Mich walked on catwalk over the housed squadron fighters, being at guard and trying not to look bored. It was Arranmore's fighter bay and it was yet another of those boring patrols. Like someone will ever steal anything marked with MR seal. Mich was in fact very annoyed because since since he joined the cause he was mostly on guard duty. Now he observed one of the engineers bolting down some crack on armour of one ship. Ship was indentified as "Nasty Rover" and was polished and well cared for, and scorch marks seemed to be first fire it expirienced. Rather odd thing to see in bay full of veteran crafts, all proudly bearing their scars from endless battles for the cause. However, now Mich finally saw a way to get over his boredom. There was an old man, clad in old civilian garb, standing dozen feet from him on catwalk and watching down on the ships. How out of the place he seemed with all the uniformed men here in the bay? Mich approached the man and began to speak:
"Oi, old man, ye aren suppo'st to be ere, ya know. Lemme see yer ID card."
Old man looked up at the guard, noticing bretonian made rifle and some flimsy form of body armour, probably scavanged from kusarian pilot.
"Laddie, who are you, and why do you wish to see my ID? Cant an old man come to remember his past anymore, eh?"
"Im afraid not, now up with ID or up with hands."
"No need to be hasty now, laddie, gimme a moment." - said old man and reached for inner pocket of his coat, producing ID, and displaying it to Mich. It read:
"Patrick Quinlan, Councilor of Republic"
Mich went pale, and just waged war of own will to stop his teeth from chattering.
"I am so sorry, sir please, excuse my rudeness, I didnt recognize you."
"Didnt think you would, no problems laddie, here, go get a beer on my tab, Il take up guard" - and he tossed an coin to Mich. It was curious, solid gold coin, not something used in everyday trade. It had molly shamrock on one side and werewolf on other. He took the coin, put it in pocket, handed the rifle to old man and moved on to bar, still shaking from embarasment.
Later that day:
Report arrived into Breen's office: "Sir, someone disposed of a guard in the fighterbay and took out that old hacker bomber. He seems to have had hacked access to bay doors and field generators. Guard at the time was Michael Morris, we cant find him either."
Breen glanced up at the man reporting to him. "Wait..." he sat back in his chair, closing his eyes and looking up. "What the hell?"
The man nodded. "Aye. 'E took theh Hacker bomber an' flew out jus' like 'e owned theh place."
The councillor of the Molly Republic thought for a second, hands behind his head as he leaned back. "Well, then... seems like an inside job, aye?" The man nodded again. "S'what I thought ye'd say," Breen muttered, standing up.
He pushed his chair back and made his way around his desk, to the coat rack on the other end of the relatively small office, bordering the wood and glass doors. His olive greatcoat was hanging there, along with his hat. He grabbed it and began to put it on. "Where'd ye say he went off tae?"
"'E dropped off our scanners." the man said quietly.
"Well, aye, o' course he did." Breen said, moving back to his desk. "But I'm sure ye all got a readin' on his tangent afore he goot too far away, aye?"
"Oh, aye, we did." the man stammered. "'E was headed northwards, toward Chester, we think. It was a straight line, 'e knew where 'e was goin'."
Breen kicked his desk, and a drawer came out, facing his chair. He reached over and grabbed the Garner 350 LasPistol - one of Ageira's highest quality models - that lay in it. "Chester? Wh-..." he began as he placed it into an interior pocket near his chest. "Eh, ne'ermind tha'." He turned around, facing the man while leaning back against the desk. "Get me a sortie o' Hyenas offa Mull, get 'em tae the Newc'sle side o' the Chester hole. Make sure they've got disruptors, I ken thoose wild northerners like their mini-razors." He looked down and smiled a little bit. "That'll stop 'im, if he's headed oot tha' way." Breen gave the desk a swift kick with his heel. The drawer snapped back into it. "But, if he isnae headed oot the hole, an' his destination is somewhere in Chester..." He stood up straight. "I'll be hoppin' intae me Werewoolf tae chase him down meself. I know Chester."
He walked out quickly, but then spun around on one heel, back to facing the man. "Ye get the security chief tae figure oot what exactly happened, an' where the hell Morris is noow. Well. If he isnae the pilot, o' course." Breen pulled his hat onto his head with a sour expression and spun around, continuing walking to the hangar.
