1.1 The Darkening Clouds
[September 3016]
Heron Arsacid stared at the holographic display. By design, or by happenstance the frozen image was of a rampaging orion that had had its SLDF camo grafitti-ed with the totenkampf... the grinning death's head. Not that he needed any additional indication that these were the bad guys.
He didn't watch ComStar's news service very often... despite two years in this era, this universe there just never seemed to be time to do so. That was compounded by his distrust of ComStar... and the lack of benefit to their coverage... except that latter caveat wasn't true.. not in this instance.
ComStar had the HPG network, broken, and inefficient as it was they still had a monopoly on Inner Sphere ftl communication linking human space. Thus, they could carry news of things from across light years it was just normally death and destruction that warranted coverage to the periphery were the battles between the successor states. ComStar covering pirate attacks was unusual.
"... Black Jack McGirk continues his rampage..."
That was the headline plastering the main 'screen'. Other holograms bolstered the news headline. The map wasn't the clearest it was obviously showing somewhere on the Davion Taurian border and the pirate was probably hitting both... but this had been going on... he divided the numbers into years and blinked... this had been going on for years.
Years before he'd gotten here... his first thought was that it could have been another person from another world... that was a little concerning given how mad for power Black Jack's rampage seemed to be but... as exploitable as the essence was if that were the case then... well things would have been much worse... and the name was familiar. Canonical, but nothing came to mind other than yeah pirate... and ComStar ... the name Jolly Roger Incident wouldn't click immediately... but it was just a blurb... another example of the supposedly neutral organizations duplicity a reiteration not to trust that he didn't really need... but Black Jack represented a threat in the Rimward periphery.
"You mean to tell me this psychopathic manchild has been running around for over a decade, and no one has been able to pin him on a planet and kill him." Or hell, for that matter not get mutinied by his own pirates... they were a pirate band it wasn't as if Black Jack had started out as some pirate king in the periphery with semi legitimate control over the planet and even then that wouldn't have prevented some enterprising sub captain decided he'd make a better king of the pirates... "I would have expected given his apparent resources," Including what he could tell from the recordings included Royal technology, or late star league experimental tech like snub nosed PPCs, "That the Great Houses might have considered this a pressing concern."
There was a clink, as a crystal wine glass sat down on the granite surface of the table, "They didn't." Lord Karosas remarked simply. "The Lyran Commonwealth was probably just happy he decided to go else where." The old man spared a glance towards the Combine representative, a overly floral dressed young ojou-sama in a very bright kimono, but didn't explicitly call out why the Combine hadn't gone after him. He shook his head, "I believe the Magistracy of Canopus wished to address the development, so I will yield the floor to the ambassador."
Ana Marie Centrella stood up. "Black Jack has temporarily settled in the Tortuga Dominions, we say temporarily because there seems to be some friction between him, and the existing pirates, but he is using it as a base. Given the number of JumpShips that can be linked to his pirates we assume that these raids in the Rimward periphery mean he'll be moving this way."
No one visibly panicked, and no sudden current went through the room... most people must have expected that was coming, either from their own sources, or just from instincts about the situation... he didn't need the elaboration that the recent destruction of the Pirate Clans on Fjaldr or Grim Sybil's forces while preventing Black Jack from recruiting those did also create a vacuum of pirate spheres of influence in the area. Heron had no proof but he suspected that a lot of the itinerant freebooters of the Rimward periphery were not just long ranging commercial tradesmen but might well have dabbled in if not direct piracy than... passing along information to pirates in exchange for a slice of the profits, and fencing the goods.
He couldn't prove that but it was certainly the implication that Sybil and Fjaldr's networks might soon be looking for a new patron to work for. It was obvious that Black Jack had more firepower than the 'Dame Murderess extraordinaire' the pirate ruler of the Tortuga Dominions, and that if Black Jack was moving this way and picking up new followers they were going to be an issue.
