Marble Palace, ValtheimTo say that the leaks coming out of Lodja were concerning was just about the understatement of the year so far, not only did it shine a bright light on some problems within Lodjan society but it tugged on threads from the recent past as well, from the international perspective it was undoubtedly the latter that caused the most concern. So it was perhaps no surprise that the Achkaerinese Emperor
Peter Azurewind found himself in a meeting about some of the revelations. Peter perched on the edge of his desk and looked around his study at the small gathering.
"Ok let's hear it." Peter said "First question do we treat these claims as legitimate?"
"I think we should."
Nettie Taylor, Peter's foreign affairs advisor said "We don't have to make a public comment on them yet, we can proceed on the assumption that the revelations are true until proven otherwise."
"Ok." Peter said "Who's got what?"
"I have two legal concerns."
Robert Westbrooke, the Attorney General, said
"Which are?" Peter asked
"Number thirteen on the list and number fourteen on the list." Robert said
"Number fifteen is the one I'm looking at."
Rion Ayanami said, not that this was earth shattering you only needed to mention the words 'Sorority of Materna' around Rion and she got her game face straight on.
"Ok Robert the floor's yours." Peter said
"Regarding number thirteen, assuming for the moment that this recording is legitimate, we have what amounts to an Uppsala Convention violation on the part of the Alanders and potentially the Lodjan's there's clear knowledge of civilians in the area in advance and a denial of the opportunity to remove them from the line of fire. Gungnir may have killed them but it's arguable that the Alander's knew what was going to happen to them in advance. But that recording is not likely to be admissible as evidence and even if it was admitted it's not going to be enough to secure a conviction you'd need to prove that the Government were aware and you'd need to know who the Lodjan commanders and Alander soldier on that recording are and that's a needle in a haystack, we can try to find out but I wouldn't count on much."
"And number fourteen?" Peter asked
"If I may Your Majesty."
Sally Westbrooke said from where she was standing next to her husband "One of things we've always had unanswered about the Safraen affair was this question of essentially attack vs naturally occurring. My personal opinion has always been deliberate attack because a country that goes dark overnight across the board and at the drop of a hat smacks more of design than accident. And the fact that there was an East Moreland foreign minister in the country the day before it happened who our special forces pulled out of there."
"Assuming that the missing Lodjan virus is a precursor to the Kaiju virus then we need to ask the questions - how did it get there? Ultimately if this an attack then someone has comitted genocide, but any prosecution would be a Safraen matter because the Uppsala Convention did not exist until seven months after the event." Robert said
"Rion?" Nettie asked
"Ok if this is true then the Priesthood of Sessifet is potentially financing a terrorist organisation in the Sorority of Materna." Rion said "That's a huge implication."
"I'll bet it is." Peter said
"And oddly enough this is the one that is the easiest to prove." Robert said "Rion you keep a closer eye on the Sorority than practically every intelligence agency on Mundus."
"Yeah we know their main players, who from the deck of 52 are still outstanding and we're always hunting them, we know their contacts and where they were last seen." Rion said "I can liaise with Marseilles maybe get some surveillance going, see if anyone we know bites find out if there's more to it. We could have Emalet discreetly ask a few questions on the Isle of the Goddess?"
"All right." Peter said "What about the other two things?"
"We can't really do anything about the Uppsala thing without knowing who was involved and we're years after the event and dealing with anonymous voices so that's a dead end out of the gate." Robert said
"And the missing virus?" Peter asked
"I want to try to track down Bogdan Milovenik." Rion said "We ask him a few questions, see if we can figure it out."
"Ok but for goodness sake do it by the book." Peter said
Justicar Operations, Ashai Castle"Which one was Paul Abrahams?"
Julian Lawson asked as he and his colleague
Cyd Dixon worked at their stations on the operations floor.
"He was the one you talked to when we pulled Harper out of Dominscious." Cyd said "Just before the shell game."
"Oh he hung around with Olly right? Except he could drive." Julian said
"There are learner drivers who drive better than Olly Thomas." Cyd said she sighed "We're going to be ploughing through this workload for a few days."
"Do you think this is all there is?" Julian asked
"I wouldn't be surprised if there were more scandals out there." Cyd said "Interesting how you can pull on one thread and the whole thing unravels."