Caleb Schumann > Recent Status Updates

But if Mike thinks Unione Miniere is the only player he'd be sorely mistaken. We see a short call between the leadership of Western; they've resolved that, if Lumumba can't deliver their concessions, they'll deny the resource market to their competitors by engineering a Civil War that will make mineral extraction in Katanga untenable. Capital sure is pernicious, huh?

Mike and Duclair head off for an arms deal in paris- Mike quickly is intimated with two things- one, the Unione Miniere has vast resources with which to acquire planes for Katanga's budding Air Service, and two, his hopes are a little too lofty. Most of the people in Tshombe's administration seem to only see him as Chantal's pet, and he won't end up leading their fleet. He's pretty dejected & humiliated.

After a few weeks of treatment- and LOTS of simulator flight hours - Williams is finally cleared for reinstatement, though she's still to attend regular meetings with the ship surgeon. She has a discussion with Stanford and he apologises for not having helped her sooner, but she's pretty understanding of his situation. After reinstatement, she's selected to take part in a training exercise - Stanford vs Roberts. Ooh!

Back to Kane, we find out that Lumumba has been rescued, but his rule over the Congo is one only in name; Kasa-Vubu and the army hold him more or less hostage. Kane and Suzy fuck the daylights out of eachother and Kane gets some information for his "troubles"- Barlow is being sent to Katanga & UN firmly behind Lumumba. He reports to IMEX & Western he'll explore concessions there to hedge bets on cross-congo contract.

-appear to have taken bloody vengeance on those who they believe helped set up the rebels' bushwhack. Mike feels a coil of disgust in him, and silently hopes Hermann wasn't in on it.

Back to Kane, we find out that Lumumba has been rescued, but his rule over the Congo is one only in name; Kasa-Vubu and the army hold him more or less hostage. Kane and Suzy fuck the daylights out of eachother and Kane gets some information for his "troubles"- Barlow is being sent to Katanga & UN firmly behind Lumumba. He reports to IMEX & Western he'll explore concessions there to hedge bets on cross-congo contract.

-appear to have taken bloody vengeance on those who they believe helped set up the rebels' bushwhack. Mike feels a coil of disgust in him, and silently hopes Hermann wasn't in on it.

-and evacuate some of the wounded to Elizabethville, and he does without issue. Returning, he goes to Chantal and is taken off to a party with Tshombe et al, where he advises him to buy T6s for air support before hearing Lumumba's been overthrown by one General Mobutu- uh oh. The next day he flies again, headed to help with the bridge repairs, and finds the village a ruin, seeing corpses strewn about. The gendarmes-

He's able to sound off a warning just in time as the Baluba spring their trap, all twenty of them making a sudden charge as the column comes to a halt, a firefight breaking out between the surprised gendarmes and them. A few go down, but more of the rebels, and by the time those bearing spears and machetes reach the fore they're too depleted to overwhelm Hermann and the men around him. They tell Mike to come down-

Mike is assigned to provide overwatch for a few columns of Gendarmes slogging up into High Katanga; Baluba territory. They're headed to repair a bridge, and on the way he flies by a little village. Nothing seems amiss, but he can't shake the idea that something feels off- too calm, too at ease.. peformatively so. Just as the first column makes its approach he spots two dozen rebels in the bush by the road!

-once the jig was up, to take it rimward and become a mercenary to carve out an empire for himself. Fortunately, Blair's assignment threw a sledgehammer into all that and Larson's conspiracy was quickly, unknowingly dismantled. All this was the last gasps of a man with his house falling in on him. Still.. a major arms supplier implicated and a big part of the Reserve Fleet Station in on a treasonous plot? Lots to do.

-medical discharge, and furthermore tells Roberts to offer Randall life instead of a firing squad. He goes to him and does, and Randall spills all the beans to snatch up a plea; Larson had been stealing and selling squadrons of fighters to Excelsior, a military exporter in the Alliance, which was distributing them under the table to third parties. He'd also concocted a hairbrained conspiracy to seize Avalon-

So, they investigate. But first, finding out what to do with Randall- Roberts decides to put it up to Williams, who's been recently transferred to Avalon. She's in very bad shape - mentally and physically, thanks to the paralytic nanites Liago used going haywire - but she's well enough to talk to Roberts after being calmed down following when she was awoken. She decides to stay in the service instead of taking a-

-them, they overcharge their stunners to fry his ass. A company of marines and MPs from Avalon helps secure the station, and Larson is soon found dead- an apparent suicide, though Khadem, the station's Marshall, quickly determines otherwise., he was murdered. But at who's order? And furthermore, why's the station got 12 squadrons of fighters instead of six?
A conspiracy appears to be afoot.

To ensure Williams - Randall's victim - isn't subject to any retaliation after Stanford comes and fesses up about how he'd been blackmailed by Larson, Roberts contacts the station's security to arrange her being taken into protective custody. Just in time too, as Larson's brutish right hand, Liago, shoots her with a paralytic to haul her off to airlock her. Station security catches up and after he opens fire on-

Roberts meets with some of his ship's NCOs and they discuss personnel- some to be transferred, some.. not. As it turns out, Randall stalked and raped one of the junior officers, and Larson covered it up for him by blackmailing Stanford, who's been smuggling alcohol. After being informed Roberts immediately calls up the captain & the Marshall, and Randall's arrest is promptly ordered and effected.

