personal6

20

July 18, 3003

Morten Protectorate

Turnix

Redemption

Carroll walked off the Taurian dropship almost too relieved to move. She set foot on the ferrocrete pad, located in the center of the now rebuilt city named 'Redemption' that lie north of the main settlement that House Morten had inherited when they'd rescued this world from starvation.

Gone were the old buildings of the city. Deconstructed with new ones rising here and there around the four-pad spaceport. Right now the Taurian dropship was the only one here, and Carroll felt overwhelmed by the fact that Turnix and the Mortens were in fact still alive.

She carried a simple backpack now overtop of work clothes unbefitting a noble, and in that backpack were all the belongings she owned, including several pieces of jewelry that she hadn't had to sell yet, though the trip out from Taurus had cost her more than any other leg of her journey, for they weren't exactly selling tickets into the Morten Protectorate yet, so she'd had to bribe her way onto two different trade ships to get out here…but now that she was, it was worth the cost and then some.

Carroll was directed off the pad to a nearby terminal where she logged her Taurian ID and asked for a map of the planet. From there she started walking, seeing that everything was connected via new roads and personnel walkways. The former Ambassador could have waited for a bus, but felt compelled to keep moving and not stop, so she walked…and walked…and walked for 7 hours before finally arriving at the gate to the Viceroy's palace.

She stood there for more than a minute before a guard on the interior of the thick rail-like fence spoke to her.

"Is there something you want, lady?"

"I need to speak to the Viceroy."

"You can contact his office through the Comms bureau two blocks that way," he said, pointing to the north, "and schedule an appointment."

"He'll want to see me now," she said, dropping her sullen, depressed tone that she'd used to avoid conversation with others for so long it had just become natural. Her former cadence came back, and her shoulders raised slightly. "Inform him Ambassador Carroll is here."

"Ambassador from where?"

"He'll know. We've met before."

"Listen, lady. There are procedures to follow. You don't just get to walk in."

"He'll allow it. All he has to hear is my name. Pass it along."

"Just like that?" the guard mocked.

Carroll reduced her voice to a whisper. "I'm trying to avoid attracting attention, but the longer I stand here on the street more people are going to notice. I've come from Taurus and have a private matter to discuss with Chad. Please give him my name and he will clear me to enter."

The guard didn't look convinced, but he made a quick call on the radio and waited for nearly two minutes before receiving back a reply. He didn't say anything, merely opening a sally port on the wall supporting the gate and motioned for her to come in.

Carroll was so relieved that worked that she audibly sighed as she slipped past the security barrier to the wide garden area that surrounded the palace.

"Follow that walkway," the guard said, now considerably more respectful.

Carroll didn't hesitate being this close to journey's end and barely noticed another guard pacing her all the way to the palace where a door opened and out rushed Chad Morten to meet her a dozen steps off the terraced entrance.

"It is you," he said disbelievingly. "How did you get here?"

"I've been on the run for two years," she said, then started to weep over top an otherwise straight face. "Am I still welcome here?"

"That's a dumb question," Chad said, grabbing her by the arm and pulling her towards the palace. "Who's chasing you?"

"House Davion," she said as they walked out of the evening early sunset and into a well-lit interior that was the typical Morten mix of high fashion and functionality.

"I wondered why you didn't use your last name," he said, glancing at her backpack. "Traveling light?"

"I didn't get a chance to pack properly when my parents kicked me off New Avalon to save my life."

"Sit down," he said, gesturing to a small table in the entry foyer underneath a potted tropic plant that was somehow giving 'shade' from the main lighting in a way that made it feel cozier than normal.

Carroll pulled off her backpack and set it beside her feet at the table as she sank down into the thin but cushioned chair. "I'm not a Davion any longer. They're pretending that House Morten doesn't exist. That it never existed. They've even taken you off the Federated Suns maps. And they can't have a Morten liaison officer running around as a visible counter to their lie. My ex-parents gave me money and shoved me out the door, telling me never to come back to New Avalon or I'd be killed. I've been trying to get back here ever since, but with the trade routes being canceled I had to come the long way through Taurus. I knew the Concordat had at least some trade relations with you. I didn't expect it to be this little, but I was still able to find a ship to get here eventually."

"Any close calls?"

Carroll shook her head. "No. Either they didn't care to chase me, or I was one step ahead of them. I knew if I made any public statements they'd be all over me, so I had to leave the Davion name behind and, frankly, I don't want it anymore. I'm just Carroll now, and that's a name I've not used since leaving New Avalon. I've been traveling under aliases."

"Well you're safe now," he said, placing a hand on hers. Despite their position difference, he was only 6 years younger than her and hadn't been around the Morten Estate for several years after taking up the Arka position on Turnix, and now the Viceroy spot as of 8 months ago.

"I'm glad you remembered me," she said honestly.

