personal6

11

April 29, 3000

Federated Suns

Crusis March

Cholis

Morten Estate

It was early morning, and Stephan had just finished an 8 kilometer run out through the trails of the Estate grounds. That left his legs thoroughly tired and ready for more desk work as he sat down after a long shower and a good breakfast, bringing a cup of coffee along with him to his office.

On his terminal were updates from the Estate, a new packet of information from Polvice that had come in with a jumpship that had arrived some 7 hours ago, a backlog of pending tasks to deal with in the Morten Protectorate that, when completed would have to go out in other diplomatic 'pouches' on their jumpships, and last but hardly least, another stack of messages coming in through Comstar from across the Federated Suns and beyond.

He pulled up the latter first, running his eyes down the headers and seeing yet another cancellation order. He clicked on it and read through briefly. Doonerdyne Mechanics had flagged their order of replacement Vtol parts for five different models as 'delayed,' citing they didn't know when a current backlog of orders would allow the Morten order to be shipped out.

That was the 7th order from a large corporation that had been delayed or outright canceled in the past month, and it was becoming clear that the first salvo in the war against Comstar had already been fired. Delays and cancellations did happen, of course, but they were rare…especially with the larger corporations…but these, coupled with the fact that one of Sarah's New Avalon brokers had informed her he would no longer be offering his services, clearly showed Comstar was using its influence to start cutting off supply lines to House Morten, though jumpship traffic wasn't altering and the smaller dealers hadn't reported any 'snafus' yet.

This had been expected, but now that it was starting to happen it sent a chill down Stephan's spine. The power of Comstar had always been tossed around as a theoretical threat, but now it was starting to become real.

A blinking button on his desk indicated the comms room wanted to speak with him, and he pressed it without hesitation. "Yes?"

"We have an urgent call from Precentor Cholis. He's been asking to speak with you for the past two hours."

"Put him through to my office," Stephan said, composing his face into as neutral an expression as he could. It looked like the hammer was about to fall.

A video screen opposite the First Lord's desk flickered into life and he was looking at the face of the man in charge of the Comstar compound on Cholis, which his title reflected.

"First Lord, my apologies, but there is an urgent matter I need to speak to you about."

"What is it?"

"I can't say over the comm. We need to speak face to face."

Stephan frowned, reacting as he would have reacted had he not known certain information. "Concerning what subject?"

"I can't say. It's so sensitive we have to speak in person, and I've cleared my schedule for today to deal with this matter. Please come to the compound as soon as you're available."

"Precentor," Stephen said with a slight trace of amusement. "I can assure you my schedule is far denser than yours. If you have something so important we can't discuss it now, then come out to my Estate and I'll find some time to speak with you."

The Precentor hesitated for a split second, the disappointment a mere flash, but Stephan caught it just before the man bowed his head. "Of course. Given the sensitivity in this matter I will come immediately if that is acceptable?"

Stephan glanced at something to his side, as if checking his scheduled appointments…though he already knew what they were. "Before 10:00 am if possible."

"I will take a Vtol and be there well before then. Thank you, First Lord."

The comm cut off and Stephan leaned back in his chair for a moment in silence, then put a call through to Roger's office…which immediately redirected him to the headset his Security Chief always wore when moving around.

"Here," he said via audio.

"The shit is about to hit the fan. The Comstar Precentor is coming here immediately via Vtol. Clear him with the security patrols and take precautions with anything they might have with them. He says he has an urgent matter to discuss with me."

"We'll be ready. I'll have him set down on pad 7 then walk, unless you want to meet him somewhere other than your office?"

"Diplomatic Hall. And get a hidden surveillance system in there on the double. I want to record this conversation."

"Audio or video?"

"Both. And assume he has some gizmo to detect such things."

"I've got some low tech bugs that are placement only, no signals. We just pick them up afterwards and review. They're pretty much jamming proof, unless he brings an EMP in with him."

"Hurry, it won't take him long to get here by air."

"On it now," Roger said, cutting off as Stephan stood up, grabbed his cup of coffee, then headed for the Diplomatic Hall that was in another building.

"First Lord Morten," the Precentor said, his white robes trailing behind him slightly as he walked quickly across the large chamber to where Stephan stood in front of the curved, elevated table/desk rather than sitting behind it. His bodyguards were outside, as were the Precentor's, leaving only the two men in the empty chamber. "I highly apologize for this."

