Turn 42 [RP/MM] CSV at Arc-Royal *COMPLETE*

[august]

As the Viper dropship approached the Arc-Royal starport, a motorcade of black limousines, flanked by armed Martyrs on motorcyles arrived, ready to transport the Viper ambassadors to the former Archduchal residence.

[GreyJaeger]

 "I am not liking this..situation." The deep , gravelly voice of Point Commander Vladimir, the Commander of a point of TrueBorn Infantry responsible for security.

 "Of course you do not. Is it because of the carnival atmosphere down there, or what the Wolf stated?" Merchant Donald was a Freeborn, and a member of Clan Steel Viper's Merchant caste. But he was appointed by the Merchant Factor of the Clan, who was operating under orders from Khan Zalman himself. But he was the de facto commander of this mission, which may of been what bothered the infantry leader. But he felt the same unease. "We have been tasked to secure basing rights for military infrastructure for the Clan. This may complicate things a bit though." 

 "Do not lecture me on the importance of our task merchant, I am fully aware of the objectives. But if the Wolf is not being deceitful, we must be wary." The indignant anger in Vladimir's voice amused the merchant, but he agreed with the assessment.

 "Aff. We do not have to come to a binding agreement, just to see if an agreement is possible. That is the Khan's decision."

[GreyJaeger]

The Danais-class dropship touched down on the ferrocrete landing pad. After the dust settled and the engines died down, a loading ramp extended out from the vessel immediately after a door opened. As this was happening, Point Commander Vladimir was checking over his point's gear. Only two of his point, himself and Infantrymen Hal were traveling with Merchant Donald, the other three were to remain with the dropship. The two who were traveling were wearing concealed ablative/flak vests and carrying laser pistols and hold0out shredders. Two of the remaining three wore full ablative/flak suits, and had auto-rifles along with their side-arms. The final member was a former Elemental, who was wearing ballistic plate armor. But what made him incredibly dangerous was the compensated support machine gun he had attached to a gyroscopic harness. "Stay out of sight until you are needed." Vladimir stated to him. "We want you as a surprise." The gunner simply nodded.

 When Merchant Donald walked into the bay, he looked straight at Vladimir. "Are we ready?"

 "Aff.. Let's get this over with."

 Once the door opened, the trio walked down the ramp to the waiting throng.

[august]

Arrayed on the cold slab of the landing pad, two rows of some twenty Tharkad Martyrs each stood before them about ten feet apart, every uniform immaculately clean and their standard laser pistols strapped and holstered. Between them stood a man in his early forties, dressed in a suit that obviously did little to keep the early winter's chill from his flesh. Despite the slight signs of his discomfort, he greeted the clan delegation with a smile.

"Honored guests from Clan Steel Viper, welcome to Arc-Royal," he intoned in a sonorous voice, the kind that lure the scales from a snake. "I am Andras Rogen, Delegate Ferihegy and appointed envoy to your clan. It is the pleasure of the Estates-General and the Lyran people to have your people express an interest in our affairs. I have arranged for a motorcade to take us to the Archduchal residence, where we can discuss our mutual interests. You will ride with me; I thought in meeting you here, we would have time to address any informal concerns that you may have before we reach a constrained diplomatic meeting. I do not know how much information on the fall of the Commonwealth may have reached your ears, but our circumstances are rather different than when last our nations met."

[GreyJaeger]

 "Any information we have attained can only be considered compromised and incomplete at best. The transfer of information is slow, as HPG service in between the Clans and the Inner Sphere has been discontinued, so we are forced to use couriers and the HPGs on our WarShips and Jumpships. Adding into this is the Terrans practicing 'scorched earth' policies, destroying their HPGs as they retreat or as a former Inner Sphere world falls. As far as any informal concerns, I have none. Lead on."

[august]

"Come, I can explain the situation on during the drive."

