The next offering for you people! In which we get somewhat crappy introductions to all my lovely new loyal minions!
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Office of Hustain Security and Transport Company
Farmindas
Alpheratz, Outworlds Alliance
3rd January 3011
I'd ended up spending most of the night writing and rewriting several briefing plans going over the different potential options for the near future I could think of before finally getting some sleep. Come morning I woke up fairly early and hit the gym downstairs before coming back to my new room and getting ready for the day, including getting breakfast delivered to me. The food arrived after I got dressed so I sat down to eat and figure out if there was anything else I could do with the plans as they currently stood. It was still a couple of hours until the meeting with my new employees was scheduled, so I figured more planning time couldn't hurt.
That pretty much took the rest of the morning up. I'd gotten dressed in my best "work" clothes (not the business suit I'd worn yesterday, but vaguely professional trousers and a polo shirt) and was starting to pack stuff away when a knock on the door caught my attention. Putting down the folder I'd just finished stuffing papers into I got up to go see who my visitor was.
"Good morning Mister Karter, how are you this morning? Lieutenant Commander el-Hakim, at your service!" I didn't get a chance to ask who he was before he introduced himself as the door opened, bowing slightly at the end before coming back to attention. If this was back on Terra in centuries past I would have pegged him as Middle-Eastern, these days I would have guessed him as coming from Brasha – a strongly Arabic cultured world, a centre of Islamic (particularly Shi'ite) learning in the Outworlds. It was something about the accent that singled out the actual planet though, there were a few other worlds with similar populations here but Brasha was one of the most well-known. I'd also peg him as being in about his mid-twenties, from the brief exposure. He was wearing some kind of garrison uniform, navy blue pants that had a white stripe down the leg with solely navy blue top and with what I thought was a shoulder badge for the marine security company my father had run.
I was a bit puzzled, not expecting anyone to turn up to meet me before the meeting began. "Good morning Lieutenant Commander, I'm feeling pretty good this morning, all things considered. What can I do for you?"
He stepped back, and gestured down the hallway to the lifts. "Major McIntyre and Commander Botelho sent me over to bring you over to the meeting room when you were ready. I figured I'd head over now to see if you were ready or arrange to meet downstairs a bit before the meeting."
"Fair enough." I looked back over my shoulder at the papers and folders on the desk I'd been working on, I was pretty much down to just poking around at them. Oh well, might as well leave now. Decision made I waved him in. "Come in for a bit, I've just got to finish packing away the last of these paperwork I've been doing and then we can head on over."
Quickly enough I gathered up the folders I was taking with me, put my shoes on and headed on out of the room. I was right, Abdul Azeem el-Hakim was from Brasha, having joined up with the security company as a marine to be able to get off world and see some of the sights of other worlds, even if just within the Outworlds itself and had been with the company for nine years, having signed up as an eighteen year old. He was currently acting as sort of a cross between the executive officer of the marine contingent and the second company commanding officer – there were five platoons worth in total spread out between dropships and jumpships and they'd been debating on whether to have it as one oversized company or one full and one short in the table of organisation. We talked about that and a few other things as we walked and I'd also asked him if he'd ever seen the tariqim, a fast alien beast used as a cavalry mount by one of the planetary militia units on Brasha, which could almost pace a lot of different mechs and vehicles.
"Alas, never in person, I was born and raised on the opposite side of the planet from Qum'ran. I was supposed to travel there on a school excursion in my teens but I might have inadvertently have given my parents and the school reason to believe I was behind several pranks that were happening at the time. Instead of going on the trip I was cleaning up after the rascals who actually carried out the pranks!" The gleam in his eye showed clearly that yes, he was the one responsible and they'd never actually gotten him to admit it. "Here we go, Mister Karter, the meeting room."
Abdul opened the door for me and gestured me through before shutting it behind us. There were only a few people already in the room, sitting down at the far end of the long table that took up most of the space. They all looked up as we entered, then all got to their feet with the couple of them in uniform going so far as to offer a salute. Obviously my new employees had access to a picture of me. Or had figured I was me due to being with Abdul. Whichever.
