Karnivaal Season

Karnivaal Season

Sebastian De Negro

Copyright © Sebastian De Negro, 2019

All rights reserved.

ISBN: 978-0-578-54069-6

Civilizations In Conflict: Geneism, Neo-Nationalism, Population Growth, And Their Effects On Meaningful Peace In The Known Explored Civilized Universe (KECU)

DProf Thesis, Clarke-S’Iaan Institute Of International Affairs, University Of New Oxford, 11 April 127AE SSD, 03 April 112AF KBSD

Author: I’mazu I’asta Haruu

Annex A3: Current biologically-compatible inhabitants of the KECU by national identity, respective annual growth curves and approximate population composition as of the Accord of Nations (AoN) 126AE SSD Census and an independent Oox Seth'Kyliim 126AE SSD Census (more precise and comprehensive population-by-group (e.g. N’Jrekka, Eugenian, Neo-Humans, Hybrids) figures in Annex A4)

Khaanate of Tekk'iet (KoT or Khaanate): 297 billion (2.5%AGR*) Predominate Group: N’Jrekka-S’Luar (80%) Other Groups: Eugenian (6%), Human and Neo-Human (5%), Azrealian and Rom’Nalish (4%), Seth’Kyliim (1%), Hybrids (4%)

Ov’Khaanate of Tekk’Syal (O’KoT or Imperium): 203 billion (2.3%AGR) Predominate Group: N’Jrekka-S’Luar (90%) Other Groups: Eugenian (5%), Neo-Human (3%), Rom’Nalish (1%), Hybrids (1%)

A’Khaanate of A’kyzoria (A’KoA or A’Khaanate): 39 billion (2.35%AGR) Predominate Group: N’Jrekka-S’Luar (85%) Other Groups: Eugenian (5%), Human and Neo-Human (4%), Azrealian and Rom’Nalish (2%), Seth’Kyliim (1%), Hybrids (3%)

Republic of I'mazoria (RoI or I’mazoria): 43 billion (2.6%AGR) Predominate Group: N’Jrekka-S’Luar (75%) Other Groups: Eugenian (8%), Human and Neo-Human (8%), Azrealian and

Rom’Nalish (2%), Seth’Kyliim (2%), Hybrids (5%)

Eugenian Central Nations (ECN or Centerlands): 21 billion (5.7%AGR) Predominate Group: Eugenian (90%) Other Groups: N’Jrekka-S’Luar (6%), Neo-Human (2%), Hybrids (2%)

Eugenian Nations Pact (ENP or Pact Nations): 69 billion, not including ECN (5.7%AGR) Predominate Group: Eugenian (91%) Other Groups: N’Jrekka-S’Luar (8%), Human and Neo-Human (1%), Hybrids (1%)

Republic of New Promise (RoNP or New Promise): 13 billion (5.4%AGR) Predominate Group: Eugenian (80%) Other Groups: N’Jrekka-S’Luar (5%), Human and Neo-Human (10%), Azrealian and Rom’Nalish (1%), Seth’Kyliim (1%), Hybrids (3%)

Cyx Rom'Nalish: 40 billion (1.8%AGR) Predominate Group: Rom’Nalish (93%) Other

Groups: N’Jrekka-S’Luar (3%), Eugenian (1%), Human and Neo-Human (1%), Hybrids (2%)

Hyx Rom'Nalish: 19 billion (1.8%AGR) Predominate Group: Rom’Nalish (96%) Other Groups: N’Jrekka-SLuar (2%), Hybrids (2%)

Azrealian Commonwealth: 44 billion (1.75%AGR) Predominate Group: Azrealian (90%) Other

Groups: N’Jrekka-S’Luar (5%), Eugenian (1%), Human and Neo-Human (1%), Seth’Kyliim (2%), Hybrids (1%)

J'yx O'Azrealian (‘Azrealian Kingdom’): 12 billion (1.75%AGR) Predominate Group: Azrealian

(85%) Other Groups: N’Jrekka-S’Luar (6%), Eugenian (2%), Human and Neo-Human (3%), Seth’Kyliim (2%), Hybrids (2%)

Union of Terran States (UTS or Terran Union): 47 billion (1.9%AGR) Predominate Group: Human and Neo-Human (65%) Other Groups: Eugenian (20%), N’Jrekka-S’Luar (5%), Azrealian and Rom’Nalish (2%), Seth’Kyliim (2%), Hybrids (6%)

Kingdom of New Britania (KoNB or New Kingdom): 16 billion (1.9%AGR) Predominate Group: Human and Neo-Human (67%) Other Groups: Eugenian (18%), N’Jrekka-S’Luar (7%), Azrealian and Rom’Nalish (1%), Seth’Kyliim (1%), Hybrids (6%)

Republic of Espana Nueva (RoEN or Espana Nueva): 11 billion (1.92%AGR) Predominate Group: Human and Neo-Human (45%) Other Groups: Eugenian (40%), N’Jrekka-S’Luar (6%), Azrealian and Rom’Nalish (2%), Seth’Kyliim (2%), Hybrids (5%)

Oox Seth'Kyliim: 5.4 billion (.5%AGR) Predominate Group: Seth’Kyliim (99%) Other Groups: N’Jrekka-S’Luar (.1%), Azrealian and Rom’Nalish (.5%), Hybrids (.4%)

Tsardom of Novo Russia (ToNR or Novo Russia): 3.5 billion (1.9%AGR) Predominate Group: Eugenian (45%) Other Groups: Human and Neo-Human (40%), N’Jrekka-S’Luar (7%), Azrealian and Rom’Nalish (.5%), Seth’Kyliim (.5%), Hybrids (7%)

Republic of Brazilia (RoB or Brazilia): 3.1 billion (3.5%AGR) Predominate Group: Human and Neo-Human (50%) Other Groups: Eugenian (31%), N’Jrekka-S’Luar (7%), Azrealian and Rom’Nalish (2%), Seth’Kyliim (1%), Hybrids (9%)

Republic of Ooxpo (RoO or Ooxpo): 2.7 billion (3.5%AGR) Predominate Group: Eugenian (56%) Other Groups: Human and Neo-Human (25%), N’Jrekka-S’Luar (10%), Azrealian and Rom’Nalish (.1%), Seth’Kyliim (.1%), Hybrids (8.8%)

Alliance States (AS; not including UTS, NK, EN, KoA, RoI or RoB): 35 billion (1.9%AGR) Predominate Group: Human and Neo-Human (40%) Other Groups: Eugenian (30%), N’Jrekka-S’Luar (20%), Azrealian and Rom’Nalish (2%), Seth’Kyliim (.5%), Hybrids (7.5%)

Unaligned Territories (UT; not including RoNP, NR and RoO): 63 billion (2.3%AGR) Predominate Group: Eugenian (40%) Other Groups: Human and Neo-Human (35%), N’Jrekka-S’Luar (15%), Azrealian and Rom’Nalish (3%), Seth’Kyliim (.5%), Hybrids (6.5%)

*Annual Growth Rate (Standard SolarYear)

Note: The various individual Pact Nations, Alliance States and Unaligned Territories generally possess populations of less than two and a half billion, so will be considered in aggregate rather than as individual polities.

