to find these without some serious prompting or someone getting astronomically lucky. So I am not worried about anyone finding them for at least two decades." She continues, the surety of the timing leaving me sceptical, but also not really able to argue. She had laid out her timeline, and I would just have to accept that. Shaking my head, I realise that she is doing it again and getting us sidetracked and dodging why I am here.
"Why did you help us? And how did you know to have people there?" I ask, staring at her, hoping to glean something that would indicate that I had managed to catch her in some kind of lie or half-truth.
"Why help? I have already listed my reasons, Morgan has them, but the gist is that you are the only one worth letting take the Archon's throne, and it needs to happen relatively soon. As to how? Simple, I had them shadow you as you made your way to the border with a pirate nation, without accompanying guard elements." She emphasises pirate nation, causing me to wince slightly. I was aware that the Circinus Federation was a haven for pirates, but I figured that my usual LIC detachment would keep me safe enough. More the fool me, I guess.
"As to why you thought that was a bright idea, I am going to chalk that one up to similar reasons as you coming here when specifically told not to." She continues, causing me to wince internally. She really was not going to let that fact go. All her simulations and predictions showed she was likely right, but I just could not believe that we would be attacked any time soon.
"Alright, I get it, you can stop harping on about the fact that I ignored sound advice to sate my cur. . ." My voice is cut off as alarms start blaring throughout the base, the Colonel's comms crackling to life.
"Ma'am, emergence waves detected at the L1 Pirate Point, estimated mass, one to one point five megatons. Invasion fleet incoming." The comm unit goes quiet as the soldier on the other end waits for orders. The Colonel simply stands, gives me a look and then turns and strides over to her desk.
Keying something on the desk, she starts speaking, "All units, set condition One and get ready. Unit commanders report for briefing on strategy and tactics,' Her voice is that same implacable calm as she continues, "This is it folks, this is what we get paid for, this is what we train for, and this is the fight I expect us all to win with the same style, panache and sheer terrifying skill we have demonstrated in every exercise. Let's get it done, folks, and make short work of the fools who thought coming to us would be a good idea. Colonel Wylde out."
As her announcement dies, there is a beat of pause, before drowning out even the base alarms, there is a simultaneous exclamation from all the troops on base. "Yes, Ma'am!" a single voice made of all the men and women that serve beneath her, loud enough to be heard, loud enough to show their belief and faith that she will see them through.
I stand from the couch and snap to attention with the shout, something inside dragging me into a salute as the voice of her company washes through the base. She looks up from her desk, and the now active holographic terminal, something that I would have been more curious about at another time, and addresses me.
"Now, honestly, I want to have my team wrap you and the other two in bubble wrap and sit on you in the emergency bunkers, but I do not control you, and I honestly cannot give you orders. The best I can do is offer you space around the warroom to observe, or safe transport and a guard at the Daimyo's place." She says, looking me in the eye and for once, the weight of her presence is there to bolster the seriousness of her words.
"But I will not be responsible for putting you in a mech with my folks. The training is far too different, and honestly, neither you nor Arthur has rated highly enough in sims to slot in with my people. So your choices are honestly observer here on base, or take your chances with whatever the Daymiyo can do for you." She finishes, causing me to wince in embarrassment. Arthur and I had spent four days in the sims with Morgan, just trying to keep up. We barely managed to match her third stringers, pilots that the MRB would rate as regulars, and she rated as green.
There was no chance that we would match her first stringers; they would effortlessly rate Elite if not for the lack of live action, which they were apparently about to get. I go to reply just as her comm crackles to life again, "Colonel, satellite data for the emerging fleet has arrived, one Leviathan-class, and four Invader-class Jumpships. Only three-quarter collars, registering one Overlord, six Unions, two Triumphs, two Gazelles, three Leopards and one Mule. All dropships are believed to have kicked free and are making a best possible time burn for planetary landing." The voice crackles away, and I watch as the Colonel's face slowly breaks into a smile.
"It would seem that Christmas was a little delayed this year, but I will accept the gift I have just been given." She says, and for the first time, I am now fully aware, that her stoic face actually is better for her, as the smile on her face is downright diabolical, evil and manic, as if a berserker was just told that the enemy has decided to fight them all at once in their own blood frenzy.
She waves me back into my chair and pours some more drinks, offering me a toast to well-timed gifts and the folly of fools that do not realise that times change.