Battletech: The Ghost Who Walks (Battletech Isekai)

Imperator Pax · Jan 19, 2023

Highland Faire 13
(b)

There was something he was willing to admit to be said for watching the general chaotic mélange of mechs piloted by young pilots trying to figure out what worked. It was entertaining, the cheering crowds left no doubt about that... and today's events had only been the first of four of these events ahead of more structured rounds that would follow once the herd had been thinned.

He had meet and greets with more highlanders this week than he could possibly keep track of... an early warning signal that this was just going to be one of those weeks... and there was still more to do. "You enjoying your time here Sutton?" He asked the cadet who had been a little surprised to get called up from the ranks of the DMM troops, but it was cover... and no one would glance twice at an Elidere veteran being up here in a way that other pilots might have.

Sutton nodded. The dervish pilot had been instantly popular on Robinson for participating in the defense of Elidere, but more than that he had been involved in... well whatever he'd expected classes to be like his slot in the planned counter attack against the Combine had been a surprise. It was obvious that the Dervish pilot would have liked to be participating, and he wasn't the only one.

It bordered on the ridiculous.... and he half wondered if that wasn't half the joke and that was why the Highlanders didn't let the 'knights' have their chance at each other... or maybe letting the supposed adults have a go was too much trouble. He supposed that was probably why most the competitors were in the squires tourney were also Academy seniors. This was the house cup of sorts for their prep school... or something.

That wasn't why he was here specifically.

He'd gotten fairly used to ... how could he not given what he was... Septim's vision dreams. The threat of the Clan Invasion. That was what he suspected the animal representations were ... Green birds? Jade Falcon. Wolf. The Dragoons or Clan Wolf. Smoke Jaguar had also come up... but the horses were anomalous... if his own vagrant thoughts were right.

Whatever the case there were issues. Septim's visions put the Jade Falcons invading the Lyran Commonwealth, attacking Lyran Guards... those were a recurring vision he'd been having for more than a decade now. A different clan, clans seemed to be attacking the Federated Suns and different clans seemed to attack the Combine. Attacking the Combine's own serpentine representation...

Were they accurate?

Gene figured it couldn't hurt to try and nudge as much sense as he could into the DMM contingent in hopes that the young officers were would support a motion to rebuild rearm, and effectively fight. .. both as combined arms, and also that they'd have the skillset to resist or put up a fight one on one against he combine, and the clans.

The door to the private box opened a pair of Highland Fusiliers borrowed from Campbell opening the doors to let the Duke of Robinson wheel himself in. The former tanker chuckled as he came down. "I suppose I did ask for some privacy for this discussion." He commented. "I didn't really mean posting pickets so much as just quiet."

Gene decided not to mention he'd had the room swept for electronic signals going out... especially since Dante was listening in. "Abundance of caution, I take it from talking to Lex this has something to do with your counterpart on Errai?" His other guess was Cosarra or maybe GM had decided to go around the long way. From intercepted digital traffic Dante had pieced together Yvonne was stalling GM for the moment. She was also doing the same for Blackwell, which coveyed an impression of fairness to both sides.... or that was probably the intention to the action.

"The Duke of Errai may have come off a bit brusque with the countess." The Sandoval duke remarked with a somewhat strained expression, "It does though." he admitted. "The discovery of Thug BattleMechs following the defeat of the Galedon regulars is a point of interest to him."

Maltex had debuted the Thug in the second half of the 26th century. Industrial manufacture of endo-steel frames required, at least an economical mass production required orbital smelting, low gee if not zero gee was a requirement. Those facilities had largely eaten nuclear attacks during the first succession war, but also had already been suffering from damage done during hte Amaris crisis, both in direct damage terms, as well as in the sense of by products of trade disruption caused by the coup within the hegemony.

"He wants to reintroduce production."

Down teching the Thug wasn't impossible. The so called 10E went to four tube launchers. He wondered if the local star corp office had a problem with that. The Thug had been intended to replace the warhammer after all. The bigger question though was how long did he have before the Field Marshal couldn't keep the metaphorical hounds at bay.

Not that that was it of course. Robinson had other ambitions. He had ambitions of his own that were not necessarily one for one with that of the Prince's Champion. That included the recognition that the Combine had two new potential targets in his realm. An attack on the MID Depot at Elidere they had emptied out on the Combine's assumption that the division's stockpiles wouldn't be completely empty, and of course for the sake of revenge, or an attack on Robinson for basically the same reasons.

The Robinson Brian Cache had yielded other material. The kind of material that would be useful to the RBA, and thus also other military institutions of learning.
--
The Duke of Robinson had joined them for this but was maintaining a non obvious presence as the cadets experimented with driving the New Valencia built hovercraft around the field. NMA, nor for that matter RBA, were exactly well known for cutting edge.

... not that there was such a thing in the succession wars, but the point stood that the schools' respective strengths had been elsewhere. To that end though it ran the issue of the Bandit, and Badger were very expensive pieces of kit. Gene adjusted the display on the terminal as the instructor, a man with salt and pepper hair named Spiers, maneuvered his students.

Gene wondered for a moment where they would be sitting if they had actually captured rather than destroyed the DCA DropShips... if they had been able to impound the JumpShips. The bounty and salvage systems weren't One to One. He knew part of the reason there was 'only talk' of a land hold rather than serious discussion was partly political... not just whose planet was where, but the chance that he might pick somewhere with a hitherto undiscovered Hegemony or League era military facility.

Dieron first though.

The Brian Caches had been built to be consumable resources. They'd been put into the ground in the even that the Hegemony needed to pour troops into a theater to lay the hurt on an enemy... but they'd also been built up as a concept to fight another Inner Sphere threat. The Combine. They hadn't been planned for dealing with a periphery rebellion.

That was actually why the Outpost Castles had been proliferated.

... but... the Star League had never expected a technological backslide. Oh less warships as a result of naval arms limitations, treaties yes... but also economic common sense. Warships were expensive they required significant manpower and infrastructure. You couldn't take a nuke back strategic level firepower was not something easily repaired, and had a tendency to escalate things far more quickly than international arbitration efforts would resolve.

The contents of depots and caches were more than just icons of another more prosperous era. The Hegemony had not intended them to be technology demonstrators. Anything going into a cache was old tech the kind of equipment that they might have preferred not fall into the hands of other member states but nothing truly classified by the time of the 28th century.

In the 31st century though with the succession wars have run their course... it wasn't about just distributing the cache to fight a campaign or even a war, but the chance to turn back the tide.

The countess of kestrel shifted her weight onto the balls of her feet, tensing slightly. "I take it we have an audience then?" He asked not looking around, not moving from watching the drills on the field. Blackwell Corporation was no surprise of course they'd be interested in what they were doing with their products.

"I have to ask, are these Star League machines?"

"No. The technology is derived from the Mercury," Gene wouldn't have been surprised if the SLDF or Hegemony based Royal Divisions had wanted something, dreamed of something these OmniVehicles but unless there was a prototype somewhere that had not managed to be snatched up by Kerensky... no these were mature concepts developed after Kerensky left. "This is a mature probably indigenous development of it." He had to explain how the Mercury BattleMech worked, and what an OmniPod system worked in comparison, "On the other hand the fact the Dragoons brought this with them, suggests maybe it was maybe Star League tech." He shrugged.

"Which is it then?" She questioned a little more forcefully leaning a little further over.

"I think its something Kerensky's people developed." Probably... maybe it was another case like the Imp... how fucked up were the clan's historical records if that was the case. "I don't have proof though, so it should be qualified as such."

--
Alexandria Cunningham regarded the complex it was as an inscrutable face as she could manage at the moment. The highlanders were working with a feverish energy alongside personnel ... this was more than just money... she wondered if money even factored into motivation. The Prince's Champion hadn't been able to spare the time to come leaving this visit to her, in part due to the presence of other dukes of the Federated Suns but also because of the impending final steps before the New Avalon Hussars launched their attack.

There had been a brief history lesson on the Tancredi Loyalists and their doctrine and how being able to mount raids into Combine space would have helped keep the snakes off balance. That unit, those units, that world, had been lost and the institution which had largely produced them would need to be rebuilt if they were going to recreate that. There were other priorities if they were going to go that far down the rosters.

So many units lost to the succession wars.

The countess glanced down at the sheet in front of her. The display of the noteputer an orange sheen listing her official job as liaison officer in the absence of the Prince's Champion. It detailed the proposed filling out of the Claymore Battalion with equipment being checked over.

She'd been happy that Shepherd had been reasonable enough to agree to ducking out of the ongoing drill in order to avoid talking with corporate representatives, or members of those ducal houses but this had not been what she'd expected.

"The material for this is here?" She asked.

He nodded. "The Dragoon Guards were holding Christmas mass when they were nuked. Pretty much their inventory in machines were on standby or crated ahead of being shipped out for the Periphery." The Colonel replied there was a baleful hint to the mead colored eyes but then it was gone. "Harlaw's depot has machines from the age of war as well, they'll be easier to maintain. I don't fathom how the Pillager models of the Early Reunification war wasn't brought back given its close quarters capabilities," He remarked, then verbally ticked with another shrug, "que sera sera."

It is what it is, she translated quietly. "Anything else?"

"We've earmarked the King Crabs, there is a note in there that we're not sure how," he paused, "Whether or not they'll end up being hangar queens, but they're on the list of what we've found if Cosara or GM need to be horse traded with." She scrolled through the noteputer and found the indicated list. "The Guards were allocated the 010," Aught Ten, "They have LBXs they might be useful in bringing LBX weapons back into production, which is the main reason I'm willing to pass on them." On the tram ride down into the bowels of the planet he had mentioned that there was no reason that OmniPod technology being originally developed from a Star League BattleMech system couldn't also be used in conjunction with Mechs... in fact he assumed they had been developed from mechs, or used with ASF.... the idea that something simple as a test bed like the Enforcer would probably be a good starting point... even though he'd then admitted to just be speculating.

Today's report to the field marshal was going to be especially exhausting.

Imperator Pax · Jan 22, 2023

Highland Faire 14
(A)

The fireplace had been stoked to fight the chill from the rain, and the fog. In the place of that it left the large office contrastingly warm, shockingly so compared to coming in from the outside.

Field Marshal Yvonne Davion dismissed the extended portion of her staff gave Jeffries his marching orders and then dismissed the Davion Guards officer as well and turned to her lady in waiting. "Its never simple is it?" It was a rhetoric question. "I wonder if it was a speech. Surely he didn't just come out and declare he was the sword of the Camerons returned or some of this idiocy." She glowered at the proposed scripts from the media people. "Regardless there is a starport?"

"There is my lady, I have seen it."

"And an Overlord? I understand there has been interest in it."

"THS Presidio according to the Ship Registry." Which had been just two years old at the time of the crisis erupting, it was an immaculate tomb like ship from what she'd seen of the interior, Alexandria paused, and then moved on, "Along with a THS Bexar, she was apparently configured as a mobile field hospital and transport for armor."

The Field Marshal nodded. Bexar was apparently another Triumph. Then she scoffed, "and of course we'd look very silly if we complained about what they're handing us," never mind that they had even involved Alexandria. If the Countess of Kestrel had noticed the increased anti Combine chatter going on since the colonel's original disappearance with General Kerston she had not mentioned it. That had reached a fever's pitch this afternoon as she'd received offers to volunteer for off world duty from the planetary militia if it was against the combine. She had to wonder what it was the local aristocracy had been told. She wasn't going to engage in rumor mongering. The prince's champion spared another withering look at the media proposals, at least the duke of sandoval was being reasonable about all of this. "Shepherd has clearly stirred the Highlanders up," Clancy had also been agitating the Federated Suns ... not that he had needed to, not during the time before the admiral had gone in the stasis pod, "It raises questions of course, but more as a device on our existing ones." She flipped through the courier delivered packet that contained the colonel's medical records, and the blood sample, which reassuringly informed her with significant certainty that the Colonel was not some scion of House Davion... or at least not an immediate relation to the ruling family of the Federated Suns. Doctor Banzai doubted that even testing against samples from a century ago would yield anything. There were some additional notes about the blood sample but nothing she was particularly savvy to making an issue of. She leaned forward, "Alexandria, what I want is for you to find out what materiel the colonel is looking for. Especially anything he hasn't been able to find."

"I'm not sure I understand what you mean Ma'am. He's going to stand up highland companies on SLDF line."

"Not SLDF Terran Hegemony lines." She tutted, the Archer was a classic machine... but the Dragoons seemed to favor them as well... it might have been just institutional inertia, Yvonne was weighing if it was just that. "So far as the Highlanders are concerned, seem to be concerned Colonel Shepherd may as well have been chipped off some rock face on ancient terra. He's selected those archers for a reason, but I want to know if there is something he's looking for." and of course the reason why... "It may not even be machines."

"There was apparently a large DropShip," She paused, "The Argo, behemoth sized," The countess paused, "It was constructed at the Galax Shipyards it stopped over Northwind before departing for the Rimward periphery."

That could very well be a coincidence she admitted, but the Colonel seemed to be following both ends of the thread back. "There is a growing anticipation for action. We're beyond just contending with the usual Draconis March's push for greater action."

And success her could meaningfully swing positions at court. This was beyond the Draconis March, this was even beyond avenging her nephew the previous first prince success here represented more than just beginning the process to cut the Combine from the Terran corridor. Taking Altair and Dieron could meaningfully set the stage for real change in the Inner Sphere when taken with everything else that was taking shape.
"Should we do something?"

