The day after Free Skye attacked the 356th Annual Skye Steeplechase, I was just settling into a day of paperwork when a knock sounded on my door. George Wentworth glanced at me, then stood up to go answer it, with one hand straying behind his back, to where I knew he kept his sidearm holstered. I wanted to roll my eyes at his dramatics, but I couldn’t – not after the hectic assassination attempt on the Archduchess not yet twenty-four hours old. I pulled open a desk drawer where I kept my own personal laser pistol, just in case.“What is it?” George asked, opening the door only enough to show his face. “I’ve got a message from Colonel Feretti, for Hauptmann Cain,” came the reply, just audible from my desk. My adjutant took something from the messenger with a nod, and quickly shut the door.
He came back holding a datapad, though he didn’t immediately bring it to me. Neither of us was up for trusting random messengers at the moment.
Instead, George deposited it inside a large black box that was mounted near the door itself, and shut it inside, tapping one of the buttons. A security scanner, which he’d just installed this morning. He said the device was made by the LIC, and I politely didn’t ask if he’d gotten it legitimately or not. A few moments later, the scanner beeped, confirming that the datapad didn’t contain any known explosives or poisons. “Well?” I asked, as my adjutant retrieved the datapad from the scanner. “I’m not expecting anything from Feretti. What does it say?”George frowned.“There’s a message for you at the ComStar compound,” he said, warily. “Urgent. He’s ordering you there to handle it ASAP.”I was taken aback for a moment, but shook it off quickly. I didn’t know what the hell was going on, but when the normally casual Colonel gave an order like that, I knew that it was important. Especially if he was ordering me directly, skipping over Kommandant Wagner and bypassing the chain of command.“Let’s go,” I said, standing up. “Call a car from the motor pool, have them drop it off outside. We’ll take it to the HPG compound.”
George made the call as I grabbed my jacket and my shoulder holster, and quickly donned both of them. By the time I was on my way out the door, George had done the same, and we quickly made our way out of the building.A fresh-faced Corporal saluted sharply as he got out of the LCAF staff car. I returned it quickly, and slid into the passenger seat as George took the wheel.“You know where the ComStar compound is?” I asked idly as I checked the glove box and back seats for any suspicious packages out of habit.My adjutant gave me a flat look, and I silently withdrew the question with an apologetic shrug. ComStar was a curious thing in the Inner Sphere. A neutral organization in the middle of a five-way war. Those kinds of things usually only survived by dint of being small enough to avoid notice – but nobody could avoid noticing ComStar. Quite literally, given that their compounds were physically dominated by the enormous antenna dish of their Hyperpulse Generators, or HPG’s as they were more commonly known. That’s why George gave me that look; you could see a ComStar compound for dozens of kilometers in any direction. They purposefully built them in places where they could get a lot of visual separation from dense office towers and city skylines. They put up enormous, BattleMech-scale walls to separate off their entire compound, ringed with security cameras and electric stunning probes, and manned by robe-wearing security guards in combat armor and carrying military rifles.ComStar compounds were like embassies. Enclaves to an entirely separate nation that simply happened to be located inside the Lyran Commonwealth… because in actual fact, that’s what they were. Officially, their proper name was either the Order of ComStar, or the much more complicated joint combination of Communications Enterprise Inc. and Starlight Broadcasting Ltd. – helpfully smashed together to simply become ComStar.They were the last remnant of the old Star League, formed out of the shattered ruins of its Ministry of Communications, which operated the HPGs in order to supply the average citizen with communications services. I suppose you could think of them as much like a post office. They took your letters, and for a small fee, would send them to any world that had a ComStar compound… which was almost every world in the Inner Sphere. Without ComStar, all communications would have to travel the slow way, the old ‘pony express’ as the Federated Suns might have called it. Put your mail on a Jumpship or Dropship, and have it physically travel to the star system where you needed the mail to go. Perhaps an example would help illustrate this. After the battle at Installation RS1-45, the 10th Lyran Regulars had sent off an HPG message to Tharkad so that High Command would be aware of what happened. It took about a week for that message to get to Tharkad. However, if they’d sent it via a Jumpship, then it would have taken ten weeks, as Tharkad was ten jumps away from Skye. That was an enormous technological edge, and it gave ComStar a near-monopoly on interstellar communications. That was enough power that any Great House would be salivating over controlling it. Which raised the obvious question: why didn’t they?The official answer was that all five of the Great Houses – Steiner, Kurita, Davion, Liao, and Marik – had signed a joint agreement to recognize ComStar’s neutrality near the start of the Succession Wars.The unofficial answer was that some Great Houses had tried in the past. The Steiners had infiltrated ComStar with spies, the Kuritas and Mariks had attacked it with military forces.
