Battletech: The Ghost Who Walks (Battletech Isekai)

[Imperator Pax]

Highland Faire​

He looked at the circle again, wondering if the reader worked, but really as soon as Campbell had finished his question things started to happen. There was a change in the air, a kind of draft. The N001 complex was old. In a way that Tristian's outpost castle wasn't. There were differences also in scale. Castle Northwind was a castle Brian that at least its original foundations predated the Star League. It was original a 23rd century Hegemony facility built... the fact didn't escape him... from the strategic concerns of the Hegemony, and Brian Cameron of Kuritan ambition, and aggression.

Gene exhaled the breath and watched the ceiling move.

A speaker crackled to life, and synthetic voice initiated. He was cognizant that the others had started to follow, no one had apparently in the access office, side room, lobby whatever it had been, had stopped Kerston from decided he was curious to. "Authorized user detected." The voice declared. Unlike with Tristan, the turrets had activated dropping down, or raising from their floor housings to cover the hallway's approach.

"Tell them to stay back." He grunted as the guns oriented, ignoring Campbell, and himself and pointing down the hall towards the others. Gene stepped up into the blue ring on the floor and placed his chit on the reader and hand on the scanner and felt the prick of the machine taking a blood sample.

The speakers shifted again, possibly signifying that the initial synthetic voice has simply been an automated smart system. "Standby." The new artificial voice ordered in a brogue tone, similar but distinct enough from the locals... say two hundred years out of date. "Authenticated. Welcome lieutenant colonel Shepherd, I am Dante." The Hegemony AI stated introducing himself, "It has been 177 years since an officer of the Central Intelligence Directorate has accessed this facility."

He blanched as the massive doors opened. Gene was stepping out of the circle snagging his keys as he went from where they sat on the green illuminated reader and marking a hard line for the inside and the myriad of consoles, and projectors that he could see within, "I understand, can you prepare a briefing of this facility, its actions and evaluations."

"Wait, Colonel Shepherd." Another brogue voice, Campbell had been staring around at the ceiling looking for the speakers, or maybe looking at the Laser Cannons as the AI had introduced himself. The Black Watch descendant stumbled a bit and followed him as he cleared the threshold of the doorway.

He threw a look back over his shoulder, The turrets didn't move to track him.. but he was also unsure how they would respond if the others saw the doorway and decided to try and come down the hall to follow... he'd need to see to that... but, there was the math to consider. "A hundred and seventy seven years ago would have been fifty five years after Kerensky's Operation Exodus." He snapped striding through the inner armored bulkhead... a further redundancy against biological or chemical weapons being used against this part of the Castle.

"Yeah I can do math." Campbell was following slower looking. "And yeah, so you know that was also the year the Davion's took the planet."

"Colonel." The AI inquired. He wasn't sure if Dante was asking about his and Campbell's exchange, but...

"I want a catalog report of any CID data transmissions, and accesses to any facilities in system, and any confirmed communiques coming in after the Liberation of Terra, most recent first." holograms snapped up in the air. He looked at them, and specifically highlighted as priority.

Shortly before the AFFS had launched their attack a Rear Admiral of the Hegemony, apparently promoted twice since the fall of the Star League by time in grade, had arrived with a retinue of picked men and accessed the castle.

Northwind was two jumps from Sol, they had been put here because Hanse Davion wanted to hit Dieron and make the Combine bleed, but... one of the files added in 2841 was...

Campbell came to a stop by the command terminal, and rested a hand on the railing, "Colonel, you look white as a ghost-,"

"According to Admiral Clancy's log, the one he left here, Fortress Dieron is intact." He'd read about it in Tristan's files on SLDF facilities operated by the Hegemony that were now inside the combine, but he'd assumed it had either been destroyed by Amaris or looted. That expectation had been supported by Pasha's report that Dieron had been brutally savaged by 'the Satan Amaris'.

That raised questions. Dieron was a castle. The Fortress was equipped equipped with a massive suite of orbital to surface capital weapons... it was possible that the SDS override had disabled those but he couldn't be sure.

"That is correct colonel. The facility should be securely locked down, with access to sensitive sections prohibited to unauthorized personnel." That was to say that the automated turrets would shoot first, assuming they got past the drone combat vehicles, or anti infantry drones...

Shepherd pulled a data chit from his jacket pocket and placed it into a holographic projector. "Verify, authenticate data and credentials." He ordered.

"Authenticated." Dante replied as a hologram appeared showing the contents of the data storage device.

"Play HPG recording."

Minoru Kurita, and Stefan Amaris appeared to give Dante, and Campbell the shock of their respective lives. While he stared at the specifications of Fortress Dieron as of its last reported status the world he and the Eridani Light Horse, along with some Davion regulars had been planning to invade with the intended goal of proving the combine to not be invincible... per the briefing from Hanse Davion's number two man... err woman... Prince's champion

Dante's sudden string of invectives startled him out of staring at the topographic display and the holographic onion map of Fortress Dieron's layers as it spread out in front of him. Dante no longer had an HPG uplink it had been destroyed in order to prevent it from falling into the hands of the Republic forces, but not before it had received and transferred other updates and a backlog of movements and orders.

Dante had probably been curating them, splitting his attention as he processed the HPG recording, because a series of orders signed by Kerensky appeared ... and being countermanded by local Terran militia forces, and CID personnel. Not just here, but on other worlds, including New Dallas.

... he thought about the data slate in the lockbox that had gotten them this far... the las pistol was functionally identical to the one he was wearing... the device that Campbell had carried. "Dante if you would inform the of personnel in the access pathway to remain there, and standby." He waited for acknowledgement, as the AI's voice echoed faintly from the hallway to the others. Then as an additional precaution, and hoping that AI wouldn't override the order directed that Dante shouldn't fire on them without being fired upon. He received no protest, with that out of the way, "Captain Campbell I need the data slate, I want to access it." It was probably encrypted, but presumably either his credentials or Dante's would be able to open it.

... and he wasn't quite sure what he was going to find.

Campbell handed him the slate, which he placed on the console interface, but it seemed it was going to take a minute. "Dante can you confirm Taurian ASF footage is the SLS Triptiz?" He questioned referring to another saved file on the data chit bearing the damning footage of Kurita and Amaris.

The footage played showing the hulk as it floundered pulled into the gravity well of a gas giant somewhere in the periphery near or in Taurian space.

Data markers appeared on the hologram as the AI cross referenced details. "This footage is valid, Colonel." The date of 2979 held on the projection, "I can confirm further that the SLDF fighters in use are not broadcasting properly configured SLDF IFF, they are neither regular army, nor Hegemony forces. "

He hadn't had the resources to process those signatures from the recording, but the latter also strongly implied that the strike mission wasn't being carried out by Hegemony in Exile forces.... so who then?

Dante resumed speaking, "Colonel, as ranking Terran officer present I am required to inform you this material is sensitive to the Hegemony." He acknowledged the statement, and the recognition that Dante was going to seal the bulkheads, when he did so, "Additionally, the package from Colonel Schmitt contradicts my orders from General Marlborough."

... that was a problem. He glanced at the report... tapped the stainless steel console's backlit keyboard in acknowledgement. "There is a secure file on the data chit, please review it. I'm authorizing its release."

"Standby."

... and so another recording played... he should have ordered Dante to review it without playing it. Tristian's outpost's wildfire protocol... and the AI's attendant report. "This data would validate General Marlborough's orders."

That was all well and good for the long dead Duke of the defunct Hegemony, but that wasn't the point. "What portion of Schmitt's data contradicts the General's orders?"

"SLS Tripitz successfully ran the republican blockade of terra. The encrypted material was to be delivered to then Commanding General Kerensky ordering him to commence an immediate counter attack."

"The SDS would have cut him to pieces." Gene felt the need to point out.

"That had been taken to account. Schmitt's data package includes the command override code to release all M Series drones to autonomous. Any Caspar series or other drone starfleet unit would have begun direct attacks against rim world forces and all ground based control systems would be rendered useless by the signal."

Caspars didn't really have the same scope of sentience, sapience, which ever it really as ... since AI weren't his specialty and he wasn't sure just how much thinking a drone dropship or lola did... and well the space stations had as much thinking power as Dante or Tristan and the personality quirks. They'd be left with the primary directive of defending the hegemony... against an enemy had been committing atrocities left right and center since Christmas.

He could guess even without the projective modelling of the battle. Caspars in autonomous would likely prove completely willing to mount what crewed ships would have considered suicidal death rides... and yet manage to have the fine motor control to outshoot entire flotillas of Rim world ships.

"And Tripitz?"

and that was the delivery.. the shock... that Kerensky was supposed to kill Amaris and then report that success to the heirs of the Star League. The Tripitz had run the blockade carrying the last remnants of the Terran branch of House Cameron under the watch of another splinter of the Black Watch that had made it off Terra.

... the problem was those orders had never been delivered. Kerensky hadn't received it either 2767 or after the liberation of Terra in the following decade... and it had been two hundred years... and Dante's previous command officer of the facility, who had held it as the Republicans had been besieging Northwind had indicted Kersenky as derelict in his duties, and potentially even a traitor for ordering Hegemony forces to permit garrisoning of Rim World forces in sensitive hegemony positions... and the subsequent coup.

... "Do we have coordinates for Tripitz's final destination in the deep periphery?"

"We do not. They are not included." The black lion was supposed to rendezvous with a portion of the 'secret fleet' the hegemony maintained, and an anchorage with a connection to the SLCOMNET but one that was otherwise a second shadow network separate from the Ministry of Communication that chained out into deep space that supposedly Kerensky would be able to signal when Amaris had been defeated.

... which at least suggested to Gene that House Cameron hadn't seeded an entire empire in the black of space rimward. Not one big enough that she planned had been to deploy some fleet sufficent to throw Amaris out on their own... but then that made sense... AI needed to be asleep... basically disconnected or offline in order to make Jump Travel for whatever reason... there was something out there... but the question was who, what, how big many?

"Could they be alive?" Came the croaking question.

"They'd probably be dead of old age by this point. Even if they were children, the projected lifespan for a Terran citizen with the best medical care was estimated to be a lucky two centuries," Outliers not withstanding, and he wasn't aware of any records from the league era of Hegemony citizens living to 250... but, "Could House Cameron's Terran branch potentially survived, yes. It is possible that they could have made it to a bolt hold, and there is a remnant... but if the plan was for Kerensky to reestablish contact, and without the Tripitz's logs... thats a slim chance based on what we know right now."

--
Notes: Kerston gets told in most likely the tail end of the next segment when he gets brought down into the complex.

 

[Imperator Pax]

Highland Faire​

It was Campbell's face. He looked like he needed to sit down.

"Captain, your vitals are abnormal. We recommend that you please have a seat." The Ai remarked, and the captain numbly sat down, on the floor since there weren't really any chairs, bracing against the railing.

Dante had projected the odds based on what they knew, and ... well... they weren't good odds. Of course Star League medicine being what it was perhaps the twins had been shoved in stasis tubes they might have survived that way... but again... odds weren't in the favor.

A part of him was disappointed... but it made sense. If there had been a Terran hegemony exile surely they would have had made a reappearance... or maybe they had and maybe they'd weighed what resources they had, and probably on the determination of population... deemed the cost too great.

Gene suspected that if he could come to that then the AI Dante had probably considered that any Hegemony in Exile might constrained by limited resources, or time have written off the Inner Sphere... but there were two problems with that. It didn't change that it was possible they didn't know, and of course that if they had made it then the Cameron twins had made it out with a Black Watch lance to mind them.

Maybe showing Captain Campbell the odds wasn't the best idea. Portions of the secret fleet had fought to keep the Hegemony in the fight against Amaris's forces, but without a detailed report he had no idea what the navy might had... only that Tripitz had made it to the periphery along a shadow route off the usual jump maps...

"Colonel Shepherd do you have the resources to investigate?"

... did he... not really. "Not without bringing in assistance. The JumpShip fleets are significantly degraded as a result of the post League wars of succession." ... and bringing in assistance... there was really only one person there who was an option... bringing this to the Davion's was out, even though it appeared that the Admiral, Clancy, had elected to side with the Davions. His logs suggested that given Lyran leadership weaknesses that the Federated Suns represented the best option in his argument to sway Dante.

... and that had been made without knowledge.... had been made solely on Combine belligerence in the form of things like the Davion succession crisis, and ronin incidents ... all the historical grievances, like the fact the Combine had been the historical reason for the Castles Brian in the first place. That call had been made without knowledge that Kerensky had left knowing Kurita had handed over SLDF positions to Amaris... and given that 2841 Warships had still been a thing, and that there were potential other nasty Hegemony surprises behind that might have very well ended up with Luthien suffering a very unfortunate fate indeed.

"Due to the loss of my HPG uplink I have no way of ascertaining at the present the status of Hegemony anchorages, or other naval installations, given the degrading of the SLCOMNET even acquisition of a mobile hpg to replace my previous connection would likely be insufficient to reestablish a connection."

Right, the network was slower, weaker, smaller than it had been during the league. So even if Gene knew where to find a mobile HPG Dante was right it might not help.... especially if you needed to physically liase into the shadow network ... and if there was a break in that chain then that wouldn do much good.

So much time had passed. There was only one option... take this to Abner ... and he couldn't do that with what he had... there were three distinct data points.

Dante's logs from the Coup, and after.

Clancy's input from... the ... second he was fairly certain succession war, and that data. Including the report from the second succession war that there was an intact hegemony castle on Dieron's equatorial band... and south of the capital.

... and of course the data from the Highlander's lockbox, and the dispatch dated from the coup... and what Kerensky was supposed to do, but the dispatch had never been received... and on Elidere Abner had asked if perhaps Kerensky had been going to a bolt hold... but he was pretty sure Kerensky hadn't been going to anywhere... except maybe that he knew there was survey data that said there were habitable planets far out that direction.

The Hegemony had concealed various scientific secrets for decades, and even centuries, from the other member states of the star league. The Hegemony had represented the most industrially developed and settled worlds due to the sphere around terra that had been colonized. That had meant closer trade within those worlds, and also more established centers of learning...

... like the university of Volgadon.

Still, as he had observed to Abner when he'd first showed him the footage, it had been almost forty years since the Taurians had stumbled upon the SLS Tripitz... but that was a find to Dante who was presently attempting to map the route, or possible routes that would have carried the Black Lion-class warship rimward to her final resting place, estimating twenty jumps.

A series of projected pathways occupied the central globe. He was going to have to talk to Pasha... but the soonest they would be able to move would be probably the end of the year.... and of course there was no assurance that even with that time that Abner could put anywhere near the scientific hard ware to dive down into the gravity well of a gas giant.

... and of course there was no telling how the Taurians might react, or the 'white wings' or supposed cappellan interests might respond if any kind of ferreting around started at the sight... and it assumed no one had beaten them to it.

But it was the last lead they had... but there wasn't anything saying they had to start there either. They could start looking closer. All three data sources had points of interest which might yield clues to follow.

"Unfortunately given the passage of time," Dante had started speaking again as Gene looked at the security monitor feed. The others were still out there. "there is no guarantee of sourcing additional space lift capacity," He meant JumpShips. "The port facilities here contain a handful of remaining DropShips, but the last of the system's fleet installations were lost in the 29th​ century."

The comment of course merely jarred his fragmented memory. The dragoons he were sure were the descendants of Kerensky's exodus. He knew that, even if the evidence he could actually cite was circumstantial. The problem was less so that, even though he wasn't sure how exactly the Highlanders would respond... Campbell was going to need time to digest all of this... but it had already been clear that the explanations of simply finding a cache was believable. There were people who would question that , but there was a kernel of truth that could have been born out by just being lucky...

... or having a map. CID wouldn't have lists of regular army Brian Caches... at least not officially. There might be some records, security, investigations, and other normal business might well provide... he could look or have them flagged, but that paled in comparison to the bigger question of how the Dragoons might react... and 'Clans' how would the rest of Kerensky's exodus survivors deal with the included news.

"Colonel Shepherd, Captain Campbell, on evaluation perhaps the stress of this news is significant should I bring one of the auto-doc's online?" Gene blinked at the display. He had been starting to zone out, and a headache had begun to form behind his eyes. If it had just been contending with Dieron it would have been one thing. He had been lead to believe that the war with Amaris, and subsequent first and second wars should meant the loss of facilities like this or Fortress Dieron. How many other Hegemony facilities were still buried under the surface of planets... and were the Cameron's still out there?

CID might not have had a master list but it was possible if there even was a directory of all the caches the Camerons might have it... but did that even matter? The Hegemony had functionally ceased to exist even before the liberation of Terra and the apparent reality was that most if not all of the great houses had been already planning to annex Hegemony worlds as a result of the coup.

"I need a minute." He replied looking back at the exterior security feed. Did Campbell know that the Eridani and he were employed under the same contract that, the Davion's were going after Dieron... he racked his brain for details.

Kerston had vouched for Northwind's Highlanders, and their descent from SLDF survivors. Kerston was going to have questions... understatement... but just for what was behind the door that the Highlanders themselves had admitted to being unable to open. The security must have also been occupying a portion of the AI's attention as the map of Tara, on the surface projected the Eridani positions.

By itself that might have warranted concern over it, but the holographic display was painting them face value of being the Eridani Light Horse and of the SLDF, of course this wasn't the first time the Eridani had been on Nightwind for the faire.... there were marked as in SLDF colors on the display.

Campbell was struggling to his feet, "I," he began, "The ship," He stumbled over the words.

"Tripitz? I didn't have proof," Not without the documents that had been in the Black Watch's possession, "Dante this is a Hegemony facility what's the local procedure for bringing SLDF regulars in?"

There wasn't one... not one that had been planned for dealing with this scenario. Dante had briefed defending Star League troops against Republic forces, but Northwind had taken a beating over hte course of the conflict as like many hegemony worlds the Rim World forces had largely been able to open hostilities from within defensive envelopes.

That that hadn't been universal was another lead to chase... "Can you evaluate the brevet general's service identification packet and make a decision."

"Standby."

The response was almost monotone.

Campbell straightened, and a few moments passed without him broaching the subject of whether or not they shouldn't tell Kerston. There was a crackle from the speakers, "The 3rd​ Regimental Combat Team's data is relatively complete. I believe that it would safe to inform the General that there is the possibility that House Cameron was evacuated offworld, and the vessel which ran the blockade was discovered."

"So you'll let him in?" Gene questioned.

"Yes," the AI replied, "I'm compiling a briefing packet from the available data." There was a pause, "I would be remiss not to point out that the SLDF certifications do potentially create codex issues given the official dissolution of the Star League Defense Forces, and Council."

... right because that had been the result of the liberation. None of the houses could agree, and Kerensky had then absconded with the regular fleet and army... he looked at the SDS override command on the display of data from the Black Watch device. The SDS drones would have been effectively left to their own devices without ground directors.... and that meant had they still been around they would have cut invading ships to pieces... a what if that hadn't come to pass.

There was a chime, and the armored bulkhead opened. Dante must have been in the mood for guests as he was letting the whole party in.

 

[Imperator Pax]

Highland Faire​

The small retinue of highlanders, plus Kerston, Septim, and Hanzo all stepped a little uneasily through the reinforced bulkhead. "Deja vu," Septim muttered, probably a little louder than he should. The comment seemed to echo in the expansive theater esque main data space. They probably could have done without the comment at all. Whatever the case he did look relieved that things were under control, enough to continue to stick his foot further into his mouth. "I, this didn't happen to play out like last time I guess."

"Its complicated," He replied as he scrolled through the terminal in front of him on a variety of data packets that Dante was flagging as 'read this', 'read that', 'read this too'. It was a long list.

"A wildfire protocol was not necessary." Dante remarked. "General Marlborough held to his responsibilities to the Hegemony, and as an officer of the armed forces." And had died in his mech surrounded by dead republican guard before a Rim World warship had hit the theater defensive cordon's several square mile area with an orbital bombardment and.... "Subsequent access to this facility occurred but has been intermittent since the dissolution of the League Council." and while Dante didn't precisely come out and admit to reading people's comms, or mail, it was probably the explanation, "I am given to understand that House Davion is preparing an offensive against House Kurita that while unrelated to particular details is still aimed at liberating Hegemony worlds."

"Excuse me."

... Kerston was still using SLDF encryption codes. Hegemony AI probably had master lock cipher overrides... but regardless. He sighed. "Captain Alexander has seen the footage.," he remarked, "Play the HPG recording."

"Affirmative."

... and so, Jerome Blake, and Alexander kerensky's credentials authenticating the recording, it wasn't really an intercept, showed Kurita giving up SLDF positions to Amaris. The footage that the 05P had attempted to kill a valuable, highly decorated portion of the arkab legions on the off chance that they might have peaked at it...

... and there were other issues... but that was the situation.

Septim had moved around through the recording. "So like he said, what happened to General Marlborough?"

"They called an orbital strike as his unit was covering civilians making for the shelters here." not here here, but as a part of Tara's defensive zone. "The strike killed most of the regiment," Dante's report stated that only a handful of Smoke Jumpers, the SOG Regiment that had formed the majority of the local CID's presences combat force, had survived to see the liberation of Terra.

"He said somebody had been here when the Davion's took the planet."

"Yeah," Clancy seemed to have spent some time in a stasis tube, "I haven't read all of his reports, but Fortress Dieron is intact, or was in the mid 29th​ century. Its a castle brian, a very heavily armed castle. That could be good or bad for the invasion." ... and he wasn't sure he was going to tell Yvvone but ...

Campbell was looking at them. "Cameron?" He asked a little shakily.

Kerston missed the context. "The AFFS colonel, who is attached to your command?" He asked straightening his uniform jacket.

"No Brevet General Kerston." The AI replied.

Septim put two and two together to get four, "There are Cameron survivors?" everyone looked at him, "You asked Tristan about the possibility of survival," He trailed off before mentioning any more. "And then Abner found the Tripitz. Or found out what happened to it."

"Yes," He replied straightening and realizing he had the room. "The SLS Tripitz ran the Republican blockade of Terra and jumped from the system, she was carrying the last members of House Cameron's Terran branch pursuant to a Hegemony security failsafe under the orders of the Black Watch. The plan was that Kerensky was supposed to launch an immediate counter attack, transmit an automated order to defense units and turn the tables on Amaris, and them signal an all clear. That didn't happen. The SLS Tripitz was rediscovered in 2979 by the Taurians, and from them possibly the Capellans, and a third party. Said third party then proceeded to scuttle the warship with concentrated air power sinking her in the gravity well of a gas giant that year to deny her to the Taurians. We do not believe those forces were Hegemony in Exile."

Dante had projected holographic images behind him, because they were staring up and behind him now. Given their expressions they were probably static images rather than video.

"If there were survivors wouldn't they have tried to reestablish contact?" Kerston asked.

"I speculate here, that either they chose not to, either maintaining radio silence, on the assumption that Kerensky had failed, or in recognition that with the destruction of the hegemony... the Star League would follow, or maybe they sent out feelers and saw that that, what had happened after. I have no idea whether or not they were aware of the HPG recording or not."

"I consider that very unlikely colonel. Given the situation, and the sensitivity of such things. I suspect that if they survived they were maintaining radio silence. The lack of fire wall protocols being instituted especially in light of House Kurita's collaboration strongly imply the ignorance of events and isolation of any Hegemony elements within the deep periphery." That was the other thing. Kerensky had probably not told anyone if he'd already been planning to leave Inner Sphere... which spoke to other issues.

"Are you saying you believe the League is at war with the Combine? That the Hegemony Position is that-"

Dante cut Kerston's question off with harsh bark, "Yes." The AI snapped, "That is exactly the position I adopt General." and that was when it struck him... Kerston didn't seem surprised that there was an AI talking to them... he had to have figured out that was what was going on. What Gene hadn't expected was for the deluge of images of Rim World atrocities to start appearing in holographic windows, followed by Kuritan atrocities during the 1st​ succession war. "Colonel Shepherd I am committed to assisting in the liberation of Dieron, and any other Hegemony worlds from Combine occupation. In the interest of strategic interoperability I can release resources, and provide limited assistance elsewhere to liberate non Hegemony worlds."

Kerston nodded. "I don't think it is appropriate to hold the combine at fault for the sins of their fathers, but I will obey the lawful orders of a star league chain of command, and in accordance to the regulations of the SLDF."

... Kerston was right... if this had been 2796 ... and the resources available... then Gene could potentially see having to respond by hunting down Jinjiro Kurita, warships and orbital strikes would have been part of the conflict... but now? Even if Dante could magik up a fleet of drone warships from some anchorage, Luthien didn't deserve a Mass Driver strike from a SDS drone built on a Battleship hull.

Kerston's response though seemed to have mollified the AI. "House Cameron?"

"I have no idea, if they survived or not. Septim is right, I knew Tripitz had gotten out, and that there were rumors that they'd run the blockade with survivors of the House, I don't know who they met up or when or how far they got... just that it seemed like they were heading into the deep rimward periphery... and that there were likely black box facilities and castles out there. How many people would have been out there? I don't know. I don't have details, but the orders given were to initiate protocols and not draw the conflict out. Those never reached Kerensky, and Kerensky had to batter through the defenses of hegemony worlds with brute force, and then fight on the ground. Could there be survivors, yes."

"Kerensky went to the periphery."

"He went the wrong direction. He went the complete opposite direction. That isn't to say there might not have been hegemony facilities, but Kerensky," he blinked and swallowed, "Coreward, he went coreward," The galactic 'north' so to speak looking at a map. "I don't think, he was going for actual holds, but rather for unsettled worlds that had been found as habitable by surveys done decades earlier. Tripitz was found by the Taurians rimward as it was, and they didn't send the ship to the Davions, or the Commonwealth."

Kerston didn't protest. "The general," Kerensky, "knew about House Kurita turning over data on the SLDF, and House Kurita then tried to seize the Star Lord's throne." Gene knew that the ELH had had to shoot their way clear of the combine in the 29th​ century, and that they had served with at least the FWL, and the Commonwealth. They'd spent time in the periphery too.

Dante seemed to be prioritize, seemed to have come the conclusion that whatever else might be, the real world value of driving the combine off terran soil was a better use of limitted resources than anything else they could do right now. Part of it was probably finding the resources to mount an expedition into the periphery. He thought about the JumpShips that had been mothballed above the elliptical ... of the JumpShip from that number that he legally owned... Pasha knew there were going to be other Azami who would be fleeing the combine and would need passage to the periphery.

Abner was going to need to be told. Pasha was going to need to be told.

Gene tapped the display and navigated to Kerston's credentials. They authenticated out as a brevet general based authorization... to an AI supervising an Outpost Castle on Neu Karlsruh. "Dieron huh, Feet first into hell?" Campbell asked.

"DropShips more likely than orbital drop pods." He replied... and the Highlander's crack about the deployment on Luxen told him that most likely Campbell had pulled whatever data was avaiable from the MRB.

"There is a lot to talk about it, a lot to talk about." Campbell replied.

Septim opined that that was an understatement. Gene leaned back, "Any questions Ishida?"

"No, Colonel. Where you go I'll follow."

"We can only move forward and rebuild, the hegemony is gone, we can take steps to make a better world but that means going forward not longing for what will never be again." He replied. There were nods, and echo of agreement from Dante.

"Yes, and first and foremost means ending the threat posed from malicious actors."

... and of course maybe Dante believed that evicting the Combine leadership from formerly Terran worlds would improve things, and that maybe if there were Hegemony survivors maybe they could still come back... but that was all speculation. They'd go look when they had the resources to mount an exploration of the breadcrumbs that they had to follow... Dieron first.

--
Notes: HF5 will go up on the ninth most likely. I may post some scrap content, probably nominally canon stuff , possibly wolf dragoon stuff, since we've got highlanders and eridani.

Dante's ending line was actually going to be something a little more dramatic, but I couldn't find the quote I had planned to use, but effectively 'Yes a better world without the Combine, or at least a much reduced combine'. The Eridani have plenty of reason as it is to not trust the Combine canonically... and I've 'fluffed' their backstory to fit with other lore and stuff for this.

Anyway early update, but notably among other things for the ELH this explains why they have current SLDF credentials as well as why Brevet General, why they can promote upwards, protocols and what not. It also sets the stage for the ELH to in the future rebuild back to the equipment standards that they were at in 2764 down the road.

 

[Imperator Pax]

3018 Dragoon's Learn of Elidere
(I)​

Jaime Wolf waited for the trivid battle footage to conclude before he addressed the others. It was a recent acquisition to their library of media, but he had watched it before he had summoned the other officers of the Wolf's Dragoons. The conflict between the Federated Suns and the Draconis Combine had occurred last year, but they had been on the opposite side of the inner sphere.

The dragoons were currently in their third contract with a great house, operating as mercenaries for the Free Worlds League under House Marik. The contract had not been much different, Natasha Kerensky was hardly unique in her contemptuous disdain for the blight ridden decay that covered the Inner Sphere.

Every so often though something came up that was interesting. The initial footage that they had seen clips of was mostly just reiteration of what they already knew. Though it was not zellbringen the Draconis Combine practiced a more honorable form of battle between mechwarriors where possible. They had learned that first hand in their first contract. That was not to say the combine did not discard dueling, any more than the clans themselves did, when it was required but the combine's dueling like those of the clans of Kerensky expected honorable combat to take place at range between individual mechwarriors, and from what they had seen as far as averages went the Combine fielded the best warriors of the Inner Sphere

At least in terms of averages for the successor states. The simple proofs did not work as well for smaller samples. Mercenaries were a common profession but there was a tremendous variance in skill levels that made it impossible to make a judgment like that. There was simply too much difference... and the Dragoons had just witnessed a demonstration of that.

The actual battle footage was over, had ended with a pan out over the scenery of Elidere IV, over the strewn remains of a Combine BattleMech company. It faded to black and then began projecting a scrawl of numbers... the tallying of the battle.

A tally that was ridiculous in its lopsided value. That wasn't the only thing.

The white Marauder was certainly a 75 tonner... but its equipment... Jaime Wolf was willing to wager that it was the royal model that had lead to the creation of the 85 ton Assault Frame Clan Marauder II. Though they were considered second line units the original iteration of the IIC machines had often bee developed from existing designs in use by Terran Hegemony divisions of the SLDF. He suspected that he was not the only one of their number to recognize that, and that would raise questions.

That was of course speculation... much as he was willing, would be willing to voice such... there were other matters to discuss among them. The news was coming just as the Widow's company had just made it back from another round of cattle raiding the Lyrans on behalf of House Marik. In theory what House Marik had been having the Dragoons as a larger unit doing and what the 19th​ Galedon Regulars had been doing for the Draconis Combine, even though the latter was a regular house unit.

The devastation was complete. 115 mechs, a handful of aerospace fighters in comparison, a couple of dropships even. All lost to the combine in the span of a month's fighting. Fighting, between BattleMechs, that was meticulously available through MRB office's provision of the BattleRoms, but shorter clips had been making their way across space already due to the ComStar run new service.

Korsht, commanding officer of Gamma regiment, was watching the scrolling text as it listed the allocated kill tally of mechs, and other materiel to the defending, victorious, Davion side. "Andrei would you have tried to fight this?"

The large BattleMaster pilot paused, before giving a barking laugh. "I wouldn't fight like that at all. Would I fight yes. This is more like you, Willy I think." Shostokovitch replied. He laughed again, and glanced to Jones, and Weisz the commanders of Beta, and Delta Regiments respectively.

Delta regiment's commander squinted at the hologram and withdrew the control unit to rewind. The BattleRoms focused on BattleMechs and their onboard recording. It did not include footage from the perspective of CV, or DropShips. It was something that only painted part of the picture, except really on the subsequent battle ... the duels on Ander's Moon.

Natasaha might have ordinarily scoffed at watching some 'small' merc unit fight, but that wasn't the case here. It did not matter that she was just a captain. Not for a true born warrior of a blood name. She had earned her spurs, and not speaking her mind would have been shameful to the wolf pride.

Jones turned away from the reply, "Jaime this is interesting, but we are not likely to fight the Combine, or these people, and not any time soon." Beta's commander remarked even as the footage rewound peeling through deciduous trees and burning light mechs. He was correct so far as it was unlikely that House Marik would pivot to face House Davion, and if they moved on schedule to House Steiner they were unlikely to move against the Federated Suns, if the Wolf Net's analysis was correct... but the Wolf Net report on the footage raised other issues... issues that he felt hi might need to report to the Khan of Clan Wolf, and he might in turn bring to the Clan Council.

It was one thing for the Eridani Light Horse to maintain Star League Traditions, and of course the MechWarriors of the Combine had proven themselves brave warriors who fought with honor. The White machine's torii gate and bird moved as the footage resumed. "Willy?" Shostokovitch questioned.

"This is a Hegemony deep battle double envelopment." She declared, and looked to the other colonels of the regiment. "Its a textbook execution of a Terran Hegemony Combined Arms attack on a numerically superior enemy force." Clan Goliath Scorpion would be pleased that their lessons on the league had been so well remembered.

"So the kid can read a book. You might have noticed he can drive a mech as well."

.... which the dismissal of the attack as just the maneuvering of gear heads was .... expected. Had there perhaps been members of Steel Vipers, or certainly Clan Hell Horse then the action would have attracted more discussion. Goliath Scorpion, and Nova Cat would have talked about the doctrine, or what it meant, but it was in conjunction with the BattleMech contact which came to mind.

If it had been just a decade earlier Jaime might have agreed, but they were coming up on a report, and the truth was the attrition of materiel the Dragoons were suffering was something that had been discussed. They needed to resupply. It was true that they were not using frontline cluster, modern clan weaponry, but second line, and solahma troops would be either, and any invasion of the inner sphere would likely involve the bidding process to minimize collateral damage... a prospect that he doubted the modern inner sphere was likely to respect.

"And the uniform?" Weiss questioned.

If it had been an SLDF a regular army uniform like his subordinates, that might have warranted less reaction. The MRB preferred, did not quite require, but made it essay for mercenary units to adopt SLDF rank structures, and their supply stores provided generic SLDF pattern uniforms. The Eridani and other SLDF successor units likewise used league uniforms often based on their last duty station, or variants reflective of their current posting.

It was still possible it was nothing. Terran manuals, might be found with Terran uniforms, but both, with a Terran mech, three coincidences all in the hands of a pilot capable of fighting as well as any true born of Kerensky's clans. It was suspicion Jaime Wolf had that something about all of this simply failed to add up. They had been able to convince the Inner Sphere of their good fortune by simply claiming that they had found a cache of the Star League, "Cranston what do you think of all of this?"