SSA International Fact Files, 126AE SSD

Country Profiles

Country: Republic Of Starkwelt (RoS)

NATIONAL FLAG

INTRODUCTION

BACKGROUND: Originally founded as a Nieu Afrikaan Commonwealth (NAC) colony of the Republic of Nieu Afrika (RoNA) in 95AE SSD. The first settlers--400,000-strong, all Eugenians-named the world for the somewhat apt description given its tropical heat-enhanced 1.55Gs by the expedition’s German-speaking Nieu Afrikaan Foreign Volunteer (NAFV) Regimental Commander Colonel Nisa Freitz: ‘stark welt’, or ‘strong world’. At 1700LY distant from the frontiers of the NAC and almost 3500LY from the borders of RoNA, Starkwelt represented the farthest reach of that star-polity's grasp. As such, it quickly went from colonial status to that of a semi-sovereign entity with its own local provisional government, and was re-designated the Special Administrative Territory of Starkwelt (SAToS) in 100AE, which implied that it would somehow remain economically and politically beholden to the RoNA and emulate its Axis-leaning agenda and policies. Because of the vast interstellar distance between them, RoNA allowed the SAToS extremely broad latitude of governance and self-determination and naturally, though incorrectly, assumed that it would remain a far-flung vassal state, but the SAToS quickly transitioned from SAT into a de facto sovereign nation.

By 105AE, the population of the SAToS had ballooned to 700 million, and its provisional government had discarded all pretense of towing the RoNA or NAC party line. The SAToS began to quite effectively 'do for itself and go it alone', and within its halls of power and influence, talk abounded regarding seriously declaring its independence and announcing its sovereignty from the RoNA. Its infrastructure, economy, military and population began to grow by leaps and bounds, a process assisted mightily by its forward-looking policies of inclusion rather than exclusion as practiced by its mother nation. Starkwelt’s provisional government eschewed the RoNA's and NAC's openly geneist and Axis-leaning policies in favor of open-immigration and political neutrality, and actively sought to, attract and welcome in anybody who wanted to stake a claim, settle and reap a prosperous livelihood within its borders. By 115AE, the SAToS had become a wealthy and burgeoning territory of 1.2 billion (900 million on Starkwelt, 280 million on Sierra Two and 20 million on Wündschoen; Humans, Neo-Humans, Azrealians, Seth’Kyliim and Hybrids made up a quarter of the number) with strong ambitions of absolute self determination; in that same year, it formally declared its independence and sovereignty from the RoNA, asserting its nascent statehood by renaming itself the Republic of Starkwelt (RoS), hoisting a brand-new flag that shared little with its RoNA parent, and electing a fiercely anti-colonialist head-of-state-- President Joos Iscariot--to lead it into the future. And it, of course, ensured that the legions of ousted colonial government nawabs had been suitably impressed such that they’d warn the RoNA central government that the RoS now also possessed the political, military, economic, institutional and infrastructural muscle to support its brazen assertions. The RoNA quite naturally wanted to retain its rich and prosperous colonial possession, and both threatened and prepared to regain it by force of arms. Politics--as well as cooler and more devious heads--prevailed in the end. The RoNA became a part of the Eugenian Central Nations (ECN) in 120AE, and the ECN, magnanimously exercising a sweeping gesture of 'good faith', granted the RoS and all other former NAC colonies their independence and recognized their sovereignty. A farce of gigantic and sinister proportions, as it later bore out; the Axis invaded and occupied the RoS a year later (121AE) and, under the auspices of the Starkwelt Occupation Authority (SOA), placed it directly under the foreign governmental region administered by the former RoNA, now the ECN Territory of Nieu Afrika (ToNA), where it remains to this day.

SUMMARY:

POLITICAL POSTURE (Nominal)

Proper Name

Federal Republic of Starkwelt (FRoS)

Alignment

Neutral, Unaligned Sovereign Territory

GOVERNMENT (Nominal)

Head of State

President of the Republic of Starkwelt Petra Mei Gutierrez

Head of Government

President of the Republic of Starkwelt Petra Mei Gutierrez

Government Type

Federal Parliamentary Republic

Capital City and World

New Starkwelt, Starkwelt

Legislature

Bicameral Parliament consists of the Council of Elders (108 seats) and the

Council of Peoples (442 seats)

Judiciary

Supreme Court (chief and 10 justices)

Ambassador to Accord of Nations

None (RoS officially withdrew from AoN in 121AE SSD)

Ambassador to Union of Terran States

Ambassador Axel N’Goshe

Union of Terran States Ambassador

Ambassador Special Charge d'Affaires Felicia Staab

Note: The colors of the RoS flag denote the following: blue field, the beauty and bounty of the RoS’ waters; green field, the beauty and bounty of the RoS’ lands; red stripe, the blood of the RoS’ citizens; black wedge, the vastness of space in which the RoS lies; gold star, the RoS’ life-giving ‘Sun’; three gold orbs, the RoS’ three habitable worlds

Note: The designator ‘Nominal’ highlights the fact that Starkwelt has been under Axis occupation and rule since 121AE SSD, and that its administration and affairs are not entirely its own to control. A rough historical parallel of the RoS’ current political and strategic predicament lies in that of the Old Terra Vichy French regime, 118-114BE SSD.

Note: The RoS’ 125AE SSD est. population figures include 35-37 million Eugenian ‘settlers’ of ECN and ENP origin since 121AE SSD.

Note: Literacy and education figures do not include the surviving indigenous Inheemse.

Note: Summary of exports and imports do not include banned or illegally-dealt goods and services traded on Starkwelt’s rather prosperous black market.

PART I

NIGHT MOVES

PROLOGUE

Headquarters of Axis Occupation Authority Department of Security Affairs, New Starkwelt, Starkwelt, Republic of Starkwelt, November 25AN RSSD, November 127AE SSD

"If you ever pull another stunt like that in one of my meetings, Undercommissioner Lintz, I’ll have you chummed alive and fed to the sk’vall", Commissioner Hänson Guerra, head of Security Affairs for the Occupied Territories of Starkwelt, snarled. His lean face blazed a magnificent shade of red as he glared across the massive crystoplass and synthwood conference table at his attractive section head for Paramilitary Affairs, Undercommissioner Mitzi Lintz.

