Chapter 31
Distress Signal
Lyreton
20th June, 3025
Deep System
On arriving at Lyreton it had taken less than thirty minutes before the message was picked up, repeating on half hour cycles aimed square for the Legacy. The quiet but insistent preparations for war ground to a halt, or at least a temporary reprieve, as it was processed and decoded back into its basic parts. The crew restless on discovering its identifier was from Coromodir. "Kane, what is it?" Miranda said entering the strategium of the bridge as I gathered my closest people for this.
"It's Kamea, she needs medicae aid for her implants. Coromodir was attacked and her Knight... didn't make it as far as we can tell." There was a round of shocked gasps.
"Attacked?" Glitch said shaking her head, "Who the hell..."
Samuel frowned, leaning towards the holoprojector. "The Restoration made enemies, as well as friends. And so have you Kane."
"In this case, I don't believe it was either." Calling up the rest of the message as well as numerous pict-captures. "Whoever hit Kamea hit her like a dropship, and they knew exactly where and when to hit, but Kamea wasn't the target. The Knight Crusader was hit first, not the mech bay, that killing was done to get access to the Crusader. See these picts." The image of technicians attempting to forge access to and dismantle the Knight was projected. "Additionally, they actually kidnapped Kamea's sacristan. The lost control at the Mech Hangar and withdrew. Once they had Helena they called it mission done and fell back, nuked the site."
"Espinosa's loyalists trying to get an edge no doubt." Glitch shrugged.
Miranda shook her head and enhanced the image. "Can't be... you ever seen tanks like those..."
The room went silent as they all focused their attention on the armored vehicles conducting the attack, barely visible at the edge of the pict-captures. I cycled through the other intelligence that Alexander had broadcast, everything the palace systems captured, but never once did those machines trip any of the sensor nets until they started firing.
"Stealth armour?" Yang said as he studied what he could, "I didn't think anybody had perfected it. And those drives, it looks like they did something with gravity plating and used some lighter aerospace engines for thrust maybe."
The cold pit in my stomach deepened, lostech armour, gravity plating, extremely well informed strike, nuclear weapons to cover their actions. A first impression might suspect that Davion or Steiners were involved, yet the technology they had come to raid was already being shared to a degree with them, Steiner and Davion had no reason to conduct such a strike. The other Great Houses were incapable of the technological finesse being displayed. There was only one possible candidate.
"We need to redirect to Coromodir. There were a few prisoners taken from a diversionary strike, but they're claiming ignorance. I can't accept that, Kamea and her people weren't the target at all. The Knight Crusader and Helena were the target," I leaned back against the wall, "there is only one realistic suspect here, ComStar has decided to take what we've been hiding, and they acted where we were weakest and had nobody protecting the technology."
The room was silent as they digested the implications. "Samuel, I want you to conduct an assessment of our troops, I want a kill-clade assembled for some wetwork. Cortezar, I want a very very special sort of team put together with the equipment."
"Yes my Duke," Cortezar bowed, "What ..."
"I want the equipment and specialists put together to create arco-flagellants. Ensure all of them are equipped with explosive charges set to detonate if the arco-flagellants are slain, I want no evidence of our direct hand." The expression on my face must have given them pause, even Glitch stepped back from the table as she saw the hologram of an arco-flagellant.
"What's the plan?" Samuel asked.
"The plan is to hurt two enemies with one stone. The kill-clade is going to infiltrate onto Capella itself, slay the guard forces of the ComStar First Circuit facility and convert the rest of the population into Arco-flagellants. They will be programmed to respond to the arming code 'Would you kindly', which we will transmit when ComStar investigates." The look around the table was one of contemplation, and concern.
"Arco-flagellants have no capacity for discrimination." Yang said studying the files.
"Correct. Either ComStar's people will kill them all, or their deactivation code can be issued and remaining units recovered." I sat down, "But for now, let's get to Coromodir, let's help Kamea rebuild.