Battletech: The Ghost Who Walks (Battletech Isekai)

[Imperator Pax]

Non Canon
Whoops Part 3​

3018​

There were purely practical reasons why the HPG network had superseded the fax machines. A hundred light years was three jump, and HPG network was faster to get a message across that distance... especially as the SLCOMNET had existed in the days of the Star League. Even for ComStar's slower speed to transmit it had been long enough that they should have been getting some news

There was nothing out of Combine Space hitting the air ways officially. The Comstar run News networks simply hadn't broadcasted anything, and having spent literally a couple of days parsing the code with a highlighter Gene could guess why. "The ending network diagnostic well," He pushed over a piece of carbon paper with circles around it, "It looks like several HPGs on Terra were burning themselves out." They looked like they were trying to boost the signal they were generating , but he had no idea what that meant, they might have been trying to reach the SLCOMNET satellites in deep space... which presumably didn't exist anymore or did exist and were so degraded that the old Hegemony ring couldn't get a clear signal. Another piece of paper showed where Combine HPGs were doing the same, but those were pushing out some kind of signal override through emergency services channels... he wondered if the same thing had happened on Terra and he just hadn't found it.

He sort of suspected that the override was probably realm specific the Hegemony Worlds infrastructure being different than the combine, being different from the Commonwealth...

Whatever the actual case was they were shipping off from New Kyoto today, Pasha was checking the last and then they'd jump out. They were basically going to back track to Dieron... "I'd guess that ComStar might not be able to actually talk to Terra. That might have been because of Terra's HPGs all burning out... or because you needed a minimum of HPG stations to transmit to get a message between Earth and New Kyoto. There was no telling how many stations in the Commonwealth were down... but ComStar was shut down on New Kyoto and not doing business last they'd checked.

Whether that was true else where would be a matter of asking when they got there. They were basically going to Dieron blind without any word from or through the HPG network. If they were lucky they'd be able to get something through the Black Boxes or even better if they got really lucky they'd actually run into an Azami merchant JumpShip along the way... but they would have to see for themselves if any of the other HPG systems worked. "What about any of the ComStar flagged JumpShips?"

New Kyoto to Terra was five jumps.

The younger of the two Azami captains shook his head, "There isn't really a change. None, that I have observed. Its true that ComStar has a merchant fleet but while they use the C bill, they are largely staffed by merchant marines rather than members of the religious order themselves. The captains are generally precentors but not always." So they might not know any more than anyone else did.

"And they would have a a schedule to keep,"

"Not running the HPG ... ComStar is probably hemorrhaging money." Gene replied, and blew a breath out between his teeth before reaching for his coffee, "Thats another problem, if the HPG network is unreliable its going to tank the C-Bill, we're probably going to want to take pounds if we sign on with the Davions." It would have been nice if they had had an existing fund, or reserve of Davion House Bills to draw off of until they figured something out. Even though it predominated in the Mercenary trade for a variety of bureaucratic and organizational reasons, most normal commerce was conducted in the bills and currencies issued by the Great Houses. Perhaps roughly ten percent of all exchanges in the Inner Sphere occurred using the C-Bill as a medium, "What do you think?"

Pasha stroked his beard, and so began the last stage of figuring out what they could feasibly do, and plan for without access to FtL communications with a real time component.
--
The Precentor New Avalon had been summoned to Hanse Davion just as soon as the ... raw breath of what they had witnessed had become clear. The First Prince looked to his advisors. The truth was the Precentor had either been unwilling or unable to tell them anything useful... possibly a mix of the two.

"We have contingencies in the event of being interdicted," Which of course so too must the Combine and ... given the contents of the recording. "We need to put those command circuits in place as soon as possible."

Which of course would be deleterious to the economy unless it ended quickly. They couldn't afford to grind the Federated Suns' economy to a halt, but neither could they compromise the nation's defense either. "Yes, make it so." The First Prince replied, "What resources can we bring up to the Combine border?"

Yvonne frowned, "Truthfully only limited ones, we brought in what assets we could," The Eridani Light Horse refused to settle down and become house troops even if they were still under Davion contract, but they needed to consolidate their gains of the past year.

"IF we had known -"

She cut the general off, before the blust could well and truly get started, "We didn't. Someone else engineered this. Someone who knew enough about the HPG system to broadcast across the entire Inner Sphere even if that meant damaging it." And they didn't know how extensive that damage was. "We don't have the resources in place for a land grab,"

"What, Lady Yvonne, now is exactly the time to strike."

"And that is exactly what the other successor houses will say." Hanse rebutted stepping into the conversation. "We have just been shown incontrovertible proof that the same Coordinator of the Draconis Combine who ushered in the successor wars by attempting to usurp the mantle of Star Lord had also knowingly conspired with Stefan Amaris by providing him the locations, positions and strengths of the SLDF as well as refusing to allow the SLDF passage through the Combine. Even assuming that the Free Worlds League and the Capellan Confederation don't try and move to attack Yorii or Altair it would be highly remiss of them not to try and exploit any perceived distraction." They were exposed. "The only forces we can really muster are those of the Draconis March," which would be across too wide of a front, "or some limited force of the Crucis March."

"Or Mercenaries." Yvonne replied, "It might be worth trying to poach the dragoons from the Mariks, certainly its worth trying to see if they'll bite." It was ridiculous to assume that they'd choose to become AFFS regulars, or even just somewhat more tightly associated mercenaries, but she suspected that the change might be enough to get them to come over and fight on the border... but they would have to see, "After the performance of Blackwell industries we haven't had time to tool up production." which also included the Devastator, and Fury designs other producers in the Federated Suns had been planned to license out... or experiment with, "They simply don't have the production volume, and convincing other producers required the victory on Dieron and promises of contracts." To produce another company's designs under license with royalties on the line.

There were other problems though, coordinating with the Draconis March would be one thing... it would be one hurdle to clear. Robinson was five jumps from New Avalon. New Syrtis was eleven jumps one way. The Capellan March would also be a much wider front if anything happened on that front... and Yvonne Davion was fully prepared to use the excuse of a communications lag as grounds to reestablish a Terran March if it came to that... but it wasn't quite the time to go that far yet. They were going to need a world in between the terran corridor that could liase with New Avalon Robinson was simply too far to administer, and most of those worlds besides fell under the auspice of the Crucis march to begin with.

"We'll need to find out what is happening in Combine Space."

"We should send merchants in first, try and determine the situation, if we send mercenaries it will look like we're invading before we're prepared to commit," Yvonne replied to another AFFS flag officer looking to get a word in edgewise, "Its going to take months," Just because there had been plans for the robes cutting the Federated Suns out of interstellar communications wasn't the same thing as being able to instantly transition over to dealing with no longer having access to the HPG network to coordinate interstellar trade between worlds more than a single jump distance between worlds.

--
Notes I had been planning to post the next part of this for a while now, and given plans this weekend I figured i'd either do this or the first snippet for the 'The Last Gunslinger' series. Notably this does not include the follow up to the Lyrans of the last segment, largely because not enough time has passed.

 

[Imperator Pax]

Whoops
(Branch Timeline)
Part 4
​

Gene bounced the ball off the wall. They were under spin gravity, but still much lower than he was used to. It was probably easier on Pasha since he was older, but the transition as they extended the sails to recharge the drives was always tedious... boring. New Kyoto back to Dieron would be six jumps. "You look troubled?" The old man remarked, "I meaen to be frank I'm glad its not serious enough you're not cleaning a pistol or something."

"Las pistol maintenance is different process, you don't use hoppes and most of the internal hardware is sealed up." SLDF Laser Pistol, indeed like the ones they had recovered from the sealed tomb of cadets, were fully functional even after several hundred years.

"That is not actually reassuring." Pasha remarked, "Are you having second thoughts about handing over the medical core?"

"What, no, why would I be?"

Pasha shook his head stroked his beard in contemplation, paused to reach for and take a sip of his tea, "I admit I am surprised."

"What are you surprised about?"

"I am shocked they let us actually leave the planet after that." The Azami captain declared. Truthfully to himself at least Pasha recalled conversations with the elders before they had departed Alamut in the deep periphery. The memory core's contents was an impossible to put a price on treasure, "As much as we need to be in the Davion's good graces, I would not advertise it , unless we have to, I understand the reasoning, and the need for... what did you call it, a bolt hole?"

"A fall back position works too, but yes, what about our course?"

"We will remain in the Lyran Commonwealth's territory until we jump to Dieron." Pasha paused... "Do you plan to detach at New Earth?'

"I was considering it, but its not a priority." There would be little reason to make planet fall and then have to turn around just as soon as the drives were charged. "I picked up what we needed." And truthfully he shouldn't have been surprised the bunkers on Bristol had survived. "Its true that some of sheltered complexes are probably also intact," He bounced the ball against the wall again and caught it, "From what I understand short of going to somewhere like Coventry, well Hesperus would be closer, there isn't much we can do with the prototype data. So no we'll stay aboard and charge the drives, and then jump to Dieron."

"And we'll dismount at Fotress Dieron?"

"We'll hold off on that, until we talk with the planetary governor." The fortress was intact, but well even that was a misconception. Dieron's fortress was not a single complex even though the they were linked... it was one of those Hegemony defensive fortifications on planet, and how the surface to orbit weapons had not been turned on against Amaris, or used against subsequent invaders... wasn't something he understood. He'd looked at the logs, and it seemed like Tellman had done ... something, but he wasn't sure quite what. The logs were incomplete... and of course it was possible the answer might have had something to do with the nukes the Rimworld forces had used against the planet. "In theory its supposed to be configured to support an entire brigade, but, there were parts of the facility that were locked down.."

"And we could have problems."

To put it mildly.

--
It had been a month since the core had come into the College's possession... longer still since the HPG network collapsed, even if they were still talking months it felt like longer still. The Duke perhaps of anyone involved still seemed to like the understanding of what Star League era medicine would mean. The technological decline in the inner sphere had started with the financial crisis two hundred fifty years earlier. The damage of the first and second succession wars that had started in 2786 had simply added to the shortage of material as it expanded to affect trade of goods, and movement of people between Star League member states.

The devastation of of unrestricted warfare not even including the use of nuclear weapons, and the cost in lives of skilled professionals pushed into dealing with the realities of a total war economy had thrown them back a thousand years.

It was unfortunate there for that he had to contend with where the state's priorities lay. He was attempting to argue to military officers that the medical core was a national treasure, when even his duke who was the most receptive, was more interested in the military acumen of the person responsible for its recovery. With that in mind he supposed that he should have felt grateful that the army was allowing him to remain given how much they overvalued their profession's experience than that of his.

With the HPG network inoperable they couldn't reach out to anyone. Any message to a distant star system had to be, as it had been before the star league had invented and built the network, carried by courier jumpship. Thus they were on their own, dependent on information that had already been available. The limitations of the K-F drive meant that even with the modern HPG network's own limits the MRB's records were almost never outpaced by jump travel, to that end the battle of Elidere IV dominated the duke's personal holotheater.

"I thought you said he's only been a mercenary for a few years, that he couldn't be more than twenty." Some general muttered harshly in lyran German a couple of seats away. The white Marauder standing against the rise the field before it and its lancemates and their supporting armor strewn with the remains of a Combine BattleMech company.

"These Galedon regulars," A snort, "an entire battalion of Fifth Sword of Light was slaughtered on Dieron," A mustachioed man declared. Not that Dieron's seizure by the FedSuns had really altered the politics between house Davion and House Steiner. New Earth, or Rigil Kentaurus were both a single jump from the Federated Suns world of Caph so technically the two realms had been touching.

"Footage I'm afraid we don't have," The duke's major domo replied, "Only static," Non video, printouts, "Documents." Hardly a thrilling prospect compared to watching hundreds of tons of armored warmachines shoot at each other.

Even under ordinary circumstances it would have unusual for a non contracting party to request those BattleRoms. Not completely unheard of, but the MRB would then take the request, and of course charge, and bill the request before sending it through comstar to another MRB office to get the footage which could take months even... and of course that was in normal instances where the HPG network was working and not broken.

The conversation side barred again into 'letting him get away'.. but of course the 'colonel' had not been introduced on his Davion credentials, but academic connections, on his ties to Lyran nobility. They had agreed to the meeting because they knew Abner, and had letters of introduction from the old doctor... and even that had only just barely been able to get them squeezed in given everything else that had been going on.

"He must be returning to the Davions."

"Indeed," His grace Endo Musashi concurred. The Daimyo of New Kyoto didn't break his expression from watching the battle. The indicated lettering in the corner of the hologram said that this particular clip of the battle came from a Wolverine, from the point of view of an actual AFFS pilotted mech. "I notice the Marauder's emblem carries a torii gate, does that mean anything to anyone."

"Its no mercenary unit I know of."

Which should hardly have been surprising so many failed to live past their first year. What it was not was the company insignia. It was simply found on that unit. "Personal arms perhaps?"

"I would not think so."

The duke took his attention away and nodded, as if he'd been intending to invite someone anyone to actually disagree with him. Yamanaka knew there were times when his patron became irate at the prospect of being surrounded by yes men... especially if he felt that such conditions had lead him to making a mistake. "It must have some history," And he wanted to know it, "what of his compatriots, surely we must know something about them?"

"Most we can say little about. But,"

"But?"

"One of his staff officers is under an assumed name," Not unusual for mercenaries, "He honorably separated from the Guards after his tour, his father is on the steering committee." but of course Tharkad was two months, nine jumps, without the HPG network. Any contact with the father would require the use of previous jumpships.

--
Notes: We're updating this because my schedule is all screwed up, in point of fact I'm just saying here that it won't be until June I get back on a fully pre planned update schedule for the month. The main regular canon whatever timeline probably won't update until the 22nd​. Anyway moving on, so I've mentioned previously during the Magistracy contracts that Septim is operating under an assumed name, a nom du guerre. Septim is a lesser member of the Lyran aristocracy they're not real high up but they have enough money to buy battlemechs... which they're lyrans so battlemechs are manufactured and up for sale more so than elsewhere.

So this is the ball rolling on lyran responses to things, but of course this being battletech the primary focus is the military rather than the oh he gave you lostech knowledge and will not start paying dividends until down the road.

The goal right now tentatively is finish Davion 1 in July. We'll get through Part 9 this month, there is some Azami stuff, and so forth and there is an interlude on Bristol where as hinted at Devestator and Furys will be queued up to come out to play for Dieron.

 

[Imperator Pax]

I Davion Part 9​

When they had said 'large dropship' he'd expected something in the ten thousand ton range. A mule would have been his first guess for a merchant vessel. Not a design five times his original threshold for 'large'. The Mammoth lived up to its name and painted a bright fluorescent green that was painful on the eyes. He'd already been warned to expect lavish and garish from Pasha, and with the paint job he was a little leery exactly why both words had to be used with the emphasis the JumpShip commander had employed.

He glanced to the space port, where the San Saba was being worked, "This could be good though." Pasha remarked. "He may goods that will help us." They'd actually been looking at a number of potential purchases, besides potentially the Union they had had known was available. It and a reconditioned Leopard had somewhat fallen by the wayside in the face of the prospect of staffing and deploying the Overlord.

He made a vaguely agreeable acknowledgement, and told Pasha he could just bring the receipts in after he went through the other Azami's inventory. Grounds crews began moving to the docked eyesore as they continued to wait.

They weren't alone in the terminal, and there were things that the merchant might not advertise to Davion personnel without knowing them better. "That is probably for the best," Pasha remarked, "It is true San Saba requires work, but there are overhauls on Hidalgo and Baffins we could do while we are here... more than that," He shrugged, "We could start circulating for recruitment,"

Well it wasn't as if they weren't already on the combine's shit list.. "That sounds good to me. We'll need to vet them though, after Elidere." They already had the occasional Davion question popping up about other personnel, they assumed Tristain had to be a person but they were deflecting.

"I am aware that such only draws further attention. It was unlikely that parties within the Combine would forget Detroit, never mind the humiliation of having lost such a large formation." The supporting units, callous as it might have been largely didn't matter... oh the DropShips lost were a pricy line item, but the truth was the BattleMechs would be what really stuck in their craw.

"What do you expect him to have?

"Besides holding on to well special requests like yours, most likely fusion engines, ammunition, gyros, various mech parts and myomer bundles. If we are lucky he might have a few mechs we can convince him to part with, but given San Saba what I am hoping for are more tanks, Saracaen, Harrasser, perhaps again with favor a Tokugawa or two. Certainly spare parts for them."

Another perfunctory nod. They had been lucky so far and the Azami's fusion powered tanks really were a useful force multiplier. He stretched and stuffed his hands in his pockets. They were still supposed to be pretending that they weren't preparing to launch an invasion of the Combine in retaliation for Elidere... and retaliation really meant escalation... and anything they could get beforehand to increase their odds the better. Part of that was going to be for Yvonne Davion to work on, New Valencia was two jumps from Robinson, but they'd received a cryptic message from, possibly relayed from, Doctor Abner saying the Bristol Site looked 'promising' whatever that meant.

A not quite obese, but still huge man in a dashiki emerged from a luxurious fusion powered Bentley. Boisterous and unthreatening was a good masquerade given the merchant prince probably had a build more accurtaely described as a sumo wrestler rather than anything else. "Friends, and of course my countrymen," He beamed at Pasha, who was probably a good two or three decades his senior, and moved to hug him. "I am so pleased to once again be able to visit such a beautiful planet, yes." He continued to talk, before offhandedly mentioning Cairo's absence at the system's jump point.

Gene would have preferred that that hadn't been made, the comment drew the davion's attention further, and forced Pasha to admit having turned over the patrimony to his son, in favor of ship he now captained... which given the value of JumpShips in the present era was... eye catching to say the least. Still they made introductions, small talk and the big man announced he had the requested replacements, along with 'a host of other goods one in your honorable trade might require or simply desire to possess.'

--
Reactor start up looked good. The nineteen ton VLAR 300 was reading all green. "Any issues with the gyro?"

"Not this time, it looks like putting in two LRM 5s," instead of the one LRM10, had fixed whatever was the hang up. "Fixed it."

The boss sighed, "Thats good," The holographic image shifted as the a conversation probably carried on with one of hte techs, "Its possible that its probably the combination of how heavy the right side was to begin with." A large laser was still a several ton weapon system even though it was still lighter than a PPC. "Nizar is right it would have been nice to add a hand actuator to the left arm."

"What about the jump jets?"

"If you're comfortable with how it handles walking we can test them on the course." The computer was saying that replacement Pitban Lifter 50 series were green to go... but they had no idea how they'd respond up for real until they were actually lit up. Still this was better than the previous time he had been concerned about how long it was taking to put his mech back into service. "Just keep an eye on the Gyro indicator when you bring the mech up to speed." The Pitban 240 had allowed a maximum speed of 65 kph, the VLAR in a sixty tonner should let him accelerate up to 86.

Septim nodded, even though he wasn't sure the Colonel was actually watching the hologram, he held down the mike's talk button, "So what's the plan? I mean you said that well with the Canopians we did the six thing, and you said it was,"

"I borrowed some of that program from the Light Horse independent regiments, but truthfully trying to apply regimental doctrine to a company element does not work."

"But do we have enough here?"

"In theory yes, in practice even though we can organize something approaching a core Hussar group we're still contending with an array of non standard lances, and customized BattleMechs."

Septim marveled at the comment.

"We're dealing with very little uniformity." He continued unimpeded. "But we will work with what we have."

The Merlin's master diagnostic finished, "Looking good to go, I'm going to take her out." Septim declared standing the mech up.

Inside of his Marauder Gene nodded, and glanced around. He appreciated that, he recognized the fact that a jack of all trade mechs like the vindicator or the factory merlin was not going to be the ideal solution. There were advantages to, among other things having dedicated missile boats.. but he still would have wished a bit more conformity.

He navigated between two very different Shadow Hawks. Lieutenant O'Ree's Ray was an all energy boat with two chest mounted medium lasers, and two Magna Mk III large lasers that could eject from their arm mounts. Sergeant Kenneth 'Breakthrough' King's also had a MK III in a similar mount on its left arm and two torso mounted MK II Mediums, but alongside the toros mounted lasers were Harpoon 6 launchers. Both mechs were painted up in Draconis March 'Robinson Ranger' colors... which might have been something if the next four mechs in the hangar weren't all painted in different colors. The patchy trend of clusters of different paint jobs carried on through the roughly thirty odd medium and heavy mechs present... and for the remaining reserve where they'd segregated off the jaegar mechs and a few others.

Kneeling beside an ammunition carrier was another non standard Shadowhawk this one painted bright scarlet and had replaced the 80mm with a larger New Avalon AC/10. It was true that these were AFFS personnel but they weren't, by and large, using Mechs owned by or issued by the Federated Suns. If there were any mechs he was disappointed not to find among the units it was the lack of the medium, fifty tonner, Crab. This was not the SLDF of 2660. Most of the mechwarriors called together by teh duke of Robinson had brought their own mechs in answer to that call.

And of course he supposed on that end, their mechs, the company mechs didn't stand out because of it. He maneuvered the 75 ton 'black horse' as someone had called it to distinguish it from his white one, and into the flat top muster area as the smaller Merlin's VLAR 300 spun up and directed power to its limbs and it slowly eased out of its own bay.

They were lucky that they'd been able to repair it, and that Septim hadn't ended up dead. It mad him uncomfortable thus being told to split trianing time to play the Combine's preferred rules for fighting... but that was the job they were being told to do.

A hail pinged his Dalban comms suite. "Field Marshal," He greeted, "Captain Lefler." Then amended as the hologram resolved into one of the Robinson armor officers on the Duke's staff.

"Sorry, Colonel," The balding man replied, "her grace had to step away, are you ready to begin?"

"Everything looks good on my end." He replied, "What happened?"

If Lefler minded he didn't show it, "Oh its nothing, she and that caravan master are looking at that Hammerhands he picked up on a dig on Royal some years back been trying to get all the parts to bring it back to 'spec."

That was a little odd. It was true the Hammerhands had been an indigenous Fed Suns design and popular during the Star League era, but he hadn't seen any since he'd gotten here. It was slower than a war hammer, or for that matter his Marauder, given the design was running off a 225 rating engine. "What's missing from it?"

"I, some sort of auto cannon, he is missing one, or something."

And that conversation was enough to warrant stepping out from the drill she had insisted on, that was suspicious.... but whatever, "Alright, can you connect me to Lord Aaron?"

"Yes, right away."

The image of the wheelchair bound duke appeared. "Colonel Shepherd, the brigade is yours,"

He acknowledged, and opened to address the medium-heavy Mech complement and attached armor assets. "The following exercise will conduct with live ammunition in the prospect of maneuvering across a forty kilometer gap, followed by the engagement inside of a contested urban zone with the goal of reaching the occupied area prior to sunset." Which was in six hours.

--
The three companies of Mechs were deployed roughly in a wedge rendered on the display forming the main thrust of the Gold force as it moved to liberate Blue City. The operation movements relayed from the complex computers with Lady Alexandria's mech. The twenty year old countess was playing her role of being Yvonne's eyes and ears in the operation area.

Besides the Mech Battalion were planetary militia armor ranging from Bulldogs and von Luckners to lighter hovercraft, and heavier tanks like the Partisan from more specialized armor units. A heavy breath beside her, "Oh my," The Azami merchant prince dabbed at his mouth

She paused, "I thought you said you'd seen the BattleRoms."

"Oh I have, but it is one thing to know a thing has happened, wholly another to watch the thing happen even if just in exercise. This is just training, but you can see the care of the organization. It is like when the Galedonians were fought."

The armor coordination wasn't as clean as it they and mechs moved to hit targets taht presented themselves. "You said that ComStar have been showing the footage."

"it makes it very difficult to refute. The best that the voice of the dragon can claim is to blame the Avalon Hussars, and even that falls somewhat flat with the MRB showing other battle roms on the news networks."

"Its unusual behavior."

"Its unusual for a DCMS officer to try and take a precentor hostage," The merchant picked up another bon bon, "Which of course the Dragon has disavowed." He plopped it into his mouth and shrugged, "What can you do?"

Yvonne wondered how much the wealthy Azami knew... he'd mentioned another JumpShip. Cairo. A Star Lord JumpShip as she'd found out later... a JumpShip that had not been seen in more than two years... and had an equally mysterious appearance in the Inner Sphere' s shipping records.

More blips appeared as another simulated exchange started this time on the other side vehicles harassed letting a lance of identical mechs then strafe at one flank.

So that bore the question, how much did he know, and how much did he suspect. And there was another ancillary question. She doubted the monstrous fifty two thousand ton dropship was the only cargo vessel attached to the trade fleet carrying weapons, and it was clear the caravan had its own security detachment. Not surprising. No, the real question was what was Captain Pasha, and the gentleman next to her's relationship with either Azami Liberation Front, or another similar organization. That was the sort of thing she had a responsibility to her nephew the prince to vet for, rather than just allowing Hanse to rush to meet the commander of a unit that had destroyed a combine battlemech regiment in detail.

He chuckled as a simulated exchange in the exercise grounds started, "Asking Combine Mech Warriors to engage in this would be offensive to the dignity of the dragon's loyal samurai. Very few see value in collaborating with one another never mind lesser warriors."

"Yes the 19th​ all but sacrificed their attached armor," If admittedly to grab the defending AFFS units attention. "On one of their previous raids."

"Admittedly I doubt that would have helped."

"No probably not."

"Its a pity all of Elidere's defenders are not here. You can tell that the main tank battalion, this St George fellow you hear on the radio must be on something very important to not come with them."

Most likely they were guarding Doctor Abner. The Lyran lord had been highly reluctant to cede any kind of command rights to Elidere's duke, and even though he'd eventually acceded to coming to the aid of the beleaguered planetary capital he had insisted Colonel Shepherd retain operational direction... "Certainly it would have been nice to have them."

They stopped as the radio crackled open. "You don't sound happy?" Alexandria remarked over it, prodding.

"No, we're actually doing pretty well for what we're working with." Shepherd replied his Marauder sending orders through the tactical net to Shadow Hawks to advance to screen for missile boats that included Cadet Sutton's Dervish, what the Azami identified as 6Md. "We're under par time but that's to be expected, I programmed in a Light Horse derived opposition to model for a competent Combine response,"

"We're fighting the Eridani? They're our allies."

The colonel's hologram shifted as he visually stumbled over the statement, "No, we're fighting a Star League Light Horse Independent Regiment, or the rough approximation of one. Its why most of the targets we're engaging are whole lances comprised of, Ost scout or Locust A."

"Ah I had wondered why there was such uniformity in the enemy ranks."

She almost shushed the merchant as the Marauder's pilot continued. "If I had the combine make the same mistakes at Elidere no one would learn anything. Here we're actually contacting resistance that is fighting along an organized defensive front."

--
Notably I cut a few things, we will do the shopping scene later, or possibly just have the dump truck just drop it all at the depot in front of the Overlord or the Triumph, but among other things is that after several weeks Septim has his mech fixed and operational, we get some other things named dropped, Yvonne does responsible her actual job type shit.

I need to dig up some of my old books for getting a hold of Hanse Davion, but that runs into the problem of Hanse would only be about 35 at this point so think I can afford to fudge somewhat if I have to. On that note, I described Yvonne here as Hanse's aunt, that is not canon, and I am using aunt in the generic older female relation. We don't know much about Yvonne's Davion branch, other than she's a duchess, her mother was a duchess, her mother was in command of the davion guards brigade for twenty years... which uh is odd.

Speaking of brigade I am using that as a unit comprised of multiple sub units acting in an independent or quick reaction function... or basically we gathered up the units we had and they're not part of the same parent so they're a brigade. Just in case anyone is confused by that usage.

 

[Imperator Pax]

I Davion Part 10​

August 3017​

​

The simulated explosions weren't the most accurate thing... the giant blue colored clouds were designed to be noticeable after all.

"Easy there Lady Lex," He replied as her mech reflexively took a step back.

"You said we were fighting a Light Horse. I'm reading Atlas, and Orions."

"We are, a Star League independent regiment was intended to be augmented by specialist company sized assets, which is what just showed up. Its also why its a mixed mech unit instead of the previous uniformity. Is it accurate to what the Combine would throw at us, no. Realistically I should have included a Dragon, an Orion, maybe Ostol. There should be a greater variation, but this is what Abel Company has to fight, and we want to see how they perform dealing with something unexpected." Blue City was unfortunately not something that could be easily reset, and you couldn't really change it in-between runs easily, so they were mostly going to be changing how the enemy deployed... and he wanted to schedule two more runs like this before they ... before he had to leave for New Avalon.

He leaned back in his harness. The truth was he hadn't planned this though this was all on the duke of Robinson since Yvonne wasn't here to play the card. Hopefully whatever she was doing was useful.

Beau's face appeared ... well his helmeted head appeared, "Hey there, I'm taking easy company in to suppress the enemy attack."

"Understood." He replied, "relaying now." And the Dervish pilot was somewhat breaking chain of command he should have been advising up, and talking to Bard if he was going in, but that was fine. Initiative was useful he wasn't going to criticize executing a counterattack. To that end he'd have almost preferred Bo launch a hasty counterattack to stop or slow an attempted breakthrough while apprising, rather than just asking for permission, but this wasn't the time and place for that conversation.

Across the mock financial district of fake high rises made from plywood and plastic tarps concealing various bits of machinery and electronics a Wolverine stood. "God fucking damnit." This whole exercise had been a slog of pushing a boulder up hill, but having an entire company of heavy and Assault mechs, including a fucking Atlas slam into them took the cake.

Bard had to wonder if this point of the test wasn't actually to make them fight an impossible to win battle... but that seemed ridiculous... by any metric of the battle academy's classes no one, no one should have been able to do what had been done on Elidere. They'd tried in the travel down time, he'd been grilled by the Prince's Champion.

To explain how a hundred and fifteen enemy mechwarrios had been defeated. One Hundred and Fifteen Combine BattleMechs had landed and had never returned to the DCA dropships they had arrived on, because they'd been taken out.


--
Within the separate command and observation port Yvonne Davion watched things continued to change. She tapped her fingers just below the command console's keys, "I was meaning to ask, as a learned man, have you ever heard of an Atlas II? It would have been a late Star League era model Atlas."

The Sheik stroked his chin, He paused, and contemplated the question. "Yes, but only in passing. I have never seen one in person. The Hammerhands I show you, it would have carried the same LBX class ten autocannon as that has."

They'd discussed the autocannon, and its ability to fire specialty ammunition, a kind of buckshot cluster load in addition to traditional slug. "The Colonel's White Horse has a class 5."

"Yes, it was my first time even hearing of such a thing. It makes sense of course, Mostly I only ever come across the Blankenburg class tens, I once had the good fortune to be shown a Luballin Ballistics 10." He regaled her with a long winding story of that particular example and its own a very wealthy friend in the Lyran commonwealth. They, the two autocannons, fired different rounds but approximated the same performance. "The Colonel's class five is clearly General Motor's project entry based on their 120mm Whirlwind." He didn't explicitly mention that the Whirlwind's history of jamming hadn't been entirely fixed given the weapon seemed to have jammed on Ander's moon.

"And you can provide him with this cluster ammunition?"

"Yes, I have an excellent munitions man who makes the ammunition for Hammerhands, and he should be able to work the load up for the 120mm."

The realities of the succession war had always been that some worlds ended up turning out specialty boutique rounds to suit their needs. Special Ammunition types for autocannons were common across davion space where the venerable mech grade slug thrower remained the dominant, or at least preferred choice of weapon. There was a world in the Outback region that regularly paid its taxes in Flak autocannon shells that came with the sworn affidavit that they'd been anointed with sacred unguents... and were usually liberally marked with Cameron starbursts or other Star League symbols.

The conversation paused as simulated artillery fire went out, and ASF strikes were called in to the operations officer officiating the exercise. "Very close."

Danger close.

"Yes, I'm surprised they were willing to use artillery that close to the city."

The effectiveness couldn't be disputed though. The enemy vehicles trying to advance to contact stalled. Autocannon armed vehicles and mechs were filing into the perimeter along the city as more of it's representation on the display shifted colors to Davion Gold. She could see where they were declaring 'digging in' infantry fighting positions to the judges of the exercise. The question was whether they could not hold out, and defend the city for the rest of the exercise.

"It is a pity we don't have real time scoring."

"Very much so." The merchant agreed, "But really now they must hold what they have? Can they do that?"

"I think so, I would guess there aren't enough reserves to actually dislodge them from the city, not with the perimeter relaying line of sight to their LRMs." and there was a significant volume of units ensconced protected by infantry nearby. One of the highways allowed them to move quickly from one end of the city to another if they needed to.

He nodded, "It occurs to me, and perhaps I am simply taken by a temporary melancholy, but the shame of defeat might sting the dragon's servants to seek easier prey. They might very well attack the Commonwealth, or attack a far distant world on the border."

She considered the comment, and it was possible she decided. But there were problems with that as well. Especially given ComStar's circulating of the Roms without anyway for the Combine to stop that information from flowing outwards.
--
The exercise came to its conclusion on schedule. Prohibitive but not catastrophic casualties. Infantry units had been dug in with short range missile launchers with teams overlapping inferno and HEDP to deter any serious attempt to force the perimeter, ground vehicles and mechs like the blackjack and jager deployed to fire at extreme rangers and spot for LRM carriers.

It was by the standards of the succession wars what would have been a victorious triumph... or in the first or second very likely the short of victory spoiled by the enemy souring the field with a nuclear weapon.

"I understand you have plans in the morning with regards to Ahmed's people and delivery, but there was something else that came up in conversation." There was a slight tink as the glassware abutted the plate. Yvonne watched for a further response. Sir John had somewhat embellished the Colonel's eye color as molten gold but not by much, they were light an almost orange brown. "Do you believe that they might try that, launch an offensive against the Lyran Commonwealth to assuage the general feeling?"

"IN the short term, its possible. Politically the combine even mounting an attack against a distant frontier world will only temporarily assuage the situation, failing to commit to a retaliatory offensive would likely attract accusations of rank cowardice, rather than being considered prudent. There is only so much face they can save by claiming to have been defeated by a more prestigious, or elite unit, being unable to repudiate the defeat in the field creates an irrevocably dangerous narrative problem."

"Especially at this scale."

"Yes, and historically, any victory the combine wins, or political reapproachment will simply encourage furth hostilities as the combine rallies on jingoistic rhetoric."

He stopped himself, but she waved a hand, "No by all means colonel. There can be no steps backwards at this stage. We're at the stage where I need a time frame on executing an attack next year?"

She hadn't moved the time table up... but she hadn't delayed it either. There was probably no time to delay it regardless of how much he might have preferred having more time to drill, "Realistically an attack ready to step off to coincide with the Combine invasion of Elidere."