The eccentric true born glanced up from the paper book in his hands, he reached for his bookmark and closed it, "I have read everything they have. Including the drop he made into an invasion force on Luxen." With exaggerated motion he moved to pull data slates containing BattleMech data that seemed to no longer exist in the Inner Sphere.

It confirmed for Jaime his initial suspicion. Though the IIC had been later modified for mass production to carry three extended range PPCs it had begun life as an evolution of the Royal Marauder of the Terran Hegemony. A few 3Rs had survived the Battle of Terra, and the knowledge of the LBX class 5 had gone with the clans on the Exodus, and eventually had become a part of the clan arsenal. As they had been clearly marked Royal division machines the 3R had not been included with the Marauders brought by the Wolf Dragoons, though they had brought some of the machines that had passed to the regular forces of the SLDF that had been used by commanders who had made the exodus.

Snord toyed with his sunglasses and Jaime was obliged to play a long with the game. Cranston Snord was the opposite of Natasha Kerensky in many ways. "Is there something on Elidere?"

"Haven't," he pointedly contracted the word, "you heard, Colonel?" Sounding like a news broadcaster from one of the marik news channels that had been lurking around the dragoon garrison. A little too like the reporter, really, "The colonel opened up the 63rd​ Mechanized Infantry Division's depot for House Davion."

There was a pause through the room. There was no reason such information would have been included in BattleRom footage, but Cranston had certainly beaten Wolf Net to delivering the news to Alpha Regiment's commanding officer. "There is more?" He asked as all eyes fixed on the true born slumped comfortably back into the low couch.

Cranston toyed with his sunglasses even as Natasha started to get visibly impatient with the needling. "There are some rumors coming out from Robinson. The Draconis March Militia suddenly has a significantly heavier mech quota from what I'm," Natasha ground her teeth, "hearing. As if, they might have also found something. If I were to guess, I would figure that that the 100th​ Battlemech Division had a depot that hadn't," again with the intentional contraction, "been opened before this."

--
Notes: As threadmark implies this is nominally canon, but not for sure. I don't have a perfect handling on the Dragoon main leadership so this is an Extra. In particular as far as canon goes, I don't understand how WolfNet / Dragoon intelligence is supposed to be as good as it is in canon, its very plot device / MC syndrome / whatever you want to call it that their int service does this especially given what HSII implies about the effectiveness of the successor states intelligence services, which is to say they're not incompetent. However Cranston (he's probably supposed to be a freebirth in canon, he's a true born here solely because he's such an odd duck) is an excellent option for handling int wonk business, and also putting things together, in this case digging through the archives to identify Gene's mechs and their official designations.

Regarding the Mad 3R designation, that isn't canon, but I am using it to explain Mad IIC and as a way to refer things to the wolf dragoons, basically on that end, its a data point. Canonically the MRB wants you to use SLDF ranks (probably either because well Star league obsession, but also because paper work) for your merc companies, and the MRB does .... intermittently operate its own stores (its probably just select worlds) though they can also just refer you stores as well. So it makes sense that if you're buying from an MRB recommended or operated store, they'd sell you mass produced star league style uniforms, its cloth. Its not Star League tech, but it evokes the SLDF's memory, and that probably sells them well enough.

Nominally canon, though this takes place after Highland Faire, but before Dieron is taken by House Davion, this is early spring 3018 in terms of calendar. Pointedly this is of course before the Dragoons find out about things like Blackwell providing equipment because they're a davion company.

 

[Imperator Pax]

Highland Faire​

If the Camerons had escaped ... it seemed doubtful that they would have lost warships... he didn't understand how they could have lost warships, but the Inner Sphere some how did. Then, of course there was the state of FtL, Jump Drive, production anyway... but even with them the Camerons so far as what amounted to napkin math would have needed a minimum of the forces that Kerensky's exodus had taken into the deep black... so no... Gene confident that an invasion that hadn't happened wouldn't be forthcoming.

He stared at the display, the one dominated by a frozen still image of a deceptively serene looking mountain, on what had once been a Hegemony world.

There was a imprecise sort of pause in the room and they looked around. "it would seem as if you've been missed." It wasn't just their people Kerston's Eridani were wondering where they had all gotten to as well. There was a good chance they were going to be late for dinner. Gene would have been lying to deny his concern at the pervasive surveillance coverage... but he wasn't surprised at the situation either.

The fact Dante was monitoring a supposedly secure conversation between the Countess of Kestrel and Field Marshal Davion was probably to be expected of a CID AI. The mind was right, they had been missed ... which suggested that Yvonne had been watching or on the look out to how he interacted with the eridani. "General Kerston has informed me," He remarked navigating the keyboard with one hand, "That there are other surviving SLDF units. Can a list of those units be compiled." Tristian had from the best available intelligence he had done so, but at the time ... the bigger concern had been the possibility of returning Kerensky ... ists? Like the Wolves .

"There are indications that elements of SOG regiments survived the Hegemony campaign," and did not follow Kerensky. A list generated, that was painfully short, a handful of entries of units from Terran parent formations, "In addition to Special Mission Units," Which also was pretty short. The number of units that could be traced to SLDF formations as well as those who were harder to substantiate but claimed descent from SLDF units was larger... but included units who had of course chosen to enter Successor state service as House Units.

Gene's eyes scoured the list... half way trying to burn the information into his memory... but he'd get copies of it... "32nd​ Recond Group." They'd been tagged in Clancy's report as supporting the Admiral... and tellingly were still in Davion service after all these years.... they were still mercenaries interestingly enough. The Admiral's report suggested that any effort to maintain the inner sphere would need to be through the Davions, because they were the least malevolent of the great houses and most competent.... hence Clancy's decision to side with Davion over Steiner... but the succession wars had been a long time occurring.

... and whatever loyalty the descendants of those units might have had to the league, it was a stretch to contemplate them. There wasn't time to get a message too them, and they'd be getting ahead of themselves. Dieron was first. With as limited, as reduced as the JumpShip fleet and the HPG network clearly were by the succession wars he was going to need resources and that meant support from apparatus that still existed.

He made a face at the holographic security intercepts, and then smoothing the grimace away, half turned. "I take it we will need to reconvene here some time in the immediate future," Kerston remarked beating him to it.

Gene nodded. "That would be for the best." He agreed.

"Aye," The Highlander agreed. "maybe not on the morrow, but, there is a lot to talk about."

Kerston probably wasn't going to wait that long before he asked one or both of them... questions... especially if he had even the slightest idea of what all of this was, that was without even touching the contents of the security box.

Gene attempted to parse what Kerston had certainly heard, and how the Eridani, in their persona as the league continued would react.

Kerston though... what did the general think about everything he'd heard tonight.

There had been the matter of questions related to the Royal Highland regiment... the Tripitz, and of course there was the matter ... the sure to come questions of possible cameron survivors. The walk back into the much more homey creature comforts of modern Northwind's pseudo victorian revivalist decor was done mostly in silence. There was too much to think about ... he needed coffee... caffeine and a chance to think.

Gene swung himself across and into the cockpit's seat reaching for the harness restraints on autopilot while initiating the start up through his neurohelmet. The VLAR 300 spun up to standard running electrical power to the motive systems. Gene accepted the incoming data request, and packet.

The map program headed under the same N001 notification he'd been looking for, and the update to his local area map confirmed that while there 'should have been a significant number of defensive systems... most had been destroyed during the Amaris conflict, and hadn't been operational after the Capellans had invaded, never mind the Davion invasion in the following century. That was not to say the highland world defenseless. There were still turrets and defensive emplacements, and and while most of the league era defenses no longer existed the network of underground railways still existed.
--
The Highland Faire was a demonstration of an Inner Sphere that was, and had been. Much of the festivities, the culture on display, was of a time before the Star League. It was of the gatherings from really the first exodus from Sol, the great migration from Earth... from a world that no longer was. It was also of course a celebration of a post Star League inner sphere, the inner sphere of the succession wars, because while mercenaries had been big business even before the league they were even more critical in the modern, the contemporary Inner Sphere.

It was heavily raining when they arrived and to say the pub was noisy was an understatement. He'd made a handful of trips to bars on Luxen, and watering holes of all stripes had been common on the Magistracy planet, but it was still a periphery world apart of a territorial state that was rather opposed to armed force as a necessity... but the pub was overflowing with MechWarriors and hangers on. It was largely MechWarriors as far as crowds went.

There were other establishments that catered to both enlisted, and officers, as well as the other combat arms... there was even a surviving officers bar specifically for ASF pilots nestled south of the castle that dated to the Age of War, and had survived, at least as a building site, the amaris crisis and succession wars.

This was strictly speaking even though it was built in the rustic neo victorian styles that dominated the planet that evoked a time that had never been, a much more recent structure. It actually post dated the Davion conquest... which as avenue still made it old. The brass plaque on the door celebrated it at more then a hundred and fifty years old from just its participation as part of the Highland Faire.

They were indeed late... not that Gene had really known what to expect in hindsight with the Highlanders... and certainly not ... not the situation, but regardless they were the last of the company's mechwarriors to arrive. In sharp contrast to the wrought iron, brass fixtures, and an abundance of tartan and pennants the holograms showed BattleMechs, and played Combat Roms... and advertisements even as the thunderstorm mounted outside.

Gene shrugged off the dress jacket, that thankfully was water resistant, as Kerston followed suit. By comparison Hanzo and Septim had been inundated by the squal. The truth was he had been storing the garmet bag in his Marauder and had only put it on before they had gotten on, just because of how much rain the sudden turn in the weather had started. Kerston had probably been intending to wear the formal great coat of an SLDF command level officer to make a statement... but he'd have to do without.

The coatman nodded, and took the garmets and set off for the side room even as Bubbles, and Bahar both moved through the crowds. "What happened with you guys, did you hear they're talking about how its gonna snow tonight?" She shook her head, "If you were planning to dodge Bard's performance you're shit out of luck its been amateur hour to warm up, but then it isn't as if youre not the only ones getting here late... so I think they're waiting."

"Who'se missing?" He asked half way conversationally.

Obviously Kerston had probably been one, and the General was looking around, "I don't see the Blue Star irregulars," specifically their general, " they should be here. They're built around the 1894th​ Light Horse Regiment, and function as a RCT similar to the Eridani,"

The SLDF unit had been listed by its League Credentials, but he hadn't been expecting them. "Are they?"

"They're descendants of recipients of the Blue Star of Kerensky." Gene couldn't help but respond with a flat look, "Distinction for Valor in the face of the Usurper."

"I see," He didn't say anything more, but he suspected he was going to need to ask, or perhaps just run an itinerary and see ho w many league descendant units or at least mercenary units were currently on Northwind... and who all the Highlanders, or Kerston might feel it necessary to inform of developments... if there were any.

"oh well here comes Bard.," Chang waved, "I've got them they're over here."

"What happened? Frankly you look like you nearly drowned out there."

Gene ran a hand through his rain soaked hair. "The Highlanders offered us the water of life." He replied... and the truth was he did want a drink. Then it was getting through the throng of people.


--
Notes: this is shorter, on the basis of some of the material will be resumed in the subsequent update, Real Life is proving inconvenient ... and I will probably have some unplanned travelling this week... lots and lots of driving.

 

[Imperator Pax]

Highland Faire Extra 1​

She sat at the head of a long table that had supposedly carried from a castle in Scotland during the heyday of the first exodus. It must have weighed nearly a ton, built from a single large centuries old oak tree. It was here countless decisions had been made by planetary officials, Terran generals, and then their inevitable successors. Decisions were made in this room that had effected the history of the Inner Sphere. It was here she mulled over her work. Her working thesis remained that the Combine in the waning days of the league must have done something...

Yvonne Davion flipped through the most recent courier delivered reports GM was ... desperate was probably accurate summation. In terms of what was being suggested wasn't as impressive as developing an entirely new BattleMech. It was simply providing for codification of a new version... admittedly in the case of the Marauder II or this... Lyran Merlin BattleMech they were new BattleMechs but but they were one thing.

Why no one had thought to consider it before though still was a bit grating. GM had a facility on Quentin that produced the Marauder for the Federated Suns... but the Federated Suns didn't have an Orion production line. For a Mech that was occasionally referred to as a poor man's Atlas... despite the absurdity in that the Orion predated the Atlas by over two hundred years... no one had thought to simply outfit its successor design with its weapons. The Marauder had a great deal of existing parts commonality with the Orion. The proposal was easy.

Alexandria, the countess Kestrel, had attempted to locate their fish out of water, but he seemed to have gone off with General Kerston to meet the highlanders... and after transmitting something from the JumpShip after they had arrived it raised questions. The colonel had claimed it was nothing to worry about, and 'worry' in a technical sense perhaps it wasn't, but as Prince's Champion it was among her prerogatives to 'worry'.

... and her lady in waiting was right, she had already considered given the 'Brian Cache' on Robinson and what had sparked its 'topping off' that there was chance , more than a chance that there were resources here... which just brought her back to the hypothesis that at some point before Minoru Kurita had declared publicly there had been other acts that were enough to warrant a Gunslinger, and before him a Hegemony officer from a completely different service branch to side against the Combine. She wasn't going to complain, but she certainly would have liked to know the story behind it.

General Motors wanted access directly to the mercenary company, well the commander at least, but that couldn't be afforded right now. The orion armament Marauder was just part of that, of course it used Davion produced weapons. Weapons like replacing the SRM 4 with the Archer series, and the Kaliyama for the New Avalon built Federated Auto cannon. It was galling that no one in the Federated Suns had thought to do it sooner.

There was the slight issue that the Colonel's clear assumptions were that Mech production was higher than they were. The design was appealing, even with its ammunition dependencies, enough that given the Federated Suns expanding economy that they might be able to to coax additional production out of GM, especially if Blackwell on New Valencia's production remained apace. "Lord William," The Lyran professor, "seems confident the Marauder II will attract Lyran interest." It was an assault 'mech, but given Lyran production of the Marauder, and especially its recent success they might very well want to produce those... the Lyrans were the Largest BattleMech producer in the universe after all. The great factories at Hesperus were likely sufficient to start production of new variants sooner than those at Quentin or on Avalon.

The documents entailed a number of different configurations for the Marauder, and its hundred ton new development. The packet included modifications to the Merlin, a case study and evaluation of both the modifications to a Catapult that was apparent in inventory, a Cicada... which was unlikely to go anywhere, as the Free Worlds League produced the strange design. That was going to go anywhere, but there had been a circular regarding a modified Thunderbolt. Yvonne could see where some of the proposal had begun though, the readying force preparing for the Invasion of Dieron in two months was swarming with variants of Shadow Hawks, and other mechs still produced domestically within the the Federated Suns, and of course the previously discussed issue of no standardization of autocannons.

... and that had probably been less of an issue in the heyday of the star league... but why had no one corrected it, the cost of retooling during the destructive, catastrophic, warfare the active shooting of the first and second succession wars? Recessionary periods?

She suspected that it was more than anyone factor. "He knows Cassara Industries can't provide him with Crabs, or King Crabs."

Yvonned glanced up from her tea cup, "Yes," ... and that raised the question of was there something like Bristol here. Some protected warehouse where there was material waiting to be rolled out to reinforce SLDF units that had never been moved off world for the loss of transit orders, a storage place forgotten about. "I'll admit I've always found the Eridani's theater of being the league... the last remnants of the SLDF equal parts amusing and grating..." She trailed off, and she had the countess's full attention. "I don't think the Colonel knew what to make of it. I think he may be warming to the Eridani now, but not enough to suggest his own origins to the Eridani. To that end I believe that we can safely discount any concerns he may be preparing to open a cache at least not ... regarding wherever he has disappeared to at the moment. This may well be simply Kerston making introductions in good faith to the Highlanders." and Yvonne was more comfortable wtih hires that MIIO could more readily vet before they came on.

Alexandria had already apprised her of the likelihood of Azami rebels likely joining in the offensive... which raised potential security vulnerabilities but at the moment the ISF had its hands full.There were rumors that the Hand of Tyr movement, or some other Rasalhague group, had stolen a number of Panther BattleMechs. Chronologically reports of the theft seemed to have occurred after the ISF had started their purge, so it might have been a daring raid in response. Whatever the case it was useful, if Rasalhague revolted even if the Lyrans didn't move to take advantage of it then they could could on the Combine to be distracted.

"You believe thats why they went to Castle Northwind? Just to meet."

"I would think so..." Yvonne carefully held back what she knew of Admiral Clancy's service with the Federated Suns... of the fact that Northwind was a Hegemony, if an ancient one, Castle Brian... and while Kerston probably knew it was, he had been the reason to visit. The Mechs had gone to link up with the Brevet General. They'd met with a Highlander escort, and then moved underground, and they'd been gone a few hours now.

There was a knock on the secure conference room's door. "Your Grace, we have them back on scopes." There wasn't anything unusual going on. All the mechs were accounted for, and everything seemed to have resumed as normal... well except that it had started raining since they had disappeared.

The weather was positively ghastly outside. The brigade officer attached to her staff provided them with the course projection. It gave them enough time to reach the pub at least. That hadn't been the plan originally, but they also hadn't expected Kerston to abscond with the colonel or for the colonel to pulse whatever that signal had been... and that signal presumably similar to the one he had used on Robinson to search for a return response had been what had drawn Alexandria, and thus her attention.

--
Notes: Not the original planned update, this will not effect sunday's update either, but this wasn't even originally the Battletech snippet I was going to put up today, I had something else in mind as a contingency originally. There is the possibility that in addition to Sunday's regular update, I may end up updating both the Luxen Contracts, and Essence Wielding Social General in addition to possibly other BT material.

This chronologically takes place basically alongside HF5, so the previous segment. Other than that note that this is from Yvonne's point of view, based on what she knows rather than what is objectively true if anyone is confused by this seegment I will qualify, and answer questions, and try nad make any inconsistencies in perspective clearer.

Anyway there is some confusion in canon on production. Everyone has Marauders, because obviously its originally a tabletop game, but the Cappies nor the Combine don't have production. The FWL production is across a very wide selection of mechs, but then Fasa goes loony toons and gives them a ridiculously low volume of mechs per year. (The cottage industry mech production excuse only goes so far... admittedly hey look at production of Ka-52s in Russia before this current shit that was like one every six months, even so). The davions have that black box facility of theirs producing the Valkyrie in droves. Herpsus... is Hersperus in lyran space enough said.

I'll throw this up here: https://bg.battletech.com/forums/the-successor-states/is-3025-production/

EDIT 2: I should also point out that this serves as the useful, foreshadowing of in the event in 3019 or 23 or whenever of any variant models need to show up [I've mentioned the Thunderbolt, and the Catapult previous, the Merlin, this is just expounding on that in universe] as the sort of like 'ackley improved' versions of the introtech mechs

 

[Imperator Pax]

Highlander Faire 6​

Getting through the crowd was the bigger issue, though Gene wasn't entirely convinced that having multiple levels was the best idea, then again all the dancing lights from the holograms probably also wasn't the best 'safe' practice when dealing with copious quantities of alcohol... but it was what it was, and probably a little safer and more sensible than the layout of some Canopian establishments from during the Luxen contracts.

Gene was glad his uniform coat was weatherproof, but it didn't change the fact it was nearly pitch black outside, not much better inside, and he was still wet from the storm. He threw a look back to Septim, and Hanzo, and the rain dripping off them, "Do they have a fire going?" He asked as they mounted the stairs.

"Yeah we've got a fireplace." She half shouted in order to be heard over the noise. "Oh come on." Bubbles grumbled as they continued to move through. It still took another five minutes to get up along a wall and follow it parallel to the railing to the nestled alcove near one of the bars on this floor. There was an access to a staff elevator that presumably lead down to the kitchens

It didn't escape Gene that Bard had disappeared from there number once they had managed to make it to the table... and when the music ended and the first chords of Farewell to Gibraltar began and the holograms shift to a familiar stream of combat footage that originated from Bard's Wolverine.

He'd always interpreted that Bard's use of the, modification of the lyrics as 'eyes of molten gold' as merely artistic license, but either they'd modified the holographic footage, which he doubted or the lighting did actually do a good job making his more amber eye color look a bit brighter. Thankfully those clips only seemed to be coming from his infrequent liaising with Davion defenders. It had clearly been edited , but mostly to splice different segments together.

The Marauder swung to bear on the river front.

Down below the mutli floor spanning hologram of the mech David Bowie waved to the crowded throng of half sloshed mercenaries, including those still making their way in from the rain. Minor celebrity mechwarrior, though not necessarily minor in the Draconis March... one didn't make colonel easily, and it was no secret that Bard was on personal speaking terms with the dukes of Elidere, as well as direct vassal to the Duke of Robinson.

... and certainly minor wasn't the word given the reception Bard was getting from the crowd on the landing.

"...a morning in the spring with hounds and horses running well made the hills and valleys ring..."​

Gene took the plate of turnips, potatoes and beef as the food came around. He looked at them, and counted two extras, "Thats Bards," he pointed as Kerston received his plate. The eridani's commanding officer didn't have anyone added at the last minute. Sutton was down with a mob of cadets on the lower level. Abner had had to decline the invitation citing another dinner engagement, and Ford was supposed to be with him.​

"The huntsman cried that, 'If only the Devil himself ran by, we'd run him such a race!' And up there sprung like lightning, a fox from out of his hole But his fur was the colour of a Starless night and his eyes like molten gold."​

Gene sipped his requisitioned brandy nog, but the timing of the lyrics coincided with footage from his own guns.

"So they chased him over the valley and they chased him over the fields. And they chased him down to the riverbank, but never would he yield. And he's jumped into the water, and he's swum to the other side. And he's laughed so loud that the green woods shook. He's turned to the huntsmen and he's cried: "Ride on, my gallant Huntsman... when must I come again? For you should never want for a fox to chase all over the glen And when your need is greatest, just call upon my name And I will come and you shall have the best of sport and game." Well, the men looked up in wonder and the hounds ran back to hide For the fox it changed to the Devil Himself, where he stood on the other side And the men, the hounds, the horses, they went flying back to town But hard on their heels come a little black fox, laughing as he ran."​

"Well?"

Septim had been with them, and didn't know. Beau shrugged, "They just seated up with extra seats, I don't know. I figured... you guys boss. Highlanders maybe?" The big man asked.

That was a point...very easily Campbell could have joined them... but the Black Watch descendants were no where to be seen. Instead he caught sight of a different group, "Never mind, I think I know who our plus two are." Yvonne Davion didn't need to push through the crowd... most likely because she had an escort from the faire marshals plus the Davion Guards in uniform to menace through the crowd... that and it was a lot easier to make way through with most of the floor crowded around the balcony to watch the minstrel woo the crowd.

The sommelier came out with a bottle of wine and hurriedly talked to Yvonne to the exclusion of everyone else... he was whispering but it wouldn't have mattered with the crowd and the speakers going. "Field Marshal, Countess."

"Back to formalities Colonel?" It was a light tone.

Her look glanced to the water streaked hair, "This is last minute so I wasn't sure if there had been a development."

"Just a social call, you don't mind do you?"

"No ma'am." Not at all... even if they stood out likely by intention. Gene's immediate thought was if this wasn't a pressing matter of the contract then showing up in brazen finery was probably to ward off off any competing interests ... but then that could be General Motors, or lesser FedSuns notables financial or aristocracy or who knew.... but it was a long list... and it was something that he hadn't needed the countess of Kestrel to warn him about, Yvonne had done so on New Avalon, and for that matter besides their liasisons there was what Septim and Bahar had observed while they'd been handling the cadre duty on Robinson.

"Are you settling in on Northwind well enough?"

"I can't answer that until we've had a chance to participate," The whole point of the faire was to make circles for hiring. There were commercial venues, and certainly he would have liked to have talked to Cosara's reps... even if the company was a pale shadow of its Star League existence, but he had originally planned to come here to hire on mechwarriors and other support. "And the drill facilities in particular." No one would pay attention to another arriving Davion regiment but they really needed to focus on expanding on their current drills.

"Yes, well, on the matter of business I did wish to discuss evaluating the company sized element. We didn't have time to properly discuss it but the combine has for various reasons maintained its dueling traditions, and the ronin like culture that emerged from it."

He really would have preferred if Kerston had nodded. "Something to answer the ronin, you're looking for a Gunslinger program of your own?"

That cheshire smile on the old lady's face was back, "Well you could call it that. I've been told that both sides extensively used the Marauder, isn't that right?"

"Thats right."

Pilot skill rather than any technological gulf. The Combine of the hidden wars had been operating machines equal, if not inferior to their Terran counterparts. The long term strategy of course had been to rotate surviving ACMS Program Graduates back to teach the subsequent classes with lessons learned, and thus increasing the volume of graduates relative to in theory a static, or ideally declining, number of 'Ronin'... but that had been the late 27th​ century, and had not accounted for other developments had meant that ... that objective hadn't been met

The Hegemony had not restricted the program from regulars. There had been combine graduates of the program schools. It was just that by all indications the Combine hadn't been interested in the Program methodology. The Capellans had expressed the most interest of the other member states but most attendees had been Terran, there had been Lyran, and League attendees...

There was no pointed in bringing that up... in fact there were penty of reasons not to mention such data. "This has something to do with General Motors I assume?

"To some degree." The Prince's Champion agreed. "GM produces, for the Federated suns both what the 3R, the version that debuted in 2819 as well as the Marauder 3D that entered service fifteen years later. The AFFS continues to employ both models."

"And either will suffice, or both. Discounting that we don't have time to run that kind of complex program, its really more about familiarity with the mech. The Combine used Marauders, the Kuritan 6K modification of the warhammer is an exemplar of their ronin philosophy because machine guns have little purpose in a mech duel." And frankly he was surprised that the modification hadn't stripped out the small lasers too for a duelists machine... but it was what it was. "An Archer or a Dervish, an Atlas," Samsonov's came to mind it had on review almost certainly been configured to let the deceased Kuritan general duel rival Combine officers rather than outfitted as an endurance fighter though with duel ppcs and plenty of armor could still fulfill that role. "I will make the effort to insure that the," He stopped talking as Bard finally managed to get through the crowd and made it b ack to the table, "They're as ready as they can be." He finished, but even so dueling the combine on their terms struck him as unwise outside of niche tactical situations that were unlikely to be the case given the numbers they were planning to drop with... but she was the one signing the paycheck and it was her invasion to plan... and likely all of this was aimed at being prepared for further, future campaigns.
--
Notes: Tentative update plans: So I plan next week to update next week obviously this, II Luxen, I'm going to try and update Essence Wielding Social General, and then some other things, but in the mean time I'm going to sleep.

 

[Imperator Pax]

Extras Nominally Canon Extras



House Arano introduction 3019
[Part 1]​

It hadn't been the original plan, but there were some things you just couldn't avoid. It would come out later of course that naturally there was more to everything... but there always was. It didn't excuse any of the atrocities that had been committed. Black Jack McGirk had been a criminal his whole life... that there was more to his story didn't change the fact he'd been a pirate for a lifetime before ... well things had happened.

Black Jack McGirk had been the name in the headlines when they'd left the Periphery for the Federated Suns... and he'd been able to continue his rampage largely unimpeded in what the history books as rather ridiculously as 'the Pirate Wars'. What should have been an opportunity to foster good will and common security in the periphery proved little different to the political squabbles between the successor states of the Inner Sphere and for the ruling houses of the Periphery's nations to point the finger and blame each other of either facilitating such attacks, or at least directly benefiting from them.

Whether Black Jack McGirk cared about any of that was doubtful in the summer of 3018 he launched an attack in the exception to how he had been operating previously. The target had been over the border in Davion space... the target had been an HPG station naturally operated by ComStar.

By the time things had been wrapping up, and they'd been preparing to depart Davion space... it was a good time to leave even without the timetable they needed in order to escort out the Azami refugees slash colonists heading into the deep that the Precentor New Avalon had reached out. Not that it'd been any secret they'd been preparing to leave the Inner Sphere again.

It was money. A bounty for something they would have likely done anyway.. and it wasn't news ComStar had been paying bounties on pirates, but particularly Black Jack before they had left, and the notion that the notoriety had been driving the bounties on Black Jack's pirates had been sound enough. There wasn't a reason to really ask questions at the time. So they had left the Inner Sphere, and moved rimward for a months long interstellar journey.

Gene hadn't been able to stir himself from his quarters during the week they'd spent in New Vandenburg's system leaving things to Pasha, and preparing for the jump over the border into a state which had not existed in the Star League's era. The jump over the border into Aurigan space should have been uneventful except that the tiny little world of Aea had been savaged by Black Jack's pirates earlier in the month... and one thing had lead to another. It wasn't Black Jack's first raid into the reach, the Aurgians had been having pirate problems the same as everyone else the last couple of years but relative to overall population the Aea's damage was extreme... and had involved hordes of captives apparently being crammed into cargo holds at gunpoint by Black Jack's pirates.

Aea had been a point of contention between the Aurgians and the Taurians and the devastation might very well mean the end of the planet if not necessarily the argument, but that same devastation set them on course for deeper into Aurigan space with news of the attack... but it would be another month to Coromidir.

He flipped the switch bathing the cockpit in low visibility red. "What do we know Pasha? What's happening on the surface?"

There wasa crack over the speakers of static from the surface, "It is not good," The old JumpShip Captain remarked unnecessarily as his line adjusted to the Titan-class DropShip Eisenhower. "The ambassador from the Magistracy of Canopus has just accused her Taurian counterpart of providing aid to the attacking pirates."

He nodded, "What about Markham's Marauders?"

"Colonel Markham does not believe the Magistracy is correct." he replied evenly to the inquiry, "But he is also currently penned down in Cormodir city, near the star port. I am sure you're computer is receiving the coordinates from other sources."

Within the lethal warmachine under the red night vision preserving lights his computer screens were filled with incoming regimental wide data. The assault DropShips Hedwig and Braunfelds were presently clearing high orbit airspace ahead of the moving formation. They'd be landing in nominally speaking three waves. The airwaves were overwhelmed with distress calls from anyone with a transmitter it seemed. The Aurigans were doing their best, but besides their government, and merchants, and and civilians ComStar and the local MRB office was screaming for help.

They meant to oblige. "Bardiche, comms check?" At confirmation that the Battalion aboard the overlord Presidio were prepared for hitting the atmosphere in several minutes, he switched channels to ring the Highlanders 'Mech battalion aboard Hidalgo and confirmed their readiness. The two large Dropships would be following down with San Saba. He switched channels again. The DroSTs and the Baffins would beat them down, with Baffins lighting a secure guide beacon to guide the larger ships down... but they would be feet first into hell.

The final checks came with the tingling of an adrenaline spike the likes of which he hadn't felt in what seemed like a life time. Then the gantries shuffled the pod to the door and it was out.

The Azami Exodus fleet comprised enough of an airwing that there was a combined CAP patrol, including their own, of over a hundred ASF... if the Aurigans hadn't already been under attack the wave of the nominally identified '588th​ Air Regiment' probably have been heart attack inducing by itself as the 85 ton Star League era Rapier comprising the core of one of the reigment's wings started making contact with the remaining dropships and pirate asf still floating around.

The drop pod showed an augmented feed, a cluster of stars nearby as small maneuvering thrusters pushed the pods into formation preparing for the edge of the atmosphere as a display counted down. He was grateful for the air cover even if it was a largely temporary volume of air power, the Azami had one whole wing guarding the fleet of Jumpships and there was a good chance their small craft were going to drive off or capture via marines the remaining pirate JumpShips at the Nadir JumpPoint.

Laser Comms fluttered. He might have expected Bahar or one of the other pilots in the detachment but Hedgwig started uploading inbound data transits. The movements, and communications of units that she had observed from where the assault DropShip was and what would be relevant in a Hegemony Orbital Insertion drop looking to achieve a foothold.

He acknowledged the machine spirit's data and rested his hands against the yoke as the first plaentary forces of gravity and air resistance began to be felt. Hedwig wasn't happy about the enemy having SLDF mechs...

... he could agree... but he had to watch the temperature and other gauges indicated condition, and they were starting to pick up. In a couple of seconds he'd lose most of his external communications entering a communications blackout while he navigated the atmosphere. About fifteen minutes where the descending mechs would be crossing the upper atmosphere until they deployed their shoots, or fired jump jets to slow and land on terra firma.

... and of course in that same time period the first portion of their own air wing would be following down with them. It was a less of a just in case thing, and more to clear any remaining enemy air assets or failing that keeping them disorganized enough that when the rest of the wing descended from orbit they'd have air superiority.

For Cormodir this was probably the first orbital drop the planet had seen since Cordia City had been retaken from Amaris's 'secret army' two and a half centuries earlier. It looked like things had been rebuilt significantly sometime in the 29th​ century, but Gene paid little mind to that anomaly as the interference picked up and the gee forces acting on the pod descending picked up.
--
Red streaks with dark cores exploded in the sky too high up still for ground observers to visibly confirm that they were battlemechs without mechanic or electronic assistance but it was undeniable that that was what they were. Cormordir VI was a temperate world and as the capital of the Aurigan Coalition had largely been sheltered from the strife of the periphery frontier. It was a display of military force that its residents weren't used to seeing... but they weren't used to seeing pirates up close and possible.

The JumpJets started a series of pulses to adjust trim and altitude to bring him down along the river bank with the rest of the lance, and thus the broader company. He adjusted the Dalban's handling and brought up the Lance director to relay orders. "Sasha cut the MSR and hold that line south," That way when the DroSTs touched down they could start offload Magunac combined arms units to just roll straight forward. The Union behind them would take longer but once Baffins was on the ground they could secure for San Saba's mixed Mechs and Vehicles.

He started ticking down. They needed air superiority, in order to run strike missions to prevent any further pirate DropShips trying to break for orbit. He wasn't sure if slaving was Black Jack's new side hustle but after seeing the damage and footage of Aea keeping the pirates ground side was preferable. A couple of pirates had already made a break for it, and there had been one or two JumpShips that had either had charged drives or had jumped risky to leave early.

It didn't matter they had the names from breaching the pirates comms... if they showed up they could chase them later, or pass the word along to the appropriate authorities.

The problem was that while not a proper military force, a lack of discipline they were fielding League 'Mechs. Instead of cludged together franken mechs or a mix of light and mediums Black Jack's people were based around a core of medium and heavy weight mechs backed up by star league era tanks like manticores and hovercraft.

It certainly lent credence to the story Black Jack had lucked out finding a cache.

Gene pushed his sticks forward Jump jets making the final corrections and a moment later he was on the ground with the rest of the two dozen mechs operating a single large company. As soon as the last mechs were on the ground, a pair of Marauder IIs lumbered forward their PPCs replaced with Assault Auto Cannons to provide close element security.