Speaking out of turn in such a brazen manner, trying to impugn me in front of the High

Commissioner’s Chief Of Staff….out-fucking-rageous!!, Hänson seethed as he fought to get his emotions in check before speaking again. That Mitzi had shown up uninvited to his bi-monthly sit down with Commissioner Delavasquez--the High Commissioner’s Chief of Staff--then been welcomed in by her to join them had been bad enough. But for Undercommissioner Lintz to have usurped Hänson’s agenda during the already tight 90 minute meeting and had the unmitigated gall to talk smack about how he ran his bailiwick--Mitzi had slyly implied that he was soft on the Resistance and that she could do better--was unforgivable.

If it weren’t for your fucking sugar-daddy in the Starkwelt Occupation Authority government, I’d have already had you killed and fed to those voracious little carnivorous fish infesting the South Sevi River, you arrogant jackass….

And therein lay the rub.

Undercommissioner Lintz, looking suntanned and relaxed after her weekend jaunt to the Starkwelt Tropics, gazed back at her boss, a faint patronizing smirk on her lips. Hänson’s cold, menacing glower, imposing physical mien--he stood a hair over two and a tenth meters and massed a hard, wiry 136 kilos--and well-known pedigree as a ruthless and effective career soldier was often sufficient to cow subordinates and colleagues alike into quaking, terrified silence, or otherwise compel them to bend to his formidable will.

Mitzi, though, suppressed a mean-spirited chuckle.

If your glower a real threat I’d be dead a hundred times over, she pondered as she returned his stare with a cool, smirking gaze.

But it just isn’t so….

She knew that Commissioner Guerra, as the Starkwelt Occupation Authority's (SOA) long-serving overlord of security, could, under much different circumstances, be a dangerous man to cross, more so if the act made him appear the fool or, worse, weak in front of the High Commissioner's axe-man. She also knew that these were not such circumstances. Hänson's angry threat came from a place of desperation and weakness, and was all maw and no fangs when it came to dealing with her.

Such high drama, Mitzi mused with cold delight, and willed herself not to laugh, gloat or otherwise show how thrilled she was about her boss’ unenviable circumstances and inevitable ouster, and her part in bringing both about.

You really have no idea what’s coming your way, you poor rube, how many powerful allies I have in the Occupation Authority and how few you own. Well, that’s okay, Hän; we’ll settle up in a year after I take your job. Maybe I’ll even convince the High Commissioner to keep you on someplace in the Occupation Authority government where you’ll have very little influence or

power, and can’t do much damage….that is, if you can convince me not to have you killed.

When she finally responded to Hänson’s verbal threat, it was without even a pretense of fear or respect.

Let's not delude ourselves here, Commissioner Guerra, Undercommissioner Lintz crooned at her boss in the tone of an adult scolding a petulant child, and almost burst out sniggering at the look on his face: one part disbelieving squint; three parts loathing glare. Well, besides pout, there wasn’t much that Hänson could do about the corner into which she’d backed him, and she caught herself before she laughed in his face.

You may be near finished in the SOA, Hänson, but I’ll not rub your nose in it just yet.

Mitzi fished a slim, white cannabis cigarette from her silk wrist-clutch. She popped the joint between her lips with playful flourish and crushed the tiny squib in its tip with thumb and forefinger, sneered at the smoldering glare of incredulity and distaste that the Commissioner leveled at her as she took a shallow drag from it. Mitzi favored and smoked Güd Times, an expensive foreign brand that had been banned by the Occupation Authority government as an extension of its embargo on certain foreign manufactured goods--specifically those produced in countries allied or 'unduly friendly' with the Centerlands’ adversaries. Her contact in New Starkwelt’s burgeoning mob-dominated black market ensured that she remained well supplied with the stuff--and much more, besides--despite the ban. Mitzi, of course, knew full well that Commissioner Guerra despised smoking in his building, forbidden product or not, and was aware that her particular brand was taboo on Starkwelt to boot; he despised it almost as much as Mitzi figured that he loathed her, and she stifled an evil little chuckle at the fact that there was little that he could or would do to stop her, despite his hatred.

So, what will you do to me, Hän? Have me tossed in the clink over a little joint, a bit of puff-puff? Even you wouldn’t be so petty as to raise a stink and cross my sugar-daddy over something so relatively trivial as my little habit. You’re already on frightfully thin ice as it is, old man. Commissioner Hänson Guerra continued to glare back across the table at the striking blonde-haired woman in the elegant, charcoal and coral pant suit, but neither chastised nor interrupted her.

Prior to the meeting they'd just concluded, Hänson had almost let himself believe that he at least enjoyed fair billing when it came to access to and influence with the High Commissioner. The Chief Of Staff''s cozy interaction with his Paramilitary Affairs section head and the woman's affable parting comments to them--to her--as she'd left the conference room quickly let Hänson know the dangerous fallacy of that assumption.

Anyone else, I'd have had the SSB drag their ass out of here and throw them in jail for such blatant disrespect, he pondered in cold disapproval as he watched the Undercommissioner exhale a long, fluffy jet of cannabis smoke from between pursed lips, and waited for her to continue speaking.

But it appears that you're the new golden girl around here; you've even got the ear of the

goddamn High Commissioner and Commissioner General. Hell, you'll probably have my fucking job a year or two from now, your flagrant disregard for the chain of command and implicit condoning of black market pelf be

damned.

The Starkwelt Resistance has not slackened one iota since it sprang up like a nasty weed six years ago, Mitzi continued in a lecturing tone, deepening Hänson’s rancor. "And much like a weed, it seems to have gotten worse with time and, dare I say, the negligent and rather tame efforts of my predecessor to root out its leadership, adherents and sympathizers."

Mitzi took another quick drag on the joint then chuckled, causing an involuntary exhalation of smoke from her mouth and nostrils in short, pale-gray puffs.

Little wonder that the High Commissioner fired Pash for gross incompetence then had him recalled to Port Du Lusane and tossed in prison, she continued, tapping the smoldering ash from the end of the joint onto the burnished crystoplass table surface. Hänson’s frown deepened; he knew that the servibots would make short work of the mess, but the mere act itself, and from a subordinate, was troubling--indeed, infuriating. To dump one's ash onto one’s ranking official’s conference table was not just vile behavior from a filthy vice but displayed brazen disrespect for said official.