The problem was, that when you really got to the basics... the root of all of this predated the star league. The Combine's behavior had been no great secret. He hadn't need to review Tristan's archive of Hegemony files to find reports by analysts warning that the combine was creating tensions that could not continue in the long run. It was not some CID secret either. The University of Volgadon's political science department had had its share of papers and critiques that insisted that Lyran policies of diplomatic reapproachment and deflection amounted to appeasement that only encouraged the Combine's behavior. In short... the war of Davion Sucession should have, but hadn't, provoked the Hegemony to do something more proactive... and of course once the amaris crisis had played out to its full extent the Combine had used it as an excuse to try and seize the whole prize.

He tapped his fingers on the napkin. "To answer the question it would depend on when we could rendezvous with the Eirdani Light Horse and transfer the forces to wherever we're jumping off from, so between March, and May of next year."

"Will you be able to recruit enough people for that next year, the Highland Faire is in January."

"I'm aware." And all too aware that transit times from Robinson to New Avalon, would be 37 days, plus whatever needed to be done on New Avalon, followed then by the roughly three months it would take to jump from New Avalon to Northwind. Any hires from Northwind, or even picking up any Azami volunteers Pasha was sure they could source through 'the community' would have precious little time to fold into the unit... which left them a handful of options. "The dropships can if it comes to it deploy with Davion regulars, we've discussed using our airframes with davion pilots, obviously going in with more troops is preferable than less, but at the end of the day the resources aren't likely to be there to have the San saba fully staffed."

"And?"

"We'll be refitting it to carry some mech bays even though we'll be looking for staff to recruit to operate any of the vehicles from New Valencia, or other vehicles that can be procured in the time frame before leaving for Northwind, or that can be hired on Northwind." He paused, "In short if the Combine attacks we can respond to it, if the decision is made to attack we can deploy at present force strength."

"But more is better."


Pretty much.

That was just where they sat at the moment. "And the next month's training?"

"The largest single advantage? Lord Robinson," The Duke, "Is a former tanker he's prepared to supply armor assets and other personnel. If we're attacking or defending either of those could make the difference to holding a planet in a sustained fight."

"Much along the lines of what I wanted to hear." Yvonne Davion knew she had to depart soon. "I will see you on New Avalon, where you'll be briefed on the planned operation. I can't guarantee I'll be able to provide you with the Blackwell industries hardware at that time, but you will have the promised equipment by the time the unit reaches Northwind, but I cannot promise you two months of gearing up in the new year. If the Combine does not launch its offensive we must be ready to launch ours."

"Realistically that gives me a month before I ship to New Avalon, if not less if you want to review, and have copies of the program course work before you leave."

"How many more times to plan to run the Blue City Urban Exercise Area?"

"Hopefully twice before I leave." Of course it'd be possible that, the jump route plotted from Robinson to Northwind was 257 Lightyears, over ten weeks of travel. "I'm drafting study packets for when I'm gone, but that will probably," Most likely end up, "be company scale drills, and practicing the existing material."

"And the dueling program."

He exhaled, "Saturday, we'll start simulated volunteer duels, and anyone with sufficient maneuvering scores in their weight class can move on to advance combat. Realistically Bahar should be able to take over the basics of that when I ship to New Avalon..." He just needed to tell her that that was the plan if the Field Marshal agreed. "that is the major hang up, realistically even with optimal candidates I'd want thirteen weeks minimum to run a dueling course, just focusing on that."

She nodded. "You're right in assuming we don't have time for that. Very well. Make the preparations you need, I would like copies of all the course work before I depart for New Valencia. If anything further develops between now and my departure I will inform you."
--
Gene thumped into the chair within the officer's longue aboard the Sam Houston, and before he had gotten comfortable Septim was already asking the question, "Any ideas what it means? I mean promising? What does that even mean, especially after you know."

Pasha spared the Lyran a look, and then shrugged. "Weapons I would assume, perhaps a mech depot? Equipment of war surely. Promising does not necessarily imply that but what else could it be... and the Davions certainly believe that whatever it is the Doctor is pursuing must be of great value."

... and of course in the back of his mind there was the fact that Ford had skipped off early, disembarking at Hoff. They had found something in the records, either something that directly told them or corroborated some kind of lost pieces of historical lore that warranted it. "even if they find something, we don't have the manpower right now, and lets be upfront with that. That needs to be corrected."

"I can secure warriors for any just cause." Pasha remarked reaching for his coffee.

"Septim when I leave you can hire at your discretion to fill out the Baffins, if Bahar and Pasha consent any further hirings can fill out the Hidalgo if we aren't expected to berth Davion Mech Warriors, but I ideally would like space for hiring on Northwind, so temporary retainer contracts to handle expansion and bringing them alone. We have the money."

115 Mechs. Several Dropships too, but mostly the princely bounty for the regiment's destruction, the DCA losses were just on top of that that. They did need to be mindful of how many DropShip collars they had, but they had time.

"The battle of Elidere took roughly a month." Pasha remarked, "Might it not be wise to plan for a contingency force?"

Jump in launch the invasion, that perhaps he should have briefed the staff on, and then jump out to bring in a reinforcing, or even occupation force. "I think that would be really more a matter to discuss with the davions, they're bringing the Light horse in, in full, so depending on what other Davion Units are involved I have no idea how large of a force we may even be dealing with." That was one of the matter Yvonne had not been ready to clarify at this stage. A full force break down didn't yet exist... and there was a good chance he wouldn't know until New Avalon, when he'd probably meet whoever was in charge of the Eridani.


"So about the dueling thing?" Septim said moving the conversation along. "What are we going to do about, well lets face it some people are going to get slots for who their parents are."

"If you mean Castro, probably so." Which was not because he wasn't a good pilot, so much as other disciplinary issues, "I'd prefer to keep him separate from Sutton," The freshly admitted cadet from Elidere. What about the rest of the unit?"

"Bubbles is a maybe? I mean she's got the Atlas for this job. Beau already says he's fine with things like they are."

"Find out what Chang plans to do, and I'll see about filling in Beauregard on the doctrine, we may be planning to slot him in permanently to running Easy company as a dedicated LRM asset."
--
Notes: we approaching the last leg of the summer on Robinson, and thus far no additional hiring has been done particularly because whats going to happen is we're going to move into introducing other characters as well as bluntly because it can't be avoided basically have names on rosters outside of key officers

Effectively, Officers get major screen time, while Enlisted MechWarriors will regrettably largely be names during some points of the story.

 

[Imperator Pax]

Davion Part 11​

August 3017
Robinson, Draconis March​

His Marauder for all intents and purposes had the computer systems to check and send email, but there wasn't anything there. He wasn't surprised though.

Hiring local was proving painfully limited ... not with the Duke of Robinson having known about the situation on Elidere. As it was turning out pretty merc with a mech or an ASF had been hired probably as soon as the Duke of Elidere had made his first stupidly expensive phone call with plans to ship them out to other Davion planets in the Draconis March that might be in need. They were striking out on that front.

That still left them Pasha's proposed hiring route, but for right now there was also the roster. "Not surprised."

It could be, or maybe wasn't nepotism. Castro's snych rates with his machine were good. He demonstrated good mobility with the machine... the simple fact was attitude problem aside he was a competent, even a good mechwarrior...even if letting him into the duelist portion of the program would probably make that attitude problem worse, not better.

He watched Chang drive the Atlas and ease the big war machine back into the maintenance area. Not that it needed maintenance... and while they had talked about refitting it back to a standard Atlas Configuration, or something like that... so far that had all just been talk. They needed the hundred tonner to run and operate with the handful of AFFS assault mechs.

"There is the chance he could fail out."

"I doubt it," Gene replied ... oh it was true todays first rounds test and evals in tournament form would involve anyone who wanted to volunteer but Castro could probably make his Thunderbolt river dance if he wanted to. So short of him going up against Bard's Wolverine, him not making it was a dubious prospect. "Attitude problems aside he can actually pilot," Which when you got right down to it he supposed that wasn't a surprise either being able to pilot a mech was uncommon, and there was some sort of trait component that let one use a neurohelm and strength expression of the trait appeared to be hereditary. Mech Warrior skill was allegedly in some part hereditary ... and besides all of that 'kingwolf' had certainly been given the best tutors his family had access to.

Which from a historical perspective a bunch of Combine Ronin would have thought him to be an excellent mark to test their skills against... and Castro didn't have the live fire experience to go along with the practice.

He reached up to scroll through the roster his battalion management software was projecting, and flicked through, "I'll admit I'm surprised more of your detachment isn't in this," And by more the fact that all the Assault Drivers weren't on the list. "I really would have expected the Awesome to volunteer, but I can work with the Atlas, and the Victor isn't a bad mech."

"What about the Stalker?" She asked.

"In all honesty I'm going to probably attach that guy to Easy's HQ section It'll give Beauregard some additional weight, especially if anything decides to get close to them." Easy Company Draconis March wasn't intended to fill the same role as the MAF Easy company... similar but not the same... different resources being what they were. Easy something of the oddity in the attempt to organize the AFFS mechs that they were training with its core focus was on concentrating missile boats to rain LRM fire in support of units already engaged. That would make them something of a reserve option, either for breaking through or preventing a break through.

The problem would be keeping them supplied in actual fighting and coordinating them. He had a sneaking suspicion that the Davion's were overestimating his abilities, or were just hoping he'd be able to work miracles... maybe just be a good luck charm. Gene didn't like that. He wanted this to be successful, and it certainly seemed like the Davions were taking this seriously.

"Boss?"

Septim's radio in jarred him, and he shook his head, "Just wondering how effective joint operations will be. If they're serious about bringing a regular davion unit, and Eridani." He said glancing at the hologram that had popped up. His computer had brought 3rd​ RCTforce strength as it had existed at the last update of the system in 2782. He blew a breath out, and dismissed the data chart. "We need to get the basics done. I'm getting ahead of myself, go ahead and take the next batch of mechs out there and through the range."

"I'll make sure they know how to ride a horse." Septim replied as he brought his Marauder up to its cruising speed. At least they hadn't had any more gyro issues, and the heavier 300 series didn't seem to be creating any issues.

Two hours later, as the sun started to set, Gene wiped his face and glanced over the grounds from the cockpit of the machine. The realities of neurohelmet technology meant that getting on target inside of a kilometer, assuming that the weapon was effective against modern armor at that range, took less than ten seconds. A mech could acquire faster or slower but that depended on other factors... having the enemy in the open, well neurohelmet and close range meant it was simple... and after that it was basically a roll of the dice to see if you hit and it was a good hit.

He wasn't sure if that was where the decline in fighting technology had hit or not. Maybe it didn't really matter. AutoCannon technology had become mature centuries ago having replaced so called 'Rifles' whose ammunition simply couldn't effectively defeat modern composite armor effectively enough. The reality was that the advent of armor that remained current and still buildable even in the degraded technology of the succession wars Inner Sphere was good at keeping a machine alive and in the fight against potentially dozens of 120mm rounds. Defense had leapt ahead of offense in warmachines, and offense had not effectively caught up.

Gene really wondered if they were just brewing the armor up exactly according to the recipe or if they still understood the chemical and material sciences underneath. He was leaning the first.

He hit the comms line, "Go ahead and compile the scores, and get ready for tomorrow."
--
He looked at his watch, then at the first tractor trailer backing into the cargo bay of the San Saba, and then to the Azami. "DO I want to know what you talked about at lunch while we were at drill?" Pasha looked at the trailer, and then reached inside his jacket, and pulled out a fax readout. The translated copy, "I don't mean to judge Pasha, but are you still running SLDF ciphers?" He was making an educated guess, he hadn't actually asked Tristan to run the readouts but he'd been suspicious.

He nodded, "They work." Was the man's response as the lights on the truck dimmed.

He exhaled. "Right. Ok changing the subject," Tristan had had an SLCOMNET Uplink... he had had his own HPG prior to the mess ... which of course made him consider that the facility in the periphery, on Aquagea probably had an intact SLCOMNET connect... though if it had been satellite based it might have been destroyed too by natural occurrence. "The ISF started a purge?"

"Yes, it is very bad."

"Why?"

"We don't know, it may simply be paranoia," The JumpShip captain admitted, "it is also possible that they found a rasalhague cell and were already rolling on it by the time the news broke. There are a lot of possibilities."

That was probably an understatement, but it was also pretty likely that the situation on Elidere was contributing. "You said its bad?"

"The ISF is prone to heavy handed responses to any perceived betrayals, even if they are wholly imagined. They lash out any apparent moral lapse." Which just made Gene suspect that the egg on their face from Elidere was contributing to the Combine lashing out.

"Pasha, we're probably about to step off on a Combine Regiment," He paused and let that hang, "intentionally this time."

"I am aware." The old man replied. "Rasalhague needs experienced mechwarriors, and ties with house davion that might convince them to support their independence."

:"And?"

"The Azami Liberation Front has reached out."

"And, you want me to bring them along?"

The captain shook his head, "No, I would recommend caution with them they are prone to reckless abandon a meeting right now would be potentially unwise. They split from the Free Azami Army during the second succession war, and have created no end of arguments on policy within the community."

He nodded, "What else?"

"The Field Marshal has been searching for the Cairo."

"Is that gonna be a problem?"

"No, it is in the periphery that is no lie." He paused, "To return to the issue of recruitment they are prepared to fight, and we can include them with out impacting other recruitment. I have sent a message to abu bakr," He didn't immediately clarify which one of those people with that name he meant, until he noticed the look, "he built our Drosts and should be able to provide us some personnel."

He'd been about to ask when the back end up opened and the Sheik's senior technician got out of the back. They exchanged greetings and he was allowed to clamber up on the white Marauder. "I have never seen this model before, and I've seen most." He bragged sound giddy, "Do you know how many were made?"

"I couldn't say, at least a dozen." According to Tristan's logs, but that had applied only to his assigned area of operations, and unfortunately they'd been offworld or lost otherwise during the conflict. "The code says its unit 42, but there is not guarantee that's for the-"

"It says its a 3R."

"Yeah, I think the 29th​ century nomenclature of the more common 3R was a General Motors decision for simplicity's sake."

"Possibly," There was another hum, "that would make sense."

The Hegemony had originally designed the 1R and intended it for royal usage, and that model hadn't been entirely replaced until not long before the Amaris coup, but by that point both the 1R and even its successor the 2R had been appearing in the armies of member states and regular sldf units. The Hegemony probably would have been appalled that the magistracy and the taurians were both producing down teched marauders in the present... but there was no helping it.

The motor hummed and the breach opened letting the Azami tech stick a gauge inside the auto cannon's breach.

There were a couple other questions but mostly it was a matter of letting the man work he'd already seen the actual factory produced rounds that had been in storage on Elidere. The Sheik assured them he could work up mech scale handloads for the cluster rounds, especially since they knew their normal ammunition worked.

Speaking of LBXs, "I don't understand," Gene pulled himself up and looked at the pair of Krupp, "The Field Marshal said you were short one." He gestured to the two 'Combat rifle cannon' as he thought the German translated, pattern 78, as in 2678.

"Ah yes these they are Krupp 120mm cannons, I am afraid the one I am missing is unfortunately a different caliber and manufacturer." In the mean time the Sheik had something else to show them. "It was a pity that the mech was otherwise ruined." The large man declared resting a hand on the exterior casing of the weapon he had moved towards.

Gene looked around the other side, it was a large laser, but he wasn't sure the model but it looked like there was a plate up at the top of the five ton weapon, "What did you pull this out from?"

"I suppose it would have been a bit before your time." He paused, "Terran Hegemony Militia Mech, Helepolis 3H, a 75 Tonner."

He recognized the name of a mech that was really best employed in Star League doctrine of entire units of a single model mech, "Did you pull the artillery piece from it?"

"I did yes."

He moved up a shop step and glanced at the corner, where a tarnished plate was bolted in. "Lone Star State Militia, 2642."

"Not what you were expecting?"

"No, but it makes as much sense," He shrugged, "I was expecting it came out of a Kuritan 1K, they were built with DHS and one of these for the primary weapon," Well, "Extended Range Large laser anyway."

He snapped his fingers in recognition, "Two medium pulse lasers, one in each arm." Ahmed nodded. "As I recall your uncle Mehmet piloted one my friend."

"Indeed his grandson has it now." Pasha replied. "You said this came out of a militia mech."

"Yes, buried in a landslide," Gene didn't interrupt but that was getting to be Ahmed's excuse for where he found anything, "We dug it out of the ruins. The Hegemony Militia were fighting against the Usurper's troops. 2768 probably, thereabouts. We dug many rim world mechs out of the field as well."

"Where was this," He asked, before speculating, without waiting for an answer, "a landslide catching that many doesn't sound accidental. Pumping artillery into the snow pack would be the best way to get that result."

The last part of the statement prompted a look, "That is a thing?" Pasha questioned with some alarm at the prospect of intentionally dropping an avalanche.

"Yeah,"

"I am glad then I am in the navy." Pasha's reply was probably doubly true since people didn't nuke JumpShips anymore.

"Hmm, it was not something," The large man scratched his chin in thought, "I did not consider it was any more than an accident, of course it was so long ago, we were just following a map that said there should have been a city there. So we dug it up, and look, fortunate us."

Any further conversation was interrupted by a ring into the bay's phone line, and having to get a move on.
--

He'd settled for watching a couple of the matches of the recent graduates from the battle academy, but if he were being honest he'd have preferred watching the work on the San Saba. They had settled on ripping out and refitting enough space to carry twelve mechs for the time being. The only reason they hadn't gone for more was Abner had sent a message in saying they'd need the vehicle space, and that he had something 'Big'.

The old doctor had not elaborated. It was of course also likely his message today had been sent hastily after the previous one because he'd been reminded that they were working on the Triumph class Dropship. According to Pasha there was a lot of Fax machine traffic coming now... well relative to what passed for normal... but Gene also supposed that in the Inner Sphere that there were enough planets close enough together that maybe there were enough ships secretly carrying them that you'd get a message every couple days when something big was going on.

... and from the Draconis side of the border it sounded like there was some butchery going on. But they were also getting rebroadcasts of some of the same messages.... which he figured as only happening because they were in the Inner Sphere.

He'd diagramed out on his Marauder a couple of distinct sources. There were at least two distinct Azami broadcasts, there was another that seemed to be the Rasalhagues, and then someone who wasn't Abner on the Davion's side of the border, somewhere on the interior. That was standing out.

The Azami had said that they'd gotten the Black Box tech from the Rasalhague rebels. He wasn't sure how they were making them other than... it took a lot less germanium to make one than an HPG... but the procedure he wasn't sure about.

Bahar's machine handshaked his marauder. The Mongoose linking to an SLDF comm line. She sounded tired, which was unusual. "Did they really run you ragged?"

"It wasn't that bad." She protested.

"You didn't have to fight a mech that's more than twice the mass of yours," He pointed... even though he had in hindsight regretted not watching her kick the shit out of the seventy tonner in person. "You did good, that was excellent use of terrain." Especially for a mech that didn't have jump jets.

"The head shot score was luck."

"You still landed it." He replied. Septim had at least stuck to mechs in his weight class, and Bubbles hadn't had to face anything as heavy as the Atlas she was in. An Atlas was pretty hard to kill, and if Gene were honest Samsonov had added more cooling than probably strictly necessary, but anything dumb enough to get close deserved the Assault class autocannon.... And when you got right down to it... he was pretty sure the Kuritan general had devised the mech specifically as a dueling platform for long range engagements between him and kicking the shit out of whatever Combine subordinate or rival in his face. ... or that was his best guess. "Bard is in the second string tomorrow I guess we will see how he does."

"And Lieutenant Castro?"

If Castro didn't actually know he had already been approved for the class... well he was doing a good job with the enthusiasm for his match come Monday. "I've talked about it with the field marshal..." Though was talked was an exaggeration. It was, when you got down to it, one of those yes ma'am situations. He glanced at the clock. "We're supposed to let him play through the rungs."

"What is she aiming for?"

Yvonne had called in having been watching the proceedings,, and had told them to whittle it down. That had been while they'd been at the San Sab. "A company sized class." Twelve... ten AFFS mechwarriors really Bard and 'Kingwolf' were already pretty much a given. "Can you handle that?"

"It shouldn't be a problem."

"I'll put together as much of a reference guide as I can by tonight."

"Tonight?"

"The Field Marshal wants copies of everything before she ships off." And the truth was he had gotten distracted with Azami matters, merchant shenanigans, the secrets of FtL shadowy chatter, and the possibility of hiring... and the failure of the latter.
--
Notes: We're dividing this in half, we will deal with a little mech fighting next go round, before starting part 12, and then go to the interlude on Bristol with Doctor Abner. The Krupp LBX come off of a Dragoon.

I don't know what KgK in canon is supposed so I made something up for what eighties pseudo german probably made it meant. Even thats a stretch since in canon its a lower case 'g' meaning its something abbrevieted 'Kg' Kannone and if I find out later I 'll change it. 120 is obviously caliber L66 is barrel length. The assumption made being the 78 designation is 2678 is based on the machine first saw action in 2771 so it can't be 2778 there so most likely Krupp developed them in 2678 (LBX 10s first show up in the Hegemony in 2590).

I do wish there was a more comprehensive list of all the different autocannons, or just manufactuers and models in general, but autocannons in particular for the different calibers. Anyway I've been using lootbox rolling for the Azami shop. Interestingly despite Kerensky trying to expunge the Dragoon from existence it apparently was still a thing by the time he left of the exodus, which suggests a lot were made. It went extinct "The few remaining Dragoons in service elsewhere would become extinct before the 3rd Succession War" which seems contradictory, either there are a few of them in which case why isn't it 'went extinct during the 1st​', but I digress. That's why a Dragoon isn't specifically showing up yet.

Some sharky boys down the road though when we get back to the periphery.... because from the davion book

" As a citizen of the Outworlds Alliance and a descendant of the Rim Worlders, I had hoped that in the course of our research on this volume I might find some mitigating factor to modify history's judgment of my most famous countryman. I regret to say that I have found none. As far as Amaris is concerned, the ancient slogan applies: ... "What you see is what you get,"... Amaris may have been worse than even past historians have claimed. " — Anastasia Marcus, Historical Director, Davion Research Project, ComStar Research Archives, Terra, 3028

That admittedly wouldn't be written yet it being 3017 and all but ... Marian Hegemony shenanigans and Stefan Amaris VII showing up early or another Amaris, I'm not entirely decided other than the dragoons will probably become involved someway or another in that mess. Especially since, well as has been shown by the Azami... Amaris is basically satan...

 

[Imperator Pax]

I Davion Part 11
(B)​

August 3017​

They had allowed the mechs to be fitted with what were paint guns for all intents and purposes. The techs were very confident that it was safe... what it wasn't was clean. The landscape had been painted where AC and Paint missiles had been used... and it probably hadn't been the best idea.

Apparently this made more sense with armor... supposedly. They were supposed to be testing indirect fire accuracy... they were really just making a mess of the exercise area.

"Are we going to do that?" Sutton's question the we in it stemmed from his relatively early, unfortunate elimination on Saturday from the brackets.

"No." He replied. "Your company," Gene paused, "and Dog Company are going to assemble tomorrow and start drills for dealing with enemy air assets." Simulated ASF shoots not dropships, but they were on paper planning to work up to that. They wanted to cover all of their bases. He glanced to the 6Md that Sutton owned. "Your mech carries two LRM 15s, its an intermediate step between the mass production post Age of War 'modern' dervish and the Terran Hegemony trial version. The Federated Suns probably would have still updated the Md to improved heat sinks later, but thats an XL engine in there, and your LRMs are protected by cellular armor storage, but your srms aren't." Never mind that Sutton's dervish had no business being in a situation where it needed to use the armed mounted dual tube SRM launchers, "And bluntly two tons of SRM is a lot of missiles especially for something like your mech." especially with its armor.

Sutton's SLDF mech was now los tech. It had been built for the SLDF forces and had integrated technology that was now lost to the Inner Sphere. CASE and the XL engine couldn't be replaced. Gene had half a mind to make the advice that Sutton might be better of seeing if the FedSuns wouldn't trade him a heavier missile boat that'd be easier to maintain in order to study the lostech. Gene didn't actually consider the Dervish a poor man's archer, but if the XL engine failed or suffered damage then the whole mech would need to be overhauled and other parts replaced.

Replacing an engine by hand... and had been demonstrated when they had needed weeks to get Merlin's old one out, and to put the new one in, and that was discounting insuring the VLAR 300 would work... and while lighter XL's were more massive.

Sutton looked as if he were going to ask more questions, but trailed off as his baby fat cheeks heated up and turned red. Gene tossed a sideways glance over one shoulder to Cunningham dismounting from her own mech. Charitably speaking Sutton was in what could have passed for swim trunks and a life preserver, and that was about normal. Alexandria's gold and blue suit might as well have been a one piece bathing suit, and it wasn't even particularly risque.

There was no denying that even in conservative dresses and with her hair pinned up the countess of Kestrel was an attractive woman, a skintight bathing suit was a way for her to show off. Hot was the operative word. Any further ogling of the countess's long legs had to be shelved as Bard finished dismounting from his Wolverine and came trotting up in kilt and heat vest looking like David Bowie posing for a highlands set bodice ripper novel cover.

"The lads look like they're having fun." The Robinson Rangers officer remarked congenially, "What do you reckon?"

"ON being able to suppress any enemy formation?" At least infantry would keep their heads down, but realistically the BattleMech's chief advantage was being able to accurately engage close range targets. "Fire and maneuver are the principles of tactical engagement, if they can hold them still then someone else can hit them." Which would be a problem if they ended up in a situation where they were badly outnumbered.

"What do you mean?" Sutton stammered, "I mean aren't they doing well?"

He glanced out at the paint, "What I mean is," He glanced to Bard, "What is the scoring metric right now about, thirty forty percent?"

"About that yeah." The scotsman paused "They're actually managing about one in every three shots."

"That's bad." Sutton admitted, and looked at the RBA instructor.

"I'm about seventy five percent," Bard replied. "I'm pitching about fourth shot right."

The cadet turned to Gene, who shrugged. "Ninety." Then paused, "Part of this is its not entirely accurate, they try and match the ballistics, but there is a drift. Even the lasers aren't perfect." The practice rounds were close but not identical, and he doubted the targeting systems had been coordinated for them anyway. The conversation was somewhat superfluous though as Sutton and Cameron departed , and the countess found a seat at one of the patios near the hangar. "The Field Marshal is leaving shortly."

"Yes." The brusque affirmative coincided with her making something of a show of running her fingers through her hair and shaking it out around her shoulders. Alexandria gave a deep breath, "Would you like to have lunch, before they start the second string?" She asked.

"Sure." He agreed, half expecting her to want to grab a shower and change clothes, but instead just had lunch delivered to one of the 'arena's private viewing boxes. Rice, lamb, flat bread were delivered about twenty minutes after they settled in.

"Don't you get hot in that thing?"

He glanced at the wrist of his suit, and then back to her, noticing that despite being at least two years older than he was they were about the same height. He had had to go a size up in suit at Elidere to accommodate, "this is insulated and thermal regulating. Even with the helmet breathes pretty well." The helmet comment threw her, "I mean for non permissive environments, vacuum, toxic atmosphere. The suit is rated for well below freezing, as well as high temperature." radiation protection was included but only to the extent of short jaunts, designed mainly for insure a downed pilot might survive if picked up quickly... and that had been a design requirement from the age of war when the Taurians had been throwing nukes left and right. He wasn't going to comment it was rated against light small arms either, you never knew, or that it basically doubled as a dive suit for the water if you needed it to... though swimming in boots was always a pain in the ass.

Bard's match started more or less about how he expected it to. His wolverine and the Shadow Hawk it was facing both took opening shots that the judges registered as misses before they started the dancing around the arena with their jump jets. The match was only half watched. "If we succeed it could change the Inner Sphere." She sounded as if she'd been coached on the line by the field Marshal, "The duke of robinson is prepared to offer a full time teaching position for the entire company, but the Crucis March is willing to match, or even exceed that offer."

"I'll keep that in mind, but until we're through here its a distraction."
--
Yvonne Davion looked at the two young adults and flipped through the papers. It occurred to her the only thing missing in format was a Star League letter head, or a Cameron starburst. She'd seen the academic format in historical documents, citation standards, spacing, it even had a cover page. "Is this feasible to improve accuracy?"

"Training is material to accuracy, live fire exercises will be the best way to do that." He replied.

She tapped her fountain pen remembering the news that had come in more than a decade ago now... when Ian had still been first prince. Even then she'd already been comfortably ensconced at the DMI managing analysis. Her nephew, the then present first prince had been concerned that the sudden arrival over Delos was a combine trick, but that had always, especially in hindsight seemed silly.

It was true that the DCMS uniforms had in their own way looked similar to Wolfs, but they were both clearly inspired by the uniforms of the SLDF regular army. The presence Star Lord JumpShips and Overlord DropShips and the use and black and red were another factor, but all of that was happenstance. She'd always thought Colonel Wolf had been young to be in his position... commanding five regiments of BattleMechs. She had a file with all of the original telemetry from over Delos, particularly the presence of Lion-class Dropships.

She had a report from linguistics on wolf. Not just him, the Dragoons original personnel all seemed to habitually avoid using contractions, and occasionally dipped to using vernacular terms that didn't exist in the Inner Sphere lexicon's common english. It didn't mean or even prove anything, but it suggested that their planet, or home planets, had gone through some kind linguistic shift. One that had clearly attempted to purge english of various words, and intentionally revive archaic uses. That wasn't unusual plenty of colonies in the first exodus from various cultures had attempted cultural purification to separate themselves from the Old Earth.

It still raised questions, questions that the Dragoons had always been unwilling to answer. It was a different problem... different questions than the other colonel. Shepherd's jacket, his file, suggested a star league era baccalaureate education, or more, he spoke was some stripe of Hegemony English, in addition to an archaic dialect of Japanese that her linguistics panel suggested only continued to exist in academic circles, principally in the Lyran Commonwealth.

There were other contrasts between the two mercenary commanders, but it was their ages and their ranks which were contradictions. "You have your candidates now?"

"We've narrowed it down to a company of pilots as you requested." He replied confirming what she already knew.

She recalled the thirteen week course comment. That was the sort of number that stood out. It suggested that there was some sort of program, or had been somewhere that used that to train, and that he didn't want to abridge it. "And you're prepared to hand off much of the course work?"

"And when I ship off world I'll pass the duelists off to Bahar."

"Doctor Abner expects to join you on New Avalon I understand."

"So I understand." He replied non committal.

Yvonne considered asking what was on Bristol again, but she doubted she'd receive an explanation. It was possible he legitimately didn't know. The truth was that Interstellar Expeditions seemed to have no end of secrets, and more mysteries that they wanted to track down. Whatever it was was enough to hold it out to the office of the first prince.

The field marshal made the decision to let the matter rest, and flipped through the drill itinerary. "Simulated field operations?"

"Rearm and refit of mechs in the field under simulated combat conditions. Units will practice covering another unit as it resupplies in combat... unfortunately given the number of ICE vehicles that means practicing delivery of fuel to units near the front." There was a note of distinction in the paperwork for repair and resupplying units, and simulating the evacuation of casualties from the line of engagement. "We can't afford to neglect combined arms on the offensive like the Galedon Regulars did, and its probable that the Combine will be predominantly light and heavy mechs and I'd like degredation of the enemy force at range before we commit to any attempted break through."

She nodded, "Can you simulate the Eridani as an allied unit in exercises?"

He raised an eyebrow, "I can simulate them as they were as a SLDF unit, if you can get me their current force strength I can plug that in instead, and have the exercise using SLDF light horse doctrine."

"I can provide that." The tell had been incidental, rather accidental. The admission that he knew what the SLDF Eridani had been could easily be played off as their historical configuration, surely of which there was a record... but if you had that, why wouldn't you also have some idea of their modern configuration. She pushed on, "There is one other thing, "For the last field exercise, I have an OpFor in mind. I want it to model the 2nd​ Sword of Light as it existed in the Star League era."

"Understood." He paused glancing sideways to Alexandria, "Should I expect to fight the unit responsible for the death of the previous first prince?"

"Its not apart of our operation's objective. We don't expect them to be anywhere near the target."

"I should still point out that 2nd​ SoL was at the time of the Amaris coup a Medium BattleMech Regiment built roughly along the lines of an Army Battle Regiment."

The old woman smiled and nodded, "That will do quite nicely for a course exam."
--
This was something of an extravagance, but Precentor Vandal of New Avalon didn't seem to object... though why would he given the cost entailed by live communications through three other stations in order to reach the Capital of the Federated Suns. "I think you will like him." She remarked.

The reigning first prince was not yet thirty five. Hanse was actually younger than Colonel Jaime Wolf of the much vaunted Dragoons. Hanse hadn't even been thirty when he'd ascended the throne of the Federated Suns to become First Prince after Ian's death in October of 3013.

"I'm looking forward to meeting him. They've been playing those battleroms of elidere to death here,"

Huthrin Vandal smiled the picture of cherubic innocence as he agreed, "Yes they are perhaps the most watched footage across civilized space this year.
--
Notes: It totally slipped my mind last week, the thread is a year old now.

 

[Imperator Pax]

I Davion Part 12​

The field marshal had been gone for about a week now. She'd taken with her copies of all the academic material he'd generated for the course by that point as well as all the test results... and she had remained cryptic over things insisting that that would be for New Avalon. Gene had a mounted worry that if what Pasha was telling him was accurate they were looking into doing more than just taking an opportunity. One out of a projected Mech Regiment strength of 66 was gone... and he guessed that she wanted to whittle that down further.

There had been an offhand comment that the Lyrans and Mariks had a rough strength of Mech Regiments in the mid fifties... parity with one another roughly speaking. Neither number included mercenaries.

So here he was doing paperwork... office work in the white Marauder's cockpit. Septim had finished up taking his Merlin for a hard ride to see how well it handled. He had taken a handful, not quite a company, of cadets with him as they put the machine through its paces. The nominal, on paper, reason was to examine cavalry potential.

So far so good. The techs had been somewhat relieved that they hadn't tried to replace the Large Laser installed with the extended range version they had purchased from Ahmed's caravan. The prodigiously proportioned Azami had also moved on, probably carrying messages to other communities along the way.

Which was another problem. Ahmed had a Black Box... fine, he'd known that the Rassalhague resistance had apparently dug some out, and figured out how to make their own copies, and passed that to the Azami. Which was compounded by the print out message he was looking at. They all followed the same format.

... Message Received...

A Time Stamp. Logged.