Four minutes later, his Werewolf was launched and the launch control of Arranmore could see the reddish-blue comet-like streak of the engine fast disappearing through the glimmering asteroid fields, in the direction of the hole to Chester, that dark and mysterious system that was avoided whenever possible.
Breen's fighter closed towards Chester jumphole... there was compleate silence, and even anti cloaking scanners showed only calm gold asteroidfield. An IMG patrol passed some 8K away, by regular reutine path. It seemed extremely ordinary. Glow of the jumphole glistening on polished underbelly of werewolf.
"Er... alright, lets see whats behind door number one..." - said Breen and initiated docking sequence.
After already familiar shock of subspace transition turbulence, Breen was soon looking at dark and omnious space of Chester system, its purple tinged planet in some distance. He quickly started active scanns of the system, and only oddity he found was an metal crate floating not so far away from the jumphole. It seemed to be spare parts box from hacker ship, but it bore MR mark on it.
"What in the... Play'n games with us eh? Ye lil..." - Colin left that one trail off and engaged tractor beam.
After first scanning for possible explosives, and that yielding no results, Breen opened the crate. It was as he presumed spare parts box, but instead of spare parts it held and bretonian made rifle, single gold coin, an set of ID cards and datapad. Coin was etched with molly shamrock on one side and werewolf on other. ID's appeared to be rather odd as well... they were named to: Phantom, Gostface, Daniel O'Shay, Michael Corruth, Patrick Quinlan and of all surprising Colin Breen. All of rather old and MIA faces from molly republic and old union of gold. Datapad held following message:
"Where rollin fields were, when freedom spoke, when they were needed, there they were. Oh, golden fields of Dublin and Derry, so much we gave, so much we lost, red gold, how much more do you need to get?"
Colin flipped through the IDs, each an old face, an honourable one. The fathers of the Mollies today. This worried him a little bit, especially in conjunction with the message on the datapad. Was this the return of the Union? Was it some sort of threat, a declaration of return? If he recalled correctly, the Broadsword used to be a UoG ship before the Republic had been founded... or something. Mollies weren't good at keeping history. Had they stolen it because they thought it was theirs? Breen paused in his thoughts. Who are "they," anyway? The UoG are gone, dead, left, scattered. None are left now. None. But who...?
It had to be leadership.
There were all the IDs, and whoever it was had hacked through Arranmore like he'd designed the systems. Probably had, realistically. That meant it could only be one of the old councillors...
Phantom... Breen hadn't heard much about Phantom. He was probably dead and gone some place.
Ghostface... they'd got a transmission a few months ago, from Ghost. It looked liked he'd died...
Michael Carruth... he'd stepped down and left. He wouldn't come back to do something like this.
Patrick Quinlan... he'd disappeared almost a year ago, and hadn't shown his face since.
Daniel O'Shay...
Breen smiled.
Daniel was still around, the old rascal. He was currently retired, living on.....
Belfast.
Could it be? Could Daniel be the one behind this, for some reason?
Breen sat back in his pilot's seat and fished the odd gold coin out of his green coat's pocket. The solid gold, the shamrock, and the Werewolf. He'd seen one like this, ages ago. Back when he'd first joined... he'd been in Arranmore's bar, looking for Daniel. He actually asked Daniel where he could find him. That was lucky... well, over a single drink, he'd poured out his entire life story and why he needed to join the Mollies. Daniel looked surprised, Breen thought in retrospect, at the long story. Heh. And then he'd given him an identical coin, told him to talk to the secretary and show her that.... nobody else did that sort of thing.
The coin was Daniel's signature.
Breen pushed the hat back on his head, glancing out at the dark Chester system.
Northern patrols were quiet, they hadn't reported anything.
That meant somewhere in this system, there was a Broadsword with Daniel on it, and he had an agenda Breen couldn't fathom. That meant quite literally that the chase was on.
He called in to Arranmore, told them to bring the Landsverk up to cover the Dublin side of the Chester hole, sealing off the system. he flicked the rows of switched in his control panels, boosting his Discovery Scanners up to maximum as he punched the throttle, shooting the massive fighter toward the planet.
