Re: Marriage Audience 5 - East Moreland & Achkaerin

[DaveIronside]

It was perhaps the oldest friendship East Moreland had with another nation and one that had served both well over the years. Unlike all the other meetings with the exception of the Cenneg the Morelanders had a treaty in place already with Achkaerin and so David was intrigued with thinking about where Emperor Peter wanted the meeting to go. This one would be slightly different to the others, while David had meet the other delegations alone with this one he had asked Stasya to sit in with him. She'd arrived downstairs just after the Swastrians had left and David had breathed a sigh of relief in her choice of outfit, a smart black trouser suit rather than some insane dress like he knew she often favoured. The pair caught up briefly about the day, David filling her in on the business of the previous conversations all of which she found a little tedious. She meanwhile had been spending the morning simply allowing her hangover, which had been much bigger than David's subside before dealing with planning several parts of the upcoming honeymoon they were planning. David had been keen for her to sit in on at least one of these meetings, after all she was now Queen of East Moreland and would have to at times play politics.

Quinn interupted their conversation with a knock on the door "Your Majesties, Emperor Peter has arrived." she said before standing aside and allowing the Emperor (and anyone with him) into the office.

"Thank you Quinn" David said as he stood and greeted Peter. "Thank you for coming, I hope you've found something to keep you busy this morning." David began, "Now can I sort you a tea or coffee." David asked as they took seats around his coffee table.

"I'll do that" Stasya poured the drinks. " My new husband thinks I need to start learning all about politics now. I think at times he forgets I had several years sitting in the meetings of two Queen's of Lodja." she teased David as she distributed drinks. "Still I am eager to learn what East Moreland and Achkaerin get up to rather than my old home."

[Achkaerin]

Peter wore a pair of black trousers and a casual short sleeved shirt, he'd spent the night at Highwick Manor, a property that had once been owned by David but was now owned by Peter's family, and was joined for the meeting by his wife Renee. It was no secret that the Achkaerin - East Moreland relationship was a strong one and was arguably of if not the strongest on Mundus. Time after time the monarch's had stood shoulder to shoulder and addressed crises even in the face of a very apathetic Mundus at times.

"It's a pleasure to be here, tea will be fine thank you." Peter said "Yes we've had a fun morning showing Renee some of the sights around Northfort."
"The museum of egg cups was quite interesting." Renee said, with a giggle, "And fun."

"First I should give you this." Peter said sliding an envelope over to David "It's not for today but it's something I wanted you to know before it goes public." he took a breath and smiled, time to explain why he'd asked for this meeting "Not that long ago our two nations and Rokkenjima made a commitment to rid the world of nuclear weapons, it's no secret that Achkaerin's arsenal is on the reasonably big size. So what I would like to discuss is whether East Moreland can assist us in disposing of our arsenal."

[DaveIronside]

David took the letter and crossed to his desk in order to read it later. "I don't think I've visited the Museum of Egg Cups since we were forced to on some school trip when I was about 10." David laughed.

Stasya looked puzzled, "Seriously, you have a museum dedicated to egg cups.....those things you use at breakfast?" David just nodded, "I think I need to explore Northfort a little more, maybe should have before I agreed to marry you. At least Silverhills doesn't have such oddities." She teased David. It was true though despite having lived in East Moreland over a year now she had spent the majority of that time in Silverhills only coming to Northfort when she knew she could spend time with David, she suspected she'd clocked up quiet a few miles in Rotar One but that wasn't really her problem.

As the meeting turned to business Stasya took a more backwards seat. "As you know we had the project Kilotonnes to kilowatts. Its come to an end for us but the methods still workable. It would clearly depend on numbers, we've a limited amount of fuel we need however we could repurpuse the stuff and transfer it to other MAEA nations. On paper I'd be happy to get involved, we'd need to work out the logistics of moving them here and a schedule but I'm sure that is something we can do relatively easily. So do you have those kind of details to mind or do we need to get our Minister of Defence into operation?"