ETC ETC an automated response kicked back by a machine in the network that didn't make sense.... except that the ciphers the Azami were using were Star League Army Regular codes. He'd checked there was even a matching cipher code book to translate and confirm... and Yusuf had been expecting it had been a joke.

So they had waited, and sent out a test code message using the protocols for that communications test laid out in a dusty manual that no one had read in... more than a century. It had been received and relayed instantly back to them.

So he had spent hours going through his machine's logs for an answer, and he was pretty sure he had had it. They had been exercising during the sulfur flats on the far end of 'Blue land' with the tanks, what back during the Star League era had been an important mineral reserves area and a center of industrial excavation during Robinson's boom years.

He'd pulled maps up from the database, maps that had been downloaded from Tristan's database only because the AI had known that they were going to Robinson next. There were a handful of other davion worlds, but the thing he was interested in was trying to identify the ping call. Handshake would provide an identification to what exactly was trying to communicate with his mech, and that would give him some idea where they were broadcasting.

He flipped the motive start transferring power to the machine's forward drive and easing the machine out of the hangar while the Dalban initiated a clean boot and entered 'patrol' configuration to receive and catalog transmissions. Obvious Blue 2-4 was beyond range, and the Dalban was currently categorizing signal transmissions but with only one mech's signals it was going to be a wild goose chase, and he could be out here all night. He watched first interrogative go out over the comms capable of controlling an entire regiment in processing.

--
He cracked the pale ale open. "The boss doesn't look happy." Septim remarked dropping into the chair... and then a little more conspiratorially, "I've seen him pecking away putting the new drill orders together." The Lyran remarked

"I didn't think we did that bad." Chang started to protest pushing her glasses up and reaching for the test scores from today.

It was at that point the door banged open, which wasn't unusual, it was late in the afternoon, already getting dark despite the late summer daylight, and much as remarked upon Bahar would admit the Gunslinger looked visibly annoyed, but also energized. "Get everyone up," They looked at him, "Get everyone up, now." He punctuated. "I want the entire unit mobilized, and ready to roll out."

"They just went to lights out." Septim started as he swallowed down his first mouthful of beer. "Oh this is one of those snap drills you told," The field marshal, and he coughed slightly as he trailed off, "on it, come on Beau I need to borrow your baritone."

The two men left, and he stopped Bahar, and handed her a computer chit, "Plug this into your Mongoose, and run the search query through your comms log, see if anything turns up."

The dark eyed woman took the device, and looked at him, "Is there something wrong?"

"Wrong? Might be the wrong word, but I'm getting an SLDF return ping on operations, where something keeps trying to handshake my Mech during operations, then hits my Operations clearance and aborts the connection because we're in the middle of exercises so it logs it and stows it away as a non priority. If you get something ping my Marauder on a priority channel, when you get to your mech, you'll receive a communications handling package anyway."

"Where are you going?"

"Get everyone else up."

"Everyone?"

"The duke of Robinson wanted to be included," Even though of course there was no way they'd be taking him off world in his condition, and his tone implied this was more than just an exercise, which was confirmed by the instruction that everyone would be running on live ammo as they moved into the Blue 7 exercise field, which did lead them through terrain that took them into a live fire range and was a traversable series of bad lands. It would be well and truly twilight by the time they could get everyone mobilized and on the way.

His watch chimed set into the wrist of his suit, and Gene glanced at the timer forty minutes later as his Dalban categorized the fusion signatures. He hailed the Azami command crew aboard the Sam Houston and asked for a sitrep on when they would be able to take off. Then repeated the process for the Hidalgo and San Saba. It was the latter two who most likely would be capable of pinging the communications, and help triangulate the signal to find what they were going to look for.

Blue Land, hell the entire, Robinson exercise zone was wired for video and sound, and that included as far as he could tail the field bunks and lodging, and work areas to monitor how cadets responded. Even now in the background his neurohelmet was filtering feeds of sergeants shouting orders rushing men to tanks, and officers directing pilots to their machines. Cadets were still being hustled out of bed and into piloting attire, told to get their neurohelmets and cooling jackets on. Then to be rushed through the halls into bays where they were to then wait before they could be moved to their machines as astechs checked over them.

His command package was already distributing orders to to ASF pilots to standby positions. They wouldn't actually be taking off, but their machines were being directed to stand ready, and a rung down the conventional fighters like Defenders of the planetary militia were on notice.

As machines started to power on the chatter from cadets then became chatter over comm lines between lancemates, and then companies. Gene sat in his Marauder and let the Dalban work its magic in conjunction with his neurohelmet.

A supersonic roar signaled the lift off as the Sam Houston became a shooting star hurtling upwards. The Triumph and Overlord followed within half an hour as the forward clock ticked continuing to keep count.

Bahar's face appeared in high definition holographic color, "I'm uploading now."

"So something attempted to handshake your machine?"

"Yes. I never received a notice for it, but I can transmit the tagged coordinates." She did so, and brought up that if this was an SLDF hardware matter then Sutton's dervish might be useful, but he shook his head.

Sutton's machine was SLDF but his iff broadcasted as AFFS based on his pilot credentials, not based on the hardware itself. "As for the rumors that the Combine is attacking, you can squash those." He added after another minute, "reign in comms discipline and keep the units in their formations, I'll be in touch."

He liaised directly order a handful of other company and battalion commanders into formation as they came on line in their vehicles and updated the map. It took longer for the countess of Kestrel to get to her mech, and for the duke of robinson to make it to a mobile HQ vehicle but by eleven o'clock they were on the move. Later than he wanted.

"This wasn't planned," The duke observed over a private channel.

"No sir it was not." He replied.

The Duke of Robinson nodded, "But you think this is necessary."

"Yes, yes I do." He replied.

That put an end to the conversation as they continued to move through the hills, and into landa that had been reduced to scrub grass and trailheads, and basically left to grow up since the succession wars had begun... he considered the animosity the Draconis March felt towards the Combine... and how that might effect how they viewed the video footage of Amaris getting the coordinator of the day to provide the information of the SLDF's movements and positions... force strength.

True combine loyalists would probably... like the sword of light choose to emphasize that filial piety Minoru Kurita had been exercising by honoring his father's wishes to protect the Kuritan hostages Amaris had been using as bargaining positions. That had after all be the Kuritan byline to explain the Combine's inaction and unwillingness to take action against Amaris... but for most even inside the combine... Amaris was too despised where even that might not be enough to make it palatable.

The Draconis March he doubted needed any help to hate the Combine. Even without knowing what Minoru Kurita had done it was an easy enough thing to blame the Combine for being responsible, to blame Minoru for the end of the Star League... the video just made it worse. As it showed him collaborating with Amaris, and it would be a short jaunt, a few years down the road from that footage to show or just play a clip of Minoru proclaiming his intent to declare himself, or having declared himself Star Lord.

It was impossible to escape from... and if backed into a corner with something that might legitimately unite enough people against them. Gene expected the combine would go back to the first succession war policy of nuke first and ask questions later. Even Tristan agreed on that, and it was for that reason, that calculus that if the Combine were backed into a corner too far too fast he hadn't agreed to any plans to dump the video out there. He wasn't willing to take that gamble.

The problem... was what Yusuf said was going on. The Combine seemed to think or showed signs of thinking a rebellion was in the works. Maybe they were just being paranoid, maybe they weren't. If the Combine lost the Terran Corridor though the question became what then. There wasn't enough information in his possession to even begin to guess who might do what.

... on the other hand, he eased back on the mech as it crested the hill, and checked his logs. The radio compass azimuth feeding in a course correction, which he logged and distributed the adjust navigation package over the battle network.

Another eight miles the Dalban pinged, and he executed the handshake, calling the unit to a halt while the processed authenticated. An SLDF package unfolded, decompressed, and provided him a navpacket to work by. Credentials for sender and receiver validated he adjusted his nav and pushed forward again. He overlaid the map and looked at the nearest town.

He brought the unit to a general halt as he finished the next hill, and looked at a nearby river cutting through a stretch of ugly stunted trees, and tall grass. The battle network started allocating units to move into deployment phases and escorting conventional armor, and mechanized infantry began to diverge and then deploy across the widest part of the hills. AFFS infantry spilled from personnel carriers and began digging in on the hill pointed towards one direction as they were commanded. Anti air partisan tanks moved to screen them against any theoretical exercise simulated attack, throwing up their air scouring radars as they did so. Heavier armor, conventional and fusion powered tanks, dug fighting positions.

To all intents and purposes they were defending a nearby insignificant town.

--
Note: This is not the update I had originally planned for today, and I am through half a bottle of Ahus at this point, but this is the update you're getting. So just FYI, I will edit, that is do a follow on spelling check tomorrow, when I'm sober.

Originally I was going to post the Abner and Ford poking around on Bristol, but for among other reasons am doing this, I was able to borrow the book with the fury lore in it, and I'm not sure I'm going to treat it but I'll deal with that next week, or the week after.

 

[Imperator Pax]

Bristol (Interstellar Expeditions)​

September 3017

Abner looked as the new vehicles joined their workplace. He still found himself rather cross with his protégé as abominable as the Combine's behavior had been encouraging such a rash bout of military adventurism was... well it wasn't commendable... he would have preferred not to have to divide up their resources... but here they were on Bristol. Doing what needed to be done, he supposed. The older man cleared his throat, "Well, was your detour sucessful?" he asked.

Ford nodded and handed over a noteputer of Terran vintage.

He looked at the wire frame schematics that appeared, "what's that expression for what aren't you telling me Mister Ford?"

"It wasn't just the depot."

"What, what was that speak up?"

Ford's grin only grew. "I think when we get to New Avalon, the look we'll get will be, very very impressive." Then still in a low voice, "There were in," he enunciated, "tact prototypes, Professor. One complete even. An Assault Mech carrying two M9 Gauss rifles, painted as you'd expect in Royal colors."

Abner nodded, and looked back down to the noteputer of the one hundred tonner. With something that was half to a grumble he nodded again to acknowledge the younger man's enthusiasm. "Where is it now?"

"Stored up, in a big box." Ford replied stymying his own giddiness, "Didn't want to risk you poking around and figuring out what it was before I told you professor, the, it is one of the last SLDF command designs developed."

Ford's comment brought a nod, "Yes, I've been thinking about that." He paused for a relish, in dramatic effect, "Major, Colonel Shepherd said that the Dragoons were using a down tech version of the ANH-1."

"LBX, you mean."

"Yes, indeed the same model as found on my Atlas." The Atlas II was sitting aboard the JumpShip's hangar. Abner had painstakingly secured a copy of the machine's memory core, and its original owner's final sortie... and of course the final orders issued by the Hegemony officer to enact the wildfire protocol to deny the base to mutinying deserters. "Four of them." He added perhaps unnecessarily since the Dragoon's pronounced -1A variant carried four class ten autocannons.

"He thinks they're descendants of Kerensky's deserters."

"I don't think, think is the word the colonel would use." Abner replied thrusting his hands into his jacket as the wind picked up, which caused some resistance from the computer before he managed to get it in. He coughed slightly, "No, I think he's quite sure now. I don't know what that could mean though." He thought back to the question about Tripitz ... and he had made sure to search the name... and that had turned up the mystery of the Vandenburg White Wings.

A picture of a Black Lion in rimward periphery star system near the concordant. Had the Hegemony managed to get a flotilla out of the Inner Sphere after the coup... was there a hidden world, or worlds of Hegemony survivors or colonists some where deep rimward, the P-C Cloud Complex? They might never know. It had been two centuries now... but the prospect of that time reminded him that the Dragoons had only reappeared recently,, a dozen years earlier in 3005.

He cleared his throat. "Well we should get started on the door."

Bristol was a world hit hard by the combine's abominable behavior during the first of the succession wars. Reducing what had once been a gem of industrial hard work and labor to a pale shadow in terms of productivity. Even two centuries later their diggers had had to have excavated almost a million tons of rubble and debris beneath the layer of dirt and scrub grass that had grown up over the sight. No one had thought it worth the time to clean up... they had just left things after the Kuritans had finished their rampage, or been driven off.

It was such a waste. In 2791 the Combine had nuked the site they were excavating, and none had thought to clean up the mess.

"How big is it?"

"Large enough that it was supposed to have dropships land here." He replied thinking of the Triumph-class that Ford had worked to get flyable on Elidere at the lost star port. He wasn't sure that really qualified as salvage... and if making the dropship fly again after its long sleep wasn't than this certainly didn't count. Recovery operation perhaps? Well semantics, Abner mused contemplated the mountains of earth moved, and what passed for a city on this world in this era. As for what was buried below the surface... he considered. "The mechanisms described by Tristan state that the bunker was rated against capital weaponry." Attacks from concentrated warships in orbit, using both techniques pioneered by the DOME and also just mountains of earth as ablative material. "I don't know for sure if that means that the doors will even open after two hundred years."

"Or if the computers will work." Ford added.

Or if they'd recognize the authorization, and requisition order to secure material Tristan had compiled for them using SLDF cryptographic ciphers. They would have to see. Another bitter wind blew across, and he figured there was no point in dallying any further. The Jolassa Armored Vehicle site wasn't going to just open itself after two hundred plus years of sitting there.
--

The doors in fact did still work. The lights too. He expected that the computers and other systems were probably fine. It was the Star League's industry they were talking about.

It was at this Abner marveled at the lofty heights humanity had once stood at. There had only been a single DropShip in the port, a Confederate class, and that had left them plenty of room to bring in their own vehicles. The real wonder though was in the high speed rail system similar to what they'd found on Elidere built in the League era that if he wasn't wrong probably ran a line all the way to a terminal where Jolassa's modern successor had their factory built on top of the old foundation. That would bear exploring later, once they were fully settled.

As they had suspected the kuritan attack had caught the facility entirely off guard. The automated loading and machinery intended to pack up .;.. pretty much anything Kolassa manufactured was entered a safety shut down without worker supervision and remained in stasis for all intents and purposes waiting to be reactivated. A reactivation that was only coming more than two centuries later... and it might have been a slight exaggeration to say that there was pretty much everything Jolassa had built at the time of the fall of the Star League.

Including, as they had expected, completed or near complete Royal Fury tanks. Rows upon rows of the eighty ton vehicles, what he know knew were Fury after having seen one of the alternate versions on Elidere. It had been because of Elidere they had known that this should be here... and indeed here it was. They had been right to take the gamble.

... even if a part of him regretted that the next step would be handing over the armaments that would then be used to continue the senseless struggle of the states vying for supremacy. The Combine needed to be stopped though... that had become increasingly apparent. The Coordinator's, no the mad ambitions of the Coordinators' was what was responsible for all the horrors of the Succession wars in their mad bid to usurp the golden throne of Terra.

It was a realization that broke with the nominally expected neutrality of the organization. It wasn't a break per se. Interstellar Expeditions as an academic collective expected a certain amount of ethical detachment from politics, that they wouldn't take sides in a partisan manner that might imperil science and learning as a result.

They wound their way past another couple of large trucks, and looked at the office. He looked at the door, at how simple and plain this was, standard, cookie cutter as one of his fellow founding members of I.E had quipped back before Interstellar Expeditions had been put together, almost fifty years ago when they as MEN members had started searching for the lost Minnesota tribe.

The prospect of his age meant little... mortality from old age was a ridiculous thing to be worrying about. Maybe if he settled for going home and living on the estate that kind of thing might be possible... but he'd more likely die of boredom. Truthfully they didn't seem any closer to finding the Minnesota tribe, they had answered questions... and those answers seemed to have little do with the mysterious travelers... and they created other questions.

The lyran reached forward and tapped the panel, which obligingly glowed and starting up. Now to see if things worked as they were supposed to, if the computers which had last logged on probably in 2791 recognized SLDF draft orders for material when the league had been dissolved rather effectively by the council a decade earlier.

No one appeared to have told the computer as the door panel turned green reading his security chit's authorized user status and opened the door. The distribution office was plain. Professional, stainless appliances, sink, and other conveniences. A handful of Jolassa Armored branded mugs sat still waiting for their people to come drink. Ford idly inspected an animated tank with a bucktoothed grin and exaggerated bushy eyebrows.

It read 'High speed low drag'. The cartoon armor vehicle didn't appear to be a fury... probably another one of Jolassa Armored's other products that had also gone extinct as a result of the company languishing after the Combine's nuclear attack.

"I wouldn't open the refrigerator." Abner cautioned. Ford didn't chance it and the moved to the larger terminal and started it up, looking for the loading system inventory. Ford coughed at the inventory software booted. "Ah the Star League."

Jolassa Armored Vehicles had been a supplier to the SLDF and if this were accurate this facility was comparable in volume of storage to an actual Castle Brian. No doubt given the terran contracts that Jolassa had been fielding for the Royal Divisions as well as the regular SLDF this had been built by the 26th​ century DOME.
--
Notes: This is going up early because I am working on the other half still. That should go up as normal on Sunday.

So, the Fury... doesn't have an original SLDF date to the best of my knowledge, but the industrial storage space for Jolassa Armored Vehicles is specified to to "rivaling the size of the Breed Castle Brian", which leaving aside I don't know anything about the Castle Brian on Breed or the Breed Castle Brian if for some reason its somewhere else and named 'Breed' that's pretty big. Notably the Pitban 320 is also the same engine as used in the Thug. Bristol also has 'other Jolassa Weaponry' which suggests they make more than just the fury as well as armor and engines, endo steel and whatever other stuff.

 

[Imperator Pax]

I Davion Part 12​

The bunker entryway that had taken them almost two hours to find was large enough to accommodate battlemechs walking in, and out, and the heavy reinforced ferrocrete arches looked like they had been built to take a direct nuclear strike or two. There weren't any of the tracks that he'd expected to see, after having seen Tristan's organization... a plate near the entry way had listed a number sequence and a date putting this as roughly after the unification wars, but the quartermaster's annex that they had followed the path to suggested this had been overhauled some time after that.

His official liaison with house davion was... not pouting but he might have mistaken the set of her jaw, either way it was clear she wasn't sure how to deal with the situation. "can you tell me what we're doing here?"

That was the question wasn't it.

"Clear." A ranger yelled from further down the hall his service rifle moving to a high ready pointed at the ceiling slightly forward as he stepped back to let some of the techs through. The DOME had designed for accessibility, but not necessarily wheel chair accessibility per se. The place was big though, so there was room for the Duke even if they were having to work with it.

"What is this place?"

That was probably a better question.

"Its a Brian Cache." He replied, "And that goes towards what we're doing here."

"A brian... cache... like a castle brian?"

"They're named for the same Cameron." He replied. Brian Cameron had been in the Quartermasters Corp of the SLDF during his requisite term... and among his many many ideas as then, as well as Star Lord was, well what if we need a stockpile of material in an emergency. "Castles serve a different purpose. Brian Cameron believed was was an inevitability and that because it took time for factories to spin up to war footing it made sense to stockpile large volumes of reserve material, hence creating caches of arms," He neglected to mentioned that it was also a great excuse for the government to spend lots of money because while that was true it was possible the benign explanation was to maintain a skill set for workers besides just busy work and kickbacks to a political district or what have you, Gene reflexively shook his head.

There was whirring from the terminal, and he groaned. An inch thick stack of paper finished printing.

"What's that?"

"The computer wants me to fill out the requisition, and paper work to actually take material out of the cache. Tell them not to touch anything. The cache has automated Laser Defense turrets." He looped his foot around a chair, and pulled it slightly to sit, before reaching for a pen in his breast pocket to fill out the sheet. He was aware that there was a silence behind him.

"There are what?"

He pointed to the ceiling. "Laser cannons." They looked like they were the standards not like some of Tristans because... well some of those had been more modern pulse lasers. Those had been in access points for the more secure annexes... to prevent people from accessing things like the radiological bunker, the fusion reactor, or the thankfully sort of empty chemical weapons locker of Tristan's outpost on Elidere.

"Boss maybe you should start from the beginning."

He shrugged and kept scratching away, before pulling out his noteputer to fill in the annoying little details that computer would just scan run against his chit's identity clearance, and would then authorize even if he'd still been 'ranked' major.

Apparently even that would have been enough to authorize bringing the computer controlled gantries online, and the inventory and stockpiling who the fuck knew volume of inventory.

"Bosss?"

"This is a brian cache," He repeated, and blinked, trying to pull the details from the memory, "Brian Cameron believed that conflict with the Kuritans was inevitable and so the Hegemony developed the Castle Brian, and Brian Caches. Castles were intended as defensive outposts to house a minimum of two brigades," To avoid keeping all ones eggs in one basket he supposed, or to justify 'well we have to' build more than one castle, "Castles were intended as support structures and garrisons. Caches were intended for being able to rapidly rearm and reequip Hegemony, and later SLDF regulars in campaigns either at the start of one, or in the face of one, where fresh resupply wasn't readily available."

"So its a star league cache?"

"Yes." He replied, and glanced to the chiming bank of monitors that occupied much of the wall recess, "It looks like this was restocked in the early 2720s with extra material in the event there needed to be a follow on to Operation SMOTHER." Gene hit the print key, and the rollers dutifully began to cycle paper. From the requisition files in the banks it looked like someone either Jocasta Cameron or one of her allies had authorized the material... but regardless someone in the Hegemony chain of command had authorized this material transferred and installed. "It looks like someone expected the need to take further actions against the combine... and," He pushed the filled sheets into a scanner tray, slid the computer chit back in to the reader, and pressed his hand against a third scanner, and waited for them all to turn green. "I guess three hundred years later," Or close enough, "they'll finally be used against the combine."

There was no AI in the facility. Caches were built, put in a roster... and all too frequently forgotten about. A ache like this had probably only been barely remembered by Terra and updating its contents suggested that someone in the Hegemony didn't want to authorize a new cache and sidestepped that by putting more material in here.

He swung the chair around and got up and glanced up gesturing for them to follow, and then back to the inventory he had printed out. The six of them, him, the duke and the duke's bodyguard, Septim, and the countess of Kestrel , plus an infantry officer to communicate with the rest of the Ranger's infantry detachment moved further into the subterranean bunker warehouses.

He doubted they'd stick around to inventory all of it. He had little reason to assume that the materiel list was inaccurate. Still it was something a walk to the elevator that took them four storeys beneath the surface, and probably in part underneath the nearby sleepy insignificant village that had lost most if not all of its industrial affiliations over the course of the succession wars. Caches were just warehouses. There was not accommodation for port facilities... in fact if anything this was intended to blend in with its surroundings. Dig whole hide lots of equipment filling in after you were done just leaving a couple hidden access points to access the cache if you remembered it existed by the time shit had hit the fan.

Someone had clearly forgotten about this... and probably of plenty of others.

"So could this be what the Dragoons found?"

His head snapped to the side to look at Alexandria, "No, Brian Caches were strictly Army units," The Navy had Anchorages, but those were rare mothball yards. "and the Annihilators were cutting edge at the time the League fell... there is no any way those, or those Imp things," Which he'd checked Tristan's datafiles and it conformed to no listed SLDF projects, "would have ended up in a Brian Cache. Even one inside the Hegemony's borders." he reached out to smack the button on the door and it opened to neat rows of tanks. "This is the right place, there should be a divisions allotment worth Valis and Chaparals stored here." He said moving around the sleeping form of Chevaliers.

"So what isn't here that you were looking for?"

"Pollux air defense tanks." He replied to septim's question. "I suppose that they would have been too new for shadow ministry to sweep them here without someone noticing bleeding edge ADX," The pollux would have probably still been Experimental maybe, he wasn't sure, "were shipping into a black hole." There were no Marksman CVs, but there were the older Thor's which carried Thumper artillery pieces in place of 'Sniper' pieces. That was probably just as well too many of the Marksmen had had bad track tensioning systems and were prone to throwing them.

... and of course he shouldn't have been surprised but well the armor assets were all well and good but even though he was a tanker even the Duke of Robinson was more interested in provisioning his duchy, and the Draconis March Militia's Battlemech forces.
--
They had fallen back to the Triumph-class DropShip San Saba after having spent only an hour or two inside the monstrous labyrinth of mile long storage space with countless containers, and hundreds of year old war machines. It had enough space even attempt to take a stockpile of what was going to happen from here out. She doubted she was the only one but Alexandria Cunningham thought she was going to have a stroke at first. The manuals pulled from secured lockers were how to rearm and reactivate machines in storage. Complex diagrams of maintenance included, along with time tables of when the last maintenance and hours and mileage accompanied the other documents. Some of those others listed in a small corner the authorization and authentication, listing Shepherd as a Brevet Colonel, and his 'peace time rank' as Lieutenant Colonel

It was a tiny section in a voluminous series of paper work that would have been easy to miss. It was paired with some alpha numerical arcane designation whose acronyms she had no idea the meaning of. It was only part of the growing migraine

... and of course this had happened on her watch after the Prince's Champion had departed. The field marshal had left to see to other responsibilities and now Alexandria had found she was going to be the one having to explain that while their suspicions did appear to be born out, there was the greater matter that the Star League had apparently thought it was a good idea to bury who knew how many thousands of tons of war materiel just waiting to be dug up.

Those manuals? Robinson BA publishing were now in the process of painstaking copying SLDF TMs in preparation for reprinting them in who knew how many thousand copies for the current DMM leadership courses. Of course part of her responsibilities had been evaluation of any training material generated by the course and its implementation by the RBA to see if the AFFS could implement training that would provide the sort of performance in combat demonstrated at Elidere.

Taking notes about training methods, tactics and doctrine in the expectation that the AFFS's own academies could have aspiring mechwarriors put it in practice. As it was sitting now the ability to shape future curriculum and dispensation was going to be complicated by the RBA horse trading access to newly discovered Star League Manuals to other institutions.

That would be a problem. They were new, and the Field Marshal had wanted to shape future courses which would be harder with a new batch of reprints.

She froze and stopped at a break in the page, and the duke rolled over the entryway to the ward room's office space. The Duke hadn't asked how he'd known about the cache, and they had had to search around for the entrance... but that might have just meant they were looking for an intact entrance.

The object of her frustration and annoyance tossed into a chair, across from the wheel chair, "The lack of Crabs is a pain." He shook his head, "Not that I'm surprised the Crabs were just entering service by the tail end of the second hidden war. I'm not surprised there are Reunification war era Hoplites in that cache they've probably been in there since it was first built."

"There aren't any Marauders on this inventory." The loud lyran declared in surprise pushing through after them. "And its going to take forever to actually go through that place.

"No, there wouldn't have been. Some were allocated to castles, but Caches weren't intended to receive cutting edge hardware. No Marauders, no Crabs," He shrugged.

"I need a list." She state interjecting into their conversation, sounding more tired and more in need than she had wanted to. She took a breath and straightened, "You said that caches wouldn't carry certain mechs, and doubt the Wolfs Dragoons could have found one of these for their equipment." It wasn't something the Prince's Champion had requested she get, but the specific comment on the Annihilator, the Imp seemed to bear out... but the Dragoons had mechs like the Hoplite.

At the mention of the Dragoons, Lord Sandoval remarked with his own good point, "I met Colonel Wolf when Prince Ian was alive, when the Dragoons were under contract with the Federated Suns. He struck me as a very capable man, but I think we may be zeroing in on the use of correct terminology. If I understand Brian Cache is a proper term. Brian Castle is a proper term... but what if in the vernacular cache is being used to refer to a castle."

"Still wouldn't explain the JumpShips, or their DropShip fleet, also a Castle might have Marauders, but their Annihilators are almost surely recent manufacture, or they had their LBX's pulled for logistic reasons, but again, not the sort of thing I'd expect to end up in a castle... unless the Dragoon's ancestors buried them ... and the only source for that would be the troops who left with Kerensky."

--
Notes: I am not entirely happy with this, it is two segments, when it was originally going to be three. So canon is contradictory, in the use of lieutenant colonel, so I am ignoring the the Star League SLDF rank chart that says the SLDF doesn't have Lieutenant Colonel as a rank, as that's stupid and I'm going to ignore it. Jumping from Major to Colonel makes no damned sense to me.

That being said it might explain why Majors in the SLDF have stupid large maounts of authority., which brings us to the matter of Caches, and their naval counterparts. Because BT is about big stompy robots we don't see much mention of the naval equivalent, there is a couple mentions of them related to the SLDF and the Hegemony and for example we know the Helm Cache's equivalent naval storage got blown up by the Kuritans (never mind that Kurita was on the wrong side of Terra during this time period) whie Keeler was hiding the rest of his forces and of course the memory core, but there is also a couple of mentions related to ComStar about what they used for their hidden fleet and there have been a few other mentions, including references to facilities by the Rim World republic in their far flung outposts (So not uniquely a Terran, SLDF thing).


This of course goes into even just Star League mechs in the late 2500s had some advanced tech, I looked at more than a couple of canonical mechs that 'entered production in that period with fucking LBX 10 or Gauss rifles and yet the Amaris coup supposedly was enough that these weapons which by 2790 had been around for TWO HUNDRED years just disappear. and that gets into, why would the Dragoons assume that LBX at least wouldn't still be a thing. I can understand ER PPCs in current canon they were new Hegemony tech supposedly in 2751 (which is one of those date snafus someone made ignoring that there are a number of mechs which definitely came out before the supposed weapon was introduced. Which is what I originally assumed was the case with a bunch of the Gauss rifle mechs.)

I will probably follow this up with a shorter post sunday, we will see.

 

[Imperator Pax]

First Davion 12
(Extra)​

She shut the door, even though it was more for show than anything. She doubted anyone would eavesdrop but the glass facade was hardly going to stop anyone from noticing them. 'Just' Elidere would have warranted elevation into the petty nobility of the Federated Suns. One of the first things to likely to happen on New Avalon was of course that the Prince would knight the Victor of Elidere, and Ander's moon.

Golden spurs and a laurel wreath were about the bare minimum of public recognition he could expect on arriving at the capital of the Federated Suns.

She reached down to smooth her skirts. "They're still working to inventory the cache."

"I didn't expect them to finish." He replied tossing the stack of paper, the colonel sighed, "That should address what we know the Dragoons had in inventory in 3005 and the approximate roll out dates, the Imp I have no idea on."

That wasn't what she wanted to here. It was an admission which created other issues. Lady Yvonne had wanted details and if Alexandria was going to guess they were about to be put in a situation where the dragoons raised even more questions than they had had.

She coughed slightly, "We," Alexandria declared in as serene a tone as she could manage, "need you to order the suspension of work on the San Saba."

"Excuse me?"

"I've spoken with Lord Aaron, and we have come to the conclusion that a portion of the cache needs to be shipped to New Avalon immediately. Since most of the Cache are lost tech vehicles." Being largely constructed from between 2660 and 2710 or so. "I also need you to depart for New Avalon using one of your unit's JumpShips carrying those supplies."

... and of course the problem she had was what to do. As unit liaison she should have been remaining with the unit that had been the planned itinerary after all. After all it would have looked base to accompany the colonel to New Avalon without having participated in Elidere... but now there was teh Cache near Purki.

She expected to be criticized for failing to press some advantage or another and that was why she had a migraine. The recovery of the lost depot of the 63rd Mechanized Infantry Division that had originally been posted to Elider had included things like spare ASF frames, but mostly had included equipment for mechanized infantry. Carriers, and small arms along with other infantry equipment. Impressive, but not nearly as impressive as the Victory won on Elidere.

"I was under the impression that the Duke intended to distribute mechs to his knights."

.... an apt quote. That was what it was. "Some will receive mechs... " She paused, "Some of the cache will go to the Training Battalion," For the Robinson Battle Academy. "However what I need you to take to New Avalon is for an academy there."

"Have you put together a list of what needs to go?" He asked.

... and that was the other problem. "They haven't finished the inventory," she remarked, returning the matter to what the conversation had opened with.

"And you haven't decided what should go and what should stay." He replied, "What's the objective, what are you trying to accomplish with the units you want shipped to New Avalon? Are these likely to be pushed to a training battalion, see military service with a frontline after. Or is this about having a collection for reference at the school?"

He had other questions, which only distracted from the issue.

He paused, "My suggestion is you go through what's listed in the inventory, and select either on the basis of what is the most available or the least. Unless there is something in particular you know New Avalon wants, but even as steerage there is only so much space in any individual dropship." Which wasn't to say Gene didn't implicitly understand the reason behind asking for the San Saba, "Do you have enough dropships to warrant Lebanon diverting from here, or Colorado?" He was a little loath to taking Pasha off seen, going deeper into the FedSuns would make it difficult for the Azami to do their black box comms... "Lebanon is a Liberty class, four collars, so three plus San Saba. If you mean to bring more than that, Colorado, but it is my advice that the Colorado would better remain on station if we have to respond to a combine incursion."

Admittedly that hinged having dropships to deploy the Robinson Rangers alongside any response to the Combine coming over the border.
--
His Grace the Duke of Robison, Minister and Field Marshal of the Draconis March could not have found himself in a better mood. There was a certain point in a man's life that one simply had to accept that you'd never know everything... most men just accepted that to mean understanding their wives, but there was a simple reality that there were more things than just that. At fifty five Aaron Sandoval understood his highest responsibilities were to the people of the Draconis March. A realization he had come to late in life, because of course he hadn't been the heir.

It was gratifying to hear that the Camerons of old had had concerns about the combine. It would have been better still to have the camerons act on these concerns, but he supposed if they had he'd never have found himself in the position he was in. If, on the domestic front, there was going to be anything troublesome about all of this it would be Elidere and Ander's Moon's in particular but the other venerators of the star league hoping to make pilgrimages to the Star league sites, and have a look around.

Still there was no getting around he was in a wonderful mood, and that there would need to be rewards for all involved... even if in real terms there was only one person responsible. The Colonel was leaving though. Colonel Shepherd was due to depart his domain for that of Lord Aaron's own liege lord, and the First Prince would have additional gifts awaiting him.

... and well he supposed it was entertaining that the Prince's champion hadn't predicted. If she had had any indication that there was ... this Brian Cache thing on his world she'd have never left. Colonel Shepherd had explained of course that the Caches had been casting interrogatives looking for the right sort of person. Someone who knew how to return the guide handshake, apparently the broadcast had been looking for a while now... maybe since the Combine had invaded Robinson back during the first succession war.

Purki's factories and the industrial sprawl that had once defined the region had been laid to waste by that invasion, and while the deep bunkers hundreds of meters beneath the surface were not effected it seemed reasonable to conclude other systems closer to the surface had been. It didn't matter. In two days of work, and really less than that, his domain was even better positioned to fight the snakes. The printers could work overtime, they were earning it. Reproducing star league manuals just for the prestige of being the one to have the originals was worth their salaries, but the real value would be in training his armor to use them.