Not that there was anything for them to shoot at, but it never hurt to be careful. The muddy red banks of the river's shore churned as a thousand tons of armor and guns cranked up the banks and into centuries old roadways to begin diverging with the intention of securing a beachhead for the arriving forces. Harry Callahan's lead assault mech parked on the on ramp of the MSR and stood there as they moved past. The Marauder II design, and its variants were the only machines in this element that were not explicitly Star League based machines. They had brought Catapults in place of archers specifically because the former carried jumpjets as an added mobility feature. The Archers would roll off of the DroSTs to reinforce LRM carriers and and provide their long range missiles to the second wave of arrivals.

They were getting their first ground side look at what was going on on the surface of the planet. The local nobility were scrambling with their mechs to defend against the vastly larger attacking force. The local great houses, and their vassals scrambling to sally forth from manor homes with their mechs supported by locally produced combat vehicles and infantry in support.

There were a range of vehicles of indigenous designs, but the mechs were predominantly league mediums and heavy. Blackjacks, ironically, Kintaro, Catapult, Rifleman, and Marauders returned pings on long range magnameters sensors looking at their fusions engines and substantiated by their transmitted IFFs. Of course it wasn't just the local elite, and their personal guards there were other mercenaries trying to hold out, which cluttered up signal returns even more.

Gene turned his machine north up the highway as the two Highlander Assault Mechs joined him, and rearguard provided in the form of missile support from an Azami pilot in a Catapult. The Lance peeled north separating out as the company moved into the outer sprawl of Cordia city's market and residential zones.

--
Notes, This is Extras content for the future, Part 2 of this what should be another ~ 3k words will follow on sunday in place of the regular update most likely given scheduling effects from IRL. Hopefully the Arano segments and glimpse forward into the pirate wars will be interesting.

 

[Imperator Pax]

Extras Nominally Canon Extras

House Arano Introduction Part 2
3019​

Cormordir or at least the capital region was more topographically excited than Luxen but they had broad similarities... but then that was typical of most planets choosing to settle near the coast or in River valleys, or both.

He parsed through the incoming data of what they knew. They were already sure McGirk wasn't here in person but all the same it was a very brazen attack to launch on an actual periphery state that could actually be called a state. The Aurigans had emerged after the fall of the League and built themselves into a reasonbly sized periphery power... and maybe that was the reason either McGirk or one of his lieutenants was thinking maybe it was time to follow the example of the Marian Hegemony...

... but whatever their motives there was no indication of the bandit king being here in person...

Even if Black Jack had been here... he wasn't sure that it would have solved the problem. It was clear this was only a fragment of the horde ravaging the frontier of human space, and if Black Jack died here there would be be less ... and if history was anything to go on.... guidance and the groups would splinter and in the short term there would be chaotic unpredictable spikes in violence. That wasn't to say they wouldn't have gone after him... just that cutting the head off the snake wasn't a sure shot to fixing the problem. It wouldn't magic away the danger that he posed or that his supporters posed to people living out here.

... and among those his Dalban was already flagged. There was a running gun battle north of a cut, where the road pushed up into the hillside. He was glad that even though they had done painfully little to change any of the electronics signatures put out by their mechs, Black Jack's band of cutthroats had at least painted their stolen machines.

The MMI finished inputting the map's terrain data into the navigation system, and the jump jets fired taking him down off the embankment and into the roundabout below.

Even if they had still been painted in SLDF camouflage he doubted it would have stopped him from dropping down behind the sixty ton Champion and delivering his opening alpha strike into the machine, and also the BattleMaster beside it. His Dalban processed the other jumpjet signatures of the others even as the Marauder stepped over the shattered cockpit of the LosTech warmachine.

Gauss rifles cycled hitting a nearby seventy ton pirate Guillotine, and an already mangled Sentinel exploded as it met incoming missiles from one of the Aurgian Catapults that wasn't above taking advantage of the situation. "Suppress those vehicles." He ordered finally keying his mike.

A Highlander wasn't exactly the fastest thing, the standard Hegemony design topped out at fifty four KPH, but when a ninety ton LosTech Command mech decides to floor it in the direction of your tanks and hovercraft... very few people responded with the poise and dignity that they might. One of the former SLDF Manticores managed to reverse before Hanzo brought the Highlander's foot up, which only served to cause him to kick the offending treadhead rather than stomp on the tracked warmachine.

The added leverage pushed the already backpedalling eighty ton tank through a safety barrier onto the red muddy shoulder of the road and where it promptly peeled through and slid down the hundred foot embankment sending the several hundred year old tank to rest on its side at the bottom of the hill. There were a variety of reasons they were deploying the beachhead force without Inferno missiles loaded in the hoppers for their SRMs but the principle reason was the close contact nature of contest Cordia City and thus the civilian population caught in the open by the pirates.

... otherwise Gene would have been perfectly happy cooking the slavers in their tin cans and calling it a day, but preventing pointless civilian death even accidental civilian casualties outweighed the tactical utility of incindery weapons against often under cooled designs.

Still Bahar's Highlander wasted little time

His Dalban had a holographic progress bar up as it unpacked the navigation. The Starport was under attack... obviously, the local salvage and mech works was defended but was facing less in the way of a challenge than he would have expected from normal pirates... but then Black Jack seemed anything but normal.

The other question that appeared wasn't so much why VI, it was the capital after all, but why not V which housed a significant chunk of the planet's industry? It did appear as if Black Jack was prioritizing the HPG station. In order to reach the old ministry of communications facility they would need to clear the blocking force out from the starport... the downside of course was Markam's Marauders probably couldn't stop them. Not if the Demons his Dalban was identifying as rolling down the coastal road were in fact armed with Gauss rifles.

Their furies and alacorns were en route but it was going to take time for them to roll off even with the speedy deployment capabilities of the DroSTs. A handful of digital count downs tracked the estimated time for the waves to get through the atmosphere and touch down... but that would only be estimations on how soon they could touch down. It was more likely to be a minimum threshold of long it was going to take, and certainly not the maximum.

A chime sounded an incoming Mech with a Lyran pilot at the helm. The IFF resolved as Aurigan, though the computer didn't exactly know what an Aurigan was. The Dalban quickly resolved the Lyran's mech as customized Centurion, probably rebuilt in the Periphery to be as close to factory spec as was practical. A second Aurigan mech, a Wolverine, following along the Cormorant road.

Those mechs were coming north, but wouldn't have gotten close enough to have made contact with Callahan or Sasha's screen lances along the MSR. They'd probably already been in the city, or in the urban outskirts of the planetary capital.

... and then the come chatter started, even as the sky was streaked with an increasing number of meteors descending from orbit that as they descended resolved into the aerodyne dropships, with spheroids of heavier mass becoming more apparent as they descended.

Apparently the Lyran was the head of the local Royal Guard, if he were going to guess from just the colors the mechs were painted given his Centurion matched the paint scheme of Kintaro, while the Wolverine matched the paint job of the Catapult the local noble houses were either directly related from a common ancestor or intermarried... or both.

Bahar's highlander initiated a Laser Comm connection separate from the radio channels. "The Wolverine, and Kintaro are both registering SLDF era codecs."

"I noticed the Kintaro." He admitted, but even if it meant something it wasn't a priority at the moment... this whole place raised too many questions as it was, but the first priority was dealing with the invaders. They could figure out why there were anomalous mech signatures when people weren't shooting at them. As it was his Dalban was cataloging a list of anomalies that was already proving to be a headache in itself... but they had more pressing issues "Incoming." He intoned flagging another inbound champion tearing down one of the market district's street.

He didn't respond to the Azami piloting the Catapult making the quip that Black Jack had the devils own luck when it came to cache finds. Now wasn't the time, but he wasn't wrong... and it certainly seemed like McGirk had no shortage of men he could throw into the fray.
--
Overhead dozens of ASF had moved off, to turn and burn away from the Aurigan Reach's capital city of Cordia City, the underside of their wings featuring either a symmetrical starburst roundel in gray and white or with an asymmetrical starburst with crossed sabers. The descending dropships, the final wave coming with medical relief and additional personnel, mirrored the divide with gray and green paint schemes.

The Marauder's Ferro fibrous was coated in a fine sheen of plaster dust, and ash, but outside of some minor SRM contacts his systems returned positive system checks. Gene wasn't particularly worried, but he had taken note that the Aurigans seemed to have a lot of Mechs and Vehicles for a minor Periphery kingdom... unless of course that was because they were all defending the capital... which might have explained the defenses.

He resisted the urge to simply mute the particularly swear happy pirate captain currently cursing up a storm to anyone who was listening to the open channel. And it was an open channel, it may as well have been planet wide even anyone with even the most basic receiver system could probably pick up the snarling bastard swearing... but the pirate was also backed into a corner.

Whether the ones who had escaped had gotten what they came for before leaving the others to their fate was up in the air, but the ones still on the ground weren't going to be leaving.

"Commander!"

Gene enshrined inside of his seventy five ton marauder as one of the other popsicles in the unit apparently had had enough and started over the line and was bad mouthing the honor less bandit mongrel. They didn't need this.

He hit a switch on the upper console initiating a broadcast override. Regimental Command systems linked into the other command mechs on the ground, including hte offloaded Fury tanks. The holographic map began to change as data flowed into Star League era battle network systems ground side as well as in orbit.

There was a supersonic boom, and then a second as wing of eighty ton Rapier in slate gray colors turned back into a supersonic attack run barreling down on the transmitting mech's coordinates, and going for guns. Guided in by a live transmission and carefully measured trace by dozens of command units multiple assault autocannon rounds and PPCs blasted the already damaged BattleMaster into little more than a smoking crater and scrap on a hillside near the starport.

The FedSun natives banked high and wobbled their wings as the computer updated their ammo situation and they jetted off again. He looked at the data feed that pegged the destroyed BattleMaster as a -1C... just another question they didn't have answers to.

A brian cache shouldn't have had access to the kind of, the volume of specific machines that Black Jack had demonstrated... the only plausible explanation would have been he had found a castle brian that had been fully stocked...

It wasn't impossible that such existed, not even impossible in the periphery but if he had found one in the periphery why wouldn't he have just used it as his permanent lair, why had he come all the way around the reach of known space from Lyran, the Combine, Davion, the Concordant and here, why had he also sent a probe at Luxen? It didn't make sense.

A handshake signaled, and Yusuf's image appeared in a hologram, "Commander, I have informed the local ComStar adept that the Precentor New Avalon sends his regards, and also what we know of the situation on Aea. I have also begun the process of confirming our initial list of the pirates we suspect managed to successfully flee, however that is also why I'm calling."

An image appeared. A jumpship with a familiar icon... one he hadn't seen recently, but still one he was unlikely to forget. A blue shark breaching. "We have identified with some certainty the number of pirates involved and can say with certainty that Black Jack must be collaborating with the Tortuga dominions either as member of the pirate kingdom or at least as an associate or ally."

Gene nodded slowly, wondering if the Tortugas had willingly decided to use Rim World iconography... but then remembered their current leader was some one who had declared herself 'Dame murderess extraordinaire' so maybe it was a style choice for fear points.

Yusuf threw in a couple of orbital telemetry pictures of House Arano's seat complete with enhanced images of the defunct surface to orbital emplacements that had been destroyed during the fallout of New Vandenburg... which was certainly a relief that such installations weren't around. "Is there anything else?"

"I am afraid not."

Then it was time to meet the locals.
--
Even a dozen parked mechs the rotunda had plenty of space more as if they expected an entire company of mechs to watch the local theater put on Othello, or maybe something by Garibaldi.


The Marauder crouched hull down in front of the massive edifice of an era long gone. It was mostly fine but still covered in the grime of war, of the orbital drop, of buildings burning and blown up, and some sandblasting from SRMs that had gotten close. The most obvious standouts were the mechwarriors. The aurigan tankers wore coveralls in the style of SLDF units assigned to the Periphery command c.2765 for a temperate climate as the coalition capital was. They were obvious modern manufacture markets, but any MRB shop carried close enough all one needed to do was add the appropriate local patches, and it was a match. The infantry wore temperate SLDF style uniforms of recent manufacture as well. The specific camo pattern was different than their own but didn't raise really any eyebrows.

The Mechwarriors though. It was emblematic of feudal trappings especially the ones not wearing neural helmets. There was a clear pronouncement of whose mechwarriors were whose. The local houses had their own colors, their own heraldry, and that heraldry was reflected in the Aurgian leadership present.

Markham, who Gene hadn't seen in person for a few years, and his XO Darius Olivera were both dressed basically the same as they had been on Detroite. The Marauders mercenary company seemed to have been doing well. "If you hadn't held them off there would have been a lot more civilian losses," The pirates had been aiming to both take the star port and hit the ComStar bureau at the same time, and Gene wasn't going to pretend that that tactical mistake hadn't been a boon to Markham's command.

"Well we had already signed with Tamati about fighting pirates for him." Darius remarked.

"Lord Tamati believes there is some kind of pirate base on Fjaldr, and even though she didn't stick around Grim Sybil was rumored to be operating out of it, and then she showed up to attack us here... I'd say its more than just one Pirate clan there."

Probably so. Lord Tamati was at the podium speaking now, the usual noble spiel. If you had heard it from one noble you had heard from all of them talking about the losses to predators from beyond their borders. It was Tamati Arano's brother in law who was the more striking figure. Tamati didn't fail in any particular respect and as a civilian leader, and administrator, and general cat herder for however the Aurigans organized their government since he kept bringing up the found houses quite frequently he was probably fine.

There was an undercurrent though that something about this speech was all too familiar to the nobles of the room, not necessarily the pirates, and not the extent of the pirates, but Lord Tamati was not Hanse Davion. His brother in law Lord Espinosa clearly was unhappy about the state of the military readiness of the Aurigan Coalition. He didn't need to say anything he just exuded that sort of vibe.

... and of course waiting in the wings were the ambassadors from the taurian concodant and the magistracy of canopus... both of whom were clearly at a heighted state of animosity with one another.

"Why do I not like that look?"

"The Magistracy has already extended feelers out through the MRB." Was the reply he received as Tamati turned the floor over to another member of the Aurigan government. Gene glanced sideways to Bahar, even as he did the mental math regarding how far they were from the modern Canopian border with that in mind it was most likely the local ambassador... even so it risked creating problems. This whole mess was complicating their travel itinerary.

The Rasalhagian contingent knew that the Azami had managed to carve out 'colonies out there in the black' but they weren't up on the details. The original plan, back before Dieron, and the extent of ISF reprisals had been to leave directly from the Aurigan reach, but plans changed even before other things had come up. There might have been something on Ur Cruinne after all. The two stay behinds might well end up in a shock... well on top of everything else.

The speeches went on for another hour a painful procession of the usual politicking that increasingly circled into government and the wealthy feeling out positions. A feeling out that felt like they were going to be dancing around for a while.

Septim had found a pillar to lean against and had grabbed a pilsner to pass the time with, "This place reminds me of the Archon's palace on Tharkad."

"Yes, they did a good job repairing it." He replied looking around and then pointing to the ceiling, "You can there where the DOME replaced a structural support," Where an industrial mech had spider walked across the floor and installed a structural support. The remodeling of the original Taurian architecture to cover up where... most likely SLDF warmachines had breached the fortress and taken out Amaris's local leadership two hundred years earlier.

"Why didn't they fix the guns then?"

"Even discounting having the parts, most likely because the Taurians were in open revolt and fighting for Amaris." And with the situation in 2766 being as bad as it seemed why install replacement guns if you were afraid the rebels might turn those guns against you... still the Cordia city palace was an amazing blend of polished and transparent metals and ceramics built in an already picturesque countryside. It was a fairy tale castle, and in significantly better condition than the residences of the various dukes of the Elidere system.


Septim had landed with the Baffins and had been tasked with securing their landing zone foothold. The pirates hadn't done much contesting of their landing though, and by the time they had probably realized the scale of the offload it was too late not with Septim guarding for the two overlords and the triumph coming in, and with the last wave on the ground they completely numerical superiority over the battlespace.

"Looks like your wanted upstairs," The Lyran observed lifting his glass.

"So it seems," but it was also expected, "I expect the Magistracy ambassador is going to reach out to you, past employment history,"

"Ah so be on my guard, gotcha boss, have fun."

He grunted an acknowledgement and took the spiral staircase up past the maybe not so ceremonial guards. Apparently Houses Espinosa and Arano both called the system home. The other 'founders' were from other systems but espinosa ruled V, and Arano ruled VI and had since the late 28th​ century had ruled the 'Aurigan space' independent in practice of any historical claims by the Taurain concordant.

... the SLDF style icongraphy wouldn't have been out of place on Kimi, or on Elidere or on any of hte other worlds where the legacy of the camerons had attained a near cult like following. That placed him in a room with the two lords, the councilors and the ones who had heirs apparent present... and one of the Azami elders was in hushed tones with a man later introduced as Lord Karosas.

Apparently Espinosa's Catapult driving daughter hadn't been told where Black Jack had gotten his mech cache, given her apparent, and shared disgust with Lady Arano over grave robbing. Lord Espinosa cleared his throat, "Its more likely that they found a large storage depot that had been sealed away, Victoria." The graying statesman remarked, "But regardless they have very dangerous weapons." And you needed mechs to fight mechs, LosTech against LosTech certainly helped even things up,

"We were very fortunate to have outside intervention." Tamati agreed with his brother in law, "And that you were both able to make it out of the battle unharmed."
--
Notes This is again nominally canon, and doesn't include some of the material from the I Cormordir arc including stuff from Victoria and Kamea during and after the battle for the capital.

Also, while I'm sure most people have seen this:

​

 

[Imperator Pax]

Highland Faire 7​

Septim winced, and rubbed his eyes. The headache was fairly pronounced, and the rain had cleared off even though it was still early in the morning. The lyran ran his tongue around the corners of his painfully dry mouth and then winced looking at the door, "Alright, gott mitt uns." He hissed against his hangover, "I heard you." Making sure he still had his trousers on the right way he hobbled to the door and opened it to stare bloodshot eyes at the courier.

Mail.

Priority mail.

Still mail though.

He signed for it and sent the robe away... and with annoyance glanced at it. Post Marked Lyran Commonwealth of course... home. Mail from home... and dated recently. This wasn't something that ComStar had been dancing around trying to get to him from the periphery, from his time there. It wasn't of course, and it had been silly to even think it might.

Severus callsign 'Septim' Alexander was itself a nom du guerre and his family had had enough sway to insure a posting with the Lyran Guards but not enough to insure he would make rank and not enough to rise to command it. Thus his moving on to mercenary life had been, for him at least the right move, but the family back home hadn't approved.

He wasn't cut off per se but there had been no attempts by either side since he'd parted ways with the Inner Sphere.

He doubted they knew he was on Northwind, or that this was where the mail would land. Forward Service Paid for, not requested, they'd paid ComStar to make sure it followed him. He wondered if it had gone to Robinson first or if ComStar had picked it out and sorted it somehow before that point knowing that the Shepherds were moving to the Highlander homeworld. Surely since ComStar ran the MRB they knew who was shipping wear and could just tell the Post Office that.

The letter was even if it hadn't been in glowing gold holographic script pretentious in the extreme, it opened with salutations, and included as if he needed to be shown references to the things being referred to clips of battles on Elidere. God in his heaven he'd seen them enough, but he supposed that the public couldn't get enough of them.

--
Gene closed the thermos of coffee was the vehicles moved over the ground.

The Badger ground vehicle was expensive, as in, the Jenner 7A was or would have been cheaper. It wasn't as if he had to pay for them per se, and he didn't have the pilots for them. He had been looking for something cheap and effective as an easy to maintain raider, scout vehicle... and the Badger's modularity while nice worried him in terms of keeping it functional given how new they were.

That and there was the need for crews. He could wrap his head ... sort of... around the fusion engine shortage. The lack of engines meaning that 'mechs were the priority reducing the commonality of things like Manticores, or the Tokugawa that the Azami used but it still made his head hurt. Had the production bottlenecks really been that significant... but he supposed the Succession wars were two hundred years of strife and fratricidal murder between the member states.

"What do you think?" He asked the Azami tanker finally.

"It is a credit to its designers." He replied. Rashid was a big man, easily Beau's height, if not as broad as the Free Worlds native, he was still not the build that Gene associated with a tank commander. "I appreciate that it is compact enough that we secure it in a light vehicle bay. I also appreciate that it was a gift."

He nodded in agreement especially to the last one. Gene thought about the meeting he was due to have in Castle Northwind... meetings... he corrected mentally as he sipped the coffee. "I know we're short on people."

"I have sworn to Yusuf that I am doing my best to find good able bodied recruits, but Pasha is surely correct that our best option..." he trailed.

Would be to recruit Azami tankers who would be able to fold in to their doctrine of battle, and support. "Do we have time tables on that?"

"As the wind the blows I am afraid."

The Bandit and its heavier hover version would have fit well to Star League needs for independent regiments, but he declined to mention that. If only the league had made them, "I understand, than you Rashid. See what you can do." This was really their last opportunity to test the vehicles. They had a couple of more weeks and then it would be time step off.

That wasn't a lot of time. Even for elite formations within the Star League that was a very narrow scope, and would typically have only been application of those units to make planet fall ahead of a larger force. Not... throw basically the whole invasion force into the Gravity Well of a major world and wing it.

... but then again Dieron's defenders were much less numerous than the planetary militia would have been in the 27th​ century... it was a small... minor blessing. The successors states had been in a constant back and forth for centuries now, and that had worn them down to the point that Gene was relatively sure they would have potentially fared poorly against their late Age of War early league predecessors... or not he was only relatively sure .

Whether or not that was the case or not he wanted to be sure they were as prepared for a combined arms offensive against the combine before they left Northwind. BattleMech evaluations were the priority as far as the Davions were concerned. There was no shortage of paper work to catch up on from things on Robinson, and Bahar had been busy, so that was his next stop.

The twelve davion mech warriors were already inside the facility, somewhat less expectedly were the additional presence of a mixed Eridani and presumably Northwind native collection of MechWarriors. The Northwind were dressed similar to the Eridani in SLDF pattern uniforms in more of a scotch irish garrison style, but there were no obvious declarations to evoke the black watch. Instead they wore the Stuart Tartan.

He was less surprised that Bard was ribbing it up with RBA alumnus and the others, but when the Countess of Kestrel showed a few minutes before the scheduled start the room started to quiet.

"Did you invite them?"

It was the same question he'd been about to ask. "No. I have a meeting with the Eridani, and the Highlanders later." In addition to the meeting he'd expected to see the countess at where presumably the Field Marshal intended to address any particular developments. "Its not a problem." he slid the data chip into the star league era computer and started the 'power point of doom' tm. "The cache on Robinson was intended to facilitate rapid rearmament and mobilization in the event of conflict. To that end it included a wide range of designs common to the Hegemony of the 27th​ and the SLDF of the latter period in particular. There were questions regarding reequipping brigade forces with technically superior models, which was eschewed on the basis that this course is designed to insure maximum ability with your chosen chassis. This is a compiling of data on personnel equipment. You should know your machine, and its model the best as possible. Even if we moved you to machine even one with objectively superior systems and you then suffered a problem that you encountered hitherto unknown issue in live combat you would be ill equipped to deal with it. Hence the decision that it was preferable to keep you in the machines you started the course with."

Obviously the entire introduction had been done on the expectation that he'd just be addressing the company strength of the Davion Mechwarriors. There wasn't anything he could add for the sake of the Eridani or Higland observers. So, he went and got on with it changing slides.

"Combine preference for single combat will preference ranged engagements, particularly in the use of particle projector cannons, and the limitations imposed on BattleMechs by excess heat." It wasn't that he didn't understand where turning a catapult into a direct fire unit didn't make sense. It did but only in a narrow niche focus. The K2 could work, but the Catapult's default second line configuration still could be used as a duelists machine. "The exchange of shots, while not a priority also minimizes potential civilian collateral damage. Its ultimately a game of nerves." No one liked taking hits, even if it failed to breach armor. That put stress on a pilot, that effected their MMI synch rate...

That brought them to where, how the company of pilots would be deployed,

The division into battle buddies was aimed to insure frontline deployment to maximize the frontage covered. There were two real scenarios the first was of course letting experienced pilots cut down training cadre units. The second... the dicier proposition was the company facing sword of light pilots... who realistically were going to have much more significant dueling experience.

A duel though would keep those pilots and possibly units of them penned down while other sectors advanced. It was an operational calculus. It was part and parcel of being the first boots on the ground, and tip of the spear. Units that were offloading from San Saba, or the other Triumphs, or the Overlord class dropships would face different threats as the battle lines oriented.

Which was about the point when he was interrupted, by one of the highlanders, "Begging the colonel's pardon, but this makes it sound like you intend to handle the whole lot of them. Not to disrespect this lot, but we're talking a whole regiment of the sword of light with extras around."

Gene spared a glance to the Countess of Kestrel, before moving to address the matter. "Cooperation with the Eridani, and the Guards is a priority, and in an ideal scenario there would be frontal coverage aimed at decapitating Combine leadership with units like this. In practice we simply haven't had time. The resources are not, and have not been available to pull the 3rd​ off the line and focus on rearming for this sort of strategy." He might even have used the word gambit, "This program was put together at the request of the DMI for a tactical solution," and one with limitations reflecting what they had had available on Robinson basically at the start... and that was including obviously political pressures from within the Draconis and Crucis Marches.

None of them could enter the 'squires tourney'. Everyone here were mechwarriors, all the Davions complete with spurs... which Gene felt relatively silly to wear outside of actual formal ceremony. "If this lot isn't getting the new ones, the new mechs, then what about all the talk coming out of GM?"

There was rumbling not just from the other highlanders, but apparently scuttlebutt had been making its rounds through the Eridani and also probably the DMM Units. Who cared about artillery, or tanks with gauss rifles when there were battlemechs after all.

He looked around the unruly pilots, "That isn't on the itinerary today," He half expected to be booed, "Who has been briefed officially on the Marauder II program?" No one raised their hand, but he hadn't expected them to. "And that's why we're not covering it today, in addition to the cache on Robinson there are a number of additional systems that need to be covered ahead of introducing these systems to the brigades at large." He paused, "I'm due a conversation with Captain Campbell, and Brevet General Kerston this afternoon. Briefing packets will provided over the next few days on the Marauder II Program, and we will address it in greater depth in the following week."
--
Notes: I am pulling, have pulled the last scene for this segment delaying with Lycomb Davion Introtech, and Federated Boeing it doesn't add much content other than commenting on ASF pilot recruitment in exchange for FB and Introtech getting access to ASF pulled out of the MID's depot. It is material that is not polished enough for putting up I don't think.

The Davions have a 340 engine option. Its not the Aero Ford the Rapier originally used, and presumably that was made somewhere in Lyran Space and may have 'sploded other wise. Hell the Rapier this odd duck entered by a company that is a toy maker. This is not a toy maker makes assault rifle design because country being invaded this Bauer makes ASF in peace time because Star League is looking.


.. and the Rapier has DHS which is just mind boggling given this is the height of mother doctrine and yet the standard rapier has DHS it has twelve double heat sinks in 2596. I digress, but in this and Essence Rapiers both reenter productions in slightly different configurations obviously the 'freezers' are in the works at NAIS at this point because of well 'here are DHS' because they're old Hegemony tech mid 26th​ century. Just the advantage they offer, Hanse Davion probably went 'those buckaroo those'. Admittedly this only puts them a few years ahead of canon's timeline on the project its not a magical solution.

EDIT: as a note there will probably be an interlude next before moving on to eight

 

[Imperator Pax]

Highland Faire Interlude
7-8​

There were about a dozen men in the room when the next load of boxes came in. There would be more trickling in as they prepared the expected briefing that would probably only occupy an hour maybe of the Prince's Champions time... but there was the chance something would be asked and they'd need to reference.

The Shepherds were just the sort of Motley Crew that made popular movies. Dramatizing the entire campaign on Elidere was an easy task for the Federated Sun's propaganda wing. It was an entire full spectrum media series for the Elidere Campaign, and the intelligence officer would have been shocked if the Draconis March's broadcasting service wasn't planning to do just that. That was probably part and parcel why the latest memorandum had against warned them against taking too many liberties when dramatizing the affair.

It didn't help that despite a dazzling performance on Elidere IV that half of Shepherd's company seemed to have disappeared ... probably for a garrison contract or security provisor in Lyran space... but thankfully those were just tanks. The public .... from the battle roms knew that there were more but mostly as a faceless extras a role treadheads tended to be in most productions. The Duke of Robinson might not care for that reality but it was probably what they were going to do.

... and casting this Commander Tristian since they didn't know what he looked like, they could make him any Davion or Lyran actor in the right age range it didn't matter. No, the bigger warning was going to any cheap titilation... the Prince's Champion had a hand in that he was sure. She'd also quashed any potential romantic subplots, which was unfortunate for hitting demographic targets. There were other details that obviously should be quashed.

He'd already had to completely squash a couple proposed scripts for how ridiculous they were, which given the subject matter was saying something. Heaven forbid they try and fictionalize the Colonel as some long lost descendant of house cameron, one of his writers had bullishly held on to the idea and suggested a 'compromise' of just settling on a 'McKenna'... which was still almost as absurd as making him some lost Davion line... Heroes didn't need to always be long lost royalty.

... and of course any projects needed to be done so they could work around the snake's own failures at propaganda.

The door opened and they all stood.

Field Marshal Yvonne Davion sat down at the head of the table, and Alexandria, the Countess Kestrel, took her place besides the Prince's Champion.

She looked around and gestured to be seated, and nodded, "The budget requests have been submitted, which means we should see a flurry of activity." Including of course internal actions, demands for revisions and what not, but they were hoping to catch foreign vermin not just the usual corruption, "I will say the meeting with Introtech and Federated Boeing went well, unfortunately while that is the case," She paused considering the reason Federated Boeing was being patient than for example GM or even Blackwell. She almost wished that they could delay in hopes the Colonel would find and open another of these 'brian caches' ... It would have been nice to insure that the Blue Star Irregulars and the New Avalon Hussars would be launching their offensive with SLDF weapons to maximize their striking power.

They were making certain contingencies with the entire spring and summer campaign aimed at hitting the Combine and inflicting such a severe blow that the snakes had to give ground. There had to be a median though of doing what they could without overstretching.

That took Asta, and Yorii off of the table. It would mean that for the time being that the Combine would still have access to the Terran corridor, even if that was mostly prestige given the jumpship transit rights. The idea was however that the combination of the Hussars, and Light Horse would be able to seize Altair as well. It would be tangible gains and something they could use to shore up the Crucis and Draconis Marches support while both enriching hte realm and weakening the enemy's. It was the job of her and her staff

That meant more than simply invading a planet. "We will begin with the considerations inside of the realm. There is a broad consensus among the Crucis and Draconis March that not only must a blow be struck against the combine we have been given the opportunity, a once in a lifetime opportunity to do so." Any of the successor states could mount an invasion, but they needed to be able to insure it succeeded, that things changed in the inner sphere.

That meant more than just the AFFS succeeding on the battlefield.

There was a pause from the assembled men and women from around the table, and then someone to her left finally managed to work up the stones to ask, "The duke of Errai is on planet." And he wasn't the only one. The Duke of Robinson's decision to make an appearance was understandable of course.

Yvonne didn't miss the dark look the flashed momentarily across her lady in wait's face, and she doubted anyone else did either. It was of course a small mercy that they were still far enough ahead of the curve that thus the Capellan march, the Haseks, hadn't moved yet... but that wasn't going to last and she knew that.

Michael Hasek may have been content to ignore the destruction of the 19th​ Galedon Regulars, but it was doubtful he had ignored the discovery of the MID depot on Elidere, and certainly wouldn't ignore the finding of another depot on the March capital. She certainly wouldn't have put it past the Duke of New Syrtis to attempt to leverage emphemermal, estranged even familial ties to the Dukes of Elidere as reason that the capellan march should receive some portion of anything recovered from the Mechanized Infantry Divisions stockpiles.

... after all plenty of members of the aristocracy were already sticking their hands out. That was why she wanted an eye on the ruler of Errai, "The Duke of Robinson believes that for the time being Errai can be kept on the sidelines." How long that would last was still up in the air.

It didn't assuage the sandy haired blonde man, "With respect your grace, our best records on Errai say there was only one Castle Brian."

That was to say that there had only ever been proven to be one Castle Brian... on a world brought into the Terran Hegemony by Director General James McKenna, on the world that had produced the Thug Assault BattleMech...

--
The truth was that propaganda films were nothing new. They dated to ancient Terra when films had been the latest medium of communication. To that end dramatization of events was simply a tool of the trade... but Alexandria did get annoyed have to read through some of the drek that MIIO's media department some times put together.

Besides there was a more pressing concern, "What if there are caches here?"

That there probably were was the consensus. Colonel Shepherd was willing to admit that much at least, but his reasons for not looking while not identical to their preferences were at least understandable, "It would be a problem. The Robinson Cache, we might be able to place or obfuscate as from the 100th​ BattleMech Division," And that wouldn't require anything too special in the way of deception, "but access of the two close together will raise questions we can defer those with saying one lead to the other but it will raise questions of where other ones might be. That's why the squires tournament is going to be the particular issue,"

There was an expectation that guests would attend to see the next generation. It was therefore the most likely place that if someone was going to accidentally bump into anyone and strike up a conversation ... well it was there that they'd have the opportunity. "What about the Highlanders, it certainly seems as if they're monopolizing his time... and I understand that General Keston wants to introduce him to the Blue Stars."

The Prince's Champion hummed thoughtfully, "I didn't intend to exclude them from the dinner, but realistically they need to be ready." Even though they were technically mercenaries the Blue Star Irregulars may as well have been Davion Regular troops. The truth was that they needed the combine to commit to their current scope of repression and terror attacks against their own subjects... it was distracting the ISF and it was tying down troops that should have been focused on the outside. "But you're correct it would probably do to have them at this briefing you mentioned."

That wasn't quite what Alexandria had meant, but she didn't say anything immediately. That wasn't what she had meant ... but there was another matter. The countess of Kestrel hadn't been able to make the trip to New Avalon. She'd been needed on Robinson and as annoying as some of the higher peers of the realm were, there was work on Robinson that had needed to be done, "What happens if GM makes the decision to attend?"