Gah. Overthinking.
I nodded in response to the salutes before making my way over to them. There was a quick round of introductions for the ones there and then they got me seated at the head of the table. Major Jessica McIntyre, my lead pilot and the current leader of the military portion of the company was at my right – wearing the aerospace version of the uniform, with a green top, with Commander Lucas Botelho, the overall marine CO to my left – wearing the same uniform as Abdul. Evangelos Ballas, the in-house lawyer for the unit was currently sitting next to Lucas, with Etsuko Nagato the head administrator next to him. Abdul took a seat a few places down from them as we settled down to get some basic information flow going.
These were the people who had worked for my father prior to the find. Jessica had been the squadron leader for the security company for nearly a decade, having already served in the Alliance Aerospace Arm for a decade with the Third Wing. My father had offered her a little bit of a pay rise to get her to leave and she'd still got to hunt pirates, apparently a win-win situation. She'd be flying with First Squadron, the old hands as she put it – the existing pilots and their birds. Lucas had come to the company after serving for a time with his home world's militia and left them for somewhat similar reasons to Abdul – he'd wanted to travel a bit. He'd wound up never leaving the company, and was now effectively commanding half a battalions worth of troops. Evangelos had apparently gone to university with my father here on Alpheratz and been hired by him some time later, agreeing to sign on with my father's plan to take the unit into the Sphere and leave the Outworlds behind. Etsuko, amusingly to me, also came from Brasha – they'd welcomed several waves of refugees from the Combine over the centuries. She'd been working for my father almost since he'd established his businesses, though she didn't elaborate further on how she came to work for him and had agreed to accompany the unit in its further travels for reasons she was keeping to herself.
Basic introductions were out of the way by the time the meeting was due to begin and the rest of my new employees began to show up, namely the squadron leaders, the majority of the dropship captains and the senior support staff. Jessica put the names to the faces for them as they entered the room. Commander Samira Entezami, Second Squadron leader and executive officer of the fighter pilots overall, Lt. Commanders Janne Eriksen and Remigio La Sorsa, Third and Fourth Squadron leads, Albi Jenkins, captain of the Intruder-class dropship Honesty, Alexia Demers of the Overlord-class Whole Lotta Metal, Matias Abaroa of the Union-CV-class High Haven, Theodosis Karalis (who didn't actually have a dropship yet – he was slated to take over the Seeker my father had ordered some time back), the cargo dropship captains Kjetil Ulvestad, Nora Gruber and Josiah Hyrlock, Doctor Selah Strubhar our head doctor, Holden Bowie the head nurse and Xaisomboun Sengprachanh (Xaso) the leader of the technical staff. The only people missing were the two jumpship captains Ephraim Miller and Celene Gérin-Lajoie (obviously, they were at one of the system jump points with their ships) and Logan Kelleher, captain of the Leopard-CV dropshipBest Policy which was out making sure no one snuck onto the jumpships and took them for a little joyride.
They'd come into the room in dribs and drabs, walked by my spot for a quick handshake and name exchange (it'd been a little funny when Jessica had stumbled on Xaso's full name about four times trying to be formal in her introduction and he just rolled his eyes and said "Call me Xaso, it's easier") before taking their seats. Kjetil, Nora and Josiah were the last three to arrive so when they were seated I stood up to begin the meeting.
"Good morning ladies and gentleman, I'm Damon Karter and with the passing of my father I am your new boss. I've been given a pretty extensive run down of things as they currently stand through the lawyers handling the estate handover, but now I need the details that might not have made it to them. This is what I know so far." I laid out the possessions and plans as put to me by the lawyers – the contents of the find, the ordering of the Seeker months ago, the recruitment of pilots, techs and marines, the supporting businesses so they'd keep getting paid for a while longer without us taking a contract, the repairs and rebuilds on the dropships, the eventual trip into the Inner Sphere to finish off whatever recruiting was required before we got down to actually being mercenaries. People spoke up with specific details as I went along – we were almost at full capacity for pilots now and would likely be done within a couple of days, only a couple of missing tech crews for those pilot's fighters, the conversion to the Mulethat would carry the majority of our vehicles was proceeding apace, the other dropships had successfully had their weapons switched over, etc etc.