"She has your nose to the grind then?" He asked applying the break to his wheel chair.

The young man looked up as Colonel Cameron moved to attention. The inventory was, when you got down to it a list of names and numbers. There was a certain point where you had an inventory and you were lucky if you knew what you were looking at.

Formal greetings out of the way lord Aaron did his best to look at the paperwork. "So the Archer?"

"It makes sense for it to be the most common heavy mech in the cache." Colonel Shepherd replied, "Its not a bad mech, and its no surprise being an age of war design that they'd be in Caches like this, what will you do with the Highlanders?"

"I was considering offering one to Colonel Cameron."


"Ah thank you your grace.

Lord Aaron nodded, "But really what I'm here for is to discuss the readiness of the Company. With you departing are there going to be nay issues with training them?"

"Nothing stands out. For better or worse everyone has experience in battlemech duels, given the ubiquitous nature of the Highlander in SLDF regiments and we have enough of them, I'd almost recommend moving half the company over." He suggested. "I know that most of your rangers are using personnel mechs and that might prompt objections. I have every confidence in Bahar's ability to instruct in advanced maneuver and engagement."

... and he had every right to be confident, "Of course, I wasn't questioning the Captain's ability. She demonstrated that taking down that warhammer during the trials."
==

--
Notes: Here, small Sunday update. So in July the planned schedule changing up some, now before we get to that I will be attempting to return to updating the expanded Luxen content it has its own thread. However we will have a series of interludes focusing on Bahar, Septim, and also Bubbles and Beau with their respective specialties. Also possibly Hanzo So basically the named staff thus far, as well as the Duelist Task Force over the course of the Robinson series of content that takes place while Gene is off doing New Avalon stuff.

Which brings us to the conclusion of this arc, and what it means. Now that we are here, I can actually post parts of the Last Gunslinger series of snippets for Hesperus without hopefully any confusion of where did the gauss rifles or Arrow IV come from in terms of that battle, or for that matter using those in the second battle of Dieron in the alternate timeline of there goes the HPG network.

 

[Imperator Pax]

EXTRAS
The First Prince ft Dr Banzi​

New Avalon September 3017

The protected transit had taken them south of the capital where what had been christened the New Avalon Institute of Science had been erected, "What am I looking at doctor?" As far as the prince could tell it was just an animated spiral.

"DNA molecules, your highness." The frazzled looking man replied. He gave a sudden cheeky grin and tapped the keys with a rapid series of loud clacks as a result, "And an anomaly. You have to appreciate people who actually tell their doctors the truth.... well I'm getting ahead of myself." The image sort of changed, the base was similar but not identical "This is Miss Kerensky's blood sample, and you see similar markers from Colonel Wolf, but not as pronounced."

... and like that he was lost, "I thought you were talking about Colonel Shepherd." The First Prince replied.

"Oh I am, I'm getting to that. You see Colonel Shepherd reported to the Magistracy he'd spent time in a stasis pod." The man adjusted his glasses, "Even reported some of the symptoms of memory loss associated with it in some persons"


"So he's another," He paused, "Clancy?"

"Probably." Banzai waved a hand, "But no that wasn't what I was getting at, it was the similarities in phenotype presentation."

The Buckaroo was known for the cheekiness but Hanse really would have preferred to be in on whatever 'the joke' so to speak was, "In English doctor."

English in this case was speculation over who might have kept access to Star League era medical technology besides the Canopians. A fact that the Dragoons had been bad about concealing. They'd figured out that the Star League was gone, that the great houses were at war, but they'd terribly misjudged what equipment would be common never mind how quality of life had declined in other ways.

"As I said there are similarities in the expression of certain factors." The doctor shook his head, "I think it explains his age."

"How so?"

The was a cluck, "The Hegemony, like the Alliance let people with the right connections in even before the peerages. James McKenna was sponsored into the Naval Academy, and was by his eighteenth birthday commanding an entire fleet. Given the disaster of the Amaris I'd guess that our colonel... I would guess had his parents pull him up the ranks to lead either nepotism or because he was considered politically reliable enough or something... but then something happens and he's shoved into a stasis pod... in the vernacular," He grumbled "and then sleeps for two hundred years."

Hanse Davion, Duke of New Avalon and First Prince of the Federated Suns nodded. "You said something about expression characteristics."

"There is a certain degree of talent, skill expression. There is no mechwarrior gene, per se its more about different neurological functions. Kerensky, and Wolf, and Shepherd all show varying overlap in their expressions. The Hegemony was known to play god like that, and there were always rumors about what House Cameron did to themselves, and what rich Terrans could go and pay for. Why wouldn't you give your children the absolute best advantage they could have?" The doctor shrugged, "The Hegemony probably put thousands of officers into stasis tubes, or had that many otherwise flee into the reaches." Blue eyes seemed to ripple in the changing light, "That, " he indicated the dna strands, "It and the fact he seemingly has valid SLDF codes that are gene locked tells me either he's the genuine article or his parents were. Someone went to a lot of trouble to raise a mechwarrior of superb skill, ignoring anything else."

"Yvonne thinks the Combine did something."

The doctor shrugged, and with an exaggerated exasperation snorted, "I'm just a doctor, Hanse not some int wonk." He ran a hand through his hair. "Ask him about it when he gets here, in fact send him in for a physical. I want to see if there is actually something to synch ratios and all of this genetic determinst stuff like those books you gave me talked about."

Hanse's lips set into a thin line as he thought about Halstead station. The discovery of the 63rd​ Mechanized Infantry Division depot after centuries on Elidere had been a windfall, and of course he'd been promised through intermediaries that there were other boons that could be offered. Not that nobles weren't usually quick to promise more than they could hope to deliver in hopes of winning favor, but thus far more than he'd have expected had already been delivered.

His champion had confirmed that much. There was a clamoring, which had really begun with his brother's death for revenge against the combine, that he very much felt... but actually pursuing it had seemed difficult. "He should be on his way," It had been over three months since the news over the defeat of the 19th​ Galedon regulars.

The duke of Elidere's ability to pay ComStar to keep the line of communication open mostly to his immediate overlord Lord Aaron, had not precluded him from the expense of a direct real time report on that matter that had had to be broadcast through the Kestrel HPG, before one more transmission it reached New Avalon.

It was behavior in general somewhat unheard of. Perhaps in the Star League's day where the SLCOMNET had apparently been both faster, more reliable, and also cheaper then the call would have been one thing. The Duke of Elidere's call was unusual in other ways, but the events on Elidere had also spread through through the realm as a result. Initial fears of a combine incursion, then swelling as the tide turned, and of course ComStar's local chief of station had been taken hostage by agents of the dragon, that had gotten out as well around the same time as confirmation was delivered of the damage done to 19th​, before confirmation of the Galedon Regulars destruction.

By the time that destruction had been confirmed Precentor New Avalon had already been demanding the data roms to promulgate throughout the realm.

Hanse Davion had never planned on being first prince. That had been Ian's responsibility. He had been brought up to support his brother's reign, and he'd worked towards that end until Ian had been killed. Then all of a sudden he was first prince, and the war with the combine, the conflict that had existed for some three hundred years particularly who counted the Combine's insertion of themselves into the Davion succession crisis of the 28th​ century, was not much closer to home. It was impossible to tell the people to wait, or to consider how best to game this out for the greatest strategic benefit. There was too much going on, but it was impossible to miss that ComStar's apparent signal and facility issues were so much less of a problem when they had their own personnel threatened.

... and while not every world in the Federated Suns had been told immediately the Precentor New Avalon had made it a point to insure the dissemination of the news of the Battle on his own remit... and if Yvonne was right that news was spreading through the Combine as well... and that could ... would likely have significant repercussions.
--
Notes: Extras, so among other details this touches on a number of different things which have either been referenced to have happened or ideas I had considered relatively early on, and some of those ideas were later transferred to the drafts for Essence Wielding Social General. For example in EWSG Odin is a MechWarrior Phenotype now in that I have decided if that means he actually 'True Born' i.e. Did his parents stick the zygote into an iron womb or is he more like Jaime Wolf who has a 'true born' father but was a conventional pregnancy by his mother. That's explicitly a character detail.

Gene is probably / not definitively, but the implication in this snippet is that he's probably the product of mama was too busy to carry a baby to term so he was artificially gestated in what the clans would call iron wombs. Maybe there is some Hegemony Gene modification there, because that was what rich hegemony parents did.

This brings us to is Gene SLDF or not. Thats one of things where this story has had other idea that came together. I've left it vague. Gene has credentials that say that, and in one early iteration of the story it was the AI generated them before Gene woke up, where as in another version the idea was well its the blending of one transmigratory soul into the stasis body of someone put in the tube.


Admiral Clancy has been a thing in this for a while in the drafts, in terms of posted content he gets mentioned in the Highland Faire extras regarding castle northwind from a couple months ago. And on that, one of the following snippets to come is a Marauder and other SLDF units fighting Rim Worlders and that could be a flashback or not. [and of course in Tristan's backstory that was itself an adapation of another idea where Gene ends up in the stasis pod as a result of a mutiny, so I generate a lot of various ideas, too many ideas.] There are some other things, obviously yes ComStar stuff I don't know if that really needs to be covered.


Spoiler

Spoiler

In EWSG if it hadn't already started to show depending how much you want to read into it, but some people have suggested is Odin actually a Cameron? And that might not be an unreasonable assumption to Odin's bodyguard choice for some people to leap at

Spoiler

Spoiler
Bloodname Steiner.

Now note that that was always in the plan after rolling Phenotype and Lyran, it was too easy to pass up and has already been hinted at with Freddy's musing, but Gene was never intended to be a Cameron scion and I already had a McKenna character on the books to reuse that idea. Now that being said given how popular the Golden Blood trope is, for example see the other BattleTech Isekai Cyoa, it was certainly idea i've toyed with in other places.

Link for 'This is the Inner Sphere': https://drive.google.com/file/d/1YENKovt8urgqgK-38PiSfl3Sb8el9v1U/view?usp=sharing

In other news, Let me take a moment to reiterate how much I despise Windows 10 and its 'we're going to restart now, fuck whatever you were doing'.

 

[Imperator Pax]

Extras Blood on the Sand (Spring 2765)​

A warm desert sun beat down... not really hot for the planet, and the day in addition to being dry was supplemented by a decent wind moving in from the north east. It would have been by local standards been a nice day all things considered. Ideal for light maneuvering through the northern countryside

Chatter through the Network had turned from good natured banter to abrupt calls for aid from the regulars forcing them to hike down through the river bed, and by that point the fighting was already underway. The MMI threw up magnified images of the engaged units. Regular Army units in tan with painted Corp idents badges, followed by projected Medium and Light enemies painted black and tans with shark badges... that looked familiar

The Marauder's dark tan and lighter streaks were the same paint job as its lance mates.. The Archer initiated their advance bringing fire salvo-ing its paired set of twenty tube launchers. A moment later the lance's two medium mechs added another twenty tube and then the 2H's five tube Holly.

The lance divided into teams pairing a lieutenant with each forming a direct assault unit equipped with jumpjets, and a a medium and heavy missile boat pair that lacked jumpjets. The Commline linking into the Marauder's Dalban HiRez. A system capable of running battalion or regimental level command directives feeding targeting data into the medium mech on the other end's Artemis IV suite.

The five by five signal strength was good as even being walked in as the second team poured sixty LRMs into the enemy didn't change the fact that the enemy had them heavily outnumbered... and from all indications from orbit... the Navy wasn't doing much better the Taurian forces seemed to have popped off a small galaxy's worth of new stars. Whether or not the Black Lion and her escorts leading the detachment moving to reinforce the 11th​ fleet would survive would depend on the tenacity and guts of the spacers.

There was nothing to be done though about the fight in space. How the Taurians had managed to get this far, and with this many troops was a question for after the fighting had been settled. The HiRez didn't pain a pleasant picture of what the situation at L1's Jump Point looked like.... the Navy had had the advantage that the enemy had had to jump in from Nadir rather than risk hitting the much smaller point, in astronomical terms, between Planet and Solar gravities. At least the Hegemony computers seemed to have maintained that advantage over the periphery rebels despite the latter someone how managing to put together a mind bogglingly massive number of mechs to throw at what was supposed to be just a relatively minor garrison.

Speaking of Garrison apparently the Capellan House Troops were defending the planetary capital to the south, their ASF hopefully doing a good job staying on the bulls just in case they decided to start popping cans of instant sunshine within the gravity well.

There was a flash in the upper atmosphere, too dim to be a blink and you miss it for the naked human eye but the computer registered the log. The Essex class SLS Malvern Hill was gone, the nukes snapping the warship's spine. Other detonations and reports of damage echoed Kearsage's fighter wings unloading their own nukes

Battalion traffic began to increase, as the Regulars were rebroadcast, "Sunray-Minor reporting massing contacts. Relaying." The Regulars XO was scrambling to consolidate his Army Battle Regiment as it was, and that meant order a shift laterally 'down'.

Talos warbook data flashed. At least those would stand out compared to the Dervish and Wasps his computer had already tagged. If the Bulls were reinforcing their already existing 3:1 numbers advantage this was going to get substantially worse as those mechs came through the productive farmland south of the river.

The LX Corp units moved to counter the advancing medium mechs, and if his Dalban was reading right the shark mechs were bee lining straight for the lance. It must not have just been him him, "Are they?"

"Assault Mechs coming, Rampage."

LRMs cycled towards the incoming, but for little good. Carrying fourteen tons of armor and loaded with heat sinks in its torso the inbound black and tan company cresting the hill apparently hadn't appreciated their harrassing their smaller relatives. "Headshots, Headshots."

The Marauder steadied legs locking as he found the lead mech in his reticle. A breath eased out and twin bursts of ball lightning echoed from his PPCs. The multifaceted cockpit assembly melted and the machine went down stumbling over its own walk, pitching into a heap that the mech behind it had to jink to the side before it tripped over.

With little better to do the Archer in their lance reoriented to rear security and firing on the Wasps they had started engaging at the beginning of their participation. The Kyudo's Extended Range Large flared white in his sensor's thermals as it fired. The Kyudo's targeting suite unlike the Archer had was equipped with Artemis IV and a second return the missiles followed the bath of the targetting laser as well as the Sorenstein's damage. The Shadowhawk didn't have that advantage. It was probably the case that the two lieutenants in the lance were equipped with Standard Hegemony pattern Archer and Shadowhawk models as a result of rank. They were support, and wingmen to the more senior pilots... and he supposed they were supposed to be showing them how it was done.

This wasn't the Combine front so the chance of one on one mech duels were slim.... but they'd been here to keep the periphery rebels in line... and if that was their mission... well they'd never expected whole regiments of TDF to show.

The niggling feeling he was missing something clicked even as his PPC's continued cycling warned him that they couldn't keep this up. Sharks... these weren't just Taurian rebels... the whole damn periphery was rebelling.

"Command positive warbook identification, Rampage, Amaris Dragoons in the field. We are engaging mixed Rim World Republic and Taurian forces." He wasn't sure the message went through and they couldn't hold this hillock from an entire assault company even after bleeding it. They simply didn't have the weight. He didn't wait for a response either, he tagged his wingman, "Lieutenant Sanders pull back I'll cover," A wave of LRMs came in and started to sandpaper the unfortunate Shadowhawk. "Go now." He ordered. "Walker," His machine obliged switching to the direct line with the Kyudo, "We're bugging out, maintain fire and cross for the rail line," The MMI highlighted an extraction root that they could circle around to join the rest of the massing Terran Mech Battalion moving to reinforce the regulars, but they needed to get clear the Vox 280 that powered the Earthwerks Archer was powerful enough to get the other heavy mech away from the assaults, but they needed to get a head start and get space if they were going to link up with other Terran units.

He safed the Magna Hellstars to let them cool, and adjusted the gauntlets firing three of his medium lasers into the armored glass of the nearest enemy mech sending it tumbling backwards, before triggering his jump jets to send him flying back away from the approaching enemy.
--
Notes: Extras this is an older segment, it was something that got written, and yeah not necessarily canon. This would be early in 2765 if it happened, basically right as the Periphery uprising occurs but it wasn t written to conform 1:1 necessarily with the actual Amaris crisis canon events as we know.
On Sunday, the usual update day, we will resume definitively canon material to the prime timeline.

 

[Imperator Pax]

New Avalon Travel Time Interlude
September 3017
Part I
--
Severus 'Septim' Alexander leaned back into his Merlin's cockpit, and tried the breathing exercises the boss had recommended. He didn't recall the dream he had .... actually all things considered he had slept pretty well. This was ... well not to be crass but the best paying and nicest gig he'd had ever.

The SLDF neurohelmet was a different model than the silver... not that he'd ever call it that to the Gunslinger's face, tiara but it was still almost insubstantial compared to the fishbowls most people had to use. The boss was gone, shipped off to New Avalon, and he supposed that meant the grizzled old navy man was in charge. Pasha though was content to let the Mechwarriors manage their own affairs, and so far there hadn't been any issues. Bahar was ironically busier than he was, Beau at least had the advantage of only needing to manage the missile boats of Easy Company.

It was a wild thing to contend with, and Septim was glad it wasn't his job. He wasn't really sure given how insane all of this was exactly what his job. The DropShips ranged from the combined arms carrier Sam Houston the boss had first shown back up on at Luxen carrying only a Lance... and even that was in name then ran all the way up to the newly refurnished Hidalgo that could carry an entire battalion... even if Bahar would be commanding mostly Sunny Boys if something happened.

It was such a perversely weird thing he mused. He'd be basing his own company sized force off of the Baffins and most of those would be Davion cadets that he was supposed to shepherd, no pun intended, through the crucible of a first battle. Septim was still kicking himself for not pushing to get the remaining assaults not tagged with him for deployment, but now the boss had left to New Avalon.

He stared out, seeing double and shook himself, "Ugh." The lyran shook his head and blinked as he went back to just using the good old mark 1 eyeball to view the Scrubland exercise area. As it was they were trying to fill out four more DMM Unions and as many tank carriers as they could get. That would have been easier if they had still been banking on using San Saba to transport DMM armor, but the second the boss had seen that armor in the cache... well it was clear that he had very unpleasant plans for any snakes they needed to skin.

... any dreams septim might have had about unicorns and percherons not withstanding. The boss shipping off world meant he'd been spared the Sun's version of the Catholic Church's bishop talking holy war... and it left him wondering how this was going to work.

Bahar was shouldering much of the work load because she was tangling with their official liaison and dealing with the duke, and handling the twelve most prestigious mech warriors their employers had put forward for the 'elite special training'...

... and honestly he was glad to have the cadets instead. This job was everything ... most everything good about the Luxen training contract, but with so much more employer support... on the other hand the Magistracy hadn't wanted to invade anyone, while the Federated Suns were spoiling for a chance to get even against the Combine. Totally different situations.

... and, looking at his heads up display, he could understand. People like Alessandro Steiner, the previous Archon, had talked about this sort of thing, about how they needed to stand up and take the fight to other successor states, but even his message was moderated by other factors leaving truly radical proposals to members of the nobility, the social generals especially. Advocating for this offensive or that offensive, and stirring up the middle classes for short bursts of motivated action, but never seeming to go far enough if they succeeded at all.

The difference he supposed was that they had a better spring board to work from. A better foundation in the form of the Snakes were already down a Regiment. The boss had said that accounted something like one and a half percent of the Combine's offensive BattleMech power, possibly as much as two percent depending on actual strength, but not likely to be less. That didn't sound like much... except thinking in terms of the modern value of a BattleMech... that was a hundred and fifteen mechs, and the Federated Suns were looking to compound those losses.

There was a ping and a handshake between his mech and Bards, and Septim strained against his harness as he sat up, "How was your run time?"

"We're making progress."

There had been talk about pulling all the Mechs out of the cache and constructing units out what they had found. That had gotten shot down because most people were already familiar with their specific chassis. There were people who were clamoring for Marauders after Elidere, but as the boss had predicted searches had confirmed none to be present. People though, much like how the Magistracy had looked at Luxen's Roms, watched the battle roms of Elidere and Ander's moon and watered over the prospect of the seventy five ton machines as the tip of the spear.

"That's good." He replied keying the mike. Progress was good. "I don't want to fall behind the schedule."

"Certainly not." The scottsman agreed, especially because there were now indisputable rumors that the Duke of Robinson was serious about standing back a third Robinson Rangers he certainly had the material for such a command. They didn't have the time for that. "I wouldn't want to be the one to have to pass that along."

That was the truth. This wasn't the periphery. This was the big leagues. This was a gig for one of the Successor Lords, for a Great House of the Inner Sphere. House Davion was going to make war on House Kurita in nominal response to the Draconis Combine's attack on Elidere.

If they pulled this off, they were basically set for life. This was the sort of chance most mercenaries never got... and more than that, they had the chance to not just to take the chance, but to actually potentially win the game.

-
Two hours later after the last round of drills in the Blue Zone he was cracking a beer with the guys... the veterans of what had been a scratch company of what the Magistracy could cobble together, "How far do you think the news has gone? About Elidere?" Chang asked as yet another replay filled the trivid.

"We've been told its all over both sides of the border." Federated Suns, and the Draconis Combine, "I don't see why it wouldn't have spread to the other successor states, but who knows if its hit the periphery yet." Beau replied extending his beer to click against his.

"They said its the biggest single battle loss in recent history."

Which might have been true, or the FedSuns talking head could have been fudging things for the sound bite. "I suppose its been pretty quiet over the last couple years." Septim replied. It really depended on what the fuck recent was supposed to mean. For the average person on the street the news was probably welcome, especially given the usual sentiments of the average joe in the Draconis March.

Chang put her strawberry daiquiri down, "So the boss is where?"

"By now, probably Kestrel." Then to head off the question before it could b e asked, Septim shook his head, "They're not going to visit." Leaving aside the way the boss was about space travel, they didn't have time. It was five jumps to New Avalon. It'd be another three weeks to get them to New Avalon, "Now, on the way back... I don't know."

"More likely they'll be on New Avalon waiting." Beau replied.

"You think?"

"The dukes of kestrel are immediate vassals to the first prince as lord of the Crucis March." The larger man shrugged. "Word about the cache's discovery has been," that they were "trying to keep mum." about it. And it was four months to the combine border even assuming that the snakes did find out and that assumed that they could launch immediate... and with the situation it seemed likely they'd have some kind of warning..

"That's going to be a hell of a shock. Did you see what the Maguanacs were doing with those Alacorn things the boss wanted?"

The Azami tankers had been scary enough in their sixty tonners, even before the boss had started wanting to give them LBX 10s from the travelling merchant... the assault tanks just, "Yeah I saw them." Especially in the dusk, when the streaks of dust they kicked up in the scrub land was especially noticeable. "Those tanks are like what four hundred years old?"

"Yeah the plate says they rolled off the factory on New Earth March 2616." There was a pause, and he gestured to the box of material on the floor, fresh from the book binders, "I'm not looking forward to grading these."

Chang snorted, "Don't look at me, We agreed to split the load, even Hanzo agreed to help grade."

Septim snorted at the prospect of the quiet man grading papers. Everyone had their own part, and it'd take the boss five weeks to get back from New Avalon, so really they'd be here until they shipped for Northwind. "Don't remind me, we've got so much to do, and thats not even counting getting to Northwind by Christmas."
--
Notes: So on the travel segments looking at the outline... or the several iterations of the outline, some fudging of the dates will need to be done to account for BT's slow FtL. Its roughly 3 months travel time from New Avalon to Northwind, which is somewhat complicated given Highland Faire's original 5 January 3018 date.

Anyway for this time period this is the first of Septim's segment as we explore our Lyran friend's perspective of all of this and he deals with his side of things, and we will also see the perspectives of the rest, but this is more or less a get the ball rolling. The Interlude series will probably be the usual ten segments. This is one is missing some of the commentary regarding the cache, the mention that yes Lord Sandoval would like to expand his house forces, but we haven't gotten to name droping Robinson standard battlemechs yet. Or dealing with the manuals to diagnose getting weapons to properly communicate talking to TTS computers, or stuff that has become lost due to the succession wars. Also we don't deal with some of the dynamics of feudal politics that we're going to deal with at some point... and not just for the FedSuns.

 

[Imperator Pax]

Travel Interlude Part 2​

September 3017​

He ejected the magazine from his stainless autopistol and reloaded before retracting his target. Hanzo was aware that there had been considerations of moving him to a more powerful mech. The recent discovery was such that there had been discussions to move several members to functionally identical mechs that were available.

One key reason to not simply move all of the company to the venerable Highlander was it would have certainly demonstrated that these were like the Marauders of the SLDF the command mechs and should be attacked first. The ninety ton mech was also too slow, at least by his preferences. They needed to move fast.

The Thugs were out because they had been constructed on Errai, which had of course been a target by the recently defeated General Samsonov and his regiment. There were talks that Hanzo had overheard simply by not speaking, and actually listening to people that the first prince might be willing to invest in Errai to get those machines to be produced by the Federated Suns. So those had been eliminated. The eighty ton machine had other limitations given its missile capabilities were strictly SRMs, but if it had been an option he'd have been happy with such an upgrade.

Hanzo inspected his target, deemed it satisfactory and left the range after cleaning up. There was going to be a lot of work to do. The boss was off world, and while he was dutifully focused on the training manuals and instructions he had his own responsibilities leading the light lance raiding and reconaisnce patrols. LRRP as it had been terms in one annex memorandum.

They were preparing for a glorious battle. Honor awaited them. Every day his skills grew sharper as he trained... and one day he would move to a heavier mech, once he was ready for that. Besides his cicada was fleet, and effective for the role he played. With a glance to the curtain of dusk falling he considered retiring to his room to read. There was no end to material to study. Hanzo had always viewed improving one self as important, but on the periphery combine arms tactics directing light mechs to scout for heavily armored tanks or self propelled artillery had been ... somewhat low on the priority.

Combing through the St George records he had viewed numerous instances of effective combined arms actions by BattleMech Brigades of the Hegemony. Especially given the tactical and operational emergency protocols directive that had been distributed to the others. Pursuant to ancient Hegemony tradition in the event of a position being lost or overrun by hostile forces and the defenders overwhelmed a directive existed to retask all available artillery and air assets to their aid.

Broken Arrow.

An amazing prospect. They had been drilling with artillery since arrival, and of course the Machine Spirit had guided precision 'fires' onto enemy forces in what Davion forces had called danger close time and time again. Of course they did not have the ancient Hegemony intelligence and its war machines with them, so accommodations had to be made.

... but it was an amazing prospect. As it happened the Azami still had a few working examples of target acquisition gear developed by the Hegemony in the late 26th​ century and with the acquisition of several chaparalls they had a sufficient number of Arrow IVs if it came to that.

Of course a Broken Arrow invocation was a final recourse. He had seen a Battle Rom of Hegemony officers only invoking it knowing that they were remaining behind to protect withdrawing comrades for the counterattack after the artillery. Other Roms, including the 'Wildfire' invokation of Tristan's last remaining Terran officer had been done to protect the Hegemony against treachery even knowing that it was a situation of 'mutually assured destruction' against the rebels.

The 'TOEP', the Dervish pilot insisted on pronouncing it the same as the color 'taupe', Memo had pointedly not included a Wildfire protocol... but he supposed that was reasonable. Such Hegemony fortresses as required such necessary measures.
--
Hanzo initiated the start up on his BattleMech. The Cicada's primary computer informing it was Monday morning, and the local weather forecast collecting the data through the Battalion tactical data network provided through the Daimyo HQ and the Atlas.

The rain of the previous Sunday evening had passed them in the night, and the forecast looked promising once hte morning fog cleared. Chang was already moving the Atlas through its start up motions. Unlike Septim's Merlin the repairs and rebuild hadn't had any particular hickups. There hadn't been any problems with the engine, gyro, or surprisingly enough the PPCs. That had proven something of a relief to the techs as PPCs had a reputation for being finicky to install.

The hundred tonner painted in a similar dark earth tone with lighter sand streaks of his own mech, as well as that of Bahar's mongoose. It was an SLDF Desert Warfare camo, or a variation of, he'd seen the Eridani use a similar though not identical version the scheme in the orientation roms they were going to be covering later in the week for joint operations.

What was missing from the exercise field was a Marauder... rather a specific marauder. The davions had a few, but the abscence was palpable. The division of labor spread their ranks somewhat thin, and most certainly weakened their staff learning component. Septim certainly was trying, but the Lyran was overwhelmed by the numbers in the unit, despite an admirable effort to integrate the Robinson tankers into formations with the medium and heavy battlemechs line of advance in simulator and field exercises.... but there were limits.

Then again he suspected the Davions had known that. The Battle Roms cataloging mech engagements following Elidere had far and away established the skill of individual pilots. Of course that had been an issue for the youngest participant at Elidere, and on Ander's Moon. Mr Sutton wasn't old enough to shave yet and had mech kills to his name, which made him stand out amongst the cadets.

He maneuvered his Cicada around the recently repainted Dervish. The '-Md' had been in the green and earth tones of a temperate clime paint scheme to match the forests and hills of Elidere. Now it followed the Robinson Ranger inspired training battalion colors. Cadet Sutton's ownership of his own mech did not necessarily distinguish him as much as it might have elsewhere. What distinguished him was his participation because he had already seen battle against his realms ancestral foe.

Sutton would have the distinction of definitively being part of the unit that would be going on the offense. The bottleneck there was one of space lift capacity. The sooner they had to attack the less time they would have to gather JumpShips. A month ago that had been manifest in the concerns that if the Combine attacked first they wouldn't be able to life the sixty plus mechs they had to the battlefield in time to meet the combine... but in a few months they should have sufficient DropShips to accommodate.

The Cicada's communications hardware notified him of the incoming handshake with a chime. Beauregard Alexander had the missile boats preparing for final start up checks, the last pilots would be moving to their machines, and then they could start the day. The different Mech Companies needed to be able to work in tandem with each other as well as other arms of battle, which was what this was designed to test.

He affirmed his receipt mechanically through his neurohelmet and continued to navigate his Cicada to the starting position. His mech wasn't the only medium mech in the formation two Pheonix Hawks had replaced lighter machines, but that merely emphasized the volume of Valkyrie as the Light Company's most common mech. It made the LRRP's objective of Find Fix and Finish easier.

The F3 Principle was less glorious than individual warriors dueling one on one but it played to the speed that was the strength of light mechs. They were to find the enemy, fix them in place for engagement by larger units, and if necessary then finish the fight while the enemy were engaged before they could withdraw, counter attack or attempt to otherwise regroup.
--
Note: Not much going on here, we don't actually get Rio and Hanzo tangling, though this does forewshadow the later mech upgrades of moving some people to different mechs as in Hanzo's case the Cicada is basically a somewhat better protected bug mech. (Basically a heavier Jenner)

And on the Jenner in addition to the SLDF having the A, somehow Kerensky kipped off with the later common model... which resulted in the Jenner IIC and Clan wolf having them. As opposed to taking the 7A SLDF version and developing I don't know some long range sniper duelist mech... zellbringen machine.. (I mean out of universe sure, but with all the il clan oh the clans totally have this and this and version whatever with the rec guides).

 

[Imperator Pax]

Interlude Part 3​

There were limits to the stuff one could do on a JumpShip during transit. Working out in zero gee was kind of difficult at least in terms of variability... but it was true that the JumpShip itself had a grav deck... still it mostly left him using the same against his own body weight exercises... and studying. San Saba wasn't exactly ... Triumph's weren't exactly glamorous or configured for luxury, but the San Saba had been the in the process of modifications.... that they'd then had to stop, and were focused on cargo transport. It mostly cargo space rather than the machinery needed to actually deploy... so the hold was filled with palletized vehicles.

He had no idea how they were going to effectively offload the cache contents, or the portion rather that they were bringing, because well no one had told New Avalon they were coming. They were going to show up, land and then tell the First Prince major domo or head of household... or whoever in the feudal hierarchy and make it their problem.

Presumably that would make the Davion Life Guards responsible for the material until it could be sorted through, unless there was some additional feudal hoops that needed to be jumped through with regards to the bequest. Whatever the case, it was going to make getting to New Avalon a headache.

The contract hadn't exactly been written with the notion of 'cargo hauler', but he hadn't been prepared to fight, or quibble over the transport request, so he'd had them retask, even if this was a real mess. It took him out of his depth. For the first time really like a year, he was separate from the people he'd spent most of his time around, which only compounded the perceived isolation of space travel.

An isolation he hadn't really felt going out on the exploratory missions as a security consultant looking for a new Azami homeworld in the deep periphery, or coming back from that mission.

Gene pushed himself through the zero gee as they waited for the drive to finish charging... a part of it he supposed wasn't just in being alone more or less. He could have made small talk , or more small talk, with the JumpShip crew, it was the anticipation of the journey's end. They were almost there. They would reach New Avalon at the end of September, on schedule.

One more jump.

--
She was on a clock of her own she supposed... maybe she had been all along. His Grace, the duke of Robinson, had suggested that they explain the cache's discovery as a direct outgrowth of the locating the 63rd​ MID's depot. They wouldn't refer to the cache in official nomenclature, the term 'brian cache' wouldn't appear anywhere. They would simply call it a star league cache, and that it had been found because of locating elidere's missing garrison facility.

There was a soft knock on the office door and a Robinson Armsman on loan from the duke stuck his head in, "Captain Pasha is here, ma'am." The middle aged officer remarked.

She shuffled the paperwork, and nodded send him in. The aged Azami raised questions. Where was the JumpShip Cairo? Where had it come from? Besides that and others there was the matter of the cache... the cache was pretty convincing that the Star League had suspected something would need to be done about the Combine.... but the given explanation made sense. Jocasta Cameron had squirrelled away material because the Combine had attempted to interfere in the succession crisis of another member state. The Davion Succession Crisis... and hadn't that basically been House Kurita's argument to being First Lord, that they were supposedly, somehow next in line in Cameronian succession with all of the other Cameron's dead. It was the historical political 'legal' justification from the first succession war it seemed, but it fell even more flat than their attempts with Mary Davion's children.

"Lady Alexandria," The captain of the JumpShip bowed.

She decided not to beat around the bush, and get to the issue, "You're having problems hiring."

He sighed, "This is true."

It was no secret that Lord Aaron had expected to have to relieve Elidere, but the prospect to a further offensive by the Combine offensive in spite or even because of their losses was just as likely to materialize, and the Draconis March had been hiring not just here but elsewhere who it could. "You have some other solution to this problem besides relying on recruiting on Northwind?" Now came the problematic part. The part they lacked the whole picture for, and why she was dangling out to ask the question to avoid blow back to the Prince's Champion.

"It is true," He replied taking the seat across the table.