I suppose this shows exactly what she thinks of my punitive powers against her, and me personally, he seethed, even as his face reclaimed its expressionless mask of calm control. The cavalier manner in which she’d discussed her predecessor's ouster and fate didn't sit well with him, either. Undercommissioner Pashua Vadim and Hänson hadn’t been friendly with

each other and rarely saw eye to eye, but at least Pash had adhered to chain-of-command

proprieties, and Hänson could work with the man on a professional basis. Not so much Mitzi who shamelessly flaunted her cozy relationships with the High Commissioner and Commissioner General, and often flouted Hänson’s authority because of those high-level liaisons. Since Mitzi had come on board, Hänson longed for the heated but respectful and ultimately productive arguments between Pashua and him. And though his Paramilitary Affairs chief hadn’t said it right then, and had been equally circumspect with the High Commissioner’s CoS, Hänson knew that Mitzi perceived him as much the problem with bringing to heel the Starkwelt Resistance as her ousted and jailed predecessor.

Hänson doubted that he and Mitzi were being eavesdropped upon; the wrap-around, floor to ceiling crystoplass panes enclosing the northeast quadrant of the corner conference room were still tinted black, and a faint electrostatic buzz suffused the cavernous space, foiling all but the most intrusive observation by the most sophisticated photonic and electromagnetic (P/EMAG) devices. The only communications which still functioned in the conference room under those constraints were the four built-in and encrypted and monitored commo-panels placed at two meter intervals along the length of the table, and, of course, Commissioner Guerra's own hyper-secure personal multi-mo, snug in his hip pocket and sensor-muted so as not to disturb him or his meeting. Even so, one never knew for certain when dealing with the prying eyes and ears of the Axis security services, and Hänson almost thought that he could feel the blood freeze in his veins….and not just from the potential prospect of being overheard by the wrong set of ears, or the hyper-efficient interior environmentals. Hänson knew of Mitzi's past, her monstrous reputation as an SSB officer and Commanding General of the SSB’s Starkwelt-based special operations Sierra Units--the SSB’s notoriously ruthless guerrilla-hunters--during the first five years of the occupation. Her

counter-insurgency methods were legendary and quite effective, though almost indiscriminate when it came to sorting out Resistance fighters from civilians. ‘A necessary evil in this filthy sort of war’, the High Commissioner and Commissioner General had said, turning a blind eye to the bloody swath of carnage that she and her violent minions had wreaked on Starkwelt's indigenous population. Men, women, children--goddamn household pets--all were fair game for the sword as far as Major General, now Undercommissioner Lintz was concerned. Mitzi's genocidal zeal had even earned her a terrifying moniker among the country's subjugated populations, one which had followed her from paramilitary service into the high civilian office she currently held: The Butcher Of Starkwelt.

As the reigning chief of security for all of Starkwelt and an unabashed if not particularly virulent

geneist, Commissioner Guerra had no love for the Resistance….or Humans, Neo Humans, Azrealians, Seth’Kyliim or the mongrelized Hybrids of the aforementioned....or any other agents of opposition to the Centerlands' mission....or advocates for the willful contamination and dilution of Eugenian blood. And as a native-born Ooxpoan Eugenian, he barely tolerated the Tekk’Syal N’Jrekka--the blues--and they were declared and solid allies of the Centerlands, and supporters of its Cause. Nevertheless, he perceived Mitzi's brutal methods as excessive in their cruelty, even against the disgusting chimps, steins, cats and lizards, and their sympathizers among the Eugenian and N’Jrekka populations of Starkwelt. And it was the latter of the five groups, particularly his Eugenian blood brethren, which concerned him most with regards to his Paramilitary Chief’s methods. Like any good upstanding Eugenian supremacist, Hänson believed that all 'lesser peoples' (chimps, steins, cats, lizards and hybrids of the aforementioned) ultimately deserved death, that their sort ought to be rooted out and exterminated to make way for the march, progress and spread of Eugenian-kind. But even the bleeding hearts among Starkwelt’s Eugenian population--those who might never be convinced of the rightness of the thing, or the ones who might swing either way--were still his fellow countrymen....his people....his blood.

Hänson, of course, realized and accepted that he occupied a peculiar niche within the upper echelons of the Occupation Authority; he was Eugenian by blood, a scion of the Ooxpoan elite, but Starkweltean by allegiance. He’d come to Starkwelt in 95AE as a wiry and fit lieutenant in the Nieu Afrikaan Foreign Volunteers, a young platoon commander among a regiment of 2,000 Foreign Volunteers charged with providing armed security for Nieu Afrika’s first 400,000 settlers to Starkwelt. Hänson’s seven-year contract as a FV officer had expired while he was on Starkwelt, and he had stayed on in the far-flung RoNA colony to begin a new life rather than return to his native Ooxpo.

Hänson had actually been quite relieved when the Axis invasion and occupation of Starkwelt had arrived in early 121AE. Like many of his countrymen at the time, he’d viewed the invasion as a grand liberation of sorts, had quietly rejoiced when the Combined Axis Fleet (CAF) had forced the surrender of the outnumbered and outgunned Starkwelt Defense Forces (SDF) and President Joos Iscariot and his government in 81 hours without spilling much blood. The invaders had destroyed several of Starkwelt’s key defense, logistics and communications nodes as an example of their overwhelming armed might and ability to attack with near impunity; the withering thermonuclear and large-caliber kinetic strikes had killed fewer than 13,000 of his countrymen but had driven home the point to the SDF and Starkweltean government that further armed resistance against the CAF would likely mean the annihilation of the country and its people. And, of course, the Accord of Nations (AoN), namely its Secretary-General and the majority of her Assembly of 201 ambassadors, thousands of light years away on New Switzerland and politically toothless when dealing with the Axis anyway, had protested the invasion and occupation in the strongest possible terms--as it had with both the A’Khaanate of Shalons (A’KoS) in 117AE and San’Tee, Republic of I’mazoria (RoI), two years later--but done little else besides.

The post-invasion occupation of Starkwelt and arrival of the civilian-led SOA had warmed Hänson’s cockles and led him to believe that Starkwelt would, at last, become the country that it deserved--was destined--to be. Hänson had feared for the longest time that his country’s idiot half-breed of a President and his disgusting Starkweltean Progressive Party (SPP) would succeed at getting Starkwelt in bed with the Alliance; with roughly half the country’s population of 1.2 billion amenable to such an arrangement and the Alliance throwing around all sorts of economic and political inducements to expedite it, he hadn’t much doubt that such a thing would come to pass in time.