Yvonne Davion paused, "On New Avalon we were able to structure things, and truthfully General Motors had other priorities." At the time of the original offload there had been no knowledge of the most recent developments on Robinson. The cache, the mechs, the spare parts the manuals, none of it... and GM had been unaware of other finds at the time. They had known she'd been in contact with the firm on New Valencia and there were customized Marauder II packages in the delivery... but that hadn't warranted much interest until the specifics had started to circulate... and the rumor mill.

 

[Imperator Pax]

Highland Faire 8​

The Hegemony security protocols, even given the ... not quite decrepit, but skeletal ... appearance of some of the hallways had involved significant volumes of anti vehicle and anti personnel turrets from the walls, and ceilings and floors and several elevation changes. The tram changes were interesting, but probably suggested there were collapsed tunnels that they weren't seeing... or when the Hegemony had built Northwind... there had been some reason to layout the castle... which was probably also possible. It was however time consuming to reach this portion of the facility and the meeting with the Field Marshal had run long as it was, not helped by the flagrant degree of Dante penetrating Davion data networks.

The tram dinged as it came to a stop in a full size station, and Gene could understand why. For Dante there was no need to restrict his presence to any single room. The AI had already demonstrated he could communicate across various terminals, or network connections, even with DropShips.

The fact that they were in what he was fairly sure was a shielded annex in the mountain that given the way the angles were... probably lead to a port complex, the landing sights for accepting Aerodyne and possibly even spheroid dropships of significant size. Then there were the various storage crates, including several marked SCI, and the more telling logo of Star Corp Industries Terran based home branch. That certainly lent credence that this was access to a port complex.

While the Black Watch was the Royal Highland Regiment... it was far from the only scottish regiment of the star league... and well the Northwind Highlanders while mercenaries had also been part of the Hegemony, and mercenaries were semi deniable. The Hegemony had had really countless other Scotts-Irish units, as had the Lyrans, the Davions, the League, the Kuritans, the Capellans, and of course the Magistracy and the Taurians. Even today twelve hundred years after the Act of Union joining England and Scotland into the United Kingdom there were tartan units, including those who claimed descent and colors from the British Empire, or the United States through the heritage of the star league or through that exodus from Terra.

On Northwind at least three Highland Mech regiments had fallen during the Amaris Crisis.

It made sense that the Black Watch could blend in as just another Highlander fraternity, who would believe that the lodge might really have valid credentials?

He pushed around the side of the crate, even as Campbell asked what it was.

"Well what is it?"

He stuck his head back out, "M7 Gauss rifle, probably intended for a Highlander." There were other Mechs that could have accommodated the M7, and would have been transported like this but, the Highlander was the most common mech in Terran and SLDF inventory fielded with the weapon. The M7 had been in service so long that the Hegemony and later the League had produced by different companies under license and in various versions, including the M7D that was standard aboard the Alacaron which was really only distinguished by its lengthened 'barrel' profile what in other naming convention might have simply been specified with the barrel calibre that were produced by Norsestorm.

The M7D had eventually been developed into the M9 which frankly wasn't all that different, but had then been fielded with the Fury that together with the superior avionics package offered an effective Anti Aircraft system only limited by its ammunition. That hadn't been much later than the Alacorn entry into Terran service though. The fury had entered Hegemony use and then SLDF royal division use, and then dumbed down export models in the 27th​ century.

Judging from the situation...

"Just left here?"

"Air raid sirens probably went off, and they sealed the port." He guessed. The blast doors were rated for megatons of sunshine even in contact detonation, but if the doors were open then... the doors armor wouldn't have done you any good.

"Affirmative colonel... the facility was locked down, and then left. This port was not intended as a priority facility, and while it was potentially secure the manpower was allocated elsewhere. The bulkheads were sealed, and other portions were struck by orbital fire from Rim World warships that dissuaded Terran personnel from the use of the facility."

"But ... I was under the impression that Rim World troops took Northwind?" Kerston queried stepping over to hit an office light switch, add a little more light into the room.

The AI's voice crackled through the speakers, "Yes, I was required to weigh engaging the facility's self destruct but held off on the calculation that SLDF reinforcements would arrive to relieve a still resisting world." Dante replied, "Instead as the invaders had demonstrated no ability to override SDS or other systems I simply insured they remained bottled in the main facilities."

He suspected but couldn't prove that Dante had probably pumped the facility's sealed wings full of if not poison gas then at least full of an atmospheric compound that would keep anyone from wanting to try it... though Dante had just implied that strategic level bombardment had been raining down on Tara probably for a protracted period of time. It was giving him a headache thinking about it, and it was no longer relevant to their present needs... then again the Secret Fleet, and an ongoing resistance, Dante probably had expected a main SLDF counter had been on the way from the periphery... and not years down the road.

--
Gene finished the boot process, and watched the system telemetry come in. Kerston was a career mechwarrior and command track. Campbell despite his age was a career mechwarrior as well but with a different track from the regular SLDF. The technical instruction and education component just no longer existed... which of course left Gene wondering why he hadn't pulled more continuing education courses from Tristian's outpost.

Whatever the case this was the sort of thing that would have been left to a specialist officer track anyway to manage and coordinate incoming systems handling, and he would have b een supported by an entire detachment of enlisted. Thankfully much of that could be bypassed once Dante was networked into the system to handle processing incoming and outgoing feeds.

... they sat there and watched the rest of the holographic displays populate. White lights black lights, red lights not enough yellow painfully few green.

"God in his heaven."

"Yeah."

Northwind had been colonized in the initial wave of exodus from Tara. The Scotch Irish Diaspora from the english speaking world at large on Terra had carried the 7th​ Taking to settle worlds like Northwind and Skye, and as one of the Hegemony's initial worlds.

... there were indicator returns reading non functional or destroyed for settlements, towns, forts, orbital facilities, lagrangian dockyards, deep space facilities, and more on terrestrial surface and space that were uncountable for as many as there were.

N001 was reading massively reduced in effectiveness.... which wasn't surprising given the long skeletal hallways and the constant movements and shifts

... Danta finished recalculating a number, and the estimated dead on Tara from the 2765 to 2767 revised upward...

What was worse was that these were wholly fixed assets. Population centers that you couldn't move, means of production... these weren't units that had died they were things you could saturate with ballistic missile fire and tag by minute of nuke. Some were military targets of course, and some were nominally civilian but with military value, but the saturation attacks on Northwinds cities had killed hundreds of millions.

"I guess we know who Jinjiro Kurita learned how to fight from then."

It was an unnecessary sullen comment from the highlander.

While technically inaccurate of course it was the sentiment that Dante agreed with. "What is an Argo?" Kerston was in the flight data logs, "It doesn't look like it landed, but it says it launched .. "Warship?"

He pulled the same file up. A hundred thousand tons... gigantic even by League standards of DropShip construction, but definitely not a Jump drive equipped vessel.

Pulling the registry didn't make sense either. The vessel had been on its maiden flight, but the course plan didn't make sense for it to be leaving Hegemony space for trip that had all the ear marks of a deep periphery exploration.

"Dante, was this an SLCOMNET Tender?"

"I do not believe so. Argo's mission statement was exploration, it would make little sense not to specify an HPG role. It is possible of course that it was a clandestine service package, but why send it into the deep periphery?" The AI posited.

Still there was a course intersection that might have been coincidence or might not that took it down through into the Periphery similar to the route that they were with high probability confident that Tripitz had taken but the Argo went further into former Taurian space, and further rimward still.

"Federated-Boeing operated the Galax shipyards after the fall of the league." Kerston observed, "If you think its relevant, they might know something."

"Aye, they're poking around." Campbell agreed, but also on the other hand this could be just what it looked like another League era boondoggle of doing something with a too fancy too cutting edge piece of machinery that hadn't been properly tested... like the baron-class warship for example.

Whatever the case was the Argo was only one of many DropShips that had in the unknown to then final years of hte league had logged flight plans with this port complex. Because, however of its unique size, its uniqueness in general the Argo's registry and plan stood out in most data tables. That and he had already plugged in the tables for known SLDF losses, which was probably no where near complete but it was better than nothing in terms of having something to parse through the data.

The Highland captain cleared his throat, "I dunno if we can clear this blockage of the main hangar, gonna be needing digging equipment, I don't even have exterior camera feed. This probably got buried and then snow and mud piled on for two hundred years on."

Probably exactly like Bristol that was going to be who knew how many months of work to get to where you could even open the hangar doorways... maybe Abner still had the digging equipment in the IE dropships' holds. It would be worth asking about once they backtracked, and went back to the surface... but it would almost certainly be after dark by the time they finished here.

There didn't look to be anything they could reliably pull out of the Port, from Gene's cursory overview. They needed manpower to come in and make sure the trams could pull that weight and they needed loaders, but it would make more sense to just clear the port entryway and see if they could get the doorways open and then just bring DropShip crews in.
--
Notes: This is really more along the lines of an interlude but it does reference ahead of time several things that come about or are dealt with later on. We have the Marauder II and mech stuff next, then the Squires tournament and the introduction of what will become Bardiche and Claymore and then preparations to finish out January of the year and then the HPG interlude of the attack on Cranston Snord's folks by Marik in February possibly. I'm not sure i'm going to do that or not.

 

[Imperator Pax]

Highland Faire 9 (a)​

The Azami had taken most of the factory white mechs and repainted them in SLDF temperate patterns leaving the mechs earmarked for DMM pilots to be painted up in Robinson Ranger colors leaving in one that had been painted an approximation of the white and gray that wasn't quite right. It had caused its share of snickers from both IE personnel and the Azami, especially when the 'White Horse' was right next to the bigger machine.

Gene glanced up to the hundred ton war machine, one of several of its like in the factory default 4A configuration. A machine that was only available because of political pressure, and because no one had wanted to take a risk he suspected without the infusion of Davion capital.

The Marauder II was based on the Davion 3D. It was slower. That was the price one paid for keep the engine but having an additional twenty five tons to move. The Marauder II though was a hundred tons with jumpjets and armor to equal an atlas.

They simply hadn't had the ferrofibrous stocks in inventory to replace the factory valiant lamellor with that... and that was scarce enough only available, like with the Chaparral's main weapon, now digging out of league caches... and he had no idea when they were going to find more. Dante was working on that but didn't have a timetable other than they could potentially resupply from Fortress Dieron... which required landing on planet.

Gene moved around the hull down machine and put a foot in the wrung and pushed up to the cockpit to look around. He was killing time until they were due to start. He tapped a couple of controls on the approach side.

"Are you sure you know what you're doing?"

"Yes." He called back, "This is built on the GM Marauder chassis, same as the original," The Terran Hegemony iteration of the 26th​ century, before the loss of Hegemony based factories, "Orion or my Marauder, and the same engine. Same primary weapons package with magnas in the arms." the diagnostic check started up. Admittedly the jump jets were a different model, and he maybe would have preferred Super Verniers but it didn't matter it didn't make that much difference.

Alexandria Cunningham moved a little closer to the assault mech, "I read in the manual that they changed the communications system."

"Yes, and the targetting system to the Mk II."

"Why would they do that?"

"I have no idea the HiRez II was used for Light Mechs to give them something similar in set up to the Marauder," the HiRez B from the King Crab would have made more sense... but it didn't really effect anything. As TTS went the II was maybe slightly more friendly to lower skill end users, it was by no means a downgrade from his reading. The Marauder II was just as capable of running the regimental command role as its original slimmer version. "It shouldn't matter if you've driven a Marauder its close enough."

The countess looked at him clearly skeptical of the conclusion. "And for people lacking in experience in the mech?" He moved into the cockpit and to let her follow up to look at the controls.

"The TTS interface isn't especially different." He repeated as he double checked the communications system, and its connection to the various vehicles, and the DropShips. A couple of keystrokes later and he received a five by five return confirming good. Not that he was expecting anything different.

"Something wrong?"

She had caught the twist in his expression as he scrolled through. They had rolled off a Fury from Bristol, and it was pairing to a connection that handled as no doubt being Dante. "No." He responded flipped the comms line to the Nirasaki 400X equipped Hegemony tank, "Dante how do things look on your end?"

"Very good commander." The AI replied suavely, "The Fury is operating within the expected parameters and data relay, and there are no communication issues between it and the Blackwell Multi-linq."

He leaned back in the seat even before the Countess riposted. "He doesn't sound happy."

"Its not going to be an issue," He replied, "Connect me to Abner, or remind him that we're going to begin at the top of the hour." or in about fifteen minutes.

"I do wish you had insisted that these... Storm Hunters, and the Hammers had been built with the Marauder avionics package." He continued to look at the forward display but could feel that look.

"We prove they work, we can work from there."

They were interrupted by Campbell, and Cameron jogging up. "Ah getting started early."

"Just warming the engines," He replied looking over the rim as a steady of trickle of DMM troops and men in SLDF pattern uniforms filed into the hangar. It was a crowd larger than the one he had been expected, and without formal introduction to the Blue Stars own general... which a question for later. Kerston had joined them, even though he'd been on New Avalon, but then again there was Field Marshal Davion filing in behind him. Gene reached up to key the mike and increase the volume to be sure he was heard of the the crowd. He had planned to boot the variants, one or two at least, but he'd start with the Blackwell standard, as soon as Abner got here.

The Lyran doctor didn't need reminding and was far from the last in the room.

The crowd was substantially larger than he had expected from Davion regulars from several different regiments, to highlanders, to the already large formation of DMM personnel who needed to be here... especially the ones who'd actually be piloting Marauder II in the stock configuration.

"This is a Marauder. It features a different avionics suit, but it is the chassis and armament of the 3D in an Assault mech's weight." It was the simplest summary. An a hundred ton Three Davion. The prominence of the Marauder in the media and in the literature surrounding mechwarriors made that of particular note, while it was not just the Elidere campaign that impacted the sudden interest that certainly didn't hurt.

That simple description probably still undersold the work New Valencia's Blackwell corporation had put into the machine.... but Gene suspected that the Mechwarriors neither cared nor wanted to hear about whatever had gone into making the hundred tonner that wasn't oriented towards the fight itself.

Gene stood, "This should be easy to take note of from the fact that the Marauder II is substantially more massive than Marauder. The nineteen ton VLAR 300 is now better protected, with the mech carrying nineteen tons of Valiant Lamellor and accompanying increase from twenty in the 3D to twenty nine heat sinks," Or from 16 in the case of the '3R' that was the 'default model' of the Inner Sphere at large. "This increase accounts for most of the change in mass along with the addition of jumpjets, which helps to offset the drop in overland speed." Which to be fair, it was a hundred tons fifty four KpH was still reasonable flank. "Before we go any further, does anyone have any questions about where the 4A differs from the 75 ton 3D?"

There weren't any. He had their attention. That was good.
--
The briefing was going somewhat afield. The reality was this was supposed to be focused on the 4A and the Davion mechwarriors who would be using the stock factory model, but obviously it wouldn't have been a gathering of MechWarriors without expectant looks at the ones that weren't stock.

"You know that Blackwell painted it that way purely for PR reasons."

He shrugged as the moved away from the 4A in white gray, "I assumed as much," Or as a cheap attempt to curry favor, but it didn't matter. Thankfully Blackwell had designed the Marauder II with the Magna models of standard marauders There had been no difficulty sourcing weapons.

"And that they want feedback."

"I understand that."

"They also seem to have constructed additional prototypes of the requested variants for their own in-house testing."

All in all nothing he wouldn't have expected, "As long as they understand its not intended as a magical solution to everything on the battlefield." He rested a hand on the armored gauntlet that instead of protecting a Magna Hellstar PPC it was protecting the massive assembly of an assault class auto cannon. "I almost considered telling them try and fit fifteen tons of capacitor and rails," Gauss rifle ammunition was painfully simple it was not having a capacitor explode and cook off like a bomb on your mech that was the problem. That and there was the Devastator in inventory to consider. "Since we have some M7s in storage." He glanced back at the approaching mass, including a couple of men in business suits. "You can tell them that if you want." He put a foot in the wrung and popped the cockpit of a camo pattern that might be described as a mix of earth pantones and reactivated the mike. "This machine lacks the range and endurance in combat of any of the other variants. It is it a specialist machine designed to do one thing, and that is break a last ditch charge. This machine is designed for clos quarters urban fighting." It had the potential to run hot confined to standard heat sinks, and it hadn't limited ammunition, "It has the armor to fight to a position and then hold it until its reinforced by additional units."

It was as Bubbles had coined it a big Marauder for the Hunchback's role. She wasn't wrong. Her Hunchback was faster.

"This is a dedicated close quarters mech killer."

The idea was to stop banzai charges, but if they were going to be on the offensive then it was just as likely that at fifty four kph it would be bringing up the rear in a dragoon company or lance attached to facilitate a break through of an urban strongpoint.

"I already called dibs." Chang declared from somewhere to the left in the crowd of the davion who had spoken up, "So don't anyone get any ideas." It had been impromptu an outburst she hadn't planned to say, but eyes turned, "I mean no offense the Atlas is great," There was a titter of laughter that rippled through the assembled .. probably almost a hundred mechwarriors.
--
Notes: SO I pulled my copy of the original 3025 and indeed it does specify that the Chassis of the Orion is a Kali Yama chassis, you will note that assuming I haven't caught them all that I specify that Orions in Terran Hegemony service use GM Marauder chassis. This is because GM originally developed the Orion, and GM is (was) of course a Hegemony based company, and as a result in the modern day the 'Kali Yama Chassis' is effectively just Kali's locally produced version of it and we can just blame Inner Sphere intellectual property laws for it it having it, but I swear I have seen contradictory bits in the lore where it says the Orion uses the GM Marauder chassis which is what prompted this whole bugbear in the first place.

Just FYI if you see that that is why, because and I'd have to find the book where it says the Orion uses GM's marauder chassis, but current production Orions (built in the FWL) do canonically use a Kali Yama Chassis, and that is true here, but the Orion is a very very old mech design.

Also this is part (A) of 9 B will pick this up, this is going up today instead of tomorrow, but B will go up Sunday per normal. I will aim to update the Luxen Contracts Thursday. That's the plan anyway.

 

[Imperator Pax]

Highland Faire 9 (b)​

He almost broke his not really a script but outline of the briefing he had in mind, and invited Chang to come up and take the mech out of the hangar, but put that off until after they had finished. It avoided any issues with neuro helmets as well.

The truth was this hadn't been finished long enough for him to be aware that she had called piloting the mech but it wasn't any secret that they didn't have pilots yet earmarked for them. The company was looking for mechwarriors. Hell that probably wasn't even a secret anymore. If it ever had been

Gene nodded to the blue haired glasses wearing mech driver, "It is indeed, a close quarters mech killer." He responded to the Guards officer who had started the distraction. Still better than comment then turning this to the quintessential atlas boast of how an Atlas could kill a battalion's worth of stingers with nothing sans some armor scuffing.... no one was probably going to make that comment given what the company had done on Elidere. This machine, and the one configured similarly were designed to a special role in view of the invasion based on the fact that they had a surprising volume of resources.... and because he'd originally thought to need them in a situation where he wouldn't necessarily have an abundance of vehicles to back shoot any sudden swarm of light battlemechs making a last attack.

Desperate troops fighting to the death in a last stand were dangerous and best dealt with by artillery... but they were rarely cooperative enough for towed artillery to deal with them... meaning it came down to close quarters... as it had on Ander's moon at the end.

"This is not," He resumed speaking, "Like the others. Hammer and Hunter units are based on a more rounded engagement profile." That was to say they were closer to the 4A and didn't have the limitations of carrying two AC 20s on the Chassis. "There are variations of each, experimentation, machines designed to be introductory models, machines designed for more advanced skillset end users." There were looks, "Fire, and maneuver. Who regularly uses JumpJets?" It was a rhetorical question, he knew there were highlander pilots present, and not everyone here were assault mech pilots besides, "The 4A is an assault mech with ninety meters of clearance. That's useful in that it provides tactical mobility. The storm hunter retains this jump jet capacity to allow it to maneuver as a wing unit, as an outrider, as heavy cavalry if your prefer that description in support of hammers or as independent elements of an advance. The hammers are direct forward attacking units designed to breach a line and act up in the enemy's rear."

Breakthrough and exploit.

Specialization wasn't a bad thing. Not when the use of assault mechs was being done to address a previous lack in capacity.

The eyes looked over the temperate camo machines. The paint scheme had been chose because it worked well enough for Northwind, at least Tara and it would probably work for where they were going to drop on Dieron, where they wouldn't need something with a higher contrast for an arid environment. They also didn't need anything truly Alpine for where they were going.

The versions were all based off the same general chassis, but to meet certain objectives had sacrificed certain features. The idea had been to keep to as general baseline as possible, with the exception of Chang's 'super hunchbacks', or as he thought of them Marauder King Crab stand in, the idea was to have as much parts interchangeability as possible.

That meant Magna Hellstars, MkII medium lasers remaining standard across all platforms carrying ppcs, and medium lasers.

It hadn't escaped him though that a representative from Lycomb Davion Introtech was eying the two machines fitted with the company's Harpoon-6 Launchers. The other alternative had been the Robinson based Valiant systems entry, but they simply hadn't had the volume of available assets. It made more sense to use the older Harpoon 6 series.

"You said something about M7s." It was clear that Alexandria was weighing between potentially distracting the briefing and causing an interruption, her own inquisitivenss and potentially damaging any all knowing mystique she might have been trying to cultivate for any onlookers.

"Gauss rifles. Highlander's primary weapon." Or the 7D used in the Alacorn or as license produced for the Nightstar though those were modified to fit inside armored gauntlet housings. "It doesn't matter the Devastator will suffice if we need that kind of specialized fire in a mech platform." And he doubted they would after they were on the ground... once they were planet side he was already envisioning Fury and Alacorn companies moving to provide long range precise fire on hostile targets and letting the mechs move to close in.

Alexandria gave him a look, "And what is the Devestator, besides obviously I assume an assault Mech mounting these gauss rifles?"

"Did you not get a New Avalon packet?" He regretted asking the question as soon as it had left his mouth, because obviously where as everyone in the Company had received copies of the minutes from New Avalon that had been company personnel geared towards MechWarriors, and technical staff to contend with the hardware influx. "I'll make sure you have a copy by end of," He replied shaking his head... the Gauss rifle should have been something at least that she'd been read in on, Robinson March Militia had taken possession of Highlanders out of the Brian Cache, the Company had taken possession of Alacorns.... but it was what it was.

Gene eyed the crowd... and made the decision that given this turn out... it would be better to keep the devestator crated up on the DropShip for the time being. There were enough people here including corporate reps to give the company enough interest. The last thing he wanted was the sudden squawk from the Marauder's computer.

"Commander I am detecting inbound Large-Mass KF traffic. Resolution windows evaluation, confirming inbound JumpShips." Dante intoned. "Resolving now, mass readings are as follows..." The scottish accent of the AI began to list at least two star lords and a handful of smaller more normal JumpShips at Zenith. "Processing traffic to Highland regiments and mobilizing the Company."

He put a hand on the rim of the cockpit, and scanned before finding the Black Watch descendant, "We have multiple JumpShips at Zenith coming from the same vector, Campbell, Dante is relaying to your people."

"Aye." the Black Watch Captain replied looking up at the hundred tonner. "alright lads lively now good order."

He had to let Alexandria get down first which took longer than he would have liked before he jumped down from the second rung. Dante was already complaining about 'lack' of AFS coverage the planet had available... which was from the decline of the league.

"It could just be a late comer?"

"IN two star lords, and enough to total at least a million in displacement?"

Campbell moved back from the MechWarriors moving towards the entrance, "Aye, short of the Wolf Dragoons showing up I can't think of anyone who might visit the faire, who isn't already here with that kind of footprint. Unless you think we invited MacCarron?"

... or the Highlanders in Capellan service... but no... even if there had been time to get a message to them through the HPG network in its current state certainly not enough to get them here this quickly... he decided not to mention it at all. "We can figure out who it is, the didn't jump to Lagrangian one, but," He nudged his head in the direction of Kerston and Field Marshal Davion. "Dante ring Bahar aboard the Sam Houston, start tasking Regimental Command and Control."

"Stand by." The Hegemony Machine Spirit replied.

"Colonel? We have relayed system telemetry of JumpShips, we're waiting for optical resolution."

"Put the company on alert mobilize coverage, General Kerston and I are probably," He glanced to the Field Marshal and approaching general, and then to the face Campbell was making. "Sound general quarters and put everyone on alert, I'll get back to you."

"It wasn't a priority," The brogue was stronger, "But shit we take this to the elders, if one of the others," Presumably other successor states, "Is making a run at the planet, unless this is the dragoons, we need to talk to them now." He pressed.

He queried Dante for Optical resolution, didn't like the answer, and then glanced back to the tartan clad captain, "Go, I'll find out what the field marshal wants us to do, we've got brigade wide communications open, and our naval assets should have eyes soon." Not as soon as he would have liked.

"I'll be back in two shakes."

"Well this is exciting." Bard chimed in, "But as an invasion, I doubt it." He punched Gene's shoulder lightly, "You're too wound up, invading during the faire would be insane. It'd be suicide."

"Unless the Mariks are unleashing the entirety of the dragoons. Five regiments of mechs." Alexandria rebutted... but even that seemed unlikely ... even with star league era machines and not their down tech versions that they apparently had assaulting Northwind seemed ridiculous given the present presence...

"Lets not speculate wildly, I have reasonable indication that the Dragoons are currently indulging House Marik's feuding with House Steiner," Doctor Abner's face went flat in annoyance, at the Field Marshal's statement, "They're in packet raiding by all indications at the moment,"

"They launched an attack on New Kyoto, I've been told." Abner grumbled a little tersely.

So probably not the dragoons. "We will resolve who our guests are and then we will address the matter," The Field Marshal turned, "if it is House Kurita are you prepared?"

"Yes ma'am."

 

[Imperator Pax]

Highland Faire Notes
Yes, Bard should know that yes attack a completely pants on head target like northwind is exactly the sort of thing that happens in Inner sphere warfare (In fact IIRC Jaime wolf even comments that these kinds of suicide attacks get launched because thats what defines the succession wars, though I'd argue canonically the Star League and great houses before the league during hte age of war already had a habit of doing this kind of thing anyway)


Spoilers:

Spoiler: General Commentary

The following is spoilers, I'm warning here, even though yes to an extent there have been warnings. Highland Faire has been a long time coming and has featured a couple of potential versions, obviously the big three are the possibilities of House Marik attacking, House Liao attacking, or the Combine and each of thos were ideas I looked this alluded to in part nine and went through several versions

FWL:

Spoiler: Marik

Sitting in my draft folder is a non canon / alternate timeline where Marik does for whatever reason decide to try and drop the Dragoons on the Faire, which culminates in the revelation that the Dragoons are descendants of Kerensky's Exodus... remember that Dante has been given access to Tristan's reports and data, including Kerensky loyalists opened fired on HAF troops at Fort St George on Elidere. There is also a version where the Fifth Defenders are launching a raid, but the main tangent of a Marik move would be introducing the Dragoons early and potentially outing them either to at least the FedSuns but also potentially the Inner Sphere at large as descendants of Kerensky's Exodus

Now that has the potential to go a couple of ways, for example in canon, and what will show up later is that there are other Rim World remnants than just the von Strangs, technically the Amaris bloodline is extant and there will be fights against sharky boys [see below], but Gene and friends don't know that so they can't tell Jaime and thus they can't tell the clans, so instead, the clans can be told 'we know Amaris was given SLDF positions by Kurita' this would be a distinct resolution from the 'Whoops there goes the HPG network' alternate timeline in a number of points

CC:

Spoiler: Liao

There are actually a couple versions of House Liao. Not all of which are invasions, these iterations follow general ideas there is of course a MacCarron's Armored Cavalry launch an invasion on Mad Max's behalf, there is a Northwind Highlander version, but there are also versions where both of those companies are visiting peacefully, MacCarron shows up to talk shop and run his mouth, this avenue also had the potential of being opportunity to use House Liao showing up at the faire to introduce not just MacCarron, but Pavel Ridzik, or the Liao children not all of which are directly confrontational

DC:

Spoiler: Kurita

a couple potential versions, not as many as Liao, one version involved the sword of light showing up under Yorinaga, and ends with his very unfortunate death due to all of the SRMs at close range from a Marauder II variant being shown off in Highlander 9. That'd be a hell of a marketing advantage, but yes that version would be the 2nd sword of light drops in.

The other thing is canonically, and he's only in his what forties, Takashi Kurita (the sitting Coordinator) is still leading combat operations during this period so another alternate timeline is of course the Otomo and the coordinator dies in glorious battle leading a bunch of men in a defiant death ride, because canonically Takashi thinks its appropriate to go raid Lyran planets with the wolf dragoons in 3022 (IIRC) I think its an attack on Hesperus, but I'd have to look it up. [and of course in the current iteration of 'Whoops' Takashi has a tragic stroke and Teddy has conclusive [proof that ComStar] is not to be trusted... but thats another alternate timeline]

But yeah at the moment the Combine is doing a lot of war crimes o'clock stuff so what is actually going on:

Spoiler: Spoiler Highland 10+

So the final iteration, the one ultimately settled on is that these are the much hinted at Azami exodus addition, and Rasalhague freedom fighters coming to davion space. OBviously Rasalhague's ultimate goal is an indepdenent rasalhagagian state the azami are a mix of exodites (wanting to go to the deep periphery, we'll get to dropship composition soon) but coming with more word combine atrocities and repression.

Also
I recommend, if you haven't seen this
here is EP1 of Hired Steel ft Tex of the Black Pants leagion, its set in 3041 but

​

Spoiler: Sharky boys

Well this is from Ep 2: timestamp 1:20

​

pay attention to what he says.

--
Force Arrangement ahead of the Faire:
Sam Houston DROSTIIA variant (refer Here)
1 Battalion of Infantry (10 Platoons)
2 Light Vehicle Squadrons (i.e. lance i.e. 4 vehicles)
1 Heavy Vehicle Squadron

Baffins Union Combine Arms variant
Company of Infantry

San Saba Triumph Undergoing modifications.

 

[Imperator Pax]

Scrap Highland Faire Alternate​

[NON CANON, ALTERNATE ft Wolf Dragoons]​

He had barely gotten the announcement of the arriving drop ships when time seemed to slow. He didn't see the muzzle flash.

The round cracked high, but not so off that he didn't realize that it had been aimed in his general direction. The report of the gun discharging wasn't all that missed by any one else either, because people immediately started making noise and scuffling. Gene did the only option readily available to him. His hand reaching over to grab and pull the countess of Kestrell into the cockpit so he could button the Marauder up as a second round pinged on the hangar ceiling.

A thought through his neuro helmet the Hegemony built 'circlet' he wore brought pneumatic hiss as the cockpit ceiled and the hundred ton Marauder's running lights initiated on the machine. There was obviously a scuffle ongoing in the crowd... even if this had been his other mech he wouldn't have had the resources to get involved.

Being able to maybe bring a hand in and gently brush people out of the way sounded easy up until you actually tried to do it in real life with a hundred ton warmachine.

Alexandria Cunningham huffed. Then composing herself as best she could posed the question, "A saboteur? Assassin?"

"Either or." He replied. He was a little alarmed at the thoroughness Dante had penetrated the planet wide data nets, but then he supposed he really shouldn't have been. Especially since they were within the castle's above ground 'facade'... the zone of defense on the surface.

"one of the Highlanders?"

That was denonynm of choice. Northwind was the planet, and apparently as part of the scots & irish diaspora it had at some point become the popular opinion that all scots were highlanders. There were highland units in every successor state, and probably all or nearly so all of the periphery nations worth naming, even the Canopians had a Highland Regiment during the star league, and presumably still did. Not that he'd seen them when they'd been there

He blinked rewinding the machine's forward camera's footage because he surely couldnt' figure out what was going on in the now completely insane melee going on twenty feet from the exterior of the mech. "No, I don't think so. One of the suits." Which told him nothing. Well it told him that it probably wasn't a highlander they were all in kilts... but the shock alert of sudden jump traffic. "Campbell," He growled keying the mike with pressure, "Get to a mech. Cameron, Chang, Mechs Now."

It was doubtful that there were hostile mechs in bound... but it wasn't impossible there were several full size regiments on the planet. Never mind much smaller merc units visiting and rubbing elbows... it wouldn't be impossible... but it was doubtful... but better safe than sorry. That was why he needed Campbell in a mech. The highlander had local credentials, and had valid Hegemony credentials he knew about Dante, and while they could play the AI off as another Highlander he wanted to be careful about that in general... but someone had just taken a shot at him after announcing the arriving JumpShips.

"Commander I am still resolving telemetry." He could almost imagine Dante grumbling about how slow response times must have seemed... whether that was in comparison to real hegemony era times, or simply an illusion of the suddenness of the potential of the attack dropping in on them. "Resolving." The AI repeated mechanically. "Track. Projecting." He ticked off.

Holographic displays altered as DropShips were confirmed to be separating from the JumpShips.

--
The would be combine spy slash assassin who had botched his shot had assumed, apparently, just from the read off of two star lords and a host of others ... well he had simply assumed that any such incursion had to have been his own home state. He had ended up with a concussion and had been taken into custody by Davion authorities... and no Combine invasion manifested.

... this was honestly probably worse.

Gene cracked his neck to the side and pulled the noteputer out.

"Yeah," He replied.

"So is there a cache here?"

Given the situation, "Its a hegemony world, I would assume that every Cameron who ever ruled stockpiled materiel at some point during their reign." Love that Military Industrial Complex, and the appropriations budget. "We're already hitting manpower problems, but I'd be astonished if there wasn't something here. It would take time." He trailed off.

"And we are already on a schedule, and facing enough trouble keeping it." Yvonne remarked shutting the door at the opposite end of the room sealing what should have been a 'secure' room. Of course they shouldn't have let him keep the noteputer either if they were going to claim it was a secure meeting, but this had been a part of the planetary governor's office in the era of the Hegemony. It wasn't properly, didn't neatly fit in the SLDF roster of things... and that was before you added the two centuries of rule.

He looked at the holographic tracks... "There is something else you should know." The holographic globe in the room wobbled, for lack of a better description. Dante making corrections and updates to the telemetry, or maybe the AI assumed he was about to disclose his existence to the Davions, which was something apparently that the last hegemony officer hadn't done.

"Something else?"

Gene glanced towards the Brevet General, who slid the noteputer over, "From the Regiments Historical Archives, Field Marshal."