ComStar, however, had the ultimate response: Interdiction. They would disable their HPG’s, hide their personnel, and shut off that nation’s entire interstellar communications as easily as they could flip a light-switch.
Needless to say, an Interdict from ComStar was about the worst possible thing that could happen for any nation. They’d used the ability before, most notably against the Mariks of the Free Worlds League, but also against others. I don’t doubt that every Great House was trying to crack ComStar’s technological edge, but if anyone was close, I certainly wasn’t authorized to hear about it. I do remember Katrina finding some interesting device back during our little pirate adventure, but I hadn’t asked for details then, and I wasn’t interested in any now – after all, my suggestions in yesterday’s meeting with Margaret Aten would have resulted in me being forced to run a counter-terrorism operation, if I hadn’t managed to talk her out of it.Since nobody had a better solution, however, it meant that ComStar remained the most powerful neutral force in the Inner Sphere. Even the LCAF had to use their services, just for the sheer practicality, as did every other nation’s military.
It probably drove the LIC and every other intelligence agency mad, since no matter what code-books they used, they were inevitably going to be sending hundreds if not thousands of encrypted messages through ComStar – more than enough for them to start decoding the messages. Of course, ComStar claimed that they weren’t reading anyone’s mail, but… well, honestly. If you buy that, then I’ve got a lovely beachfront house on Tharkad that I’d like to sell you.For the moment, however, it also meant that in order to send classified or urgent messages, we had to follow ComStar’s rules. Today, that meant that I was being forced to physically go to their HPG compound on Skye in order to satisfy their requirements. It took about twenty minutes of driving to get to the compound. I have to admit, for a monastic order of supposed pacifists, ComStar did understand how to properly set up a defensive barricade. Their home-grown protection detail, the ComGuards, were little more than a meager PDF with light vehicle support, but there was nothing meager about the anti-BattleMech walls, nor ComStar’s ability to hire nearby Mercenary units at the drop of a hat.George pulled up to the curb to let me out. Before I left the car, I regretfully withdrew my laser pistol from its holster and handed it over to him. More ComStar regulations, you see. Nobody armed on the premises except for them. An element of ‘neutral ground’, so that national rivals couldn’t attack each other. Rather pointless given that planets were almost always controlled entirely by one Successor State, and if they weren’t, ComStar usually refused to let anyone enter, lest they risk damaging the HPG itself.
There wasn’t much of a line to get into the place. Since the HPG’s were not physical transportation services, but electronic messaging devices, most of the population simply submitted their mail via the planetary network, paid their fee, and that was good. Only people like myself, who had some form of a priority message, had to actually show up in person.After walking through the scanner arch at the front gate, I patiently waited as the nearest ComGuard infantryman consulted the device. “You may enter,” the man said after a few moments, nodding to me.
I smiled quickly, and moved onwards. The compound itself was a short walk away, probably so that a car bomb couldn’t take out both the gatehouse and the compound’s entrance itself. As this was an urgent message, I strode as quickly as I could.Still, there was time for me to think as I walked. In this moment, my mind lingered on the ComGuards I’d seen, and their particular fashion sense.
