Chapter One Hundred and Thirteen: Consequences
St. Ives, April 30th, 3026
"Payne," I greeted the man tiredly. "I take it we're having success weeding out the fanatics?"
"Yessir, Duchess Liao actually volunteered the information on the WMDs on St. Ives without coercion."
"That's good to hear, it may end up helping save her life later." I said with a tired sigh. "Anything else to report?"
"We have the engineers combing over the factories and population centers here, and so far they haven't found anything aside from some conventional explosives." He reported. "Still, I've got our people on high alert, and we managed to get Comstar to lift the Interdiction on St. Ives so we can get information again."
"Good to hear." I responded. "Do we have any information on what's going on in the rest of the Confederation?"
"Slim to none," Payne replied. "We do have intel on what Ian's orders were, and when they were relayed to various forces."
"Any updates on Peterson and Packer?" I asked while going over various planetary reports on my slate.
"We're seventy-five percent certain that Peterson is bogged down on Capella, and that Packer is either on Liao or Outreach."
"Alright." I responded, "We don't have the garrison forces that the rest of our units did, so we're going to have to hold down St. Ives." I turned to look at Mathis. "All of the Ducal Guard are trained in counterintel right?"
"Yessir, Dunham and I did the training ourselves." Mathis responded.
"Alright then. Payne, we're on pacification duty for the foreseeable future until Ian gets us some relief here." I said. "I'll be operating under the guise of a military governor for now until we manage to get a proper one from New Avalon installed."
"Anything specific that you need?" Mathis asked.
"Get me Duchess Liao, and a couple of servitors, we need to be able to see things from every angle if we're going to be doing this properly."
Liao, March 15th, 3026
"Colonel Packer," Colonel Samantha Vincent greeted the other officer again. "Thanks for all of your assistance so far."
"You are most welcome," Packer replied, "It's nice to have people with brains on both sides of the border."
"We know we managed to clean out most of the Maskirovka's leadership before you arrived on Liao." Samantha shifted tracks. "But we also know we didn't get them all, and that's how they managed to take out a battalion and a half of the Reserve Cavalry with nerve gas before we could do anything."
"Weren't prepped for it?" Packer asked.
"No, we didn't expect any NBC issues from people that are supposed to be a part of our own nation." She shook her head. "But I guess I'm defecting to the Davions now if they can do that to units that are supposed to be protecting them."
"We'll be happy to have you after we get this mess cleaned up." Packer said with a small smile. "I've got intel and counterintel people here and they're going to start isolating the cells as much as possible shortly, I'm also having our engineers go over everything to see if there are any nukes waiting to go off like there were on Northwind."
"Fucking Nukes!" Colonel Vincent spat on the ground. "There's a good reason we stopped using them."
"They don't care about civilian targets and are indiscriminate in their use." Packer agreed. "I need to make sure your staff and troops will cooperate though."
"They'll fucking help," Samantha swore. "Or I'll shoot them myself."
"Then let's get to work." Packer brought out his slate and began sending messages to the various staff members of his RCT. "I'll need your help to get this done though."
"I'll personally make sure that everything gets done." Colonel Vincent responded.
Capella, March 30th, 3026
"This is Captain Bruce of the Defender, please verify your identity." He had his communications officer sent to the fleet that was at the jump point.
"This is Hanse Davion, I'm sending over authentication codes now." Came a response.
"Do they check out?" Captain Bruce Bruce asked his Comm officer.
"Yessir, authentication codes are a match for the ones we have on file." He responded.
"It's good to see you sir." Bruce greeted. "Colonel Peterson is still on the ground, and probably needs some aid in finishing off the MASK cells that are down there."
"Well, we have the aid to give." Hanse responded with a chuckle. "No nukes have gone off here I take it?" Hanse asked.
"Nothing yet, they did manage to damage what was left of the Rashpur-Owens yards though." Bruce responded. "And they tried to get rid of the factory complexes, but our Intel team did good work and made sure everything was dismantled before anything could go off."
"Good, we'll be on the ground as soon as we're able, and we brought garrison forces with us as well."
Rigil Kentarus, March 27th, 3026
"Archon," Frederick inclined his head over the long distance real time HPG that they were paying a premium price for. "I regret to inform you that due to the losses the 4th Royal Guards incurred, I have fallen back to Commonwealth space."
"It is alright Frederick," Katrina lifted her icy expression for a moment before the mask settled back down. "No one expected the Madman to truly try anything of this sort."
"I want to collect reinforcements and return ASAP." He informed his cousin with a growl. "I want them dead for what they did!"
"Not up to us." Katrina sighed, "By the time you had filled out your ranks and begun to move on Sian, the war would more than likely be over already."
"Katrina, they killed two thirds of our 'mech pilots." Frederick stated. "We can't stand by anymore."
"I'm not standing by Frederick." She replied. "I'm shifting you to Northwind to assist in the rebuilding efforts there, they need the help and you need to be off of the frontlines for a little while to clear your head."
"I do not like this." Frederick protested. "We should push further and keep the attack up."
"We can't do that if we're going to continue to take losses like this." Katrina said. "We lost more than just parts of your unit, elements of the Skye Rangers also were taken out by NBC attacks in various areas."
"So we have to fall back in order to rebuild after our first offensive in near a century?" Frederick asked with a scowl on his face.
"Yes, unfortunately we must." Katrina replied. "After you're done with the rebuilding on Northwind, come on back to Tharkad, there's some things I should have informed you of earlier."
Kentares IV, March 25th, 3026
"How goes the interrogation?" Dunham asked. "Anything out of him yet?"
"The advanced formulas on the Clan Core helped out a bunch." The lead of the department stated. "He and several of the others broke a couple of days ago."
"Good, anything I need to know in order to keep Kentares IV safe?" Dunham asked.
"We're compiling the report now sir." The lead answered. "Everything will be there."
"Understood." Dunham responded as his slate chimed with a priority alert. "I have to take this, I'll go over the report later."
"Yes?" Dunham asked. "What's going on?"
"We found the MASK stash of nerve agents." A field officer reported. "We're going over everything now and have a HAZMAT team on the way."
"Evacuate the area just in case, the last thing we need is for it to go off." Dunham replied.
New Avalon, March 30th, 3026
"Yvonne, do we have an update on that nuke yet?" Ian rushed into her office.
"No Ian, I would have let you know if we had an update." She responded. "We don't have anything yet, dismantling deep cover cells takes time Ian, and finding these people without them immediately setting off the nuke is something that will take time as well."
"I don't like this." Ian said as he paced along the floor. "I fear that they will target my nephew and niece."
"I know." Yvonne responded with a sad smile. "But we have our people working on it, and that's all that we can ask for right now."
"Alright." Ian sighed. "I need something to do though."
"Start organizing the garrison forces to move in after Hanse, Mark, and the rest of our people are done." Yvonne suggested. "You'll need more of them than we have right now."