We get a POV from Stanford, who's taking some of the outdated fighters back to the base station of Avalon's squadron to be mothballed. He has a meeting with his former superior, Larson - closely watched by the intimidating Liago - and Larson threatens to expose him for alcohol smuggling and possibly hurt him if Stanford reveals some unknown trespass he himself has committed to his new superiors. Uh oh.

-to do anything other than show the flag in frontier systems, as it's latest - and probably final - voyage would seem to be. With 280ish pages and five more books ahead of us, somehow I think complications will arise.

If he'd hoped the issues were only technical, though, Roberts was sorely mistaken. Some of his pilots are arrested for drug smuggling and stealing parts, and the captain informs him the ship is infested with poor discipline and degeneracy. At the very least his FCs seem sound, as he finds after investigating some of the rumors around them- still, Roberts has his work cut out for him if the Avalon ends up needing-

-both the Avalon's captain and the more junior officers in his flight group, two of whom are coming over from his former ship the Alamo. A disparate group of the politically connected but incompetent, competent but scandal-ridden, and all those the navy and space force left behind like they did the Avalon. Flight commanders Randall, Stanford, Rokos and Lancet are the locals, with Zhao and Mendez coming with Kyle.

Kyle Roberts, a war hero and distinguished young officer of the Castle Federation Space Force, arrives at his new assignment- the Avalon, the Federation's first naval carrier, a now veritably ancient ship with a storied history. Although on paper a prestigious assignment, it's hardly so- a decrepit ship with out of date systems and fighters, something of some concern to it's new Air Commander. He's introduced to-

Stormshadow heads in for repairs, piloted by Browning - at Crowe's suggestion, as a sort of "thanks for helping save all us from dying". We cut to the epilogue, where we learn nine worlds attempted to secede- most failing, several successfully rising, but likely to be stomped out as the Imperium seems unlikely to intervene directly. For it all, the Comfederation stands. HAIL TERRA!

At a tremendous cost, though. Every surviving ship - which, shockingly, was all but the Marasti - was crippled, and the station was nearly spent of all fighting capability; their only spaceworthy craft was the captured transport, Vesikko. Crowe decides he's content, especially learning Carstairs, Dupuy, and Urasnicz were all still alive, even if Dupuy was in critical condition and hospitalized. I'd be too.

-really just sheer spite. Stormshadow barely avoids Mikula, which transmits surrender codes, though far too late. Nothing could be done for her, as she continues to crack and splinter and ultimately just fucking explode as the fires reach her magazine. Against every odd conceivable, the Stormshadow, somehow, had survived; and Troubridge Naval Base, just over the traitorous Dolor, had too.

The pilot - at gunpoint courtesy of Browning - agrees. Just as Crowe resigns himself to his - really quite heroic - fate, he gets a reading on the console. Mikula, desperate to evade, is putting all power to drives.. and ripping itself apart from the hull stress. Crowe orders a diversion of course at the last second in a panic that he might actually live, while Browning sprays the Mikula with point defense out of-

And Browning, his old gunnery officer, new political officer, and now friend, obliges him. The torpedos cause a hull breach, forcing the Mikula to seal off and vent its flight deck, at the cost to many lives.. but maybe not the battle. All her opponents were out for the count, or near enough. Stormshadow had no ammunition. And yet, even if it's a crippled hunk of junk, it's a hunk. Crowe orders ramming speed.

-out before he's killed from decompression, not having a suit. He takes in the situation, seeing Bainbridge joining the charge after taking out Regolo in a straight-on ship duel, and learns someone in engineering has taken emergency helm control. Lacking power over much of anything, he does the last thing he can- he issues the order for torpedo batteries, if any still exist, to fire, as Regolo emergency jumps out.

--, who had been sent to take turret control and seemingly been killed, had loaded the torpedo launchers and were ready to fire!?
Maybe it wasn't a gambit after all. Lesos hurls herself in the way of oncoming fire, sustaining crippling damage to save Stormshadow- which is practically disabled itself in spite of only taking a few hits, with the bridge taking a hull breach, forcing Crowe to shove Connelly -

-destruction together, Lesos committing all it's guns to point defense for Stormshadow, which succeeds in it's plan; the Mikula turns every missile on the two. Crowe thanks Browning and she transmits the ship's logs on open waves. No matter what, people will know of the sacrifice made today. Just then, Connelly - the ship's doctor, now final remaining bridge officer - rushes in and reports Morwood and her marines-

With the corvettes out, two hostiles remain- Regolo, in a horrific firefight with Bainbridge, and Mikula, Reutens' flagship, under heavy attack by Dolor's gunships. Crowe resolves to rush the Mikula as if to torpedo it, even though his turrets are all out, in the hopes of drawing fire. Lesos's captain calls him insane, and perhaps he is. But they're going in with him regardless. The two ships charge into certain-