Red Rice With a Slice of Lime

[Mr. Lime]

Lime sets down the tablet for it to activate a holo-display of an Interdictor circling a Tokugawa. It’s very… blue. He then shuts it off.
“That’s Slate’s pipe dream. More on that later.” He sets the tablet aside. “And I suppose interrogation would be the right word. Allow me to give you the pitch without Prower’s or Jones’s dogs interfering.”
The arms opening theatrically are thoroughly unnecessary, but he does it anyway. “We’re conducting a loyalty check on Navy boys whose families are from Kusari. If we had some your warriors accompanying our interviewers, it would be salve for the men that our conflict would be with the Shogun and not the Emperor, and would out any spies for the Shogun on the spot.” His voice drops conspiratorially, “It’s looking pretty interesting, my sources back home tell me they found a KOI monitoring station likely calling targets for the Nagasaki battlegroup in the surprise attack they don’t think we expect. Slate’s team is dealing with that now as we speak.” Lime grins. “We’re keeping that last one quiet back home for now, no need to start a panic.”

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Slate’s task group enters the Pittsburgh field loaded for bear zeroing in on the comically oversized dish attached to a scrap space station. A recently abandoned space station, from the looks of it.

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“So anyway, that’s what Slate wanted me to pitch. We borrow a few of your warriors, we loyalty check our guys with their help, and when the war breaks out, they’ll come back with word of how the Navy isn’t about to stab them in the back. Way I figure it, if we have you on board when we're marching on New Tokyo, it means you have a seat at the peace conference at least, signing the peace treaty for the Empire after a regime change if things go really well.” He pauses. “Unfortunately, we’re pressed for time thanks to the Navy’s stunts and the KOI operation we found.”
Then an even worse pause, the man really likes those for some reason. “Also, we’ve been getting word of some massively stepped up KNF activity in the Taus. Our war games showed that if Kusari was to launch an all-in assault of Liberty, they’d need some way of keeping the Taus relatively pacified long enough to win. Everything’s adding up, the Shogun is about to try something.” The idea that all this is just confirmation bias goes unsaid. Then again, the memories of the Shogun’s adventurism with a surprise attack on Gallia are relatively fresh. Of course the staunchly conservative KNF would attempt the exact same trick with Liberty having slashed its defense spending.
“I have the minutes of the war games we ran here if you want. I think you’ll find the part where Clark had you ask the Order to assist you to be either brilliant or stupid.”

Lime finally catches his breath. "Anyway, that's the pitch. We had to scrap the quietly recruiting the Xenos to link up with you to break open Fuchu in advance of the war, I don't believe we have the time anymore, hence the Lehigh blitz to break that prison open before the Kusari Police do anything... drastic. Which is a damn shame, Cobra had no real problems with the arms shipment he saw my boat had on me when his entire war party popped out of nowhere looking for convoys to hit, he of all people is very likely to play ball." And with that final tidbit, Lime waited expectantly for the man kind enough to save his questions for the end to give his honest feedback.