We Only Need the Heads

[sawyl]

Playing catchup with my notes on The Human Division and this week's episode, We Only Need the Heads.

Called in at short notice to lead negotiations with the B, Ambassador Abumwe finds herself wringing far too many concessions from the Bula. Meanwhile Lt Harry Wilson finds himself on his first combat drop for some time, embedded in a group of Colonial Defence Force troops assigned to clean up the evidence of a human wildcat colony before Bula, who lay claim to the world, get wise to its presence. Wilson arrives to find the colony burnt, the colonists slain, and, with his talent for turning up trouble, a diplomatic time-bomb lurking in the heads of a couple of the corpses.

By the end of We Only Need the Heads, we know a little more about the Colonial Union's attitude to wildcat colonisation and the lengths they're willing to go to keep tabs on things. We also know that the B-Team seem to be living up to their initial promise as diplomatic fire-fighters, but even they can't work miracles when their superiors ask them to do truly stupid things.

From the way events pan out, it's pretty clear that the Bula weren't behind the original attack on the colony of New Seattle. But the group who were must have (a) had a serious grudge against the CU; and (b) known what they would, otherwise they wouldn't have gone to the trouble of attacking. Which makes me wonder whether this links up directly with the events of Walk the Plank. Was the Erie Morningstar hijacked in order to obtain a ship that could be used to provide cover for an attack on New Seattle?