Yvonne scoffed. "The genie is out of the bottle." They had known ahead of time that the public support for a counter attack against the combine had been reaching a fever pitch even before word of the destruction in detail of the Galedon regulars. Lord Sandoval's curated speeches had been aimed at stoking a nearly religious and in some cases crusader fervor. They were approaching the margins on what they could direct in terms of pacing. "We have laid out to the assembled nobility, and elite that we are prepared to act against the combine." They would be able to jump and hit Altair and Dieron and ideally conquer both worlds... and if then if the Azami and Rasalhague wanted to revolt well that was fine... but she'd certainly prefer it look like they were the instigating factor and the rebellions a broadly speaking product of combine weakness.

The combine needed to be looking inward, and preferably stabbing one another over perceived 'moral failure' or what have you.
--
The mech threw a haymaker. Sloppy it skidded off chest armor, but the mud was washing out from under both mechs feet. It was day two, and the second of the scrimmaging was coming to its conclusion. Gene didn't know how the Accademy training battalion assigned mechs. As it was he could make out Rio animatedly, and probably with a lot of profanity thrown in, screaming presumably about the thunderbolt pilot getting punched was doing wrong.

Everyone was having a good time, and so he expected the faire marshals to give it another minute. It was still a little impractical to have mechs punch each other for reasons other than opportunity or desperation... but it certainly was winding the crowd up.

Frankly one of the other competitors should have taken the opportunity to take both of them off the board... but at least two of the remaining participants seemed to have stopped to gawk and the rest were understandably busy shooting at one another to be bothered.

... and the thing about a mech scale fist fight was it was the sort of thing Dante hadn't predicted as happening. Septim nad the Machine Spirit had a bracket going all the same going into wagering on the results... he hadn't forbid them from gambling. It was legal after all.

There was a heavy sigh as the Thunderbolt was called as out of the fight, right before its opponent took a mock large laser to the back side.

"Speaking of cadets how are ours doing?"

Chang turned around, "Well they're doing okay. There are some distractions from being here, I took them over to NMA this morning to coordinate between ... well our armor. With the duke of Robinson." She shrugged she meant both DMM attached armor and the highland armor cadets, "So what's this about... They have to ride somewhere but we're really growing."

"I'll explain soon." He hedged, "Its complicated." Beau cracked a joke whether or not he was getting married, "Its probably that degree of serious," He replied and the big free worlder nodded, "Its complicated but my priority is on missile boat pilots, or aptitude for." He was talking but a couple of looks had been thrown over to Lex's apparent change in body language or expression. Whatever the case the Countess of Kestrel must have tensed up, so he coughed and pointedly changed the subject, there were other things that needed to be done, and the faire was mercenary shot show, and that meant significant industrial presence, "GM and Blackwell are not the only industrial reps on planet," And while the succession wars had wrecked a vast .... incalculable volume of interstellar trade there were still subsidiaries to the massive corporations that had dominated the arms trade of the star league, "We can't duck them forever."

Septim grimaced into his beer, "Ah, yeah while you've been gone I got ambushed by GM about this ... Orion thing? I thought the guy was here about the Marauder II but then he blitzed me on it."

Gene nodded, it made sense. Septim was the easiest company command level officer to approach... even if GM knew about Claymore in the process of standing up, which was certainly possible since the paperwork had started they wouldn't have approached MacKay or the other NMA instructors tapped to lead the new Highlander Battalion. He admitted the fault was his, "I should have considered that they'd approached you we'll go over the Blackwell and GM packets, as well as potential other ones."

The crowd cheered as another mech went down and the marshals prepared to call the scrimmage to advance the remainder.
--
Harlaw's Terran Militia units included things ranging from reunification war pattern Pillagers to Shootists and more besides. The Harlaw facility was older, and not nearly as sleek as the aerodynamic flyboy lines and posters of the port. The difference in who had been running the facilities, but it had still been a a depot for the Hegemony.

There were no Grasshoppers in inventory. Those had only entered production after this facility had been sealed up. More than that the Grasshopper had been built for warfare beyond the border and frankly in the periphery in the hands of the regular army. The Terran Hegemony had experimented with many seventy ton machines, just as they had experimented with significant numbers of seventy five tonners like the Orion, Marauder, and Black Knight.

Endo Steel manufacturing had been developed in the late 25th century, but had gone extinct in the face of the massive volume of orbital and space based infrastructure lost during the succession wars, but it had been nearly ubiquitous to the Terran Hegemony of the early 28th century. In the 31st century where that had completely disappeared that technology was LosTech which would have been unthinkable in the golden age of the Star League as the Hegeomony had been increasingly looking at not just Combine Units but also Federated Suns machines beginning to field EndoSteel, and DHS.

The Shootist was a seventy ton VOX 280 machine intended at the time of its debut in the early 27th century had been intended to provide a commander of close quarters units a hard hitting gunfighter. It hadn't exactly worked out that way. The shootist was a good urban warfighter it paled in comparison at long range to the effectiveness of the older Black Knight or the newer Marauder especially in terms of command and control responsibilities.

So the shootist had already been considered obsolescent by the Hegemony in the 28th century being pushed to Militia units and the regular SLDF in a more line combatant role where its avionics suite wouldn't be considered a hindrance.

The King Crabs had like the Atlas been late to enter the Terran Hegemony service... and because Kerensky had developed them or at least their specific requirements those machines had similarly ended up not just in Hegemony hands but also in the hands of the member states... like the Combine. Kerensky had had friends at court to cover for his political failures, and the break of such things, and there had been other problems despite the still in recent memory second hidden war.

The ER PPC had only arrived to units in 2751 after all. The Marauder 2R had only started making full production in 2760 after what in hindsight would be unconscionable delays given the Thunderbolts had started receiving their extended range upgrade two years after proving viable for production, and the Griffin had managed its upgrade in '51 proper.

"Thank you Dante." He said ending the history lesson on procurement before the scottish brogue of the AI could continue to drone on in an info dump of technical specifications... especially the lobbying. "How long will materiel transfer take?"

"Each tram will require approximately sixteen hours due to the combination of damage to the system, and need to reroute," The zig zagging course way and transfer through the city sized underground maze of tunnels, "In short I estimate materiel distribution to the port would not be completed until march." It was therefore more practical to open the Harlaw facility and disburse some of the equipment to the planetary units directly, but that had been planned anyway.

He turned to the others. "This material was stored up to be used in the event of a war. We have a war to fight. To that end Claymore is going to be built on keeping units in the field and operational... we need missile boats to sustain an advance. The archer fulfills that role, and can maneuver." That it was probably the most common heavy mech in Terran Hegemony service, if not potentially even the most common BattleMech, "Each of the Cadet companies will be allocated a lance of Archers from this depot I need you to get them delivered to NMA tomorrow. Chang I need you to take a lance of Pillagers and do the same with your evaluation group. Bahar will meet you in the morning with the Marauder IIs. I've already spoken with the Maguanacs there is a good chance Blackwell will be sitting in watching our testing of the Bandits, and Badgers. They've been doing that for a couple of days now, and moving the Marauders will probably attract their attention, and that of GM." He looked over the hard ferrocrete deck, and the massive reinforced struts creating hte protective archways above the walkways over their heads.
--
Notes: There is a You are the Davion Heir CYOA where that is the main shtick I'm obliquely referencing that but of course the Davion propaganda people had already tried to do the long lost heir story suggestion.

Imperator Pax · Jan 26, 2023

Scrap: Semi-Canonical Status
Timeframe The Pirate Wars 3019

There were far less debutantes, and pillars of society this time around. The high end holographics though were the same, and made this presentation, would make this presentation easier.

Lady Raventhir gestured for him, bluntly, to get on with it. "Most of you will be aware of the base six, and square six organizational table." Four units of six mech icons each appeared in the projector, "This is in ideal terms to provide fielding a company scale force operating in roughly the same bracket of movement. On Luxen this main line of battle were two sixes, platoons, of Vindicator Medium mechs, supported by a Recon Six and another six units forming a headquarters and reinforcing section." He changed 'slides' projecting the familiar aerodyne shapes sitting on a tarmac at the spacestation. "These are four canopian built, canopian pattern PPC carrier leopards with six mech bays each. It provides the lift capacity to deploy such a company," Meaning you would need two Merchant-class DropShips to deploy such a unit. Or a Star Lord that could then carry two more DropShips. Raventhir owned a Star Lord.

The image changed. A single aerodyne dropship icon appeared. Then delineated to infantry, light and heavy vehicles, ASF, and finally a mech lance.

"This will probably unfamiliar to you. This is a Maganac Corp Tactical Group. It is designed to answer a different operational question than the Six pattern and organization. While not employed on Luxen in this full configuration a light version was employed at Luxen sans jump Infantry and ASF assets."

The table broke away into an image of the DropShip Sam Houston on Luxen in 3016. Traditionally the Azami were light raiders, or cavalry specialists, but they were best known for the prior while the agenda was to emphasize the latter.

"A tactical group is a combined arms element." Effectively a battalion level unit at full strength when with infantry and counting the dropship , deploying an ASF lance, two fighters, a mech lance and armor as its main force of advance. "Its intended application is to be rapidly mobile and emphatic on operational art. In its intended role, to arrive, roll off the group push to an objective if necessary without exterior support, fight secure it ahead of relief by a larger more typical force."

A map changed projecting the river valley, and winding course near Luxen's capital and the mountains to the north, simulating the fly in of Sam Houston at the final drill context... sans torrential rainstorm.

"On Luxen this created a nice overlap." It was true that, "65 KpH is enough to outpace the LRM carriers of a Tactical Group's heavy vehicle unit, but the Tokugawa can keep up with the Vindicator just fine." Images to that effect appeared in midair.

The use of the vindicator while not ideal perhaps as a mech, had been ideal in a logistical situation in terms of having on hand spare parts and a manageable set of ammo requirements as longas there was political. The Vindicators had only the LRMs that needed to be kept fed.

65 KpH was the basically minimum speed. The floor. You didn't want to go slower than that for medium and heavy units. The LRM carriers were something of an exception because they were intended to be kept at range and behind the main line of engagement...

The map of Luxen reflected the original company deployment of Easy and the Maganac Corp units before contact had messed up all the nice planned arrangement.

"Obviously the six works best when you have equivalency as best as possible. Six or Twelve Vidicators can be divided into pairs, in groups of three, or in three more conventional lances, or they can mass as a unit or fire a whole twelve,"

... and of course you could do the same thing with six or twelve Merlins. Centurions, Dervishes, etc... which they could demonstrate. He didn't question how Abner had arranged the Merlins that had beaten them to the Periphery by months.

"The real world being what is, its hard to field a logistical end unit of all the same designs, and there are tactical situations where mixed lances of specialists are both useful, as well as at an operational level easier to keep in the field based on supply situations." The image shifted displaying the two units side by side, "These two formations are different. They're designed to answer different questions, which means that adroitly they serve complimentary roles in battle, and in the course of a campaign."

Raventhir looked over the MAF personnel, "Thank you colonel." She took the flipper and moved it to the next slide, a map of the periphery. "The pirate incursions of late have become more and more frequent." There were static images taken from a variety of news broadcasts

He didn't respond to the comment immediately... after all that was part of the reason that they had returned to Luxen... that was part of the reason they were here in a division of force the way they were. There were other reasons. The Highlander contingent of officers had a point that, Black Jack's antics ... well there questions about how exactly he'd made the leap from some pirate on the Lyran Combine fringe to then making a pervasive habit of just going around blowing up HPGs for... now almost two decades.

The Rim Wolrds iconography of late could still be nothing more than shock value but it plenty of reason to side eye a guy. Why the continuing escalation against HPGs in the periphery, he almost seemed to be going out of his way to hit worlds with ComStar outposts.
--
Gene watched as the Star League era chargers were set on the gantries, and the techs directed the pulling of the LTV 400 out. The Magistracy was in such a situation that any mech would have been used... which of course kept to him raising questions about where exactly some of the Battle of Luxen machines had ended up... but he wasn't a detective, and frankly it was too late now to be asking those questions... at the time there had just been other things to worry about....

... and frankly if this had been the Inner Sphere those salvaged machines may well have just ended up pushed into a warehouse of the ruling house for a time when there were techs, parts and money to rebuild... but if that had been the case then Magestrix needed to get on it.

The 320 was not only lighter, and cheaper it was also more common. These had actually been coming out of factory configured Cicadas... which were themselves getting smaller engines. Replacing the LTV 400 freed up space, very valuale space. What to do with the LTVs after? That wasn't his problem.

He did not expect the Magistracy to try and produce Chargers, or Cicadas for that matter. This was a field expedient refit program designed to use chassis they had and weapons and components that the Magistracy produced themselves. The Charger was still an assault mech... even if it was kind of a crappy one. It made more sense to use it refit it and use it than just store them away

The Magistracy produced Leopard variant utilized PPCs in place of Large Lasers, because the Magistracy could produce the PPCs to meet that demand, thus the corner stone of long range offensive power was a locally manufactured PPC.

If they could have they would have put other things in, and frankly as mediocre as the eighty ton scout mech was in its base configuration he expected they'd potentially get the chance to follow Chang's idea of putting an assault cannon into the machine for close in support... but for they had PPCs in inventory and while the machine would be a touch too hot to use an alpha strike repeatedly the firepower they could cram into the freed space in exchange for a slightly lower speed should be enough.