"Oh?" Stephan said as the man finally stopped two meters in front of him.

"A few hours ago I got a directive to put a block on all communications to and from your account. I immediately sought verification of the order, demanding an explanation. I got the verification, but there was no explanation offered. As of now, your services with Comstar are suspended indefinitely."

Stephan let his face show the real anger he was feeling. "What the fuck is going on?"

"I honestly have no idea."

"Bullshit," Stephan said, putting his hands on his hips. "This is the only facility that my House transmits through. If there was an issue, it would have occurred on this end, which means you would be the one asking for or implementing the ban…which I thought you guys didn't do, as a matter of course?"

"We don't," the Precentor said, clearly uncomfortable. "We pride ourselves on open and free communications. Unless you attacked or otherwise interfered with one of our facilities…which you have not done here…there should be no justification for this. The order came directly from Terra, and I can't do anything more than ask them for clarification. They've already refused to offer that clarification and have confirmed the order, which I must implement. I have no choice in the matter."

"This is the second time Comstar has interfered with my House," Stephan said, pointing an accusing finger at the aging man who had a short beard as white as his robes.

"I am aware," he said amicably, "but that was not this station's doing either. Do you have any knowledge of what's going on?"

"You're putting a ban on my communications and you're claiming you don't even know why!" Stephan said, almost yelling. "What kind of shabby organization are you guys running?"

"Our organization is quite professional…usually," he amended in light of the obvious fact of the current problem. "I've never seen an order like this before."

"The Davions?" Stephan guessed.

"No. We do not take orders from House Davion or anyone else."

"Your man on Neubenn did."

"That was…well, yes, you are correct. That never should have happened and we got the situation rectified. I want to rectify this, but my hands are tied. I don't even know who to contact to try and figure it out. Have any of your jumpships interacted with Comstar? Perhaps on one of their cargo missions further into the Inner Sphere that would not involve this station?"

"You banned my account, correct?"

"The ban is for all accounts involving the Morten Protectorate, I'm afraid."

"So this is a direct attack on the realm, not me personally."

"I apologize, First Lord. I have no idea what is going on."

"And you expect me to? It's your god damn organization. Do you have any idea how much we rely on equipment bought in the Federated Suns? How many people we're recruiting from them? Without Comstar services that grinds to a halt!"

"I am quite aware of the effect a comms blackout can have on an economy. We're taught never to take such steps quickly or capriciously…yet that appears to be what is happening now. I have no explanation to offer."

"You said the order came from Terra?"

"It did. Our central office. I'm afraid they have no wish to explain themselves."

"This is the Davions," Stephan said, doing a fair bit of acting. "And you're their dirty work for them. Economic warfare with plausible deniability."

"We are not," the Precentor said firmly.

"How can you be sure if you don't know the reason?"

"Because the only reason we would ever engage in a blackout was if the person or persons involved had violated our trust. Do you have military forces on any other world that has one of our facilities?"

"No. Cholis is our only link into your network. That's why I chose this planet in the first place."

"Then is it possible your people have done something without your knowledge elsewhere?"

"Like what? Send an unflattering message about Ian Davion through your network?"

"The Davions are not privy to private messages, nor do we screen them for content. Whatever you or others have to say about the Davions is beneath a software blind that we cannot see, and even if we did do you think we would create an incident of this magnitude over a few insults?"

"You're the one implementing the ban. You're the one supposed to know the reason for it, damn it. And you're asking me to tell you!"

"You're our primary customer on Cholis! Do you think I want to lose your business? Do you think I want to sully our reputation like this? I literally do not know what to do about this, but it cannot stand."

"Are you the one implementing the block on the system, or just informing of it?"

"I was ordered to do it from here."

"Then refuse to until Terra explains the order."

"I would be removed from my position if I did so."

"For protecting the good name of Comstar in the face of an obvious error?"

"That's why I sought verification. But when it came back confirmed, my hands became tied. All I was able to do during the interim was download the new messages that came in for you. There were four of them over those few hours. Since I didn't receive the confirmation until afterwards, I'm treating the order as not in full affect until I got the confirmation," he said, pulling out a small datachip. "That's all the leeway I have, First Lord. I'm sorry. These are the last messages."

"Is one of them from Terra explaining this?" he said, taking the chip out of the man's clammy hand.

"No. Such things are for the local Precentor to deal with. I just don't know how to deal with this."