There had been rumors of an exodus of Azami, the disappearance of tens of thousands... was the Cairo with that merchant fleet that had disappeared from the lucrative, normal shipping lanes of the Inner Sphere to head into the Periphery in some mirror of the Age of Exploration. "We will be required to ship off world ourselves before too long." Thankfully Northwind was a world in the Federated Suns, and given its proximity to Errai their presence would be unlikely to raise too many questions... or at least hopefully until it was too late... but she doubted it. She expected the Combine to know something was coming. "What is your solution?"

It was her job to know. As liaison. "I have a dispensation to hire on from people in good standing among the community." There was a term that the Azami seemed to use equivalent to the Combine's broader term of 'Ronin', but it eluded her at the moment. She wondered if if the Azami might not have ended up more like the Highlanders if they had been absorbed into the combine later... or if that term was a direct response to the combine's use of Ronin. "I am expecting them to meet us on Northwind if they can make it to break bread with us." He replied. "You are correct that we will have to leave soon, I assume that this is concerning space lift capacity, in addition to the security concern?"

--
His first view of the capital of the Federated Suns was a far cry from the historical images of its time during the Star League. Even during the Star League's height the house capitals had always boasted impressive defensive warship fleets ... a reminder of the age of war, so the lack of them, which should have meant nothing given that Warships hadn't been a thing for decades? A century or more now? It wasn't just the sort of thing to just search for.

Regardless it wasn't just that. The databases from both Aquagea, and Tristan's stellar traffic suggested that as capital ... as a major trade world New Avalon should have been swarming with JumpShips. Up to possibly a thousand JumpShips in system in the process of carrying, charging, or refit at the height of the star league c. 2700... before... the second hidden war, and then the outbreak of the Succession wars towards the end of the century.

After having seen the images through his Marauder's computer database ... Gene had to admit to himself he was a little disappointed that New Avalon wasn't more impressive. Footage from ASF of Terra... of Sol in the archives equally suggested he'd be just as disappointed... it seemed as if Mars, and Venus, maybe Luna as well had never recovered from Amaris, and while Terra was neutral ground it was not the gem of the Hegemony... a blink and you miss it shared Lyran newscast, as they had gotten in, had referenced Korea as an independent nation on Earth not a unified planetary government... and he didn't know what to make of that.

Gene turned to the Azami ensign, "San Saba cleared to detach." She was of course, it was perfunctory, by the book following of procedure to ensure the DropShip was ready, that the flight path for final approach to Avalon City's starport was ready and that all the is and ts and been dotted nad crossed. "So they're waiting for us?"

"Yes, Colonel."

New Avalon, then.

Showing up to a planetary capital with a hold stuffed full. If they had had more time they could have carried more... if they had had more time though they wouldn't have needed to try and ad hoc San Saba into a bulk carrier, and could have found other cargo haulers secure enough for the mission... but the truth was they'd been on a time schedule since this contract had started. The prospect of a Combine attack seemed more and more likely, and so they had rushed to pack stuff into the hull's cargo bays.

Lebanon was signaled that they were making final approach, and would reestablish contact once they had docked. All the usual checklist things for descent from orbit out of the way, they had about seventy minutes of fly down, slow down, and then hopefully a short taxi and contact with the groundside davion officials.

He doubted the last would be short. It looked like a pretty big reception committee given the ongoing news footage. He wondered if the Triumph-class was disappointing to the news crews... would it be? The transport bus was probably not photogenic even with a fresh coat of paint... they might have expected him to arrive by something more visually impressive, an Overlord or the like. It didn't matter that relatively was not that much more mass. Its armament would have been more impressive, but why would that be a factor, dropship weapons weren't a noticeable factor in their appearance.


He looked at the cloud mass, and the continents. New Avalon was a temperate earth like world like Robinson. Earth like gravity, temperature, supported a wide span of terran crops with ease, and of course New Avalon and its surrounding cities were nestled in a well protected coastal expanse. The home of several billion people, and self sustaining, as befitted a capital world New Avalon was still a gem of of a find in terms of habitable planets.

Still it was hard to reconcile the images he'd viewed from within his Marauder to this. To the Modern reality of New Avalon, as it was in the succession wars, and in the year 3017.

--
Notes: Alexandria and Pasha's segment had a particular chunk of it deleted, as in a part of the conversation which is not canon, and another part of it will probably be reused somewhere else. Anyway just to be clear, I glitched the tiemline somewhere so we're going to handwave travel time a bit leading into Northwind. In the segment after this, we will hopefully introduce Hanse Davion on screen officially but part four will cover some Mech stuff of training with the 'duelist section'. Tentatively there is some material ,as I said the inbetween Robinson and Northwind is looking to be about ten segments, so material for Lord Sandoval and the staff, as well as Abner and Ford returning.

 

[Imperator Pax]

WHOOPS, an Alternate timeline

II Battle of Dieron 3018.​

They had never had the opportunity at Elidere to do this... and they'd been on the offense at First Dieron so not a priority. Not when they had gone in reasonably assuming that ComStar was probably at least somewhat beholden to host nation sentiment of some stripe, and that presumably they would beam word out as soon as the invasion was identified as an invasion. He wasn't sure if Precentor Dieron had beamed word out or not during the invasion of Dieron a couple of months earlier, but it didn't matter.

A minute passed.

... and he contemplated whether or not the Capellans might have actually had the sense to go through their JumpShip fleet and rebuilt the computer systems to not have included the Star League era security back doors that allowed them to be turned off remotely. Remotely was still something of a misnomer, but you had a window where you could beam a signal in and the computers were for 'safety' lock down to authenticate it was receiving an authentic command and the crew could... if they knew how and had the right keys over ride the lock down.

It didn't look like that was the case though. The Capellan JumpShips went dark, and broadcasted a complying message from the computer as they did so, on a frequency that no one used anymore. "Secure those JumpShips." He ordered to marines via the video link.

Small craft moved into the black.

That still left their other problem. The real problem. The actual invasion of Dieron by the Capellan Confederation. A light turned green as another line opened, but instead of a human face an icon, shield, appeared "Boot successful. All systems nominal."

"Hedwig is detached," Someone announced from one of the Titan's consoles.

"Separation complete, and away." Exterior camera feeds of the JumpShip showed the flare of a drive as the Spheroid accelerated. This was going to be the chancy part. The Capellans had air coverage, and they had limited air assets of their own.

A moment later another channel connected to CIC, and the process repeated, as Braunfels followed suit laying in a parallel course. A second near identical four thousand ton DropShip separated from the Colorado, and accelerated towards the Capellan force.

"Helm lay course."

The CIC threw up addition images from tracking systems. The holographic globe estimating range, the measure of horizontal, and distance, the height differential an important characteristic for the Titan-class designed role as dedicated aircraft carrier. It made an ideal command and control platform for the unit.

Baffins would be able to make the descent to the surface under its own power in theory alongside Hidalgo and Presidio, but they needed to secure orbital control first. The hologlobe projected the force spreading out. They had to assume that nothing had changed. The HPG network was down, and that word hadn't gotten out.

... that made getting here right now something of dumb fucking luck. That was part of the reason he was here, and not aboard a mech carrier that would be in the first wave going to the surface. They didn't know enough about the Capellan incursion, and it wasn't a feint. The initial landing site was south west of the capital of San martin in the northern foothills of Mount Shanyu. That was intended to be two fold.

If they could attain air superiority the plan was to drop down to the planet's surface land at Fortress Dieron's port facility and then turn the Fortress's guns on, and achieve, lever orbital supremacy that way... also the electronics would be useful there for other reasons. That was why he was aboard the Eisenhower, and not commanding BattleMechs from the frontline.

Orbital supremacy regardless of how it was achieved would then let them bring San Saba and their armor assets down deploying, and that would allow them also to reinforce the Magunac forces that would be in the first wave.

This was not a knife fight... he didn't know what the Capellans were thinking. Invading Dieron to try and steal it from the Davions was lunacy... and almost certainly they had to know that even if they took it somehow they'd have to fight the Combine coming. Whatever insanity it was, it was not some periphery world where you could lay claim to it by landing a couple lances and declaring yourself, or your overlord to be in charge and so forth.

Dieron had been a part of the Lone Star Province. It had been a Hegemony world.

He tapped his foot at the thought, maybe that was it.

He looked at the blue holographic globe. The small craft moving to impound the now blackout dark capellan JumpShips. Tiny dots whose labels were bigger than they were on the astrograph. The lead and trailing four thousand ton dropships accelerating.

Did the Capellans have telemetry? Surely they had to have some kind of sensors pointed towards the JumpPoints. But did they realize what they were looking at. The two four thousand tonners would be crossing six Gees of thrust. They were already above the maximum thrust of the slightly smaller Unions.

"Start a clock, once Hedgwig starts her attack run, I want the wasps standing by to launch." He ordered leaning against the console, and against the restraints. The Eisenhower was fast but she wouldn't be able to catch them... but then that wasn't the point. She'd launch her air wing to assist the initial attack, because regardless of how fast the attackers could turn, they were probably going to overshoot the enemy in the pass and then turn to make a second rear pass. He himself couldn't be entirely sure how they were going to handle this.
--
It was over quickly... not that there had been much for him to direct.

The actual fighting phase of a naval engagement was usually minutes, if that. In the time it had taken for the Capellans to realize they were under attack it had already been too late. Awareness was king of the battlefield and the zoom and boom of the two four thousand ton DropShips had done enough damage as to degrade the invader's ability to get back into the loop. They were stuck trying to respond to things that had already happened.

They hadn't been ready for the second wave. Or the third. Eisenhower's safe thrust was far less than the first wave ships a third her mass, and the Drosts massing each fifty three hundred tons were in the same acceleration profile as the larger DropShip. It was a pity that they only carried two fighters apiece, but that didn't matter with the Eisenhower's own complement.

Looking at one expanding cloud of debris in the upper reaches of Dieron's orbitals, and another which was descending into the moon of Nebulous's gravity well they were now into the next phase of the operation. Recovery of their fighters and standing by to make planetfall.

Hedwig and Braunfelds, her trailing consort, would have to remain on station. He wasn't about to risk the two DropSHips bringing them down and back up through the atmosphere. The three DroSTs would descend first.

Dieron was a lovely world, highly mountainous topography meant that while over half the planet's surface was covered in ocean it was prone to swathes of savannah and steppe as arid and semi arid zones were abounded by the rising mountain heights.

This was the second time he was getting to visit... and the second time he'd been here for work rather than pleasure.

Gene highlighted the landing zone displays. "Once our ground forces land to establish our beachhead we will hail the planetary governor, and then once San Saba begins offload we will offer the Capellans the opportunity to surrender."

He had a speech written for the occasion... well speech was probably stretching it.... and written was an exageration... it was more of a statement.. and some of it was a little boilerplate and old fashioned.

There was a flicker of static from Baffin's connection. "Do you think they'll take it?"

Gene shrugged, "We have established orbital supremacy and impounded their JumpShips, but we will have a better picture of the situation once we make planetfall." They had feed from the ongoing situation where the Davion forces were defending against the attack... but they'd only been in place on the world for a couple of months and there was no planetary militia to support them.

It was Dieron, that was the world that had cemented their reputation. From a regional perspective, and in terms of opposition faced, Elidere would be more impressive to the denizens and patriots of the Draconis March, but the he supposed First Battle of Dieron of 3018 had flipped a world, and now in this second one they would need to insure it remained as a part of the Federated Suns.

He tapped manipulating the complex communications suit as it transmitted collated battle group data. The Kazakh river highlighted to his subordinate commands, specifically projecting a compiled landing and attack corridor that they hadn't used.

... during first battle he had been perhaps near paranoid about the prospect of Fortress Dieron's surface to orbital systems ... or really anything else associated with the facility coming online so they had avoided approaching it until later There was also the fact that the combined invasion had required striking multiple combine targets so they had landed well north of the river, and other Davion troops had landed originally to their west.

Bardiche, and Claymore's landing zones were almost exactly opposite of where they had landed in terms of which side of the lake to which the Kharkiv river flowed into. More useful was that the river flowed into the lake's southern portions and so the two delivering Overlord dropships would have a greater degree of geographic protection as they offloaded the two Mech Battalions

"The capellan dragoons are probably," well were, he supposed. "The exact opposite of what we fought against in the Sword of Light. They have supporting ASF and combined arms," San Saba would need to offload the AAA as soon as possible, but more than that they needed to be prepared to face enemy armor rather than just Mech Jocks... not that he phrased it like that, "We're looking at a combination of light and medium mechs."

"A whole lot of vindicators down there." Septim quipped in return. True, but not limited to those. Firestarters, Javelins, Clints, Cicadas were all present. Out of the two battalions there were a few Catapults and Victors but that was the extent to heavier machines. "Seriously its like these assholes were sent on a suicide mission."

Gene blinked, Septim blanched at the profanity laden outburst over the regiment staff wide comment. The Lyran seemed to realize that they weren't the tiny scratch company any more.

That wasn't why he was surprised... "You may be on to something." Why would the capellans make this gamble... unless they were rolling the dice to see what the davions would do... and of course the capellans had had no idea that they'd just stumble into their invasion either.."



--
Whoops is an ... alternate timeline, well its an alternate future of the primary canon timeline where the HPG network dies early.

Also as I have been reminded before their destruction during the Hegemony campaign Robinson was host to the 100th​ BattleMech Division, interestingly their garrison doesn't seem to be mentioned on Robinson's page which is odd. Or I missed it.)253rd​ Mechanized Infantry Division was based on Kestrel.

Somewhat annoyingly, the 101st​ Jump Infantry Division was based on Armington on the border with the Taurians. [They'll come up later in the main timeline, besides just having been referenced on Aquagea.]

Dieron hosted the 138th​ BMD, and Nirasaki hosted the 26th​ MID. (Which is odd because the provincial capital of Lone Star doesn't at this time (the 2760s) have any major postings, and Outreach on the other side of Terra is hosting the 56th​ Royal JID.)

Anyway, as I've mentioned this week's planned update, including Sunday are a break from the usual schedule, we should return to something approaching normal ... ish Monday. So Sunday this 'alternate timeline' / alternate future will resume, and actually on that note, I should point out that originally this was not going to be the next segment of Whoops to go up, as this jumps from the New Kyoto's departure (part four) to the arrival to Dieron.

And anyway so this is an alternate timeline, this portion of Whoops establishes well 'modern dieron', and the eventual Lone Star March of the Federated Commonwealth, early compared to its investment and development in the main timeline. Next time Gene doesn't actually expect the Capellans to surrender but offers them the chance anyway, and we also might introduce a crazy person before they show up in the main timeline. More to the point Dieron II marks a transitional in Whoops of more sedate well not slice of life per se, but more of an established we're staying here for a while series of snippets. /disclaimer / excuses out of the way.

 

[Imperator Pax]

Whoops II Dieron​

Fortress Dieron occupied... at least two thirds of the internal volume of Mount Shanyu... and the mountain was not small by Dieron standards... which was a planet famous for its mountains. There was room for four regiments of battlemech troops plus their support. This meant it did not technically count as a Castle Brian. It was technically a variant of an Outpost Castle.... of course as a part of Lone Star Province Dieron in the Hegemony era had already played host to a number of full scale castle brians.

Fortress Dieron was ... unique for reasons other than its size... certainly there was little unique by hegemony and DOME standards of its construction... but it was still a comfortable place to be... better than the garish abomination the combine had turned one of the SLDF redoubts up north into...

He shook his head and placed his hand on the screen authorizing the access into the facility's heart, much as he had to authorize access to the Northwind castle. That reminded him of hte details of the castle. In 2841 the apparent surviving hegemony admiral ... or at least CID naval officer had access the facility ahead of the Davion conquest of Northwind... and he had done so with a body of picked men.

At the time it hadn't stood out. He'd earmarked their files for future reading... but it hadn't immediately jumped out that a Major Hallis had to have been born after the Exodus, especially given his 331st​ Division credentials. It had taken him longer to process that, and that same, then a captain, had been with Clancy accessing Dieron a decade earlier.

"Greetings commander." The AI remarked amicably as the great doors sealed behind him. "I admit, I did not predict your return this quickly." For whatever reason Fortress Dieron... actually now that he thought about it basing the planet's CID main building separate from the larger castles and in a facility with its own surface to orbit batteries was precisely in line with the Hegemony's thinking... but unlike the facilities manned by regular league troops the castle had had an AI, while the Brians had not... well excepting their SDS connection...

He nodded, presumably the AI had cameras and could intuit the response, but more on reflex, and listened as the machine spirit told him what he could about the development of the situation... apparently the surprise third party attack by the capellans had caught the AI as off guard. Apparently no one had mounted a really credible threat to Dieron in at least recent memory, nothing since maybe even the second succession war.

"I need you to make copies of the database, and then evaluate the incoming information from it." Gene stated, "We will start tasking for dealing with the capellans." ... but the database was more than just CID files... the files that they had originally gone to get. There was more now, even without countenancing the clusterfuck of the HPG network... and he needed the AI to number crunch the diagnostics for that as well.
--
With security of the system in hand the enemy JumpShips secured, and orbital dominance in place it was time to move on to the next stage. He tapped the console and initiated the Regimental Combat Management System. Had he been expected to do more he'd have considered using the Devestator, or one of the other hundred tonners, but the truth was he needed access to his command mech, and the Marauder II lacked the League era complex electronics suite and software.

... and he had a speech to given, even if technically it would be reverberating planet wide through a combination of orbital transmission and the planetary data net. A signal strength indicator turned green, and the AI signaled optimal broadcast... they should be able to override basically any receiver on the planet, and make the invading Capellans listen. "Capellan Forces, This is Colonel Gene Shepherd," It was actually a plus the Capellans didn't have generals anymore otherwise they might have considered it odd to have a force of this size, in this configuration under a single colonel... or not. "I command the Davion relief forces that have arrived on planet. My fleet assets have impounded your JumpShips, and achieved orbital supremacy. You are outnumbered, and outgunned, surrender now and you will be accorded the full status and rights enshrined under the Ares Conventions."

He ignored the AI pointing out that the Ares Conventions had been formally renounced by the successor states at the onset of the first succession war. He made a point of at least offering the enemy the chance to surrender.

... but if they didn't well.

A grizzled looking scottsman appeared. "The bastards will never take it. The Cappellans would sooner kill their wives and young 'uns and then themselves than surrender to us round eyed devils." He grunted.

"That may be, but I'm obliged to offer them the chance."

The bearded twenty stone highlander pilot shrugged. "Claymore is in position, and standing by." Bardiche's staff officer relayed similar readiness. That tracked with the indicators on the holographic globe within his Marauder, and the projected readiness estimates.

What the enemy were unlikely to suspect were the mobility through the Hegemony era transportation grids under the surface. The Hegemony in its vanity had alternated between surface rails for 'scenic' purposes and travel... and larger bulk transport and ... pedestrian transit out of sight and out of mind. With as significant as Dieron's mountains were underground tunnels were expansive, and would have been cost prohibitive on a newer colonized world, but not for an original colony so close to Terra.

As a Terran based castle outpost Fortress Dieron not only had the GCV complement but wings of addition Mk 39 Voidseeker variants... and he was counting on that element of surprise to strike hard and fast before they moved to catch the capellan dragoons in the fields north of the river, and south of San Martin.

Projected data tables estimated how long the Capellans could potentially remain in the field as combat effective units, estimates on how long they could last, projected maneuvers. At the end of the day though the plan was simple, deploy and envelop the capellans into a pocket or ideally pockets between their forces and the Davion garrison at San Martin

The first stage would be a prepatory bombardment relying on orbital telemetry provided by Hedwig and Braunfels up high. He wondered if the capellans would realize that that dropships in orbit were spotting for on call artillery.

"I've identified the remaining enemy dropships." The AI remarked highlight the targets. The goal was to use artillery to break up the enemy's force strength into more manageable penny packets, and then attack, cutting the enemy from their dropships would be part and parcel for that.
--
It was a miracle.

The Governor General had no other way to describe it outside of providential terms, and the MIIO officer had to concur. Mitchell had no reason to, no evidence to suggest ComStar was lying about their status... they could have been, but it seemed very unlikely that they would have beamed a message out and not told them...

... though perhaps if they weren't sure it had gotten through that might have explained not admitting to it... but even then. Mitchell spared a glance to his DMI equivalent, Alexei Cherenkov. The two competing at times federated suns intelligence services had both been caught flat foot by the collapse of the HPG network, it was true that there were courier networks to ferry information via DropShip but they hadn't sent word.

"He'd have to have been a jump away."

Mitchell nodded, "And with drives ready to jump." To the best of his knowledge the mercenaries weren't under contraction with House Davion either... though, if someone had managed to jump system they could have retained them he supposed. It was all speculation. Mitchell wondered idly if this wasn't his boss's doing, had the prince's champion had contingencies in place... not hinging on the HPG network failing of course, that was absurd, but to defend Dieron if it was counter invaded by the Combine, and the Capellans were close enough. "Either way, the Capellans have refused to surrender." And now were enduring a similar withering barrage of artillery as the Galedon regulars had suffered at Elidere, or the Sun Zhang cadets had faced further west before facing Shepherd's highlanders on the lakeshore.

As it was those same highlanders were now sweeping wide right towards the capellan dragoons probably looking to catch the enemy company that had been split off before it could rejoin its fellows. The CMM troops defending the capital city of San Martin.

"I would say this is exactly like Elidere,' Cherenkov remarked. "Not that we are outnumbered, but that the regiment is maneuvering independent of planetary leadership. The Governor General's face twisted up a little at the bluntness of the statement. "In addition of course to the body of armor and artillery supporting the BattleMech offensive." The BattleMech was the dominant combat arm, regardless of the need for infantry to hold ground the BattleMech as a single unit provided the blend of speed and firepower to dominate the battlefield.

Of all of the Successor States this accepted wisdom that you needed a battlemech to beat a battlemech was most strongly, the 'cult of the mechwarrior', the Capellans had been the ones to codify the Lorix Creed celebrating the Mechwarrior and battlemech as the pinnacle of warfare. If that were true the clashing battalions of walking warmachines were demonstrating another truism as well bigger was usually better.

... and that it helped to have friends regardless of how big you were, Mitchell mused.

"yes well," The Governor General humphed, "At least the citizenry is remaining calm after the initial scare." There had been some concerns about how the populous would react if the Combine attacked, but the prospect of a Capellan really had not been planned. There were four, Capellan, worlds that the Capellans could have made the jump from to attack Dieron... so not thinking about it had in hindsight been an oversight. "Still he seems to have arrived with substantial reinforcements. The armor veterans from Elidere, do you think?"

"He was planning to hire in Lyran space." Cherenkov replied. "But it is possible, or he just went and opened another star league cache." The DMI officer remarked.

It could easily have been all of them. The bulk of the armor force that had fought at Elidere and Ander's Moon had just disappeared seemingly into the Aether after, most likely travelling with the IE expedition for security... but if that were the case they hadn't followed them to Bristol from the reports he'd seen... and it seemed unlikely they would have been missed there. Had they reunited in Lyran space... or were these Lyran hires... or

... what exactly?
--

Notes: So leaving aside this is actually shorter than I originally planned, thats due to weighin how much I wanted to reference for the up coming main timeline:

Bardiche, and Claymore are mech Battalions drawn from Rasalhague (and other combine dissidents/ unproductives) and Northwind Highlander pops respectively. The Maguanac Corp is also a battalion level formation though in square configuration being one battlemech company and three vehicle company in a rapid roll on roll off dropship package, and also with significant infantry in its deployment. Then in theory you have Baffins, and San Saba forming a similar square battalion but without that infantry being a BattleMech Company with the Triumph class's vehicle complement, but in a much more conventionally mercenary package.

The first three units all basically have as battalions unique ethnic cultural identies.

Space Swede-ish sort ofs, Highlanders, Azami

and in the Alter context, in the Context of Whoops as a timeline this is relatively important in the political / noble / feudal hiearchy sense down the road. That applies to the main timeline as well. Notably we are leaving units out because spoilers for the main timeline, even though I think Ive mentioned it related for

Also cookie to anyone who has figured out Naval naming conventions that Gene is using to name things in general. There are specific conventions for JumpShips, Carrier dropship classes (that will / should become apparent later), Standard DropShips, and Assault DropShips.

We will return to regular timeline updates Sunday.

 

[Imperator Pax]

Notes Segment before we return to the usual updates:

These canonical things may be useful

https://cfw.sarna.net/wiki/images/1/1c/Terran_Hegemony_2764.jpg?timestamp=20121115192657
I'm including the Sarna Link for use if it doesn't show up. This is the Hegemony before the Amaris coup, with military positioning [which admittedly doesn't count Hegemony militia/pdf whatever but still doesn't make much sense, but this is canon] That Northern most province is the Province of Lone Star.

https://cfw.sarna.net/wiki/images/3/3c/Dieron_Planetary_Map.png?timestamp=20211227220627

This is the canonical map of Dieron. Most of our action will take place in Eastern Mateo. I am sorry this is a small map.

Anyway on to Assault Mechs
Bristol has happened, though it will take some time for it and other finds to produce, but what will happen is when we get to the new Gunslinger school basically new Devastators and an Atlas model that is derived from Samsonov's version.

With the devastators the initial versions, because here, producing XL engines isn't yet possible, but ferrofibrous can be it'll be FF, DHS, standard PPCs, Gauss rifles and then because of the Fury we will get later a version with C3 technology to go along with the Atlas's that role that out, but thats further down the road

and thats all the notes I have for today.

 

[Imperator Pax]

Whoops
II Dieron​

The Magunac Tactical Groups were petite battalions derived from Star League era organizational systems, combined arms and reliability. They were small combined arms battalion level units, Company Task Force would have been an equally valid description except for the DropShips vital involvement in each TG. The DroST IIA variant was at its heart an old venerable and well understood design. The core of the Tactical Group was its Vehicle Company of two light vehicle platoons, and one heavy. Ten platoons of infantry could offload from the DropShip or mount in the light vehicles. A lance of mechs, and two ASF rounded out.

The DroST and its complement were something that could be sustained even if the Combine logistics were feeling particularly scroogish in supporting Azami raiders. It could similarly be maintained where battlemech parts were lacking, far out in the periphery.

Specialist units he had detached out of the main command after they had added seventy new mechwarriors on Northwind. Bardiche and Claymore represented the main offensive power of the company, and both Mech Battalions were going to need to undergo refit after this... or at least after they'd secured a landhold and permanent employment with House Davion. The fire support lances from both battalions were a mix of archers and catapults, who were now entering the range to engage effectively.

They would assist 'Hawks in the vanguard from both battalions, and give hunchbacks time to trundle forward. In between forming the core of both battalions were Dervishes and Centurions. The two primary mechs forming the battle line companies respectively had different engagement and logistical ends. The Davions and their love of auto cannons created tail requirements.

Gene navigated the displays with his mind, but he only needed to command the Battalion level formations, who could then dispatch the companies, who would direct lances into final position before the breakthrough.

He wasn't all together surprised that the Dragoons hadn't accepted the surrender. Intercepted comms traffic suggested they didn't quite believe his statement about having destroyed their naval assets... there were still a series of signals being shot into orbit near the moons looking for their dropships...

His map refreshed. Bardiche in Blue had executed its leapfrog, and were now swinging into the flank. The Highlanders of Claymore painted in the Gray White terran indicator colors had moved to their bingo way point for the maneuver, and that should from their orbital telemetry mean he could order the Maguanac's to execute their breakthrough operation.
--
San Martin was the original Terran name of the capital. That it remained was a demonstration of how little investment Dieron had in the Combine despite how good the planet had had its living conditions relative to tea plantation on another world.

The capital based and thus largest planetary news network had had no trouble at all in the change of leadership, and was providing live reports from the front, with more aplomb about supporting House Davion over the invading Liao troops. Students from the University of Dieron crowded to watch the holographic projectors as new footage piped in.

"B-roll" somebody muttered in Terran derivative english.

The date was hours, several days really, old showing arriving dropships moving past shattered debris hulks of ASF, and opposing Capellan dropships. Painted in what someone from the History department of the University of Dieron would later tell her was the Lone Star Ensign, and in Terran Hegemony Colors were two Pentagon-class Assault DropShips moving to greet a Titan-class DropShip that bore the name Eisenhower along its prow. It was new footage to her however, B roll or not.

The speech which followed was not. She had heard it over the radio before.

She already knew from broadcasts ongoing that the Capellans hadn't accepted the extended offer to surrender. The Davion newscasters of course had mad sure that everyone listening knew that these were the same 'mercenaries' who had liberated the planet from the combine.
--
Gene had taken one of the Hegemony rail lines abandoned laying dormant for centuries but still functional thanks to ragnarok proofing, ferrocrete supports, and organic super lubricants to join the front. The Mag tube had actually deposited him, and the force of Mechs, and armor north of the Kazakh river, and more importantly to the east of San Martin.

A position that it was unlikely the Capellans expected to face significant resistance. The Davion garrison wasn't minimal but it was also defending... no doubt hoping that the occupation forces dug in, largely Mechanized Infantry would deter a head on assault, or at least blunt a full frontal assault enough to let their limited mech forces destroy the attackers as they were bogged down.

He cued the mike, and confirmed pairing to the Davion Tactical Net. Apparently the Davions hadn't expected him to finish encircling the attacking Capellans either. Confident that the Davions weren't going to start shooting at his armor, or his fellow BattleMechs he maneuvered the GCV hovercraft into the nest of foot hills... and for the set piece battle which would settle this.

TAG relayed active data of Vindicators approaching their possition their jumpjets a blinking beacon on termals as they crested small hills, and bounded up rises. ... not yet though. He wanted them closer, to make the most of that first volley, before they swung in to finish this wing of the enemy.

A sudden packet of traffic flashed through the network all at once, and then it was on. The Capellans had been acting odd for the last two days anyway... as if when their momentum had broken ... breaking the loop had caught them somewhere between orienting to the new threat and actually deciding what to do, and that preventing them from acting in a concentrated formation wide maneuver.

... Davion reinforcements shouldn't have been that much of a such. Even accounting the limits of FtL travel he would have assumed that the Capellans should have been able to make a regiment wide decision, even if it wasn't to surrender. It would have been better if they had surrendered, but neither the Combine, nor the Capellans now seemed to give much lip service to the rules of war.

Gene had been told more than once, by more than that was just how things had been... but there was a difference between academically knowing something.

... and watching yet another banzai charge into machine guns and inferno SRMs.

Was their high command really that much more scary?

--
Really the maneuvering to battle had taken longer than the actual engagements. The fact of it all, was that the second battle of Dieron of the year 3018, in the autumn of that year had come just before the rainy season had begun and for all intents and purposes was less climactic than the battle in the spring. The newscasters were claiming it showed that Dieron was now a Federated Suns planet, that it would be defended against aggressors, predators of the other successor states.

For Gene they had achieved the Operation objectives, and thus they needed to move on to Strategic level ones. "MacIntyre I need you to go with Pasha," It shouldn't have come as a surprise to anyone on the staff that he was sending the Highlander along.

The HPG network was still reported to be non functional, which the AI deep within Fortress Dieron now considered unlikely. Dieron's HPG hadn't burned itself out, though the ones on Terra had apparently... which meant the network's problems were probably at a management level. Surely ComStar could make their own ticket to fame and power, right? Whatever the case it seemed as if the HPG network probably wasn't working because something in the first circuit was broken and they were trying to get Terra at least back up and running.

... they must not have succeeded since the last jumpship from Terra had been ferrying mail.

Which was what Pasha was going to be doing. They had impounded the Capellan JumpShips as well, and Pasha would be leading the little flotilla back to Northwind, but it would still take three months to get to New Avalon. Robinson was closer, but not by much. Not close enough really to warrant that. The Fax Machines would help them stay in touch.... but those were limited to a hundred light years in range transmission and took time to cross that. Not Ideal, but it was what they had. After it was how they new that Rasalhague and the Aazami, along with other disaffected groups in the Combine had risen in revolt.

They needed to get ahold of the First Prince, or more likely his delegate the prince's Champion. Sending what amounted to a feudal mission to New Avalon was really their best option.
--
Notes: This is the shorter conclusion sans well most of the shooting, but really what I cut was Mydno and Mori's prescence from all but entirely except for the tiny snippet at University at Dieron's quad as a spacer.

Sunday we will resume the standard timeline, and next week hopefully settle into a regular schedule of updates.

 

[Imperator Pax]

Interlude 4
Having been their first Assault Mech in company inventory, and of course being a war prize taken from a Combine General of all things, the offer to refit it to a more standard configuration for use had been pretty shocking to Bubbles. It made sense from a detached clinical academic sort of sense, but they really needed to be showing the thing off not trying to 'fix it'. The thing ran fine after the techs had gotten done with it.


Was it the same as her Hunchback? No. Two PPCs, and an Assault class autocannon was plenty of firepower, even if she was losing some speed compared to her own Mech. Anything that sprang up on her close enough that she couldn't use the two Lord's Lights PPCs was close enough that it would regret that mistake from the Autocannon... but she doubted they would.


"Alright boys and girls, the course is set and weapons are live." She informed the cadets. The Atlas's console had refreshed to present telemetry of the fake urban sprawl of blue town.


One of the cadets in a blackjack lifted off with his jump jets moving from A to B, and bringing his whirlwind autocannons on target.

Pop. Pop. Pop. The small guns chattered.


She flipped the designated evaluation sheet open, and watched the scoring trickle in. In a minute they had pushed her ability to keep track of the company past its limit as the rest of the company largely comprised of RBA cadets attempted to defend a city from what the boss's briefing packet for the exercise as a 'Line'.


That was apparently line company, or short for. It comprised ... much like the major test exams units that were surprisingly uniform in structure. As if they'd all been shipped from the same factory and issued out. Rector and Pixie, her Davion lance mates had made similar observations, but it did make sense given that the combat data was derived from organizational tables from the 28th​ century... predating even the outbreak of the first sucession war.


... they were also shooting cardboard, and plywood targets the moved on remote control tracks, and golf carts so it did lose some of its feel... a good simulator offered slightly better visual representation of the enemy but you still weren't in a real mech, and you weren't firing real weapons. So they were alternating between driving their mechs around.


'This is all basic stuff'. That was what they had been told.


All of this was an adaptation, based on local resources, of Mechwarrior Basic Course, Star League Army. A couple of the academic dissertations referenced General Manuals published originally on Mars, others on Venus, or Lone Star.