"Projected Pitban motive power should let it keep up with Vindicators." Which was a nice plus, especially with fifteen tons of armor to back up the medium mechs. "What about the jump jets?"

He glanced sideways at the Majesty Metals liaison responsible for supplying them with locally manufactured, well manufactured on Canopus, jump jets, LRM launchers, as well as the Medium lasers... for this whole broader project "Once we are sure the gyros will work, and the machine will run." Right now the two test beds getting their factory engines ripped out would be getting PPCs, but given heat being potentially prohibitive they'd potentially follow the example of the Vindicator and Merlin and go down to only one... they'd talked about that, and rely on the Cicada's to provide outrider SRM support if anyone got cocky and tried to close in. That they already knew what they were doing with the cicadas as far as the refit work played a part in that.

Azami techs were already fitting out those nominal medium mechs, and getting them ready for Luxen volunteer pilots of the new Mech Platoon so they were actually ahead of schedule. The chargers were a newer project, and they'd experiment a bit more once the basic engine work was done.

Would it be enough?

To reliably build up a single battalion regiment to full strength?

No. It would help, and it would bolster the defenses of the planet, but what really the Canopians needed were additional mercenaries. Black Jack was probably going to make a further attempt, at least that was the concern of the Canopian government, and it was a concern that hadn't gone away in the last couple of years so it was something the federal government was having to spend money on.

In the mean time they could afford to let the Luxen Volunteers practice in the Crocket BattleMechs while medium mechs were being prepared. There was a pervasive current, a nervous energy permeating Luxen's capital. This would strengthen the Luxen Volunteers.
--
Notes: This scrap is technically semi or Pseudo-canon given what will occur in the Luxen Contracts thread (covering the events of the 2nd Luxen Contract period). I will put the rest in spoilers below.

On Chargers

So the charger, kind of a crappy assault mech, but it is one that the Rim World built... for some reason. I would guess because it wouldn't raise questions. And I had considered making a Weigel A&M line for the banshee being on Pioche hidden away in storage, but the Charger is the first option on the RAT table, and I certainly wasn't going to give the Canopians a king crab line [even though yes in hindsight that would make so much more sense for why the rim jobs rocked pioche as a fail safe.]

Pioche found a rimworld base found a bunch of crappy assault mechs waiting to be shipped off, tripped an alarm, rock slams into planet. People die.

Fast forward excavation get into the storage shelter Raventhir finds some mechs she can use initially and suggestions of a larger base.

In any event there are at least two more scraps that will probably go up in the next month, and indeed its possible that much of Thursday updates for February may be GWW Scraps. I am also looking at once I finish the events of SAM Book 1 going back and making revisions to that content's earlier chapters, finishing that, I am also looking at updating Out of the Dark (the Drow CYOA story), and also resuming updates for Essence Wielding Social General. Thats all nominal though.

Imperator Pax · Jan 26, 2023

Son of Sam Era

2nd Luxen Volunteers (MAF)
Regiment/Regular/Reliable

Primary Force Strength 2 Reinforced 'Mech Battalions
Additional Force Notes: organic DropShips, organic armor battalion, attached Infantry Battalion

[Total 4 Battalions Organic to the Regiment.]

The two BattleMech battalions of the recently reestablished 2nd Luxen Volunteers [The original Luxen Dragoons were dissolved due to lack of materiel in the early succession wars] are established under a 48 Mech model designed to deploy from Leopards and Union DropShips built by the Magistracy of Canopus. These Battalions utilize so called 'platoons' of BattleMechs, over strength Lances, of Six Mechs usually consisting of six identical Mechs. A company consists of 4 Platoons, two of these companies are then supported with a regimental organic armor attachment of two armor companies. [This report's attached documents detail the organic, and attached other combat arms. See ROM attachment A #s 1-3]. The core of this shape takes the form of a pair of battle or line platoon usually structured as Twelve BattleMechs of the same make, supported by a Scout Platoon, typically Light or Medium 'mechs, and a Reinforcement Platoon often serving as the Company Command section.

'the Luxen Dragoons'
1st Btn / 2nd Luxen
Easy Company
2 plt (Vindicators)
1 Scout Platoon

2 Phoenix Hawks,
4 Locusts

1 Reinforcement Platoon

4 Shadow Hawks
2 Ostroc

Weight of Force: Light: 4 Locusts [20], Medium: 12 Vindicator [45], 2 Phoenix Hawk[45], 4 ShadowHawk [55], Heavy: 2 Ostroc [60]

It is strongly believed that the Ostrocs are rebuilt machines from the 3016 Battle of Luxen captured from forces fighting under the banner of Black Jack McGirk and are therefore originally SLDF Machines. All other Machines comprising Easy Company are BattleMechs either produced by the Magistracy of Canopus or as the case of the Vindicators acquired from the Capellan Confederation during the past several decades. Easy Company is notable for being the original test bed of the BattleMech Platoon model of organization.

* Addendum: It has been suggested that the Locusts and Phoenix Hawks, given the suspected origins of the Dervish BattleMechs of 1st Company, present may actually originally be former DCMS Machines captured or taken as salvage during the Battle of Luxen (3015, that is the year before the acquisition of the the Ostrocs)

1st Company

2 Line Platoons [Charger]
1 Scout Platoon [Cicada]
1 Reinforcement Platoon [Dervish]

Weight of Force: 6 Cicada [40], 6 Medium Dervish [55], Assault: 12 Charger [80]

It is believed that the six Dervish BattleMechs of 1st Company's Reinforcement Platoon are rebuilt salvage from the 3015 Battle of Luxen against suspected Arkab Legion deserters from the DCMS, though this has not been adequately substantiated. Further 2nd Battalion of the 2nd Luxen's arrangement of forces is commented on below with regards to its differentiation from 1st. The Cicada, and Chargers present in 1st Company will be addressed there as well.

2nd Btn / 2nd Luxen
2nd Company
2 Line Platoons [Charger]
1 Scout Platoon [Cicada]
1 Reinforcement Platoon [Merlin]

3rd Company
2 Line Platoons [Charger]
1 Scout Platoon [Cicada]
1 Reinforcement Platoon [Merlin]

Weight of Force: Medium: 12 Cicada [40], Heavy: 12 Merlin [60], Assault: 24 Charger [80]

Unlike 1st Battalion which has mixed machine units (addendum at the Platoon level within Easy company) the 2nd Battalion features twelve Lyran Commonwealth built Merlins that were delivered sometime in late 3018 or early 3019. The Merlin is to be recognized as the first newly designed mech of the modern era, and this appears to be the first significant foreign export of the machine. These Merlins are known to be the 1A Model, not the 'Merlin Cavalry' Model reported to have entered production. Regardless of exact delivery date the Merlin's providence is established.

The origins of the 36 Chargers are unknown at this time, however it is suspected this is only part of the total inventory of machines. The origins of the Cicada are similarly opaque the current working theory is that they, and potentially the Locusts, may all originally have been part of SLDF ranks and recovered from some depot within the Magistracy dating to the SLDF Occupation (Addendum that is following the New Vandenburg Uprising, this theory has not been substantively proven nor has it been adequately disproven). It is the most probable explanation to the number of machines in MAF service and potentially supported by the reported date of manufacture of certain machines.

MAF Chargers in use by the Luxen Dragoons demonstrate the following characteristics, first and foremost these machines have been re-engine-d, apparently using Pitban 320 of the Cicadas (see following section). This appears to have been a standard procedure of downscaling the engine in both models. Chargers received 320s and Cicadas were downscaled to use the commercially available VOX 280. The MAF appears to have experimented with a number of small batch refits using domestically built particle projector cannons to dramatically increase the firepower of the Charger over its original configuration with close range support being provided with either 4 or 6 tube SRM launchers.

The MAF Cicada models found in 1st-3rd Companies Scout Platoons comprise eighteen re-engine-d (with the Vox 280) Cicadas aptly described as larger Jenner / bug mechs. These machines appear to be part of a variant design that traces its origins to the 3015 Battle of Luxen and subsequent iterations. The 'standard' Luxen Volunteers Cicada caries 4 6cm Martell Medium Lasers built by Majesty Metals on Canopus IV, supporting a Holly 4 tube SRM launcher. The initial Holly 4 launchers are believed to have been imported from ST Ives in the Capellan Confederation though appear to have entered domestic production on Luxen.

Thus far the Luxen Dragoons have demonstrated a reasonable degree of effectiveness as a house military unit, serving admirably against first Black Jack McGirk, and thus far against the purported 'Neo Rim World Republic' / 'New Amaris Empire' of the alleged Stefan Amaris within the rimward periphery The Moniker Dragoons is a historical appellative though can be considered accurate to an extent due to the 36 Assault BattleMechs, and 14 Heavy BattleMechs [12 Merlin 1A, 2 Ostroc] present across the two battalions of mechs.

--
EDIT: Out of Universe: The refounding/reestablishment of the Luxen Dragoons is to comment basically an overcompensation to the both real threat and perceived threat against Luxen proper as well as the nominal /vestigial province. It is rated as Regular and Reliable during this period because it is a new ish unit, in comparison to say Raventhir's Curassiers or the Canopians Highlanders who are also engaged against Black Jack and then the would be Amaris Empire and its 'restoration'

Imperator Pax · Jan 29, 2023

Highland Faire 14
(B)

As they walked through the rows, he mentally filed through an itinerary. Foremost among that list was that Field Marshal Davion had requested the report as soon as she had learned that there were Guillotines in the depot. She had known what one of those were, which admittedly had surprised Gene, but not what the early 27th century, thus newer Terran, Shootist had been. They were both seventy ton mechs running off 280 rating fusion engines. He had made note of that in his report, particularly that both utilized the same Vox 280 engine. Still she wanted a report as soon as they were done here, that was the main thing.

It was a pity that Buda Imperial Vehicles was one in the Combine, and two that their engine shortages were so severe that they could not produce the the fusion reactor. He looked over the Demon PPC carrier which used a 220. The vehicle was not the original but rather the one procurement command had foisted onto Hegemony Militia Units because they had agreed to buy Leopard products but then ran into issues... well somewhere else in the procurement change.

He couldn't do anything with them. He liked the utility of having a tank capable of keeping pace when necessary with his main mech line, but the Fury did everything the Demon or even the Tokugawas did better and with more capability. The Alacorn was slightly slower but if those could come into play the enemy wasn't going to be there much longer on connection.

Besides that he was pretty sure that House Davion didn't exactly have an abundance of 220s and even if they did they'd most likely be marked for ASF production Still he had endorsed the Tokugawa as an effective tank even though very likely the only reason it would see use on Dieron was because of the Maguanac ranks being expanded as part of a deal to attack Dieron as mercenaries in the Federated Suns service.

He tapped an indicator on his noteputer display and moved on. The Corporate Sector was circling. Earthworks, in the FWL, apparently managed to build one thug a month.. which wasn't a horrible rate of production for a single factory on a singular world, but the question was could the remains of Maltex in the Federated Suns a tiny shadow of its existence that was mostly just the name on a building on the planet Errai really restart production? Not any time soon he imagined.

"Here." He handed the electronic data sheet over to the countess. "This is a multi item recommendation for procurement. It makes two core recommendations but that can be reduced to one single critical one. The Federated Suns currently produces Warhammer, and Archer BattleMechs that both use 280 Vox engines. Diversification of production for that engine should be undertaken, and expansion produced. It recommends that either chassis can be modified to approximate the load outs and performance of the machines in the weight class. Grasshopper, the guillotine, even an approximation of the weapons load out of the Battle Axe."

"That's not what you would suggest we do?"

"I would recommend that new iterations of the Archer and Warhammer be built with as much parts commonality as possible. Given the situation? We're, the company is going to standardize as much as possible on Dalban combined TTS and Comms suites." though he would admit some personal bias on that choice... and as they were currently shopping around that meant probably procuring those electronics from Blackwell or GM.

"Lady Yvonne also had mentioned something about a royal machine."

He frowned. The truth was this wasn't a conversation he wanted to have, simply because ... well it was complicated by the fact that much of the machines were star league technology, and the Royal Dragoon Guards were Royal not just in actual name, but in status because they'd been Hegemony troops, it was complicated. "The Machine is a Shootist, its callsign was claymore. It carries a Magna Hellstar extended range PPC," Which was 'Royal' tech, "in place of the Assault Autocannon. The Northwind government wants it because it belonged tone of the Regimental staff officers. Outside of that PPC and its armor it is not unique for the period. It does have the Shootist standard medium pulse lasers, but the pilot did drop the extended range large laser in favor of carrying two standard large laser."

"What would be the rational for that?"

It was a practical question, and not the one he had expected as her first question over the machine, "The Hellstar offers a better threat envelope. It is a particle projector cannon so it does produce additional waste heat relative to a gamma laser, but not substantively so. The machine has sufficient sinks to fire the large lasers and the Magna at anything stupid enough to come at it head on." It was true that they were less heat efficient and three weapons on target not only was a trickier but if it could be delivered then the result was more than a ton and a half of standard armor gone, and at ranges more akin to a class 10.

Alexandria denied that the Federated Suns wanted to take possession of the relic of a distant era, "They wanted Cosara to look at it. We had questions, I will pass this along." She slid the noteputer into her bag, "They're planning a parade with it... or a funeral march I suppose is more accurate, once the faire is concluded."