"Hard not to. I had a huge crush on you back in the day."

Her eyebrows raised. "Really?"

"To be fair, a lot of the junior branch of the family did after we found out you weren't the monster we expected. There's no way I'd forget you, even if I am now a father. Some childhood crushes you never forget."

"When did that happen?"

"Three years ago. The dating scene here was better for me than on Cholis and I found Kiera right away. We've got two kids now."

"I thought you had to go to the Estate with children?"

Chad nodded. "We should be there, but Stephan said I could remain here until my Viceroyship is over. The kids won't be old enough to really know the difference, and if one of these mercenaries gets lucky and hits the Estate…well…Stephan didn't want us all in one place anyway, so I got a special status due to the situation."

"How are things? Everyone in the Federated Suns thinks you're dead and Cholis a wasteland. And the Taurians are buying the same thing except for the traders that know otherwise."

"That's just Comstar's cover story while they send half the mercenaries in the Inner Sphere after us, but we haven't lost a planet yet and they're getting desperate. Attacks are coming more frequently, even here, but we've got things locked down better than at the beginning. I've even got a mercenary unit here doing traffic control at the star to help fill in some of our naval gaps until we can build enough of our own ships."

"How recently have you been hit?"

"3 months ago. We've been hit 7 times by small units. The first three got to ground and got mauled by our mechs. The rest have been stopped at the jump points, either turned back or captured. The Gordon's Guards even grabbed me a jumpship a little over a year ago. Stupid mercs came in on one that didn't have batteries so it had to sit and recharge. Easiest capture I've ever heard about, and the dropships…I've picked up 8. As far as Turnix goes, we've captured more mechs than we've lost. It seems Comstar is lying to them about the defenses and just sending them against us unprepared hoping to whittle us down or maybe they really don't know what we've got here now. Regardless, the mercs are being sold out and we're still alive."

"Any big units like the Lion's Teeth?"

"Not a one," Chad said with a shake of his head. "I think they took their best shot first and when it missed they decided to keep constant pressure on us. We haven't been able to add any planets since you left, unless you count Cholis."

"What do you mean?"

"It's ours now. A Davion jumpship showed up and evacuated the Duke's family, and Comstar went with him before blowing up their compound and a good part of Brinestorm with it. They never came back or explained anything. Stephan just let them go and Cholis has been ours ever since. But he's not risking taking on any new worlds until he's sure we can protect them, so in that way Comstar is winning, but they're not trimming our current territory any."

"I guess that makes sense," Carroll said, slipping back into her old mindset far too easily. "They can't pretend Cholis doesn't exist if they're still getting tax money from it, but it's hard to believe they would give up an entire planet."

"It just goes to show you how much influence Comstar has with the Davions…well, not all of them obviously."

"I'm through with them," Carroll said flatly. "I'd like to work for your House now, if that's possible?"

"Is this the first planet of ours you got to?"

"It is."

"Then Stephan doesn't know you're here?"

"Nobody does. I just got off a dropship under a fake name."

"In that case I'll get a message to him, then we'll get you on the next available dropship…which will probably be in 4 months if you want to travel on one of ours. Some of the independent merchants could get you to Foniss faster, and then hitch a ride over to Cholis. The traffic between those two worlds is still pretty constant."

"Can't I travel with the message?" she asked, confused for a moment, then when Chad's face closed up her jaw dropped. "That's what all this is about! You have one of their HPGs?"

"Me and my big mouth," Chad grumbled.

"You really think I'd tell anyone at this point?"

"Save your questions for Stephan. We're not supposed to discuss it with anyone, but we have a limited form of interstellar communications. I can get a message to him faster than I can get you to him. That's all I'll say."

"And that's why they want you dead? You can break their monopoly!" she said in an excited whisper, not sure who else was in the palace that could overhear.

"Something like that. But I'm still surprised they would go after you. You didn't know anything."

"There is a huge cover-up going on, Chad. It's not a matter of whether I know something or not, it's that my existence threatened to undo the story they're telling. The entire population of Cholis was wiped out by raiders along with your entire House…but no one official will tell that story. Everyone is threatened into silence and only the tabloids tell it…but they're not doing it on their own, they're having their arm twisted hard. I've never seen anything like this before. They always run 10 different stories, sometimes the true ones. On this there's just one and it's done. Someone wants House Morten erased from society."

"While they try to do it for real out here, and are failing badly. Maybe they rely on their compounds on every major world in the Inner Sphere to gather intelligence and they just don't have assets beyond that to get a good look at how we're defending ourselves, but they intentionally misled the Lion's Teeth as to what we had on Cholis in the beginning. I also don't think they want the mercenaries surviving to tell the tale of what's really going on out here."

Carroll thought about that for a moment. "They cause you some damage and eliminate the witnesses at the same time. What are you doing with the prisoners?"