"Arc-Royal's position, as you may have gathered, is somewhat dire at the moment. Approximately two months ago, terrorists that are still unidentified executed a nuclear strike on Tharkad, killing the Archon and many of the Delegates to the Estates General. The Lyran worlds, for the moment, are in such disarray that local regions have been left in disarray. We have secessionists, a host of pretender-Archons running around, it's really a damn mess. The Estates General, or what was left of it, reconstituted itself on this world, and has tried, mostly in vain, to keep things going. We're working on a new constitution for the Lyran worlds, so that something like this can never be allowed to happen again, but it's an uphill battle."

"If that wasn't enough, the SLDF has taken it upon itself to meddle in Lyran affairs. Marco Hall decided that he was going to play kingmaker, declaring for Nondi Steiner's illegal regency. That might be all well and good, had he not forsaken his mission to fight the clans in order to do it; we've suffered attacks from the Clans Star Adder and Ice Hellion, and the best the SLDF had to offer was stripping our worlds of their vital resources and fleeing the front. If I weren't committed to the Lyran people of Arc-Royal so, I might get it - while the invaders burn our worlds, theirs remain safe, for the moment. So we were forced to run the SLDF off with measures that the international media has decried as extreme, but honestly, we didn't have the muscle to kick them out the old fashioned way. Things are still bleak, but if we let them walk off with our factories, we'd have sealed our fate for certain."

"We're trying to pull ourselves together, and things are turning around on some fronts, but it's still fair to say that the Lyran Commonwealth is dead, or living its death. Nonetheless, we're always happy to talk with our fellow nations, and hope that we can resolve all of our concerns to mutual benefit."

After some time, the limo pulled up to the Estate.

"Here we are. The estate staff will escort you to the rooms that we're providing. Take some time to freshen up, if you like. Shall we meet again in two hours, or would you like more time?"

[GreyJaeger]

 "Neg.. Two hours is sufficient. Until then."

[august]

Even the most casual observer could only find the makeshift conference room a case of contradiction. Formerly a dining room, the spartan, functional furniture that now adorned it sat ill against the elaborate teak paneling on the walls. A somewhat garish red cloth hung over the fireplace,  doubtless placed to conceal the Archduchal crest of Arc-Royal. As the Steel Viper delegation arrived, they found the Delegate Rogen seated, perusing some file that he quickly closed as they arrived. Two minor officials were milling about - at a glance they might have been identical but for the color of their ties; the longer one observed them, differences became apparent, but the idea that these men were still somehow the same proved unshakable.

Rogen rose to his feet to greet his guests. "Honored visitors from Clan Steel Viper, I trust that you found everything acceptable with your accommodations? I know we've spoken in a preliminary fashion about why you are here, but just so everything is clear to me, let me ask; what can Arc-Royal do for your Clan?"

[GreyJaeger]

 "What Clan Steel Viper is looking for is rights to build military and civilian infrastructure within Arc-Royal territory, as well as basing rights to garrison the troops that will defend the facilities. Another consideration is for my Clan's merchant caste to secure more local sources of various items we will require. In particular consumables and raw materials and resources. This will allow for my Clan to shorten our supply lines and make ourselves less vulnerable to pirates and those Successor Lords who support them."

 

[august]

With a pensive expression on his face, Rogen paused a minute before nodding.

"Well, from the outset, I can say that that is a proposal that we're definitely amenable to. As you may have heard, we've been nationalizing the assets of our former nobility, and so the government controls wide tracts of land that could be turned over to your Clan with relatively little fuss. You'd be free to build as you like there, with minimal government involvement; all we'd ask is that your Clan set up a cooperative operation with local customs officials. We're not concerned with what you might bring in for yourselves, it would just be an issue of making sure that whatever you'd be looking to police doesn't come into your enclave and vice-versa."