"We've discussed this but given the situation we need to contend with the fact that's as they are that the Wolfs Dragoons are not simply descendants of Kerensky's Exodus, but also only a portion of them. Given their demonstrated ability to rearm and repair the units with trips out into the black, I would assume they likely never lost the ability to manufacture JumpShips, or suffered a reduction in rate." ... not the least of which was that was likely to be the case because they'd probably folded up the black box automated shipyards that came on SLDF fleet tenders that allowed them to rebuild warship drives in the field... but that was neither here nor there... not time for that... one thing at a time... "Tara is looking at five mech regiments coming down."

"Yes, which is why I wanted to know if there are caches here. If we need to rebuild combat losses quickly."

The holographic globe bubbled again. "Northwind castle is N001." He paused, and realized that that meant nothing, "Given Rim World bombardment of the planet, and weather changes we would need time to excavate."

"Labor isn't a problem."

He would have felt so much better if that had been a Highlander official volunteering the planet's work force rather than the Prince's Champion... but given the situation they didn't have the option to be picky. Even if his next meeting was probably with the Highlander clan elders

In the history books, and the news casts, and the official stories that would be told about the Battle of Northwind House Marik's decision to attack the planet, was just a typical successor state strategic blunder. It was a raid in force aimed at making house Davion look back, it was a raid aimed at potentially rustling valuable materiel from the planet. It, so much like the Elidere campaign, had been aimed officially at simply continuing the succession wars in the way the third had settled out.

That drew comparisons to the unofficial story. The rumors. That like Elidere was rumored to be that the raid on Elidere IV, like errai and other worlds the Galedon Regulars had been raiding was aimed at more than just modern stockpiles of materiel. The rumor became that House Marik suspected that House Davion had planned to excavate Star League depots on Northwind like they had done on Robinson, and on Elidere. It assigned a prescient forethought to House Marik based on things 'known' after.

The centerpiece of the invasion looked set on putting Alpha of the Wolf Dragoons up against the Davion Heavy Guards, Delta up against the New Avalon Hussars, Gamma facing the Blue Star Irregulars, and Epsilon as the regiment facing the 3rd​ Regimental Combat team.

That created a problem, as the Dragoons were coming down with additional dropships that while likely included armor and infantry was also likely including additional Mech assets. This was not, as history would prove, be a short battle... and on a scale that was unusual for the third succession war.
--
The big regiments, and regimental combat teams were going to fight one another. No complaints there. It did create other problems in that if this went bad it would make carrying out an invasion of Dieron much much dicier... but for the moment they had their own invasion to fight off. Or at least their part in the defense.

"Shouldn't we have more time?"

"No, the dragoons are going to have a very narrow window to safely decelerate," And as it was what they were doing was extremely risky anyway, "I suspect we will see a significant combat force launch orbital drops and try and directly engage units near or at their landing zones," before they could bring anything to bear at any one landing.

The next things to land would most likely be Union-class Dropships. The problem with that was that said unions seemed to have been the sort that managed to cram fifteen mechs, three groups of five, into them...which probably made the Unions even worse, but would mean disgorging a larger force than the average expectation.

Not that three extra mechs should have been a real difference but if you had ten unions disgorging three extra mechs a piece that was two and a half companies extra... and unfortunately the Dragoons were precisely the sort of people who had those kind of numbers... which gave him a headache just thinking about it.

If this was as it appeared five mech regiments, plus at least another battalion of mechs, that was a birgade by itself, never mind whatever armor they were bringing to this dance. "I mean on the bright side the Dragoons are really good about not involving civilians." Beau added from within his Dervish.

Gene blew out a breath, "Yeah, so I've been told." He was sitting inside of the cockpit of the Devestator, painfully aware that he was in a mech in Royal parade colors, and cognizant of how limited his Gauss rifles had ammunition .. but there were ppcs to back them up when he ran out of ammo.

"You didn't say what we're digging out." Beau remarked.

"Its a Terran Hegemony ready reserve facility. Its a Port type facility that contains an embark and local command post."

"So like Robinson."

"No. Well, yes... but no." He replied checking his scopes. "That was Brian Cache, this is a port," He could see even through the Fishbowl that the Free Worlds League native's eyebrows were moving, "... this facility will contain deployment ports for Hegemony ground combat support assets, GCVs that I will be bringing on line and forming the defensive embankment to protect the academy." The Military Academy on Northwind, "That should slow down any Dragoon advance that makes planet fall in this area."

He was stopped from having to explain drones, by Cameron interjecting that the DMM troops were settling into their positions. "Plan to drop artillery on their landing positions?"

... he thought about the chaparrals and their limited reserves of Arrow IV missiles.... "If the opportunity presents itself yes." Dante updated orbital traffic. "Orbital drop pods confirmed, stand by for relay of projected course." His hands rested back on the yokes as his connection to the machine synched against the mental engram, "ICH DIEN." He intoned and brought the machine to active from standby, there was a hum as the VLAR 300 XL spun up and transferred motive power, and to the capacitors. Reds turned to green on his heads up display

The Devastator had unfortunately not been designed to carry the complex regimental command and control software of a dedicated Command BattleMech, which was a pity. The truth was the Dalban HiRez was sort of spoiling of a pilot in terms of the information it provided a capable user. He reached up and took the Norse Storm produced Gauss Rifles off of safe.

"Commander I can confirm descent by assault, and heavy BattleMechs consistent with Dragoon formations. I bringing the remainder of active surface defense batteries online and relaying trajectory to defense units." What on the display were being cross painted in Terran Militia, and House Davion colors. "Fury interlinks are online and standing by."

Unlike with Tristan Dante had lost almost his entire complement of drones against the invading rimworld forces. There were still drones in hangars but most were small anti personnel or surveillance systems. The simple reality was that the Rim World's Orbital strikes had large obliterated Hegemony positions when it was clear that ground fighting wasn't going to be effective at dislodging them.

... which he supposed was another small mercy... at least the Dragoons hadn't started this show by nuking them from orbit... that was a plus.

He swapped out from command line to his personnel frequency with the AI. "Any of the Brian Caches yet?"

"Still cross checking returns." What that really meant was having drones physically inspect caches that were known to exist. Unfortunately that ran into a problem... rather obviously while Northwind had such caches the highlanders had opened them to fight Amaris, the SLDF had used them to restock in the liberation campaign, and Admiral Clancy had probably dipped into them as well, coupled with likely the Highlanders themselves using some of the reserves over the intervening century as the third succession war had dragged on. "Harlaw," Modern Harlaugh, "Looks to be the most promising in terms of proximity."

More distantly facilities on other continents might still be operational, and less touched, but accessing them right now was out of the question. They needed material that could be brought up and replace combat losses against the invaders... and well the reason other continents would have had been less touched were the consequences of how thorough Amaris's attacks on the civilian population centers had been.

Field Marshal Davion within Northwind Castle came over the line. "They're here."

"Yes ma'am." He replied, and unfortunately it looked as if this wave of Dragoons were going to came straight through rockridge and through Harlaugh aiming probably for N001 and preumably a decapitation strike. ... the irony being of course that that would have been his preferred strike against Dieron .. and he supposed if he'd been in their position.
--
Notes: So this is one of the non canon alternate versions of the end of Higland 9 (b), so basically Highland 10 (a) alternate this is non canon, this based off of the Dragoons get sent to invade. If of course this were the canonical route this would be itself roughly comparable in length to Elidere (and thus much longer than the three segments I have for it).

There is this, which is the abridged contact in this segment there the next one (b) which deals with Zeta, and Kerensky, and then (c) would conclude with consequences with the lead out / fade to black of putting things back on track for the invasion of dieron.

 

[Imperator Pax]

Scrap Highland Faire Alternate​

[NON CANON, ALTERNATE ft Wolf Dragoons]
Scrap Highland Faire Dragoons (b)​

Gene tapped his foot within the cockpit of the hundred ton battlemech, "Fascam?" He inquired resisting the urge to adjust temperature control.

Standing for Field Artillery Scatterable Mines were cluster munitions deployed from air bursting artillery shells typically in the 155mm, range and upwards. They were ancient weapons... but now were the long forgotten relics somehow of time of the Terran Hegemony ... and thus it was unlikely that the enemy would expect them. Whatever the case they were part of a strategy to force the enemy to attack through known paths, prepared defenses, or force them to attrit themselves before even contacting with Davion defenders.

... and when the history books would be written, when stories told of one of the last great battles of the late third succession war by the official historians like those members of House Auburn of the Commonwealth... they were the sort of operational, and tactical measures and means that would be glossed over, forgotten about in favor of lurid and sometimes apocryphal accounts of the exchanges between great sweeping formations.

Those apocryphal stories, those were better suited to propaganda, to trivid blockbusters that would define popular memory of the battle of Northwind.

"Deployed. Minefields active." The AI replied. Dante was keeping track of the Unions preparing to breach the atmosphere. A glaring digital countdown filled a corner. Estimates plots Overlord-class, and other dropships were also included. Highlighted among those plots were what had at one point been SLDF Lion-class DropShips but seemed to have been modified, and then modified again in such a way that was returning a slew of computer errors in drive registry. The overlords, and unions weren't nearly as butchered so it was possible that whatever the Dragoons had had to do to the Lions were a byproduct of an issue with the original SLDF lions... or not... there was no way to be sure. "I tally four Hostile BattleMech companies."

"Four?"

He received confirmation... and then identification of two separate Command level elements. Unusual... but given the situation what could you really hope to call normal? The first was obviously delineated into an assault weighted battalion command, they were identifying a colonel commanding the unit then three companies under. The second line of command contacts was a reinforced company and its command structure.

It was data.

He suspected that Beta regiment was being held in reserve. It was supposed to be similar in composition to Jaime Wolf's alpha regiment, a jack of all trades line unit... and most likely they were being kept a little further back in order to reinforce any potential break through. The other possibility is that Beta was going to be kept in reserve until the others deployed and attempt to execute and exploit while the large regular formations were committed.

If, and when they deployed the plan was to commit Highland regiments being held in reserve, marked on their maps as Terran Hegemony Militia... but that was going to be chancy. The clans of Northwinds home guards were well armed by Inner Sphere standards but it was still a dicey proposition. The Wolfs Dragoons reputation was also in play as while many small and medium merc companies were on planet few if any had the resources or the structure to be meaningfully folded into a coherent defensive command on such short notice.
--
Jaime Wolf was not happy per se about the situation they found themselves. He could definitely see where Janos Marik was related to his brother beyond the physical resemblance... the problem was not as pronounced in the carrion lord as the younger brother, and would be usurper had been but the whisperings of sycophants had quickly inflated the 'captain general' of the Free Worlds League opinion of the 'brilliance' of a stray thought.

So that was why they were attacking Northwind.

Attacking Northwind in a sudden pivot from where they had previously been raiding the Lyran Commonwealth... he supposed the other alternative would have been the Free World's League directing them to attack the massive factories of Hesperus.

At least they would be respecting a respecting opposition. As a clan warrior Jaime looked forward to accepting challenge from the defenders... and indeed on both sides descendants of the Star League Defense Forces stood arrayed. This would be worthy of remembrance. He would surely include the data here to the next... and likely need to be very soon... report to the clans and their khans.

--
The radio crackled and echoed over the thunder storm.

"Battlecry. Battlecry."

And with that contact sounded across the line. IT was about three thirty in the morning and that had further degraded their visibility beyond the already poor conditions from the growing thunderstorm inundating Tara.

How that was going to effect the Regimental Combat Teams engagement he wasn't sure. The problem was that despite no longer being in organization Light Horse units they were still closer to that than was probably ideal to face an attacking Dragoon formation. The entire dragoon concept had after all the independent version of the main breakthrough element... Kerston had organic assets hopefully that would help.

Gene confirmed the returns indicating where the Dragoons under a Colonel Jamison had started their attack. They had depth to defend along and through mountains to an extent... he didn't want to use that but realistically that was how things were. They needed to be able to use the river crossings and fords that had made the region of Tara ideal for colonization. His map identified a red line on it... where if they had to break and fall back from that it was time to signal 'Broken Arrow', and call pre sighted artillery into play against the area to allow them regroup... but that was an emergency, a contingency that was better put in place and not needed than scrambling to find a way to plug a gap before assault mechs came plowing through.

The tram system only being partially operational was part of that. The rush from the JumpPoint had been reckless. Or would have been to anyone who didn't know how to maintain supposedly impossible to replace, or near enough, los tech or out of production fusion drives , never mind the simple physics of dangerously fast acceleration then flip and break to deploy.

They'd moved to dig in tanks in initial firing positions, but not all of their tanks had as well defined secondary ones. That was also a facet of the terrain. The idea was to mass as much gauss fire as possible at the main road intersection. The Fury were going to run dry first, and they were to pull back, potentially being sent all the way to the rear to rearm and wait at the final line of defense if necessary even if that ran the potential issue of weakening the command and control abilities that those tanks were facilitating with their Nirasaki computers.
The alacorns had more ammunition. A combat load of forty rounds sounded impressive... up until you realized that was split across three gauss rifles so it was a bakers dozen a gun. They wouldn't shoot their entire load. The plan for the heavier tanks was to pull them back and disengage from the line of battle after about the fourth or fifth volley depending on exact conditions, and preferably while the invaders were the better part of a kilometer away... but again terrain depending.

Gene cast a look at the illuminated armor and structural integrity display, and the status of the massive XL fusion engine powering his hundred ton mech. This machine had never been intended for brawling, and he had a Marauder on standby to swap machines rather than try and facilitate reloading the gauss rifles in the field once he exhausted the ammo for them.

The Gauss rifle was one of the principle advantages they had. The Dragoons were bringing Stalkers, and BattleMasters in. They had identified those. The irony was while they lacked Highlanders the Dragoons had brought some, admittedly more heat efficient version, Shoguns....

"Identifying Marauder II BattleMechs on scope."

No surprise there.

"Acknowledged." He replied.

The dragoons hadn't shot down the drone yet... which didn't mean they didn't know it was there... but so far so good. They had thermals supplementing that as well. The fourth company they had identified... still stood out. The identified the enemy battalion commander as driving a Stalker from intercepted comms traffic between the two command lances. They had not ascertained whether or not this was the same alleged Stalker pilot who had allegedly stepped on some bailed out Wasp pilot ten years earlier.

"Tentative returns. Identifying as Imp." He suspected the annihilators were simply too slow to keep up with the formation. They were on the look out for any high mass anomaly running a Nissan 200 engine but thus far nothing. He suspected it was only a matter of time... daylight was a ways off though... especially if the rain held, or worse turned to fog.

He'd looked at the geography maps and for the lower elevations there was a potential flood risk. There were mudslides but that was less likely. The temperature could always drop precipitously and they could get snow.

There was frost of ghost like returns, "Are those the lighter mechs?" He questioned the AI.

"Yes, the fourth company we've identified." Lighter was something of a truth, but might be misunderstood. Discounting what appeared to be a Star League recon lance the other units clearly appeared to be predominantly mechs. They'd identified at least one Marauder certainly, and a Warhammer along with unsurprisingly Archers. Quite a few actually.

What was more interesting was that they appeared understrength, and more akin to a typical inner sphere organization or league era organization he supposed. The fourth company was however understandably faster as a result of less massive mechs, so their... dipping in and out of sensor contact was a point of concern.

He adjusted his communications system, "Campbell." He hailed the Highlander, "How are things on your end?"

"We're as ready as it is, Colonel."

It was cold and wet outside, and they'd been buttoned up in their mechs for more than a day now. "From signals returns the Imp appears to be some kind of command mech."

"They have a lot of those."

Yeah, so it seemed. The Marauder II had the ability... and the reasoning was because this assault force was intended to mount a head on attack. He had no idea what Jamison's command looked like, history wise, but there was a potentially steep turnover if they were being used as establishing a foothold on hostile forces. "Artillery is standing by to go out." They were going to put flares over the enemy's position, but there was no guarantee that was going to be exceptionally effective... but even if all it did was help with artillery spotting then that was fine... and of course there was the possibility that if they got worried about being boxed in by artillery they'd rush forward... go straight into the mind fields.

"What about the other plan?" ... Gene pursed his lips .... "Do you think-"

"I have no idea how they would respond to SLDF credentials, or if they'd be able to accurately read them..."

Dante had wanted to see how they responded to a Hegemony broadcast ordering them to stand down, but that was probably just an excuse that when Wolf refused the AI wouldn't have any objections to more extreme measures... his somewhat other idea was... an attempt at parley to get them to change sides and fight against the combine using the broadcast as leverage... but he wasn't sure how that would work either.

"And there is the fact that their Alpha Regiment is on course to contact with the 3rd​ RCT," And the Eridani were upfront about their SLDF heritage, and credentials... so were the Light Horse units of the Blue Star Irregulars.

There was no easy out.

--
Initial contact had occurred on the expected line of approach. 'Zeta' Battalion was almost entirely assault mechs unless one counted the probably independent attached recon company on their flank... if it was a reconnaissance company it wasn't being used as such. Jamison's Zeta had hit the tripwire attempted to force his way through and driven and right into the gap.

He watched as one of the Fury tanks fed him the data as the mines began to explode, "Gott mitt Uns, they walked right into it." Septim all but shouted as if he was fighting the rain storm outside in order to be heard.

"Maintain radio discipline," Gene ordered over lascomm chaining to the units, chaining to the others down the line.

Dragoon. Star League Independent BattleMech Regiment classification. Heavy and Assaults. A Star League regiment would have screened their advance... not blundered into an all too convenient less well protected gap in the lines regardless of how incompetent lyran commanders were supposed to be... regardless of how successful the dragoons had been in raiding Lyran they should not have been this reckless in pushing a gap especially in the present conditions.

Gene reached across his dim red cockpit and adjusted the laser communication handler. "Hammer Actual, Showtime."

"Affirmative commander," The Fury lead's response was mirrored as the eighty ton vehicle and its platoon mates' signature began to illuminate as their fusion engines powered up to active. Not that it mattered from his end, as the Nisaraki was filtering through the datalink to parse targeting data.

Tungsten slugs from Gauss rifles opened into the river crossing. The zoom magnified into the enemy battalion. Stupid, sloppy, this whole terrain was basically ideal for mines and tanks in a defensive engagement... and if he had had the artillery available he'd have flattened the whole west bank on their approach... but he didn't have the Arrow IV for that... and the ammunition they had found replacements but they were in the port's magazine... and Abner's people hadn't gotten that main entrance open yet. They said they needed another two hours of digging if they were lucky in this weather.

Thirty seconds.

...Gauss rifles were excellent in terms of efficiency even more so than Autocannons in terms of thermal returns... which admittedly was a process of the capacitors that unfortunately weren't the safest things in the world.

Hammer's Fury tanks threw themselves into reverse back down the hillside and out of the line of any potential return fire. There were secondary fighting positions prepared for them to fall back. The Fury were a battlefield asset he was un willing to risk, and even under Star League doctrine had been intended as multipliers not as front line units. They just didn't have the ammunition to act in a stand up fight, and three rounds from a single position was risking a lot.

He flipped signals to the magnuanacs in Alacorns received confirmation, that was all but obliterated in the sound of fury as each of the massive tanks fired trip Gauss rifles... but by that point Mechs with Gauss rifles were already moving to the firing line. Most were Highlanders, save for his solitary Devastator looking down from the upper ridge as rain plastered his cockpit.

... which would have meant something if he was relying on his eyes, and not the machine's feed... The Fury's had given him range data and a view of enemy deployment. The mines had thrown the enemy left flank into a mess... a clock told him it was almost four in the morning local time.

A ferric tungsten alloy slung lanced out from one of the mech's Norse storm M7D Gauss Rifles its report signature might depending on how good Dragoon sensors might b e, might be mistaken for a different unit entirely... but he wasn't counting on it.

DMM Mechs, or mechs provided to the Draconis March Militia pilots, drawn from teh Robinson cache were spread out. Thugs forming a second not quite close protective detail but where they could use their PPCs, and if the assault mechs of Zeta tried to break through they'd have to get in SRM range.

They had the high ground defending the pass through the rocky ridge, the dragoons were trying to cross the river ford and... he blinked, "They're attempting to execute a break through, mass LRM fire." The last was something of an obvious, this battle was predominantly determined by geography. It was obvious the Dragoons were attempting to hit castle northwind, so it wasn't a surprise, though when lighter mechs literally moved around ... effectively using the assault mechs as mech sized shields to surge through the gap was ... surprising.

"Did you see that?"

"Yes." He acknowledged, not even bothering to chide the break in radio silence. "Let the Archers and Thugs handle it." He replied to the Highlander, swapping channels, "Ali, Imps, Marauder II, all other command mechs."

"acknowledged." The tank platoon commander replied.

By this point the Fury tanks had relocated to their secondary firing positions a somewhat less protected position along the MSR but one where they would be able to fire effectively from the open as well as fall back up the road and then disengage cleanly once their ammo was spent... which wouldn't be long.

Gene adjusted his targeting system and fired.


And fired.

All center mass. The weather was so abysmal he wasn't going to try for headshots in this mess it wasn't worth attempting to be fancy and waste ammo even given his positional advantage. That was about the time Zeta's own attached artillery started hitting the area. It was ineffective but it forced their own artillery to go counter battery which meant they didn't have it in reserve.
--
By the time that daylight had gotten to them, of the sixty odd dragoon mechs engaged fifty had either suffered damage or been outright destroyed. Dragoon Bandits, and Badgers committed to support Zeta's push had also largely been forced to quit the field. Unfortunately the same was true for most of their own tanks.

It was true that they had the advantage of pulling back to their last defensive line in before the MSR opened up to take traffic to the Highlander military academy or to Castle Northwind, or access the capital of Tara in general. The dragoons still had Beta Regiment in reserve giving ground and allowing them to put Beta in place to offload wasn't desirable... not now that the Eridani were being pressed by Alpha.

The difference more broadly was that weather be damned the Davions in particular had more armor, and more infantry dug in and prepared to hold a defensive line. The Dragoons were battering themselves against a numerically superior defensive bulwark in attacks that were doing damage but were not achieving breakthrough.

Gene watched as the tram withdrew the hundred ton mech down the deep dark tunnel.

"What do you think?"

"I assume its a gamble."

Given the situation it was a pretty obvious one. The Dragoons ... in a ridiculous conceit of arrogance had attempted to change strategies during the early morning pause in hostilities to try and justify switching to personal combat. Single Mechs by officers.

There was a clank from within as the machine connected to a gantry lift, and pulled up.

"are we gonna take it?" Campbell asked a little more pressing this time...

He was tempted to say no. Buy for time, resupply and rearm their mechs then execute a riposte and hit the dragoons with as heavy a blow as they could, and either drive Zeta back to the initial starting position or destroy them in detail... "How do you feel about your original idea, has your opinion chanced regarding SLDF credentials?"

Campbell frowned, and straightened. "I... we ghosts of black watch, are descendants of men who died on Terra. Some of the Watch made it off Terra, and some of our kinsmen went with Kerensky... I'd at least like to know what became of them."
--
Notes: and we will finish with (c) of this spin off branch sunday and go back to normal updates in a week. If this were going to be canon, despite the time frame involved we would be covering more perspectives, this would be longer and in particular we'd be focusing more on the dragoons and house davion's side...

 

[Imperator Pax]

Scrap Highland Faire Alternate​

[NON CANON, ALTERNATE ft Wolf Dragoons]
Scrap Highland Faire Dragoons (c)​

He had considered switching mechs, but the break in action had given them time to resupply ammunition. Gene understood the machine had been built to Kerensky's impatient specificaitons given concerns about the Titan. He'd read the data packets, and that this was a prototype intended for testing, but he had reservations about the ammunition loads the machine carried... he had to weigh things

Thus, given the situation they had time to reload, and so it made sense to retain the greater striking power. Once they were through this, it would be different. They work out better solutions from battlefield data... or that's what he was telling himself silently while they stood their waiting for a response to their response to the Dragoons officers challenge to single combat.

They had eyes already on the watch to make sure none of the black and red mechs attempted to breakout and bypass them... but Gene doubted they'd try, supplementary minefields had been deployed, and then those were covered by emplaced highlander infantry with SRM launchers themselves covered by other teams with support PPCs. They had their bases covered as best as was possible.

If the black and red mechs attempted a breakout ... that would have been simpler.

He brought machine online and watched as it booted. The Highlander was broadcasting a Royal Highland Regiment signature ... which meant Campbell had taken the option. Whether it would change anything he didn't know... but he doubted it... it might mean something with regards to the parley that might come after this...

but for the time being there were other matters.

The Devastator stepped out into the morning air.

He looked at his console, and then sighed in relief as no Dragoon machine attempted to handshake his hundred ton machine. He had no idea how the Black Watch descent would resonate with the dragoons... but he could ask, "Dante?"

The AI approximated a gruff exhale, "They're stalling still. Running through their comms traffic now, their pushing things up the chain." The AI would have ordinarily been able to facilitate data traffic through a dalban but this machine lacked the more comprehensive computer systems and particularly the software, but it was kind of growing on him. "You need to secure this front, the Eridani losses are approaching ten percent." Which was steep in terms of sustainable side losses... but that wasn't the only reason, "Rotating units to fill in, and bringing the trams online should allow units to be pulled inside Northwind, and refit with units from Harlaw's depot."

"I understand." He replied to the machine spirit. "Similar situation for the other units?"

"Roughly comparable. The Heavy Guards are doing a commendable job," He was given to understand that cache material from Elidere and Robinson had been marked towards going to potentially reconstituting an Avalon Hussar to actual SLDF Hussar formation patterns... but that hadn't been completed yet. The Eridani would be the first units in the roster for rearming, barring having to rearm native 'militia' units as Dante chose to refer to Highland units that were not credentialled to HAF forces like the Black Watch. "Given their defensive position and reserves I estimate that once we have secured this front, and resupplied the Third Regimental Combat team, that we can potentially turn the entire attacking front." That went into the fact that despite probably having a qualitative edge in materiel, and possibly even a slight one in individual mechwarriors It was one Mech Regiment versus an intact RCT.

That sounded appealing. "One thing at a time Dante."

"I have TAG units on standby, and missiles on ready release."

"Good." He eased the machine into a trot. One thing at a time though. Once they counter attacked they would like be moving on direct command aiming to encircle, and destroy units quickly, or otherwise neutralize them. Find the chinks in the enemy ranks and exploit those cracks with overwhelming firepower.

Campbell's highlander reestablished contact as he decoupled from the tight beam with the AI. The Highlander's pilot seemedenthused at prospects.

The ... neutral space ... was out exposde on all sides. It was still on the river bank. The Dragoons hadn't fallen back completely, but the devestated turnpike and bridge was flat and open enough that two mechs could duel with nothing really obstructing their view of one another. As a nominal gesture of good faith both sides were keeping their armored vehicles outside of visual contact, or at least far enough back that they wouldn't be able to immediately engage.

Technically speaking there were a company of Fury and Alacorns on the MSR on ramp two klicks back just waiting for directions to drive up and deploy if this went sideways... and he expected the Dragoons had their own hovercraft in reserve waiting to do the same.

His focus turned to the mechs. The 'corner' where his presumable opponent would enter the area from had an Archer and Crusader waiting on their side of the ring. The Archer was the Wolf Dragoons version, but it was no surprise the Crusader, according to Campbell's Highlander, was an SLDF machine.

Minutes ticked by.

He turned the comms on, and issued almost word for word the challenge formulated by Hegemony Command for getting Ronins to come out and play. The formula wasn't perfect, and even in the 27th​ century hadn't been a perfect solution to getting Combine ronin to come out, but it at least got the Dragoons attention.

There was a palpable tension that seemed to shift through their ranks.

Dante's laser comm paired as Campbell swallowed on the other line, "Think you just poked the bear."

"That challenge went across their comms, Colonel." Dante remarked, suggesting that the Dragoons were actively dickering across their chain of command, or at least in conference.

There was a snippet of intercepted feed piped through as a fusion signature bloomed on his display as a warhammer powered up. The seventy tonner should have been in a museum it was a painstakingly pristine machine that could very well have just come out of the cache in Harlaw behind their own lines. The black machine's pilot continued to snap irritably in russian at her fellows, and Gene blinked.

"Data suggests the machine is stock."

So barring a custom job of paint nothing stood out... right down to the ammunition storage lacking safeties that was to say cell based reactive armor storage. Gene bit his tongue to avoid questioning her choice of bringing that mech as the red head's face filled the screen to accept the challenge and make introductions.

He was not going to suggest she switch something heavier, and her certainly was not going to offer to swap over to his Marauder. Though it was a tempting taunt all the same... he wasn't going to do it.

"We are agreed." There was about a half klick between them. A roundabout with shattere centotaph in the space of the road. He stopped the mech and waited at his end as the Warhammer moved past the shuffling corner mates. Gene looked at the other mechs on the dragoon side.

He would have preferred if they had killed the Stalker but well it was fine, he understood that visibility had been more and that they'd had other priorities to hit. They would see how this went, and find out how this day was going to go.

Warning lights flashed on as the Warhammer's TTS went active, and probably in the red head's cockpit similar warnings flashed as the Star League era and long discontinued TTS of the Devastator came online. Gene breathed as the data resolved. He was beyond effective medium range, they'd disperse too much to effectively burn through the already suberb ablative qualities of armor... but he didn't need them. He stacked the ferric tungsten slugs within a foot of one another in the hostile mech's center torso just as it started to move lateral, her Donal PPCs firing, his own of the same model fired a hair after and nearly finished the job of nearly coring out the Warhammer's internal structure as the sparks radiated like spiderwebs across the structure.

Kerensky for her credit actually managed to keep the machine from swan diving out of control as well as staying upright, but it should have been obvious from just the feel impact never mind whatever her hud was telling her was that this was over. The engine was gone, or if it wasn't was barely sputtering.

He flipped the comms to system wide, "MechWarrior saf-." He didn't get to finish the instructions to turn the reactor off.

Targetting systems alarms went active again, and that was all he got as the two annhilators in Zeta colors plastered the area around him with fire from their AC 10s. If these had been League armed Annhilators firing cluster the LBX probably would have delivered some damage home. His face set eyes reflecting almost amber mead in the cockpit lights across the frequency as the actuators on the Devastor moved independent of one another. The arms adjusted.

The vaguely dinosaur like heads exploded as gauss rifles roared.

Dante had already taken the initiative, he could somewhat make out over the pounding of blood in his ears, to issue roll forward orders to the armor company and the fury's to start painting off targets by the numbers.

Target 1 the Zeta Stalker still missing an arm from this morning.

Gauss rifles snarled and hundreds of lrms cycled into the air from Highlander BattleMechs.

--
Brevet General Kerston had ordered men to their deaths before. He sat forward in his headquarters hands folded watching the holographic display. Here in his headquarters clutching rosary esque the starleague starburst on a chain, here and not in his mech.

For the moment they were waiting to see what was going to happen.

Waiting for the feeds to pipe in... and when the screen changed the exchange was brief. Kerston had seen a mech core another one something like that before. Assault Autocannons were of course a known thing. He was sure that at close range a King Crab or the Marauder II... instead of being engaged fighting an invasion right now... should still have been the subject of the argument to call Stormlord or Stormsword since there was already a stormhammer

Then everything went wrong, and right.

The Warhammer did go silent on scopes. Whether because the pilot had shut it off, or if the engine had simply given up... but the firing by Zeta into the now concluded duel kicked up a massive of debris and dirt, and mud. The subsequent return fire silenced the two interjecting mechs, but a general free for all had already resumed as tartan painted mechs opened and Marauder IIs from both parties surged fowrad to meet.

Kerston stood up and put his hand on the table pressing the starburst deep into his palm, "All units, to action." The 3rd​ Regimental Combat Team of the Star League Defense Forces, the vaunted Eridani light horse obeyed the relayed command and resumed the battle that had paused a few hours earlier to allow both sides time to stop and collect their wounded, and dead.
--
Field Marshal Yvonne Davion, the Prince's Champion stood surounded by Davion officials, statesmen and nobility from Crucis, and Draconis Marches. This was not hte battle they had prepared for. Those damned purple birds had managed to nearly cock everything up, if only by sheer bumbling incompetence... this very well had the potential to be disaster.

At least if that lunatic from the snakes had been right about thinking that the sudden traffic was from the Combine they would have been harming the real enemy. Instead they had taken, fought a pointless battle in defense against House Mariks, and it was against mercenaries so it wasn't as if the Free Worlds League had lost precious regular troops in this.

"Your grace we have Colonel Wolf on the line."

"Thank you Jeffries." She replied nodding... but didn't immediately move to take the line. Disccusions had been carried out through back channels. Through the MRB. If the Dragoons had been normal mercenaries she might have considered that it wsa just them covering their ass so to speak against any potential backlash. She wasn't sure though that was really the case that they were dealing with.

The hologram connected. "Field Marshal Davion." She had always thought Jaime Wolf had been a little young for his position, she had thought that when the Dragoons had first appeared over Delos with their immense volume... the great number of fully laden JumpShips, it was one more incongruity to add to the long list of the mystery that was the wolf dragoons appearing out of no where.

"Colonel Wolf." She returned evenly. She was cognizant of course that the Dragoons had a regiment in reserve. She also suspected that the Highlanders and Eridani and their other incongruity had some ace of their own... beyond mechwarrior skills... that was a thought... seeing if they couldn't manage to set up Yorinaga Kurita to die... but she pushed that idea away. "You've created something of a mess of things."

The accusation rolled off his back like water off a duck. Jaime Wolf wasn't the least bit bothered by the perils of his profession, and frankly she was annoyed, but this was House Marik's fault, the Dragoons were simply the instrument. "We can avoid wasting more lives."

Field Marshal Yvonne Davion glanced to the haggard old kilted man. He was well into his eighties, "Yes, we can do that. I am prepared to offer you a general cessation of battle, and permit your withdrawl, terms to be discussed in person. You are to keep your current positions, and take no further offensive action, and you and a select party may advance to meet with us."

ComStar was going to mediate the legal side of things... but the Dragoons origins... the Highlanders wanted words, the blue star irregulars wanted words, and well... talking would be preferable to further wasting their strength. She'd be damned if they didn't get to salvage some replacement equipment... seeing as she doubted the Dragoons would do the sensible thing and switch sides and volunteer to go charging off against House Kurita.
--
Scotts Cursassiers, Highlander Mech Infantry in this case, stood in the background of the other end of the screen processing thelast of the debris from what had been Zeta battalion. They were also cataloging POWs, taking names and rendering medical aid as well.

Abner heartily smacked his shoulder, "Yes, that was splendidly done. I shall, I cannot wait to show Mister Ford the footage. Yes, a very impressive showing, I cannot imagine a finer demonstration." Not the least of which was because Abner hoped that the devastator ould be put into production at long last.