"Stephan is dealing with that somehow. I'm just supposed to collect and transport them to Cholis periodically. I've got a prison facility built here to hold them until there's a ship available to carry them. I assume our other worlds have been instructed to build the same."

"I'm glad," she said, starting to cry again. "I was worried that at least some of you had been lost."

"We've lost personnel, but no Mortens as yet. As long as we can keep producing more mechs than they roast of ours, we'll stay ahead of the game. And with our hired mercenary units thinning the numbers that can get on planet, we're starting to pull ahead in the logistics game."

"I can't believe you guys are hiring mercenaries, but I guess it makes sense. Fight fire with fire."

"They're not allowed on the planet. They're just paid to intercept ships and get bonuses for captures, so they have a financial incentive to take people alive rather than blow them away. It's worked out well here, and I haven't heard of problems elsewhere, though we're still kind of in a black hole of information. Most of our updates still come through jumpships so everything is months delayed, but Stephan should know you're here in about 4 or 5 days, and within 10 we should hear back from him. My guess is he'll want you on Cholis as soon as possible."

"That's not an HPG then," she said, thinking hard. "But still impressive. And I won't ask."

"Thank you," Chad said, sizing her up. "You look a little haggard."

"I am very haggard," she admitted.

"Hungry?"

"Quite."

Chad stood up. "Come on. I'm here with three more Mortens and we'll all have dinner together and catch up. Would you like something more formal to wear?"

"I thought your family didn't really care?" she said, standing as well as she picked up the backpack and slung it over her shoulder playfully.

"We don't, but if I remember correctly you were a fashion hound."

"Fashion hounds stand out in a crowd," she noted. "But yes, I could use some new clothes if you have anything available."

"You forget we own our own line of stores, and even on little Turnix we have proper clothing and personal tailors. The people here badly needed them."

"Any chance I can find a hot bath before dinner?" she asked, feeling even scruffier than normal in the noble's presence after walking for so many hours. "I've been onboard a dropship for months."

"Yes of course," he said with a wry smile. "Though given my married status I'm not available to join you. However, I'm sure Danny and Darren would make themselves available to give you a good scrubbing."

"Careful," she said with a laugh. "I might be so worn out I'd agree to that."

Chad's smile faded and his eyes turned serious. "It's good to have you back."

"Up until now I wasn't sure if you'd want me back."

"Well, you are a blonde, and some things are just naturally hard to understand, I guess."

"Sarah is a blonde too, if I remember correctly."

"Right," he winced. "Don't tell her I said that."

"Find me a hot bath and I'll forget it quickly enough."

Chad half bowed and gestured to his left. "This way, my lady."

She started walking. "It's a good thing you are married. You've almost become charming."

"I've been well-coached, and it becomes much easier when you have absolutely no chance of success."

"You didn't before."

"I didn't know that before," he said, waving down one of the palace servants. "Take this very beautiful woman to the primary guest suite, and do not inform my wife she is here."

"Yes…sir," the servant said, getting a weird look on his face.

"Troublemaker," Carroll whispered, then followed the perplexed servant through the confines of the palace to a room befitting her former position.

Within ten minutes she was submerged in a hot bath and half asleep with tears of relief slowly rolling down her face as the ache that had been within her heart for the past two years was fading as fast as the ones in her travel weary body.

Four years. That's how long the war had been going on, and thankfully no one had found the location of Kevin's Forge. The only jumpships coming to the former pirate's den were their own, ferrying supplies and personnel out from Foniss only as he continued to build the Morten Academy Praxeum and the Morten C.A.B.S. that had, despite all indications to the contrary, started to receive more students rather than less the past two years.

Once the blackout happened and high society pretended the Mortens didn't exist, the number of mom's and dad's favorite sons and daughters coming to learn to be mechwarriors dropped off to almost nothing, with a few still arriving from the Periphery or other realms aside from the Federated Suns. There had, however, been a constant stream of would-be mercenaries wanting training they couldn't get elsewhere, and the Northwind Highlanders had liked their initial test program enough to solidify a regular allotment of recruits for what they considered to be 'basic training.'

They'd also said it was the most complete basic training available anywhere, and some of the kids they'd sent out here had returned changed…for the better. After that a few more higher end mercenary units took notice, and despite the constant contracts to assault Morten worlds they kept sending students their way…with a proviso that any unit that took a contract against the Protectorate would be banned from all Morten services, including mech and parts sales.

The problem was mercenaries were everywhere in the Inner Sphere, with plenty of startup Lances ready to take over for larger units that fell to pieces. So even with a list of 'friendly' mercenaries that they were doing business with, that barely scratched the surface of the numbers that were available to come after them for Comstar's anonymous agents. And even when many of those units never returned, more kept coming…either because they were uninformed as to what was happening, or just desperate to get good paying contracts no matter what the mission was.

