[BT][fanfic] ...and Please Sign In Blood
cra...@hotmail.com
Rain fell across the wasteland known as New Sydney. It must've
been a cold rain for it was winter, but even with his hand
pressed hard against the window the Captain-General could not
feel the cold outside. The thin, singled-paned window did not let
the chill through. It was a Star League era window, a Terran
Hegemony window. It did not let chills through. It did not let
chills through even after seeing New Sydney die in a nuclear
fireball in 2790. Such was 28th Century engineering.
Of course, the window and 100-floor tower it topped were also on
the outskirts of New Sydney while the warhead had been centered
on the heart of the city. The Captain-General suspected there was
a relation between the window's performance after 245 years and
its location. Still, it had only taken a few days for an
engineering platoon with a little weather sealing, some dusting,
and a power connection to an idling Orion at the foot of the
tower to make the building inhabitable again. Such was 28th
Century engineering, so superior to 31st Century efforts.
The window seamlessly wrapped around the perimeter of this top
floor, a distinctly stationary revolving restaurant. Some 28th
Century engineering had not lasted. The view probably wasn't the
as same former patrons had looked at, either. New Sydney was
a gray city now. Winter and nuclear fire had stolen its color.
The plants that had overgrown it were gray and dead with the
cold. The rain leached more color from it and the solid horizon-
to-horizon overcast sky stole the last.
The Captain-General knew why New Sydney was the site of these
diplomatic talks...this one meeting. It was abandoned. It was
near the border. No one would come here, no one would bother him
or his foreign counterpart. It was in the Free Worlds League, on
a well-populated planet with a decent garrison. He would feel
secure here. An obvious choice for obvious reasons.
Of course, Janos Marik knew the real reason. It was salesmanship.
The stumps of scorched skyscrapers that the stationary restaurant
forced him to view delivered a powerful message with respect to
these diplomatic talks. The message was heavy-handed, even
melodramatic: war is hell, etc., etc.
Janos could see the message. A freshman class president could
have spotted the message. But he couldn't get over it. New Sydney
had been nuked because a Capellan Confederation battlemech
regiment and infantry brigade had holed up in it, daring the Free
Worlds League invaders to take the planet they had rightfully
stolen first from the defunct Terran Hegemony. The Free Worlds
League commander had decided not to engage in costly urban combat
and used a 1-megaton nuke instead. It was a rational tactical
judgment call. Commander Whoever needed his troops to conquer the
rest of Connaught, not just the city of New Sydney. It was no
comfort unit commanders from four other nations had made similar
decisions for decades after New Sydney was destroyed. The
carpeting of the lower floors Janos had walked through was still
stained with the fluids the refugees of New Sydney had leaked
from their burns.
New Sydney, of the Free Worlds League planet Connaught, had been
nuked by Janos's own countrymen.
The message was the price of power, the price of pride. The
heartrending landscape got through his defenses and made his ass
ache. That pain was from another lesson that delivered the same
message. The stitches had only recently come out. Responding to a
call of nature that a 74-year old body damaged by stroke
inflicted on him, Janos had left an important meeting with his
sons Duggan and Thomas and nephew Duncan. Janos smiled wryly. By
virtue of making an offering to the porcelain god, he had escaped
the bomb his nephew had planted. A cruel god that shattered under
him when the bomb detonated and left him to be found in an
undignified mess by panicked guards. The smile left his bearded
face. Janos had seen his son Duggan's corpse pulled from the
rubble and been by Thomas's hospital bed when he died from bomb-
inflicted injuries.
Janos turned away from the window to stare at the window,
refusing to look at the only other person in the room. His
counterpart sat innocuously in a U-shaped booth that had once,
centuries before, been the domain of mere middle-classed asses,
the asses of tourists and commoners. And now the fate of
trillions were being determined in it. Instead, Janos looked at
the simple papers set neatly in the center of the table, the
simple papers that would steal his soul.
Item 1 was enticing alone. Aid against the Andurien rebels, aid
worth a mech regiment or more. In cash, in vehicles, in weapons
and spare parts, in new mechs...whatever suited the Free Worlds
League.
Item 2 was more in the same vein. Spoiler raids to be conducted
along the Capellan Confederation's border with the Federated
Commonwealth. This would draw away attention from the
Confederation-League border, allowing the Free Worlds League to
remove units to deal with the Anduriens. The raiding troops would
be from the League-Lyran border, freeing that many more League
troops to deal with the Anduriens.
Item 3 was economic aid to help the Free Worlds League recover
from the Andurien Crisis and the Succession Wars in general, plus
improved trade ties that would probably do more than low-interest
loans and grants.
Item 4 was a return to antebellum borders, a return of all worlds
lost (and a few gained) in the Fourth Succession War.
Item 5 was a formal recognition of all Free Worlds gains against
the Capellan Confederation since 2787. A minor thing now, but of
strong diplomatic value over the Capellans if the last items of
the treaty were met.
Item 6 required the Free Worlds League to withdraw from the
Concord of Kapteyn and declare at least formal neutrality in
upcoming hostilities.
Item 7 required Janos Marik and any contending Free Worlds
citizens renounce all claims to the title of First Lord of the
Star League.
Item 8 required Janos to recognize and vote for Hanse Davion as
First Lord of the Star League.
Item 9 guaranteed peace if the above conditions were met.
The last three items brought it all together. The last three
items would take the Free Worlds League out of the Succession
Wars and form a new Star League by acquiring enough votes to
confirm the next First Lord of the Star League. That was what the
Succession Wars were about, weren't they? Surviving to their end?