... he wondered if ... given Kersenky's involvement in the program if the Dragoons... if the Clans of Kerensky had taken Devastators with them, if they had the technical data package for the machines... either way the Dragoons hadn't demonstrated them.

"There is still work to be done."

They needed to go ahead, just as a precaution pull Eridani units out of the line, rearm them just in case talks fell through and the Dragoons went back on the offensive. He knew Kerston wanted the Light Horses of the Blue Star Irregulars refit as well, since the brevet general expected they could be trusted and of course given the situation.

A full rearmanent of entire units would mean opening up an intact cache for a BattleMech Division... and they hadn't found one of those. They had Mechanized Infantry Division resources which included Hegemony battlemechs and that was what they were going to make do without of Harlaw. They didn't have the time to repair using spare parts or refit with new weapons.

"And speaking of that," Campbell said glancing around, "we're gonna be late if we don't get moving." The Highlander added unnecessarily... statement of the obvious... especially since they were supposed to be carting Dragoon officers captured along to Northwind, which he wasn't especially thrilled with.

Soldiers obeyed orders, lawful ones, from higher command. Field Marshal Davion said to bring them along... probably they were going to be exchanged but she hadn't explicitly said that. Given the succession wars it was probable they might be ransomed in a knightly fashion, but he didn't know.

It didn't help that by the time they had arrived at Northwind castle it had started raining again, and on top of Dante informing him he had anti personnel drones standing by the AI's radar forecast was calling for snow and high winds. The temperature certainly didn't seem to agree with the countess of Kestrel even in spite of being seated by one of the castles roaring fireplaces.

Gene shrugged off the dress coat as quickly as he could. The castle was well past warm by his standards. "Now what?"

Campbell shrugged, "The clan elders hope to speak with Colonel wolf... but on the other hand they did invade the planet...what did she call it a blood house?" He trailed off, and to be fair the post adrenaline dump come down probably wasn't easy

... Gene had cheated and wolfed down a high caffeine ration packet to ward off that crash, "Blood Name. Kerensky."

True Born. Words that meant very little other than some idea of descent to Campbell. He doubted that Kerensky's boasting had ultimately been intentional, or at least not done with forethought behind it, but it was something else.

The words didn't come as Alexandria Cunningham made her way over. "Well that's another victory," She remarked sipping at glass of mulled wine.

"Its a little early for laurel wreaths and victory arches." He rejoined,

She scoffed and snorted, "I believe I'm supposed to be the cynic colonel... certainly with all this chattering from the media people clamoring about spurs, and blackguards as if this were a holo drama."

The dramatization very likely was intentional though to coax a specific reaction from the public, or he hoped the talk was for propaganda sake. They had other things to deal with than the talking heads in the media. They had their part to play and he had his. They danced around the conversation's edge, but the truth was there wasn't much new. Alexandria knew something was going on, and that there were more Eridani troopers around Castle Northwind but she didn't ask.

Of course if they started redeploying with Star League equipment... there were going to be questions asked... but they would only have to do that if the Dragoons attacked... and he considered that unlikely while the Dragoon leadership were here.

He paused to pet the one of the clan wolf hounds that was wandering around, which allowed him to survey the gallery landing as the Dragoon delegation arrived. "Alright they're here."

Campbell shifted, and excused himself, presumably to go harry his eldest kinsmen over their wanting explanations about whatever far flung stars out in the black Kerensky had fled to. He doubted Campbell was going to get it... he hadn't missed that as soon as Zeta had failed in their gambit's contingency... that was to say trying to bushwhack him once it was clear a duel wasn't going to go do it and opened up... they'd also tried to hit Campbell's highlander.

Of course they had only tried after the free for all had opened... admittedly Colonel Jamison probably hadn't expected to lose two Assault mechs in the first seconds of the engagement, and those Annihilators going down had probably wrecked the firing order. Then couple that with firing into superior numbers, and armor moving to where they could engage and paint them over the lakeside had probably been hard to plan around or for. He hadn't actually questioned Jamison, the Zeta Colonel's jaw had been broken during his punch out from his stalker... and frankly the man was lucky he hadn't drowned even in the relatively shallow river. Some dragoon pilots hadn't been as lucky when they'd been knocked out of action in the before dawn portion of today's action.
--
Field Marshal Davion didn't come to collect them in person. There were groomsmen for that sort of thing, but eventually the red jackets had come around to collect them. There was still the possibility whoever was in charge of Beta could order an attack but that would have been kind of obvious... and Beta still hadn't deployed to the planet yet... and it was a little late for that since unlike the others they hadn't hard burned to the planet.

If the Dragoons did try something the commanding officers of the Davion Heavy Guards, New Avalon Hussars, and Blue Star Irregulars were all still with their units. They would in theory be able to respond.

As the meeting began though that seemed unlikely. Wolf, and his fellow officers had been allowed to congregate... because gentlemen ... Jamison apparently could communicate via sign language... but Kerensky was the one who was filling them in on intelligence. It was frustrating but not really surprising.

He hoped that the Field Marshal was right that this more finalization of details. Gene wasn't entirely thrilled that the immediate priority wasn't to get the dragoons off world as quickly as possible... preferably sans if not all of their mechs sans enough war materiel to make them combat ineffective in the short term

They wanted till the MRB representative had been shown out, and then they dropped the bombshell...the Field Marshall was probably exaggerating her own certainty... she certainly made it seem like they had more proof. "And we have it on good authority that Star League protocol wouldn't have had Army depots store, what is it three Starlords, two monoliths, and how many other JumpShips registered to your command?" After all the Dragoons had first shown up over Delos in 3005, shown up first in the Federated Suns. It didn't matter that the rest of the Dragoon space lift wasn't here... that presumably there were units stationed on whatever garrison world the Mariks had provided along with that block box space station.

Gene didn't know how stupid the Dragoons ... the clans must have assumed the successor states were but really it was a little insulting. Especially given Wolf's visual tell that flitted there as the game seemed to be up.

"Because we were told about the first of your succession wars... we were told about Kentares."

There was a harsh silence that fell at the Colonel of Gamma Regiment. Gene wasn't sure if she was lying or not... did it matter? It was entirely possible the clans during that period could have captured fleeing jumpships trying to get out before the great die of interstellar travel as the nukes flew.

There was a thump beside him, and Gene whirred in his seat as Brevet General Kerston slammed his hands on the table having risen from his seat "And you did nothing, just left the Inner Sphere to fight house Kurita in spite of knowing he collaborated with Amaris? That the combine fed SLDF positions to the enemy!" All eyees fell on the towering font of rage the old general had become.

If Wilhelmina Korsht had expected her knowledge of the Inner Sphere tearing itself apart and the decision to stay away then to get them out of it... well that had well and truly backfired on them. Gene slowly slid his seat back, and managed to keep from blurting out an expletive... because the room had for a second time in under a minute turned deathly quiet.

The thing was... from their expressions the Dragoons hadn't known... but then that wasn't a surprise... Kerensky hadn't killed Kurita on Terra, hadn't used the Fleet to burn the Combine to ash and ruin... and he might not have even taken a copy of the recording with him... but

... Jerome Blake's copy had likely remained in ComStar's archive after they replaced the ministry of communication... and wasn't that another lovely can of worms to potentially have to deal with down the road.

... then the silence broke as demands for explanations exploded all around the room. Idly looking into his cup, Gene was regretting not having accepted a scotch from the highlanders in favor of hot tea.
--
Notes: Obviously again to reiterate despite taking place over a span of less than three days in this draft if this were cannon instead of being roughly ten K this would be roughly thirty thousand words with actual scenes dealing with the company's regular officers on top of others. We would actually be covering the other Davion Units more focused expanded dragoon scenes, an actual expounding that Zeta's normal strategy is what it is in canon. Clan shit. Other stuff... and probably among that the reiteration is that Kerston by the time of the conference is mentally and physically drained, because well in the course of January 3018 he's been put through a lot, and Kerston has been Brevet General of the Eridani for almost twenty years.

Anyway... we will resume the main canon timeline with the Combine rebels arrival next week.

 

[Imperator Pax]

Primary (Main) Timeline: January 3018​

Highland Faire 10
(A)​

He leaned on the console, the excitement was starting to lapse into the beginning of fatigue. It didn't help that there was a significant amount of historical data, of recordings of the last days of the hegemony that kept him from sleeping. Gene knew he was fighting back a yawn, but the old man didn't seem to notice it from his end of the feed. "And you've confirmed it Pasha?"

"Indeed commander Shepherd. The Azami and Rasalahgue vessels all check out." Gene sat back in the chair as the telemetry from Colorado resolved and confirmed the DropShips detaching. Pasha at least had the advantage of being opposite, "I have received repeated and distinct confirmation."

"Alright, let me know if something changes." The line dropped, and he wheeled slightly, bringing the chair to face the Davions, "What do you think?"

A couple of the Guards Staff always floating close to The field Marshal during meetings looked birdlike as they froze before one of them answers, "The Rasalhague resistance group is the Sword of Tyr."

"That means nothing to me, sorry." He picked up the thermos of coffee, "Why are they here? How are they here?" JumpShips had limitations. Anyone coming here would have had to have route plotted... and an Azami presence was one thing, but he was a little leery of of more than that.

"They may have stolen a number of 'Mechs from the combine before they headed this way." A guards officer admitted looking a little sheepish at having spoken out of turn.

Gene was cognizant of the hand on the back of his chair. The fact that The clan elders very much wanted a meeting of their own... and the fact that Field Marshal Davion had if he had counted right two Davion regular RCT, and two SLDF Mercenary Teams readied if this went sideways. He reached to the side and opened the long office style case drawer and started rifling through the fields, then offered it behind him, "New Avalon Packet. I'm about to start passing out briefing materials to the DMM officers as a follow up to the Marauders."

"Now?"

"Now." He replied "I was going to give them a day or two to read the briefing for the Marauders but I want them with hands on training in the morning."

Field Marshal Davion coughed slightly drawing his attention away from the countess, "I would very much commend the initiative, but if this is not the crisis we thought it might be, it bears remarking that the squires tournament is going to open the day after. Attendance is expected. Even if they wanted to do a High Gee burn we would still have days." She paused, "This is not how I would have preferred certain introductions to be made, but it is what it is."

her assessment wasn't quite accurate. If they had wanted to, they could have burned hard from the Jump Point and ... well it wasn't the Star League any more and few people were going to be that reckless with expensive military equipment that was much harder to replace. They didn't need to worry about the situation. "Is there that needs to be done?"

"No Colonel, the current readiness can remain elevated," The DMM troops that had been scrambled to their mechs could stay where they were. The Field Marshal checked her watch, "until they would change over. It would be best for everyone if the faire went on as normal."

The troops were in the field in their mechs spread across a moorland on the far side of the star port, the comparative higher elevation of both the castle itself and the mountain pass and the rocky river valley were presumably protected by Northwind militia. Most of his pilots though had been scrambled to fill liaison slots with the mechwarriors they'd been involved in training on Robinson.

Yvonne Davion excused herself leaving with a portion of her staff, which left him there with Kerston and his counterpart of the Blue Star Irregulars. "So at least we're not being invaded."

"Right," He replied to Campbell already reading the situation. "How is this going to effect things?"

Campbell glanced to one of faire's officials, "They're late, no denying that," he paused, and the other man nodded, "I admit its not unheard of for that," But apparently, certainly not for this much metal... "But they've got merchant, and competitor tickets, and pledges for good conduct, you trust your JumpShip captain." It was not a question.

"I trust that Pasha is telling the truth about trusting what he's been told."

"Then we see their kid does in the squire's tournament then." He was a little surprised that they were going to let whoever the new arrivals had to compete just like that but... then again he really didn't know what to make about all of this... and of course, "But, I really think Colonel that this scare behind us, we ought to go ahead and take time to sit down with the clans."

Which was not necessarily what Alexandria wanted to hear, but it was certainly a meeting she was not invited to, was not going to be privy to.... and certainly with everything going on she knew something was going on. Whether the countess of Kestrel didn't like it or not she didn't really have much of a choice. Frankly he doubted that if it came right down to it... that even the Field Marshal really would have tried too hard to get involved. "Let me get with Abner, I trust that your presbyters aren't going to object to what needs to be done?"

"No," It came out more like neigh, "Go on ahead with it... given what's been talked about I can't see them complaining." If I.E.'s diggers had expected a simple vacation they were about to have that hope spoiled.

"Are you going to call them back?"

He hummed, and then smiled, "Recall them, no, We're on a clock, they need all the training they can get." He hit the switch on the console pairing to the radio, "Hanzo, run them through gunnery drills on the south field." He received an affirmative over the channel, and could almost hear the groans from the Robinson cadets, and probably the alumni too.

"Are you going to put him in one of those things?"

"He's gotten comfortable in the Cicada, truthfully I think he'll do well in one of the ones carrying SRMs, but we will see. I may move him to the Catapult."

There was a pause, "Yeah, I seen it sitting there."

"From the specs its almost like your Black Horse." Kerston remarked entering the conversation. In more ways than he knew. It had taken them time to fill it out but because it was ten tons lighter it used a light engine and outfitted much of the same equipment and that included recovered DHS from League era stockpiles... it was

"You could think of it that way, or as a product improved model of the K2. Its capable of Jumping like a standard catapult, and carries SRM-2, and a salvaged pulse laser that we sourced from an Azami merchant."

"I thought that's what it had went in," Bard remarked. "its sounds like a nasty surprise, but what was the point?"

"I suppose there wasn't one. It wasn't the original plan," Far from it, originally the plan had been to turn the repaired K2 back to a standard catapul or near enough, but they had had down time for the techs, and they had spare parts... and they had wanted to test out and work with the Dalban systems that had gone into the Catapult.

... but there had been no one to pilot it... and since there was LosTech in the machine he'd been convinced it was probably a bad idea to stick any new recruit into the machine. That didn't include Mister Ishida, but he'd been happy with the Cicada, and Chang had moved to the Atlas at his request ... Bo was out the big Free Worlder's skill was needed in a missile boat.
--
As he had expected Alexandria hadn't been invited to join them... if anything the guards at the door waiting to escort them to the meeting had been rather loathe to even allow Kerston to come along... they had accepted it as just part of the day.

Unlike the Stuart tartans common to the other men the room, a grizzled one eyed man wore a sword pin on his sash denoting that in addition to the, dark blue and green, black watch tartan he wore he was intended to be identified as knight commander of the Star League's Order of the Sword. If it wasn't an original then the burnished and worn metal had still seen a lot in its lifetime... and given among other things the display case holding the burned remains of the left hand of an HGN 732b, he assumed it was original. There were other artifacts from the Star League, and from before dating back to wars on Terra before spaceflight had been common.

Introductions passed around, and Gene was surprised that for their Scottish flavoring Northwind great clans included Welsh, and Irish surnames among the council ranks. William George, and Richard O'Connell stood side by side in tartan dress along the MacKenzies and Sinclairs.

All of them made clear who at least chaired this meeting, if not necessarily all of them. What more than anything though that dominated the meeting was the prospect of getting into the door that had been locked to them, and atl east confirming with their own eyes. He was sure that they had probably spent many sleepless hours pouring over the documents that Colonel Schmitt had left behind.

There was no question that they were loyal to the dream of the Hegemony, and the Star League at least as much as Kerston was. Kerston was here, but his counterpart from the Blue Star Irregulars had been left at the doors of the great hall with the countess of Kestrel... and they were about to leave them further behind... because their next stop was a secure underground tram to take them to access the the CID annex where Dante was waiting.

Gene carefully navigated around the skittering spider like drones that were now active in order to access the panel. "Is there something going on?"

"Merely taking precautions colonel."

Each of the anti personnel drones in addition to vibroblade forlimb for melee... because someone had thought that was a good idea... also carried Mauser laser pulse rifles that had at the end been standard to HAF Special Operations Forces... though carried was probably a misnomer given that they were mounted into the machines. This was nothing, these were anti personnel drones, not the ones intended to actual impede light vehicles until GCV drones could arrive on station.

The intention had been that any force assault from the outside trying to force their way into a castle would block the entry ways with bodies. It didn't work out as well for the defenders if they had been ordered to allow the attackers into the castle gorunds before hand and not have the defenses ready to protect it, or if they'd had significant troops stripped from their posts before the fighting started.

"You've proof then that Minoru Kurita was more than just a covetous bastard?" Old One Eye asked stepping forward to press a hand and an ID chit that ran against the data and blood sample. It authenticated nothing unexpected, that he was a survivor, the descendant at least, of the Black Watch lineage.

The question was unnecessary, Gene had no doubt that Dante had potentially been salivating, or near enough for a machine to play the footage, to bring additional resources in that might be able to carry out orders from a royal command, or at the very at least ascertain things so that if there wasn't a Cameronian fleet waiting, that they could redirect efforts instead to striking back at the combine in full. They were certainly going to get to the latter... to the issue of Tripitz... and the Cameron children.
--
Notes: This is part A, and if you remember earlier someone asked what if Gene were Ian Cameron the younger we're still not doing that. That would be very messy and complicate the timeline even more than it already potentially is. I keep waffling on whether to include explicitly MW5 events since to the best of my knowledge it hasn't been codified, but this story does heavily involve Interstellar Expeditions and frankly its interesting that Mason came in and infiltrated DC space ahead of the wolf dragoons and that raises potential lore questions, especially given his choice to bring a Nightstar.... well we will see but there maybe oblique references that can hint at MW5 potentially being true in the background.

Just to reiterate, this part is mainline canon / primary timeline for Ghost Who Walks. Its fun for me to delve into alternate branches and gives me something to do on the side but this and part b and the following on will likely be primary timeline through the end of the year.

 

[Imperator Pax]

Highland Faire 10
(B)​

Gene had allowed himself to lean on the console he'd taken a seat at, Dante didn't have coffee unfortunately. None of this information was 'new' in the sense that he hadn't had access to but Dante was an AI the material he was sorting through after playing all the request footage was still a lot of data. He had no idea whether the children of the Star Lord had made it out...

... and even if they could get a recovery team down into the gravity well, which was a big if it assumed that there was data in the computer. The damage to the Tripitz certainly looked like she'd suffered a misjump, but the question was more about the details. Had Tripitz been scuttled by its crew after whatever had happened? They didn't know that. What was the damage caused by the the ASF that had pushed into the gravity well? Severe, but how severe... would they be able to recover drive data, or other data from computers aboard?

If they could they might be able to backtrack to wherever the Tripitz had come from, or move forward looking for the next stop out into the black. There were a lot of questions, there was a lot of information that they were just short on. They were going to need specialized resources. Including ability to authenticate and access any survivor shadow network of HPGs and memory systems, and that would be complicated in itself if their defense systems were still operational.

That was still a significant if, a lot of significant ifs really. They would need time they would need resources Just figuring out those questions would require significant pre planning and the truth was there was only one outfit set up to go on such a snipe hunt. They were also going to need to provide security. The information suggested that the Taurians and Capellans had both rushed to try and salvage and through one of them or some other third party the 'vandenburg white wings' had learned of and appeared... if they started doing any kind of work then they were going to get questions just from nosy people.

Nosy people and expensive toys tended to attract pirates as well... and these operations would be largely out in the black so MechWarriors weren't going to have a whole lot to do.

The Terminal chimed as Dante finished the calculations... it would really would have been more appropriate to call them speculation. Which was why tehy weren't just straight out telling the others... because

... of course given the timing... it was also possible that ... due to the vagaries of hyperspace, of how the jumpdrive and how unclear some of its physics were that the Tripitz's misjump had caused it to be held in hyperspace.

It was an astronomical chance... but it was a possibility given that Tripitz hadn't been discovered sooner... and they needed an explanation for that. As a Black Lion-class Battlecruiser given its location Kerensky's expeditionary force of the SLDF suppressing the territorial states insurrection should have found and recovered it... so why hadn't they. Triptiz should have been equipped with a mobile HPG and should have been able to broadcast a signal through the SLCOMNET and also the Shadow Net used by Royal Command ... help should have come.

... but the chaos of the New Vandenburg Revolt simply made details opaque. They didn't know enough and they would have needed access to the navy's side of the logs to even begin to guess which ships had been where. They needed more than that... Dante had been cut off from the HPG network for longer than Tristan, and Tristan wouldn't have been slated to receive materiel of that nature... or regarding evacuation. There would be details in area commands, there should have been clandestine stations that had at least some of the details on what all Hegemony provinces had tucked away but those would likely require an AI to sift through the data and would still probably be so much data that finding one would potentially take searching by hand to confirm if a cache or depot hadn't been picked over by someone in the intervening centuries.

So much to do... and much of it the sort of work that needed specialists and little to do with piloting a 'Mech.
--
It was going to take Abner's diggers probably a couple of days, but at least they had gotten started. Being safe more than that, but they could have rushed if there had been actual threat of invasion... but it didn't seem like there was a reason to do that.

"What do we do now?"

"I think that's my question," Gene replied to Campbell, then shrugged. "Dieron first, we still have some time until we step off... and if these are Azami then their merchants could have stuff that might useful."

"More useful than whatever the Hegemony stored? There are assault mechs in the inventory, earmarked for the Royal Scotts Dragoons."

"I'm not going to turn down looking." Not when they were contending with invading another successor state. Looking was the least they could do to see if the digital inventory was in there. The Azami made a point of painstakingly digging through old scrapyards. Boneyards that had been ignored and forgotten about that in some cases had been left behind by the age of war. They looked through ruins, and battlefields. Even if that was a little macabre they never threw anything away... and that was why their techs were able to keep SLDF era machines running. ... but he also knew that going to talk shop, going to shop around at their wares would give him and pasha the chance to sit down with whatever elders were in charge of the caravan... and talk about getting them on the road out to the periphery... into the deep periphery to settle either at the Alamut colony or on some other Alexandrian covenant world that had been left behind. "The reality is if those documents are accurate, the loadout is designed for Hegemony units, and I don't have the manpower right now to make that useful."

There was a grunt, "What about that list of worlds you gave to Dante? You think they'll be useful?"

... it had been give and take and the truth was going back to Elidere would probably be necessary... more than necessary they needed a better idea of what the Combine side of the border had looked like... and of course while they couldn't go to earth Dante recommended a trip to each of the provincial capitals, and if possible the major worlds of the Terran Hegemony. It was a lot of potential stops on the map... and they were talking about planets, stopping to visit wasn't going to mean that they wouldn't come back later with more details and find something else.

... but one thing at a time and focused. "Yes, and I think it will help the Davion's keep the Combine off foot rather than allowing them to concentrate their forces near Terra." He'd recommend to the Field Marshal that they plan to liberate Galtor III citing the map to the SLDF depot on Eire; the planet's eastern continental landmass.

He had specifically asked for Dante to prioritize a list of worlds that both could be used to potentially benefit actions taken against the Combine, as well as well ones that would be viable given the more limited resources of the succession wars. They weren't the same thing. They were similar but not the same thing.

Working from Pasha's information Dante had calculated that groups like the Azami Liberation Front and others that weren't necessarily dedicated accelerationists potentially risked pushing an overstretched Combine towards increasing retaliatory atrocities ... beyond whatever the combine was currently perpetuating. The Combine hadn't exactly been the nicest place during the league but the last two centuries had certainly doubled down on all the worst traits it seemed. That was beyond their remit at this stage though

"Sorry that we don't have pilots to spare." He glanced to Campbell, "From the Academy I mean," Dante had already complained about the lack of ASF coverage ... but that really did go back to the Rim World invasion, but certainly much of the surviving at the time infrastructure had been blown up with the FedSuns invasion and the Federated Suns had never rebuilt.

The original plan had been to hire mercenary pilots, but they'd also taken hires from the Davion recommendations in part because of expedience, and to contend with Dieron. Gene wouldn't have agreed to that from the capellans... the more reports he saw about their servitor caste, even if it was coming from obviously biased davion sources the more pissed off he got... but the Combine was the threat directly in front of them for the time being. "Galax is only one jump from New Avalon," and it was home to the Federated Boeing operated Armstrong Flight Academy.

Yvonne had provided really two distinct rosters of recruits, the other list being drawn from Albion... "Do-" He stopped, and Gene turned.


And speaking of the Field Marshal she had entered the room. "You lads you look you've been up to trouble." She observed, with the countess of Kestrel following in behind. "I hope you found something useful?"

"We'll have to manually inventory it all." He replied. "Its not a Brian Cache."

"Well I'm here now lets have it, what did you find, and what has the bloody scotts all in a tizzy." There was no heat to the comment... at the same time he suspected that they might have preferred not immediately bringing Abner into it, but ... well Dante wasn't entirely sure that the port's ... assuming there were any still functional... drones would necessarily shoot at anyone without League compliant credentials. The IE industrial mechs, digging machines and earth movers would far less likely to be shot at by simple drones if there was a DOME IFF being broadcast... but they weren't going to advertise that.


He took a breath to collate the details of the reports Dante had flagged, "In the lead up to the Amaris coup, General Kerensky overruled local Terran commanders to permit Rim World troops to take up station on Hegemony worlds that had already been largely stripped of troops. This allowed the Rim World troops to largely bypass the killing grounds of Hegemony Castles Brian, like this one. The Hegemony looks to have blown some of the security bolts in access points, and the rim world bombardment against the defense cordons established by Hegemony force caused enough structural damage to collapse most of the rest. To that end, we can ascertain that there is a Port Complex that has DropShips, possibly even fully loaded ones, but certainly an entire port with war materiel that has been sealed since new years day," of 2767.

Dante wanted him to visit and ascertain the condition of New Dallas. If Volgadon was gone then the CID station at New Dallas was possibly the best hope for a facility to ascertain a master list of Hegemony caches for total war.... and New Dallas might also have access directives to secret fleet facilities and point them in the right direction in terms of the Rimward Periphery... one thing at a time. Dieron, and its fortress ... before them.

For the barest of moments he expected that the Field Marshal would complain about the Hegemony's naming conventions, classifications of facilities. Instead her focused jumped to the orders issued before the coup. "The documents colonel. Transcripts of the orders." Campbell lifted the satchel at request a little alarmed at the sudden back and forth.. and probably, obviously now that he thought about it, wondering how much they were going to tell the Field Marshal.

At the time, while obliviously imprudent, because Kerensky had had the legal command authority to issue those orders. He was protector of the Star League, and the former regent of House Cameron... but it certainly didn't look good.
--
Notes: Alright remaining end of year schedule.

Extras, both Arano content and Helm content are currently in the pipeline to round out the year in terms of extras. There is the possibility of previews of New Dallas and some Hegemony mad science projects as well, but I will be calling it that Highland Faire will resume probably on the eighth (that is in the new year) due to my travel schedule.

I may do (completely unrelated to BT) something Pokemon Scarlet and Violet's setting of Paldea (Space err Pokemon Iberian Penninsula) but that is still in drafting stages.

 

[Imperator Pax]

House Arano Introduction Part 3
(a)​

It wasn't that the Federated Suns didn't have a bureaucracy, but that for what little bit of time he'd been in the Reach the Aurigan Coalition seemed to do an awful lot of politicking and committees over tea... at least in his opinion for a place that had just had their capital invaded by pirates. He recognized that some degree of after action was needed... but Black Jack was an out of context problem in the modern era. The degree of SLDF hardware that the pirate king had was enough that he could have been expected to menace garrisons on Inner Sphere worlds.... but so far as he could tell the Aurigans just held committee meetings between their great houses for the sake of having meetings. Everyone on founder's council wanted to talk too...


It was too soon to make a call on whether or not Black Jack's people take a shot at tangling with them any time soon. He suspected the answer was no. That the pirates were too strung out to present a single easy target but that also meant if Black Jack wanted to do something he needed to knock heads together to get it done... but he was speculating. The only information they did have was that this Grim Sybil person was one of several pirate underlings who'd come in from tortuga space with the benefit of Black Jack's apparent patronage.

A detail of note, but not an exceptionally alarming one.

He put the noteputer down the picture of the Rim Worlds marked JumpShip and its dependents frozen in feed. It could be nothing. Black Jack McGirk to the best of his knowledge had never publicly avowed any sympathies for Amaris... there was no reason to assume this wasn't anything more than posturing... but while that was logical he also needed to contend with a collection of subordinates who had a tendency to see blue shark icons akin to waving a red cape was to a bull.

The door chimed. "Enter." He ordered.

The trooper at the door saluted. "Colonel. The Ambassador for the Magistracy of Canopus."

Lady Ana Marie Centrella, was Gene guessed was probably Raventhir's age... mid thirties maybe... blue eyes dark hair and complexion, there was little resemblance between the presumable main branch and the Raventhir Cadet line... but he wasn't really surprised either. "Given the forces under your command, I suppose a promotion must have been warranted." The ambassador remarked, which was the sort of comment that could have easily been taken the wrong way. He could guess why Lady Ana Marie and her Taurian counterpart didn't get along... especially if there had been existing tensions between the two nations previously.

And yet for all of that, taking a chance fighting Black Jack was preferable than being put in a position where the Azami had to contend with having the Combine try and wipe them out for the sake of their bruised pride. As things went though it wasn't any of the Centrella's business even though he was sure she could probably get the JumpShip traffic through legal enough channels, but legal discussions also tended to get public attention...

... and the azami were a colony fleet with a lot of JumpShips, a lot of everything. While he was certainly privy to things, whether he was or wasn't. "I'm not at liberty to discuss my employers' particulars, Lady Centrella."

That didn't' stop her from trying to wheedle details out of him, the fact was he might have been shocked if the Taurians didn't make at least a perfunctory appearance just given the volume and the situation. Both greater periphery states would be more capable of settling an exodus of colonists out of the Inner Sphere if they were just looking to get out, but the Azami had at least one world they were already working on, and potentially more than one. He suspected, certainly the more he considered what he would have done in their position, gone back to various worlds along the path.

What Centrella couldn't know was the presence of the Black Boxes, which of course could send 200kb of text which could be quite a lot ten light years a day. Having a Chain if not one built by the Azami who had gone out and founded Alamut last trip, then at least this one probably could put one in place in a year or two.

He also knew that Pasha had sent at least one secure courier back to Alamut before they had left for Davion space... and probably another after they'd reached Robinson or New Avalon and almost certainly after Northwind and possibly ahead of any staging following Dieron.

Gene wasn't sure how much of the events of the Inner Sphere's border gore had filtered into the periphery, but where Dieron might not have hit the news networks yet he was reasonably sure that given the time frame the Territorial states... former Territorial states had probably heard about the destruction of the 19th​ Galedon Regulars.

--
He hadn't agreed to anything more than an admission that they would be making a swing through Canopian space. Thankfully he'd been helpfully interupted with JumpShip routes based off of the maps from the 2760s that showed where all the pirates could be engaged from... but Fjaldr did stand out. Centrella had hinted that there had been other changes but she hadn't wanted to spoil any positive surprises... also that there were pirate problems that really might be of interests to any significant Mercenary commands.

Speaking of periphery significant Mercenary commands as soon as they'd adjourned he'd moved to go find Markham, or at least settle for Olivera if the other Marauder pilot was tied up. Cormorodir was warm, especially today, enough to warrant summer garrison dress of cap and short jacket. It seemed a better option than remaining in a pilot suit.

It was probably a little overshadowed by the current state of the capital.... maybe even the state of the Aurigan Reach as a whole. In a wide range of different uniforms patterned ultimately on the service, and utility of the SLDF he didn't stand out overly much. .. or at least not as neo feudal in appaerance as the Aurigan mechwarriors.

Even their outfits, and equipment showed SLDF influences, including the neurohelmets. The bigger tell was in the local industry. The Sleipnr was clearly based off the indigenous Vargr tank, lightened up, but given what they had been told the Vargr was indigenous and had debuted seventy odd years earlier. That didn't raise any red flags per se the Aurigans had founded their state the century previous to that, and given the situation in the wider galaxy it made sense for them to pursue a domestic vehicle that didn't require an expensive fusion engine. Each one cost about roughly double of a J Edgar of succession wars vintage but the sixty five ton tank also carried an infantry complement to battle.


The Mechs in service to each of the Aurigan great houses was telling. There wasn't anything obviously royal ... or even standard Star League configuration that couldn't have still be found in the Inner Sphere, but it was the break down. Coupled with the lack of fishbowl neurohelmets. At the time the Taurians had rebelled with Amaris's support there had a been a dozen BattleMech divisions, never mind the mech complements of other non Mech Divisions in the periphery.

Most likely the Aurigans were settled SLDF troopers descendants... it explained the positive opinion of the Star League inspite of being largely league – era Canopian and Taurain worlds. That was still speculation and it was only important because it might go to explaining hte motivation of the pirates to attack. If they were wrong about the Aurigans origins it didn't matter per se. How would you go about convincing the pirates of such a mistaken case, if they thought there were potential SLDF goodies somewhere. To that end it seemed likely that at some point down the road given the Aurigans mounting pirate problems there would be a follow on. He had to assume the Aurigans knew that and that Azami probably had recognized that... but it was the latter's elders he'd need to consult in the context of conducting operations against Black Jack.

Markham would potentially be able to provide details on what they were looking at without directly approaching the Aurigans before he moved any details up the chain to the Azami elders. He consulted the noteputer for berthing arrangements for the Marauder's understrength combined arms battalion before being interrupted by a shout out.

"There you are."

"Bubbles." He returned before allowing the urban brawler pilot introduce, again, the systems heiresses. She'd apparently been there point of contact showing the two around all morning. The unified command had both Kintaros and Catapults in stock. Truthfully even without the Azami temporarily bolstering the Company's strength they were slanted more towards a Dragoon weight with so many assaults than they were the original Hussar displacement he'd been 'aiming' for. The Azami complement favored something akin to the Light Horse regiments of the SLDF.

"I was telling the princess," there was a frown, "Lady Arano, that the Federated Suns produces new production Kintaros. I also showed them that Catapult you rebuilt after Detroit." She bit down a snicker at the memory.

Gene nodded, but didn't go so far as to remark he was glad they had been having fun. He suspected that Lady Arano probably was overly conscientious of attempts at coddling here, and didn't want to be treated that way. Especially since it seemed like the pair had actually ditched their royal guard chaperones.

--
Notes: This will pick up with b on Thursday or Sunday depending on factors presently beyond my control

 

[Imperator Pax]

[Nominally canon, 3019 Branch]​

House Arano Introduction
Part 3 (b)​

Gene watched the sabre complete its over watch flight and start its descent, then turned back as Chang reiterated her question, "We're going to do something right? That's kind of our thing, as a company. We might as well be called like Paladins of St Cameron or something."