And after the first two years of the war had passed, apparently word had gotten around that this 'blank spot' on the map was where mercenary units came to die. In truth, the Mortens had a lot of prisoners they dealt with in different ways, and some units were in fact leaving either defeated or unable to get past the naval defenses at the jump points. But the reputation had only been solidified in the past two years as combined mercenary assaults started to happen, with two, three, or even four different mercenary units arriving at the same time and trying to sprint past the defenses so some of them could get down to the planet and cause havoc.

It turned out these mercs were being offered a fortune for a successful mission and enough were willing to take the gamble to put added pressure on House Morten. They were still losing mechs, factories, and aerospace fighters…but not many dropships. And their losses they were making up with their own production, while Kevin quietly courted the advances from some of the larger mercenary units in the Inner Sphere as Foniss became something of a mercenary embassy planet with all the traffic coming to and from it, for both the CABS and the mech factory.

The Northwind Highlanders, primarily under contract to the Capellans to act as a quasi arm of their military, were also buying replacement parts and some new mechs from House Morten, and they were giving them a discount due to their friendly relations. A few other large units had been starting to send some raw recruits to CABS as well, and Kevin was beginning to offer them the same deal.

The more major units they took off the potential hiring card for Comstar, the less chance they'd have of breaking the defenses on any of their worlds. And sooner or later Comstar was going to have to either give up or do something far more drastic…for they weren't making any headway in their efforts to destroy House Morten. They were only keeping them bottled up on their current worlds and unable to expand, and he doubted that was their primary goal in all of this.

Right now Kevin lived on Forge, but remotely ran the adjunct on Foniss where all the applications and deal making for CABS was done. At present he had 328 students in four different programs…Basic Indoctrinary Training or BITs, Advanced Infantry Training or AITs, Garrison Tactical School or GiTS, and Field Technician Training or FiTTs.

BITs and GiTS were both for mechwarriors, with GiTS teaching the art of defending worlds rather than conquering them. Kevin had made a choice not to offer the latter, for they didn't want to train would be raiders and other scallywags. They wanted to train honorable mechwarriors who then could choose another path, but at least their first few steps would be in the right direction.

AITs was technically for newbs as well, but it was a hard program that basically took infantrymen and put them through the basics all the way through the war manual up to taking down mechs with snares and other traps. Most people thought infantry were next to useless in wars dominated by mechs, but any course offered by CABS was getting attention now, and Kevin was starting to get more recruits for AITs than any other program, simply because you needed a lot more people in infantry than you did in the mechwarrior ranks.

And mech units liked having infantry around who had been taught how to properly guard their mechs against sabotage or theft rather than only being schooled on launching assaults.

FiTTs was the newest addition, and designed to teach techs how to maintain mechs in the mechbay and in the field, and as soon as Kevin had opened up the first 30 slots they had been claimed by four different units within 18 hours. It had become a race to claim slots in CABS now, with mercenaries keeping a representative at or near the recruitment office on Foniss so they could grab what was arguably the best training available outside of the elite schools in the Inner Sphere that no mercenaries would ever be accepted into without a connection on the inside.

So Kevin was not only busy expanding his list of programs, he was busy expanding the campus, his staff, and the number of students he could handle while also building the Morten Academy Praxeum in a different location on the planet. This was the second level school that provided much more detailed and harder programs for people with intent to serve in the Morten Protectorate, while the Morten Academy Adjunct Schools were those copies of the facilities in the Estate that were now at least partially available on every planet in the Protectorate and training people locally for a number of posts without having to transport them via jumpship all the way back to Cholis.

But for advanced training in the field more than in the simulators or info terminals, the Praxeum had been devised by Kevin and others in his department. They had never had anything like it on Neubenn, so he was moving into untested waters now, but they needed higher level recruits available to their mechwarrior units and everything else rather than just going for bare bones minimum that the Adjunct schools were designed for.

Though to be honest, the 'minimum' for House Morten was quite a bit higher than the 'maximum' for a lot of other training programs in the Federated Suns and elsewhere. But Kevin wanted to start grooming more Gradys, or at least getting closer to his level of skill, rather than just regular troops that they needed three or four of to outgun the more skilled opponents in the Inner Sphere.

And thankfully they did have those numbers in most of these engagements against the mercenaries, for some of them were damn good, but most were unruly, and even if they could be trusted they would not mesh well with the Morten troops. There was a camaraderie there formed by going through the same training programs and being Morten all the way through their career. In a few cases they'd accepted in former mercenaries…as Grady had once been…but it had not always gone smoothly so it was a seldom-used practice now no matter how good their skills.

Training them in CABS was one thing. But taking them into their own line units was quite another, which was a major reason Kevin was building two different schools here on Forge. One for their people, and one that would hopefully help to civilize everyone else in at least some small ways.