No! They were about finding a new First Lord of the Star League.
That was why the Free Worlds League had bled over for 250 years,
no matter what the Captain-Generals told the public and
Parliament.
Thing was, Janos Marik knew that wasn't him. Realistically, at
the most he could get the Capellan Confederation to recognize his
claim. The Draconis Combine would laugh at him, to say nothing of
the Federated Commonwealth. On the other hand, he knew he could
get the Parliament and public to swallow the treaty. Peace at
last, and not from the worst source or in the worst manner.
Janos finally looked at Satan's stand-in for this Faustian deal.
Somehow the red hair and looks that had survived aging well - was
the bastard already in his fifties? - were appropriate. There
wasn't a look of false sympathy on his face for Janos, or a
plastic smile. An expression of understanding for the agony of
indecision the Captain-General was presently enduring, perhaps, a
little more than the appropriate polite waiting.
Hanse Davion was a good salesman.
Hanse Davion didn't need this treaty signed. It was icing on the
cake: more secure borders away from the conflict, less fighting
after the Combine was finished, less bloodshed on both sides. It
did benefit both nations. But Hanse Davion didn't need the
treaty. With the Free Worlds League tied up with the Andurien
Crisis and the Confederation the military equivalent of a
quivering vegetable, Hanse Davion was free to smash the Draconis
Combine. The Skye Rebellion had slowed the inevitable invasion
date, but all of Kanrei Theodore Kurita's reforms and all of
Coordinator Takashi Kurita's old school soldiers weren't going to
stop the nigh-270 battlemech regiments of the Federated
Commonwealth. And then it would be the Free Worlds League's turn.
Janos could see that.
The Captain-General could see the Free Worlds League didn't need
the treaty signed, either. Defeat of the Andurien Secessionists
would happen in a year or two...for a higher cost in blood than
without foreign aid. The economy would recover from Andurien
Crisis without trillions in loans from Lyran and Federated Suns
banks...though more slowly. The Star League would be reformed
without Janos's signature on that document...but with the blood
of untold regiments of his soldiers, the blood of untold millions
of his citizens, and devastation across untold numbers of his
worlds.
Oddly, Janos was certain Hanse Davion would honor a peace treaty,
especially if he was First Lord of the Star League. That was what
the Succession Wars were about, and these papers would take the
Free Worlds out of them. No need to be invaded when you were a
little, subservient puppet, right? (Honestly, would signing a
peace treaty make the Free Worlds a puppet to the Federated
Commonwealth? They would both be part of the Star League and the
Free Worlds would have a powerful voice on the High Council.)
Peace for the Free Worlds League. A chance to recover from nearly
250 years of war. That was worth betraying two "allies" who had
done nothing for the Free Worlds, wasn't it? That was worth
turning his back on nearly two and a half centuries of blood
spilled by his countrymen, wasn't it?
Peace for trillions of your citizens was worth selling your soul.
Wasn't it?
Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Before you buy.
Camille Klein
>...And Please Sign In Blood
[snip]
Damn! I say again--damn!
That was short, but I like it. :)
--Camille.
If you hate your parents, the man or the establishment, don't show them
up by getting wasted and hitting your car into a tree. If you really hate
your parents, out earn them, out live them and know more.--Henry Rollins
Brad Carletti
You missed your calling, Mr Miller. :)
Brad "GuppyShark" Carletti
CO The Fox's Paws, MI6 Tech Raiders
currently undercover as "Guppy's Sharks" pirates
stealing the Combine's latest advances.
David Stevens, Arboris Farmer's Militia,
BLR-2C CattleMaster pilot.
..Sig shortened by Camille's demand.
cra...@hotmail.com
Thank you.
--
Mike Miller, Materials Engineer
"Eagles soar, but a weasel never
gets sucked into a jet engine."
cra...@hotmail.com
>
...and I'd like to thank Simon H. Lee and Solarmech
for proofreading and suggesting edits.
--
Mike Miller, Materials Engineer
"Eagles soar, but a weasel never
gets sucked into a jet engine."
Simon H. Lee
line of high-kicking electrons to spell out:
>In article <393f61f2...@news.adelaide.on.net>,
> Brad Carletti <guppy...@quakeclan.net> wrote:
>> >...And Please Sign In Blood
>>
>> You missed your calling, Mr Miller. :)
>
>for proofreading and suggesting edits.
You're welcome. But it was fairly nice as it was :)
-- - Simon -
ALL DONE! BYE BYE!
Kid Chameleon
etched into silicon:
<cra...@hotmail.com scrawled the following on the men's room wall:
<
<>...And Please Sign In Blood
<
<[snip]
<
<Damn! I say again--damn!
<
<That was short, but I like it. :)
<
Mmmm, must MST3Kificate....
"If this is all the gods can do, I'm over to the dark side so fast."
Tom Servo
R.G.M. Moderator 0 of 9, the FAQ Bitch
Ken'
cra...@hotmail.com
Kid Chameleon <nutcr...@erols.net> wrote:
> On Wed, 07 Jun 2000 21:32:04 GMT, Camille Klein <cam...@rpex.net>
> etched into silicon:
>
> <cra...@hotmail.com scrawled the following on the men's room wall:
> <
> <
> <
> <Damn! I say again--damn!
> <
> <That was short, but I like it. :)
> <
>
> Mmmm, must MST3Kificate....
No...please, no...it's too easy a target... :)
--
Mike Miller, Materials Engineer
"Eagles soar, but a weasel never
gets sucked into a jet engine."