We were bound to our chairs in a conference room covered in murals of Com Star adepts working with what I assumed to be portions of the Hyper Pulse Generator or parts of its power, cooling, and shielding equipment. It was done in a religious motif, like you would expect to see a saint healing, not a tech punching buttons, a knight being enobled, not a coolant hose being attached to the biggest land bound power capacitor I had ever seen. Com Star is both the most technically advanced group within the Inner Sphere, with greater knowledge of the lost technology of the Star League, and the most reactionary zealots who make horse riding barbarian shaman look worldly. Com Star is weird, but without them, not a single Successor State could rule more that what stood within at most two jumps of his capital.
“You think we don’t know you, and your deeds? The same 9th Illician Rangers who turned pirate on Askhum? We are Com Star, and we know all. I am Demi Precentor Hanrahan, you will confess and here my judgement.” Demi Precentor Hanrahan said with a degree of pompusness that would have made me laugh, if I didn’t think we would be handed over to Davion for execution when he stopped giving speeches. I looked over to Tina who shrugged at me, clearly letting me know it was time to do my commanding officer thing and pick a direction to go. Fine. I suck at subterfuge anyway. The truth will set you free, or at least humiliate my enemies.
“You are incorrect about everything, Demi Precentor. While Com Star has been blinded, fooled, and used as a pathetic pawn by Hanse Davion who neither needs, nor respects your blessed order, we are simply victims of Hanse Davion’s war of conquest, survivors of his massacres, denied even the solace of return to our nation as they too have cast us aside for the crime of falling to Davion. We have come to establish ourselves as honest mercenaries, seeking honourable employment in the Taurian Concordat, with the goal of stopping further Davion aggression.” I said piously. Waiting for the Demi Precentor to do what Com Star always does, wave their all knowing Com Star secret knowledge in our faces. This once, they were the ones who know the least.
“You are Davion mercenaries who have gone renegade, your lies are transparent.” The Demi Precentor began.
I cut him off, reciting my name, rank, serial number and POW authenticator code.
Tina, bless her little spy heart, recited hers in a voice just as bold.
The Com Star Demi Precentor did what he had to do. Their devotion to the Word of Blake may be creepy, and at higher levels they were more politician than the actual politicians, but the lower level functionaries took their duties with religious fervor. One of those duties under the Aries convention was the identification of prisoners of war for exchange or post war release. To this end, every Successor State and bonded mercenary company registered thier official soldiers with Com Star, and each was force to memorize a specific code along with their service number to authenticate them to Com Star as the actual soldier, not an enemy infiltrator. Oddly, if our last customers on Ashkum had used half a brain he could have forced us to authenticate with the local Com Star station, but that would have parted the veil of secrecy over his little invasion, and allowed us to do what we did.
I took almost a minute for his data slate to confirm with their central data banks that we were indeed Capellan Confederation Armed Forces, 1st Ariana Fusiliers, mechwarriors. It took another few seconds for the related communications from Sian to add “convicted cowards and traitors”. Watching the expression play across the Demi Precentors face would have been funny if not for the fact our very lives were in his hands.
“So that makes you deserters who turned pirate, and you still have no right to the codes that you used to send the priority HPG. You are no longer Capellan mechwarriors, nor Maskirovka spies.” The Demi Precentor said firmly, working himself back around to handing us over for execution.
Tina sniffed. “There is no such thing as a Maskirovka spy. To suggest that using that communication code would make me a spy is to admit that Com Star is decrypting and collating all the messages it sends, in direct contravention of its agreement with House Liao, as sworn upon the Blessed Word of Blake by your blessed order’s First Circuit and Primus.”
That was a pretty ballsy way of saying you can’t call me a spy without going on the record of spying on us. I hate this political bullshit. I needed to get him on point.
“We escaped from Algol, where the 3rd RCT, the 71st Eridani Light Horse RCT, and the 9th Illician Rangers dropped on two battalions of the 1st Ariana Fusiliers and the Algol Home Guard armour and infantry regiments. You probably haven’t heard, because the Federated Suns bombed the power complex that serves your Com Star compound, and dropped a combined arms company to make sure no one is allowed to enter or leave the compound, no Acolyte will be allowed to fix the power complex require to feed the HPG and connect them to the Com Star network.”
The Demi Precentor snarled. “That is impossible. I know where those units are right now. You think any of you half literate barbarians in your death machines are the pinnacle of Star League technology. Com Star is the only thing holding civilization together. You cannot tie your shoes without us, let alone link your pathetic ramshackle states together. You cannot move without us knowing, there is no secret attack we did not know about before you even disconnected your first drop ship.”