Everything was written out, argued, and advanced on the basis of concentrating firepower across combat arms to address the weakness of individual singular units. It was insane to think any mechwarrior would put pen to paper to write it, but it didn't refute the Mechwarrior. It refuted arrogance, act in concert with wingmen, lance mates as a whole, friendly lances, company mates, coordinate with, but adjust to realities to achieve the battalion objective.
--
"In recognition for services to the Federated Suns, and her people, against her alien enemies," The video clip of the award ceremony seemed to dominate every fucking news channel on New Avalon.

It was a little much. Really leaning into that 19th​ century British Empire ness... or the Hegemony he supposed. Or maybe the Hegemony had gotten it from New Avalon. Gene was glad whatever the case that he could put the golden spurs and laurel wreath away he had felt ridiculous. New Avalon was the birth place of the neo feudal movement of the 23rd​ century. Not that New Avalon had been unique in that.

"You look somewhat piqued." Doctor Abner remarked. The paunchy Lyran had ambled over to a seat within the Davion palace and sat down, the chair not even creaking.

"Combination of the gravity, and too much to drink." He replied. The reception had involved the sort of drinking the Winston Churchill would have considered jolly good. He didn't have the body mass for that. It wasn't that he hadn't expected to see Abner, but he was a little unsure as to why he was here. Gene was actually about to ask as the guards, who were hopefully intended as mostly ceremonial, snapped to attention... and so entered the man who had placed the victory wreath on his head a few hours earlier.

Hanse Davion looked like a rockstar.

Well a rockstar whose clothes looked like Queen Victoria's maids had picked them. Everything up until now had been carefully scheduled, styled, all elaborate performative art for public consumption as it was broadcast to the realm. While there were probably cameras here, the only davion subjects to be watching them were probably security and intelligence figures.

By this point in the long history of the succession wars all the great houses had programs to address any citizens who wanted to contribute lostech finds to the realm. Mostly those finds were small and insignificant, and even if they weren't the truth was most feudal subjects went to their actual direct lieges than try and turn them into the ruling house, or the central government.

Apparently whatever had been on Bristol... never mind if Ford's little detour had turned up anything... wasn't your average prospector's collection of odds and ends. Any single development of the past year would have been noteworthy, the Elidere Campaign by itself had the potential to have inner sphere wide repercussions. "You must understand Gentlemen, when most people approach the Federated Suns it is largely trinkets. The succession wars have been ongoing for so long that weapons from a century ago... that most people treat technology as quasi magical." Hanse Davion waited for his groomsman to array the drinks, "I am aware that time precludes us from much time together, however I should like to make the most of that, for such esteemed gentlemen who have contributed so much to the future of the Federated Suns. "Another piece of ceremony to stand on but the toast was probably necessary. Abner certainly seemed to be taking it all in stride.

"Our forebearers were men of reason, and science your highness, we can only hope to live up to their example." The Lyran declared lowering his glass. His sip had been shallow, and for a moment Gene expected a speech about peace, and returning to the golden age, but he withheld as the First Prince loosened somewhat in his chair.

"This cache on Robinson, you have to understand that our realm and the combine had attempted to strip everything that had belonged to the 100th​ BattleMech Division, Lord Aaron's letter," And probably Lady Lex's if Gene were to guess, as the First Prince tapped the crisp vellum sheet, "Says this is something different."

"The Brian Cache seems to have been stocked either as a contingency for the hidden war escalating, or a future crisis being instigated by the Combine down the road."

"How pleasantly convenient for you colonel. You understand, from what my dear aunt tells me that we mean to strike the Combine harshly in retaliation. The good doctor's find on Bristol strengthens our position further still. I want to cut House Kurita off entirely from Terra, but my generals have assured that would imprudent. We don't have the reserves for that sort of offensive. The Combine propaganda ministry is quick to declaim their defeat as the Galedon regulars were destroyed in battle against the Avalon Hussars. I mean to use them as a feint while you participate in the conquest of Dieron."

... and there is was out in the open. Hanse Davion looked every part of his moniker in that moment, and laid out his plan to seize from the combine one of the provincial capital, but one of the Combine's few universities.

Plans within plans.

It was probably no coincidence that the University of Dieron had once been a Hegemony institution.

Plans within plans.

... and of course even if Doctor Abner hadn't shown up with... whatever it was he'd found on Bristol, and whatever Ford had found on top of that. Gene figured the Prince announcing the outing to Albion Military Academy for an official tour would have been on the agenda besides. A test to see what he could do in person.

Then of course was the matter of Yvonne's report, New Valencia's mech production... and the Marauder matter. Apparently it had come to General Motors attention that there was something called a Marauder II, which of course as overlord, and sovereign the First Prince was only too happy to intervene on for the good of the realm. It smelled of horse trading, and hordes of lawyers... and well not the sort of thing Gene would have preferred to sit in on... but Hanse Davion had a card to play.

General Motors, and Blackwell were producing machines that he had or would have in inventory, and in particular the possibility of additional Marauders in the company was useful. Quid pro quo, and all.
--
Notes Hanse gets less dialogue here, he's in the next couple of segments as we dive into unpacking Blackwell Industries, and General Motors. No don't ask me how copyright in BT works even in space eighties doesn't make sense for why GM thinks they have a case ... but hey you know what I can do to 'fanon' explain it. Hanse is a king, he can hash that out using royal prerogative in his realm, and both of them are in his realm so no need to get finicky there

 

[Imperator Pax]

Interlude 5
The Black Jack's targeting computer registered the 'overheated' Battlemaster in the concrete 'arena' that was the last leg of the course. He was supposed to get to get past it while it was out of commission, engage it or bypass the goal was ultimately to completely the course.

Gene technically supposed this would have counted as cheating as he overrode the firing control safeties. The Dalban AQ fire control system managing the 40mm Whirlwind Ls squawked protests at him, but he blinked through the objection, and blitzed the target with a spate of training ammunition. The 40mm didn't have nearly the performance he would have liked, in a real fight, even forcing the guns to fire at twice their usual rate was only enough to chew through half a ton of standard armor...

... but if this had been real life and not him dancing around the AMA battlemech course hitting even a BattleMaster, an assault mech, in the cockpit would have been a wake up call to the enemy, besides he was moving from cover to cover, and bounding to close the distance to bring up his medium lasers.

They might not have been magna mark IIs, and the AQ wasn't his HiRez but the general scheme was similar enough, and being able to put all four on a single target inside two hundred meters reliably would be sufficient to finish the fake battlemaster.

They had after all asked him to clear the course in the best possible time, which he was aiming to do.

In the observation deck, which was a spacious almost theater like reception area, as the clock closed just shy of six minutes the First Prince glanced to his assembled guests. The lords, ladies and gentlemen were largely distracted, which was good. The spectacle, the show was what they wanted for the speech he was going to give. "I thought you said that was a standard university BlackJack."

"It was your Highness. I have no idea how he managed those shots." The mustachioed armsmaster and supervisor for the Albion Military Academy replied bowing sligtly upon being addressed by his sovereign. The shots in question were plastered up on one of the aside holographic displays showing 40mm holes in the placard representing an overheated Capellan command mech.

Albion scored the course on objectives achieved within a set time frame. It was entirely possible to pass the course without actually completed it, even though it wasn't designed to be impossible. It was designed to evaluate seniors who would soon be commissioned. Some students chose to exercise caution and bypass the BattleMaster before it could reboot and become an active threat.

Someone, probably louder than they meant to in response to the matter commented that 'shooting its head off worked too'. There was no kill like overkill, Few to any pilot whose cockpit slammed by repeated class 2 autocannon shells even if the armor held, was likely to respond rationally even if his mech wasn't overheated. The coup de grace of medium lasers would have been enough to kill the assault mech if they had landed on the head, but it had taken the young colonel time to stride forward to close that distance.

A replay from another perspective showing the forty five ton black jack moving towards its target as the guests watched. The precision fire though.

It made sense. Medium lasers were standard on Marauders. He'd demonstrated doing it with the PPCs that were equally standard on Marauders. One of the old men, the professors of the school, paused in his diatribe as he noticed his Sovereign's eyes trail over the group of uniformed men. Yvonne had of course forwarded her own analysis, and that of her department, to her alma mater regarding Elidere. That had arrived months ago, and had been in no small measure a furor to the academic community of military science.

Yvonne had described it as the systematic murder of an entire enemy battalion, and then another, and then well Ander's Moon had itself been the anomaly of battles in the Elidere Campaign... and for a myriad of reasons, the Combine had attacked and pursued defending local forces, the combine had had accepted terms to fight on what were their preferred ground. That had lead to duels between mechwarriors, which had resolved itself steadily until the arrival of Draconis March reinforcements, and the final action had been a combined arms engagement where the remaining combine battalion's mechs were enveloped in a manner that was closest to the fighting on Elidere IV. Most of the fighting though had been done by that point, most of the fighting on Anders had been the individual duels between the mechwarriors where the Combine should have had a distinct advantage.

The entire Elidere campaign was an anomaly.

The Combine's blustering excuse was a weak, and shallow one. Based on little more than the Colonel's white painted Marauder, and its thus 'heavy' BattleMech classification, Combine propagandists had ascribed the battle, having had to confront it due to ComStar News Broadcasts circulating the ROMs, as one between the 19th​ Galedon regulars against the Avalon Hussars. A desperate attempt to save face at having had a hundred and fifteen mechs lost in a single campaign.

Something they were going to capitalize on. Never stop your enemy when they're making mistakes was one of the great truisms of the Succession wars. If the Avalon Hussars were who the Combine wished to make the devil of, then the 11th​ could keep their attention ... and with this new 'Brian Cache' find he'd been told about, then perhaps it was time to reconstitute the 1st​ as well.

The first prince waved his hand in the air to garner the attention, "My lords, ladies, and gentleman if I may have your attention please." he called sonorous to the assembled as his aide informed them the colonel had rejoined them. Hanse Davion scaled the short stairs to the lectern prepared for him, "We are at war with a vicious and menacing neighbor. I speak of course of the Draconis Combine, whose actions have cost the lives of many of my predecessors, and many, many dear friends. The perpetrators of the massacre of Kentares, well, we are going to strike back. There is an hour fast approaching where we will push them back." In this case back meant driving them from Hegemony worlds, but for the sake of public consumption meant pushing the combine from worlds that they had seized in the first succession war.

They couldn't over reach though. Hohiro Kurita had weakened his nation to keep the war going trying to compensate for a flagging economy by demanding more and more from a population. It was no wonder he'd been assassinated by the Otomo... and it seemed as if reports were accurate that another Rasalhague uprising was threatening to erupt. That had the potential to be useful.

... AND there was one other matter. MIIO had confirmed the defenders of Dieron to be Sword of Light. Not Yorinaga Kurita, but two battalions of the 5th​ as well as Sun Zhang academy cadre were garrisoning the world.
--
The First Prince's speech had been aimed more at 'psyching up' the Fed Suns. The invasion of Dieron would occur with, as Yvvonne had promised, support from the Davion Guards, but there was also plans to hit Altair. Asta though was out of the question at this stage. It was too far... sort of.

Gene cracked a glance as the door opened into the meeting room down the hall from the reception proper, admitting a man in a summer uniform similar to what Bahar, and most of the magunacs wore. Khaki. SLDF Regular Army 'warm weather'. A second followed in the same uniform, an aide or adjutant officer obviously, though wearing the pins of an SLDF colonel.

"What can the Star League do for you today, Lord Davion?" That was how the man who eventually introduced himself as Brevet General Kerston opened the conversation.

He'd been absent from the Albion course work, but then Albion Mech Course had been with a standard Blackjack in university colors, and not with the hundred tonner Ford and Abner had brought with them or with the hundred tonner Marauder II models that had accompanied then. That was probably the plan for tomorrow as Davion Guards personnel were divided going through both San Saba's cargo, and the IE Cargo King that had landed nearby, which was also largely carrying combat vehicles... barring a handful of special mechs.

If Hanse Davion, First Prince of the Fed Suns had an objection to Kerston's introductory question he didn't shown any signs of, "General Kerston, this is Colonel Shepherd," A broad white gloved hand gestured in his direction, "His regimental combat team," Presumably he was referring to what they had been calling a brigade including the Draconis March troops, which did include, or would hopefully include attached air, armor and infantry from the DMM. "Will be the other unit for the operation." The rock star turned with a broad smile, "Colonel Shepherd, General Kerston commands the 3rd Regimental Combat Team. The much acclaimed Eridani Light Horse."

--
Notes: Technical issues, including a six hour power failure means that I'm updating this tonight.

 

[Imperator Pax]

The following from the QQ main BT thread is useful and relevant canonically to the third succession war to this story as well as to a lesser extent essence wielding social general:

https://forum.questionablequesting....discussions-thread.4740/page-216#post-5873538
(Note bob is reposting this from the bt forum. It was originally posted by Cazaril on the Battletech forums here. )
Some excerpts:

Spoiler: Draconis Combine

Draconis Combine – House Kurita

Al Na'ir
Scarborough Manufactures
- TRO:3039
* Saladin Assault Hover
* Saracen Medium Hover
* Scimitar Medium Hover
* Maxim Hover Transport
* APC – Hover (Speculation)
- Objective Raids
* Saladin Assault Hover
* Saracen Medium Hover
* Scimitar Medium Hover
* Maxim Hover Transport
* APC – Hover

Yori 'Mech Works
- TRO:3039
* AS7-D Atlas
- Objective Raids
* AS7-D Atlas

Notes – TRO:3025 states the Manufacturer is "Al Na'ir, Quentin, Hesperus". Since these are worlds, not companies, assumption is it meant Yori 'Mech Works,

Alshain
Alshain Weapons
- TRO:3039
* PNT-9R Panther

Notes – (Speculation/Assumtion) Alshain Weapons is a subsidiary/division of Gorton, Kinsley and Thorpe Enterprises. The name is used for branding purposes, and only exists on former Alshain Weapons buildings and products.

Joint Equipment Systems
- TRO:3039
* Skulker Wheeled Scout
* Scorpion Light Tank
* LRM Carrier
* SRM Carrier
* APC – Tracked (Speculation)
* APC – Wheeled (Speculation)
- Objective Raids
* Skulker Wheeled Scout
* Scorpion Light Tank
* LRM Carrier
* SRM Carrier
* APC – Tracked
* APC – Wheeled
* Hetzer Wheeled Assault Gun

Quikscell
- TRO:3039
* Hetzer Wheeled Assault Gun

Avon
Matabushi Corporation
- Objective Raids
* Overloard Dropship
* Union Dropship
- Dropships and Jumpships
* Overloard Dropship
* Union Dropship

Chatham
Stellar Trek
- Objective Raids
* Invader Jumpship
* Merchant Jumpship
* Monolith Jumpship
- Dropships and Jumpships
* Invader Jumpship
* Merchant Jumpship
* Star Lord Jumpship

Tomori Trans Industrial
- Objective Raids
* Vengeance Dropship
- Dropships and Jumpships
* Vengeance Dropship

Wakazashi Enterprises
- HK/DC 3025
* SL-17 Shilone
- TRO:3039
* SL-17 Shilone
- Objective Raids
* SL-17 Shilone
* LCF-16K Lucifer II

Dover
Hinsdale Electronics
- Objective Raids
* Condor Dropship
- Dropships and Jumpships
* Condor Dropship

Wakazashi Enterprises
- HK/DC 3025
* SL-15 Slayer
* Conventional Reconnaissance Aircraft
- TRO:3039
* SL-15 Slayer
- Objective Raids
* SL-15 Slayer

Hachiman
Tanadi Computers
- HK/DC 3025
* Communications Systems
* Targeting/Tracking Systems

Irece
LexaTech Industries
- HK/DC 3025
* STG-A5 Stinger LAM
- Objective Raids
* STG-A5 Stinger LAM

Jarett
Alshain Weapons
- Objective Raids

Notes - Entry states they had to destroy their Jarett plant to avoid the Clans capturing it, but doesn't say what was produced. Assuming it was the Gorton Kingsley and Thorpe Enterprises facility

Gorton, Kingsley and Thorpe Enterprises
- HK/DC 3025
* PNT-9R Panther

Kessel
Diverse Optics, Inc.
- Objective Raids
*Diverse Optics brand Lasers

Krenice
Alshain Weapons
- Objective Raids
* PNT-9R Panther

Notes – (Speculation/Assumtion) Alshain Weapons is a subsidiary/division of Gorton, Kinsley and Thorpe Enterprises. The name is used for branding purposes, and only exists on former Alshain Weapons buildings and products.

Lapida II
Nimakachi Fusion Products Ltd.
- TRO:3039
* SDR-5V Spider

Luthien
BBP Industries
- Objective Raids
* Excalibur Dropship
* Intruder Dropship
* Triumph Dropship
- Dropships and Jumpships
* Excalibur Dropship
* Intruder Dropship
* Triumph Dropship

Buda Imperial Vehicles
- HK/DC 3025
* 135-K Coolant Truck
* Towugawa Medium Tank
* 67-K Daimyo HQ Unit
- TRO:3039
* 135-K Coolant Truck
- Objective Raids
* 135-K Coolant Truck
* Towugawa Medium Tank
* 67-K Daimyo HQ Unit

Luthien Armor Works
- HK/DC 3025
* CGR-1A1 Charger
* QKD-4G Quickdraw
* DRG-1N Dragon
- TRO:3039
* CGR-1A1 Charger
* LNC-25-02 Lancelot
* QKD-4G Quickdraw
* DRG-1N Dragon
* JR7-D Jenner
- Objective Raids
* CGR-1A1 Charger
* QKD-4G Quickdraw
* DRG-1N Dragon
* JR7-D Jenner

Notes – According to 3039, LAW acquired the Lancelot plans after the Second Succession War, and kept the Mech in limited production.

Matabushi Computing Equipment
- HK/DC 3025
* Communications Systems
* Targeting/Tracking Systems
- Objective Raids
* Communications Systems
* Targeting/Tracking Systems

New Oslo
Alshain Weapons
- TRO:3039
* PNT-9R Panther

Notes – (Speculation/Assumtion) Alshain Weapons is a subsidiary/division of Gorton, Kinsley and Thorpe Enterprises. The name is used for branding purposes, and only exists on former Alshain Weapons buildings and products.

Gorton, Kingsley and Thorpe Enterprises
- TRO:3039
* PXH-1 Phoenix Hawk
- Objective Raids
* ARC-2R Archer
* PXH-1 Phoenix Hawk
* PNT-9R Panther

Notes - (Speculation/Assumtion) Objective Raids merged Alshain Weapons and Gorton, Kingsley and Thorpe Enterprises together for this entry.

New Samarkand
Nav Hull
- TRO:3039
* Monitor Naval Vessel

Notes – According to Sarna.net's citation from Objectives: Draconis Combine, NH also produces the Mauna Kea Naval Vessel at this location.

New Samarkand Metals
- TRO:3039
* Demolisher Heavy Tank
* Schrek PPC Carrier
- Objective Raids
* Behemoth Tank
* Demolisher Heavy Tank
* Schrek PPC Carrier

Yan Manufacturing
- Sarna.net
* Peacekeeper VTOL
* Soar VTOL

Orestes
Odin Manufacturing
- Sarna.net
* Puma Assault Tank

Proserpina
Bulldog Enterprises
- TRO:3039
* Bulldog Medium Tank
- Objective Raids
* Bulldog Medium Tank
* Manticore Tank
* Tokugawa Tank

Guided Technologies
- Objective Raids
* SRM Launchers

Qandahar
Dow-Nexus Fusion Products
- Objective Raids
* GM Fusion Engines

Rasalhague
Gorton, Kingsley and Thorpe Enterprises
- TRO:3039
* 'MechBuster Conventional Aircraft
- Objective Raids
* 'MechBuster Conventional Aircraft

Rasalhague Armor Works
- Objective Raids
* Armor
* Lasers
* PPCs

Satalice
Gorton, Kingsley and Thorpe Enterprises
- TRO:3039
* ARC-2R Archer
- Objective Raids
* ARC-2R Archer

Schuyler
Dharma Hyperspace
- Objective Raids
* Scout Jumpship
- Dropships and Jumpships
* Scout Jumpship

Galileo Instruments
- Objective Raids
* Achilles Dropship
* Behemoth Dropship
* Triumph Dropship
- Dropships and Jumpships
* Achilles Dropship
* Behemoth Dropship
* Monarch Dropship

Magnon Aeronautics
- HK/DC 3025
* SL-21 Sholagar
- TRO:3039
* SL-21 Sholagar
- Objective Raids
* SL-21 Sholagar

Notes – Magnon Aeronautics was purchased by Wakazashi Enterprises sometime before mid-3049 (Clan Invasion). In Objective Raids, WE has a facility on Schulyer. This is assumed to be the old Magnon Aeronautics plant.

Spittal
Benson and Bjorn
- TRO:3039
* Scorpion Light Tank
* APC – Tracked (Speculation)
- Objective Raids
* Scorpion Light Tank
* APC – Tracked
* Vedette Tank

Trondheim
Amau Electronics
- Objective Raids
* Communications Systems
* Targeting/Tracking Systems

Spoiler: Federated Suns

Federated Suns – House Davion

Addicks
Johnston Industries
- HD:FS 3025
* Goblin Medium Tank
* Large Lasers
* PPCs

Axton
Wangker Aerospace
- HD:FS 3025
* CSR-V12 Corsair
* EGL-R6 Eagle
* THB-D36 Thunderbird
- TRO:3039
* CSR-V12 Corsair
- Objective Raids
* CSR-V12 Corsair
* EGL-R6 Eagle
* THB-D36 Thunderbird

Belladonna
Cal-Boeing of Dorwinion
- HD:FS 3025
* Ferret Light Scout VTOL
* Wild Weasel VTOL
* Marten VTOL
- TRO:3039
* Ferret Light Scout VTOL
- Objective Raids
* Ferret Light Scout VTOL
* Wild Weasel VTOL
* Marten VTOL
* Boomerang Spotter Conventional Aircraft

Notes – According to Sarna.net's citation from TRO:3050U, C-BD also produces the Ripper VTOL at this location.

Crofton
StarCorp Industries
- TRO:3039
* LGB-0W Longbow
- Objective Raids
* LGB-0W Longbow

Delavan
Dynamico Ltd.
- Objective Raids
* Avenger Dropship
* Buccaneer Dropship
* Exostar brand Lasers
* Marten brand Lasers
- Dropships and Jumpships
* Avenger Dropship
* Buccaneer Dropship

Universal Air
- Objective Raids
* Invader Jumpship
* Star Lord Jumpship
- Dropships and Jumpships
* Invader Jumpship
* Star Lord Jumpship

Errai
Maltex Corporation
- Objective Raids
* Tiegart brand PPCs

Exeter
Galtor Naval Yards
- TRO:3039
* Neptune Submarine
- Objective Raids
* Neptune Submarine

Filtvelt
Cal-Boeing of Dorwinion
- TRO:3039
* Boomerang Spotter Conventional Aircraft
- Objective Raids
* Boomerang Spotter Conventional Aircraft

Notes – According to Sarna.net's citation from TRO:3050U, C-BD also produces the Ripper VTOL at this location.

Galax
Federated-Boeing Interstellar
- HD:FS 3025
* Overlord Dropship
* Union Dropship
* Leopard Dropship
* Leopard-CV Dropship
* Gazelle Dropship
* CargoMaster Dropship
* CargoKing Dropship
- Objective Raids
* Overlord Dropship
* Union Dropship
* Leopard Dropship
* Leopard-CV Dropship
* Gazelle Dropship
- Dropships and Jumpships
* Union Dropship
* Leopard Dropship
* Leopard-CV Dropship

Galax Launch Systems and Satellites
- HD:FS 3025
* Satellites

Galtor III
Galtor Naval Yards
- TRO:3039
* Neptune Submarine
- Objective Raids
* Neptune Submarine

Gulkana
Yefters Weapon Factory
- Objective Raids
* Mydron Autocannons

Johnsondale
Notes – Valiant Vehicles is a joint subsidiary of Wunderland Enterprises and Valiant Sysyems, based on Johnsondale. It is unclear if the design is jointly owned, or if there is a jointly owned facility. TRO:3039 appears to say there are two facilities (one for each parent company), while Objective Raids gives the impression of a Jointly owned facility.

Valiant Systems
- TRO:3039
* Striker Light Tank
- Objective Raids
* Striker Light Tank

Wunderland Enterprises
- TRO:3039
* Striker Light Tank
- Objective Raids
* Striker Light Tank

Kathil
General Motors
- TRO:3039
* MAD-3R Marauder
- Objective Raids
* MAD-3R Marauder

General Motors of Kathil
- HD:FS 3025
* Production not specified
- Objective Raids
* Darter Scout Car
* Jeeps
* Other Support Vehicles

Kirklin
Kallon Industries
- TRO:3039
* Partisan Heavy Tank
- Objective Raids
* Partisan Heavy Tank

Layover
Quikscell Company
- TRO:3039
* Scorpion Light Tank
* LRM Carrier (Speculation)
* SRM Carrier (Speculation)
- Objective Raids
* Scorpion Light Tank
* LRM Carrier
* SRM Carrier
* Vedette Tank

Salvatore Inc.
- Objective Raids
* Seeker Dropship
- Dropships and Jumpships
* Seeker Dropship

Marduk
Norse BattleMech Works
- HD:FS 3025
* WVR-6R Wolverine
* GRF-1N Griffin
- TRO:3039
* WVR-6R Wolverine
- Objective Raids
* WVR-6R Wolverine
* GRF-1N Griffin

Notes – Captured during the 4th Succession War and renamed Victory Industries. Since this has not happened in 3025, all references to Victory Industries are considered to be Norse BattleMech Works.

Mendham
Mendham Electronics
- HD:FS 3025
* Communications Systems
* Targeting/Tracking Systems
- Objective Raids
* Garret brand Communications Systems
* Garret brand Targeting/Tracking Systems

New Avalon
Achernar BattleMechs
- HD:FS 3025
* PXH-1 Phoenix Hawk
* LCT-1V Locust
* WSP-1A Wasp
- TRO:3039
* DV-6M Dervish
* ENF-4R Enforcer
* PXH-1 Phoenix Hawk
- Objective Raids
* DV-6M Dervish
* ENF-4R Enforcer
* PXH-1 Phoenix Hawk
* LCT-1V Locust
* WSP-1A Wasp

Corean Enterprises
- HD:FS 3025
* VLK-QA Valkyrie
- TRO:3039
* VLK-QA Valkyrie
* CN9-A Centurion
- Objective Raids
* VLK-QA Valkyrie
* CN9-A Centurion

Lycomb-Davion IntraTech
- HD:FS 3025
* STU-K5 Stuka
* LTN-G15 Lightning
* HCT-213 Hellcat
* APCs
* Artillery
- TRO:3039
* STU-K5 Stuka
- Objective Raids
* STU-K5 Stuka
* LTN-G15 Lightning
* HCT-213 Hellcat

New Ivaarsen
Galtor Naval Yards
- Sarna.net
* Seahorse

New Syrtis
New Syrtis Shipyards
- HD:FS 3025
* Upgrading
- Objective Raids
* Monarch Dropship
* Mammoth Dropship
- Dropships and Jumpships
* Gazelle Dropship
* Monarch Dropship
* Mammoth Dropship

New Valencia
Blackwell Industries
- TRO:3039
* MAD-4A Marauder II
- Objective Raids
* MAD-4A Marauder II
- Wolf's Dragoons
* MAD-4A Marauder II
* Badger Tracked Support
* Bandit Hovercraft
* Kestrel VTOL
* Peregrine VTOL

Notes – According to Wolf's Dragoons and cross referenced with the CGL's MUL (and some help from Sarna.net), the Badger, Bandit and Kestrel all entered service 3008. The MAD-4A Marauder II entered service in 3012 and the Peregrine VTOL entered service in 3021. All five are the result of Wolf's Dragoons interaction with Blackwell Industries.

Ozawa
General Dynamics
- TRO:3039
* KTO-18 Kintaro
- Objective Raids
* KTO-18 Kintaro

Wunderland Enterprises
- Objective Raids
* Wunderland brand Communications Systems
* Wunderland brand Targeting/Tracking Systems

Panpour
Challenge Systems
- Objective Raids
* Monolith Jumpship
- Dropships and Jumpships
* Monolith Jumpship

Jalastar Aerospace
- HD:FS 3025
* SPR-H5 SparrowHawk
* CN9-A Centurion
* Manticore Heavy Tank
- TRO:3039
* SPR-H5 SparrowHawk
* Meteor Heavy Conventional Fighter
* Manticore Heavy Tank
- Objective Raids
* SPR-H5 SparrowHawk
* SB-27 Sabre
* CN9-A Centurion
* Manticore Heavy Tank

Quentin
Independence Weaponry
- HD:FS 3025
* AS7-D Atlas
* VTR-9B Victor
* MAD-3R Marauder
* JM6-S JagerMech
- TRO:3039
* AS7-D Atlas
* VTR-9B Victor
* MAD-3R Marauder
- Objective Raids
* AS7-D Atlas
* VTR-9B Victor
* MAD-3R Marauder
* JM6-S JagerMech

Robinson
Valiant Systems
- Objective Raids
* Armor
* LRM Launchers
* SRM Launchers

Salem
General Motors
- TRO:3039
* Behemoth Heavy Tank
- Objective Raids
* APC – Wheeled

Schedar
Rander Communications Equipment Inc
- HD:FS 3025
* Communications Systems
* Targeting/Tracking Systems
- Objective Raids
* Rander brand Communications Systems
* Rander brand Targeting/Tracking Systems

Talcott
General Motors
- Objective Raids
* GM Fusion Engines

Talon
Kallon Industries
- HD:FS 3025
* JM6-S JagerMech
* RFL-3N Rifleman
* GRF-1N Griffin
* ENF-4R Enforcer
* Partisan Heavy Tank
- TRO:3039
* JM6-S JagerMech
* RFL-3N Rifleman
* GRF-1N Griffin
* HNT-151 Hornet
- Objective Raids
* JM6-S JagerMech
* RFL-3N Rifleman
* GRF-1N Griffin
* ENF-4R Enforcer
* HNT-151 Hornet

Spoiler: Taurian Concordat

Periphery – Taurian Concordat

Brinton
O/P Computer Electronics
- Objective Raids
* O/P brand Communications Systems
* O/P brand Targeting/Tracking Systems

Illiushin
Vandenberg Mechanized Industries
- The Periphery
* Union Dropship
* GRF-1N Griffin
* COM-2D Commando
* STG-3R Stinger
- Objective Raids
* Union Dropship
* GRF-1N Griffin
* COM-2D Commando

Laconis
Taurus Majoris Mining
- Objective Raids
* StarSlab brand Armor

Macleod's Land
Pinard Protectorates Limited
- The Periphery
* LCT-1V Locust
* STG-3R Stinger
- Objective Raids
* LCT-1V Locust
* STG-3R Stinger

New Vanderberg
Vandenberg Mechanized Industries
- The Periphery
* CHP-W5 Chippewa
* MAD-3R Marauder
* ARC-2R Archer
* STG-3R Stinger
* Hunter Light Tank
- TRO:3039
* CHP-W5 Chippewa
* ARC-2R Archer
- Objective Raids
* CHP-W5 Chippewa
* MAD-3R Marauder
* ARC-2R Archer
* STG-3R Stinger
* Hunter Light Tank

Organo
Pinard Protectorates Limited
- The Periphery
* SB-27 Sabre
- Objective Raids
* SB-27 Sabre

Perdition
Pinard Protectorates Limited
- The Periphery
* THB-D36 Thunderbird
* WSP-1A Wasp
* Rommel Tank
* Vedette Tank
* J. Edgar Light Hover
- TRO:3039
* J. Edgar Light Hover
- Objective Raids
* THB-D36 Thunderbird
* WSP-1A Wasp
* Rommel Tank
* Vedette Tank
* J. Edgar Light Hover

Pinard
Pinard Protectorates Limited
- The Periphery
* MAD-3R Marauder
* Munitions
- Objective Raids
* MAD-3R Marauder
* Martell Lasers

Pinard-Dicolais Electronics
- The Periphery
* Communications Systems
* Targeting/Tracking Systems
- Objective Raids
* Communications Systems
* Targeting/Tracking Systems

Vandenberg Mechanized Industries
- TRO:3039
* WHM-6R Warhammer
- Objective Raids
* WHM-6R Warhammer
* TDR-5S Thunderbolt
* Vedette Tank

Wingman Enterprises Limited
- Sarna.net
* Bat Hawk Conventional Fighter

Sterope
Sterope Defense Industries
- Objective Raids
* Diverse Optics brand Lasers
* Sunglow brand Lasers
* Donal brand PPCs
* Hotshot brand Flamers
* Pontiac brand Autocannons
* Delta Dart brand LRM Launchers

Taurus Territorial Industries
- The Periphery
* Union Dropship
* SYD-21 Seydlitz
* Hunter Light Tank
* Static Gun Emplacements
- Objective Raids
* Union Dropship
* SYD-21 Seydlitz
* APC – Tracked

Notes – According to Sarna.net's citation from TRO:3058, TTI also produces the Maultier (Basic) at this facility.