The invasion and occupation had, thankfully, put the kybosh on the Alliance’s plans to corrupt his beloved Starkwelt and enlist it as a strategic hedge against the Axis. No matter that the Axis had taken Starkwelt for precisely the same reasons; the looming threat of a strategic partnership with the Alliance was done and the good guys had gained the upper hand. The SOA had ousted and imprisoned Mister Iscariot, duly dissolved the SPP--as it had most other Starkweltean political or social entities that didn’t quite see the universe in the same way as the SOA--coerced the RoS' new puppet regime to recall home the country’s AoN Ambassador and her eleven General Assembly delegates, and begun to clean out the riff-raff among the Starkweltean population. By then, Hänson had seen his country go through two name changes--the RoNA colony of Starkwelt had become the Special Administrative Territory of Starkwelt (SAToS) in 105AE, then the independence-seeking and, in the eyes of the distant RoNA, unlawfully-declared Republic of Starkwelt (RoS) in 115AE--and was serving as Commandant of the Starkwelt National Police (SNP) and a major general of high regard in the SDF Reserves. The Eugenian Central Nations (ECN, or Centerlands) had quickly recognized and acknowledged Hänson’s vast martial and security expertise and area-relevant professional acumen, and rewarded his loyalty to the Greater Eugenian Imperative--the Cause--by enticing him out of uniform and appointing him Commissioner of Security for the Starkwelt Occupation Authority (SOA), a post he’d thus far held for six years. A logical appointment considering his professional chops and contacts among the various local and Axis security services, but an odd position of high-authority for a native Starkweltean and an outsider to the Occupation Authority senior leadership. And Hänson’s spirit did lie firmly with his fellow Starkwelteans.

So much for hearts and minds, Commissioner Guerra groused with a mental shiver, dreading what sorts of sinister ideas his Paramilitary Affairs chief now had in her head.

"We cannot....will not make nice or play fair with the Resistance, the undesirables or the abettors of either", Mitzi continued in a cold, matter-of-fact manner.

Hänson knew that Mitzi counted a good many of his countrymen among those ‘abettors’.

"So, as I'd alluded to High Commissioner Greer’s Chief Of Staff, I in fact will propose the widespread implementation of Directive 147A as standard operating procedure and policy for Starkwelt, the Undercommissioner sneered. It’ll require a bit of study first, especially in light of the divergence of opinions among the leadership of the local national population--your people--regarding such an escalation of effort, but I think that we’ll get there."

Guerra closed his eyes, shook his head and held up a hand, finger extended like an accusation in Mitzi's general direction as the ramifications of the Undercommissioner's assertion hit him full in the solar plexus. Directive 147A, he knew, was one of the more extreme and horrifying stratagems in the Occupation Authority's population pacification toolkit; it was the polar opposite of positive and meaningful engagement with a conquered civilization, and would spell bloody disaster for all on Starkwelt--his country and his people, and, eventually, the SOA and their Cause--should it come to pass.

Hänson's mouth worked for a heartbeat or two until he found his voice.

Over my dead body, you will, he snarled.

If you like, Mitzi replied and shrugged her shoulders with an airy, cold-eyed nonchalance that turned his guts to ice water. Mentally, Hänson recoiled, chilled to the core by the sheer brass of Mitzi’s tacit threat, knowing full well that this woman, though his nominal subordinate, had both the nerve and political clout to back it up should she choose to do so. As an outsider within the Occupation Authority, one with grave and well-known misgivings about the negative effects of its pacification campaign on his fellow Starkwelteans, Hänson’s position within the Occupation Authority had of late become so precarious and Mitzi’s so powerful that she could have him ‘disappeared’ on a Monday and be appointed his permanent successor on Tuesday.

Nevertheless, Hänson plowed ahead as if he’d neither heard nor understood Mitzi’s gentle warning, the dire implications of Mitzi’s intentions steeling his nerve and giving him the courage to challenge her.

"You’ll still require staffing through my office, and my approval before 147A advances beyond mere proposal, Undercommissioner. I’ll never give it", he shot back, striking the surface of the table with the palm of his hand for emphasis. The dull, solid thump from the blow echoed in the conference room and rattled the pitcher of water and crystal tumblers on the table. Mitzi arched an eyebrow and tilted her head a fraction of a centimeter to the left but didn’t flinch from the noise or Hänson’s ire.

"You assume that I require it", Mitzi retorted with a nasty smirk. The conference room’s environmentals whispered placidly in the background, maintaining a constant ambient temperature of 23° celsius. Hänson, though, felt much colder at that moment, and mentally shivered in response to Mitzi’s breezy assertion. Her smiling arrogance confirmed his worst fears about the tenuous boss-employee relationship that he and Undercommissioner Lintz shared. Her political power and viability had eclipsed his own in the eyes of the Occupation Authority front office such that any objections he’d raise over 147A would be brushed aside and disregarded as mere pap by the higher-ups, and she’d get her way. For the sake of his people, his fellow Starkwelteans who’d suffer the brunt of the directive’s ravages, he still had to try any argument or ploy to dissuade Mitzi carrying out her terrible plan.

"The Commissioner General is many things, Undercommissioner, but she is also a senior Foreign Ministry official and diplomat, and the one in overall command of this Sector", Hänson lectured, voice as icy as he could manage.

"You’re not in the SSB anymore, Mitzi. You hold your exalted position at Commissioner General Sununu’s pleasure, and she can ill afford to turn a blind eye to your previous blood-thirsty excesses. Yes, you might be able to sell such a monstrous escalation of….hostilities against the native population--my people--to your highly-placed friends in the High Commissioner’s office, or maybe even to that rutting barbarian of a High Commissioner himself, but the Commissioner General will not support your bloody-minded plans."

Mitzi stood, straightened out the front of her suit and gathered up her clutch, and cast an almost beatific smile down at her boss as Hänson glowered up at her.

Still not getting it, I see, Mitzi pondered with a mental giggle and exhaled a gentle sigh of pity. Well, then, let me spell it out for you….

Hänson seethed at Mitzi’s pointed lack of respect--standing up before her rank superior without leave….and that fucking sigh--but determined not to lose his cool again; that hadn’t worked with her yet.

"She already does, Hänson, Mitzi retorted with an icy chortle. And don’t you dare for a moment imagine that this time will be any different. The Commissioner General's an ivory tower pogue but she knows what's coming. Even the youngest, most naive....child amongst our kind knows that open war with the Alliance is inevitable. Likely months, if not weeks, away. Why prolong the wait? We may as well deal with the unpleasantries sooner rather than later, when these....people pose a potential threat to us; it'd be an easy enough sell up the chain of leadership within the grander context of our precious territorial and national security, don't you think?"

'Unpleasantries' my left testicle, Hänson fumed.

It's no secret that you cherish your license to commit wholesale slaughter as much as the name the natives--my people--have bestowed upon you....

Hänson pushed away from the conference table and stood up.