He wasn't surprised. The truth was the unlocking of all of this provided hi definition recordings of all the atrocities recorded by footage of the Hegemony's planetary security network. The last stand of highland regiments, and the resistance fighters and the loss of cities to orbital fires called by rimworld naval officers.

What the clan elders had not told their population ... not yet was that their sudden support for attacks on the combine stemmed from the knowledge that Minoru Kurita had provided SLDF positions to Amaris. That was without even considering the possibility of Cameron survivors in the deep periphery.

"They're knitting a mech sized shroud for it." She continued.

"As I said the Dragoons were at Christmas mass when the Rimworld attacked. The pilot of the mech was one of those killed when the nuke went off."

"Why his mech specifically?"

"From what we recovered he was the unit historian," Officially titled, "chronicler. His ward room aboard the Presidio has among other things the royal warrant of 1751 creating them 2nd Dragoons." Which would no doubt be the subject of great fanfare come this July, but Gene doubted they would be on Northwind to see the exhibit debut. The Highlanders had long assumed such relics had long been lost to the war if not intentionally destroyed by baathist savagery during the occupation.

Not that he'd personally found the objects. They'd been in the port in safe storage for these past two centuries and he hadn't been minding every effort in the port complex. Abner had actually been the one to piece together the significance historical of the Presidio's contents because it wasn't the sort of thing that was listed in official orders.

He did wonder what had happened to the Unit's Eagle. It had presumably been on Terra though... so the spoils of victory over the French 45th had likely been stolen or destroyed by Amaris's forces as many of the relics of the historic unit had been presumed to be. In fact he had little doubt that Baathist units had probably quickly appropriated the eagle only for it to then be lost as kerensky's forces had finally made planetfall on the cradle of humanity the following decade... but the truth was the eagle was the least of his concerns. He had the flight plan from Northwind that would have marked the Dragoons towards the Taurian front.
--
In a way this was probably how things were going to be for the rest of the week. The third round was ongoing but as the mechs were increasingly heavier models, though the bracket today was still firmly medium and heavy mechs, the fights lasted longer. The pilots today were slower more methodical, pacing their machines

There had been a couple of cases yesterday where maybe there had been teams, or at least pairs, but today there was no question This batch of pilots was the one to really watch. They had come in in pairs, and outright lances. In fact he was reasonably sure that was going to make them unique compared to tomorrow... where most likely all of the really individual high skill show boats were going to debut. Dante had shown him the records for some of the candidates and the top scorers of the graduating class were all slated to go at it tomorrow, with a lot of chatter already circulating over who was going to go after who.

Then they would recess for the weekend. Give time to circulate. Then it would start the second brackets. Individual duels between survivors of the mad scrambles this week, culminating in the champion bout Friday. Today was already proving different as emphasized by a pair of medium mechs opened fire from a small 'fake', it was concrete with sod layered on top if he wasn't mistaken, hill to relieve pressure on the other half of their lance.

The attrition today was faster. A lance or even a wingman piling fire on a medium mech could quickly knock it out. They had started with thirty mechs, and most of the combatants had closed to medium laser ranges almost half had been eliminated as such bracketed fire. The other half of the lance blasted through their distracted attack's remaining armor splattering the machine with blue paint as the faire marshals called a headshot even before the last gel rounds landed.

"I want the data for this class in particular." Gene said. Truthfully he was talking both to Dante, and to his staff officers. The AI was multitasking the same as the rest of them. Dante had big ambitious projections . An independent Rasalhague, and Azami state, even the if the Azami were committed to that, could break off combine attention in multiple directions. It would potentially mean freeing AFFS troops on the periphery side as well...

It was all too political for where they were now. There were battles to fight, and battles required individual soldiers. Tomorrows matches would be more show boat, in comparison the Games Commission had barely given time to this group, and he expected that Bubbles wasn't wrong the four bracket was going to be the ones that hiring agents tried the hardest to sign for... and they were probably good pilots.

"What about the important thing?" Beau asked.

He glanced down to the noteputer in front of him as Dante piped the spider drone's feed in, of an otherwise dark cavernous, "Lets just say we're going to be a very large amount of metal." As if they hadn't showed up to the exercise grounds this morning with four lances of pristine mechs. The advantage of the Archer was that Beau would be able to fold them into his missile boat familiarization course work because the basic commands and actions would be the same. He still needed to fill Bubbles and Beau on ... some important details that they still hadn't been told. He'd been putting it off.

--
Notes: The following will either be section A of 15 or will be C of 14, and will read Chang and Beau (for what its worth the Capellan and Free Worlds League natives of the company in) into some things, but we will deal with that next time.

Imperator Pax · Feb 2, 2023

Extras: Preview:
Son of Sam Aftermath

Gene leaned back against the chair looking at the holographic data feed. Dante was right. The numbers still didn't add up. They still didn't make sense even after years of McGirk running around. Someone had to have gone out of their way or someones to put all of this in motion. There was no way that this had all come from a single cache. They had figured that out ... literally years ago, once Black Jack McGirk had started showing off Royal Machines with a completely different serial number range to the ones he had originally fielded. The SLDF 'mechs captured on Luxen in 3016 couldn't possibly have been in the cache of the mechs from battles in 3019.

His door chimed. Bahar entered and he sat up to take the report, "We have already gone ahead and sent out a courier ship with the details that we have on Amaris's forces, and affiliated pirates."

It was a long list. There were still remnants of Black Jack McGirk's people who had joined in the rampaging marauders of Tortuga and other pirate holds, and then there were supposed Amaris forces, which their machines didn't add up. He went down the list asking about one known band or another, "Do we have any idea where they went?"

"The Jumpship of Kelly's Kommandoes destroyed the HPG station on Jansen's hold two months ago, we believe they were withdrawing either to hit targets in the Federated Suns, or returning to the Tortuga dominion."

The image of Christopher Kelly stood there with an image of his customized Warhammer, and its flamers, and a handful of his forces. The image was dated late last year when he'd been rampaging through the inner Concordat area... there was no explanation for what Kelly had been looking to do. "I doubt he's going to punch inward towards the sphere." And he wasn't sure why this was one of the pirates ComStar cared about... there was no denying that Kelly was an accomplished mechwarrior, and a vicious son of bitch to be sure. He'd ingratiated himself with Black Jack and then had apparently been involved in introducing Stefan Amaris to the king of the pirates, and when black jack had died Kelly had been right there to help pull things together... but his status on the most wanted board had gone up when they had still been fighting on Elidere apparently.

That 'red notice' going out didn't have the usual details. Dangerous pirate was kind of a redundant statement. Murderous brigand, so what. Maybe Christopher had already been engaged in arson and targetting ComSTar facilities and it just hadn't reached the level of taking a flamer equipped heavy battlemech through an HPG station.

There was of course the possibility that given where the noticed had been issued maybe Christopher had simply been a a minor pirate in Black Jack's original band and he had been cut off from his patron and then he had risen to command his own pirate band and then decided to go rejoin the much more sucessful pirate. It was a plausible theory, but they had no evidence to support. Only that Black Jack's original pirate stomping ground had been on the lyran and combine border... and at some point he had gotten his hands on a lot of star league metal.

By the time Kelly's Kommandoes had shown up in the rimward periphery Kelly had also had Star League era mechs, and had been targetting ComStar facilities. Though not as it seemed from the facts with the same single mindeded destructiveness as when Black Jack was personally present.

That he had litterally burned a couple of station chiefs at the stake apparently in public didn't make that particularly odd... maybe they just hadn't grovelled enough for the pirate's liking. Still while Kelly's bounty was in the millions of C-Bills... litterally buy a mech money he wasn't their priority. If he ran back to Tortuga then he wasn't their problem.

The truth was while he was interested to hear what the latest word was, what the current situation, the current mess that was the rimward periphery was... they had other priorities. "Tell the Captains," That was the Captains of the JumpShips, so Naval Captains in this case, "That we're going to rotate back to Luxen." They would make plans there, about what they were going to do, about sending ... what were in effect envoys to worlds like Alamut in the Pharos system, to Coromodir in the Aurigan Expanse, to various independent worlds like Detroit's planetary government to Aquagea which held one of their landholds, or the religious conclave on Kimi.

The wreckage, the destruction left behind by black jack and now Amaris had probably had killed millions... and what was worse were the accusations not just by Periphery states now but by House Liao, House Marik, and indeed House Davion that such political rivals had sought to take advantage of such tragedies. It was political posturing of course. Whether or not the ambassadors or local government leaders who readily proclaimed such nationalist rhetoric actually believed it mattered less than whether on or not the citizens believed it.

... and if they believed it was it sufficent that they started a lynch mob, or enough to then feeback into political discourse demand their government 'do something' about it.

From Luxen they would decide eventually to transition to Detroit and on to Cormodir with the intention of informing Lord Tamati in person that in theory the greatest crisis of his life time was over.
--
He'd directed their other medical personnel to do what they could. The Bexar was currently at the limit of what the medical staff could cope for, and he was already mulling requests to keep them on station for humanitarian reasons. It was a request that he was currently weighing, but he had not made a decision at this stage.

They weren't going to be lifting off planet's surface any time soon. He needed to determine where they were going. Returning to Davion Space, the Inner Sphere was a significant travel time, and with that in mind he was astonished that hte Dragoons had been willing to send Kerensky this far out from the Inner Sphere.

The fight was over for now, and he had little idea of what to expect from their prescence. "To the best of our knowledge Stefan Amaris III was a younger cousin, maybe a nephew of the usurper active in the former Rim World as basically a pirate in the late first succession war," The Lyrans had basically annexed a sizable majority of the most prosperous parts of the Amaris patrimony before Kerensky had left the sphere, and gobbled up much of the territory "He seems to have disappeared presumably killed in perhaps 2828, a Stefan Amaris the fourth, an individual claiming to be the grandson of the usurper appears and runs amok on the fringes of the free worlds league, and Lyran commonwealth during the second succession war."

These pretenders though had never wielded anything the likes of which they had had to face. Even though that didn't make sense and indeed given the shortages of material and the distance in time from the Rim World republic logic dictated it should have been the opposite. He didn't interupt as they tried to trace through all of the pretenders to the usurper's lineage.

Someone there existed some apparatus that had helped keep the notion of the Amaris empire alive. The great monstrous ideology the collective demon in the Inner Sphere' conciousness was still being supported by some faction out there. It didn't sit well with Gene, but he did not broach the topic. They had defeated the latest incarnation of the Amaris threat, and if all this was true maybe they had a generation or two before the next inheirtor of the black legacy of Amaris rose to try and make a play.

"We confirmed the tests three times."

"Yes." The doctor replied, "The results are conclusive. Direct patrilineal descent from the satan amaris." The Azami colonel reiterated spreading his hands before him, "I have little explanation for how this came to be, but the test data is quite sure on its results."

The confirmation of the results were something they would pass on to the Magistracy, but it hat was mostly for completeness sake. It was not the same as with, "We'll need make back for Northwind." The Highlander Colonel remarked heavily to his commanding officer as the doctor finished.

Natasha still considered the Colonel an old man, but not nearly as old as the physician, but older than most gathered here. His Highlander had been one of those carrying a massive short ranged autocannon in place of the gauss rifle, and his armor had been scratched and dinted from where the warrior had repeatedly taken his machine into close quarters against the unnamable vermin in their machines.

"I agree, we will have to leave forces here as a safe guard." The Marauder pilot remarked, "Hidalgo, and Presidio will come back. I'm sure given the situation that there is plenty of clean up to handle." They divided off potions of the unit into so called Task Forces carrying DropSHips and JumpSHips to position in the RimWard periphery against the vermin nominally on the behalf of the rulers of the former territorial state of Canopus.

Seeing as that the usurper's spawn was dead, and with no immediate other plans Natasha Kerensky, of the great lineage of the founder decided to accept plans to follow them at least as far as Luxen. She doubted that the 'Duchess' would be much interest to the Dragoons, but she had the gut feeling that there was more going on... and the more senior ranked Dragoon officers were sure to have more questions about why a unit of Highlanders was this far rimward, or what they were doing...
--
Notes: Per the current iteration of the outline Son of Sam is basically put into the end of '21 which if we go through from the original outline.

would mean that tamati dies in his jumpship accident shortly after the great threat had been resolved, and facing the continued intransigence to his proposed reforms inspite of there still being threats to the realm the Directorate is established. That is to say that you would get Espinosa seizing power at the expense of relations with the Canopians and other anti-spinward neighbors during this time frame just as efforts are ramping up to go hunting down the last remnants of the threat.

After which depending on things but most likely the core of the unit would return to the Inner Sphere and potentially go do things like go hit Helm and expand the remaining 'SLDF' light horse units in FedSuns space. It would also contend with other developments in the Inner Sphere like the FedCom discussions.

and yes that is Kerensky totally misreading MacKintyre's preference for an AC 20 through the lens of her own biases. 'Old Warrior clearly is on his death ride' or something.

Also more or less this is an explanation for why in canon Moray declares he is Stefan Amaris VII instead of what not... after all given the Amaris reputation its awfully convenient that they show up, almost as if Rom or the word of blake or whoever wanted a convenient evil dark lord figure to prop up so maybe comstar could save the day after the successor states failed or something zany like that. Anyway, this was not the extra that I had planned to put up today, but the subject of Thursday updates, I will probably switch to updating my ring of fire story in either late half of the month or in Thursday.