The ComGuard uniforms looked a touch silly to me. Most of it was fine. Perfectly normal coveralls, with an armored vest, helmet, boots, and gloves. That was quite similar to the Lyran uniforms. But then, on top of that, they wore a hooded half-cape, mucking with their peripheral vision. The Mechanicus wore something similar, but they at least had the advantage of cybernetic eyes that made up for it.
Don’t get me wrong, I wasn’t disdaining the robes. I’d known plenty of people who wore robes, and even some who’d worn them into battle, as silly as that might sound.
I was more perturbed by the blending of what I considered to be my two separate lives: my original one under the Emperor’s direct government, and this second one in the Inner Sphere. Either style of clothing would have appeared normal to me, but instead I was left with the vaguely anxious feeling, as if I was waiting for a Magos to come around the corner and start angrily screeching demands about why their robes were so short, and undyed white cloth rather than holy red.The moment I entered, a ComStar acolyte hurried up to me.“Hauptmann Cain, yes?” he asked, with a rushed, almost frantic voice. “Yes, that’s me,” I replied, a bit unsure. “I believe I’m here for a message?”The acolyte laughed. Not a ‘haha, funny!’ kind of laugh, but a nervous, slightly unhinged laugh.“This way,” the acolyte said, not answering my question. “Quickly, quickly!”A part of me wanted to refuse, because the man was clearly not acting normal. But I didn’t have a choice. Colonel Feretti would have had my head, and I didn’t dare offend ComStar, lest they take it out on the Lyran Commonwealth as a whole.I followed after the acolyte as he hurriedly made his way through the ComStar building’s large hallways. We walked a surprisingly far distance, enough that I was starting to get the feeling that I wasn’t supposed to be in these rooms without actually being in ComStar.“Here,” the acolyte said, gesturing to a room. “They’re waiting for you.”I did as I was bid, uneasily, only to find myself in an almost completely empty room. Contrary to the acolyte’s words, there was nobody inside. The room was bare of everything, save for a large flatscreen mounted on one of the walls, and a strange scanner-like apparatus just above it.The door clicked shut behind me, the acolyte not following me inside.
For a moment, I considered the possibility that I’d been duped – but then I pushed that aside.
As much power as ComStar held, they were also smart enough to realize that there was a limit to their untouchable nature. Screwing around with a Successor Lord’s friend was a good way to cause them innumerable issues.I settled down to wait, but no sooner had I accepted the possibility of boredom when the flatscreen monitor lit up, flashing to life.The screen went through a fast calibration test, one of those holding patterns, and then, a moment later, changed to display a familiar face that I hadn’t seen in a little over three months now.Katrina Steiner’s face was emblazoned across the flatscreen. She was standing in a room that looked exactly as bare and empty as this one, as if it was a mirror image. She looked… unhappy. But, well, to be fair, that was her default expression on most days that she had to deal with the Lyran Commonwealth’s inefficiencies and corruption – which was every day since she’d become Archon.“Oh!” I blurted out at the sight of my friend. “Katrina must have sent me a video message.”That meant that this must have been important. It was entirely likely that ComStar would only show this to me once, and so I probably needed the ability to pause it or rewind it. I looked around quickly, but I didn’t see a remote control anywhere. Bugger.
“Where’s the damn pause button?” I muttered, as I looked around quickly.