"Then there’s nothing further for us to discuss, Undercommissioner", he declared, emphasizing Mitzi’s lower rank in the SOA pecking order, his rage corked and voice icy as he glared down his nose at her; he had a full civilian pay grade and 18 centimeters of height on his Paramilitary Affairs section head. Mitzi smirked, unimpressed by Hänson’s physical stature or rank, and took another long, shallow drag of her cigarette.

I suppose not, she sighed, exhaling smoke from her mouth as she spoke, a placid half-grin on her lips and pity-tinged contempt in the cool gaze she leveled at her boss. A few heartbeats passed between the two senior SOA officials, neither making even a flimsy pretense of parting courtesies.

Hänson spoke first.

Small wonder that the upper chain of leadership loves you so much, he snarled.

"And here I was thinking that it was my tits and effervescent personality", Mitzi answered with a chilly sneer, her voice dripping with malevolent sarcasm. Her tone, her entire mien reflected more than a casual flirtation with insubordination, Hänson acknowledged, feeling his ire rise again, though he'd be damned if he'd let her see that emotion again from him now that he’d regained his head. Without a doubt, Undercommissioner Lintz had outmaneuvered him, cozied up with the upper chain of command and given them the perception of her indispensability to the mission on Starkwelt and to the Cause--to his disadvantage, of course; he had no doubt that her new patrons, those high-ranking nabobs at whose behest and pleasure they both served, would take her side should he cry foul. He had to keep a cool head and find some other way to get rid of her while somehow saving his people and country in the bargain, though for the life of him he hadn’t yet a clue how he might do it.

"They really don't ask you any questions, do they? They don't want to know a thing; as long as you do their dirty work, you've carte blanche to do whatever you please out here."

Mitzi cast her nominal boss a final knowing smirk, held his angry gaze as she dropped her half-smoked joint on the floor and ground it out with the pointy toe of her expensive-looking boot, then dipped her head in mock deference and winked at him.

Good day, Commissioner, she sneered then, pointedly not requesting Hänson’s leave, turned on her heel and strode out of the conference room as if--Hänson feared--she already owned it.

INN Daily Journal, January 12th, 128AE SSD

Front And Center: International Security Affairs Beat

Lies, Brinksmanship And The Centerlands’ Not-So-Hidden Agenda

By Marsha Gorani

I’ve toed the edge and stared into the abyss; it was not a pleasant sight….

- Joos Iscariot, former President of the Republic of Starkwelt, 19-25AN RSSD

(115-121AE SSD)

Acts of state-sponsored aggression against geno-ethnic Eugenians living within the astrographic borders of the Alliance? Who’d have thought it? But the ensuing, two-month-old Eugenian refugee crisis--what began as a smattering of whispers and rumors, and was even taken as a particularly nasty joke by those of us in the know within the international media--has now

become the greatest threat to peace in the civilized universe since the Axis began its own deadly wars of aggression against its interstellar neighbors in 117AE. To be entirely fair, there has always existed a healthy level of friction between the various star nations’ myriad starfaring geno-ethnic groups as they acknowledge both the similarities and differences between them, work together for the common good or against each other to their mutual detriment, and compete for influence and dominance in a vast but slowly shrinking universe. Not, however, the sort of malicious state-sponsored geneism at the hands of Alliance governments as alleged by the Centerlands and its Pact Nation allies--ironically, the exact brand of institutionalized geneism for

which the aforementioned star polities have been infamous, towards the advancement of their so-called Eugenian Imperative (the ‘Cause’).

According to the Centerlands government and its state-run and controlled media juggernaut UNIMEDIA, almost 370 million geno-ethnic Eugenians have been driven from their homes and livelihoods in a number of Alliance Proximity Territories (AlPTs; astrographic aerospace and all within it that abuts that of the Axis) by Alliance government forces in those territories, and

sent fleeing into sprawling, hastily-constructed refugee camps in neighboring Axis Proximity Territories (AxPTs). As the crisis continues and the numbers of refugees in the camps swell unabated, so has the outpouring of anger and anti-Alliance sentiment among the Centerlands and Pact Nations populations grown ever more strident, and the language emanating from the Axis’ halls of government--particularly from the ECN’s Chancellor Heydrich Hayden and his Pact Nations colleagues--grown ever more belligerent and adversarial. Chancellor Hayden has gone so far as to threaten ECN military intervention in the AlPTs if Alliance government abuses against the Centerlands’ genoethnic cousins continue, and appropriate redress for the harm done those cousins and the refugees in his nation’s care remains absent from the offenders--a stance which has garnered widespread support from the vast majority of Centerlands and Pact Nations citizens, to the whopping and rather troubling tune of 81 percent.

And the comprehensive, near-constant UNIMEDIA vid reportage streaming out of those territories--the first-hand and often live interviews with tearful Eugenian refugees and courageous Eugenian camp volunteers; the long, ragged queues of shabbily-clad unfortunates, forming up behind heavily-laden supply lorries for toiletries and twice-daily rations; the sweeping panoramas of drab, slap-dash plasticrete hovels that stretch clear to the horizons of Axis border territories like Griswold, Quantrel and Seronta--would seem to lend credence to the Centerlands’ horrific claims of foul play, and a steely ring of justifiable indignation to Chancellor Hayden’s threats and his citizens’ cries for redress.

But there is something terribly and fundamentally amiss with this apparent tragedy, not least of all UNIMEDIA’s slanted reportage of it and the equally skewed narrative propagated by the Centerlands and Pact Nations governments. A narrative which gleefully portrays the Alliance as hateful villains and the Eugenian refugees as innocent victims, remains largely unchallenged by Centerlands and Pact Nation media consumers due to the absolute and unchecked control that those governments wield over their respective mediaverses, and which serves only to deepen the anger and virulent anti-Alliance sentiment among the citizens of the ECN and its Pact

Nation allies. Of note, the Daily Journal, among many other reputable media entities in the international community, has, as yet, uncovered no evidence or verifiable proof of concerted Alliance government misdeeds against genoethnic Eugenians in the AlPTs: this despite extensive Centerlands and Pact Nation media coverage of the crisis and the mounting archival evidence of

said crisis compiled by UNIMEDIA and its Pact Nation counterparts. As of this missive, Alliance government representatives continue to refute that such heinous abuses are occurring in the AlPTs, and, in conjunction with Accord of Nations (AoN) Secretary-General Winona Kurilov and leading lights among the AoN General Assembly, continue to extend unconditional

invitations to the ECN and Pact Nations to send inspection teams into the AlPTs to confirm or disprove the accusations leveled at them by those aggrieved parties. And many international media entities, including the Daily Journal, continue to request access to the camps in the AxPTs in order to see for ourselves and consequently cover, if true, a story well worth covering and

sharing with the international community.