"How about you contact the Primus directly?" Stephan suggested. "This is a matter of an entire Periphery state being blocked. That should weigh heavily enough to rise to his attention."

"If you wish to compose a message directed to Primus Rusenstein, I will send it," he said, making it clear that he was taking some personal risk in the matter. "But I cannot guarantee a response."

"It's your organization's responsibility to explain yourselves," Stephan said icily. "It's not mine to figure out what's going on. You contact the Primus or anyone else you need to. Every day this block is in place it hurts my House. This is a defacto attack against my realm, no matter how much you apologize for it. Whoever put you up to this is essentially declaring war…and the least you can do is tell me who it is."

"We do not work for any House or realm."

"Then Comstar is doing it for your own reasons."

"We would not."

"What other possibilities are there?"

"That one of your people did something somewhere else. Not on Cholis, because I would be the one reporting the infraction. You must have done something to warrant this?"

"And what would warrant Terra not informing you of the reason?" Stephan asked skeptically. "Seriously. If I caused this, they'd tell you. They're blacking you out as well, and I find that hard to believe."

"As do I. What is it that your people did?"

"If you cannot cite an infraction, stop assuming there is one!" Stephan said, actually yelling this time. "Of all the arrogant bullshit I've heard over the years, this tops the cake! You're penalizing me for doing something you supposedly don't even know about, and are asking me to rat myself out to help you understand what's going on? And suppose for a moment this isn't the Davions' doing. What are they going to say when they find out you've severed communications between my realm and theirs? Do you think they're just going to take your innocent 'I don't know' at face value?"

"You still have your diplomatic liaison to work through," Precentor Cholis pointed out. "We're not blocking her."

"We have a standing treaty with the Federated Suns, which states we're to have free access to their economy, and they to ours. You're blocking their ability to interact with ours, thus this is a defacto ban on them as well. How do you intend to explain that?"

"No Federated Suns account has been blocked," the Precentor said, looking like he'd been caught off guard for a moment.

"My Estate here is part of the Federated Suns, a diplomatic embassy, which technically means it still belongs to the Duchy here and is just on loan to me from a legal standpoint. So you are blocking a Federated Suns account, the same way as if you blocked the Capellan embassy on New Syrtis. You're not just interfering with my Protectorate, you're interfering with Federated Suns business. How do you think they'll respond to that?"

"They won't dare touch any of our stations," the Precentor said defiantly.

"Plausible deniability," Stephan said firmly. "I don't even have to speak with them about this matter, and I can take down your Cholis station myself and keep their hands clean of it," he said, seeing a horrified expression on the Precentor's face…a little too horrified, as if he was acting as well.

"What are you going to do?" Stephan continued. "Ban our Comstar services? You've already done that, now you have no leverage left."

"Our facility is well defended. You wouldn't risk it."

"How about you go back and get some answers so we can avoid that eventuality."

"Are you trying to blackmail me?"

"Just remember, you started this. You can end it as well. This is all on Comstar."

"A service disruption does not justify an attack on our compound."

"Is this a disruption, or is it permanent?"

"I don't know."

"Which makes you the front guy. The real people responsible for this are hiding behind you. I have to hold your organization responsible as a group for its actions, and seeing as how I'm losing money and opportunities with every day that passes, I'm not going to be tricked by your assertations of innocence. Maybe you really don't know what's going on. If that's the case, you're being used as a pawn."

"Do not touch our facility, Morten, or you will pay the price for it," the Precentor warned.

"I thought I already was paying the price for it?"

The Precentor looked to the side for a moment, staring at the floor as he composed himself, then looked back up at Stephan. "This is our responsibility, and if you have done something to warrant this it's our job to cite the reason for the ban. I will press my superiors on this matter."

"Do that. And also remind them, this is the only Comstar station in my realm. We don't rely on your services anywhere else, so you don't have the leverage on us like you do the Federated Suns. And if you black them out, your leverage on them disappears. It's a bluff that works both ways, and your superiors just told you to call that bluff. But I can guarantee you I'm holding more cards on this planet than Comstar is, so if it comes to shooting, I'll win. Your bosses have just made a very bad move."

"Yes they have," the Precentor agreed. "Please do not make an equally bad one yourself while I try to fix this," he said, spinning around and storming out of the Diplomatic Hall as fast as he could reasonably walk.

After he was gone a bit Roger came in, seeing Stephan holding up a data chip.