Taurus
Magna
- Objective Raids
* Magna brand Engines
* Magna brand Lasers
* Magna brand PPCs
* Star League brand Interplanetary Drives
* Warrior brand Fusion Engines

Taurus Territorial Industries
- The Periphery
* Leopard Dropship
* THB-D36 Thunderbird
- TRO:3039
* WHM-6R Warhammer
- Objective Raids
* Leopard Dropship
* LTN-G15 Lightning
* MAD-3R Marauder
* WHM-6R Warhammer
* TDR-5S Thunderbolt
* LCT-1V Locust
* WSP-1A Wasp

Spoiler: Questionable/Unconfirmed

DC – Aix-la-Chapelle
* Diplan 'MechYards
DC – Altair
* Long Life Company – (Possible Product – M.A.S.H. Trucks)
DC – Alshain
* Alshain BattleWorx
* Alshain Naval Yards
* Bergan Industries – (Not until after 3040)
DC – Dieron
* Luthien Armor Works
* Terada Warship Yards
DC – Dover
* Dover Shipyards – (Possible Product – Invader Jumpship, Merchant Jumpship)
DC – Grumium
* Grumium Creations – (small company producing various military parts and sub-systems)
DC – Hun Ho
* LexaTech Industries – (Possible Product – Archer, Grasshopper)
DC – Irece
* LAW-Barcella – (Was this a LAW plant taken over by the Clans, or built after they arrived?)
DC – Kagoshima
* Nissan General Industries – (Possible Product – Fusion Engines)
DC – Kimball
* Ceres Metals Industries
DC – Luthien
* Defiance Motors – (Listed in Sarna.net's "Luthien" entry. Seems unlikely)
* Focke-Achgelis Motorworks
DC – Midway
* DeHuego & Freshet Warship Design
* Midway Shipyards
* Telfar BattleMechs
DC – New Oslo
* DeHuego & Freshet Warship Design
* Galileo Instruments – (According to HK/DC, they existed, but are they still a military provider?)
Notes - According to Dropships and Jumpships, Galileo Instruments builds dropships... Assumption would be that this is done on Schuyler (which is suggested by Objective Raids), so the New Oslo office appears to be Corporate Headquarters/Home Office and none military goods.
DC – New Samarkand
* Wakzashi Enterprise
* Luthien Armor Works
* DeHuego & Freshet Warship Design
DC – Nirasaki
* New Age Systems Incorporated – (Was Spad factory destroyed? shut down? Not exist until after 3025?)
DC – Nykvarn
* Luthien Armor Works
DC – Savinsville
* Luthien Armor Works
DC – Schuyler
* Galileo Instruments – (Seems to have been built post 3025)
Notes - Dropships and Jumpships suggest this existed and produced Achilles and Monarch Dropships. Moved to the confirmed section.
DC – Soul
* Blankenburg Technologies – (Possible Product – Crockett.. When was it built? Sarna.net entry states "During Independence Weaponry's revamp of the old Blankenburg facility on Soul", which should place revamp after 3040. But is it newly "old" or Star League "old"?
DC – Togura
* Togura Shipyards
DC – *Unknown*
* Unknown – (Possible Product – Deuce-and-a-Half knock-off)


FS – Augusta
* Corean Enterprises
FS – Benet III
* Johnston Industries
FS – Broken Wheel
* Quikscell
FS – Cahokia
* Achernar BattleMechs
FS – Caph
* Lang Industries Incorporated (Possible Product – Shadow Hawk)
FS – Carmacks
* Federated Industries – (Possible Product – Personal Body Armor)
FS – El Dorado
* General Motors
FS – Layover
* Kallon Industries
* Sacrado Industries – (Possible Product – Seeker Dropship, K-1 Dropshuttle, S-7A Bus)
FS – Macintosh
* Apple Computer Interstellar – (Unlikely. They only sell personal computers in 3025, not military)
FS – New Syrtis
* Johnston Industries – (Not until after 4th SW)
FS – Northwind
* Bulldog Enterprises – (Seems improbable)
* Cosara Weaponries – (Was anything left?)
FS – Novaya Zemlya
* Corean Enterprises
* Federated Industries – (Possible Product – Federated Autocannons and Missile Launchers)
FS – Panpour
* Joint Equipment Systems
FS – Talon
* Mercy Industries of Talon – (Possible Product – M.A.S.H. Trucks)
FS – Tancredi IV
* Precision Weaponry – (Lasers produced are LosTech, but did they produce standard?)
FS – Torrence
* Veridian Dynamics – (Possible Product – Tiger Medium Tank)
FS – *Unknown*
* Pintel Corporation – (They exist, but where?.. Manufacture Pintel Heavy Combat ATV)
* Unknown – (Possible Product - Deuce-and-a-Half)

 

[Imperator Pax]

Interlude 6
The Eridani Light Horse ... or their command staff, as they had actually brought a staff had come to New Avalon independent of the command. Of course the Former Star League turned mercenary unit had the advantage of multiple full birds and was on good relations with the Davions so that was probably less of an issue given the Davions still had good reason to be worried about the combine jumping the border first.

Had this been a raid, even a raid in force, they wouldn't have needed this many troops. It wasn't though. They weren't trying to do what the Galedon Regulars had presumably been up to, this wasn't jumping over the border to bushwhack combine positions... this was out and out planetary conquest. The Prince intended to actually effect a change in the border, and gain territory by military force at the combine's expense.

Strategic level concerns. "What's this?" Abner inquired looking over the noteputer.

"Something I don't have the resources to pursue." He replied. Gene had noticed it on Robinson, but there had been no way to address it with so many other more pressing issues. There were problems of course. The Catapult he had taken as bounty on Detroit had been rebuilt, it hadn't been that damaged anyway, so repaired really might have been more accurate. The Magna 260 at its center was the main object. "We fit the Comms suit, and targetting system of my catapult," Doctor Abner merely nodded, "With a Dalban Series K," That the Maguanacs had found, "And a Dalban Hirez," Like what his Marauder used for the targeting system, "The Thunderbolt runs off the same engine, and I would prefer to find out if we can refit a Thunderbolt with the same C3 & TTS," and the same armor and ideally as much of the same weapons manufacturer as possible. "But given the way that lot is arguing," He indicated in the general direction of the lawyers from GM and the manufacturers of the Marauder II, "I'm not thrilled at approaching either of them with this." Especially not with the Devestator's plans having been slapped on the table as well.

"I will make some inquiries, but I would recommend you send this to Mr Pasha, he should be capable of finding you a Thunderbolt, and putting together a prototype, which I will tell you will greatly simplify any matters of sourcing industrial assistance."

"Understood." He remarked. General Kerston was still talking, with presumably his Davion Liaison and staff.

"Are you thinking about your conversation with Tristan?"

... he hadn't confirmed it... but ... given Kerston's rank, and his specificity to it... he had a sneaking suspicion that 3rd​ RCT's credentials were in fact still legitimate. Kerston was using Brevet General because he was authenticated to that rank as an emergency, which meant they had valid authorization codes... He couldn't be for sure without a handshake, but that would have gone both ways. It was possible everyone in the Eridani were being issued valid SLDF credentials.

But they had barely talked to the man, other than the brief introduction, that would probably change later in the day, or tomorrow, but for now the center stage mess was the argument between GM and the new valencia firm.

... he thought about the other ... other mech in his stable. The mongoose he'd taken at Luxen. Its pilot had had the authenticated credentials of a SLDF officer. Bahar had a lieutenants credentials when they had met. The Magunacs... the Azami or some branch must have had some way to generate new credential codes... but he hadn't asked, only recognized that they were SLDF regular codes in the periphery expedition...

"With all due respect professor, so far as I'm concerned the Star League has been gone for 250 years."

"Two hundred and fifty one years come Christmas, since the coup you mean."

"Yes." The conversation paused as Kerston and his staff shuffled across the room, "You understand that given the combine's behavior there is a chance they'll escalate to canned sunshine right?"

Abner remained silent for a telling moment, "I would like to think that it won't come to that, that, after the horrors of the first and second that we have moved beyond that."

Gene had pulled the Volgadon library's data on how the Terran Alliance had started.

How the soviet union had fell, and korea unified. What had happened between India and Pakistan. Nukes. There had been a lull of course, from 45 through most of the cold war. The soviets had ossified and eventually the soviet army had failed to either be able to keep its client states inline with conventional force, and had resorted to escalation to nuclear weapons against a Western Alliance experimenting with early fusion reactors while the Soviets had still been relying on an extractive economy. Without Soviet support to prop them up the koreas had found themselves in a continuation that had resulted in nuclear weapons used against the ultimately victorious south... and well India and Pakistan had thrown nukes for reasons really only understood by nationalists.

That had been a thousand years ago now.

History long forgotten by most of humanity.

"The Taurians rejected the Ares conventions, and the Capellans claimed that they didn't apply to non signatories." He remarked a heat mounting somewhere in his stomach, "And of course the Taurians always had a nuclear first strike doctrine." Which to be honest Gene might have assumed was based on the French... if France hadn't been subsumed into the greater cultural mélange of the anglo dominated Western Alliance by the end of the 21st​ century. "Those same conventions were repudiated by the successor states. I think if the Combine thinks they can get away with it, if they think escalating to deescalate will work they'll do it... and even if they don't use nuclear weapons, I'm still expecting a smorgasbord of atrocities given what I've heard is going on already over there..."
--
They had broken for lunch... though breaking for lunch was really they moved to another room in the palace in order to be fed by more men in victorian jackets and gloves. All it really did was shuffle around who all was sitting where, and force them to carefully measure their movements to avoid breaching etiquette. "So what do you know about the DVS 1"

"Boondoggle replacement, two ppcs, gauss rifles in the arms. Suite of meds supporting, DHS 300XL to make space for all of that. Another of Kerensky's having too much time for things other than his actual job." He muttered a little more harshly than he had intended.... "I saw the file for them dated 2765," None had actually been shipped to Tristan's snake eaters. "Leaving politics aside, it should have been an excellent long range combatant." But that XL engine meant it would have the same vulnerabilities to to side torso damage blowing through armor as Sutton's Dervish Md. "I assume there had to be some kind of hang up, because the Nightstar superseded it in production..." the truth was Gene had no idea how Gauss rifles had become lostech it made no sense given how venerable the Alacorn Mk VI design was.

"We found the completed plans for them you know. The original project material, and a couple of prototypes, included a completed on."

"Really?"

"Mr Ford neglected to inform me that the computer of that one is locked."

"You can't override it."

Abner shook his head. "It was on a flatbed for transport when my protégé found it and they moved into storage, and then it was only when we got here did we realize we couldn't use it... that's why we didn't show it off yesterday. Its here."

He nodded again, but he was hoping that Abner wasn't depending heavily on the machine as the lynchpin of their strategy... but he doubted it. Ford's detour had struck him as last minute, and that Abner hadn't been aware of it, and that he'd been banking on the Bristol find... those Furys as well as whatever else had been dug up there. The lyran professor had shown him the faciity documents, and castle Brian in size was not an exaggeration... the facility was cavernous in the extreme. It seemed as if that a combination of factors had resulted in only a fraction of that spacce being occupied... but fraction of that much real estate was still a lot.

It was a contribution of equipment that could be used to bolster Davion forces, and would require more spacelift capacity. House Davion would be moving a lot of league era equipment to major combatants and attacking to hit the Combine hard sometime in the spring of the new year, in combination with using 'major' mercenary commands to support them.

"So why does Field Marshal Davion look like the cat who caught the canary?"
--
Gene settled into the harness, and adjusted the retention. The Devastator was a conventional bipedal humanoid shape. It lacked the leg structure and ability to get as hull down as Marauder style frames, but that wasn't a big deal to him.

He started the pairing sequence with the neurohelmet, placing his id chit in the receptacle, and initiated reactor start up. The machine started to hum. Holographic projections appeared identifying the machine as a prototype DVS 01, and a list of participants as his handshake completed.

"Everything all right in there?"

"Yeah, you know General Motors was a contractor on this program?" He asked.

"Oh dear you don't say." Abner probably had known, given the way GM was acting... well for the moment they didn't know. "Hows it going?"

"I"m in safe boot, its authenticating." Indicator lights turned greened, "Engine is good, I have motive power. Standby." He clicked off and extended his consciousness tentatively through the mind machine interface as the machine's last posting appeared as an emblem.

No real surprise from that it had been posted to a Hegemony Command unit... and it wasn't a surprise that the assigned pilot was an ACMS Project course graduate. The computer core logged his credentials, and authenticated his user data letting him remove the chit.

"Anything?"

"To be honest I think its taking a mental engram," A common enough security measure, hell there were machines that were literally biometrically locked behind gene keys, but that had actually fallen out of preference in the Star League day even with Royal command, in favor of other security precautions. The screen changed, and he sighed. "Standby, bringing the reactor to active." With everything looking good, he looked at main display as the words formed, "For he on honey hath fed and drunk the milk of paradise." For the first time in centuries within the Inner Sphere a Devastator Assault Mech stood up, and took a step forward. "All systems read green."

Another step forward. He ran the mech's diagnostics, and checked fire control, weapons. There was a rear mounted medium laser. Program file designated it was an infantry deterrent... by why a medium, why not a small laser, or even a small pulse laser. SPLs had been in production since the early 27th​ century. "I read what Tristan had on the Titan."

"I did to, Kressly, on Eridani."

"Do you think, if this survived on Hoff it would be there?"

"I have no idea, doc." The access, mech scale, door opened. "Are we checking the Gauss rifles?"

"Yes, I'm indicating the weapons bay on your navigation." The Devastator accepted the navigation package from the control tower.

Sixteen rounds.

The thought illuminated the weapons in the holographic image and projected a chart. Relatively speaking the 300mm inert projectile were less powerful than saying 185mm ChemJet Assault Auto Cannon but velocity at the muzzle insured it remained accurate at significantly longer ranges than that class of weapon did... on the other hand the computer warned him that the that the capacitors were a potential vulnerability.

The assault mech moved forward, and Gene was aware of the observation deck's occupants following the machine. The AMA static range was functionally identical to Robinson with an area of known and unknown distance targets, with the place for a mech to stand on a thirty meter ferrocrete hex that was slightly built up relative to the main slab.

Another commline hand shook, "Alright colonel, you're weapons free." The mustachioed man on the other end remarked.

"Initiating, weapons test, medium lasers, left and right torso." He intoned. They worked, so did the inline center mount laser, and he turned the mech around to confirm the rear weapon from behind... even if that process prompted a quirk. The machine settled back on target, "Moving to second range targets, and PPCs." Gene clarified to the control tower, while he went about flipping arms switches on the dash. Left and Right torso mounted weapons, confirmed. Then, "Gauss Rifles, long range." Then as a precaution after he started the master weapons diagnostic. "Everything looks fine on my end doc. " All systems read nominal
--
Notes: So that schedule plan for the month is working... really well... not. Ok, it is possible that for this month, I really would prefer to keep GWW on Sunday but that the rest of the interludes could potentially end up as running during hte week.

 

[Imperator Pax]

Interlude 7
--
The duke of Robinson maneuvered his wheel chair around the tables as his officers worked processing equipment checks, and across the hard ferrocrete of the yard. "And we're ready?"

"As ready as we can be your grace." Colonel Cameron replied jogging beside the duke. Thirty meters to their right were the massed forces of the Draconis March Militia... or at least the primary striking force.

Battlemechs, and supporting armor, including of course machines that had been pulled from a star league depot that he had been ignorant of.

Part of that complement were Star League Chaparrals, being stood guard over by more recently constructed Enforcer and Centurion BattleMechs... which was what he wanted Robinson Standard BattleWorks to look at... because all of them, and indeed the Mongoose, the Dragoon's mysterious Annihilator, and the venerable Hunchback could all run off the same fusion engine.

He needed the local company to begin manufacturing fusion engines... no what he really needed them to do was to begin producing BattleMechs wholesale. One of the things that had been discussed but that the Prince's Champion had nixed, as not having time, was the refitting of equipment to consolidate a logistical bottle neck in both ammunition use, and for that matter even on lasers.

"Your grace." The head of Robinson Standard BattleWorks was a good hardworking man, but it was clear he'd been overtaxed by recent preparations. There were deep bags developing under the man's eyes and that only accentuated his rail thin frame.

"Mr Surrey its good to see you again, I do apologize for keeping you waiting."

"Not at all your grace."

The papers were handed over, "Can it be done?"

Ultimately it would take time and money. He had known that, and yet the man's pause filled with a sudden inescapable feeling of dread, "Well, your grace, yes the engines, armor, certainly. The Enforcer, and Centurion, are different BattleMechs your grace." He was tempted to hurry the man along, or interrupt him that of course he knew that, and knew that ordinarily the Centurion was finicky with its standard auto cannon, and that whatever else they could just replace the Luxor with the Federated version, "Its true, and well some parts commonality aside, your grace would be better suited attempting to choose one, or the other... and if I may."

"The enforcer," He grunted from his wheel chair. How hard would it really be to just mount missiles in, "But I will want our Centurions refit for the Federated Autocannon as soon as we are able to do so."

"Yes your grace." The man acquiesced forthwith, and they moved along to the other issues. When it was all said and done though the Sandoval duke was sure that given time Robinson would be able to make the appropriate steps, with the appropriate political support to begin expansion... and that his world would be able to produce new BattleMechs for the Draconis March.

A Prospect that would be, he expected, much easier as among the new arrivals he expected were the other dukes of the Draconis March, particularly those of the Elidere system, and the others who had suffered attacks by the 19th​ Galedon Regulars. He had played the game long enough to recognize having them come in the autumn would keep them on their worlds if reprisals came, but having them not be here with the discovery of the Brian Cache had been its own lucky break.
--

Within the core of the Eirdani Light Horse's regiments each had a contingent of what were now LosTech machines... carefully guarded once it had become clear that they were harder and harder to repair and replace. He thought of Campbell's Highlander, and shook his head head. He knew, from the records of his predecessors, that at the core of the Azami community was a carefully unbroken chain of descent from soldiers of the Combine's SLDF units who had not for one reason or another left with General Kerensky. He knew that the Highlanders similarly had their own traditions.

That first look suggested that was all it was, especially with Azami troopers in tow. It made perfect sense that Highlanders, and Azami survivors' descendants would have ties of their own. The Eridani Light Horse had accepted the terms of House Steiner through negotiations with former SLDF units, or their descendants in Lyran service. His lyran counterparts had been using it as an old boys club, more than living up to the League's ideals, but that was life.

The mech start up over the channel echoed.

"It's hard to light a candle, easy to curse the dark instead."

The Marauder lifted to full height hull rising over the ferrocrete embankment.

The observation deck's support display listed battle rom data, which was dominated by a truly exhaustive compilation of mech kills of the last two years. "Sir." The staff officer's expression was puzzled and concerned as he toyed with the noteputer. An SLDF IFF wasn't something they'd never seen before, each and every man, and woman in the Eridani Light Horse swore the oaths, that wasn't the problem.

The piloting credentials listed were valid, fair enough. It was the beyond that. The list of credentials was alarmingly complete, but of all the impossibilities there was perhaps the most impossible, that stood out against all the rest. Credentials like Master Gunner qualifications were still issued out by the Eridani Light Horse. They still had the testing, evaluation and issuing ability for that, and plenty of other basic, and some advanced mechwarrior courses.

The tab and scroll which stood out most was for the Advanced Combat and Maneuvering Skills Project.

The Gunslinger Program.

The other impossibility was Service Nationality. The brevet colonel wasn't from the Lyran Commonwealth, the Draconis Combine, the Federated Suns, the Capellan Confederation, the Free Worlds League or any of the territorial states. It listed the Terran Hegemony, listing an HAF service number.

"Command, standing by, LBX 120mm three rounds," The rest of the firing sequence Kersten didn't recognize but he supposed it was a lostech weapon, cluster was an artillery command he was familiar with.

The General Motors rep was all but plastering his face to the transparent aluminum bubble that separated them from the air as the autocannon did its work on the targets. The man might as well have been salivating as the class five autocannon went to work.

He was aware that the other mercenary command had already transferred Star League era samples of the ammunition. There were copies of two different class ten versions apparently, he had seen one of the examples labelled Lubalin Ballistics, the other was apparently a Krupp example. The excitement and the clamor at the test wasn't just GM's reps.

The smaller corporation was here as well, and was looking on in interest. The Marauder, swapped ammunition types back to standard, and then delivered a burst on target in excess of a typical Whirlwind's range. Whether that was showing off or the lostech, or a mix wasn't immediately clear, but it probably didn't matter. The purpose of all this Kersten knew damned well was to show off. This was a dog and pony show to impress General Motors. The first prince was wooing one of his vassals to come around to his point of view, and was offering them the prospect of involvement in some new Davion auto cannon business.

... the davions were famous for their obsession with autocannons, it was almost apart of the national character of the Federated Suns really... and GM would have been insane to step back from involvement in it. This was the carrot that would help entice them, and deter them from the reminder that the First Prince was still a monarch with exceptional powers not counting those that had become normal after the succession wars had erupted two centuries earlier.

The show continued. The mech that they didn't see was Blackwell's Marauder II, but Kersten had been told about it... and also the variants of it that the terran brevet colonel had apparently requested... and there was one other. They had gotten to see the White Horse, but apparently in the constraints of travel the Colonel had left the Black Horse behind.

That was what the news called them. Someone on Elidere had coined it in response to an interview showing previous BattleRom footage. White Horse, Black Horse. He wasn't offended by it, not at all, the parade paint jobs made perfect sense... and when it came to field operations well it didn't seem to be any trouble to apply Star League environment camouflage patterns to them for campaigning... but in today's events the white horse was the white horse, painted white and gray.

The aide had already been attempting to run down whose parade colors, a Hussar unit, possibly, maybe the Combine had been on to something. Maybe not. It wouldn't hurt to look. The 'Devastator' was also in SLDF parade colors, but it had apparently been found by the Lyran. Something to look up, but not a priority... not nearly as much of an anomaloy. LosTech turned up, and sometimes it was a really impressive find like this.

There were rumors going around that they'd found a whole army cache, some division whose depot hadn't been found before now. It would have been nice to have been able to bring some of their units back up SLDF unit specifications. As the years had gone on his predecessors had had to adjust to supply realities. There were still some infantry units fielding the standard issue weapons of the Star League era, but there numbers were a handful of jump infantry companies compared to a time when the RCT would have all had standard Mauser Las Guns. That was long in the past now.

They had lost so much. So much had declined over the centuries.

The door opened to readmit the young mechwarrior, and it seemed to take Field Marshal Yvonne Davion the Prince's Champion considerable effort to keep the GM rep from trying to get to the colonel. What was notable about today, besides the mechs of course, was also the absence of other less grand finds. There had probably been infantry equipment, but the cache had apparently contained significant combat vehicle stocks... but the Eridani hadn't been the ones to locate it... and being upset about it would be counter productive.

The problem would be having a conversation in private. In the last two days there hadn't been a priority there, not with all of the colonel's time monopolized either by the Lyran doctor, or by Davion inquiries, and there hadn't been a pressing need. With as much travel time there would have been time to talk about the contract... but now the Field Marshal's mothering looked different. "I'll try and get you some time on the others," The field marshal was presumably referring to Blackwell's Marauder II mechs.

"I was wondering about that, we're here," At AMA, "I take it we're displacing the students."

"That's true." She replied as they moved to sit back down. "A necessary accommodation for the realm though, I assure you. You could come back here after."

"Lex has mentioned that." He replied.

"And how are you and Alexandria getting along?"
--

 

[Imperator Pax]

Interlude 8 (A)​

"Did you know that General Kersten is looking for you?"

"Now?" It was a change of pace. ... not that he'd exactly made a point of getting beyond exchanging pleasantries with the man. "What about the Blackwell test?"

"Oh he's invited himself along to that." Yvonne replied adjusting the horn rimmed glasses she was wearing, "Something about necessary military capacity since your unit will be fielding these models... Blackwell tells me you'll be the first outside of the Wolf Dragoons, and the first with, what did you call them?"

"Sturmjaeger." Abner declared.

"Storm Hunter." She looked between the two of them. "For the record the name is in English." Gene replied.

"It will be more popular in the commonwealth if you give it a good german name." Abner recommended nodding his head. "I think it will be popular either way," It was an assault mech after all, and Lyran reached for his coffee. "But the marketing is important." Gene nodded for the Professor's benefit.

"The Brevet General?"

"He hasn't made time before this." Yvonne remarked, reaching for her own tea cup, "What do you make of that?"

"We just showed off Gauss rifles, I would want to know what else the other unit in the Operation has admittedly."

"Do you have any objections?"

He wondered if he actually had a choice, "I don't have any objections field marshal." Besides that hadn't been what he had wanted to talk about anyway. "I didn't have time to finish the," She was looking at him, "This is related to the Marauder 2. It utilizes a certain of degree of parts compatibility , but I didn't expect or plan to have access to certain weapons, but given we are talking an assault chassis, and since Cosara and GM aren't manufacturing the King Crab any longer it should be possible to mount a pair of class twenties in the arms, two tons of ammunition in the side torsos."

She smiled, "Were you hoping originally to simply buy King Crabs on Northwind?"

"No. I understand that they're strictly in refit and repair these days." He shook his head, "The other project I have one of the techs working on based on spare parts but until we have an actual chassis to install them on it'll have to wait."

"What do you need it for?"

"I expect the Combine to try and banzai charge light mechs, I want something that if they do manage to get close .. a pair of hundred tonners for close area defense in an urban environment is what I came up with based on what I expected would be coming in inventory."

"I see." She nodded, "for the time being let us focus on the brevet general, and his involvement. It is in all likelihood that this goes beyond inter unit cooperation... and given today's demonstration it won't just be Blackwell, General Motors has decided that they do wish to be present."

That was a change, but not an especially shocking one. The whole strategy at play here seemed to have been one of making an impression on GM to carrot them into playing ball.

--
The Marauder II's cockpit layout was for the most part similar to the layout he was familiar with, there were minor differences. Functionally though, for what they were doing today, there was no difference to what they had done yesterday There were some differences in the hardware in the transition to the Hi Rez II and the comms system was Blackwell's own in house system... as opposed to retaining the Dalban Star Link used in other Blackwell Industry products.

"How do you things look?"

"Solid." He replied keying the mike.

There was a pause on the other end of the connection. Then Yvonne came back on, "The Blackwell representative asks why you wanted two LRM 5 intead of a single LRM 10?"

"Am I weapon's free?" He replied, a question for a question.

The Field Marshal paused, presumably to double check with the mustachioed man who's range theyd been monopolizing the last few days. "Yes colonel."

He reached up to flip the arm switches, and painted separate targets. He had run the mental math through the targeting computer. The two stand ins for light mechs were about half a klick out, well beyond their engagement envelope. Ten missiles cycled from vertical launch in the upper torso of the Mad II and peppered the heads of both machines. Not enough to confirm kills on an enemy mech but enough to insure that whoever was getting their bell run would know that he had them dialed in.

"Well that's just you showing off." She remarked, drumming her fingers on the console in front of her, near the mike, "But it does make sense when you put it that way."

"Its a skill thing." He responded, "admittedly having two launchers makes the gyro's job easier," Having them in opposite torsos, and saving tonnage. Gene didn't presume to understand how the LRM 10 class of launcher had remained viable given how inefficient it was. Inertia he supposed, "Its not ideal for less experienced pilots, but it provides some indirect fire."

"You mentioned seeing if the Krupp could be installed on the frame."


It was funny how yesterday she had put that to the side, "Ideally we could put one in the right torso to make sure the Krupp would work." The Krupp was an 120mm but classed as a 10, instead of the GM Whirldwind's class five designation.

He got the feeling Yvonne must have been prodding GM's rep up in the control tower because she came back over the radio, "Ah well its such a pity we don't have to experiment more with the chassis as it is." It definitely seemed as if Yvonne must have been needling the General Motor People, and possibly for that matter the Blackwell corporation. He knew that GM was angling to get access to the prototype LBX class 5in his marauder before they left new Avalon, and the field marshal was probably holding that as a trump card in terms of getting them to play ball.. and of course she had also shown up to new avalon with 30 Marauder II chassis, most in standard configuration, but others loaded to specifications he had written up short hand on Robinson. All of the machines had probably been stock originally, but regardless that many machines was an implicit demonstration that Blackwell could in theory enter full scale production of the BattleMech in the near future.

More to the point it was the demonstration that Blackwell would be contributing to the now inevitable counter attack against the combine. This was all about politics, and it wasn't as if GM hadn't been all too happy show battlerom footage from Elidere of their arguably most famous mech, at least their most iconic in appearance mech excelling on the battlefield. It certainly didn't hurt that his 'White Horse' was in silhouette profile much closer to the common 3R that the inner sphere as a whole knew, than the black horse brawler with its abundance of medium lasers.

With little else to do, he painted the fake locusts and fired the arm mounted ppcs confirming the lights as destroyed, and ran through the test for the medium laser suite. Testing and evaluation for the rest of them was more or less the same. He wasn't running a course of maneuver for the machines, that would have taken all day, but the transition still took time.

Then again the reason there were this many was because Yvonne had gone to New Valencia before they had found the Brian Cache, and so had been bringing addition assault mechs to round out DMM' heavier weights.

For Yvonne Davion up in the control deck the plan had been to use that as a horse trading implement with Lord Sandoval, and that cache find while certainly useful meant she was now adjusting the plan. Not that she couldn't make it work, the intended company of assault mechs meant for the DMM could still be used. Given combine aggression, and the need to retaliate it was the perfect opportunity to publicly show off the new machines, and there would be little the head of the capellan march would be able to do.

Brevet General Kerston had been in command of the Eridani for almost two decades, and to say was an experienced officer went without saying. In many respects the Eridani had been the wolf dragoons before the wolf dragoons had appeared on seen, the difference was that unlike the dragoons the Eridani hadn't demonstrated any miraculous ability to restore their manpower, or equipment in the manner the Dragoons had. "Well General, what do you make of the new machines?" She inquired as Kerston straightened from looking over the projected holographic projections of individual armaments.

What Blackwell had done in conjunction with the wolf dragoons wasn't unheard of. Certain Chassis were known to be robust enough that one could accommodate a greater mass, and the stress of going up a weight class... "In my opinion, for Dragoons, or other similar weight units, the design makes sense. I think the loss of speed does limit its tactical application compared to the Marauder. Its true that as with an Atlas or another hundred ton design if it is in range then smaller lighter mechs would be hard pressed to stand up and fight," But left unsaid was that the Eridani Light Horse had survived as a regimental combat team for two hundred plus years while still largely conforming to SLDF doctrine.
--
Note: Due to Covid there is a chance that i will be increasingly MIA. If this shit continues through next week I will probably post scraps to the other misc thread dail, but basically as things sit right now. I was prior to monday several updates ahead of schedule, but am now basically just copying and pasting the updates. I have not had time to sit down and respond to people's posts as a result of being sick.

 

[Imperator Pax]

Interlude 8 (B)​

Gene figured the Brevet General was probably Yvonne's age, part of that was the way the middle aged man was starting to fill out the khaki uniform, the rounded shoulders, and the increasing waistline you got as you increasingly road a desk... and from the file Kerston had been in command of the Eridani for longer than Gene had been expecting... and that was the RCT over all not holding a regimental command. Kerston had inked the current contract with the FedSuns seventeen years earlier after the Eridani had left Lyran space.

The Eridani had a dozen JumpShips to the name, and twenty attendant Droppers to fery personnel and equipment. They had lift capacity to spare which meant the Eridani would likely be assisting in ferrying Davion troops to at least the staging grounds, if not for the actual invasion.... but probably for that too.

Kerston wore the rank insignia of an SLDF lieutenant general, but was ironically outranked in uniform grade by at least two of the AFFS officers present, plus Yvonne who was still in civilian dress. The Field Marshal's office had laid out the various highlights for them, including potential ramifications. "If we succeed in taking Dieron then we will have other effects." She meant ComStar, and the office of Precentor Dieron which was supposed to represent all Combine based HPG stations. "Obviously the most likely successor to that role will be the Precentor Altair, but given Altair's location," Litterally right next door, "if we can hold Dieron we should be able to in the long term take Altair as well, and proceed to cut the Combine out of the Terran corridor."

The transmission range of the HPG of course was capable of broadcasting to a fifty light year spherical volume, which even assuming they didn't know the number knew that the combine not being one jump from earth meant that the Federated Suns could insist on restrictions of Combine flagged shipping in those lanes... at least in theory.

The immediate priority was taking and securing Dieron. They could worry about Altair later, if that proved to be in the cards for the unit. Anything beyond that was too far down the road to talk about at an operational level, and this wasn't the kind of conservation, or time for strategic level planning.

"We've considered the chance that the Combine may attempt to spike the Dieron HPG station to that end we are recommending that if it can't be secured immediately, it be bypassed and encircled until after the planet is secure."

In other words don't e stupid and get baited into potentially making us be considered responsible for the loss of the HPG station. Yvonne nodded as the map of the planet, and its key points appeared, "To a similar degree we want the planet taken intact as possible, which the combine might be unwilling to just aquiese to. Securing the university of dieron, and the major space ports around the capital are all principal objectives to take before we attempt to secure the city center."

Yvonne Davion paused to illuminate an urban build up that hadn't existed during the league, and he raised his pen, "Industrial production?

"Tatsuyama," Dragon mountain, "Is where the Dieron Military District governor has his residence. The so called dragon's roost. Its a secondary target after the capital has been secured," Unfortunately the next major target was Deber City, another post league development, this one a vanity project by Hugai Kurita which also Dieron Military District value. "Our primary focus is securing the capital and its infrastructure, and we expect the combine will predict that once we begin the attack, so you should expect garrisons from Tatsuyama city to move south to meet you."

Given Geography of the planet it would potentially in their interest to mass on the plains and force the Combine to fight through bottlenecks in the mountain passes. Kerston decided to go ahead and get to the bigger issue. "Dieron is considered Combine provincial capital, who's defending?"

"Primary Opposition is the 5th​ Sword of Light, the ninth sun zhang academy cadre is also known to be posted on Dieron but if at all possible destruction of the assets of the 'Golden Dragons' is to be considered a high value objective to the operation."

Kerston's left most aide wasn't quite as good as the others in concealing his reaction, but the meeting moved on with a gruff acknowledgement of target package on Combine Mech Regiment... one that here at least they were being told to potentially expect the whole regiment.... of course it was probably better to be prepared just in case they did cycle back without a warning.

In terms of operational information they had relatively up to date maps of the planet, though it was going to be likely that once they were dirt side Dieron's municipal level street layout would be different than what they were expecting. That would present problems to pushing into the deep valley that the planetary capital was located in, and make coordinating with AFFS infantry more of a headache.

Coupled with a highly varied range of elevations, Dieron was a mix of expansive mountains, deep valleys, large oceans, deserts that came together for a very large, by succession wars standards, population of almost five and a half billion inhabitants. San Martin, and Tatsuyama city had the potential to prove stalingrad esque nightmares if the Combine could mount a scorched earth defense.

Which meant they were on a time table as soon as they landed, which was why Yvonne wanted the city secured, and ideally to force the combine to attack them, and if at all possible to destroy the Sword of Light as fighting force. Admittedly, it was possible that the 5th​ could make the decision to withrdaw from obviously superior numbers...

"Thats why we're hitting the planet with overwhelming force, and disproportionately Mech forces." Especially given the Blackwell shipment, and now the cache findings.

"Yes, the objective is to break the main line of Combine resistance and take the capital before resistance can solidify. If we destroy the dragons in the field with overwhelming firepower we can then retask across Mateo," The main continental land mass. An interminable, but probably less than an hour, of circular questions went around the table on what they could expect both from the combine and as well as what they're Davion support would look like, and then Yvonne dismissed her staff compelling Kerston to have to do the same, "Recent have put us to where taking Dieron is feasible, and more, if could be frank. Perhaps simply among the vagaries of fate, but the Combine has over the years institutionalized a particular breed of poor behavior that we may finally be able to fully exploit. Admittedly other recent events prevent the First Prince from his planned greater involvement in this operation, but rest assured the Federated Suns is fullly committed to supporting this operation to its conclusion."