Imperator Pax · Feb 5, 2023

Highland faire 15
(a)

The doors ahead of them resembled in many respects, in all practical function the ones that safeguarded the annex that had housed the space allocated to the CID annex and had also housed Dante core. Like those large blast doors these had also had been sealed for two and a half centuries. The facilities officers had to best guess died to a man. It was possible of course that some might have survived, and perhaps some of those had dependents who survived... but even Dante had not fully grasped the destruction that the Rim World bombardment had inflicted on the planet... because no one had come and retrieved the AI even upon planetary liberation. No one had delved deep into the planet, and if there was anything. If there was any silver linings to the mass of death, and murder wrought it was that the Hegemony had likely left thousands upon thousand of tons of armor and guns to a future fight.

It was the sort of facility that highlighted the Terran castle doctrine, the fortress earth and all other ideas of protected redoubts and knowledge and technological edge to win the fight. It was from this facility that the Terran General had planned once the civilians were safely withdrawn into their shelters to withdraw himself and the SOF personnel to wait for relief.

They had never made it that far.

"How deep are we?"

It was an astute question. The Trams had taken them down a disorienting pathway. "About eight hundred meters," The difference to how this facility differed from N001 was that this installation was not nearly to the same scale. The Castle Northwind was capable of easily sustaining the minimum required two brigades.

Gene didn't want to consider how much effort that the Department of Mega Engineering had to have put into that especially as Northwind was a very early Castle Brian... and perhaps that age, being a direct successor to the original Castle concept of defense in depth had meant there was a flaw somewhere that had allowed an already compromised defense in depth to be further penetrated.

He rested a hand on the console and looked at it. Some had gotten frustrated and tried to shoot this door open or at least the console, then they had tried using charges to breach the doors... but only to leave frankly anemic smudge marks.

"Shouldn't there have been automated defenses to prevent this kind of tampering?" He asked.

The intercom crackled, "Republican forces attempted to breach the complex by subterfuge and then by human shields. Anti-personnel drones were dispatched to deal with the intruders."

As if on cue a spider limbed machine dropped down from an alcove in the ceiling its mechanical limbs clicking against the ferrocrete shoulder of the doors. In 2765 with orders detailing increasing attacks on the periphery frontier outposts of colonies, of scientific missions, and other facilities the Terran Hegemony had increasingly dispatched more and more of its forces outward.

The Hegemony had doomed itself.

Septim leaned over to look at the panel, "So if this is thing is as broke as it looks, what then? There some kind of magic trick to open it?"

A spidery limb, whirred extending an omni tool head to fix into the metal box housing. The electrical motor still took time to remove and separate out the bolts and retaining pins, and disconnect enough wires that he had to wonder what all the terminal was supposed to talk with.

Beauregard decided to sit down and watch the robot work, giving him a better vantage point as the limbs deposited the burned and pierced board to one side. An hour later a new screen came to life, and began to show a progress bar and boot. "Special Class A security profile or better required to continue. System Administrator, Voice Input required."

He pushed the starburst identity chit into the new receptacle, and opened the dog eared manual, "HAF, Lieutenant Colonel Shepherd Gene. Protocol 94-8." He remarked reading from the installation and directive. Newer systems than this model would have required using neurohelmet technology to make sure that the installation of new hardware wasn't being done under duress but that had been a program that he doubted gotten particularly far certainly not in terms of updating old facilities in the deep heart of the hegemony

The new keypad back lit, and cycled from red to green. He tapped in a series of numbers, and confirmed that the keypad was working cognizant that the turrets inset into the wall were active and tracking as he worked.

"Authentication confirmed. System Boot Successful. Access granted."

He had to wonder how much equipment the Rim World had managed to loot from starports, and warehouses on the planet. How much material the partisans had carried off into the hills. The Hegemony had been shipping vast volumes of equipment and their best frontline troops to the periphery.

"Alright people welcome to a Hegemony Armed Forces storage bunker." Mechs in the Hegemony were cheap. Better your pilot that you had spent millions of Terran dollars training made it out so you could put him in another of the same machine or an upgraded version and send them back into the fight, than worry about the machine itself. The Hegemony wanted its pilots to rotate back home and pass on lessons. It wanted Hegemony pilots to input in next generation design.

It was why Kerensky's opinions on Mech Design had been considered so important. The King Crab and the Atlas were obviously a by product of Kerensky's education at Nagelring, but they worked, they accomplished the stated objective parameters of the program. The mechs in questions accomplished the program goals. They did what Kerensky wanted them to do.

"Do you have media control?"

"Affirmative." Dante answered as they moved into the facility.

"Play timeline of the coup by major events, and intercepts earmarks." He turned back to the others as they spread out, "The following is a history lesson on how the Star League died." CID had been earmarking movements by Rimworld jumpships for years, decades before the coup. Kerensky and the Star Lord both during his minority, and after had ignored these recommendations for action, or to really follow up on them in favor of other priorities. In hindsight it was obvious that the Rim World had been preparing for war... "Whether or not Simon Cameron who was assassinated in 2751 was killed by Rim World agents is debatable." It was certainly possible but the reason that it had not been pursued was because there was insufficient evidence to say for certain who was responsible... it had been murder but the perpetrator had not left evidence sufficient to say who had done it.

... and at the time CID leadership had been more inclined to blame the Combine than to assume one of the Territorial States in the Periphery might have been responsible. Due to the implication that it might have been the combine, Kerensky has squashed the discussion by declaring the first lord's death to be a tragic accident. "With only a handful of divisions remaining in the Hegemony Amaris launched his coup seizing power on Terra . The Royal Highlander Regiment, the Black Watch under the directive of Colonel Schmitt initiated emergency protocols."

Her final orders going out even as nukes were falling on other hegemony worlds. Worlds like Northwind... and at time when Hegemony troops had been fighting Rim World troops in the periphery for months, years by that point. Amaris's secret army had been operating for years by that point, decades of arms build up, and careful manipulation.

In short barring certain details which had been classified or simply had never passed into the public record due to the extent of destruction. All of this was the public recollection of the great crisis of the human race.

"And it is from there that things,"

"Got worse." Septim interjected.

"Yes," he agreed. The Star League had already been fraying by the time of the Second Hidden war... the War of Davion Succession should have been such a clear cut black and white scenario, and it shouldn't have been possible for the star lord to bungle it so badly. The successive lords hadn't made things any better. "Which brings us to our present contract with house Davion, and where all this material is coming from."

An all too familiar HPG recording played, and while it played he looked at the empty stasis pods.

Takiro Kurita had been the Coordinator during the war of Davion Sucession, his son Minoru had started the succession wars by proclaiming himself the 'natural successor to the camerons' by the most nebulous of blood ties, and Takiro's grandson was forever remembered for the Kentares massacre.

"I may or may not be the last Gunslinger." It was possible there were other stasis pods out there, with Hegemony officers who'd frozen away to wait the passage of time. The Star League had died with the Terran Hegemony... and whether or not there were survivors of House Cameron they needed to go look at least. "Tripitz ran the Republican blockade of Terra, where she went from there we don't know, but the Black Watch had issued orders for Kerensky to immediately counter attack, we assume he did not get those orders, and because he didn't given time Amaris was able to refortify and prepare for a longer war against the SLDF that ultimately set the conditions for the succession wars."

--
Gene was glad that the last of the matches would be tomorrow. The games commission was really going all out to ritz it up, they kept comparing tomorrow's match to Solaris in the Lyran Commonwealth.

"And the cicada is looking fine?" The tech nodded, they would be going up against a lot of light mechs on Dieron. The ALF had volunteered to drop with them, and while he was sure that there were reservations on the Davion side it seemed that there was enough ISF on Azami violence ongoing by this point, in addition within Rasalhague areas in the combine, enough repression that they'd been given the green light. Still he was a little worried about the machine, "Alright the course set?" He received another affirmative.

They looked over to the gathering crowd. "I think they're getting anxious." The tech remarked.

"I'd say so."

"You do not wish to tell me what you plan to do?" The forty something year old senior non com asked after a moment.

"I want to make sure something works before I try it in live combat."

It wasn't the answer the man was looking for.

He swung into the hundred ton mech's cockpit and started the boot checks. He flipped a thumbs up to a man in bright fluorescent jacket to signal he was read and the traffic director signaled he could close up and move to the range.

Gene glanced down to the displays and focused. Cooling and heat indicators flickered into holographic displays. The Blackwell communications suite showed him the feed from the control tower and the field.

There were two principal reasons he dind't ordinarily use this technique but he did want to make sure it worked if he ever had to use it. The first was that he liked retaining the use of his medium lasers for in close work, and the second was that this wasn't as effective even with DHS when combined with the much more heat intensive Extended Range Hellstars.

Abner cleared his throat over the radio, "How are things?"

"I still would prefer the original HiRez's datafeed." He replied to the tower.

Another voice came over the line, "With respect colonel," a middle aged somewhat... nerdy voice, perhaps was the best description, spoke up, "Our test pilots suggested that was too much data inflow and that it caused lapses in pilot judgment."

He did 'the math'. HiRez II had been selected for lighter mechs like the Hornet which had been intended as an urban fighter ... having holographic displays potentially cut line of sight was undesirable. "It was a statement of preference." He replied turning master arm to on, and watching the reads turn hot.

A clock started, and he started firing cycles as targets appeared. Two minutes of continuous firing of his energy weapons and his machine was still running cool even as he pushed the Vlar 300 trhough its paces. He was running at heat neutral... if he had needed to fire his LRMs then yes that would be the limit he'd start accumulating heat as he continued to move, but as it was, he adjusted the trim and touched down on the course path that would take him to the finish point, almost six minutes ahead of par.

He tapped the comms suite, "Haqim, I'm bringing her in, check the coolant lines that's what I want to make sure of."

"Understood."

Ten minutes later he had tossed a waterproof jacket over his flight suit and shoved his hands in the front pockets. "I don't understand. I was watching the heat, I mean," Beau moved further back inside the hangar away from the rain squalling outside, "You don't sweat, but those gauges barely moved."

"I went in and slaved heat sinks to specific systems." He replied as an explanation to the greater efficiency that his marauder II, the Storm Hunter first model demonstrated on the course. It was also why on a Star League era machine he wouldn't have been concerned, but this was probably brand new version of the marauder in a whole lot more weight so he did want to make sure he hadn't risked a coolant rupture if he was going to use the technique in the field, in real combat.

Ordinarily the course was designed to take upwards of ten minutes in an assault mech because you couldn't just flat run and gun and hit the targets accurately. There had been shots he had had to make follow ups on, but he hadn't been expecting perfect accuracy.

He shook hands with Blackwell's representative. "I take you want access to the mech?"

"Yes, colonel we would," He half glanced back to another, more so than the techs. "If you don't mind."

"Go ahead, Haqim will make sure you have everything on it." He glanced over, "Chang they're going to reset the course for your run, expect a lot of light mechs."

"right." The Marauder II with two Assault auto cannons waited... and he expected that there were going to be questions about preparing everyone for Dieron.

"Once does her run we're going to start cycling the Marauder II pilots from the DMM, make sure Septim is ready," Gene glanced to the countess, and brevet general and moved to join them.
--
Notes: This is of course a reference to I think its tactical operations, for heat management by pairing heat sinks specifically to certain systems, including if you've taken an engine hit.

When gene finally does run into some surviving hegemony personnel its very much a 'oh of course you guys would be the ones to survive'

Imperator Pax · Feb 6, 2023

Extras: Unknown World

The facility dated to the end of the League... at least it had been abandoned by the time the Star League had fallen. There were questions. He couldn't be sure if this had originally been hegemony or if Amaris had simply been using an abundance of Terran equipment and the raid that had put its staff out of commission hadn't demoed the place.

He suspected based on limited evidence, since they hadn't started full SSE and tried booting any of the computers, that this had been some Terran mad science project... but he hadn't said as much. If that was the case then chances were good that the Rim World had found out about it tried to take the facility over and then lost it later.

The JumpShip abandoned seemingly intact wasn't a good sign either. They hadn't gone aboard it, but it showed no thermal signatures active. The fusion reactor was shut down... and he expected probably by a master override command... and a while ago... but they wouldn't know until they went aboard.

He swept around and looked through an office space. They'd start checking to see if there were papers soon, they didn't appear to be locked and would be less likely to be tied to the security systems. The fusion reactor worked and was running normally... something was drawing power. There was no sign, no branding, that this was a DOME project. No zodiac umbrella marking but the complex medical systems were definitely late star league medical equipment akin to what had been assigned to Sagittarius Umbrella, or Frobisher, but that didn't necessarily meant anything. It strongly suggested a correlation with the DOME's own research, but not DOME ownership. The Department of Mega Engineering would have been laid out differently... and wouldn't have looked less like a military hospital than a dedicated research facility.

That was the comparison he'd been trying to figure out. His radio chirped. "We have fusion reactor control, and diagnostics running now." The tech declared.

"Good." He swapped channels. "Eisenhower, standby to link Dante to the command control network if we find one." He hoped this was a terran facility, and that hadn't had its network wrecked by the Rimworld it would be so much faster to have an AI run through the mass of data that they didn't have the personnel to manually parse.

He more or less wandered around the facility. Coming to stop to look out over a hangar that in itself was a standard protected configuration facility, but its contents were unusual. He recognized the designs from the New Dallas data package, which suggested either one of two things. "They're shiny aren't they?" Septim asked.

They were that, either, "Probably prototypes, do we have a date on when this facility was stood up yet?"