Gene blinked expansively at the sudden comment... "Ideally yes I would like nothing better than to drop a highland burial on any pirate nest I could put hands on." He headed off any talk about the discussions with Precentor New Avalon, and the bounties that existed on Black Jack's pirates and never mind the potential salvage. "However we have at the moment a significant volume of dependents, and retasking the unit requires a bit more than a simple executive decision."

Chang had been a mercenary long enough that she had known that, but on the other hand what had been the planet of Aea and the enslavement and marching off into captivity of most of its population by Black Jack's pirates was a pretty hard thing to just swallow. "But,"

This was not the conversation he wanted to have with two foreign ... local? Nobles in tow, because it would have been insane for them not to tell their parents... but given what Black Jack was up to, that the pirate king had been running rampant for .... not just years, but decades now... and that he was probably coming back. "I am going to address the elders if there is the possibility that we can come to terms. There are over forty thousand civilians up that I am responsible for." He pointed up.

The truth was he suspected that the Azami had been planning something like this for years, maybe decades before they had discovered the JumpShip that was the Cairo. They hadn't been willing to commit without a sure world or worlds to settle out in the black but the specialist 'ark' dropships had to come from somewhere they were too new, and too ... 'modern' to be anything other than contemporary to the succession wars. Its size was probably also the reason that the Davions were willing to let him just go back out in the black ... not the least of which was the Azami would be taking JumpShips out of the Combine's borders and not coming back ... getting while the getting was good. It would hurt the combine's already weak trade, which was surely a plus for the Federated Suns.

Ultimately it was going to come down to whether or not the Azami were willing to hold on the next leg of the journey, they were almost four hundred light years out from their final destination, and if the Aurigans were willing to let the colonization fleet stick around without any kind of games.
--
The holographic globe which dominated the table, swam with a twisting pattern of lights as the LosTech processed the data. Lord Tamati knew he was in a bind. There was no questioning his popularity as first among equals, but he needed to weigh the opinions of his fellow founding houses. The threat of pirate attacks was the sort of thing that made the Aurican Coalition Military ... most generally react by withdrawing to protect their respective noble lords and homes it made it difficult to root out the problem at its source...

... and there was the potential solution to that of using mercenaries. He had hoped that a combination of the Royal Guard and trustworthy Mercenaries, like those under Commander Markham's banner would be enough to cleanse the bandits from Fjaldr... but then Aea had happened, which had been horrifying news

... even though his brother in law had opined that it also settle for the time being any disputes over the world with the Taurians. No one would be pressing a claim over a ravaged basically abandoned world especially with the HPG network, one of the major items of value destroyed.

The coalition had been frantic over just normal pirate threats, that Black Jack McGirk had turned his attention here had been a surprise... and there had been nothing to do but stand and fight.....

Fight and die most likely. If not for Commander Markham being present, if not for that extra battalion then they would have been in more dire straits. What they had not expected was the arrival of a terrifyingly large, especially by the standards of the succession wars and the periphery. There shouldn't have been any fleets that large in the periphery but news travelled slow in the Periphery and it just hadn't reached them.

It was the realities of that and needing to source information that had gathered the council together. To which they had turned to the only sources they had who could speak of such things. ComStar, and the perhaps slightly more biased source of the Magistracy Ambassador. They had of course asked the Taurian ambassador but he had known nothing.

A holographic image of a young man, probably only a few years older than his daughter Kamea stood in dark black pilot suit. Enough heavy metal had descended from orbit in just drop pods to seriously threat Cormordir city's ordinary defenses never mind the DropShips that had followed. A daunting enough prospect.

ComStar's MRB even as unimportant as their small periphery kingdom was had been able to provide the most current, to the office in any event, when the 'Shepherd's Company' had departed officially from Davion service.

"You realize that is more mechs than in the whole army." His brother in law commented to the High Lady of the Aurigan Reach Serena Arano nee Espinosa. What Santiago was referring to was the list of confirmed 'Mech kills, and his brother in law had been fastidious in reviewing the avaialable battle footage of the relief of their nation's capital. Even so the numbers were so... if not for the battle roms from somewhere called Elidere in the Federated Suns ... the MRB office did not have footage from the more recent battle of Dieron... he might have questioned their accuracy. Instead he watched as BattleMechs were sliced down with daring tenacity that stood out. "Leaving aside that and of course it much justifying a moniker as the walking death," Santiago clicked the chart.

The table of organization was obviously out of date. There was certainly no ' 588th​ ASF Regiment' listed in the organization. There was a 'ground aerospace wing' a term he had only used perhaps once or twice in his lessons with Kamea when speaking of ancient history. A term that his father had only used in those same lessons without much use. 'Bardiche' was listed as a Battalion of Regular experience and reliable. Claymore, appended with an also known as Shepherd's Highlanders, was also battalion strength but had warranted the notation of Veteran unit by the MRB showing significant tallies of hostile forces on Dieron. There were other tactical sub units... but he had seen those in action as they had finished destroying the pirates invading his homeworld.

"Lord Karosas." Serena addressed the old achaeo-technologist, "Do you have something you wish to add?"

"My colleagues vouch for their conduct," Not that there was any need for such vouching, duplicity would have been completely unnecessary. "I have no reason to doubt their story, what other explanation would there be?"

Tamati chuffed slightly louder than he meant to as he considered things. "I. If I recall correctly didn't you have a number of Azami make a visit a few years ago."

"They did." Lord Karosas replied. "I suspect that that venture was the beginning of whatever colony they've established... but they have not confirmed that."

Lord Tamati could easily gauge the turning in his brother in law's head. He had likely been weighing if the Coalition might not have benefitted from having such an exodus settle on their existing worlds and if it was worth any potential complications with other interstellar nations.

"It is an issue distinct." Santiago remarked with velvet care, as he began to count off, "We have the pirates, who must be killed." He glared across the table, at the holdouts against committing to military action, mood changing like ocean tides, "We have a powerful military force whose intentions we must be sure of but certainly their friendship would extraordinarily valuable to the Reach, and of course then we have the matter of their dependents whom if such is the case," He made a wide sweeping gesture towards a star map, "Are in fact to be our neighbors then it is imperative we remain on cordial terms."

He was correct, and one of the other founders quickly agreed suggesting they think of the added jumpship traffic they could potentially bring and the effect that that would have to trade in this part of the periphery.
--
Notes: To reiterated this is nominally canon to the first aurigan introduction, which will happen some time next year in full, after we get through Dieron. The potential big hang up, as I've mentioned is that frankly the original draft of this story was intended to be a novelization of Shepherd's Company putting Kamea back on the throne (a campaign play through) for the canopians, but also in the interest of bolstering the interests of the Federated Suns in the region, thereby it assumed a civil war following the death of Tamati and Serena as per canon in the JumpShip accident.

I think it has been generally agreed that Santiago had some good ideas, but to that end his lack of patience and rush to seize power ultimately weakened the reach. His pursuit of a sunk cost fallacy very much risked outright destroying the reach if any of his schemes in particular attracted the ire of his neighbors. [I mean yes its battletech, and HBS campaign makes more sense than, fuck anything post clan invasion basically]

So in the future there is another 'branch' extra currently nominally 3023 dealing with Helm that I've mentioned and then there are two other branches one with Aquagea's residences and some 'experimental tech' from a table top age of war game that will be showing up here, and also probably in Essence whenever I et around it [basically a medium laser version of a blazer but it ended up being a little more OP than originally intended because the GM accepted it making way less heat than it probably should have for the weight] and also the previously mentioned Terran mad science project introducing some other unit members.

 

[Imperator Pax]

Dramatis Personae
[Pending Updates]​

[I'll add some more later, and build from there over time]

Severus 'Septim' Alexander
Nationality: Lyran Commonwealth
Mech: Merlin, Merlin Cavalry
A veteran of the Lyran Guards, working under an assumed name this scion of minor Lyran nobility comes from a well to do family but is plagued by prophetic visions of future battles often dominated by various totem animals. His father is on an appropriations committee within the lower chamber of the Lyran government

Gladys 'Bubbles' Chang
Nationality: Capellan
Mech: Hunchback, Atlas-Samsonov
Chang is a veteran of a larger Detroit based Merc unit the Iron Dragons who left due to changes in leadership, looking to stretch her wings, make a name, and ultimately do the right thing and have a good time while doing it, an accomplished urban brawler her Hunchback is a good fit for her piloting style. Has a younger sister serving in the red lancers back home.

Beauregard Alexander
Nationality: Free Worlds League
Mech Dervish
A native of Atreus Beau is a large man he was a veteran of the now disbanded 3rd Marik Militia having only entered the mercenary profession, registering with the MRB, on his arrival on Detroit in 3015.

'Hanzo' Ishida
Nationality: Combine descended periphery native.
Mech: Cicada Variant (c.3018)
A man of few words, and one betrayed by the Combine mission to pursue the Azami. He has a deep interest in the study of bushido and its various incarnations of political thought.

Professor Abner
Nationality Lyran
Mech: Atlas II
A jolly old soul 'Lord William' or Professor Abner is a wealthy and eccentric Lyran noble enjoying his retirement years adventuring and exporing his true passion LosTech prospecting, and seeking answers to great mysteries of the succession wars. Has a number of legitimate and illegitimate children, very well connected.

--
[Forthcoming]

Naval Assets: The JumpShips
--
Maguanac Corp
Armor, and Support Personnel of the Sam Houston

--
Hammer
Mechanized Infantry and Tankers recruited from Detroit

--
Claymore
Lieutenant Colonel Angus MacIntyre
Nationality: Northwind (Federated Suns)
Mech: Highlander
Previously a senior NMA Instructor MacIntyre is a heavyset man familiar with the political conditions of both sides of the Capellan March. He generally recommends attacking hard and fast and not trusting the enemy to abide by any social niceties .

Major Julius 'Root' MacKay
Nationality: Northwind (Federated Suns)
Mech: Highlander
The XO of Claymore Battalion and previously an instructor at the Northwind Military Academy. A foil to his commanding officer Root's call sign reflects his preference as a defensively oriented preferring to anchor a defensive line and use the assault and heavy mechs comprising his lance to break the enemy at range.

 

[Imperator Pax]

[Branch 3023]​

"You want to borrow what?"
3023 Helm
ft Blue Star Irregulars and The Eridani Light Horse
​

--
Everything from the popular media to the history books would go on to speculate, to regurgitate what would become the story in popular culture 'the pop history' view that this was a move undertaken as a response to the Dragoons breaking 'tradition' and going to work for the Draconis Combine. That was how people thought of it. It was the popular conception.

That was complete poppycock of course. The truth was that the raid into the league was a matter of planning. It wasn't as if the Field Marshal could just magically spare the Eridani or the Blue Stars on short notice... it had taken time to put things in order.

... and that the pop history story was aggrandizing to the Dragoons ego probably had meant that they'd spread the story around... for Helm in 3023 there was no explanation as the JumpShips appeared in system using AI derived jump calculations to appear without warning.

Two months of travel time not counting the staging and prep work for what they were doing... but they were on station now... about to change the galaxy... and in more ways than one. Gene hovered over the holographic image... the League era map looked nothing like the modern planet... because in a temp tantrum at being denied SLDF resources Minoru Kurita had nuked the planet's major population centers.

The more and more he saw in the comparisons of what the Star League had looked like side by side with the consequences of the first succession war the more and more damning things became regarding Kerensky's exodus. Combine Nuclear weapons had in 2788 rained down on the city of Freeport and the other settlements of note ... but with the maps side by side... and the processing power available.

"Boss," His thoughts were interrupted. "The Light Horse are deployed outside of the capital."

"You mean Kerston's Eridani or the Blue Stars?" He queried waiting for the feed connections that should start populating his own terminal.

"Right," Septim blinked, "Forgot, General Kerston and the Eridani have the Marik Garrison hemmed in." They had refused to surrender, but it didn't matter in the face of both overwhelming ground and orbital supremacy.

They couldn't hold the planet. That wouldn't have been stupid. But when they left Gene was loath to leave a structurally intact Castle Brian for the League to put into service even if they had time to empty it out... the facility would have drones... but given its relatively late construction, and the base's evolution it was unlikely that it had been constructed with a Hegemony AI in it... it was too far from Hegemony space. Helm was deep in Marik space during the League's era... but in the present day not so much. Two jump to the Lyran world of Solaris if they needed to go that route, or make directly back to the domain of house davion with the cargo.

"I understand, we'll proceed as we have discussed." He hoped that was reassuring.

It would have been better if the Marik units had simply surrendered. Not that that was the sole reason for bringing both units for this. If Minoru had really thrown his genocidal tantrum because he'd been denied the depot, and that depot was still intact and here... then it would settle one part of what had been discussed on Northwind a few years earlier.

They would have the materiel to rebuild the 3rd​ RCT and the Blue Star Irregulars back to Star League era strength, and to their proper specifications if that was what Kerston and his counterpart decided to do. That would greatly simplify operations against the Draconis Combine in the future... and that much materiel being acquired would also obfuscate the recovery of other materiel from Helm.

Gene knew in his gut that they were gambling... but the rebuilding of the Eridani, and for that matter the Blue Star irregulars... formations who had the manpower to make use of that volume of material, would permit House Davion to press attacks against the Combine. The Federated Suns weren't aiming at destroying the other successor state, but they could keep them off balance, and weaken them strategically... and better secure for the peace and probably the unification that was coming with the Lyran Commonwealth. Not that he'd been officially told that those talks were going on, not in so many words.

Minutes passed. Icons changed in the holographic bubble of the Vermillion river valley. One of Kerston's staff in the regimental command lance was in a ... what was now considered a LosTech BattleMaster relaying data to them. The defenders weren't prepared for this, but they were fighting. The Eridani were feinting, dancing in and out of sensor contact along the front, and pressing probing hovercraft strikes with lrms against the defenders flanks just to be a nuisance.

He was confident that Kerston knew what he was doing the Eridani were aimed at keeping the enemy off balance, and focused on them. The Free Worlds League militia.... which was not to be confused with the Marik Militia which was a command within the FWLM were never going to hold a line against them.

Kerston was only indulging them to allow the Irregulars to swing wide and into their back end aiming at taking the governor and his staff and associated personnel in the modern capital of Helmsdown. Of course if the governor was smart he'd had to have figured that this kind of raid wouldn't have been launched with some kind of reason... especially by nominally Davion troops, mercenaries who by most standards might as well have been Davion house troops at that if they could positively identify the Blue Stars.

To that end they needed to secure planetary leadership and order the populace to stand down. Preferably demobilize any Free worlds military or intelligence apparatus and go from there. In their favor Helm was a tiny world in terms of overall population. The cold bitterly dry planet had a population comparable to a good size city on a proper planet... but again that was that was the combine's fault. Minoru Kurita's fault directly beyond just his starting the succession wars.

There was a treble of white noise and pixels from one of the projectors. "What is it Dante?"

"I have completed securing the HPG via remote. Running diagnostics now."

Gene blinked. He hadn't expected that the AI could do that. "I didn't realize that was an option, you couldn't have optioned that on Northwind?"

"On northwind I did not have the advantage of a naval commsuite and SDS drones to to access unsecured or improperly configured terminals." That both explained it, and raised more questions... Northwind's original HPG had been destroyed during the Amaris crisis and had been rebuilt during the lead up to the first succession as he understood it... Minoru Kurita's nuclear fusillade had probably destroyed the original HPG alongside the capital of the planet of the time. "However that brings us to additional operational matters."

Displays minimized, as the AI literally went and took control of the system, which was mildly annoying... up until Gene realized he was staring at the remote returns for tactical nuclear weapon stockpiles. "God in heaven." He hissed.

They had discussed the possibility that VII Corp hadn't necessarily pulled all of the nukes out of the bunkers... but there was a difference between that theory and that Quartermaster Corp having so many present. "There would seem to have been either an incipient case of stupidity or treason that managed to last the entire crisis. The Nagayan Castle Facility's Commanding officer, and then his successor a Major Keeler refused to authorize release of materiel to VII corp without precise documentation authorizing the release from the emergency stockpile."

.... had to love bureaucracy.

On the other hand if Keeler had prevented Minoru from acquiring those nuclear weapons then he had potentially made it at least that much harder for the coordinator to kill more people. He flipped a switch, and waited for the continuing tally of depot materiel to continue. "General."

"Colonel, is there a problem?"

... "Quiver full. Quiver Full." He replied, then "We are going to be here a while, sir."

Kerston did not immediately reply... and it occurred to him that indicating that a full nuclear complement, or near enough, was present was not something that in the third succession war probably included. Then there was the fact this wasn't some derelict age of war capital ship that happened to have been found fifty sixty years after being lost and just happened to have a full payload of capital missiles sitting aboard. This was an SLDF Castle Brian and the previous era of facilities built on this planet that had been officially known about but not actually disclosed to the general knowledge base.

Emergencies Only indeed.

He blew out a breath and shook his head.

"Beacon is lit."

"Take us in on the guide path," He didn't tell the ship's captain to keep the bird steady as they came in. If there were nukes down there chances were there were drones, and anti aircraft turrets. The last thing he wanted was for some automated system to fling a capital missile at the Sam Houston, nuclear or otherwise.

Once they were ground side they were going to bring the transport system online and light the beacon to bring all core systems online ahead of bringing in the massive cargo transports which would be used to load the contents here.

 

[Imperator Pax]

[3023 Branch]​

3023 Helm ft Blue Star Irregulars and The Eridani Light Horse
AKA "You want to borrow what?"
Part 1 (b)​

The massive doors hadn't actually creaked, what they were actually hearing was the echo of the speakers through the cavernous chamber, which probably just played right into imagination all the same, "Why are they always creepy like this?"

"Because they've been empty for two hundred years?" Bahar snarked back at Chang's question.

To be fair this was far from the worst, but Bahar had gotten to see New Dallas and a few other complexes over the last three years, and it was hard not to agree with the depressing emptiness these mega structures were without people.

The Mammoth class spheroid Dropship aptly named the Lucrehulk had been the first cargo mover to touch down. There were powered exoskeleton lifters being moved to staging points, but they hadn't brought them further inside.

Gene bent down and inspected the console. There was a fine layer of dust on it, which was atypical, normally the atmospherics and air filters should have created enough air flow that the cleaning cycle should have actually sucked all the dust out like some kind of giant vacuum motor. At the very least it shouldn't have been piling on important systems like consoles. With no people here, that probably meant that there was probably an overgrown hydroponics facility somewhere in the Castle that had left a lot of dead plant matter laying around.

He wondered if they'd find a bunch of squirrels and rotten potatoes further inside the castle. He almost queried Dante if there was anything more to report while he waited for the Terminal to finish booting. He had questions, but it was entirely possible that the Quartermasters corp had been obstinate and a stickler for rules procedure and their possessiveness of their own domain that that they had acted like that to VII Corp for no other reason than they could.

It would have been nice if there had been some higher justification to behold, but he doubted... and if there was some other reason besides stupidity, it could have just as well been treason... which wasn't a great thought. There was no sign of active defenses though. The console accepted his input credentials and confirmed link to a Royal Command directed override that in theory should have bypassed all security measures...

... he worked through the steps in his mind. They needed to get to the command center, insure they had operational control of the facility. Make sure there were no surprises waiting for them. This depot was huge. They didn't need any more surprises besides the nukes. The nukes were plenty. Make sure there were no booby traps, disable any facility contingencies, self destructs, or such, then send eod in to make sure no one could set them off. Double check the fusion reactor... they were going to be here a while.

The main doors opened deeper into the mountain facility going easily another klick deeper underground at a slight incline large tram tracks continuing down the path. The hum of lights brought with it illumination that filled the heavy gray utilitarian transport tunnel. By the time the Nagayan facility had begun construction DOME was no longer the principle party involved, instead it had been constructed by the 42nd​ Engineering Brigade, and primarily as a supply depot rather than the previous generation of Castles Brian constructed on behalf of the Terran Hegemony. The facility had been less than two decades old at the time of the Amaris crisis, construction having begun in 2743.

Those details had only been paper facts before, but now that he as here, and they were inside the facility and the mainframe he was worried whether that construction might mean the self destruct was different than was typical to older Castles.

A chirp in his suits integrated communications system signaled a channel connection. Helm had definitely had Star League similar transport infrastructure, but that was no surprise. If Elidere then certainly here would have. The underground tunnels were a potential security vulnerability... but once they had the command center they'd check in with Kerston, and also the Blue Stars.

Septim was already moving to join him, and echoed his own silent thoughts "I know you said it was going to be big, but, this place is huge."

Even that was an understatement.

He had to remind himself that Fort ST George had been an outpost. That N001 had been built centuries before Nagayan... and of course Fort St George while newer was a smaller Terran Outpost Castle not a Brian. Whether Tristan's facility could really have been said to have a more narrow mission focus, that was harder...

"Yeah no kidding." Chang agreed, "No wonder the Combine tried to take this place."

Well it wasn't like the Combine wasn't already angry at them.... if this had been the Star League era Gene would have expected that he'd have just had to contend with challenges from Ronin coming from different Dojos looking to make a name... but if this had been the star league there would have been little things like free travel, and the dueling would have been somewhat officially regulated, even as officially both governments would have tsked and wagged their fingers that amounted to 'oh boys will be boys'... never mind that in such a case they were fighting with giant robots.

Mech scale slap fights could be tolerated as long as there was minimum civilian collateral after all.

"Commander I have the facility drones now online." Dante's voice announced over his radio.

He sighed, "Acknowledged." The Hegemony AI didn't elaborate further and they continued to follow the path down from the Nagayan port facility until they found the tram that was marked to take them to the Headquarters. They had to summon a car, which was a little worrying, that took about forty minutes to get one... but it dutifully carried them down a mag tube into the heart of the facility. After that it was a matter of booting up computers and relaying data to the 3rd​ RCT.

It would be up to the Brevet General whether or not he chose to make use of the transport tunnels to further maneuver around the remains of the Marik 'Mech Battalion or their armored support. Gene unslung the star league era computer and started the process on his end. Within a few minutes they'd have a handle on command and control.

It wasn't what the castle brian had been designed for... ironically they were the invaders and it was a marik world... but they had the castle and the orbital high ground and the mariks didn't. Gene wasn't going to complain about the situation.

The Helmsdown HPG Station had been built after Minoru's temper tantrum, and the security feeds from within the facility showed robed adepts had started running around like chickens with their heads cut off. "What am I looking at Dante?"

"I believe they are attempting to pray away the problem." The AI drawled. "A full diagnostic is currently running." The Terran thinking machine didn't indicate what it had planned beyond that but Dante had consistently evaluated that wide portions of the SLCOMNET, and the Shadow Network had been scuttled intentionally during the Amaris Crisis to prevent as many HPGs as possible from falling into enemy hands. He went so far as to speculate that the Ministry of Communications had probably attempted to spike the manufacturing facilities in the hegemony where possible, or failing that Royal Command had attempted to do so before presumably being countermanded by Kerensky.

At no point had the order been given to simply burn the network out, which meant that the thinking was the Hegemony could have been saved, and the usurper defeated... but then at the same time the Black Watch final orders had been to order Kerensky to attack immediately. To attack release the SDS drones from their restrictions and to destroy the invaders.

Instead Kerensky seemed to have never gotten that message, and eventually the SDS system had been turned to Amaris's ends by the control network to paint SLDF ships as hostile leading to a much longer much more devastating campaign.

... but all of that had very little to do with this facility. "I've got EOD teams sweeping the facility, and a senior fusion tech down in the main reactor making sure its not rigged to blow."

"It would be a simple matter, I've evaluated the structural diagram of the facility, this entire facility is designed to flood after the self destruct goes off, modifications seem to have been made after Kerensky's Exodus but nothing that can't be undone."

"Safety hazard?"

"Designed to prevent exterior meddling, no doubt a last ditch precaution by the remaining command staff." They'd been clearly hoping someone presumably the right someone's would come and employ the facility but couldn't be sure that would be the case... so Keeler had taken precautions. He'd known as much, it was hard to parse the memories some times... he'd known it would have been a bad idea to try and compromise the walls, but he didn't need to do that because he'd had the data needed to turn the beacons on and come in through the port like a civilized person. After all this was a depot designed to move and resupply major League military assets in the event of an emergency the onload off load gantries were designed to make reloading entire brigades possible.

"'Wasps?"

"Online and waiting tasking orders."

"Any anomalies?"

"Diagnostics came back clean." Presumably they hadn't been running then. "Launch, conduct strike packages per General Kerston's request. Once the planet is secure initiate a no fly zone."

"Understood." Gene looked at the sensor feeds, and then to the facility's own data. There was some kind of Geothermal system built in, not a surprise, but also what from the data indicators looked like it was ... flood control.

... right they had bottled up a whole sea. It was visible on the old maps of the planet but none of the modern ones... but people still knew it was a dry sea bed... they just assumed the water... he didn't know what the natives assumed... maybe that it had been diverted by the Kuritan nuclear attack, or natural causes... not the Star League's engineers, but certainly DOME had done that to make Brians, and the engineering brigade had in the 2740s. That was a lot of water... they were going to need to get those pumps active even if just enough to make it safe to work. Two hundred years of b eing left alone...

In the mean time two more Mammoth DropShips had landed at the port. They had a public story to sell after all. The Eridani and Blue Stars would be rebuilt to league standards courtesy of the Quartermaster corps unwillingness to obey VII corp's requisition orders... and well Shepherd was already filling out Royal Command authorization forms to make sure the automated machinery would open all the right doors.

The rest of the material well, he had to take some of it back just for the Davions after all that was the story. Brigades worth of material. They certainly weren't going to advertise the nukes. The Duke of Robinson had mentioned something about wanting to stand up BattleMech lines, and there was an SLDF division that had been based on Kestrel.

"Commander I am inside the base archives, there are earmarked reports, and copies of events leading to the bombardment," One thing at a time... or he wanted to reply, but he could have the techs make copies of the core.

--
Notes: Alright and then there is another one after this I'll probably put up some time in the future with the delivery of the material, both the public offload and then the more valuable core delivery to House Davion and the release to the Lyran commonwealth.

This is a very abridged potentially non canon version of events just a glimpse of sorts special with the follow on detailing some of the public reaction to reinforcing the anti Combine frontline at the end of the 3rd​ succession war, as well as hinting at the issues on the Capellan front. Again in theory this branch takes place in 3023, and of course to reiterate Dante's official position is that the Hegemony / the star league effectively was at war with the Combine, and that material from league caches should as a priority be employed against the Combine or to support anti combine actions. Thats of course without even knowing how coocoo for coco puffs the clans are.

However next week we will resume main timeline and the Highland Faire

 

[Imperator Pax]

Teaser: Son of Sam
Conclusion: Unknown Date
Somewhere in the Rimward Periphery​

A bestial roar echoed in his ears over the comms. Metal tearing from metal. The Rampage Assault mech was not the first he had destroyed today. Nor was he the only one who had destroyed the pride of the rim World Republic's indigenous Mech designs. Blue shark adorned mechs lay scattered broken. White gray tanks advanced through a shattered ash strewn urban environment.

Hammer continued to move forward. The Armored Battalion's Fury and Alacorns rolling to drive ferric tungsten alloy gauss slugs into any fusion signatures north of what once had been the MSR running through the city center. Claymore was screening their left flank as they came into position, but Bardiche was a painful eight mikes behind the main thrust of the regiment.

He grit his teeth against the thrum of a supersonic flyby. The ASF wing coming over was low low.

RimWorld ... insane genocidal madmen claiming to be loyal to a long dead baathist regime and to its psychopathic lunatic murderous dynastic heir had shattered a reservoir pouring literally millions of gallons of water down into the city potentially killing tens of thousands, and certainly displacing hundreds of thousands. The action had diverted half of the unit's primary mech strike force putting them behind schedule and creating serious operational headaches that they were trying to address on the fly.

Azami engineers were working now to put bridge laying equipment over still painfully turbulent water water ways churned out by the sudden deluge. Their desperation was put forward by the company's air power executed close air support to drive machines back that had been built to fill the ranks of the hidden army in the 28th​ century.

The handshake from the Atlas twisted him from link he had with his mind machine interface that was allowing him to dance through the narrow one way streets. There were few things that could do that from his degree of synchronization through the neurohelmet. Very few things. The signal was a data packet relayed through the Atlas of inbound telemetry and a priority HAF flagged packet at that.

It was if it needed to have some description synesthesia like. The importance of the message coded specifically in a pattern that would alert him of incoming critical needs information. Its originating point from Assault DropShip Hedwig as she burned at high Gee in orbit of the planet. Her gun telemetry showing arriving JumpShips at Pirate point in orbit.

They weren't expecting reinforcements.

The idea of reinforcements was kind of laughable.

The Azami of Alamut were too far away. The Azami colony might have received word of course confirm that a descendant of Stefan Amaris had been confirmed, that he was engaged in active actions of attempted conquest and bloodshed, but that news could not have potentially reached them quickly enough for enough time to put a major strike package together.

The Taurians sending aid was laughable. He wasn't expecting Canopian aid , not with a serious potential threat already levelled against their capital and a likely highly probable threat against Luxen. The idea that one of the great houses would be engaged? Highly unlikely.

The Eridani were back in Davion space.

There was no one Shepherd expected to come to help them. Hedwig agreed. The DropShip was banking hard and prepared to launch if need be a frontal assault if these were Rim World reinforcements. If needed to prevent a Rim World nuclear strike aimed at forces that were in all respects to the opinion of the SDS AIs Hegemony forces engaged in a civilian population center... because that was of course the exact thing to expect. That was demonstrated Rim World doctrine in the 28th​ century, and Stefan Amaris's what ever generation descendant had been stomping around having decided it was war crimes o'clock had done nothing to dissuade such an assessment.

He executed the tactical breathing exercise to decompress and parse the mentally colored data. "Unknowns at pirate point." He said his voice going over the channel to the rest of the unit... he prepared to order all of their air cover to retask, to pull them off the front refuel and rearm and aim towards the new force in the skies above the planet now. "Eyes on primary target." Ordinarily... his headquarters command company would have fielded as a combined arms special warfare unit one that could have neatly been encapsulated and self deployable from the Sam Houston.

Or at least that was the internal company pitch... the truth was while that was the ideal it had proven very very limited in its scope.... that was to say in terms of actual operation use in the field. He had excellent back for the fight at hand, but the HQ unit was split off. The Light vehicles, the absurdly expensive omni vehicles were behind the new river, on the other side of the highway besides, the Fury tanks were paired up with the Chaparrals providing computational firing data for the regimental artillery more broadly. In other words they weren't in the thick of it... of course that was why the chapparals were being employed not LRM carriers that would have needed to be closer to the front.

He swung and brought the PPCs to bear on a target of opportunity. The mech's cockpit in his reticle disappeared as man made ball lightning zipped through it's weakened structure. Not only were they spread out, the extended firefight was taxing even his machine's DHS cooling systems.
--
The Widow Company had dropped from orbit feet first into hell exactly how their noble ancestors of the SLDF would have done. Today would be one of remembrance of Clan Wolf. Of Honor, and Glory. The battle was days old by the time they had arrived, no matter, this battle would be the envy of not just their fellow dragoons but of the homeworlds.

The tide had already turned before their planetfall but it was hard to deny that after facing the pathetic carrion machines of the Inner Sphere coming to battle with the technology the golden age of the star league had not been a welcome potential challenge to warriors of the clans... or rather it should have been... they had hardly expected honorable conduct from the usurpers verminous minions, but their skills at battle even in spite of their superior machines had left much to be desired for her company.

Still she would be able to demonstrated their success to the other dragoons and those born in the clans would be green with envy. Natasha Kerensky powered down here Warhammer and brought it to kneel in order to dismount. The eighty five ton assault mech turned away and continued on. Her warbook identified it as a 'Crockett'. The machine's IFF declared it as attached to a command callsigned 'Claymore', a BattleMech Battalion of Highlanders who could trace unbroken descent back to ancient terra apparently. This was apparently also that the Battalion flashed Terran Hegemony IDC codes which her machine had validated out, they were a long way from home of course... but she could hardly fault their pursuit of Amaris's forces into the periphery.

Beyond a Royal Marauder was hull down. Techs crawling over its recently applied high contrast earth tones that her Warhammer registered as SLDF camo appropriate to the planet's arid environment. Kilted highland soldiers, notably carrying Star League standard issue Mauser Laser Rifles stood careful watch at the perimeters, and were manning secondary lines of defenses.

She had taken careful note of the presence of the Marauder II and Bandit, and Badger vehicles including that of the latter the use of their OmniVehicle configurations were being employed. It would have to be included in her report to Colonel Wolf, but she doubted very much that Joshua's brother would mind. The Dragoons' commanding officer would have greater priorities.

"The Colonel wants those tests confirmed." A brogue voice shouted at a cluster of personnel.

The Company support personnel had volunteered their assistance... at her prodding of course... to assist but more to the point to insure they could confirm the test results themselves using star league era computers.

They would have the results soon, or rather confirmation. They had not quite had to wash the many generation descendant of the usurper out of his cockpit. The PPCs the Marauder had pumped into the heavily armored war machine had tipped the gyro as it had attempted to close the distance with its MASC active and as a result the machine had literally stumbled and rolled off the roadway down a hillside and ejected its cockpit as a result of that damage sending the harnessed tainted unnamable into the water.

The initial report suggested the pilot had been dead prior to hitting the water The first round of blood tests against an apparent sample of the Amaris gene line confirmed for someone named 'Dante' that the bastard 'was a direct descendant of Stefan Amaris of the Rim Worlds Republic'. Exact Quote.

She looked expectedly at the Dragoon science caste assisting, tense with anticipation of that confirmation. Descendant of Amaris. Confirmation of that by itself would need to be sent to the clans immediately if not sooner never mind the little details of his death. There was a shuffling ripple through the assembled force as new orders echoed out.

Apparently enough confirmation of the enemy's destruction had been substantiated that units were being retasked to Emergency Relief of the Civilian Populace. A few more miserable minutes passed, and then a green confirmation. "As much as we can be at this point. I would say with relative certainty that it is not a body double, sir." The swarthy rake thin old man declared to his superior. He would have been positively ancient by clan standards, and wore the fatigues and insignia of the SLDF Medical Command, this was apparently the regiment's chief surgeon.

Orangish brown eyes narrowed, then nodded. "Thank you doctor." The man was dismissed to other duties, and the Marauder pilot swung mechanically to face the Dragoon contingent, "Captain Kerensky, I am Colonel Shepherd," The introduction was like watching a historical clip... even though he had to be much younger than she was he sounded like a positive literally centuries old holovid recording of the league officers of old right down to his accent which wouldn't have been out of place from the officers of Exodus. "Should I expect the rest of the Dragoons?"