Gene kept his mouth shut about the Marauder II not being the first new BattleMech in a hundred years... Septim's Merlin being a thing, because... well she probably meant first new Davion mech or something and well it didn't matter. What mattered was the icing on the cake so far as unit participation. House Davion had apparently recently founded the New Avalon Institute of Science and it would be partnering with industries through out the Federated Suns to invest in technical learning and manufacturing.

The goal was to reverse the technological decline caused by the destruction of the first and second succession wars with an aim to eventually retread to the heights of the league. It wouldn't bring the Star League back, but it was one more way for Hanse Davion to dig poke his finger in the combine's eye.

... and of course that would attract attention. House Davion needed experienced commands to integrate and evaluate new machines, like the Marauder, or Blackwell's ground vehicles, and given Dieron would likely require some post operation downtime a garrison protecting the NAIS facilities with refit and rearmament covered seemed like a pretty sweet deal for any command.

... but first they needed to get through Dieron first. The flight plans that would taken to Northwind were already prepared.... which was the next topic to be broached, the Brevet General gave a half nod, "I'm sure you already have some idea of what to do at the Faire, but I'm can make introductions to certain parties that might be useful."
--
Notes: We are slowly wrapping up the Interludes between Robinson, and Northwing, with Hanse making his reappearance next section, and of course the end of this deliberately foreshadows the highland meeting with the descendants of the Black Watch that was mentioned ages ago. We will also in the remaining interlude deal withsome of the other cache mechs both here on New Avalon as well as with the Robinson people because well Sandoval has the other great lords of the Draconis March coming.

Oh, and yes, for the various Mad II kits I will attempt to post or refer to those in a future separate post, I just don't have the energy and probably won't until I get over covid. [This is so much worse than the first go around two years ago]

 

[Imperator Pax]

Interlude 9​

Within the ancestral fortress Hanse Davion had gathered his most trusted ministers and aides around him. Obviously in an ideal world any minister should have been trusted, but that was naïve to think, and take that as a given. MIIO and DMI were the swords and shields of the realm against myriad insidious threats. "And?" He asked as the gun camera footage concluded.

... the question was aimed at the analysts, and what did they make of it. Yvonne nodded to let the doctor speak freely, "The most reasonable explanation, your majesty is two years removed from everything else he's known. Collation of subject conversations highlight a normal of abnormalities beyond the already atypical language, dialect usage. In terms of historical cues, and references. The Capellan Confederation only formalized its servitor caste system after the fall of the Star League, and its unlikely that the League would have permitted that kind of acrimonious behavior. We just kind of accept that's how the capellans are but it seems to have come as something of a shock. Relations with the other states are example of this fish out of water situation, because at certain moments in time, the reference to the houses, and states are as if the 27th​ century."

"The Colonel doesn't seem to like the Taurians much," Yvonne remarked, "but for things that should be ancient history." The description of the Taurians 'as' an unruly territorial state with a tendency towards nuclear terrorism, and piracy was in the historical context accurate, but hadn't been true for two hundred years when territorial state had stopped being used for anyone seriously in this day and age, "on the other hand,"

The doctor, an AFFS colonel in his own right, resumed speaking, "Its classic dissociative, the zoning out , or layered speaking is a catch of sorts in the mental machinery to prevent him from spinning out of control. You put the colonel behind a battlemech yoke and you end up watching him shoot down dozens of other battlemechs." Which was an achievement, BattleMech aces were rare, most BattleMech pilots had plenty of kill counts in their BattleRoms, but the majority would be Vehicles... pretty much no one had their recorded kill tally as a majority of Enemy Mechs. "You take him out of the cockpit and ask him about the local sports team, or Solaris VII stables and he looks at you like you've grown a second head. Of course its age as well. The name Amaris is culturally coded in our society to prompt revulsion to one degree or another, centuries of cultural encoding and we see that, but we see the same reaction to Rim World Republic in general, and in a more visceral way. As if the coup was months or years ago instead of centuries. You also see it in his response and treatment of Kerensky as if he was a living, and very much imperfect officer, instead of a heroic general from the distant past. Indeed, in some conversations the colonel slips up and refers to General Kerensky in the present tense as if he's alive, and refers to other League General Officers in the same manner."

Hanse Davion nodded, "And what is the best recommendation for our plans in light of this?"

"We should proceed with the operation against Dieron, we're too far committed to the broader operation to change it. If we take the planet we succeed in further diminishing the Combine's ability to wage aggressive war." Yvonne replied, "I think that's our best option, and if the situation bears out on its current course, slow walking recruitment has the very real possibility of if we succeed in bringing the colonel over we will do so with a much larger mech command because, well and I quote 'I don't have a problem with material what I need are soldiers', and given our new insights into Brian Caches, and league materiel policy we could furnish out a new regiment of League era mechs if we we wait a year or two."

... and as for the great external threat to the realm. The images faded replaced by a star map. The hologram of the Inner Sphere showing the movement of precious JumpShips that would reinforce planets with AFFS infantry and armor regiments to offer some measure of protection. Thrusts aimed to conquer Dieron, and potentially Altair, diversion raids that were already underway and preparing to cross the border. The wash of planned activity across the Draconis March's Coreward Combat Theater.
--
The Duke of Robinson was pleased to welcome his peers of the realm to the capital of the Draconis March. He'd been looking forward to this just for the opportunity to celebrate the victory of Elidere, which could easily have gone the another way. The combine's losses aside, their attack in force at all demonstrated the need to take precautions to protect the realm. The Galedon Regulars had been able to raid with impunity before being trapped in pitched battle at Elidere, and several of his fellow lords had suffered losses against the Regulars previous attacks.

The use of the HPG to have a conversation with someone was an extravagance that some of his peers could hold because of their commercial assets but to spend that kind of money seemed absurd. As Field Marshal of the Draconis March Militia Lord Sandoval had professional obligations to his fellow dukes, and in that respect he wanted to make the rulers of Errai, and Elidere, and elsewhere at home.

The Galedon Regulars had hit Errai before, but the Maltex factory that had produced the eighty ton Thug had been destroyed almost two centuries earlier. The assault Mech had entered production in 2572, and had resulted in machines that were LosTech by contemporary standards having been stored away by Terran authorities for a rainy day. Now he would be able to distribute it to PDZs across the border area, bolstering important planets in the march without disrupting existing, and often tenuous, supplies from the broader Federated Suns. He'd of course been assured by the office of the Prince's Champion that the forthcoming counteroffensive against the combine would mean that the Draconis March would mean more supplies coming in.

His counterpart from Errai seemed especially interested in the Thugs presence in the cache... and in the cache find itself. "Errai was a Hegemony world."

"I am not disputing that," He wasn't, the other duke's position was probably right on the money, but there simply wasn't time, "But while its possible the Hegemony would have stowed such hardware away it isn't as if we found a map that would show us where they were."

His counterpart from Errai perhaps sensing that the conversation was going no where fast, prepared to switch tracks. The colonel was absent, Shepherd not being here prevented him from being ambushed with petitions, invitations, requests and so on to come visit ... and Errai had the potential of being viable recruiting grounds for pilots that the mercenary company could use. .. and of course the truth was they were no longer under command that having passed higher up the feudal ladder, and while she was a daughter to a duke the Countess of Kestrel was not yet a duchess, and Lady Yvonne was not here.

Still this was a predictable problem. One he should have suspected would crop up once he disclosed the recent cache discovery, and its contents... but realistically just the MID depot on Elidere might have prompted a basic inquiry if there might not be resources on Errai... but certainly the discovery near Purki in hindsight would warrant the questions regarding Errai.
--
They were sitting in one of the dining halls in the guest wing of Castle Davion, really killing time as the prospect of departure drew nearer. The Davion Guards were doing something. Presumably getting ready, but also going over, presumably, their share of lostech cache they'd been provided with before they were loaded up. So, small talk for what might after Dieron. "The objective is to complete the mission." It probably wasn't the answer Kerston was looking for, but before he could clarify the topic had already changed back to the elusive Minnesota tribe. Abner had shown them the artifacts... it was unfortunate that Abner hadn't had with him on Elidere, because they were high technology.

They were precisely the sort of things that a Royal Command would have been issued either as potentially next generation standards, or testing and evaluation of the latest cutting edge equipment. The BattleMechs which were identified as having fought the combine in the second succession war period that the 'Minnesota tribe' had been active, and their tactics certainly provided credence to the working theory.

Gene adjusted the cuff of his full body suit.

"Do you have transponder data, that would include the IFF?" Kerston suggested.

Abner shook his head, "No, the Tribe forces attack under complete radio silence. They made no attempt to contact the Combine forces. There was no indication electronically of who they were." And that was probably part of the mystery.

... one of Kerston's aides beat them all too it. "Thats insane," He wasn't wrong the whole point of integrated IFF systems capable of being read through battlefield ecm was to insure you didn't accidentally shoot your own men. Launching a planetary assault was reckless in the extreme.

"As I said complete radio silence. Admittedly its possible they could have used advanced ECM but more likely the units involved were drilled to operate in close order that they were relying purely on visual contact." ... which was to reiterate insane. "Jinjiro Kurita was always terrified that Kerensky would return."

... which made sense given that the Coordinator of the present day had known that his ancestor, and Jinjiro's predescessor in the office had collaborated with Amaris, and that Kerensky and Blake had known. That did raise the question of when exactly the combine had found out that the SLDF, and ComSTar had known about minoru's treachery, and how much of Jinjiro's paranoia had been irrational fear of being found out, and it spoiling his ambitions.

... and speaking of the coordinator's paranoia, he tossed a look at Abner, "Has Pasha talked to you about their planned exodus?" ... Pasha hadn't figured a final course but instead of jumping off in Canopian space, which might raise questions, he wanted to leave from somewhere called the Aurigan Reach.

"He has."

"I suppose ... if the Combine is going off the deep end, then the next potential gig will be escort duty, humanitarian convoy looking to avoid being caught up in purges." Purges that seemed to be already underway... but if they did kick the Combine's teeth in on Dieron, Gene was pretty sure that the Coordinator's response would be to start searching around for traitors that didn't' exist, and start lashing out at anything he could put his hands on... and so even though they wouldn't be able to get everyone out, the prospect of doing anything to help in pulling civilians from harms way seemed the next best gig to take up. Not so much on the prospect of the money, but for actually doing something... and of course from the sound of it, actually recruiting was going to be increasingly difficult... and if most of their next round of recruits were azamis, or other ethnic or social group that the Combine was beating on this week... well that was going to be different than hiring at some hall on a hub world... "Anyway, I'll know more when we get to Northwind."

 

[Imperator Pax]

Interlude 10​

Her fellow Azami were completing the loading. Without the Triump they had to make do with using a provided transport DropShip, but the massive Alacorn tanks were already loaded into the full size vehicle bays of Sam Houston.

Yusuf was her father's cousin, and the captain of the Colorado was young to be commanding such a large and capable, if date design, Jump Ship. Keeping Colorado on station had been done to insure that if something unfortunate developed, if they had to leave they would b e able to move the greatest volume of material quickly to the front. Unlike Pasha though Yusuf was too junior to really command the respect of more senior members of the community plying the Jump Ship routes. It might have been better had Pasha remained, but that couldn't be helped. There were completely practical reasons they had displaced and divided their forces as they had.


Lebanon and Colorado had both been plying the trade routes while the Combine had invaded Elidere and that had left as the ranking Azami officer since as a Mechwarrior Officer she outranked the junior field grade Armor Branch officers... and that had been before engaging the Galedon regulars. A mechwarrior was defined by the number of other mechs she had downed. With not even a dozen mechwarriors in the company, Elidere had been a truly target rich environment as far as the paperwork was concerned basically everyone in the company had made ace... though not without damage. The duels on the surface of Ander's moon had created impressive, respectable battlerom footage as well.

It was social credit vital to a mechwarrior's standing in the eyes of her peers and others. To that end it had made sense to leave command of the duelist contingent with here... and of course that company would still be her responsibility until they linked back up on Northwind.

"Without Pasha it will be difficult to make decisions on hiring." Yusuf remarked, the JumpShip captain was enjoying the opportunity to be planet side and in greenery surrounded full gravity as it was available, "I think might be best to leave securing supplies to me." He admitted with remarkable patience... the truth was... they weren't in a position where supplies were really a priority now... they needed manpower, but the merchant would go looking for spare parts taht they might need, while her Septim searched for recruits... and hoped that any potential Azami recruits were willing to wait until Pasha arrived in the event they wouldn't deal with 'juniors'. The discovery of the cache really had been to their benefit, but it had also complicated the scheduling beyond existing matters.. the need to take San Saba, and Lebanon off station and to New Avalon had been a hassle.


--
Gene glanced out the planet side window as the San Saba departed New Avalon's gravity well, nearby an Overlord in SLDF colors was laid in to a parrell course of the jump point. The Eridani DropShip was going the same place after all. The trip to Northwind had been the thing he'd been looking forward to for months as it had represented a chance to spend the money IE had used as a retainer to get them to come to Elidere in the first place. They would be able to recruit for the company, and allow them to grow. Northwind had been a center of mercenary hiring really since the Scots-irish diaspora had colonized the planet as new colonies were looking for private security options for various reasons. So visiting the biannual highland faire he'd been hoping for the option to do a little bit of shopping, things like bulldog tanks, and more lrm carriers to and of course the chance to hire freelancer ASF pilots before going back out to find a niche on the Magistracy's borders.

All of that had been if not derailed then force to reschedule. It was true that the company treasury was swollen to levels Gene could scarcely contemplate, but that came with the destruction of DropShips, and mechs on the regimental scale. The original plan, besides of course the I.E. Paycheck had been more about expanding the company enough to have a reasonable military force that could operate reliably in the periphery against pirates. He certainly hadn't planned to get involved in the disputes of the successor states on such a scale the money be damned.

They were involved. Davion against Kurita. Federated Suns against Draconis Combine.

Or more involved. .. given the Azami... given the hpg recording indicting Minoru Kurita in collaborating with Amaris... evidence which would humiliated the Combine publicly, and besides potential revolt, also incentive further propaganda against the Combine from the other houses. Was it truly a game changer in the balance of power? Probably not. The combine though in the pursuit to defend their own honor certainly believed it had to be concealed... which raised the question of why it had been floating around in the first place, and who had found it and baited the combine with it.

... and even without that knowledge... they'd certainly have a target on their back since Elidere... to that end was committing Dieron the best option? Probably not, but the best thing they could do was expand their ranks at the Faire and complete the objective... like he'd told Kerston, because it was the only thing he could think to do.

"What's bothering you commander?"

He looked from the window. It was a lot. Everything from his thoughts of New Avalon on Initial Approach... and what seemed to be missing, to the consideration that all the House capitals would have similarly decline... to the realization of what the capellans were doing with their servitor caste, and had been for centuries now as the wars had continued... and back to the matter of the HPG recording and who might have been trying to exploit it... and of course, "I don't understand how gauss rifles became LosTech," Advanced JumpDrive technology either, compact drives and lithium batteries were as old... it didn't seem feasible for him... the capacitor technology shouldn't have just disappeared.

Abner folded his paper, "Ah, well, not to add another mystery to your plate but I'm afraid I must, I looked into your missing warship."

"Missing warship?"

"The SLS Tripitz, she was found derelict in the periphery some years ago."

Gene shrugged, "Not surprising I suppose," Except for how warships seemed to have so completely disappeared from human space.

"No, no, no that's not the mystery. The Taurians attempted to mount a recovery operation, and well it would be easier to show you," The small trivid projector was from the Star League era, the sort of thing that would have been expensive back then, but still available at retail in Lyran space.

The SLS Tirpitz's damage was most likely a misjump, while there appeared to be some battle damage along the hull the battle cruiser's damage control teams looks like they had patched over it... which suggested whatever the reason they had abandoned ship, if they had abandoned ship in good order, was internal. The Black Lion was being crawled over by Taurian teams who didn't seem at all prepared when the first strikes came in, the footage panned to incoming strafing ASF fighters unmarked in Factory White.

If anything Gene was almost willing to bet that someone had dug the ASF out of an automated factory's warehouse and instead of adding appropriate unit insignia, and finishing Terran parade colors and decided that they were good enough in white. Whatever the case was, the Taurians weren't prepared to be facing those kinds of numbers.

"What do you make of it? Of these Vandenburg white wings?"

"Given the," twenty dropships, "the ships they were with, I'd guess whoever they were originally were hoping to recover Tripitz, and with that not being an option prioritized operational security and..." And scuttled the ship into the gas giant's gravity well. He wasn't even sure why he bothered scrambling to scribble the coordinates... in the League's time the navy probably could have brought complex recovery equipment in, drones, and tugs to recover Tripitz... but all that infrastructure was gone, and even if the ship could have been recovered? What then, if the ship had been abandoned in good order then the ship's drives would have been ordered scrubbed by the admiral, or at least the watch commander to prevent exploitation... given the conflict with the rebelling territorial states. "I don't suppose, I suppose my next question is whether or not there was any indication of when Tripitz was lost originally," The Taurians had managed to find her in 2979 which was when the footage was from... footage that he had no idea how Abner had managed to source even if it was almost forty years old now.

Abner didn't have answer. It was unknown exactly how much time the Taurians had spent aboard the derelict only that they had made the decision to try and recover it... and if rumors were right, that the Capellans had thought to try and claim jump them, and then, bam honorable third party intervention in the form of these white wings... but complete details were missing.

The Tripitz was lost.

He plugged the coordinates into his own small hegemony produced computer, and looked at the coordinates... not that there was a point. They didn't have the resources to go fishing for a battlecruiser in a gas giant, "There is no way we could divert for that," If they did got to this Aurigan Reach place with Pasha's refugees the year after.

Abner, perhaps the growing morose feeling, changed subjects, "What do you think of the devastator?"

"In all honesty it completely eclipses what I was hoping" Personally"to get out of the Marauder II series." Which shouldn't have been that much of a surprise. The truth was it was much more suited to his engagement style at rangegiven those gauss rifles... that wasn't to say the Marauder II wouldn't work for the company at larger... or for DMM units supporting it would... "I'll admit I don't understand why it took this long for someone to make an assault mech off the Marauder Chassis, I really would have expected given logistics that the SLDF would have done it, but it is what it is."
--
Notes: We may or may not start Highland Faire sunday, there are two other 'scrap' interludes that basically nominally canon that were cut for timing issues but its about four thousand words of content covering Septim's perspective and some of the other characters that I might rework somewhat to include. I won't really be covering the travel time from New Avalon to Northwind, except possibly Kerston and Gene getting a discussion in, but that could basically be done on Northwind, and then a conversation between Gene, and Pasha about Cairo's manifest and computer core which can be covered later since its not going to be dealt with until years down the road, but of course travel time in BT is slow, and even so I'm going to be fudging arrival dates slightly, because thats on me... but anyway this basically gets us through the interludes between Robinson and Northwind.

Highland Faire, Northwind, will effectively be its own standalone chapter somewhat centered on the SLDF remnants and the traditions remaining. It will in the current outline be a full size chapter before jump off into the invasion. Dieron will basically be jump from Northwind launch the invasion, no real travel time because its one jump

 

[Imperator Pax]

Highland Faire Prologue
Northwind January 3018
The 12 Jump trip from New Avalon to Northwind had been nearly three months, but it had also been solely through Davion controlled space. Making planet fall though still took time, and it was now early January... it was good to be back in a gravity well... especially one so very close to Earth's gravity.

The Eridani Light Horse certainly knew how to flex. The assembled Regimental Combat Team was gathered on Northwind, and that meant a lot of DropShips, more than that it meant the presence of the ELH's sole surviving Excalibur class. "It was intended as a next generation SLDF transport a successor to the whole Colussus boondoggle." And according to Tristan it hadn't been properly tested... production had been delayed due to the Amaris civil war. The result was of course, yes a cheaper combined arms carrier, but at the cost of significantly less armament... and it was still sixteen thousand tons of DropShip.

... but the Excalibur as it touched down still managed to look impressive surrounded by twenty other Dropships, a mix of Aerodyne and Spheroid, but all in SLDF colors. The Eridani had even gone the extra step of having repainted the entire Regimental Group, including those dropships, for the Temperate forests of Northwind. Gene had to wonder if they had issued forest cammies, but so far it looked like everyone dismounting for inspection was in Regimental Dress Uniforms.

These were the other half of the people they'd be invading Dieron with.... though Gene supposed third might be more accurate. Yvonne Davion had the ability to assume operational control of the Guards... but the Field Marshal wasn't sure that that would be how they would launch the assault.

The plan was to launch the operation in early spring, so they had a minimum of ten weeks. It was interesting how even after nearly a thousand years, nine hundred and change that operations continued to be modelled, timetabled off of the northern hemisphere of Terra's seasons. He tossed a look at Kerston's BattleMaster, and then to his own Marauder. The great expanse of one of the hubs of scotch-irish diaspora of the first Exodus of Terra was Cromarty City... Tara's Castle Northwind.

The Highland Faire was positively medieval in its sprawl, and length. It was only run twice a year because well if you ran four of them in the usual format they'd basically abut against each other... and there was no shortage of stands, temporary camps, and of course rather than walk given the space mechwarriors road their warmachines, and navigated smaller ground and hover cars. That was part of the advantage. On a planet that was currently playing to host to more mechs than... well probably anywhere in the inner sphere the Eridani didn't warrant a second look, and when the Guards arrived in a few weeks, well it was a Davion planet. The arrival of a Davion regiment was hardly something that would attract immediate attention.

"What about the new Mechs?"

"I want them kept in reserve for the time being." The Faire had a melee ... some of mech scale free for all for young 'squires'.... that was more of a translation convention but it was aimed at young untested mechwarriors, and the faire's marshals seemed pretty serious about it. Gene wasn't surprised they hadn't let 'Rio' participate, but Sutton was also apparently ineligible to participate in the festivities. It was still considered a fairly safe event they weren't using real ammunition, but it wasn't one hundred percent either. Bahar had been pretty clear before she had taken off that advertising that they had ... anywhere near as many mechs available as they did. Then on top of that there were other things. "to be honest given the Blackwell order, my focus is on recruiting armor and infantry for those vehicles. Field Marshal Davion," Yvonne, "Says she has volunteer ASF pilots already lined up for us."

"Speaking of that the Countess asked what that was you beamed out?"

"Hmm," He shrugged, it had been a query ... well him and Abner playing a wager, "Its nothing, I didn't get a return signal, but I'm not surprised." The truth was he had kind of hoped that maybe Abner's optimism wasn't misplaced that... some fragment of the system's defenses, maybe something of the SDS had survived and was looking for surviving Terran signatures... but there had been nothing returned to his broadcast interrogative. Gene shoved his hands into his frock coat as the wind picked up, "Kerston promised an introduction to the Highlanders, and given our situation," And the fact that they were their hosts nominally, it seemed a good idea.

Septim tossed a glance towards the gray clouds promising rain and blew out a breath, "Yeah, I'll come with you boss." He glanced to the other Alexander who shrugged his broad shoulders.

"I have everything under control here I'll tell Bubbles." The dervish pilot declared with a wave.



Hanzo tagged along powering his cicada and linking the mech into the tac com without saying much. He doubted anyone realized, as they mounted their mechs that part of what made the faire possible was this broad expanse that so readily, so easily facilitated the presence of so many BattleMechs and allowed them to maneuver dated to the Age of war, but even more than that was the Castle Brian that was underneath the surface. An actual Castle Brian, built by the Hegemony to protect one of the earliest Hegemony worlds Castle Northwind's surface muster space had been built to fit in with the aesthetics of an established hegemony world much like those Castles on Terra had been.

They moved to the ferrocrete 'foot path' that crisscrossed and spread around the 'camp grounds'. Kerston's battle master waved them in with its left hand, as their trio of mechs joined up. "Colonel Shepherd. Captain, Lieutenant." He added more on formality.

They moved on to the navigation network, a series of beacons that kept them out of traffic per se, in so far as the lookie loos were in a lane on the outside where they could get off quickly and dismount, while Kerston took them in a far side course looking to lead them up towards the looming gothic form of castle northwind's most obvious surface structure.

Gene idly flicked his consoles, but he wasn't expecting anything. He'd read Tristan's report, as well as the history of Northwind that Abner had had handy. Not that he was completely sure of the New Kyoto text being free of bias but regardless it told him enough.

"SO uhm."

"What?" He asked to Septim's start.

"Colonel Cameron is doing his Black Fox rendition at the pub. Just be ready."

Gene rolled his eyes. It was good natured ribbing, and it wasn't as if Bard didn't live up to his call sign, but he was really beating a dead horse... or at least Gene thought so, but for the Draconis March Militia ... celebrating a major combine defeat was... was not gonna get old for them any time soon. "I can sit through it," He muttered as he checked the clock against the dinner plans. Advantage of a small unit it wasn't hard to organize for. Really it was the first night they had everyone back together, and it had been something of a pity that he had missed the holiday festivities, but San Saba hadn't made it planet side until after New Years day 3018.

There was a handshake chirp, and Gene expected it to be a nav beacon from Castle Northwind, instead of the expected N001 SLDF Fortress code his Dalban started returning a Hegemony handshake and unit return. The Terran Hegemony handshake immediately eliminated the possibility that this was Kerston. The Eridani Light Horse used standard SLDF handshakes... and frankly there would have been no point. His machine was already linked to Kerston's battlemaster, and the wider Regimental Combat Teams comms.

His Marauder hand shaked and linked into a Terran Hegemony officer's ninety five mech, and authenticated the man's 191st​ Division Credentials. He hit the las com line to the Eridani Assault Mech, "General, do you know a Captain Campbell by chance?"

--
Notes: This is short, I'm going to bed, but this is the opening to Highland Faire, you may recall there was a scrap that covers some of what is about to occur, but this takes place immediately before a version of that. This may see minor adjustments in the morning, but yes short update we're on northwind. Some material from before this may go up at at a later date.

 

[Imperator Pax]

Highland Faire​

His marauder trundled slowly steadily forward, at a safe 25 kilometers an hour.

Castle Northwind was even given its age and the service it had endured an impressive structure... he would have felt better if he had a better idea of what they had just walked into. It didn't help that no two castle Brians were identical. This wasn't the periphery, this wasn't the ... wasn't Elidere, where the Combine were willfully firing on civilian homes... he'd been trying to do the right thing in a surrounding that was alien to him. The Castle's bunker access lead into what for all intents and purposes was a massive underground parking garage, if one draped with tartan patterns, battle flags, ensigns and honors...

It was quintessentially Northwind as he had seen it thus far. It very much reflected the great diaspora of earth and gaelic revival that had spawned it and been sustained by hundreds of worlds to colonize, to grow on. At least on Elidere, against the Combine he had had an idea of what to expect, and was in his comfort zone. He was at home in buckled into the armored cockpit of his Marauder... or really any mech he'd run the Mongoose and Locust through their paces, and the revisions to the Cicada had been his idea before they had had Hanzo sign on. This wasn't the same thing, he was comfortable fighting, not contending with this... whatever this was.

He brought the Marauder into a crouch, and nestled down. Kerston had already brought his battlemaster to a kneeling position and dismounted. The Brevet General didn't look alarmed at least. The Highlander was painted with a black tartan pattern badge... that coincided with its IFF. An impossibility of course... or should have been... the captain aboard had dismounted an older man... probably in Kerston's age bracket.

That definitively made him the youngest officer present. The other highlander mechs had authenticated their Hegemony IFFs to his Marauder, there were a number of Highlanders, and he wasn't sure if that was because of the commonness of the assault mech in Hegemony service, or because they were playing games over their shared namesake.

What he wasn't detected were any indication that the subterranean level had any of its defense guns. Defense turrets, even automated, or remote controlled ones should have been technology that even in the decline of the third succession war should have still been feasible to maintain, even replace... but there was no sign of even a passive connection. He had no indicators available to that there were sensors he could have sent a signal to... nothing.

It was possible that the damage to the Castle had been that significant... which was in its own right alarming... especially as they moved deeper into the fortress, and further underground without any sign of the electronics that should have been present in a Castle Brian.

His Marauder was configured into command and control mode. Ordinarily this would have meant nothing. Normally speaking a Marauder's Dalban would parse data down such that he rarely would have had complex pilot data coming through the link unless he specifically wanted it, or if the other mech was sending him a warning that a pilot was injured or otherwise. With only a lance in his chain, and no data coming in from the other 'SLDF' flagged units... his Hegemony software was telling him that Kerston wasn't sure what was going on... "General?"

"I've never been to this part of the Castle before." He replied to the question. "I, Campbell has my complete trust colonel... what he wants to show us," He trailed off as they passed another series of posted battlemechs running 191st​ IDCs.

The whole area was decorated in Northwind fashions. Something that he didn't think would have been the case in the Star League era, but it was how things were. Campbell's highlander moved to a dismount point, and the 'Captain' dismounted from his mech after powering down the reactor. His camera caught sight of a kilted man, in his mid or late fifties, which conformed with the piloting credentials that had been relayed from the Highlander. Kerston followed suit, easing his Battlemaster in. Thankfully the gantries had been designed with universality in mind, so after he moved to the dock Septim's merlin didn't have any issue.

Gene powered down the VLAR 300, logging a directive to the MMI before then unsapping his harness. There was a reception party waiting. They didn't seem belligerent, or overtly threatening, but the kilted men wore uniforms that were SLDF... and carried Mauser Las-Rifles. He doubted there was anything ceremonial about their full length dirks sheathed ... but the reception stood at attention to let the Highlander pilot through, who saluted. "General Kerston, welcome back to Northwind." He brogued.

It was something of a marvel, that Gene had a hard time wrapping his head around. The great scotch irish diaspora had departed from the United States, and from the Anglosphere of the western alliance to colonize many worlds. That was an understatement, but Northwind had been one of those worlds that of the great exodus of the golden of stellar colonization which had settled the scotch irish here, and Donegal, and Skye, and countless others. The Gaelic revival of the late 21st​ and the 22nd​ centuries made those that had happened in America, Canada, and Australia look like a joke. That much was apparent given how many kilted clans dotted Northwind's surface in the year 3017.

"Captain Campbell. This was not quite the reception I was expecting." Kerston replied.

Campbell glanced around at the banners that turned the massive mech ready bay, and briefing area into a majestic scottish hall. "Oh this, think nothing of it. I just thought it appropriate, given our situation, you're our guests." He centered back on them, "Colonel Shepherd."

"Captain Campbell." He returned the salute in as textbook as he could, cognizant that Septim was not thrilled by the development the group had found themselves in... and if Gene were to guess... it was those prophetic dreams again, something here must have clicked. He catalogued it away as the guards allowed an older highlander to come by and hand something off to Campbell. Gene couldn't see what it was but the man signaled that they should follow him, and so they left their mechs behind and into a open archway into what was clearly some kind of checkpoint... or had been before being turned into a great room of sorts with a large table, and stuffed deer mounted on the walls, "Offer any you a drink, water of life anyone."

"We're on duty, Captain." The brevet general said, before Gene could perfunctorily accept the scotch invitation for the sake of being polite. They had managed to reduce the number of highlanders in tow... Kerston seemed to have noticed that.

The kilted man shrugged from the bar, poured himself a healthy glass and sat down, beckoning them to do the same at the long oak table that dominated the room. They all accepted, even the most of the squad of guards, security contingent, other highlanders whatever they were taking seats on a bench, and others remaining by the door they had entered from. He reached down after placing his scotch on the table and placed a case on the table with a tartan insignia and badge, he opened it.

Septim swallowed at the laser pistol in the case that was resting on the table as the highlander reached inside, and plucked what was beside it. "Do you know what this is?" He asked, placing beside it the thistle bloom there.

He had to bit down the juvenile answer that the species name was 'Sillybum'. "The Milk Thistle." Then in practiced, church esque latin, "Nemo me impune lacessit."

"Boss." Septim protested to Hanzo's obvious annoyance as the Cicada pilot tensed.

He ignored the Lyran's complaint, and continued on. "I'm not Black Watch," The highland men started at the comment. "You broadcasted an 191st IFF to the Marauder, that pings back to a Hegemony handshake. The mech and its identification, your machines register as from the Royal Highland Regiment."

Campbell bit his lip and tilted his head, acknowledging the explanation, "Aye, my highlander." He said wistfully, eased and then sipped his scotch. The tension eased out of the room, "You beg my pardon there, but you barely look twenty Lieutenant Colonel," He emphasized the peace time rank not the brevet promotion to full bird... which suggested the handshake had possibly included both, "Shepherd." He produced a silver tin box from within the case. It was decent sized thing, with a reader on it. "Place your hand on it. I'd like to see if we can find out what's inside it, yeah?"

The thing slid over as Gene looked at it. Then, he reached up and pulled the dog tags from his neck, and put it on the reader, and then rested his hand on the space for it to scan. Campbell swallowed as it flashed green, and then he drained the rest of his scotch. Kerston had remained silent, but the brevet general looked to be building to an outburst, and as if stymie that, there was a clink as the glass went down, and Campbell explained. "My ancestor was given that box by Captain Hazel she got it from Colonel Schmitt two hundred and fifty years ago. He was a wee lieutenant in the regiment fresh to it when Amaris attacked."

The silver tin case opened inside on crushed velvet was tablet with the emblem of House Cameron, and the Terran Hegemony. A diary... or maybe some kind of record. Final orders... who knew.

"And you've been white shielded for those two and a half centuries." Campbell blinked at the term, Kerston too, and probably the others. "Your parents passed down a Hegemony log key to enlist their children with their credentials..." Tristan had informed him that, "the dragooning process was common during the war with Amaris, its a program that predates the age of war. It was never intended to authorize for that long." Just so teenagers could fight long enough to receive official acknowledgement from Terra. You could make lieutenants out of it," presumably you could enlist private soldiers, but without an authentication for it, say an AI like Tristan to validate promotions, captain was probably the highest that had been approved in a very long time by a system that was now long dead... given that was what Campbell's rank was.

"Come with me, colonel." Campbell stood up, the fifty something year old man collected the diary that had been in the locked box his ancestor had been entrusted. "Your friends, and General Kerston will be fine... just a jaunt something else to show you. There is another door we cannot open." He lead him deeper inside the Castle, modern furnishings gave way to Star League era reinforcings laid bare. Gene glanced at the blue circle on the floor, and the recessed laser cannons mounted in the ceilings... but he supposed the hallway was big enough for light vehicles... probably a tramway on the other side... might have linked to a Port complex if he had to guess. "Can ye open it?"
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Notes: Kerston gets less dialogue here than I would like, but we're moving relatively quickly as they dismount and move into the Castle Northwind. This and the previous segment are all taking place within basically the same afternoon, Kerston is going to find out about the castle, and the rest probably in part four.
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