"I think, ... I think I will let Dante tell you." Septim replied, earning him an annoyed look.

So he cued his radio, and looked up at the nearest security camera on the assumption that the mobile AI was capable of seeing them, "What is it about this facility is it that I'm not going to like?" He asked, and looked back to the silent white gray royal war machines. Prototypes most likely. Amaris wouldn't likely have shipped these off world... this was a hegemony facility that the Rim World had attempted to suborn.

"Facility data implies, that does not conclusively state this dates to a Gunslinger project annex," Here the AI were using the vernacular, mixed with official terminology for a support project. "I would estimate that the original facility was stood up no later than 2700, however it seems to have been repurposed and expanded in direct response to the Second Hidden War, probably under orders from General Fredrasa, but then continued under his successor. The program was further authorized after 2738 by Aleksandr Kerensky then General Commanding." Kerensky would not have been thirty eight by that point that he succeeded Fetladral. "However much of the system's annex and orders are partitioned. It would require two authorizations."

That was never a good sign. It was not necessarily a protection against AI. Two command level officers could mean ... well a Major, "Is that the branch of the facility where the primary command center is located?"

"No, Commander, I believe it is the main facility itself."

"Excuse me," He made a point of looking around, "This isn't the main facility?" BY itself this trip had already turned up enough lostech that any prospector could have retired to Tharkad and sent their grand kids to ring knocker school. No wonder the machine spirit had suggested he wasn't going to like it. "Hold off on touching those JumpShips. Dante should I assume there is another AI here?"

"Given the security precautions of the facility, that is likely the case." There was a pause, "I have already prepared a briefing packet if that is the case." He looked back to the Land Air Mech. It was one of the staples of specialist mech design of the late SLDF that he had never intended to reintroduce. The Combine, and Free Worlds League apparently still maintained a handful of LAM units spread across their respective realms but that was talking Lances at brigade level... unless the Cobmine was dramatically under reporting its LAM production.

"Get Bahar, and put everyone on alert."

There was an approximation of a cough, "The access door is mech scale, commander."

"I'll be in my Marauder," he replied without blinking.

Four hours later he dismounted from the white war machine, and looked up at a corridor junction, a street basically, that was labelled 1980. The facility was still coming alive, but the fact that there were two separate fusion reactors running the inner and outer systems was not that surprising. That was oversight that they should have considered looking for a second facility.
--
Gene should have known something had gone wrong. This whole situation had felt off besides, but the first warning that things had gone sideways after the call in that they'd found a naked guy wandering around should have been warning enough that he should have gone to his mech, or failing that doubled up trying to find the actual command and control center.

There had been a lot of medical equipment, a lot of stasis pods. He'd known what he'd been looking at without Harry telling him they were artificial wombs.

He backpedalled the mech felling the resistance as he stepped on a ferrocrete retainer in the backpedal. The other mech stepped and he slammed one armored gauntlet down on the other mechwarrior's machine. The 2R wobbled under the blow, but didn't fall.

That would have been too easy he supposed. He was getting the feeling that this was what most of his opposition felt like running into him. As it was the other Marauder had been trying to walk medium lasers on to him rather than waste ammo for the Whirlwind. That wasn't an option now... but it wasn't an option for either of them. He'd taken the risk banking on being close enough to try and bring his own weapons in point shots, not really expecting a flat out charge of medium lasers... that had largely went either wide or low as the machine closed in, but his own shots had gone left, scouring the wall behind the 2R... and that was what had brought them into fisticuffs.

He'd been a little surprised the other pilot had wanted to get in close enough to do that, he'd been banking the other pilot wanted to shoot it out, and Gene had been on the back foot, but his link through the neurohelmet was shifting his mechs weight. The 2R body shifted again as the armored gauntlet of the other arm came down on the leg join assembly and even though he couldn't read the damage he could run the calculations through his machine's own systems.

His 3R was only different in that he had Thompson's prototype LBX Whirlwind, but other than that they were basically the same ferro fibrous DHS, ER Hellstars. He stepped forward, know that he was risking a lot, if the other Marauder didn't fall there was a good chance that his would he was banking that the computer's calculations were right and he'd hit the actuator without actually using his sensors... but he need the weight to shift...

... and so the two 75 ton Heavy BattleMechs wrestled. The white machine kicked there was a screech of metal, and the other limb moved out of position... he floored the acceleration pushing the Marauder forward and physically driving, dragging the other machine back into a body of water that he hoped was deep enough to take the machines out of the fight.

It was the best plan he could foresee on short notice. He wasn't as if he planned to fight other phantom mechwarriors... maybe he should start planning for that.

--
The red head in the form fitting Hegemony pilot suit glared at them, which would have been a lot more threatening if she'd still been in the marauder.

Gene certainly wasn't going to apologize.

The suits were waterproof.

Even now a pair of recovery machines were winching out both Marauders. "How's callahan?" He asked turning away from the sulking teenager even as her narrowed PPC blue eyes continued to try and burn a hole in his chest.

"He's got a concussion from where he punched out," They were after all inside of a building, and he'd skidded the sled along a wall, "he's fine though." Septim replied, "Did she really?"

"Yeah," He replied

"Is she?" Then asked a little lower.

"A Gunslinger, maybe." Or a program candidate tossed into a pod. He suspected that the red head was probably the same age as he'd been when he'd come out of the pod on Aquagea, but her rank insignia was that of a Terran Lieutenant.... it was possible she was younger. It was equally possible that she a little older, but certainly mid teens. "I'm glad she knee capped most of the others." He was glad no one was dead... but he suspected that was because the AI of the facility had been feeding her targeting information.

Gene had no idea what the two AI were talking about. Dante had warned them about the drones coming online apparently he'd misjudged where the real command facility was, and that his failure to find the AI to talk to initially had prompted the Northwind Machine Spirit to order the smart systems into diagnostic mode... and well... things had gone from there.

"The naked guy says his name is Goshiro, he says he's an ASF pilot... or more correctly that he prefers to be an ASF pilot. His credentials say he's a 'mech pilot as well."

Leaving that information aside... "And he was naked why?"

"Stasis tube... doc says that he was disoriented coming out, and that he just happened to stumble into our guys before he could figure out what was going on, and put his clothes on." Gene nodded. There really wasn't much more to say then... he'd get a written report later... whether he wanted to or not. "What's a a CAAN?"

"Hmm, oh they're marines." He shrugged, "Designed for combined arms operation in naval enviroments on planet's surface." He paused, trying to remember what the acronym stand for. "Cavalry, armored, air and Naval, something to that effect. They were special operations, sof regiments..."
--
Notes: Some extra content for down the road this is not the entirety of events, there may be a follow on segment down the road for this, there is no time stamp on this because I'm still attempting to plot which details are going to be canon and which aren't.

Imperator Pax · Feb 8, 2023

Nominal Canon [Pre revision] [Short]

The Elders

In the age of the Star League House Cameron had managed to largely keep peace between the other great houses, perhaps even had been too generous and cautious in brokering peace between the great houses. It had been during this that an unparralled golden age for humanity had existed under Cameronian stewardship. An age which had ended with the betrayal of trust and hospitality.

Admittedly, for those who had lived in that time, probably well especially for a young man, the Star League and the stewards of Terra, and rulers of the Hegemony must have seemed like just any other government and any other rulers. The distinction between living in that age, versus this modern and more fraught era surely seemed different, but... well that could be understood, couldn't it?

Such a young man simply did not grasp how far mankind had fallen from the benevolence of the Star League. It was impossible to adequately reciprocate the generosity of the pricelessness of the secrets of Star League era medicine. Not when it came in the format of instruction and documentation from a star league, a university long lost to the predations of the Dragon's unquenchable appetite.

Volgadon had been lost for the dragon's avarice.

So thus they had come out here to the periphery to begin anew when they could no longer bear the hardship of the Dragon's whims... and starting a new colony had only increased the value of such wisdom.

The news of things from the Inner Sphere was slow going. They could not rely on the HPG network it was not secure. The limitations of the 'fax machines' simply made it impractical there was no way to string such a chain out there... so the arrival of word was as in ancient days couriers. The arrival of new colonists required many months journey but even so they arrived largely unannounced. The news that they carried was even more of a surprise.

The elders responsible for the Alamut colony had expected there to be trouble. The Azami were like all people a gathering of individuals and there were differences of opinion, Alamut was a fine example of this break, but they had not expected such a change to ccur in the inner sphere.

"Your arrival is very fortuitous brother." The elder with a promeniently henna treated beard remarked. "And what you have told us of events gives us even more to discuss than I could have scarcely imagined."

"It is more than you know brother." The newly arrived elder remarked, "there have been many changes but it only effects the details, rather than our own service. We come to insure that a forge may produce swords." He stated more formally trailing into an archaic literari dialect, "That is to say that while it is only the beginning we have brought the machinery to see to it that we are able to establish weapons for warriors. Real weapons."

It was now, in the waning months of 3019 that Alamut began to take its first steps to build up its own domestic military industry. The first item of production to be the engines necessary to power the Dervish BattleMech, and of course any of the mechs that shared it. It would take time of course, but they would work hard.

These 'retro tech' machines would take time, and would help shape the future of the Rimward Periphery. As machines that would have been considered vintage before the Amaris crisis these machines would begin to enter the periphery market with little fanfare. Only the eventual notice of the Gladiator , built using machines smuggled out of the combine that should have been destroyed centuries earlier really attracted attention. However even that was quickly dismissed by observers as irrelevant the 'gladiator' was a mech but it had a reputation, and of course it was just likely that these machines were simply rim world salvage and so they too were taken note of and dismissed as irrelevant.

"You must allow me to show you around brother."

Alamut was a mix of varied architecture. Prefabricated buildings used for military, or in the Star League era, scientific structures sprawled across one side of the river. They included of course the community hospital, and many of the places a man could go and eat, or have coffee.. however it had not taken them long after sowing the first fields to begin to construct large classical buildings for more comfortable living.

"You have built a university?" The new arrival seemed surprised, skeptical even "Pardon my question but while learning is of course the gift of the creator that seems extravagant."

The elder showing him around laughed good naturedly, and stroked his henna streaked beard before replying, "Ah, it is in our good fortune that we were gifted a copy of the medical college of New Volgadon in the Terra Hegemony as it was at the end of the Star League's golden age. That is why we do this thing."

"It is a noble endeavor." He agreed, "To be trusted with such a gift. It has been a long journey." There was a pause. Then a continuance as a pair of me npassed them by, "You must understand, the Federated Suns have struck a powerful blow against the dragon, and his greed. They have lost Dieron and Altair, but even I could scarcely believe the footage that came from Dieron, even knowing with certainty that it was unmodified because it came from Azami machines. I watched much a battalion of the sword of light be cut down before they could even hope to reach a single MechWarrior upon a hill, and many of the others fell as they reached range to fight. Another battalion fell to the beserkers from northwind as their Thugs and Highlanders closed ranks."

"The swords forged by Ancient Terra were formidable there is no question to this." That the Azami painstakingly maintained star league era machines like the mongoose were a testament to this. It was one of the great hidden strengths of the Arkab legions.

"No you do not understand... after you left, it is to say that these were not the first great defeats of the dragon's servants. On Elidere, and entire regiment was destroyed. It died to a man, with many of its DropShips. The 19th Galedon Regulars were destroyed in total. The same man responsible is the architect of the destruction wrought upon the sword of light at Dieron."

It was fair to say that he was skeptical. Understandably so. The prupose of this tour was to assure the newly arrived elder that things were wlel in hand and that they could handle the expansion of the colony to accomdate the new arrivals and the following ones... it had not been intended to discus the wars and ravages of the conflicts of the great houses. "If the battles you speak of are so significant... this walk is somewhat premature, I fear we should have addressed such losses to the dragon-"

"No, the dragon has been injured, but what you build here is more important. Medicine and healing are priceless... and we must build up our defenses. We must grow in strength, and arm our warriors for the inevitable conflict to come against the Dragon's servants, because we will have to liberate our cousins we will have to fight in the Inner Sphere, but we must have the ability to provide safe harbor, and goods with which to trade that cannot be sabotaged by those avaricious or duplicitious agents of chaos."

"If what you say of Elidere, and Dieron and Altair are true then the Dragon has been more than just injured we must take this to the others, and we must see this footage. It must be shown."

--
Notes: obviously rather obviously we are detailing the founding of the Sword of the Prophet Industries in the periphery here.

This was not originally planned for today, but Luxen II's update is not ready so rather than push that to tomorrow I'm pushing it a week, and posting this short extra now. Tomorrow I will post the 'Smoke Jaguar intro/1' teaser that leads into the mid 3020s 'you want to do what with my genes' series of snippets.

Obviously: The Azami here have a fairly rosy view of the Star League era and House Cameron as both the descendants of a memberstate population and indeed some being descendants of SLDF troops and so on.

and now a joke of sorts

The FIeld Marshal looks at the man who says this is their fault, "What did you do?" She asks.

The Azami man looks sheepish. "It is a funny story. We had thought to tell a man that the Dragon had collaborated with the Satan Amaris, and that this was the reason for which the Dragon's servants pursued us so." He paused, "We did not realize the sword we had unsheathed against the Dragon."

Imperator Pax · Feb 9, 2023

[Pseudo Canon] [Short]
Part of "You want to do what with my genes?"

Damn it Kerensky!! Kerenskys.