Daniel walked down the hallway of Kilrea station "Revolutionary Museum" where ace ships, dust of "Treaty of Dublin" and many other artifacts lay for show to new generations. Now he was looking up to an ship, an relic from past times. MR-Athenry. Databot said in lady voice:
"MRM-Athenry, once staging vessel of MRM coup, later flagship of MR founding father, councilor Daniel O'Shay, this ship was first to develop prototype Saoirse turrets, same ones still visible on ship itself. It was withrawn from service on order by Michael Corruth, following retirement of O'Shay."
Daniel noded to the bot, and moved to gate control and he typed in odd command.
"Containment field set, doors are shut down, begining vacummation process" - said male robotic voice over speakers, triggering alarm in the station itself.
"Well, Il be damned, what now?" - said security guard watching over suddenly disfunctional camera. Suddenly another warning showed up.
"Station hull breach, deck 3" - said dispassionate robotic voice
"THE HELL!? Quickly, close the containment, headcount, damage? - shouted Pat, the security officer. It seemed to be really bad day for him, the hell broke loose, and on his watch.
"Containment field already established, backup doors breached, no damage or lost crewmembers" - answered the voice.
"Il be..." - Said Pat but his gaze suddenly drawn by sudden flash of passing gunboat... MR Athenry... It was Athenry allright, he has seen it in museum with its name goldplated on sides...
"It cant be that thing was supposed to be... oh, deck 3." - he continued to stare bewildered at the ship that was slowly entering cruise and heading towards 49 hole. Whats even worse, no turret fired on ship.
Meantime in Chester:
Breen's comms flickered to life:"Councilor Breen! Someone stole Athenry! They blasted trough some sort of secret doors built in in the museum!"
Breen chuckled as he heard this message - the sort of chuckle that comes less from something being humorous and more from being utterly absurd and out of one's control. "All right, I'll head o'er there myself. Try tae catch it eef ye can."
"Daniel... ye old scallywag, you. I've a few tricks left tae learn, meself. Heh." Breen wheeled his ship around, activating cruise engines as he plotted a course toward the Dublin jumphole. "I gotta wonder what the hell ye're doin', though," he mused as he fingered the coin. "What're ye up tae, eh?"
This question dogged him from Chester to Londonderry.
When he arrived in that system, though, another question arose: Where was Daniel headed?
Breen called Kilrea over the radio to find out - Daniel's motives and therefore his destination were unknown. Breen didn't even know if this was cause to worry, or if it was Daniel just being... Daniel. Or him going senile... he had no idea.
Kilrea answers: "He was lastly seen heading towards omega 49 hole sir. However we did not read any lifesigns on the ship itself, also we found an extra hacker bomber in fighter bay."
Breen smiled. "All right, then."
He turned the ship around and sped for the Dublin hole as fast as he could, dialing in Coleraine Base's comms frequencies. "Ey, Coleraine, could ye get me three fighters oot aboot now? I'm lookin' fer a gunboat. Need ye tae get two o'er tae the Omega 49, one tae guard this side an' one tae scout aroun' the o'er side. Third goes tae the Dublin hole."
Breen wasn't expecting Daniel to head for the Omega 49 hole. It was too obvious. And, then again, Breen hadn't seen the old man anywhere around here and he had been between Dublin and Kilrea since he'd come into the system. Still, he expected the old man was going to throw him for a loop again.
On a bit of a whim, he opened system-wide communications up. "Oy, Daniel, I ken it's ye who's muckin' aboot here. What's all this aboot, then? Had ye asked, we'd o' gave ye yer ship back, ye ken."
All ships have been stationed at appropriate locations, Coleriane patrol managed to stop gunboat operated by rewired databot without much problem, but comms remained silent.
"Kilrea," Breen called, "Lock that bomber doon now. Look fer any unknown life signs onboard, I think ye have someone onboard we didnae announce his arrival." He switched the channels. "Coleraine, tug the Athenry in, look it o'er fer anythin' inside, aye?"
He sighed, leaning back in his worn pilots chair. "O'Shay," he sighed to himself., "What in the name o' the devil're ye oop tae, eh?"