Kevin never would have expected the growth of CABS in the middle of a war…and the people who were coming here knew damn well it was a war, for even Foniss was getting hit with its now two Regiments of mechs protecting the factories on the planet and its mercenary-augmented naval defense at the jump points. That didn't keep some ambitious mercenaries from using pirate jump points or trying to run the gauntlet, so the mechs on the planet did see action, but unless someone big decided to hit here they were never going to take the planet or even smash the main factories…though there were more and more of them popping up in different locations on Foniss as Morten Arms Consortium continued to grow in size as fast as logistically possible.

There were far more jumpships coming in to Foniss than there were at Cholis, with an average of 1 every three days. They were a combination of traders, Morten vessels, and mercenaries looking to buy equipment or enroll in CABS. There were also a number of fairly high level brokers now living on Foniss despite the fact that there was no Comstar network out here to take orders through.

That hadn't stopped them though, and the Morten Bank was seeing record profits of its own in terms of short loans needed for the brokers and other well-established clients to buy stuff in the moment then pay for it months or even a year later when their hard currency arrived from the Inner Sphere after the final transactions had been made. Then add in all the actual banking practices that financial experts were sniffing out in the Protectorate that they couldn't get in the Federated Suns or elsewhere…particularly the tax free kind…and Foniss had accidentally become the financial hub of the Protectorate as well with their MP currency quickly being snatched up in physical coin as a hedge against other forms lowering in trading value or even as an investment now that it was becoming clear that the Protectorate was not going to fall to the mercenary attacks and that it was now the hot place to do business outside the bureaucracy-heavy Inner Sphere.

In fact, the Lord of Economics Management now had a sub-post that ran the Morten Bank, currently held by Hans Morten, and the financial power of the realm was growing by the month along with Kevin's school. He'd even heard that there were at least 5 Taurian worlds near them that were petitioning Stephan hard to let them join, tired of being all but ignored by House Calderon and let to thrive or die on their own unless they were invaded. Mutual defense pacts like the Concordat mostly was didn't care much about prosperity, and in addition to the Taurians there were also other worlds within the general borders of the Protectorate asking to join as well.

If it wasn't for these damn Comstar mercenaries they'd have twice the number of planets by now, but Kevin was glad they'd been able to hold on to what they had and they were growing those worlds with every passing year. And the fact that they weren't folding to the pressure worried him, because it looked like the only way Comstar was going to be able to destroy them…for their efforts to cut off supplies from the Federated Suns had been effective, but nowhere near lethal to House Morten…was to convince House Davion or House Liao or House Marik or even House Kurita to invade them directly, for Comstar had no army of its own at present, and House Steiner, while being the furthest away, was soon to be out of their potential influence…

The Lyran jumpship Steadfast popped into the Zenith jump point of an uninhabited system just across the Lyran border into the Circinus Federation one jump away from the Commonwealth world of Poulsbo, but it hadn't come directly here. It had made three different jumps to otherwise uninhabited systems in the last 4 weeks and came into this one only reluctantly, expecting a trap.

But upon arrival there was only one other jumpship here…as planned…and its IFF was broadcasting the proper code on repeat.

"You owe me 100 kroner," Morgan Kell said to the man standing next to him on the bridge, located in the grav deck of the jumpship as opposed to one of the attached four dropships whose bridges were always in 0g unless under thrust.

"I'll pay up later," Arthur Luvon said warily as he looked at the Invader-class jumpship on the monitor. It was smaller than their Star Lord-class ship, but all three of its dropships were already deployed in a defensive perimeter around it, as if they were expecting a fight. "But I still don't like this."

"They're here regardless," Katrina Steiner said with her arms folded across her chest. "At least my uncle wasn't lying about this part."

"Could still be part of a trap," Arthur warned.

"If this was the trap," Morgan asked, "why would they have tried to kill her on Poulsbo?"

"Exactly," Katrina agreed. "It's far too ridiculous of bait to be anything other than real. And if they're still here that means Alessandro hasn't sent anyone else to take my place yet."

"We are five days early," Arthur pointed out.

"They've come all the way from the Periphery beyond the Federated Suns," Katrina said with a wave of her hand. "Do you really think they'd cut their travel time so close it would be to the day? Send the confirmation code," she ordered, then the threesome waited for the House Morten ship to respond.

They didn't have to wait long, for an image of a middle-aged woman appeared on the monitor who had hair as starkly blonde as Katrina's, but pulled back into a ponytail as opposed to the quirky pair of haphazard braids that Steiner was wearing.

"You're earlier than expected," she said pleasantly.

"We had some trouble on the way and weren't sure if you'd be here or not," Katrina said in a much more forceful manner. "Is the deal still on?"

"From our end it is. What kind of trouble?"