"They've banned all our communications, but offered me the last few messages that came through as a consolation prize," he said, handing it to his longtime friend. "Have your code monkeys check it thoroughly. The Precentor put on a good performance, but he was fishing for information, and if I had accepted his invitation to come to their compound, I expect I'd be an unwilling guest of theirs for a while."

"They wouldn't be able to keep you there," Roger promised. "What now?"

"I didn't reveal anything, and made it seem that I suspect the Davions are twisting their arm to do this. I don't think they know what we've got, but they know we've got something and they're deliberately isolating us."

"That doesn't solve their problem."

"No, it doesn't. I half expected a bribe from him, but it seems clear they're not going to admit to any malfeasance involving Captain Sheridan. They're going to eliminate the problem and deny it ever existed."

"That means actual war. They can't starve us out by cutting transmissions or stop jumpships from moving."

"No, they can't. Their best hope is to get the Davions to destroy us for them, but that would take some explaining to do, and I get the feeling they want this kept as quiet as possible."

"Mercenaries then?"

Stephan nodded. "They're probably already on their way."

Carroll Davion was sitting in her office when Stephan came in abruptly, but her guards didn't stop him. They never did, per her standing order ever since he'd given her access to his house and grounds.

"That's not good," she said, looking up at him.

"What isn't?"

"The expression on your face."

"Good guess. Comstar just blacked us out."

"What!" she said, knowing immediately what kind of shitstorm that would cause.

"They refused to give any reason, only citing the order came from Terra and the local Precentor has no idea what's going on. It's all bullshit, for reasons I'm not going to tell you for your own sake. But I need you to make something clear to Ian. Comstar is about to wage a war against my House, and yours needs to stay out of it."

"Explain," she said firmly, standing up behind her desk.

"We're already getting cancellations of orders from major suppliers…Comstar's influence, no doubt. Now this blackout. I suspect we're going to start getting hit by mercenaries under Comstar's employ very soon, because we discovered a dirty little secret of theirs in the Periphery and now that they know that we know, they have to erase us. And I don't want Ian doing their work for them under some other notion. You need to warn him of any attempt on their part to push him into starting a fight, and they might already be doing it. And you need to send a courier back, otherwise that message will probably never reach Ian."

Carroll's stare became icy. "They wouldn't dare block our transmissions. I can't believe that they'd block yours. What exactly did you find?"

"I can't tell you that. It would make matters worse."

"How worse?"

"I've discovered that Comstar has been infiltrating all the Great Houses to exert influence. If you knew what I knew, Ian would probably have them all executed and they'd retaliate in ways beyond shutting down interstellar communications. So no, keep House Davion out of this. We'll fight this war on our own."

"Not good enough," she said, sitting down and using a keyboard to the side of her main desk on a secondary table. "If you've been blacked out the Precentor owes me answers."

"He's on his way back to his compound right now. We just had it out face to face."

"You hit him?" she asked, head swiveling away from the computer screen to glare at him.

"No. Just threatened."

"Him or his facility?"

"His facility."

"Don't you dare," she warned, bringing up the comms channels and sending a message to the Comstar front desk. "Let me try and diffuse this situation. If you attack a Comstar facility on one of our worlds, that's all Ian needs as an excuse to launch a military campaign. You'd be playing right into their hands."

"I agree," he said, making her turn around again, this time in confusion. "In fact, I think that was what he was trying to get me to do. I played along, but I have no intention of hitting that facility unless they start grabbing some of my people as hostages."

"If they do that they'll have problems with us," she said, suddenly getting an automated response from Comstar indicating that they were having technical difficulties and their services would be offline until they were fixed.

"No," she said, pulling up a different screen and attempted to compose a message to be sent offworld via Comstar…but she got a similar error prompt there.

"They just shut down everything," she said, and he could see the panic in her eyes. "I can't get a message to them, or out of the system. They're citing 'technical difficulties.'"

"Damn," Stephan said, realizing that they were escalating this even faster than he'd expected.

"What the hell did you find them doing out there?"

"Taking political prisoners, for starters," Stephan said, glancing at her in a way that she knew meant she was also at risk. "We recovered them and sent them home. That's the only way Comstar knows we know. They should have got back a few months ago. Long enough to be noticed and for Comstar to figure out who rescued them."

"You hit one of their facilities in the Periphery?" she asked, not believing it.

"We took down a pirate that was keeping the prisoners on ice for them. We've been expecting a response this like ever since. They have to silence us."

