It had been somewhat like a bolt of lightening, they were there and then they weren't. An entire war had ensued, one of the most technologically advanced nation's was now just a reach away from pirate control and they had only flown eleven missions throughout the entire ordeal. He could've made assumptions, mental accusations about what was "really going on" and who might be pulling the strings, but it was clear. High command had been just as confused as he was. Kusari had been on a rampaging warpath that could have cut Liberty down the middle and in one day, refocused its military strength back into itself. Rheinland, who blind sided both Liberty and Bretonia with an unannounced alliance with Kusari was now pleading for peace. President Abma and the Liberty DoD had dug in and still refused come out of full defensive posture. All the while, Her Majesty's military stood by and watched the events unfold with an expression of disbelief and confusion.
Ghost sighed as he entered he watched the Tau-29 --> Tau 31 Jump Gate open and begin its artificial phase align. The White Dawn and Angel's Embrace, hospital ships of the Queen, activated their docking strobes and slowly lumbered into the bright light that would take them to the now fortified Tau 31, from which, they would proceed on to Leeds. The Planetform Inc. terraforming outpost on Planet Harris would now be home to some 3,000 Armed Forces fighter pilots and the gates to the other Taus on the far side of the system, the new front line. They'd been ordered to gun down any pirate elements unlucky enough to be found and it had been hinted that High Command wanted no prisoners.
As his wing prepared to jump, a large BMM convoy came through. The company, along with Border World Exports and small contingent of Gateway traders were cashing in on the unstable gold mine that was Kusari. With the Emperor dead and the military tied up with the pirates and themselves, the embargo on Bretonia had been unofficially lifted. The civilian companies, at least the ones who hadn't fled the house, placed an overflowing amount of orders to the western trading companies who's cargo they'd been starved of the since the beginning of the war. Prices on exports to Kusari shot up like a ship in atmospheric escape. A "Danger Tax" had been added to the original subtotal of all orders, since traders would now be flying into "hostile territory", but even this hadn't lessened the number of orders Bretonia received.
As the SAS wing of three passed the convoy, Ghost thought he caught a glimpse of the smiling freighter pilot - the dollar signs nigh visible in his eyes, and the thought of danger absent from his mind. Business and politics..had they both not been able to flourish on each other's failures what kind of world mankind be living in.
(All my blogs can now be found here, indexed in this blog. If you enjoy my writing then please explor them and read 'Carni's Corner' for more background on them.
Link to Carni's Corner )
No comments:
Post a Comment