[Achkaerin]

"We've got a rough idea of what we'd like to do if we can." Peter said "Though Mr Samuelson's reputation is well deserved and his input welcomed. I said at the summit in Paracambi, following Slava Lavosk's nuclear weapons development, that Achkaerin had decommissioned 33% of its arsenal today we've got rid of 50% of them so we're halfway there. What I'd like to propose is that East Moreland and Achkaerin each decommission half of the remaining 50%.

As for how we might move them to East Moreland we could ship them securely and in accordance with any treaty provisions on a monthly basis. Of course if you have suggestions you'd like to make about this then I'm open to hearing them." Peter said

[DaveIronside]

David finished his tea while he contemplated his answer. "Naturally we'll be happy to help. But this situation is clearly one that we need to put in place several key measures. We also have the issue that the MAEA now exists and of course attempts by the Bene Gesserit of stealing nuclear waste. I therefore would want to following procedure to take place. First of all you sign over each warhead to the MAEA and it is placed in a secure location with naval access. The location will be overseen by a joint East Moreland and Achkaerin military force. We will begin constant convoys between Illumic Command and this facility. We will give the East Moreland officer in charge of the contingent at the storage location a list of codewords, each one will authorise the release of a warhead into the custody of an East Moreland Naval vessel. Once the ship is entering dock its commander will be given a codeword at random from a list which will naturally contain the codewords owned by the Morelander in Achkaerin. Should the codewords match the naval vessel shall take custody of a warhead, only a single one. The ship shall as soon as refuelled and restocked head back to East Moreland in radio silence. This way neither the commander nor the guards will know when a warhead will be transported until the day it happens. No one will be able to intercept communications about the cargo and should the worse happen and the ship be captured only a minimal amount of material will be lost, however we'll ensure that does not happen." David thought for a moment before continuing again. "We shall also fly in cargo aircraft, these will not though be part of the operation. We will naturally get some attention from the media about such operations, so I suggest for good measure some Achkaerin vessels make stops in Illumic Command. We'll also get the Bakkermayan and Cenneg navies to do likewise and say its all part of a series of tests practising humanitarian operations. I hope this sounds acceptable and secure." 

[Achkaerin]

"I'm sure we can arrange that." Peter said, smiling slightly the old shell game tactic was one taught quite a lot in Achkaerin military circles it was also one of the reasons Harper Rhodes had survived her first runaway adventure in Dominiscius. "I'll have the paperwork related to the warheads sorted out within 24 hours of this meeting concluding. I think as a belt and braces approach we would probably say that the Morelander presence at the secure facility would be under the terms of our existing officer exchange program. I presume you'll inform the appropriate authorities about the said 'humanitarian operation tests'?"

[DaveIronside]

"I'll have Tucker make an announcement only once the first ships have begun their voyages, not before." David explained. " The officer exchange is a decent enough cover not that I think we need anything beyond an exercise announcement." David was satisfied that they had everything sorted in that regards. "Now with that matter finally sorted is there anything else that you wish to discuss while we've still got the time?"

[Achkaerin]

"Well there is one more thing." Peter said "As you may know after she lost her lower left leg my daughter has taken a particular interest in supporting wounded Achkaerinese veterans through sport and in more general ways, setting up the Legacy Foundation which saw a Formula Mundus team come into existence last year. Anyway she's had an idea which East Moreland sort of already does at Ostlake, basically a mini Mundus Games style thing for wounded veterans to compete in representing their nation across a suitable event list. Now I don't know what you think of it but I said I'd ask whether this was something East Moreland might be interested in supporting."

[DaveIronside]

The Legionnaire Legacies "Fight Back" programme was one of the royal families favourite pet projects and it had helped the King massively after his own injuries, "I think you know that we'll do whatever we can to make something like that a success. We've been doing it at Ostlake now for several years and it has been an excellent addition. I enjoyed competing in it but the scale needs to ramped up and any of the team would I suspect be thrilled to help you. Whatever you need in terms of support I'll make sure you get" David explained.