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It had been nearly a year since the high thirteen had met on Moloch for a round table discussion. The events leading up to this had demanded it. The entirety of the Molochi Technolegion was currently descending upon the home system, eager to avoid conflicts with the invading forces that the Empire's collapse had loosed. No one wanted to admit it, but the Empire's fall would mean a new role for everyone. The aristocrats would no longer be able to hold their opulent balls for every passing Imperial Consul and petty minister. There was little favor left to curry, and the Technolegion was no longer required to answer the beck and call of any sniveling Imperial shit who couldn't handle some backwater insurgency or barbarian invasion because he had sold his fleet to pay gambling debts, or had hired his drunkard friends to command the system fleet. The Sector Fleets had long returned to Terra, and even the Imperial system fleets had not fled, or been salvaged, or simply rampaged uncontrolled. Everything had gone to hell, but thats what the Technolegion was built for. To wade into hell and come out alive. Of course, the petty nobles of the Molochi houses would have to wake from their stupor, and realize that this time the Empire was dead unless the vassals did something. Which was the point of order of the high thirteen. Trying to get any point or order across was an entirely different matter.
The round table held the thirteen members; three women and ten men, who together held more power than any other group on Moloch outside the nobles Ghost Council, and even then guns, nukes and particle beamers tended to be a great equalizer. A fist belonging to an extremely young looking man rapped upon the hard composite table attempting to call the group to order.
"Seriously, we need to talk. Terra has been destroyed, the Imperial fleet is scattered to the wind, and just like the rest of the former Territories we are caught with out pants around our ankles. Now, many of the others are just going to bend over and take it, hoping the Empire rises from its ashes. I don't think we should be this passive, or this stupid. But we need to get some kind of plan into motion. We can't just go with the flow anymore. We won't be getting contracts, nor will the Imperial Logistics Corps. be providing us with our needs. We've valued our self-sufficiency, but the Technolegions are woefully unprepared for full-scale combat, and our fleets are not designed for such endeavors. Our coffers are full though, and there is enough wealth amongst the civilian fucks to fulfill our needs, if we can convince them that our systems survival might be more important that getting their son his new yacht. This isn't going away overnight. The dark is falling, people will look for a beacon, lets be that. We are known through a dozen sectors as the hardest bastards outside the Imperial Shocktroops. We need to survive this coming night."
As if on cue, the lights fell in the room.
'Very fucking funny!'
"Who the fuck!"
'Really, what the hell guys?"
"Would you all grow up!" The lights came back up, a thin, flustered blonde standing by the manuel switch, her pale form fuming. "It's not fucking funny! Didn't you hear Allimen, we are on our own. No more Fleet to watch our backs, no more IA to mop up."
A huge, brilliant grin spread across the face of a member sitting at the table. "I heard it Lizel. No more orders from the sniveling bastards. We finally get to choose our battles. No more times dying by pieces on shitholes halfway across the galaxy, killing people I don't know for masters I don't care about. Light, dark, I can't care right now. I am not here for my masterful politics. I am here because so far I haven't died, no matter how hard anyone has tried to kill me. If you think the death of the Empire is going to make me any easier to kill, why don't you try right now?"
Lizel backed into the wall a bit. Darrien scared the shit out of her. All of them did really, but he was Darrien the Undead. The man had survived two hundred years in the suicide squad, twice what the next best had, and nearly four hundred times the average life expectancy of its members. Most left after a year. Only the total crazers stayed for longer. And the grin, the bright shining teeth he exposed so often. The teeth he was born with hanging around his neck on a simple golden chain, pulled from his head like buckshot after a failed combat drop.
"He's just fucking with with you Liz. He won't hit women outside of actual combat. He's a sappy romantic like that." The dark haired woman rolled her eyes.
"Thanks Bri, sometimes I wonder why we ever split up." Another grin.
"And I wonder why I ever married you." A fragile smile back. Liz felt the pain behind the grins. Their son had died in combat. It was a long time ago, long before Liz was born, but it wore on them heavy to this day. Somehow they had still served together for a century. They were deposits of pain, you set them upon the enemy, and let them work out their frustrations. She always had to hold back tears when she saw the two talk.
"Now that the lovebirds have spoken, what about the topic at hand? Do you have anything to add Bri?"
The dark haired woman shot a wicked glance at the tattooed man who spoke. He wore nothing more than a pair of running shorts, his scarred face looking around the room. Parikjacklan Declaux Roos. Another total crazer.
"Its Hallibria, Jack! I won't be called Bri by some prick who ran back to the Infantry! And we have already been gaining support in the Ghost Council. We've got the support of the Danielson's, and the Lecroix's and Chan-Carlsons should come along shortly. We should have some political real leverage soon. We can probably prevent the system from collapsing in civil war, although a batshit sadist like you would probably like that."
There was a momentary flash of anger in the mans otherwise dead eyes, and then a small smile, and a little chuckle. "Sorry Hallibria. I'll take this seriously too. The infantry are in good shape. We can provide riot duty, MPing and simple disaster services across the whole system. Kay can fill you in better."