“Shut up the hell up, Ciaphas,” said Katrina Steiner, before adding: “This isn’t a video message. It’s a live call. And it costs more than your annual salary for every minute, so stop talking and listen.”I froze in place, and tried my absolute hardest to not flinch.Judging by the disappointed expression on Katrina’s face, I hadn’t succeeded.“Your report on the Skye Militia’s attack just crossed my desk yesterday,” the Archon of the entire Lyran Commonwealth told me, her gaze like steel. “This is the perfect opportunity for us to skewer Free Skye politically. You’ll be getting a detailed action plan from ComStar shortly. Take it to the Archduchess, and make sure she does it. Do you understand?”“Yes,” I answered with a quick nod.“Aten might be afraid to say some of the more extreme points,” Katrina continued. “I want you to convince her. I don’t care if this causes a ruckus in the Skye court.”My brain came to an abrupt stop at Katrina’s peculiar phrasing.“That’s probably not going to happen,” I said without thinking.Katrina’s eyes narrowed on me. I didn’t like that expression. I never liked that expression. I’d seen the glares of some very scary customers in my time, but Katrina Steiner’s glare was up there. She was, after all, the woman who’d risen to a Colonel’s rank at the age of twenty-two, with just four years of service.
She had plenty of unofficial nicknames and sobriquets, but whenever that expression came up, I could only think of the one used by the Mariks and Kuritas: the Iron Bitch.
“Why?” the Archon asked.My gut wanted to hesitate, to delay, but my brain remembered the sheer amount of money being spent on this call.
I straightened up to attention, and told her the bad news straight on.“Yesterday, there was an assassination attempt on Archduchess Margaret Aten,” I said shortly. “It did not succeed. After it happened, the Archduchess wanted to impose martial law, a curfew, and arresting all members of Free Skye. For manpower, she demanded aid from all three garrisoned Regiments under the Articles of Incorporation.”
Katrina Steiner inhaled sharply, but she gave no other emotional reaction. I kept going, not hesitating as I barreled downhill at full speed, trying to explain the shitshow of yesterday as succinctly as possible. If I left something un-explained, then Katrina would have to waste more time asking questions, and that would not be good.“Myself and several members of the court managed to convince her this would play into Free Skye’s hands, and talked her down,” I explained. “We will instead identify and arrest or kill their leadership.”“We?” Katrina repeated, locking eyes with me.“Yes,” I said. “I was present during the attempt on her life, and the argument afterwards. The Archduchess tried to put me in charge of the operation, and I had to regretfully turn her down, because I’m not the right man for the job.”
Katrina blinked, a puzzle expression flashing over her face in place of her cold expression – before vanishing again, leaving her glaring at me.
“Ciaphas, you’re an idiot,” she snapped. I opened my mouth to reply in protest, but she continued, cutting me off. “No, stop talking. I want you in charge of that operation. That’s an order.”“But – but,” I spluttered, already knowing in the back of my head that I couldn’t talk her out of it, but compelled to try by my own cowardly desire to stay alive. “I’m just a Hauptmann! I can’t – nobody would listen! Freddy’s already against it, LeBlonc is Lestrade’s man, and the LIC – I don’t have the authority, Kat!”
My pleas fell on deaf ears. Katrina Steiner was not moved. As she opened her mouth again, I felt my stomach sink.
“I am giving you the authority, Cain,” the Archon said, staring at me so hard that her eyes were like drills, carving into my soul. “I will have ComStar issue you a verigraphed letter from me. The same one I gave to Morgan. I want you to handle this. Do you understand me?”
“Yes!” I yelped, eyes widening against my will.
There was still a part of me resisting, trying to fight back as I was dragged, kicking and screaming, into more responsibility and more danger. But there was also a part of me that understood, with resigned exhaustion, that it was futile.“The LIC will be given instructions to obey your every command,” Katrina continued. “There is an elite LOKI team stationed on Skye that will be put at your direct disposal. They’ve had no action in four years, so they will be prepared.”I swallowed. A LOKI team, not used for four years… that could only mean one thing.“Do you have any other earth-shattering information for me?” Katrina asked.“No,” I answered, shaking my head frantically.Katrina glanced at her watch. I didn’t need to do the same to understand that this call had gone on for significantly longer than she had originally planned. My annual salary, twice my annual salary, three times my annual salary…“Handle it,” Katrina ordered, pointing directly at me. Even though she was almost two hundred lightyears away, I could almost feel that finger digging into my chest.The HPG call cut off with a sudden click.Just bloody wonderful.