Heron surveyed the room. He knew that the Magistracy, and the Taurians had a lot of b ad blood between them. The most likely realpolitik explanation was that the Taurians raiding was that the taurian high command recognized that for all the bluster that if they attempted to raid House Liao, or House Davion, the very probable response of a post Star League 29th or 30th century Capellan Confederation or Federated Suns would have been to salt and burn Taurian worlds in response ... and thus the pattern of habitual raiding canopian worlds over the past century. He doubted the Canopians were entirely innocent but he suspected the Concordat was largely the responsible party... and both of them were present... as were the other diplomatic envoys of other powers.
Transparency and openness weren't exactly what Heron would have described diplomatic relations between interstellar states as. Far from it, secret diplomacy was the norm, and had been for well... since the realities of interstellar travel had become apparent, if not potentially before that.... and yet there was probably a benefit to doing this publicly. A hope, against hope that, common ground could be established and cooperation against a pirate could be... or maybe the intent was to show that the coalition was doing something and that trade was still a viable worthwhile prospect even in the face of such a crisis.
It also explained the insistence of attending in person.... Black Jack McGirk had been active as a pirate for over twenty years but what went rather under emphasized was not so much how he'd gotten started but how he'd struck it begin. The trip he'd made from the Lyran Commonwealth to reach the Taurian border would have taken years given the bastard had gone across the frontier... it wasn't after all like he could have come straight rimward. That explained some of the time that had passed, but it missed the bigger question of where the fuck had he found all that...
... and he supposed that question might well have been obfuscated by the dragoons showing up so soon after he had left the Lyran frontier and starting working his way around.
Lord Espinosa paused to take a sip from his own wine glass, "We have been informed," He remarked in a refined and practiced orator's tone looking around the room, "that Black Jack's core fighting force is a regiments worth of Heavy BattleMechs of Star League vintage. Without wasting time on pointless bluster, I think I speak for everyone that we should be grateful the pirate hasn't massed his forces on any single target, but we must consider what would happen if he were to do that."
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Santiago Espinosa was holding out hope that Tamati wasn't just being overly optimistic. Fjaldr's destruction had been unilateralist, as had hunting down Grim Sybil... but even the usually obstinate Karosas had recognized that after Katinka the Arsacid probably had just looked at any nearby pirate bases and proceeded to hit them. That might very well have explained the Margravate expanding to take Tarragonna ... Black Jack though was moving into the region, and internal Coalition arguments were pale in comparison to arguments between the Canopians and the Taurians, and the Reach and the Taurians... and neither Santiago nor his sister were ignorant of the Magistracy sniffing around.
... and unfortunately Lady Centrella was presently getting an unfiltered first class viewing of his daughter Victoria ranting about pirates pilfering the tombs of star league soldiers... even though more likely Santiago expected that Black Jack had merely deciphered some sort of ancient computer cartouche that had lead him to a storage depot... or perhaps a derelict jumpship laden with supplies. Not that he wouldn't have put it past the blackguard to loot the dead of a long forgotten battlefield it just seemed like a lot of work and McGirk had entirely too many Star League mechs for such a thing to be plausible. Black Jack's equipment had to have been in storage somewhere before appearing early in the century.
The truth was it was optimistic to assume that the Successor States, the Great Houses of the Inner Sphere were any more inclined to proactively hunted pirates. Though Santiago was entirely assume there were exaggerations it bore in mind that the rumors surrounding the current reigning archon, and the Lyrans were supposed to be the most staid of the old Star League. He expected no help from the Inner Sphere with their problem, but it would have been nice if Tamati could prove him wrong and convince the Taurian and Canopian ambassadors to work together.
More practically though, given the Taurian complaints about Aea and the other margravate worlds springing up on their border.. never mind in theory complaints they might have about other former 'taurian' worlds Santiago expected they would have to settle with cooperation with the Canopians, and working to build an alliance of sorts with the other rimward frontier worlds.
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Notes: Short introduction. I've got a bunch of links I need to throw up, but I wanted the thread opened, I'll also add tags shortly. What I will probably do for links is when my BT misc thread goes up I will link there so one doesn't have to go searching through the general BT thread, but this is as the title should make clear the Aurigan centric Essence story where for to outward investigators conclusions the Aurigans get an influx of time displaced SLDF and their dependents in 3015 who establish the 'Aurigan March' and join the Aurigan Coalition for trade and civil relations benefits in exchange for providing military protection