The Treasure of Lei Fong Wu

Chapter Thirty-Seven

During the Unification War Athens tried to remain neutral, although both the Alliance and the Independents claimed her as their own.

It was among the Inner Rim worlds that had sent delegates to the Independent Worlds Conference on Hera before the war, but after consideration the Archon and her cabinet had voted against signing the Independents Charter and adopting the yellow, black, and green banner, although the Archon sent Ambassadors to the High Council. They had also elected not to become signatories to the Alliance (though they sent Observers to Parliament), and expressed a cautious well-reasoned neutrality.

Despite this officially neutral position, the people of Athens contributed thousands of Browncoats to the Independent military to fight for Freedom, and a fair number also joined the Alliance to fight for Unity. In the end, the Alliance was the first to ignore the Archon’s protests of neutrality, and occupied the planet on the pretext that the Independents were going to try to do so themselves. It was only coincidental, according to the Alliance, that Athens had a strategic importance because of its location – in short order after the occupation it became a major supply depot for the Alliance’s forward operations.

The Independents considered the act an incursion into their territory, but there was little they could do to counter the action. Their few ships were tied up in other theaters. But they were free with issuing letters of marque and reprise, and within six months of the Occupation the ecliptic around Athens, her ringed jovian primary (Aegis) and her seven rocky sisters became a haven for Independence commerce raiders and unaligned pirates. After the war many of these rogue ships dispersed under threat from fresh Alliance cruisers, but there was still plenty of piracy going on, if you weren’t cautious . . . or lucky.

The generous 12,000 mile moon had been terraformed the century before, giving it a vivid, mature ecosphere.