"We haven't had any luck whatsoever with regards to recruiting experienced vehicles crews or mechwarriors though. Absolutely none of the ones we've approached are at all interested in taking us up on any offer we've made and we've made some good ones, too. We did manage to lure away a couple of decent tech teams from the AMC and from a couple of militia units, though." Etsuko was giving me the run down on the non-essential recruiting. "And your father had originally said to only accept any ground forces if they were experienced, to save ourselves training issues. We'd likely be travelling all the way to Galatea to finish our recruiting, so they'd wind up spending months in space with minimal training time – okay if they want to work on skill retention, but actually training up? No, wouldn't work. Otherwise we are on target with our support staff recruiting, still well short on actual technical teams for if everything was up and running, but administrative and medical personnel are nearly full for right up to our maximum force requirements."
"Good. I'm guessing a lot of the admin staff are from the associated businesses and such? People who've worked for my father or are otherwise known to us?" My main concern was future security from spying. Better to have people we could have vetted extensively, especially in the background roles where they could theoretically be a lot sneakier with their spying. Plus the longer we knew them the more we knew their weaknesses. "I'm thinking about doing a recruiting tour of the Outworlds before we actually head towards Galatea, give us more opportunities to vet potentials since we'll have connections we can check. If we're missing any more pilots by then they'll still be number one priority, plus we'll be able to reach out to people who might not have the cash to hop a transport here in the first place. Included should be people who might want to journey back in towards Terra – we'll sign them up on short term contracts to fill out spots while we travel. We'll need to sit down and work out a plan for all that."
That, of course, was mostly a big fat lie. But since I didn't actually know any of these people yet, didn't know exactly where their loyalties lay and all that good stuff beyond my father and his company – which might not necessarily extend to myself - I figured I'd still keep my cards close to my chest. I'd grab the longest-serving – Jessica, Lucas, Evangelos, Etsuko and Albi – after we were done with the meeting, get them to hang around for a bit to discuss some things, ask about my father. And to inform them of what was going on, once I was sure no one else was around.
It's not paranoia when they're out to get you. Outworlds Alliance Intelligence was supposedly pretty reliable, for a poorly funded operation.
I paused a little to let the recruiting tour idea settle in before continuing on. "Anybody able to point out any immediate flaws with that idea?"
Head shakes all up and down the table, a couple of verbal no's. It'd taken a couple of hours to get through all the introductions and minutiae involved in everything, so it was probably time to call a break and let everyone go for lunch. "Unless anyone has anything that we've missed so far, I think that's enough for today. I'll leave the recruitment tour idea with you all, if you can think of anywhere in particular to hit up along the way we'll add it to the plan we'll work up next meeting. Anybody?"
Most of them again shook their heads and started to get up out of their chairs before Samira spoke up. "What role exactly are you looking at taking within the unit?" She was leaning forward in her chair and our eyes locked as I turned my attention to her. She had a deeply serious expression on her face, like she'd been wanting to ask this all meeting. "Your father never planned to take the field with us, said he was too old and untrained, but what about you?"
"Good question." I nodded and most of the other people in the room had sunk back into their chairs, obviously interested in my response. "I've been thinking about it a lot over the last couple of days and honestly, I'm a little torn." Here I turned my attention across everyone, making sure to make eye contact especially with the people who'd be doing the fighting.
"I intend to use this unit to fight and as such want to be involved in the fighting itself. I think if I'm paying you to do it, I need to be involved so I'm not going to waste your lives – I'm a strong believer in the knowing of, of having hands on experience in what I'm telling people to do. Having said that, I'm not planning on taking charge on the battlefield until I've been trained and had that training signed off on by competent, qualified trainers. Where am I going to serve is probably the next question on all of your minds?" I sighed as nods abounded. "At the moment, I'll be looking at joining the infantry battalion or the tanks, haven't decided which. Could even look into the artillery company, firing the big guns. Unfortunately, piloting either a Mech or an ASF is out of the question for me – neuro-compatible issues, maybe if we ever stumble across a cache of lostech and there's an Hegemony grade one there it might work out for me, but otherwise I can't use a neurohelmet."