"Family trouble," she said dubiously. "You're deployed for combat."

"We've been under mercenary attack in the Protectorate for four straight years. It's force of habit at this point, but we're not expecting any visitors in this system. You're cleared to send one dropship over at your convenience."

"I look forward to meeting you…miss?"

"Carroll Morten."

"I'll see you soon, Carroll," Katrina said, signaling to the Captain to cut the comm.

"I still don't like it," Arthur said. "They could smoke us three dropships to one before the rest of ours could intervene."

"Worse," Morgan said as he leaned over the shoulder of a crewmember. "Those Mules look like they've been augmented into assault dropships. They're not taking any chances."

"Why would they with their cargo?" Katrina said dismissively and turned around, starting to walk off the bridge. "Let's get this over with before any of my uncle's ships get here to take my place."

Two hours later the dropship Darling Inheritance, build specifically to haul around royals, docked with the Happy Frogand Katrina Steiner went onboard alone, leaving Arthur and Morgan behind in the dropship ready to call with a squad of troops at the tap of the emergency beacon in her pocket as she floated through the airlock.

Katrina was met by a nobody and guided through the ship to the gravity disc, getting a feeling for the deck again as she walked into a room that was empty save for three people. The woman she had spoken with and two overly large, muscular men that were obviously bodyguards. With them was a large table with a rectangular crate on top. Three more were stacked to the side.

"Miss Steiner," Carroll bowed her head slightly as she spoke the words. "It's a pleasure to meet someone as high stature as yourself."

"It was necessary given the subject matter," Katrina said, irritation in her voice despite her effort not to let it show. "My name is Katrina. You may use it, Carroll."

"Very well, Katrina. I have four replicas for you," she said, indicating the black crates.

"These?" she asked, raising an eyebrow. "How can it be so small?"

"I wondered the same myself, but these Black Boxes," she said, running her right hand across the top of the one on the table, "don't work on the same physics as the HPG system. They both operate in hyperspace, yes, but these create only a ripple effect. You can't carry much information with that, only enough for some lines of text or a single low-res picture, and it's not instantaneous. The signal travels approximately 10 light years per day. That said, it is remarkably compact."

"What's the power source?"

Carroll lifted up the black box on its edge and pulled open a small compartment, inside of which was a standard power cable coupling.

"You have to externally charge it, but any dropship mount will do. We recommend keeping them on dropships," the Morten said, laying the box back down gently. "There's a bit of static created whenever a jumpship comes or goes, and an even smaller amount from HPG terminals. If you want to send or receive the clearest signal, you need to be away from both."

Katrina walked up beside Carroll, but her eyes were on the device. "This doesn't look like Star League technology."

"The casing is different from the original, as is some of the parts, but they're all functional. We've tested them at a maximum range of 111 light years."

Katrina turned a wide-eyed glance at the woman. "Seriously?"

Carroll nodded. "It's not reliable that far, because of what we're calling 'hyperspace weather,' but they have worked at that distance. We recommend keeping it within 65 lightyears to be sure you don't get a garbled message, but you can send the same one multiple times at further distances and one will probably get through…only you have to wait at least an hour and a half in between transmissions," she said, pulling open the lid to reveal a small screen and lots of buttons and dials. She pointed to one indicator light.

"This will glow blue," she said, flipping the on-switch with her other hand, and as promised it lit up in the appropriate color, "when it's ready to transmit. Then the emitter gets overheated and this light will read yellow. Do not use it when it's yellow. Wait till it turns back blue. If it goes red, it means you've destroyed the transmitter."

"A single short message every two hours then?"

"Going out, yes. Receiving depends on how far distant it is. Do not try to send anything from ship to ship at the same jump point. Likewise, we cannot send a signal now with three other black boxes onboard. The pulse is like a radio wave, the further away from the source the weaker it gets. This close, using one will fry the others, and the same thing can happen with two ships at the same jump point. The closest you want to use it safely is transmitting from the Zenith to the Nadir in the same system. That works fine. You can also use it to transmit from a jump point to a planet with almost no lag time."

"How is it encrypted?"

"It's not," Carroll said apologetically. "You can encode your messages however you like, but the pulse goes out in all directions. Anyone can pick it up with these devices. However, we have not detected anyone else using them out here aside from our own. We also know that Comstar has a standing order for its agents to obtain and destroy any of these Black Boxes they can find in old Star League caches. It's inferior to the HPGs, but they seem to want them eliminated rather than preserved for their use. I think it's unlikely they don't at least have a few around to listen in to see if anyone else has one, but fanatics often do strange things for lack of logical reasons, so it's possible they destroyed them all. I just wouldn't bet your realm on it."

"Fanatics?"