Thus far, as has been the case since the crisis began, the representatives from the Alliance governments and we in the international media have been met with persistent stonewalling by

Chancellor Hayden and his and his allies’ governments writ large: refusals of good-faith offers and denials of requests in the interests of their ‘national security’, accusations of large-scale Alliance government ‘cover-ups’ of offenses against geno-ethnic Eugenians in the AlPTs, claims that they ‘take care of their own’, and, of course, stony silence.

Also of particular note, the Ov’Khaanate of Tekk’syal (O’KoT) has remained strangely quiet on this issue; this atypical reticence of a long-time Centerlands ally--the Axis’ vast and powerful ‘third leg’*--to weigh in on the crisis has led more than a few experts of diplomacy and international relations to ask if the Ov’Khaanate disapproves of its ally’s more confrontational stance towards the Alliance, or perhaps knows something else that the Axis as a larger entity would rather conceal. And has led still others to speculate as to whether the ‘crisis’ is little more than a horrendous pretext to justify and lend legitimacy--in the eyes of the Centerlands’ and Pact Nations’ 90 billion citizens--to what Chancellor Hayden has vociferously wanted and striven all along: an aggressive expansionist war against the Alliance and those Unaligned Territories which favor it. In light of the enormous stakes involved--as per Chancellor Hayden, open war between the Alliance and Axis over this crisis is a distinct possibility--we can only hope that the truth comes out sooner rather than later, and that it serves to ease the burgeoning refugee crisis and casual but hostile distrust between those two powerful blocs of star nations rather than as a catalyst for a far wider and deadlier conflict, with tens of billions of lives and the precarious peace between them hanging in the balance.

Note: For the purposes of this piece, the Ustashi Tripartite Entente (UTE) and New Goa Accords (NGA), rival multi-nation mutual-defense entities, are referred to by their more commonly-known monikers: the Axis and Alliance, respectively.

*The Axis consists of the ECN, Eugenian Nations Pact (ENP or Pact Nations) and O’KoT; it is viewed in the wider international community, particularly in the Alliance, as a ‘triad’ and each political entity referred to as a ‘leg’.

CHAPTER 1

Leesün, New Geneva, Canton of New Geneva, Federal Republic of New Switzerland (FRoNS), March 128AE SSD

Aamon V’Iangsooth Savage stood sweaty and naked behind his panoramic kitchen window and sipped a large stoneware mug of thick hot cocoa, the gnawed end of a chocolate flavored high-density meal bar sticking up over the rim. He broke off a chunk of the bar and popped it in his mouth, chewed quietly as he watched a pair of otters frolic in the weak currents of the Leesäre’s shallow waters which meandered along the riverbank, 100 meters from the bucolic home that he and his long-time companion and lover Sabrina Vöss shared amid the towering native pines. The low-power hybrid washer-dryer thrummed gently against the toes of his right foot from its gaunt

niche between the sink and cabinets, laving his funky sweat-soaked exercise togs; he’d left his boots, grav-harness and swim-pack out on the pool deck behind the house to air-dry in the warm morning sun while he wound down after his vigorous morning workout.

From the adjoining salon, Aamon heard occasional snippets of INN’s morning news dump, the voices of various international correspondents and the local morning news anchor Marqueta Hasegawa chattering in muted conversational tones from the vid. He ignored most of the nattering reportage, but the leading items of international news had of late been of mild interest to him, revolving around the worsening three-month-old Eugenian refugee crisis in the Axis and Alliance Proximity Territories (AxPTs and AlPTs), and the swift deterioration of respectful if icy

diplomatic relations between the Axis and Alliance. Political liaisons between the two powerful blocs of international players were rarely all that civil under the best of circumstances; the Axis’ aggressive implementation of its geneist Eugenian Imperative and the Alliance’s grim determination to oppose it had all but ensured that the ideological gulf between them would remain far too vast to reconcile in a cordial manner. But the terrible weight of the refugee crisis had strained the already fragile diplomatic relationship between the Axis and Alliance near the point of collapse.

Alleged refugee crisis, Aamon’s instincts whispered in quiet correction; to the present, while the Axis continued to refuse Alliance invitations to visit and inspect the AlPTs to disprove foul play and denied all requests to visit and verify the reported existence of the vast refugee camps in the AxPTs, neither side had presented any hard evidence that geno-ethnic Eugenians were being killed and displaced in the AlPTs.

Worse, the Union of Terran States (UTS, or Union) had arrested and expelled for espionage more than a hundred Centerlands, Pact Nations and Ov’Khaanate emissaries from fifteen embassies and consulates within its borders, and the Centerlands, Pact and Imperium had duly reciprocated by kicking out for various offenses almost four hundred Alliance diplomats, most of them from the Union, Espana Nueva and A’Khaanate. Both sides claimed a systematic government cover-up by the other and got more bellicose in their language, the Axis threatening to act in its geno-ethnic cousins’ best interests if the Alliance continued its heinous acts of anti-Eugenian aggression, the Alliance vowing to act in self-defense if attacked by the Axis.

Whether tit-for-tat political posturing, clever pretext, or prelude to open hostilities between the two powerful blocs of nations, Aamon didn’t know, but he could certainly make a case for either. And, 1700 kilometers away in New Bern, the Secretary-General of the AoN and her exalted General Assembly did little but wring their hands in worry, call press conferences over the Axis’ latest threats and transgressions, bark impotently at the Axis governments and beg them to make nice with the Alliance, and whinge about the impending end of ‘meaningful peace in the civilized universe’.

The combined military and economic might of 201 star nations and this weak-ass excuse for a response is how the AoN punishes the line-steppers their bad behavior, he mused with

a derisive snort. And as nasty as the Axis actually was, Aamon knew that the Alliance—particularly its two most influential and powerful star polities, the UTS and A’Khaanate

of A’kyzoria (A’KoA)--were hardly innocent victims. He’d done a few things at the behest of the UTS and Alliance governments to enlighten him that there were more than enough skeletons rattling around in their closets to fill a thousand graveyards; he’d often been the one tasked to make and dispose of those skeletons.

They-the goddamn Alliance States and AoN Secretary-General--really must want to be perceived as the ‘good guys’ in this mess; fucken’ as if….

Aamon knew that the AoN’s bag was ‘aggressive diplomacy’--embargoes, sanctions, official condemnations and the like--not armed intervention, which made its lack of meaningful punitive action against the Axis no less galling to him. That the AoN had gotten the Alliance to go along for the ride and exercise restraint in the teeth of increasingly bellicose Axis threats and Axis

aggression against its interstellar neighbors was a rather pretty piece of that aggressive diplomacy, Aamon thought with a dark chuckle; he was quite certain that that particular situation would change in a hurry, as would the AoN’s military-averse stance, once the real shooting started.