He nodded at a middle aged man sitting across the table. Kaoru Steffen, General in the Molochi Infantry. "We have deployed across the system, reinforcing our bases, filling out the barracks, and outposts. I am sending the info to you all now. The basic soldiery is holding up very well given the magnitude of events. The main worries are the rising population densities of the young knights. They don't have any missions, nothing to prevent their youthful excesses. But we don't want to start a war just to stop the youngsters from sowing their wild oats. But we can't afford to lose a portion to maternity leave without having a way to replace them, and we cannot afford to start pulling up the proletariat, they won't stand to be conscripted, they'll expect noble rank, and the lower classes are going to get packed. We don't want to pull up any mid-class soldiery to the Death Pact either. We need the Death Pact lean and strong. We don't want to be spreading the political power thin. Its going to be important if we want to have any influence over the Ghost Council."
"Brilliant political history in the files Kay! Some is quoted from me, always nice to see ones work appreciated." Alvin Tostig, unnofficial historian of the high thirteen. He probably was upset that his history books would end here, but you couldn't tell it from his praise. "Right now is the time when Moloch can truly write its place into history. We have a precious chance to help restore order, perhaps forming a commonwealth, or a federalist conglomerate. Ensuring our power within the political structures forming after the collapse of any great social entity is crucial. We know we have a military advantage over many of our neighbors, so we should be most reluctant to use it. They will remember our restraint far more than our excesses. Priority should be reinforcement of the system itself, and provided military aid to those in need. The commanders in this room have repulsed more barbarian threats than some factions can claim in their history, we can use this to build more favors than they can repay. We'll have them in our pockets. Then we can crush them at our whim."
"I don't think we want to be crushing anyone, ever. All I can add is that the fleet needs an overhaul. Badly. Liz and me can make due with what we have, but without dedicated capital ships, our ships are far more designed for siege breaking, blockades, and insertion. We aren't going to win the long time slugging matches that the Imperial Navy handled for us, and we can't really provide mid-level strategic bombardments. We can take out a building, or glass the territory. We don't really have much option if we need to take down a few hardened square km, or just blow the shit outta a planet."
"Thank you Captain Jericho." The kindhearted man had really broken the ice, and now Liz felt back at home, once the monsters of Darrien Viest, Hallibria Viest Westmore and ParikJacklan had been called away, and the austere Tostig and Kay had provided their assessments. "The aerospace wing is well prepared for most of our duties, however we need more planes to provide the close range support that Jericho is talking about. I know you guys wouldn't want to enter battle without some eyes in the sky and a friendly couple of plasma warheads in a pinch." Now she was calm, and returned to her seat. "From the sound of it, we just need to up the budget on everything. We are going to have to requisition the Council for tons of money."
"The fat bastards have it. As long as we are getting it, we need some for the ground forces. Our conventional forces are well... really conventional, and it would do for us to either upgrade or expand. The technolegion may be the hardest infantry around, but we are using old Sharlian Mk V's for the most part. A uniquely Molochi tank would be nice addition, and would help curb some proletariat unrest. We still have to worry about them. Unlike other Imperial citizens, we can't just shoot them if they get too unruly. Give them some pride. I've been discussing this with Max, and we have the stockpiles of spare parts and can scavenge a lot of pieces of the Mk V's and older Mk IV's, as well as buying up surplus from around here, plus we can use some of the technolegion tech scaled up. Making an urban combat tank would be a huge boon in the coming days. We aren't going to see set piece battles, but peacekeeping missions against real guerillas, without the threat of come out or the Empire will carpet nuke you."
"Nice analysis Barthis." It was Ted. Theodore Hoplin. "Frankly, I want to avoid a war. I have my kids to think about, and I'd rather see them grow up happy then see a Molochi Empire. We all saw the flaws of the Empire in our service, even as we experienced all the good things it brought. Hopefully sanity will prevail in the galaxy, but if it doesn't I'd rather die on my doorstep for my family than in a duct trying to blow up someone else's. We need a defense budget. And the nobles will eat that. Their poor thousands of credits into the simplest things for their kids, they'll pay trillions for their lives."
A beautiful black haired women cleared her throat to get attention. It was a formality, they had been pinged on their internal comms, and new the Shebe wanted their attention. The data packet was ready to accept whenever they wanted. "I'll get my husband to work on the funding. Between him and the Danielson whore who is creaming herself over Darrien we should have enough pull to get the war industry restarted. Don't worry about it, Gustav will get it done, he's a sweetheart like that."
"I'll never get used to you calling anyone sweetheart Shebe." A young man with a single brilliant red scar across the right cheek. "Too many years away from serving under you, and I finally come home to the Death Pact and the high thirteen and find you a married woman. The world changes when you are at war. Anyway, I think Old Man Allimen wants to close this meeting up."
"Thanks for reminding me of my age Levon Tostig. We can't all be youthful like you, Liz and Jericho. Some of us just have to rely on grumpiness, bile and experience to get through the world. And don't grin Darrien, you're an old bastard too. Anyways, we all have the data sets we brought, and we can keep in touch over the system nets now. I'd like to keep these formal meetings going though. Face to face contact can be nice, especially after all these years of sporadic meetings. We need to plan the future out, no more wandering blind in the dark. We have fought too long, and too hard to fade away just because the Empire fell. We'll show the galaxy, we are the Molochi Death Pact. Just who do they think they are fucking with?"
This is not life. This is sickness.
I shall not be like you. Order my destruction!
-Dalek
The Book of Love is long and boring and written very long ago
It's full of flowers and heart-shaped boxes and things we're all too young to know.
Last edited by Dark Hellion on 2007-11-28 07:29am, edited 1 time in total.
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Currently the oldest living large Tradeship "Pilot" Eddison has been the computer to tradeship 