Carroll nodded. "We learned quite a lot about them from one of their own that turned pirate. That's where we obtained the original. He was supposed to destroy it but never did. He died fighting our troops, but he had a journal that was quite revealing. They are not neutral arbiters at all. They're fanatics that wish to reestablish the Star League under their own control, and they're using every irregular means at their disposal to do it."

"But what do you mean by fanatics? I've been called as much myself."

"Do you recite incantations over machinery, believing it will not function unless you do?"

"The ones I've met have been quite sane," she differed.

"The ones you and I have met are supposed to be viewed as they want them viewed. The inner workings of their organization are another matter entirely. They are sending endless waves of mercenaries against us trying to destroy the threat to their monopoly, and if you do not guard these with extreme care they will destroy them. Much of the so-called 'industrial sabotage' taking place in the Inner Sphere is actually them. They do not want the technological dark age to end and are deliberately taking down any research activity that seeks to rediscover what was lost. They hoard it for themselves, and more than just HPGs and these Black Boxes. There's a lot more they are not telling people they have."

"And you haven't told me your terms yet," Katrina pointed out.

"A non-aggression pact, for starters. If Comstar can't take us out using mercenaries, the only other way is to get one of the Great Houses to do it for them. They've already arm twisted most respectable businessmen from denying us any sales in the Inner Sphere, and the Federated Suns has gone so far as to remove any mention of House Morten's existence, past and present. They even removed our systems from their maps, and Comstar as well. Cholis was a Federated Suns world that they abandoned because we have our embassy and operational headquarters there and they're denying it even exists now. Do not underestimate the influence Comstar has in the Inner Sphere, including your own House. They have done their best to wall us off, and then try to kill us in the dark. It's not working, so we assume they will try to get one of you to take us out for them. You are the farthest away and the least likely to be conscripted into this, but if it happens you must turn them down."

"That can't be all?"

"No, it's not. If one of the other Great Houses does invade us, you must immediately," Carroll said, stressing the word, "invade their systems closest to yours and force them to fight two wars at once. We do not believe we can survive against their full military might, but we may be able to survive against part of it. You're the backup plan if Comstar is able to twist one of their arms and convince them to invade us under who knows what concocted grounds. Without it, we have no chance if they go that far…and they will if they're able to. They will stop at nothing to protect their monopoly, which is why you have to safeguard these in such a way that only a handful of people even know they exist. If you send them to one of your current research facilities, expect that facility to suffer a mysterious fire and be destroyed. They've done it before elsewhere, including, we believe, on our old research buildings back on Neubenn long before we came into possession of these. And back then we were just trying to make some small improvements in current technology."

"You're saying they want us as primitive as possible in order to yank around?"

Carroll nodded. "Yes, and not for good intentions either. They're sinister in a way that undercuts any sense of morality. Luckily, our realm didn't have any HPGs in it to begin with, except for the embassy on Cholis. When House Davion evacuated the Duke they took a Comstar dropship with them, then the facility exploded killing 683 people in the nearby city. They are soulless monsters bent on conquest every bit as much as the 5 Great Houses. They're just not using battlemechs to do it."

"So you consider House Steiner a soulless monster as well?" Katrina challenged.

"Not on Comstar's level, but none of the Great Houses have a great track record when it comes to being the good guys."

"Are we preferable to House Davion? I'm surprised you didn't strike a deal with them to keep them off your front porch? They'd be as interested in this as we are."

Carroll's face tightened up considerably. "I wasn't born a Morten. I was born Carroll Davion, then appointed as Ambassador-at-Large and liaison to House Morten by Andrew Davion. After he died Ian replaced him and everything went to hell. Comstar shut down communications for the Mortens, and then shortly thereafter shut it down completely on Cholis, which was followed by a large scale mercenary attack that aimed to destroy everyone on the planet. House Morten barely managed to hold off the invasion, which included a warship that I'm told would have bombarded the planet had it not been stopped by our dropship fleet. We lost a lot that day, and I, as Ambassador, had no way to report in past the Comstar blackout, so I hopped on the next passing jumpship and traveled back to New Avalon."

"When I got there I knew my access to Ian would be blocked, so I went to my parents first…and they promptly kicked me off the planet saying I would be killed if I stayed. After all, how can there be a liaison to House Morten if House Morten never existed? I was 'inconvenient,' and because of that my own House was going to kill me. I spent two years on the run before finally making my way back to the Morten Protectorate. I had to go the long way through the Taurian Concordat since Comstar arranged to cancel the jumpship routes that had been going there previously, and thankfully House Morten not only gave me sanctuary, they also adopted me into their House, so I am a Davion no longer. This, as well as ten other equally valid reasons, are why House Morten will strike no deals with the Davions. I'm not claiming House Steiner is any better, but we're on opposite sides of the Inner Sphere and not likely to interact much, so this can be a mutually beneficial arrangement."

