(for the month, i'm going to throw together a couple short, unedited posts. no scope-crept regional hexcrawls, no 1d20 character classes, no nothing. just sitting in front of an intentionally-uncomfortable setup and hammering out some text)
Back when you could hold orbit over Mars, instead of getting shredded by Kessler or blinded by the ring-sun, back in the days of the intendencies, Colcom wanted to do something about the secessionists. We'd made a couple lucky hits on ground sites, on low-orbits, started a riot or two on the moons, and they decided they needed a show of force.
So, they took this old destroyer, CCMS something-or-other, rechristened it the CCMS Olympus Mons - a threat, get it? We still own you. Loaded it up with high-altitude neutron bombs, so the infrastructure'd still be around for them to retake. Wanted to make sure we knew about it - staged some photos of the payload bay and then let them leak. Knew they wouldn't have to pull the trigger, just hang the sword over our heads. Didn't want to use them, anyway - things were tense enough between them and... what, they weren't the Leaden Conference yet, they were the... were they still flying that old banner of Fleet Kadzkadzat?
Doesn't matter, just know that the LC, under whatever name, would've had a tantrum if their rivals made it rain hard neutrons over Noctis Labyrinthus.
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Of course, it didn't get that far - the Mons missed its braking burn, sailed right past us. Never closed its orbit. A few days later it popped, in clear view of everybody and God. All hands lost, reactor solidified. Drifted through the Jovians, but the LC wouldn't touch it - didn't want the implication that they did anything, so they just made a couple mocking press releases and painted any Colcom ship who tried to go after it with a targeting laser.
By now it's dead-cold. Could be anywhere. Every once in a while some out-system tinpot tyrant says they picked it up, but they've always been bad fakes; hauler with a couple PD guns and a hold full of kinetic bombardment rods with "neutron bomb" stenciled on them, you get the idea.
Colcom and the LC are in a god-forsaken court case about the thing - Colcom's trying to get them strung up on public-endangerment-via-loss-of-radioactive-materials, ignoring distress calls, et cetera. Never tried to blame them for the wreck, though - never said anything about enemy action. I'll choose to believe it was us, somehow. Engine sabotage and a field of magnetic limpets, or something. A bright spot in our history to look back on.
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