I grinned. “Reach into my left hand pocket. There is a flash drive with the battle ROM of my company on Algol. You can see and hear the mecha and officers, verify it for yourself. If you can confirm those regiments are sitting in their garrison worlds right now, yet I have gun camera pictures of them fighting on Algol, then it is isn’t just our Com Star station on the target worlds that Hanse Davion has cut off; he has silenced the Com Star stations on the garrison worlds so thoroughly that not only did your blessed order not report the regiments leaving, your own Com Star reports are Davion lies. Do you think your Acolytes and Precentors sent them willingly, or with Davion guns to their heads. We respect and revere Com Star as the guardian of the Star League’s legacy, and we came humbly to both send messages through your HPG, which House Liao has never once tried to sieze or isolate, and to register ourselves under your Blessed Order’s regulations as a mercenary company, The Vindicated.”
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The Demi Precentor wanted to call bullshit, wanted to take the easy way out and hand me over. Yet I gave him proof his Blessed Order had been subverted. The Blakists took their bullshit seriously. They claimed to be pacifists, but honestly while they might tisk tisk about my orbital bombardment of a factory with Urbanmechs as penetrators, but the idea that a Successor State migtht dare lay their hands on the Blessed Order’s HPG, either taking them over, or even cutting them out of their network, that was HERESY. There was no way he would turn us over to be shot until he figured out where Com Star’s intreste lay.
It took three hours. Prayer, and boardmeetings. Neither one are any fun or use most times, but any hour you are not being shot is a good hour, and it took three of them to find out that we were not going to be handed over for Davion to shoot. Now it was down to a squabble over the phone bill. Com Star wanted to shoot us for not putting a quarter in their space pay phone.
“You are who you claim to be. I am under no obligation as a pacifist neutral to hand over one belligerent to another, so I will neither report, nor surrender you to House Davion and the AFFS. The matter of your bombing and wanton destruction of technology is abhorrent, but no more so than the crimes of the AFFS you flee. Your use of our HPG under a fraudulent account is a crime against Com Star, and you cannot draw upon your credit as a registered mercenary with the Mercenary Bonding Commission because you never registered, and have not paid your fees.”
I whispered to Tina. “I got us out of the war crimes and spy executions, now we are going to get shot for our phone bill. Fix it.”
Tina smiled. “It was always our intention to register properly with your Blessed Order. We did not want to put you in a bad position with your Davion.........hosts, by registering here, but we have prepared the necessary deposit for both our registration and our HPG priority message.” Tina said gracefully.
Demi Precentor Hanrahan gave her a hard look. “You wish to use House Davion bills looted from your raid to make us accomplices in your crime when we try to pass them here, in the very next world you called upon? Even Davion tracks their bills for such large denominations.”
While not admitting they don’t want to get caught acting as our fence, and never aditting they were afraid of House Davion and the Federated Suns, they were clearly more than a little worried since both the conquered worlds and the launching worlds had seen something done by Davion to silence Com Star compounds on those worlds.
Tina smiled like an innocent schoolgirl. The last time I caught her smiling that way, she was standing behind the throat of a local Triad leader she had just opened in a wet spray of blood at a meet and greet on Algol. When the police came, they just dragged the body out afterwards, no questions asked, so I never did ask what it was about. In the Confederation, you learn the signs of things not to be curious about.
“In these trying and uncertain times, and given your dedication to peace, I thought a more fitting offering to establish our credit with your Blessed Order would be to offer what lies in the back of our K1 shuttle at the space port. A little insurance against Davion, or some utterly deniable mysterious third party who had bad intentions towards your order.” Tina offered in a voice so sweet sugar would not melt in her mouth.
The Demi Precentor licked his lips. “What do you have?”
It was my turn to smile. “A Davion Valkyrie. It fell down near our Overlord when we visited Ashkum. We carried it with us, as it is unsafe to leave war machines lying around untended, but we are a Vindicator company, and don’t really want a machine so clearly associated with those Davion war mongers. A totally official Davion Valkyrie, serial numbers intact, right off the production line and never sold out of AFFS possession.”
His flat stare met mine. He looked above and behind us, and nodded. I felt my cuffs being released.
He fiddled with his slate and slid it across to me, and I noted the screen now had the Mercenary Bonding Commission registration papers. I began to fill them out slowly, Com Star never uses one word where five will sound better. Poetry has no place in paperwork, but the robes get wierd that way. I told Tina loudly.
“Lt, I believe our delivery for the local Com Star compound is still in the shuttle. Can you do me a favour and go back to the pad and walk it over?” I had no idea what the Demi-Precentor would do with what was provably an Armed Forces of the Federated Suns registered Valkyrie, but if Com Star wanted to use it for something shady, the target would be the Federated Suns of House Davion, and fuck those guys.
When we docked out K1 dropshuttle back in the Merchant jumphsip and jumped out from Glentworth, Capellan March, Federated Suns, we were officially The Vindicated Mercenary Company, Com Star rating C. We were deep in the belly of the beast, and at our next jump, would be repainting our ship hulls and mecha in our new colours. We were done hiding, but a long way from done running. One last look at the Davion recharge station in the distance with its heavy Stuka Aerospace fighters let me remember, however dangerous our mech company would be, in the cold dark of space, with no fighters of our own, we were very very vulnerable.