I actually got a couple of sympathetic looks from the pilots at the table then.
"So yeah, for the time being I'll be looking into learning the basics and moving on from there. Until we get a ground commander Lucas will be their leader – hopefully we'll be able to recruit a decent battalion commander for the tanks, jump infantry and mechs and one of them will end up leading our ground element overall. Jessica will be our travelling commander and will continue to retain control over our aerospace elements, including dropships if we're using them actively in combat – I believe that's what the current organisation is anyway, correct?" I looked her in the eye as I asked that and she nodded. "Good, glad to know I read that right. Hopefully one day I'll be ready to take over, but until then I'll just keep signing the checks and learning. That satisfy everyone?"
Can't say that they were happy with it, but it did seem to at least tick a couple of satisfaction boxes with the military crew and the support staff were good with it. Everyone stood up to leave and I grabbed the people I planned on spilling everything regarding the seizure to before they managed to leave, waving off the couple of curious looks I got from the people who were leaving by saying I wanted to ask about some of the stuff my father had left behind in some private notes with those who would have known him a bit better.
I don't think any of the ones I grabbed bought it though. Not entirely, as they all were staring at me suspiciously as soon as the last of the others were out and the doors shut. Must have been a bit further in my father's confidences than I thought as the first words out of Jessicas's mouth were "Okay, what supposed secret notes did you find?"
"None, actually. Little bit of a white lie, but we do have something important to discuss and I figure even if any of you are reporting to Outworlds Intelligence on the side, your loyalty to my father means you'll hold off on actually reporting this until it's too late." I figured blunt was the way to go and the spluttering confusion (and anger) I got from the five made me think that I was right. In that it was the way to go and that I was correct in my logic. I continued on before any of the managed to actually gather themselves enough to interject. "There is a secret involved, one that was found out by the lawyers and it didn't involve my father. Well, directly at least. It is pretty much his fault."
I laid it all out for them, that we had around two months to have a fully formed and trained unit or we'd lose everything to the Alliance. Nobody had much in the way of questions and apparently it surprised none of them that my father had pissed off these people enough for them to do this. It did surprise them that there was a legal way for it to happen, though. And it did work to provide them with enough information to understand my shot about being spies, even if none of them were very happy about it still.
"Look, get over it. I didn't say any of you were spies, I said if you were reporting on the side. I don't think any of you are actual agents. Just, you know, patriots. Kind of." I shrugged. We really weren't that much of a unified patriotic nationality when you got down to it, but still. There was the ideal of the Alliance and people would stand up for it, even as they argued exactly what it meant. "Father certainly wouldn't have minded some leakage and as long as you kept to the company privacy clauses in your contracts he wouldn't have taken any action!"
That was something that actually had come up in one of our last discussions in person, when we were talking about corporate and governmental interference and espionage. He'd said he'd be more angry with corporate spies amongst his people than government, as long as those governmental snitches kept the propriety information quiet and were just general informers. It had struck me as an oddly enlightened viewpoint and I can't imagine he'd never shared it with others, especially at least Evangelos.
"That all aside, the lawyers have gone over this extensively over the last few days and came up with two potential solutions. Do nothing and lose everything, with little to no compensation. Or leave the Outworlds as soon as possible, potentially never to return. That's it, there is no way we would be able to argue the case in court. Apparently, the way the law is written and the way the unit has been formed means their argument to take absolutely everything in one go is air-tight." Shaking my head I slumped in my seat. Even if there was no way to win it sucked to lose. "I don't want to lose this legacy."
They didn't have any questions for me yet so I just let them talk it out amongst themselves. I'd offered them all the information I had to hand and really didn't have much more insight to offer at this stage. They could all guess what it meant for themselves long term – unemployment unless they signed back up with the AMC for Jessica, Lucas and Albi with not even that for Etsuko and Evangelos. And they'd also know how it would affect everyone under them. Eventually their discussion wound done and they all turned to me with solemn faces.
