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Alaska, North American Administrative District, Terra
Terran Hegemony
03 May, 2784

On the Tri-D a battered Union class dropper was boosting from its pad.  As the grey-white sphere lifted, it rotated revealing a crude feline eye painted in green.

The vapidly pretty blonde in the foreground waved back at the pillar of fire two miles behind her.

“And that’s it, with the launch of the Cat’s Eye; the 90th Heavy Assault Regiment leaves New York for the last time.  Rumors are rampant with extremists on both the left and the right calling for their arrest on charges of desertion.  The lack of comment from the Office of the Director-General has been puzzling at least.  Opinions here in New York mostly blame those same politicians, one man I spoke to here at JFK held the opinion that the O-DOG should make a note of those whose voices spoke out loudest against the Black Tigers actions during the fall and sick the Committee for DeAmarisification on them…

Cut to a tall dignified man in a business suit standing in the Virgin Spacelines lounge.  The caption read Colin Miller, J.P. Morgan Financial Services…

“No matter how you look at it Earth and the Hegemony stand alone now, the Tigers, God bless them are one thing even the House Lords fear.  As ill advised as the August Revolt was they at least tried to hold things together unlike the opportunists now vilifying them.  The fact that these poor souls are heroes is something not even the Warhawks and the Reunificationists can change…Just proves the old adage; some people will sell their grandmothers for a damn vote.”

The camera cuts back to the newsroom and the anchor nods thoughtfully.

Thank you Melinda definitely food for thought.  In related news Konrad Toyama; aide to Department of Communications head Jerome Blake answered allegations that he is tied to the Sword of Gaia, the militant arm of Earth First…

Henry Jones JR; heir to a dead dynasty, former general of the armies of the Amaris Empire and head mechanic at Derry and Sons, Alaska shook his head, kissing his wife Kailey on the top of her tousled blonde head.  She looked up at him worried.

“Have you heard from Bruce?”  She asked.  Kailey who’d by now guessed his secret and didn’t care knew the main reason the two men kept in touch.

“Yeah, he’s okay with it, sort of.  I mean look at what he’s moving  to.”  Henry glanced down at the woman who’d caught his heart and gave a lopsided grin.

“A big old castle on Chesterton, a Duchess for a wife…not bad for an army brat from Queens.”  She nodded into his chest.  He knew she and Sarah Davion texted each other sometimes after the night the couples spent together just after the Star League Officer’s wedding.
Henry’s brothers in law Kevin and Martin burst in then.  Grins on their faces said it all.  The pair were drunk.

“Well, we did it!”  Kevin said staggering.

“Yes we did!”  Martin laughed as their father Solomon came out of the kitchen to see what the ruckus was.

Arching an eyebrow Kailey fixed the pair with a stern glare.

“And what precisely did you two braniacs do?”  She asked coolly as Solomon leaned against the door jamb.

The brothers’ smiles faltered a bit but Martin plowed ahead.

“We joined up, sis we’re in the Army now.”

As chaos broke out in the Derry household, Solomon gave Henry a look.  Knowing the question, Henry nodded.  In the morning he’d look up some contacts Sonny had set up.  Sourly he sat back thinking; Great, just what I need, to be back in the military, Dad must be laughing in his grave.


Deirdre Green sat on Chesterton’s Ducal Seat, literally.  In the chair.  It was for anyone who knew how the Davion nobility worked; Just Not Done.  She didn’t care.  In a month’s time she would have every right to this august chair.  The legal issues surrounding a noble’s abandonment of his or her duties were clear under the laws of the Federated Suns’ Peerage.

John Davion, First Prince and Deirdre’s liege lord had been blocking her attempts to bring the region under her control.  With the fall of the Star League however, the Davion Lord had too many things on his plate.

She smiled sensually stretching out on the throne’s plush cushions.

Thirty days, little Sarah, Chesterton will belong to the Greens and you my poor soiled little girl can run back to New Avalon and live off of your Uncle’s sufferance.

Turning her mind back to business she signed a document for the seizure of the McRae ranch north of here.  Using the pretext of collusion with the Chesterton Liberation Front she would have the lucrative Cattle ranch under the control of one of her supporters in due time.

That the CLF was active if ineffectual was just icing on the cake.  In the end Deirdre would use the revolutionaries, mostly pathetic upper class college students looking for a cause to make their hollow lives more meaningful, to solidify her hold on the region.

It was in short a beautiful irony.


IDS Cat’s Eye, two weeks out from Chesterton, two weeks later…

“…our cover’s holding so far.” David Martin said as I went over our mission brief with him in the Cat’s Eye’s ward room.  The officers of my ad hoc battalion waited expectantly.  â€˜Rat, Gracie, Erica and Nerva led the ‘Mechs, Didi, Tranh and Josh Harding the infantry.

“Joshua Davion and Mr. Lee gave us the good deal with the IFF codes and registry documents to get us past Chesterton Port Control.”  I said referring to John Davion’s brother and the elderly Capellan trader who handed off the codes and forms that now said the Cat’s Eye was really the Davion registered Free Trader Beowulf.  Likewise her sister ships had similar covers.

I looked over my assembled team.  Good people, the best you could ask for.  Just hope nobody would die.  I met Scott ‘MechRat Mackenzie’s eyes and he gave a wan smile.  Liz’s decision to stay with that quisling Kerensky hadn’t gone over well.  He’d keep his mind on the job tho’, he always did.

“Alrighty then…everybody here knows the op, but we’ve got some new information.”  Again thanks to Mr. Lee.  â€œThe lovely Lady Green has hired a mixed bag of mercs to secure her position on Chesterton.  â€˜Bout a battalion of troops, mostly infantry, but enough ‘Mechs to cause a real problem…”

“But Uncle John wants us to keep the bloodshed to a minimum.”  Dido Moran grinned from her seat.  Inwardly I groaned at Didi’s use of the Prince John’s nickname among the Tigers.  Sarah assured me that the First Prince had had a good laugh when she’d told him about it.
“Pretty much,” I answered her, “Mr. Lee’s people have given us detailed intel on the OpFor’s disposition and I think we can put them down quick, Didi?”  I gestured to the former SAS trooper.

As Didi began to detail her plan, I saw the others begin to grin.