"Everyone takes prisoners," she said, despite the fact that she knew that alone would cause a major stir back on New Avalon. "What else is going on?"

"That's as much as I'm going to say, Carroll. The rest is stuff they want hidden even worse."

"Involving my House?"

"Involving all the Great Houses."

"Damn it, Stephan, just tell me."

"If I do, I'll have the other Great Houses trying to destroy me as well. Comstar is problematic enough. Better to let them think they can handle this low key."

"What the hell does that mean? Why would we…" she said, trailing off as a thought occurred to her. "You're saying they're going to make you into the next Aramis and rally the Inner Sphere into destroying you? Stephan, you only have a handful of systems. You're no threat to us, let alone the others."

"Stop asking questions, Carroll. I won't answer them."

"What good is a liaison then?"

"You make sure Ian knows there isn't a comms breakdown because of me, and make sure the Duke doesn't take Comstar's side."

"Shit," she said, looking back at the error message on the interstellar communications terminal. "It'll take a couple months to get anything back to Ian...assuming it even gets to him. You're saying we've been infiltrated?"

"To some extent, yes. I can't say exactly how."

"Can't or won't?"

"Can't on this one. They've just put a lot of strings in place they can pull when needed. And you're a witness to what's happening here. They may try to grab you and blame it on me, so I suggest you don't leave the estate for a while."

"Hold on," she said, pulling up another prompt and getting a message through to the Duke's office. A few minutes later and his face appeared on the screen, with Stephan out of camera view.

"Ambassador," he said graciously. "How can I assist you?"

"Comstar just blocked the Morten's access to their services, now I'm receiving an error message when I try to talk to them or send something back to New Avalon. Are you also blocked?"

The Duke frowned. "One moment."

Carroll waited patiently, then Alliz came back into view. "I can't connect either. What's going on?"

"I don't know, but this isn't an accident. They've deliberately shut down communications to probably the entire planet except themselves, and I can't tell New Avalon about it until I can send a courier on the next jumpship."

"The next scheduled arrival is in two weeks or so," the Duke said off the top of his head. "Are we in some sort of danger? Deliberately cutting off communications is usually a prelude to an attack."

"I was wondering the same thing. I suggest you put the militia on alert and have the police put a restricted zone around the Comstar complex. Tell people it's a precaution in case their machinery malfunctions in a destructive way, but don't let any foot traffic in there, in or out, until I say otherwise."

"You want me to constrict their movements?" he said, aghast.

"They have aircraft to come and go as they like. Just shut down the walkways and roads as a safety procedure. There could be toxic leakage if some of their exotic machinery breaks."

The Duke nodded. "I understand that. But what's really going on?"

"They wouldn't even respond to me to explain," she admitted. "Whatever is going on, it's not good."

"Is this Morten sabotage?"

"No. I keep a close eye on them," she said without glancing Stephan's direction. "This is Comstar's doing, and I've never heard of anything like this happening on any other Federated Suns world, so it's unprecedented and potentially dangerous. They should be coming to either you or me and explaining. The fact that they're not is troubling."

"Quite so. Is there anything else you'd like me to do?"

"Let me know if there's any unusual jumpship activity."

He nodded, but didn't say anything further, and Carroll cut the comm.

"Comstar has more military equipment in their compound than the Duke does, even if they don't have mechs. They've got a small army of security personnel, and the perimeter walls have turrets that can stand up against the militia, but that's not what I'm worried about."

"If they start doing clandestine operations the police can't stop them," Stephan said, almost reading her thoughts.

"Exactly. And if they are sending mercenaries to hit you, they can't have me as a witness, or the Duke. That's the only thing I can think of. A blackout doesn't help any other way than a temporary measure."

"Unless they're trying to fake an attack by us on the facility," Stephan pointed out.

"Again, I'm a witness."

"So stay put, princess," Stephan said, as he spun around. "They're not going to get to you here."

On his way back to the main house Roger caught up with him. "It was loaded with malware," he said simply. "The kind that dissects computer systems from the inside out."

Stephan sighed, looking down at the pavement under his feet as the sun outside baked down on top of them. "So much for the Precentor being an unwitting pawn. They also just took down interstellar communications for the rest of the planet, citing technical problems."

Roger stiffened.

"I know, I know," Stephan said, walking back into the house, expecting hostile jumpships to arrive sometime in the near future.