"Speaking for the pilots, ship crews, techs and marines – we're all in. We signed up to head into the Sphere, potentially for many years - we're just moving up the departure timeline a few months." Jessica stood and saluted once she'd finished speaking and then returned to her seat. Then it was Etsuko's turn.
"I can't say we speak for everyone, but the majority of the admin and medical staff signed up for similar. We are also in, though we might have to look into ways of shipping people back here if they aren't happy once we announce this."
"Agreed." I nodded, feeling deeply relieved. Good to know that they trusted me enough to go through with this, despite my 'young age'. "I don't want it spread that we know this is going down until we're safe and secure on board the jumpships and preferably at least two jumps away. Even if it means going through with the decoy recruiting plan for the first few jumps, then announce it to everyone right before we slip across the border into the Suns. Don't want us to all of a sudden having to jump through bureaucratic hoops to get anything done because someone amongst the newer hires is an outright OIA agent rather than an informer, after all."
Everyone made agreeing noises, Evangelos taking a few moments to throw out a few suggestions on potential snafu's that could be thrown our way. Bureaucratic stuff, mainly, though a couple seemed a touch on the ridiculous side.
"Having said that, you all should know who amongst your longer service people we can tell, so at least some of them are expecting it or can help with disinformation. Also the ones who we can't tell for whatever reason – even if it's just they have a big mouth off duty." Lucas snorted, muttered a pair of names under his breath that I didn't catch but Jessica did, judging but the way she also smothered a laugh. "Though those guys can also be used to help spread disinformation too. We'll also need someone to go out and tell Ephraim, Celene and Logan - especially Ephraim, Celene and their navigators, to help plot out our escape route as well as the path to Galatea."
We spent a little more time working out some of the basics before we broke for lunch completely. I made a note of the names - both those considering trustworthy, untrustworthy or those considered loose-lipped – that the others shot back and forward for future reference. You never knew whether it could help or hinder knowing that sort of thing about people. I also mentioned a desire to pass through systems hit badly by the Succession Wars if possible – most worlds had died off in the Outworlds due to neglect, but in the Sphere they'd died due to various forms of war, it would make a strong message for our people. It would also help me establish my lostech prospecting persona a bit, showing I was strongly interested in that sort of thing.
Down I headed to the cafeteria for a feed – I should probably start thinking of it as a mess hall though – and thought on what I was going to do for the rest of the day. I was more or less at a loose end, most of the routine decisions were still being undertaken by others while I acclimated to all of this so I didn't have any paperwork to do yet, I'd already gone through everything legalities wise so I didn't need to hunt down any of that. I ended up hunting down the head trainer for the marine cadre to see about getting a start on my military training.
Preceptor Killian McHayes had been involved in training infantry for various roles since Christ was a Corporal – according to himself, at least. Pretty sure that joke was old back in the twentieth century, so he might just have a point. He was pretty close to retirement age but could probably still outrun and outfight me easily and had been a drill instructor with both the AMC and the Alpheratz planetary militia, apparently having been kicked out of the AMC over a dispute with a senior Director over his training methods – my father had eagerly snatched him up to bring his "private security force" to a higher level of training. I don't know why he'd agreed to come along with us and do the whole mercenary thing, but I was glad that he did. He'd been in more than a few fights over the years, both on the ground and in space, so he was more than capable of teaching new recruits what they needed to know – what I needed to know. Luckily he was in his office in the business complex today, apparently doing some paperwork regarding the leaving.
We sat down for a while in his office while I explained what I was after before he dragged me out and down to the gym to get an idea of where I was at physically. Only a short two hour session that left me wrung out like a bunch of wet noodles. He spent most of the time either pushing me to do more or asking questions about how I'd react to situations and getting me to respond instantly – testing me mentally as well, obviously. I apparently didn't do too badly, though I couldn't tell you most of what I said since it was pretty much all off the cuff responses. He let me go after telling me he'd create a plan to get me up to scratch, regardless of whatever branch I ended up joining and including factoring in my severe TDS – which would definitely impact my ability to train and learn until we were safely on a planet somewhere far far away.
Nice to have someone doing the planning for me, for once