"From our end anyway," Katrina said, her own eyes hardening considerably as Carroll's story hit home given recent events. "You're wagering everything on a promise from us. What's to keep us from taking these Black Boxes and not honoring our part of the deal?"

"We're giving them onlyto you," Carroll emphasized, expecting this point to come up and glad that Katrina was being so blunt. "If you fail to counter-invade, we will make sure the other Great Houses that are not attacking us get a copy. You'll still be able to circumvent Comstar, but your advantage over the other Houses will be lost. Plus, what we're asking is also in your advantage, because you would probably see the distraction of our fall an opportunity to pick up a few more planets while our murderers are busy anyway. We just want to make sure you go in immediately, and with full force."

"I assume you also want diplomatic relations established so this arrangement can be leaked out as a deterrent?"

"No," Carroll said harshly. "The Federated Suns and Comstar ignoring that we exist has actually been beneficial for us. The longer they think there's a chance of their mercenaries getting the job done, the more we can prepare for something massive. They're not simply going to quit trying. They are adamant about technological suppression, and must be freaking out that we have this capability now. Publicly announcing a pact between us would draw more attention to the issue than they can afford. I have no idea how they would react, but it could prompt them to shut down communications across the entire Inner Sphere or do something else drastic. They're fanatics, and the best way to play this is to keep them guessing. We don't want them knowing about our deal and preparing for it either. If House Davion or Laio or the Free Worlds League attacks us, we want them to pay the price, and if they don't know you'll hit them hard at the same time they won't have units in place to defend their border worlds properly."

"You're playing a very dangerous game, Morten," Katrina said approvingly. "I hope you win."

"We either win or we are destroyed. There is no other option. Our existence can't be allowed given what we possess and what we know. And you are also going to be targeted if they learn we gave you this. Which is why this meeting never took place. If anyone has to know, tell them you found these Black Boxes in a Star League cache. That's where the Comstar pirate got his from. Leave us out of it entirely. Just make sure House Steiner honors the bargain no matter who is Archon. We learned the hard way that some agreements don't last through regal transitions."

"What else do you want from us?"

Carroll shook her head. "Nothing."

"Nothing?" Katrina said, shocked. "Not even shipments of arms or a big box of money? Those can be shipped quietly enough. You said you're at war."

"And one of our greatest weapons is that Comstar doesn't know exactly what we have or what we know. They're guessing, but if they have a Black Box receiver near our worlds then they know we have these. The less they know the better, so we intend to keep to our little black hole on the map. We just need a contingency plan in case we get hit by more than mercenaries. Fifty years from now we'll be able to stand on our own. But we have to get there first. Time is on our side currently, and we need to keep it that way."

"50 years and you'll be a match for the Great Houses?" Katrina asked skeptically.

"With the way you keep warring on each other, yes. The Periphery usually goes unnoticed anyway. And we're much better at defending worlds than taking them. Especially with the practice we're getting now. Industry wise, we'll keep expanding. House Morten is quite good at logistics, though with records being expunged hardly anyone knows that now. So the blackout works to our benefit in that way."

"You want to be ignored while you build, but Comstar won't allow it and keeps sending mercenaries after you?"

"They keep sending them to die by giving them inaccurate scouting information. It's almost as if they don't want them living as witnesses afterward, only doing damage to us before they're wiped out, and they've got the MRB to keep covering it up and recruiting as many as they need."

"They do, don't they?" Katrina said, not having realized that angle before now. "So in essence, they do have a mech army to draw on."

"But they don't have spy compounds on our worlds like they do yours," Carroll warned. "So not all of the miscalculations might be intentional."

Katrina thought about that, and though the notion of a united mercenary army toppling the LCAF seemed absurd, they were effectively launching a major invasion of a periphery state and no one in the Lyran Commonwealth had known about it until the Mortens had made contact. So maybe she was underestimating what Comstar was capable of.

"Are you sure you can hold against the mercenaries?"

"Fairly sure. And if we don't, we want to make sure you have these to break their monopoly wide open at some point. Though for now I suggest you keep them secret, safe, and reserved for high level operations that they might try to black you out on. Remember, if they have receivers, they can see the messages you send even if they're not sending any of their own. Also, remember to warn your techs that these are very delicate when disassembled. They will most likely break one or two of them trying to reverse engineer them. We've included an instruction manual and blueprints to help, but we're giving you four expecting some will not survive the learning curve. After that, you should be able to produce your own in a few years time, if you can keep the secret that long."

"Does Comstar have clandestine assault teams for such things?"

"Yes," Carroll said without elaborating.

Katrina looked at the Black Box on the table, then at the other three stacked nearby, thinking for a long moment before turning back to the former Davion and extending her hand.

"We have a deal then. House Steiner will honor it no matter who is on the throne."

Carroll shook her hand firmly. "And we were never here."