The prospect of the Clan Invasion had largely missed him. It remained a nagging detail largely a ghost of a memory, one that Gene thought about if only infrequently at best.... in the face of so much else going on it was understandable. The scramble of looking to find the source of the 295th transmission through the SLCOMNET relay at 1245K3 had been feasible if only because Dieron had had star charts of periphery exploration within the Fortress.

He'd prioritized that, even though he was skeptical that the former royal division had anything to do with the Minnesota tribe. That search, that request to Abner to go run that errand while they went rimward had been undertaken. That there was some periphery nation calling itself the Umayyad, and another calling itself Neuva Castille just made him roll his eyes, except Hallis had started digging through the records.

... and the combination of his data and abner's....

The former popsicle getting more and more frantic as he had gotten deep into the documents... which was how they had ended up in the situation they had. "I am sorry Major, would you run this by me one more time." He needed more caffeine, which apparently was most of the stuffed ward room because a minute later the empty caraffe was replaced with a full one, and they started divvying it out.

The Ummayad were apparently a fragment of the Wolverines who'd gotten splintered off... in fact they might very well have been a a branch that had left the craziness before shit had really hit the fans. Maybe they'd started looking sooner, seeing the writing on the wall... maybe. Whatever the case a tiny splinter had invaded Nuevo Castile, and apparently the two sides had been fighting each other ever since. ICE powered mechs that was a strange one.

Still that was only part of the issue. "In any event, that was what Abner was doing before things changed." The Lion-class DropShip had somehow been travelling with a recording of a news broadcast that couldn't possibly have reached this part of the periphery given ComStar or regular Jump traffic. Hallis had an answer for that one to... and Gene didn't like it.

Apparently the Wolf Dragoons.

... which suggested they had access to if not remnants of the SLCOMNET then perhaps parts of the shadow network, but possibly even both... unless Kerensky's people had had some kind of breakthrough on HPGNET technology. With a deepening frown, he nodded, "Alright tell me what happened."

"They launched an attack on von Strang's world."

That required explaining... and didn't help anything.

"What a mess."

It was an understatement. Baron von Strang was a lunatic preaching holy war against the Inner Sphere and hated the Star League , and he wondered if these... apparent 'Smoke Jaguar' warriors who had managed to get out of the cluster fuck of the attack had the ability to send a message back to the Clans.

They sounded like a collection of blood thirsty lunatics as well.

He thought about what he knew about Nicholai Mason through the MRB records, and also what IE had been able to tell him. He thought about the incident in 3015.. and... and it raised questions had Mason been looking for Amaris descendants, or the Minnesota tribe before he had settled down to be a mercenary? That raised questions... what a mess this whole thing was a mess.

It confirmed what he knew. The Keresnky exodus had ended up somewhere beyond the Caliban nebula... and it was clear that the Smoke Jaguars or at least these ones simply hadn't processed just how large space was, how many jumps they were going to have to make to get to anywhere interesting in the periphery. That was true for that it was a year to get to the other side of the Caliban nebula from von Strang's world... which just brought them back to the matter of communications

There had to have been enough of an intact chain of HPG stations... probably as deployable satellites to facilitate a line back to the Clans. Something well beyond the capacities of modern ComStar. He was willing to assume that Keresnky's descendants had strung that line through the void recently... within the last century even if it wasn't entirely new construction... it was worrying that they'd make that kind of expenditure.

So he was again faced with the situation of that pit in his stomach thinking about an invasion that the Inner Sphere was in no way prepared for. The situation in the Inner Sphere was too tenuous. The nascent alliance of the Federated Suns and the Lyran commonwealth had prompted tensions. Not that the concord had stopped violence between its members. It had not been able to magically undo the bad blood between Marik, Liao and Kurita and of course there were the actions in particular of Kuritan and Liao state actors that had to be contended with in particular.

Then of course there was the potential development of the response. That unlike the Kapteyn Accords, which raised other questions in and of itself regarding the HPG Network, the Federated Commonwealth was a very potential outcome even if only as a personnel union. He thought about the raid on Helm used to resupply the Eridani and Blue Stars Light Horse units to strength.

... the contents of Buffalo Meadows's failed colony came to mind as well. It went beyond that. Dieron had represented a turning point, not because the fortress was intact but because its HPG uplink had survived, and still been running all this time... if they had gone to New Dallas first the results ultimately would have likely been to the same end.

The Buffalo Meadows Transmission and processing ... they had passed that to Abner because he couldn't be involved on Dieron so soon after the Federated Suns had taken control of the planet... and admittedly because they didn't want to advertise the Fortress buried inside the mountains... not as intact as it was. Abner and his IE resources were also much less likely to attract serious scrutiny for going into the periphery so that was what they had done.

He supposed that was only part of what had set them on this path. The decision had lead to Abner investigating other leads in the 'northern' periphery so to speak tying his resources there over a couple of years while the ... 'Pirate Wars' played out in the Rimward Periphery.

That was the problem the Dragoons had to have sent word back, never mind that these Smoke Jaguars had actually complained about Wolves and their lack of action about the whole Amaris business in the rimward... which again spoke of their lack of understanding in just how much distance in space and the limits of the KF drive.

All that did was remind him of how long they'd been engaged in this conflict. Technically... in the academic record there were already arguments over whether the Pirate Wars should have counted actions as early 3001 or 3002, or if the date should count only events after BlackJack had arrived in force in the Tortuga dominions a decade later , and of course then there was the rampage of Stefan Amaris through the Rimward periphery that had followed and the questions of how close the two had been involved with one another and if they had simply had been allies of convenience or something more.

He thought about Castille, even as he prepared to split off all the popsicles who'd ditched Kerensky's kool-aid fun land, and send them to Alamut. He knew there would be protests so he was ready, because this was a mess... "Yeah well after son of sam I'm not taking a chance that this lunatic coreward isn't going to do something stupid. As for these 'smoke jaguars'... I don't want them finding you, but I also have concerns about word of them getting back to anyone else who might ask questions."

... like ComStar... or even just the Combine.
--
Notes: This is short, this is SJ1 or more like the introduction of the smoke jaguars, note this is 'pseudo canon' because it mentions a bunch of stuff and is obviously set after the Aurigan civil war though its before the 4th Succession war erupts. It notably does not touch on the Wolf Dragoons issue, or the changes from OTL with Grieg dying much much earlier. So this more so than any of extras is much more tenuous.

This is post Son of Sam, the Dragoons beamed back a report to the clans, that hey there was a descendant of amaris, he's dead, but there are potentially hidden rim world stockpiles at least if not hidden army facilites left behind but that there is a dead Amaris.

They beam back copies of the dragoon scientist caste people's copy of that report. Some discussion back in clan space happens, some guys from smoke jaguar decide to take this whole thing seriously and head back towards the inner sphere, and find out that there is this place called von Strang's world, and that the baron there Otto is a straight revanchist rim world nut job.

And well they run head long into defenses designed to prevent an attack by the Inner Sphere to invade the planet, and do poorly. So they pull back because they have no choice. And all of that has basically happened.

SJ2 set in the coreward periphery along the Lyran, Combine border and deals with significantly less tenuous details because SJ2 focuses on things that are mostly solid. And one thing to be touched on is Gene s concern over exactly what the dragoon's may have put in their report to the clans and how that pertains to an invasion as at this point in the main timeline he is under the impression that the wolf net has yet to secure a copy of the hpg recording or of other incriminating evicdence by the isf against the sldf

Imperator Pax · Feb 10, 2023

--

Highland Faire 15
(B)

Gene was glad that Friday had arrived.

He was physically exhausted, mentally too. He needed this week to be over. He planned to just drop on to a couch and sleep... but that would have to wait for the weekend itself, that would have to wait for the work and the last match of the week to be over. Among the matter of work was the further observation of drill using Blackwell's combat vehicles.

The Bandits were in what was referred to as alternate configuration A. A single magna Hellstar, standard range, PPC as was found in most of the standard marauders of the succession wars era. The exercise called for them to provide direct fire support in enfilading fire while LRMs from a unit of Badgers, Aus C, fired from naturally protected cover as infantry dismounted and moved to fighting positions. These were purely light vehicle and infantry operations they didn't have 'mechs allocated for this but that was also a factor of the potential of who would be sitting in.

He had already penned the inevitable question he had expected to get. It was a fairly obvious question to ask. Why the Enforcer and not the Marauder... leaving aside that neither he nor Field Marshal Davion knew what actually went into these OmniMachines the Enforcer was cheaper and more ubiquitous in Federated Suns service. The Marauder was expensive. The Marauder was a heavy BattleMech powered by a nineteen ton VLAR 300 engine. The Marauder, in his approximation, was too expensive to use as a test bed for this program at this time. The 'Omni Enforcer' as a proposal was predominantly built around that Nissan 200 engine.

It was the engine in his opinion a consultation with the techs had resulted in the comment that that VLAR 300 engine weighed roughly as much as that Enforcer when it was stripped down to nothing but the engine and the frame. Whatever went into these pods they were going to have teething problems... it was a wonder that these Bandits, and the badgers didn't have problems... which suggested to gene that they were a mature design that the Wolfs had just handed over and managed to make roll off the factory production line without any problems... maybe that was unfair to Blackwell but he had no reason to think that Blackwell would be able to make the transition from OmniVehicle to OmniMech cleanly.

If they surprised him, then they surprised him, but it made more sense to recommend any OmniMech program would probably do better testing on a cheaper lighter medium mech.

It was not the only question he was expecting. Truthfully he would have appreciated more time to prepare the unit, and to have the techs work on the mechs they had. They had struck out on Robinson as far as hiring had went, not with ... well with the situation as Lord Sandoval had understood from the initial conditions of the 19th's invasion of the planet... but the original idea had been to make the summer faire last year. They hadn't made it and the issue was still manpower not materiel, and on a significant change.

"So when are we going to drop?" The kilted man asked.

"Not for another month. The Hussars and the," Blue Star, "Irregulars, are going to step off first," He assumed that the Federated Suns had something else, some front level theater command masquerade going on, "At least march from what I've been told." He replied to Cameron's question "They didn't tell tell you?" He asked.

"Nope."

Spring was not a clear time frame precisely. Early Spring presumably suggested leaving at the end of march. It was one jump. Pasha had already informed him that the volunteers he was screening would largely be piloting medium battlemechs like Dervish or Centurions, there were some catapults both in A and K configuration. What Pasha had not been told was the size of the Azami exodus fleet or the details of the rasalhague contingent... instead diverting to bring up that when they returned it would perhaps best to consult the computer core that had been recovered from the JumpShip that would go on to become the Cairo... he wasn't looking forward to it.

Gene had know that the CoreTech 275 was probably, if not the, then one of the most common Medium BattleMech power plants. Dervish, Griffin, Kintaro, Shadow Hawk, Wolverine, even ancient relics like Gladiators. The Nissan 200 was not quite as common but it powered Azami Mongoose, more common Hunchbacks in addition to the Centurions.

"Are you afraid they're not ready?"

"Nothing like that." Bard replied. "Its just... this stop hasn't been what I was expecting."

He thought of the Blackwatch situation... "You and everyone else." He replied, because that was the truth... the Black watch situation, the expansion in manpower, and the contingent that they were going out into the periphery... he thought of the intelligence reports all the same about the tracking of Rim World ships moving out in the black ... what was now apparent as part of the construction of the 'secret army'.

Bard seemed skeptical of his response.

Gene paused. No. It was more than just the Blackwatch the truth was he'd seriously misjudged the Combine's status within the successor states. He had assumed initially that Takashi must have been particularly egregious, a return to the bad form of Jinjiro... or maybe not that extreme, but still a bad seed.

Not that Takashi Kurita was by all indications what passed for moderate at least compared to his father Hohiro... and of course that Jinjiro and Minoru hadn't been all that different from one another in terms of war waging in the grand scheme of things. Dante was right... hindsight being twenty twenty the Hegemony should have interceded heavily on the davion side of things in the war of davion succession, but that was a long time ago.

"Yeah," He glanced up at the sky, "Lets just say complicated is an understatement." There was a noise to the side of the area, and he turned.

"Someone sounds unhappy." Bard commented.

He didn't need to base off of the physical description he'd received of the pompous man, the Duke of Errai was a dead ringer for his AFFS picture even though it was ten years out of date.
--

He'd been preparing to more or less glaze over and sit through the last of the four matches, the scrum free for all to eliminate most of the candidates because he fully expected this to be the biggest collection of glory hounds wielding by and large ancestral mechs. Gene also knew that by cracking open the facilities on Northwind that he had very likely enriched the patrimony of the various Northwind clans insure that next year's graduating class would probably have more students with their own mechs as second and third sons were provided with venerable archers and orions, and other mechs that weren't really lostech but of hegemony vintage to show off.

That was how he was understanding the planetary government was dividing up their portion of the spoils. Subdividing their portion to the great clans.

The Terran Hegemony had ruled Northwind from the early 24th century onward, during the latter half of which Brian Cameron had ruled the Hegemony... and for three hundred years or thereabout the Northwind Highlanders had maintained a private standing planetary army.

It was a once in a life time find by the standards of the succession war, maybe once in a generation, but frankly Gene was appalled that Northwind didn't have a larger domestic military industrial complex to support such a long standing military tradition.

He sucked down the warm tea, and watched the festivities aware that as the elites of the class prepared to take the field. What distinguished today from the previous three bouts was that they were in the Davion box, with the Field Marshal. It had been a sudden change, but one he suspected stemmed from the squabble in the pecking order of the dukes of the Federated Suns.