Points for trying, anyway, Ms. Kulikov; guess I’d make a lousy diplomat….

Aamon caught himself short before allowing the gloomy thoughts to progress any farther.

Well, that mess might have been my problem two years ago, when I was still knocking about with the 200, but no longer, he mused with an exasperated sigh. For a brief spell at this early hour, he tried to ponder nothing in particular--certainly nothing so serious as potential open hostilities between the Axis and Alliance. As a former elite Union naval commando and military intelligence operative--particularly the latter; he’d been recruited from Naval Special Unit 17 (NSU17) into Task Force 120 (TF120) whose charter was to train seasoned maritime special operators as clandestine operatives (spies and fixers) for dirty jobs against the Union’s nastiest enemies at the behest of the President of the Union of Terran States (POTUTS)….but which officially didn’t exist--such grim thoughts, he knew, would be second nature to him for the foreseeable future. In an absent manner, he scratched the small, black tattoo--a dagger with a streaking comet, its tail curled snake-like around the pommel--on the inside of his left forearm with his thumb. Aamon didn’t recall having been plagued with such dour thoughts after his first dalliance with professional soldiering. Then, again, his six-year stint as a trooper in the Nieu Afrikaan Foreign Volunteers (NAFV) had been a whole other kind of soldiering; he’d been a well-paid mercenary, serving at the pleasure of the Republic of Nieu Afrika (RoNA) and, at 16 years old, far more concerned with his fat paychecks and staying alive to spend them than the perceived astropolitical conditions that drove the RoNA to recruit and use people like him to do its dirty work in its colonies. That mindset had changed a bit upon his induction into the NAFV’s elite Kommando regiments--the outfit that his discreet tattoo denoted--but not by much; he had seen a bit more behind the curtain in the Kommandos, and was a little older and more savvy in the ways of the universe, but still far too young, focused on getting paid and busy dodging bullets to concern himself much with the vagaries of RoNA-style international relations.

You’re doing it again, jackass, he chastised himself, exhaling a loud sigh. With modest effort, Aamon stilled his thoughts and allowed his mind to wander a bit under the salving influence of a bath of endorphins as the familiar and delicious post-exercise ache warmed every muscle and sinew in his prodigious body, the massive infusion of calories (8 KCal) from the meal-bar replenished his energy reserves and the eastern sky far beyond his kitchen window slowly turned from purple to light blue and cast its first tenuous rays of morning light on the towering, snow-capped granite massifs of the Czarmago Mountains sixty kilometers to the east.

Aamon and Sabrina had been living in the house for a bit over a year and he was certainly no stranger to the view of daybreak outside of his window, but it was still a view which possessed the majesty and power to strike him breathless with awe, especially under the tempering influence of his sugar and caffeine-enhanced hormone high. Aamon’s mind continued to wander as he polished off the rest of the meal-bar, washed it down with the last of the cocoa and set the empty mug on the marble countertop with a gentle stone-on-stone clack, enjoying the odd luxury of a bit of downtime.

Aamon’s professional life as an independent contractor was in the midst of a rare lull. The overall success of Solutions LLC--the name of his business enterprise--and his daily workout regimens aside, Aamon hadn’t much to keep him hopping these days. He’d just completed a short-term (35 days) and relatively low-risk but lucrative contract in the Kingdom of Sao Marijo (KoSM) for the New Swiss Ministry of Defense (MoD) a week previously. That job had come after a somewhat hectic three months of local and regional area contracts: a rapid-fire spate of small-time security, close protection and consulting jobs, usually at the behest of Sabrina’s friends or colleagues from one place or another. The work wasn’t often challenging or terribly

profitable, and it consumed large chunks of his time and kept him in constant

motion and away from home--and Sabrina. On the plus side, the jobs also kept him relatively close to New Switzerland, professionally active and sharp, and in ‘booze, book and battery money’ between better paying gigs. As it stood, Aamon had nothing major or pressing scheduled on his business agenda any closer than six months out. Prior to the Sao Marijo job, he’d signed a Letter of Intent (LOI) with the Commonwealth of New Zealand (CNZ) Ministry of National Security and Intelligence (MoNSI) and was on a CSC150K retainer to do a bit of security consulting and advising for the International Friendship Games on Maoriland come late summer--in six months. After that, he was on the hook for a brief stint at AoN headquarters in New Bern, a big money (NSC200K) suit-and-tie gig observing and bringing a bit of professional polish to the Secretary-General’s already terrifyingly proficient New Swiss personal protection detachment. Other than that, Aamon’s schedule was flexible, sprinkled with smaller local and

regional contract prospects of the sort he’d taken before his contract in Sao Marijo, all of which he felt that he could accept or reject as he saw fit and not do himself or his business enterprise serious harm.

Aamon wasn’t hurting for money. He had USC900K in the bank, half of it in New Swiss government virtual bearer bonds (VBBs) earning a safe but healthy twenty percent in annual interest; and Sabrina, trust-fund baby of the Insbürg, Nieu Afrikaa upper-crust (her folks were wealthy vintners), was loaded. During slow times in the gun-for-hire business, Aamon volunteered several times a week as a shooting and unarmed combat instructor at Däs Schuss, a local tuff-un hangout on the outskirts of Leesün. Established by a couple of former Foreign Volunteer Kommandos of New Swiss birth, and set up in an abandoned aerospacecraft hangar in what used to be Leesün Regional before New Geneva International absorbed its task-load, Däs Schuss offered a dizzying range of martial disciplines to its clients, from Brazilian Jujitsu,

Krav Maga and Desarmado to firearms and edged weapons courses, to combat-centric outdoors adventure packages….to something called Seleksie, a six-day-long slice of hell that was marketed to the general public as ‘a taste of the legendary Kommando selection experience’. In exchange for his services as a volunteer instructor, the owners let Aamon train for free during

twice-weekly restricted contract-courses laid on for the New Swiss National Police Special Operations Group (NSNP-SOG), and allowed him all the long-gun and pistol ammo that he cared to burn through at their on-site shooting ranges (he had to bring his own weapons and charge-cells).

The nondescript, black tag that Aamon bore on the inside of his bulging forearm, easily dismissible against his dark skin and esoteric in meaning to most people who’d seen it, had not escaped the ken of Däs Schuss’ proprietors; they had similar, less discreet tattoos on their own bodies and, Aamon suspected, were more than willing to extend a brother-in-arms certain courtesies that they wouldn’t other patrons or staff, even if he was