Unfortunately a Canopian news crew managed to record the whole exchange so it ended up making its way across the periphery over the next several months, and that in turn lead to Battle Rom footage being witnessed by many more watchers besides. That was not immediately the concern of either Mercenary force.
--
Notes: Archon will update tomorrow, I have some untoward things to say about the holiday season, and specifically travel and what not but moving on I wish everyone a happy new years and that 23 will be an improvement with any luck, but forward.

This is the opposite of the Highland Faire alternate this is the teaser for a 'cordial' dragoons introduction this is a teaser set in the early 3020s with some details scrubbed, and was not originally the update I planned but again holiday SNAFU.

 

[Imperator Pax]

Main Branch Timeline
January 3018​

Highland Faire 11​

Yvonne Davion paged down through the document as the countess across from her was clearly fighting a losing battle against her growing migraine. All of the documents were clearly marked classified Star League Royal Command. HPG transmission log dates. These were not antique inventory filings of a long gone age.

These had been issued out of a printer on request. The documents contained similar requisition data to what had come out of the Robinson Brian Cache. She had had copies made of the later so that she could highlight the details on those for reference. It authorized a brevet colonel Shepherd to pull the files and print them out.

"There are differences."

Authorization. Authentication.

... "The most likely explanation is that Robinson was assigned to a different area command. Northwind would have been a Hegemony world." but in theory the Brian Cache and whatever facility these had been pulled from would have both been issued under Hegemony postings.

More byzantine alpha numeric designations that they hadn't deciphered the meaning of... and Campbell had been acting weird as well.

"He said the ... security bolts had been blown,"

"Yes, security precautions, the implication is there must be some roundabout way to get to the port... explains their disappearing." Which of course was a security concern for the castle, but far less of a priority than materiel which... "I assume these are incomplete." He referred to Campbell by the rank of Captain, Campbell's official rank was Colonel. He commanded a Highlander Fusiliers regiment in defense of the planet... there was no reason to refer to the older man as captain.

... and there should have been no reason for the highlander to follow it but Alexandria clearly decided not to mention that.

Another anomaly... and one that Kerston, who of course was old enough to have known Campbell since had had still been a captain should have known better.

"They're the files they had available."

And Campbell had not expected to hand them over... at least not when she had appeared. He had looked like he had been about to argue about handing them over. Perhaps later they might have brought the documents forward, but at that moment.

They could reasonably expect that this was unrelated to the sudden Azami appearance... but that was only a small comfort. It also raised further questions about motivation. They had been working off of understanding details that Hegemony officers must have been privy to some sort of highly incriminating information regarding the Combine at the end of the Star league. Admiral Clancy had been an officer of the Terran starfleet... in an era when there had been actual warships.

... and before he had gone into the stasis tube the last reports of the admiral had chronicled significant need to act against the Combine. There had been SLDF personnel who had joined the AFFS and there had been dedicated enemies of the combine. The Fox's Teeth came to mind. The Blue Star Irregulars were technically still Mercenaries... but there were units who had come into the fold.

... and of course that the Azami were showing up that was something to consider. She needed information about what was going on over the Combine border. If this was what it was purported to be a significant migration out of combine territory, as a result of the snakes having begun a significant campaign of either political repression or outright ethnic cleansing then that meant there were Combine units tied up on worlds not immediately on the front line. The question was which units, and which worlds... but even that could be speculated on based on implications in chatter among the Rasalhague movement.

They were still waiting for any indication that there was going to be a general rebellion, or that it was moving in that direction. Any DCMS units tied down outside of the Terran corridor was a tactical advantage to their plans.
--
Gene eased the Marauder into his assigned spot as his speakers piped in the sounds of the street and he watched waving pennants of Tara's main avenue leading to and from the Starport. He had a prime vantage on the wide ferrocrete landing deck, and also of the little stars getting steadily larger and brighter that were dropships inbound.

He could very much have done without the pipers playing March of the Cameron Men as the Highlanders moved to assembly through the streets... but it was their planet... and hopefully it really was just them standing on ceremony coupled with the fatigue catching up with him. What he really needed was a goodnight's sleep.

Not that that wasn't his own fault at least in part. They'd... Gene had made the cadets / the robinson troops more broadly participate in night time excercises.

For all that the Atlas was Iconic of the Star League in popular memory the Highlander was older. So too was the Pillager. The hundred ton assault mech had been in use in the Reunification War and its subsequent 3Z had been buried in warfighting stocks in numbers well in excess of the skull faced monster Kerensky had laid out the specs for. Harlaw looked promising though, but well... the Azami were here, and the Highlanders had put together the reception, and he was expected to be here.

"Conditions in the Combine seem to have potentially reached a breaking point." Which suggested that the loss of the Galedon Regulars under Samsonov at Elidere may have just compromised enough to tip the balance. Or it had just given that impression to units already looking for an opportunity to rebel or escape the combine, something that had given them the one last push they needed...

... but he doubted simply taking Dieron would be enough to force the combine into civil war... Takashi Kurita sounded like a paranoid bastard but the line of succession wasn't unclear. He had a single son, and any succession beyond that would require cousins who simply weren't plugged into the apparatus of power there was no apparent threat of a palace coup at the moment. "We don't that for sure," He replied to Abner's comment. The Lyran was within his Terran Atlas... probably just as much as a status symbol as Lyran Noble as it was for... if this shit went horribly wrong. "But it certainly sounds like the Combine's attention is elsewhere."

"So you'll be going?"

"I was always going, this possibly makes things easier."

"I should be able to help furnish support for the dependents, but IE has a policy of neutrality beyond that. I can't participate in offensive operations... and it can't appear as if we're supporting the conquering power's activities in that."

Legalese for any kind of lostech work that needed to be done on Dieron was going to walk an awful fine line, and potentially set a time frame measures potentially months or even years out. "I know. I've read IE's charter." Abner had insisted he do when he'd taken the first IE job... And was also aware that Abner's colleagues were not always so scrupulous but for the moment there were a lot of eyes. "I'm sure the Azami will appreciate any assistance for their dependents."

"Boss." Septim cut in over the comms as his Merlin piped in. "We've got movement."

Gene glanced at his scopes, telemetry processing the slow steady descent as the DropShips continued on the guide path from Tara's starport. "Clarify?" He asked tapping the computer.

"Not up there, I'm reading units patching into the unit command channel."

He blinked and reached up, initial assumption were light horse units coming onto the parade route to join them. Dante was remote controlling Regimental systems through a Fury so it wasn't unlikely that the AI was folding units into the command network without actively telling him. A quick mental interrogative brought up the postings of the units.

The Eridani while positioned in a respectful position though were marked opposite and farther down. They and the Blue Star irregulars were posted just ahead of a Davion unit that traced its lineage back to the SLDF. Abner was with them.. well he was with them because he had fought at Elidere if the unit was going to be here Abner had earned that right if he wanted to.

A heavy set man with a thick lumberjacks beard and a green SLDF pilot suit handshaked from a Highlander. "Colonel Shepherd, I'm Major MacKay I've been tasked to your command." He only elaborated so far on that before connecting them into a video conference with the one eyed Black Watch Commander.

"I was under the impression you were on Friendly enough terms with the Azami."

"Aye," For a minute he almost expected the old MechWarrior to call him laddie, but the man stopped and nodded, "We are Colonel. No, its not their visit that is the reason. MacKay and his men are under your command for other reasons. Not to just to strike a blow at all blackguard traitors but to provide a core for a highlander detachment you'll assemble for your inevitable search for what happened. I suspect the Azami travelling into the deep periphery should give you what the books calls cover for action."

Gene would have really preferred he not be just told he was being placed in command of a Highlander unit... and especially not in their present situation. They were going to have to have a talk about what this entailed... and then he was going to have to explain this to Field Marshal Davion

Within the Davion Command Center the Prince's Champion glanced at her staff intelligence officer, as the signals changed. Shepherd's Company featured a fairly bland unit insignia on its MRB page a symetrical Cameronian starburst set on green flanked by gray. It was an emblem that only appeared in the MRB file likely having been submitted at the request of ComStar but to the best of her recollection the closest she could recall was the roundel which was gray white painted on the the wings of the DropShips Sam Houston, and San Saba. She suspected that the lack of pilots for the ASF they had inventory, that would of course now had pilots might receive the roundels but that was a very recent change.

"Ma'am."

"I see it." She resisted throwing a suspicious look at the any one of the plaentary officials. Apparently someone thought it would be funny to redesignate Shepherd's Company as a Highlander Regiment. It had been added to the rolls of units, but also it reflected where the unit had been placed on the parade route near the front. "Get me the Colonel's Marauder." She ordered prompting a sharpish nod from the junior officer who moved quickly.

A voice cracked over, "One moment Dante," A Highlander's voice fell silent in the background, "yes Field Marshal?"

"Commander Shepherd have you spoken with the planetary authorities."

"I just finished with the colonel of the regiment," Which was a fancy distinction of honor that really was equivalent to adjuntant general commanding the planetary militia, "apparently seeing fit to inform me of dispensation to hire and recruit from Northwind. Its not a paper arrangement."

"This relates to the facility at Harlech I assume."

"Yes ma'am." He replied.

There was a cough, "Your grace, the dropships are preparing to touch down." The bagpipes swelled in their playing through the speakers. A few minutes later, "They're on the ground starport control is finishing safety checks," and finally those checks finished with dispensation that they could disembark and make their way down.

It was only a limitted procession. The welcoming comittee completely dwarfed the small contingent that was cleared to make the trip, but they were late to the Highland Faire and were getting a cordial demonstration of hospitality, but also a demonstration of probably just how important punctuality was supposed to be.

Inside his cockpit Gene leaned back as he confirmed the receipt as they started those down process blowing off the safety foam, and double checked that he was radio dark again. He sighed parsing through the tasking. This would have been highly irregular even in the Star League, Dante even though he was going along with this... might even potentially be encouraging it had cosigned the packet. It was not...

... technically speaking the Black Watch remnant had amended the last orders issued by Colonel Schmitt with mission critical information... that was to say that despite the Hegemony being gone, the League being gone, and only a very very narrow lead as by all indications ranking Hegomony officer he was supposed to locate and relay orders... ideally they wanted him to find where the Cameron twins had been shiped off to find what had happened... dream of dreams find the Terran Hegemony in Exile and restore the golden age of the Star League

No Pressure.

He wasn't sure ... Hanzo was game, Septim seemed prepared for what they were going to do, Bahar and the Azami were signed on... but how exactly was he supposed to let the others know. Bubbles, and Beau didn't know, and that couldn't be sustained.

Regardless of whether or not that the tasking orders were slated to allow him to fill out mech and armor, and infantry from Northwind.

--
Notes: Update schedule remainder of week, tentative, this is going up early (obviously) Saturday's update is of course per standard AH thread update of the chian warlord thread, I need to respond to some questions for that. I plan though it is not definitive to update Sufficently Advanced Magic, my percy jackson jump (in my jumpchain thread), and the 2nd​ Luxen (that will probably end up being sunday) with the arrival at Pioche and smilodons.

Anyway moving on, this is the set up for the big expansion of the company with the clear introduction of the begnining of Claymore and Bardiche following.

 

[Imperator Pax]

Highland Faire 12​

The beret on the desk that Bubbles had just picked up had a tartan flash on the brim, "Oh my god, I can't believe they're just giving you a battalion." Chang exclaimed, which wasn't quite accurate. It was more like a company of Highland volunteers and recruiting to fill out the slots in a mech battalion.

They had been put up in a set offices that were placed so they were overlooking the academy of Northwind's grounds. It looked like a golf field with a church in the background... or at least this vantage point did. He supposed that that resemblance it had, at least him, to St Andrews might well have been intentional on Northwind's founders part. "its complicated, we're going to crack open the Harlaw facility." He remarked as he adjusted his charcoal pencil and the pad.

There was a polite cough, "With respect colonel. I would recommend we accept the meeting with the latest arrivals first. The facility will still be there." Bahar remarked. "First impressions are very important."

"So what are you drawing, exactly." He had to move back to keep the Rangers Colonel from snagging the pad, "Oh come on ghost let me see it." David Bowie complained.

Gene grumbled at its incomplete, and placed the pad in the center tossing the pencil on the table, and tapped a couple of keys to scan the prototype image into the computer. There was an electrical whir, and the charcoal dog cleaned up, and he applied a pattern to the background. A handful of keystrokes and then some more.

Claymore. Shepherd's Highlanders. The image was really an adaption of the idea suggested to him.

The Stuart, Stewart, Tartan check that had been used afield, applied digitally. "The dog wasn't my idea." The irish wolf hound, or descendant probably of that formed the appearance of the popular native breed, was clutching a claymore as it reared.

... Bahar was right they needed to meet the Azami and Rasahagians who had touched down. They would have the most recent news on events ongoing... and the port complex wasn't going anywhere... and they were likely about to be involved in a great political clusterfuck besides... but he had been planning to use the visit to Harlaw to break the ice on things, handle the reveal on... this entire clusterfuck. He was certain he didn't want to wait till Dieron, even though there was almost surely a Hegemony AI on Dieron that might be able to give them some idea, some other piece of the puzzle.

He let the image float. "Alright we'll see about the new arrivals, then we will deal with reading in the situation." He shook his head, "Dieron was going to be complicated without all of this. We are going to take a planet back from the combine that had been under Combine rule since the first succession war."

There was some circular chatter surrounding the operation they had been hired from, and the reassurance of having Davion support, having the support in particular of the Draconis March in particular. Robinson, and the House Sandoval certainly wasn't going to forget Elidere, or pass the opportunity to humiliate the Draconis Combine on the field.

The trip to the allocated field for the new arrivals featured a handful of DroST IIA in identical configuration to that of the Sam Houston, unlike the Sam Houston they were in a variety of colors ranging from red and black, to brown and yellows, to greens. He wasn't really concerned though about their paint. They weren't the only dropships that had landed, but they were the ones in the process of offloading.

He counted two immaculate 7A Star League Jenners, a Thorn, a Catapult, a couple of Dervishes, the expected number of Azami Pheonix Hawks, and one customized Centurion. Nothing heavier though than the Catapult, actually the Catapult was out massed by some of the tanks sitting idle near it. It was five tons heavier than the Tokugawas, true, but the Shrek PPC carriers each massed eighty tons the same as a Fury.

He almost asked what the MRB thought of all of this, but decided against it. He pretty sure complicated didn't begin to cover it... that was a question to contend with later though.

Still he wondered if the arriving forces, these sword of tyr people had apparently mech jacked a bunch of Panthers, were all going to be proportionately on the lighter side of things. Well, the Hegemony had never thrown anything away... or near enough that it had felt like it had been true. Mechs had continued to be pushed down to militia units and boneyards on Hegemony worlds were likely buried and forgotten filled with machines that good techs could have brought back into service.

"Did you talk to them about it?"

"If you mean the ground vehicles by it, yes the Field Marshal has already put the second order in," The Badgers and Bandits... they had done that back on New Avalon... because after all San Saba had shown up with her hull loaded with choice examples from the Brian Cache on Robinson. They had left the existing periphery PBI under the Detroit natives to show the machines off. It gave them something to do, but moving infantry was going to be a potential issue. Baffins had some infantry berthing yes, but that had always been purely ground protection element, to the point the Sam Houston had more space for infantrymen. Of course, Pasha had been upfront that they could source more of the DROST IIA dropships and since they were such an ancient common, easily modifiable design they'd be sustainable. "We'll deal with it later..." Once they also figured out what to do about DropShips and in particular San Saba and any conversion work. He trailed off for that reason as much as the approaching officer in desert camo and russet colored beret.

"Sir." The Infantry Lieutenant saluted leading them through the nominal checkpoint and to the 'townhouse' provided to the latest arrivals. He wasn't quite sure what he had expected, obviously probably some multinational... multiethnic collection, but surely under Azami directive given their fleet, but instead of an easily parsed one or two groups, from the mix of colors, and units he had to double take to make sure that some of the reception wasn't from the Davion side.

Yusuf turned back from looking at all the ground cars, and then to the crowd in front of them, "They are busier than I thought... Pasha said the fleet was assembling I didn't think."

"Its fine." The truth was Gene had almost expected Lex to have tagged along... it would have been a little absurd, but he got the feeling the Field Marshal thought they were going to cause a ruckus anytime they were out of sight. The closest to standardization of any type of uniform was in the mass production modern issue SLDF style fatigue type service uniforms. The kind of thing that any MRB run mercenary outlet mall had in everything from extra extra extra large down to jammies for the mercenary brats... even that ran into the issue of distinguishing unit patches and insignia along with different camo patterns thankfully nothing that looked like carpet or a pattern more suited to a piece of furniture but it certainly varied.

The guest house was an expansive two storey affair with lots of faux wrought iron fixtures and railing a pseudo neo victorian style. The great room was more ball room in size. It was very emblematic of the golden age of the star league and the Terran Hegemony's vacation homes. The sort of thing for not just Northwind, but places like Alpha Centauri or any other number of worlds. He was sure that there were equivalents across the other member states, certainly the capellan aristocracy had had equivalents... probably still did.

They worked their way around for a couple minutes somewhat clumsily given their party wasn't dispersing. A man in blue black urban combat fatigues ... probably about six one stepped forward and glanced at the war eagles pinned at Gene's collar the eagles heads facing the clutched lightning bolts. The Mechwarrior wore an SLDF neuro circuit and a had a crested eagle tattooed on his forearm just above the wrist. "If I were to say to you that, "I am a stranger traveling from the East, seeking that which is lost ..."

"To which I would reply that, I am a stranger traveling from the West, it is I whom you seek." He replied accepting the man's hand shake and clasping at the wrist.

They took a wrought iron stair case that took them to a smoking room that was much less crowded. That wasn't to say there weren't people, just that there were fewer people. Their lead introduced them to a heavily scarred black man in more scarred combine esque costume and a sandy blonde haired man who could have made a good pass at Daniel Jackson cosplaying as Han Solo. Not quite, but sort of.

"These men are all vouched for." Yusuf remarked as a plate of tea was put at the island table between them.


The heavily scarred man's name was Yosuke... not that the Rasalhagian native he'd come in with hadn't beeen scratched up from probably exploding glass fragments. The rasalhague man stepped forward. "Soren Holmgren." He introduced. He was long faced man with steely blue eyes.

"Gene Shepherd." He replied accepting the handshake, but not reiterating his rank given the other man in blood stripes hadn't given his.

"The Walking Death,"

He couldn't help it, and rolled his eyes, but suppressed a groan. It was one more for the pile, but he supposed it was only little different. It had come out from a translation of a translation, of 'the Ghost who Walks'. He suspected part of it all was intentional propaganda spread... probably by Federated Suns, but he couldn't be sure. Introductions cycled around, from the mid thirties Shiseo-yen, to Yosuke's charge Akashi Kiyone. That was the 'kid' campbell had mentioned who had been registered to compete in the Squire's tournament.

A merry little band of Rasalhagues, and other friends to the Azami who were all wanted dead by the combine... and looking for some payback. More than that. The Rasalhague splinter's end goal was of course independent statehood. Freedom from Combine rule, but to do that they needed mechwarriors and political friends. They would need an army and also political recognition from the Combine's neighbors.
--
Notes: Rather obviously this does set up for the eventual balkanization ahead of the clan invasion.

I plan to install MW5 with a list of mods in it probably some time this month, and probably start replaying Battletech (HBS) as well, but this chapter itself has nothing to do with the implied new Rasalhague DLC 5 is supposed to have coming out [Mostly because I'm not paying 15 bucks for a dlc for a game I barely play, and I have never personally played all the way through other than just used it to drive big stompy robots] Anyway I do need to actually sit down and play through the campaign of MW5 in its entirety so yeah we may or may not see involve additional content from that

 

[Imperator Pax]

Precentor New Avalon,

As per your request this report was compiled by the MRB office on the Planet Northwind dated February 3018 it details the establishment of a new Mercenary subunit of the company your eminence had previously expressed interest in retaining for actions to be undertaken against piracy in the RimWard Periphery.

Shepherd's Highlanders, a new subunit within the Shepherd's Company umbrella command, appears to be a capstone course of sorts for Graudates of the prestigious Northwind Military Academy. It may represent the Northwind Governments attempt to evaluate products developed by Blackwell Industries in conjunction see attached documents (A1). Its precise relation to the new armor subunit and infantry subunit are unknown but can be reasonably assumed to be tied together.

It is comprised of One Company of confirmed Veteran MechWarriors under the command of Senior NMA Instructor Lieutenant Colonel Angus MacIntyre, with his XO position being filled by Major Julius MacKay. At present two companies recruited from the graduating class of the Academy appears to be standing up. The MRB is required to accord these two companies as Green, no particular pilots standout though the company appears to be furnishing them with BattleMechs from inventory which includes at least one lance of 'Marauder II' Assault BattleMechs. Document (A1) contains the information on this BattleMech.

Shepherd's Company has berthed the Mech Battalion aboard an Overlord-class DropShip. See attached Document (A2), Attached Documents (A3) and (A4) detail the MRB profile of the Northwind recruited Armor and Mechanized Infantry comprising the Curassiers.

Shepherd's Company timetables suggests the unit will reach a fighting strength of 36 BattleMechs by the end of the month (February 3018). At this time no Command Lance has been specified with the Commanding Officer, and XO also serving as Lance Commanders within the 1st​ Company. Otherwise the Battalion is configured to roughly correspond to Star League Dragoon Classification favoring Heavy, and Assault BattleMechs.

Claymore Battalion, Ancients Company

MacKintyre

1. Highlander
2. Grasshopper
3. Warhammer
4. Victor

MacKay

1. Highlander
2. Archer
3. Crusader
4. Thunderbolt

Sorbel

1. Highlander
2. Awesome
3. Griffin
4. Catapult

...
--
Notes: this is just an extras blurb I'll be putting up an actual Highlander Battalion Force Sheet and Mech Breakdown at some point. A breakdown of the Shepherd's Company assets at large will also follow as well and be updated before the Invasion of Dieron commences.

Obviously Bardiche will have its own right as will the Maguanac Corp's Tactical Groups, which are loosely based off of my RP groups attempt to make French Tactical Groups in BattleMech with giant stompy robots while cosplaying Wing Pilots.

EDIT: and as an expansion

Cadet Company
1x Lance Marauder II
1x Lance Archers
1x Lance Thugs

Cadet Company
1x Lance Pillagers PLG 1N
1xLance Archers
1x Lance Thugs

Spoiler: Battalions B&C Post Dieron

Spoiler: Main force of battle

Bardiche

Bardiche Battalion Dragoons

Sigurd
1x Lance Marauder II
1x Lance Pillagers PLG '1D'
1x Lance Archers

Tyr

1x Battalion Command Lance under Soren Holmgren
1x Lance Archers
1x Lance Crusaders

Waldemar
1x Lance Crockets
1x Lance Archers
1x Lance Crusaders

Claymore
Ancient Company post Royal Upgrade
MacIntyre

• Highlander
• Crockett
• Crockett
• Thug

MacKay

• Highlander
• Archer
• Crusader
• Crusader

Sorbel

• Highlander
• Awesome
• Archer
• Archer

Dieron Highlanders after 3019

Spoiler: Battalion D

The Dieron Highlanders are a sub unit of Shepherd's Highlanders, forming a second battalion in Davion employ with direct sanction from the Duke of Robinson. It is a green rated BattleMech Battalion comprising graduates of the Northwind Military Academy.

Totaling 52 Mechs in Spring of 3021 the Dieron Highlanders represent a concerted effort by House Davion to secure their recent prize, as well as the first Davion effort to field Mech Platoon units (See 2nd & 3rd Company Order of Battle). Unlike Other examples of Shepherd's Company formations, or the six mech series the Dieron Highlanders at full strength include a battalion command lance providing veteran Northwind Leadership to the unit.

The Highlander Battalion is built along Dragoon Lines of weight allocation, and is supported by armor units from graduates of the Northwind academy as well as the RBA operating a mix of Von Luckner tanks as well as newer Blackwell industries vehicles.

Battalion Command Lance
[Highland Command Lance]

1st Company
1x Lance Marauder II
1x Lance of Archers
1x Lance Marauder II Variants

Spoiler: 1st Company Deployment organization

The Dieron Highlanders, alternative 2nd Battalion Shepherd's Highlanders are a mix of operation standards. There is some confusion over whether 1st Company is a testing an evaluation program for Blackwell Industries Marauder II models or functioning as a control group for the Mech Platoon Structure supplementing the Command Lance.

2nd and 3rd Company / 2nd Battalion are uniform composites of the same models, where as while Archers are present in 1st Company the 100 ton Marauder II Assault mech is fielded with differing versions particularly in its 3rd Lance. The formation has also been noted to deploy into two Platoons splitting the lances each in half to form Six Mech units, though this does not appear to be standard practice. The 1st Company is typically the Dieron Highlander's main offensive unit launching the opening attack supported by other sub units.

2nd Company
2 Platoons Crockett BattleMechs (12 Mechs)
1 Platoon Archers (6 Mechs)

3rd Company
2 Platoons Crockett BattleMechs (12 Mechs)
1 Platoon Archers (6 Mechs)

 

[Imperator Pax]

Highland Faire 13
(a)​

The Ghosts of Black Watch had been established by survivors of the Royal Highland Regiment the Black Watch, and their dependents and civilians fighting alongside them. The truth though was that most of the regiment had been killed. The lucky members of what would have been the eventual Ghosts had been off world performing duties of the unit on other worlds... but even they had been caught up in the destruction that had ravaged the hegemony.

Gene wasn't sure exactly who knew what. He had a responsibility to be careful about details... but he knew that the Azami seemed to know somethings... and Black Watch didn't seem to have fax machines... which was odd... or of course it was also possible they simply had had no reason to demonstrate the machines.... that was now that he thought about it equally possible.

"The northwind clans rarely extend such a courtesy."

"Not to Sassenachs usually." One of the Rasalhague officers muttered. The man's accent was almost Lyran, but that made sense by the details he had been piecing together the Rasalhague movements tended to naturally pop over to hide on the Lyran side of the combine border thanks a shared culture heritage.... which was potentially a long term problem for any Free Rasalhague depending on how one wanted to define Rasalhague.

His noteputer chimed. He'd been expecting a progress report on the work on the San Saba, and fitting her to carry a Company of Mechs, but it was Dante overviewing the MRB pay rates. The Highlander endorsement, sponsorship, recognition, whatever it was came with a boost in rates. He supposed that made sense, ... he had a good idea of what Harlaw was going to contain, and that meant even if they were green mechwarriors the cadets they could recruit were going to rapidly outnumber his original personnel. He'd bump everyone's pay for January and that would keep the books tidy.

"So I've been told." He replied tapping the keys. "What about your status? Shouldn't the Combine be screaming by this point?" Kiyone gritted her teeth. "No. Thats a serious question, I assume you have some idea of whats coming?"

That was where the real disagreement lay. Kiyone, and the Rasalhague wanted revenge, or justice whatever you wanted to call it. The Rasalhague largely wanted an independent country of their own in their historic homes. The Azami by and large would have been probably more accepting if Takashi stopped acting like a stark raving madman but too many combine rulers had been too crazy... and the HPG footage whatever the excuses were was just too much. Amaris was basically Satan after all. Even two hundred years later Amaris's reputation for bloodshed, tyranny, mass atrocities made the succession wars era population who had experience with frequent crimes against humanity far far more despicable than any western late 20th​ century association with Hitler would have been. There was revulsion for a villian and then was the extent it was with Amaris.

The Azami were thus political more fractured compared to the relative national coherency of the Rasalhauge faction. Fight the combine directly, lead another exodus into the black and try build their own state, or try and win the political support from the Davions either for an independent realm of their own or part of the FedSuns but it boiled down to getting away from House Kurita's influence.

In all honesty he wasn't sure which made them harder to predict. Keeping track of a long list of Azami factions who were largely agreed to ship out for the territories? Or trying to manage a bunch of space swedes wanting to crack the Combine in half?

No, that was politics. He needed to focus on preparing for the ops on Dieron. House Davion could deal with the political fallout. They hadn't been able to hire MechWarriors on Robinson. Hammer had taken on a few RBA armor grads and alumni from the militia but that was gratis more so than anything... and the truth was needing to use San Saba as a cargo ship to take stuff to New Avalon had prevented them from doing much actual work. He knew that they'd potentially be forfeiting a lot of cargo space if they tried to make significant modifications.

He let out a breath, but discarded notions of trying to talk about what future maps might look like, but the conversation slowly rotated around to the impending actions against the Combine. Four hours later and just after sunset Gene leaned back against the wall. A lot had been said, and there was besides the small talk necessary an idea of what they could do for each other after they were finished with the Davion contract.

Professor Abner accepted a beer from Septim. "Thank you my boy, thank you." He sipped the stein and then nodded, "We can open it tomorrow." Technically they could open the main gates of the port bay now, but daylight would be better. Not rushing would be good. "It certainly appears to be designed to accommodate both aerodyne and spheroid designs."

"Is that odd?" Septim asked putting his beer down. Obviously the Lyran was familiar with more standard space ports, which of course regularly accomdated both types of dropships.

It wasn't that odd, "Not for a port castle. Outposts are usually aerodyne only, Ports, and full size castles with landing spaces can be built to accommodate both." He replied automatically. For Abner though it was this Argo DropShip which was too big to land on a planet, and that had apparently left for the Rimward periphery. One more thing for tomorrow once they were actually in the facility and had access to the control center's telemetry logs. The data said one thing, but the picture surely didn't do a hundred thousand ton dropship justice.

... but they had no leads on the Argo. Even if he could guess that Abner had found his next potential project to go hunting for. Argo... but they would need more information, especially if the massive drop ship had been skirting through rimward space heading out into the black on some secret hegemony mission.
--
The fusion reactors sent electrical power through the cavernous facility and turned all of the lights on with clack clack clacks. Doors opened, fans began to blow.

The massive bays kind of resembled the ASF facilities... if super sized. Huge gantry arms were retracted into their alcoves. The fuel bunkers were safely protected against most conventional dangers, but a Port Castle Facility was considered the most potentially vulnerable to orbital bombardment... if a warship managed to get a shot through an open gate and hit a fuel bunker or an ammunition bunker....

well catastrophic explosion would have seemed like an understatement for the amount of material that might go off... so the defenders of Northwind had locked the facility down and evacuated... and then they had largely died to a man over the subsequent two weeks of fighting into the new year. Northwind had resisted the Rimworlds advance, but their defenses had been weakened by orders that violated Terran principles of planetary defense.

If only...

No sense dwelling on it. Gene stuffed his hands into his pockets and resumed looking around. "Ali you know what to look for, I want diagnostics on the lifts, and the seals. Safety checks." They'd look at tanks, and this being a hegemony facility he expected more alacorns of course, which was good. He wanted standardization. They went from the top down. Teams look at warehouses teams split off to go into the dropship bays, air crew techs, and techs and astechs moving to space for materiel marked Royal Scotts Dragoons.

Mechs.

He rested a hand on the steel gray eagle, from the storage the itinerary looked accurate. Close enough. He looked at the black field the crest sat on, in July that would mark eleven hundred years of unit history for a dead colonel in chief. Was Amaris the spirtitual inheiritor of Bolshevik tyranny? People lamented the death of house Cameron... how much of Nicholas II had been in Richard the second.

Rashid coughed politely. "The trams are working, Colonel. Automated loading systems, and gantries are ready to move."

Then it was time to take stock and see if there was anything that was missing from the registrar, or if there was anything extra. He would have liked to picked Rahsid's brain about how the Northwind cadets reacted to the Badgers and Bandits, but now wasn't the time. There was already some chatter about land holds going on and they hadn't even landed on Dieron left. "Alright, let me know if you have any problems."

--
Thirty mechs on the field and this was only the first scrimmage. There were four total. Not that it was total elimination. Point tallies were assigned by judges, points could be lost of course, but the big defining event would be the 'semi finals' and finals. The finals were going to be the more typical pool of individual MechWarrior duels, than... the metal free for all of the first four matches.

The marshals made sure to go over all the rules. These were training weapons. There was no live ammo but that didn't mean there weren't risks. The majority of the contestants were from the graduating class of the Academy. Those looking to impress potential hiring companies, or secure themselves a place with a highlander unit, or pad a resume for higher education or a place in an AFFS line unit. It was a pity that Tancredi War College had been one of the casualties of the succession wars... there were few true institutions of higher learning left in the galaxy.

There was betting going on.

There was a lot of betting going on actually.

The delay by the Highland Games Commission had allowed new information, interviews personal and on planetary media to be expanded upon. Now the squires were on the field.

That wasn't to say that the Commission had been fully happy with the situation. The late additions had been allowed to join, but to fill out the handful of slots in the last rung. That wasn't a complement, though it might be misconstrued as one. The last group had originally been the smallest because it was the highest skill members of the graduating class, and with the heaviest... there was a Highlander and a Stalker in that bracket and those weren't even the only assault mechs. It was that bracket that was really supposed to show off.

He sat down as that conversation resumed. "Yeah its really not particularly fair." Septim started to agree with her.

"The Parents are basically paying for their kids to win. Most of them even have stuff lined up so its basically bullying." Chang remarked sipping her drink.

Yeah, there was a longbow who he wanted to see how it competed alongside the Stalker as far as missile boats went but Bubbles was right the pilots were already basically spoken for. It was also not today's match. Todays match would be a lot more unpredictable.

Today it would be a bunch of lights and mediums painting each other, literally, with gel capsules for the most part. More importantly the majority of cadets participating were doing so with machines that belong to the academy. If they distinguished themselves here they could potentially get a job that would have them actually in a cockpit rather than being reserve pilots.

Dante was in on the action, the betting as well, apparently was indulging in the affair himself... which probably was cheating in its own right since the machine spirit had calculated the odds based on academic records, machine used, and starting position.

The noteputer populated with the first and second rungs of training mechs used by the school. They ran the gambit from Jenners and Locusts likely salvaged from combine battlefields of the first succession war, to Black Jacks and star league era Terran Hegemony built Chameleons.

--
Notes: this is doubly abridged in addition to being part A with a second segment to follow next week. I will be detailing some of the actual squire's tourney mech fights on screen, just not this first phase of the melee. The Rasalhague materiel was similarly focused on political things that are not Gene's prerogative until he's actually a peer and a land holder to deal with.