"A secondary concern that we would have regards clan trials; we respect your customs and have no intention of interfering. There's nothing for us to gain and quite a bit for us to lose if we invite hostilities between your clan and our nation, so there's nothing to worry about there. What is relevant is the possibility that other clans might come to trial you on our world. Any enclave that we grant you will be large enough that you will be able to conduct trials far enough from your doorstep that you shouldn't risk collateral damage, so this shouldn't be a problem for either one of us. We'd like to make sure though that any trial doesn't spill out into areas that could damage our civilian infrastructure. We don't know enough about your political stance amongst the clans to wager either way as to whether trials are likely, we just want to protect our people in case it does happen. All we'd ask is that any circle of equals be confined to your territory. In the unfortunate case that clan units do near populated areas or farmland under active cultivation, we reserve the right to defend our interests - but all of this is just preventative in case of emergency."

"And as for what we might ask in return for the enclave, well, you came at the right time. We'd like to perhaps ask your assistance with something sensitive. It must remain under wraps though - even if you decline and we need to work something else out, I'd like your assurance that it's simply between us."

[GreyJaeger]

With a pensive expression on his face, Rogen paused a minute before nodding.

"Well, from the outset, I can say that that is a proposal that we're definitely amenable to. As you may have heard, we've been nationalizing the assets of our former nobility, and so the government controls wide tracts of land that could be turned over to your Clan with relatively little fuss. You'd be free to build as you like there, with minimal government involvement; all we'd ask is that your Clan set up a cooperative operation with local customs officials. We're not concerned with what you might bring in for yourselves, it would just be an issue of making sure that whatever you'd be looking to police doesn't come into your enclave and vice-versa."

"A secondary concern that we would have regards clan trials; we respect your customs and have no intention of interfering. There's nothing for us to gain and quite a bit for us to lose if we invite hostilities between your clan and our nation, so there's nothing to worry about there. What is relevant is the possibility that other clans might come to trial you on our world. Any enclave that we grant you will be large enough that you will be able to conduct trials far enough from your doorstep that you shouldn't risk collateral damage, so this shouldn't be a problem for either one of us. We'd like to make sure though that any trial doesn't spill out into areas that could damage our civilian infrastructure. We don't know enough about your political stance amongst the clans to wager either way as to whether trials are likely, we just want to protect our people in case it does happen. All we'd ask is that any circle of equals be confined to your territory. In the unfortunate case that clan units do near populated areas or farmland under active cultivation, we reserve the right to defend our interests - but all of this is just preventative in case of emergency."

 "Your concerns about rival Clans seeking to claim Viper assets through Trials is valid. We would plan to build our facilities far from any existing population centers for a few reasons. The first and most important is to not cause a burden on existing infrastructure, or to interrupt or disrupt traffic and supplies. The secondary reason is for the reason of segregating our societies. Make no mistakable, there are a number of your citizens who see the Clans as bogeymen, just as there are members of my Clan who see all Inner Sphere residents as low-born barbarians who are only fit as chattel. With memories still fresh of my Clan's rather harsh treatment of protesters and other malcontents during our initial occupation zone, we plan to tread carefully."

 Taking a moment to take a sip of water, Donald continued. "The manner in which Trials are conducted, we will always be able to conduct the fighting in an area away from any population center. Truthfully, you need to be more concerned with the..Star League than the Clans in that matter. It is quite possible your nation would be considered traitorous for dealing with us or any other Clan."

"And as for what we might ask in return for the enclave, well, you came at the right time. We'd like to perhaps ask your assistance with something sensitive. It must remain under wraps though - even if you decline and we need to work something else out, I'd like your assurance that it's simply between us."

 "I can promise discretion in any event. As to whether we can assist you, that will depend on the scenario."

[GreyJaeger]

 Looking over the file sent to him, Donald looked towards Rogen. "Do you have a timetable for your needs on this?

[august]

"Our agents are already in place laying the groundwork. Pending their success, we intend to move early next month."

[GreyJaeger]

 Merchant Donald looked at Envoy Rogen after taking some time to digest the information. "I have a question Envoy Rogen. Is our acquiescence to your proposal necessary to any further deals between us?"

*OOC- I apologize August, this completely slipped my mind.

[august]

"Not at all - if this does not suit, I am sure we can work something else out."