In that instance, if it had gotten to this point chances were it was more than just GM trying to direct questions through Septim. "I read your report over lunch." Yvonne remarked putting her own tea cup to one side. The box was large, and plush, very well furnished. Pasha was to his right, and the countess of Kestrel to the field marshal's left. "It wasn't quite the report I was expecting, at least no so soon." She had in fact been expecting data on the Marauder II and its variants, feedback, plans, and so on. "These Mercury BattleMechs?"

The Mercury had been intended to replace Wasp and Stingers in SLDF service, and while it commanded an impressive top speed it lacked the striking power of a royal Mongoose... and of course he had a sneaking suspicion that the Mercury had been a project supported by political opposition to Kerensky and thus had never received a royal version for Terran units. It was of course also possible the mercury hadn't won attention from Kerensky for the simple fact that it was a light mech.

"A pity." She replied.

It really was because the combination of the existing omni pod system for vehicles coupled with its presumable direct ancestor would have potentially sped up the possibility of an Omni Mech. It couldn't be helped. The Dragoons likely had had no need for such a machine given their specific unit doctrines. They would have had hovercraft to fulfill scouting in addition to air vehicles, allowing them to bring up heavy and assault mechs to engage the enemy. Maybe some other royal unit had had Mercury in inventory, it certainly wasn't impossible, but that a Dragoon unit somewhere else might have chosen to attach a recon company of such mechs.

The conversation paused as the first batch of competitors, including the academy's outgoing highest scoring candidate, took the field. Unsurprisingly it was the Highlander pilot. "There are a lot of those now." He bit back that he didn't understand how they'd declined in the first place... they said the first succession wars had resulted in a preponderance of attacks and attrition rate of mechs that truly boggled the mind given the design had been centuries old and every regiment in the army had had at least a lance of the assault mechs. Within a few years of the reunification war ending they'd been in wide scale production enough to start sending them into caches like the one at Robinson. "GM tells me at the time it was the largest battle mech with JumpJets."

"No, the original Pillager could manage sixty meters, two years after the Highlander," the 732, "debuted the 3 Zed added another jumpjet allowing it match the Highlander while still being ten tons heavier." which was another machine he didn't understand how it had disappeared... even more so since the original version had run off a standard 300 VLAR engine so it wasn't even a case of needing some kind of lost engine if you just wanted to go back to assault autocannons.

She hummed in response, "Yes, well one hundred ton battlemechs would bring us back around to the issue of the Marauder II." He thought about the facility he had shown the rest of the company. An empty nest left behind as its regiment had died. There were only a handful of mechs remaining in it, but that wasn't the point what had been inside were spare parts, spare gear, replacements and material. The sort of thing that could be packed up and put into crates. Taking his silence in stride, Yvonne resumed speaking, "The production of new battlemechs is a major industrial statement. I'm sure you've heard all about the effort to maintain centurion production, and competition between it and the Enforcer. Whether intentional or not you've made a thorough endorsement of Blackwell, which might together with their history with the Dragoons could be taken out of context."

"And that New Valencia is in the Crucis march, if I'm not mistaken, might also be misunderstood by the Duke of Errai." He replied, shifting in his seat, "I think brusque," as the term Lord Aaron had used, "is an understatement."
--
Notes: this will follow on with (c) with the mech fights next sunday (that is to say the 19th.) I don't know what I'm going to do for this Sunday's update right at this moment.

Imperator Pax · Feb 12, 2023

[Scrap Misc Scenes pre Dieron]

Teaser: February 3018
[Something of a follow on to Interlude 7-8]

By modern Lyran film making standards the clip would have been considered a little unpolished. For all but the highest budget productions of the Inner Sphere though the clarity of the holographic footage and sound quality was superlative. The footage lacked the post production effects that would have been found in a propaganda reel. Nor was it the sort of quality one would have associated with a spy's, or a private investigator's, clumsy recording devices. After all why would House Davion not use very excellent devices for their own historic recordings of the day's proceedings.

The Star League Vintage cameras had been given an excellent vantage to do their work, and given the business of the Faire it had been easy for not one, not two not three, but quite a number of intelligence services to splice into the original feeds and insure they received copies to private terminals... and of course for those personnel of intelligence agencies who hadn't wanted to gamble on such obvious bait a few found it much easier to simply borrow a copy of the footage from a film aficionado at the MRB who had found a copy.

It would still take time to disperse the recording of the day's proceedings. The Combine had known something was going to happen, but by the time the word had gotten out there were other complicating factors. The ISF was already busy ... busier than normal ... and the voice of the dragon had done an alarming capable job of convincing the the DCMS that the New Avalon Hussars had been responsible for the losses at Galedon... a unit of whom supported by elite mercenaries and other Davion troops had already begun the invasion of Altair...

Really the recording came too late to warn against the strike on Dieron even if commanders would have been willing to question official combine propaganda. The recording lacked any details that would have telegraphed future Federated Suns strikes, in the following years...

.... the raid at Galtor, which had yet to be planned at the time of the recording

or

...the liberation of Tancredi, which the Federated Suns had already been planning and revising for decades now.

"Everyone gathered in this hall has accepted a unique risk. In many ways this operation is beyond the standards of basic soldiery or practice of arms. Regardless of past or present experience this coming battle is different." The speaker was a younger mercenary colonel standing in front of a marauder painted in white and gray parade colors. The great ibis that dominated the machine's crest prophetically devouring a snake.

The primary body of the speech laid out in no uncertain language what was to be expected. Every soldier, and every mercenary expected to risk life and limb facing the enemy. It wasn't even unusual for commanders or political leadership to speak of liberating foreign worlds.

"To those most recent cadet graduates gathered here, this is a distinct opportunity to participate in something beyond oneself. When we make planet fall in this coming campaign you will be among the striking force. You will not be relegated to a bench warming for attrition or a mech to be freed up or provided due to casualties or a later advance. Each and every one of you gathered today will spend the following day training in a heavy or assault battlemech that will carry you on the field when we begin combat operations."

The final weeks on Northwind ahead of the early spring of 3018 were to be an interesting time. The speech at the end of its just more than fifteen minute run concluded with the expectation and that nothing less than full victory would be accepted. That might have been dismissed by observers coming from other speakers as simply bravado or even an impossible demand. If the recording had circulated around before the invasion it would have been more or less ignored by the other successor states.

Instead it made the rounds among the other great houses coinciding and viewed through the lens of not just Dieron falling to Davion hands, and the monster that prowled the battlefield on their behalf... but that point at least within the Inner Sphere the MRB had up to date roster information for the Dieron battle.

That information was supposed to be for the purposes of considering whether or not a mercenary company was suitable to a specific employers need. The MRB was supposed to be a neutral arbiter of disputes of course.

Twenty four recent graduates of the Northwind Military Academy filled the ranks of would become Battalion C, Claymore, Shepherd's Highlanders would distinguish themselves on the shores of the Kazakh river west of San Martin. A distinction of action with the hundred hour whirlwind of battle that had prompted the MRB office to rate an otherwise freshly raised BattleMech battalion as Veterans, raising their approximation over Regulars, to reflect participation in the destruction of 1st Battalion / 5th Sword of Light and the subsequent capture of the planetary capital.

But on that February afternoon all of that was still in the future. Indeed a few days earlier Precentor New Avalon had only just received a report he had requested on paramount importance. After all, what had not yet made the news, had not become public knowledge, was an attack over the Davion border in the periphery and the loss of an HPG station at the hands of a revenge addled warlord with Star League warmachines of his own. Huthrin Vandal had decided it was in the best interests to bypass discussions with the first circuit using options he didn't need their permission for.

That was to say, money, lots of money. It was a very lyran solution to the problem the Precentor New Avalon would have admitted, but the problem of Black Jack McGirk had been ongoing for over a decade by this point and the arguments over how to deal with a pirate king who had destroyed the 1st division of the ComsGuard Militia. A destruction that had included, to add insult to injury, the pirate absconding with the remains of the 1st division as salvage. It was a problem that had dragged on entirely too long. They simply could not afford the loss of any more HPGs they couldn't replace the ones that had already been destroyed in the periphery as it was.

They had dithered to long within the first circuit and Huthrin Vandal had decided enough was enough, and measures had to be taken. Vandal would bullishly declare such to the rest of the first circuit as attacks in the rimward periphery expanded as McGirk saw increasing forces attacking and carrying off of ComStar personnel.
--
The holographic image was of a stern looking blond woman in the uniform of a Terran Admiral. She could have been in her late late twenties if not for the service ribbons which suggested thirty plus years in service with the HAF. Admiral Krennick was long dead of course... she had been killed during Amaris's attack on the capital of the Star League and the Hegemony.

Still the Admiral looked impressive, formidable. The black naval dress uniform fit Talia Krennick well... like a glove. The personnel jacket of the Terran Hegemony listed two divorces. A single son who had in contrast to his mother had joined the HAF Army. Not really a surprise Krennick while apparently still on amicable terms with her divorced partners, given they were still marked on her file's emergency contacts had both been naval officers as well.

The Field Marshal suspected that Terran medicine being what it was Krennick and her ex husband had probably still looked quite young when they had died. This holographic image floating in front of the field marshal was dated a year before the usurpation and massacres on Terra.

She had seen the picture of the son an amber eyed mechwarrior with close cropped dark hair who wore the insignia of a Terran Major, and the gunslinger tab on his uniform jacket... that was a better than ninety percent match of a picture taken two years earlier in the Magistracy... which raised other questions

It suggested a great deal but proved nothing. She turned to the MIIO officers who had entered. "tell me you have them?"

"A couple of SAFE operatives thought they were being clever." The man's partner elbowed him in the ribs, but she waved off the man's lackadaisal response, "Sorry ma'am. We identified potential couriers from other intelligence services. We are still tracking those there is a potential combine agent at large, but from his previous behaviors we suspect he'll turn up in the morning."

"Do tell?"

"He's very predictable ma'am. Standard patterns of behavior for his cover identity. Frequently moves to ingratiate himself with large corporate entities."

"Where all has he been?"

There was a pause, and The prince's champion frowned. "He's been to several of the demonstrations of the Marauder II BattleMech. He's basically ignored the Blackwell industries presence with their combat vehicles, which is why we didn't catch it originally,"

She could understand that. The Marauder II had attracted quite a lot of attention... and she could guess why they were so confident that there was going to be an appearance tomorrow. 'Wonders of the Star League'. The King Crab had been distributed to the Great Houses as a 'gesture of House Cameron's benefice' shortly after its debut. Not in any significant numbers of course, but also as notation to the other house lords surely that the Hegemony's new Commanding General was of astute mind when it came to BattleMechs.

Cosara Industries of the Terran Hegemony had created a vicious close range combatant at General Kerensky's request. The King Crab had been licensed to GM and who had continued to produce it until they had lost the ability to do so as a course of the succession war.

The conversation winded away, and eventually she dismissed them directing the countess to be shown in. The Duke of Errai was unsurprisingly proving a problem. The Thug had been such a ubiquitous mech in Terran service there was no way they'd be able to avoid his learning of additional machines. The Thug predated the start of the reunification war, and the introduction of machines like the modern version of the Wolverine; in its 6R configuration.

Admiral Clancy's files had proven... not especially helpful. Thankfully the admiral had made a searchable database but not a complete one. It hadn't answered many of her questions. She had plugged in the various alpha numeric data entries and only received partial matches. There were tantalizing suggestions to answers.

And, places to look. She opened with a rhetorical question, "You said the DropShip's name was the Argo?" There was a perfunctory nod from her lady in waiting, "I haven't spoken to Galax's people but it did make its way into the periphery ahead of the New Vandenburg uprising. It disappeared, presumed lost and I don't imagine even Admiral Clancy though knew much of it, but we do have confirmation that it and a sister ship had been planned."

Unfortunately that was really as far as her information extended for the time being.
--
Notes: For the first half of this this is much closer to canon excerpt of what will happen after the Hussars step off to go take Altair, and the Highland Battalion gets stood up. The second half is still tentative other than Yvonne baiting traps to catch foreign spies. Alright, this coming week we will be attempting to return to the standard update schedule, Wednesday Luxen II, Thursday I will probably post another teaser/extra/side timeline something, Sunday will be the regular update.

--
To go back to the Azami elders back and forth, or specifically the bit in the post script of Yvonne asking the Azami why they think everything is their fault. She hasn't been told or shown the recording.... but if she were

Azami Elder on why Gene was shown the footage: "I am sure that the intention was to inspire caution."

YD: "Instead you spawned a rampage of revenge that has killed or mission killed entire Combine regiments."

Azami Elder looking a tad sheepish: "Yes, w-"

YD: "Brilliant, I can work with this."

and also there is an alternate draft of the second scene instead set post Dieron with access to ISF documents which would have either implied Combine duplicity / ISF leaks of SLDF positions that results in the destruction of Krennic's ship. (And this would be without Yvonne knowing about the Amaris HPG recording)

Imperator Pax · Feb 16, 2023

Teaser

I Davion 3 (Scraps)
3018 Invasion of Dieron +36 Hours
'On Hire for Swiss or Swede,
be me christian be me heathen
the devil to the sabre i shall put,

With crack flanking
I'm an uhlan alles uber
striking terror into regiment of foot.'

He watched as the SLDF communications gear broadcast its hailing signature... and then to see if the encrypted signal received a response from anything in what most people just dismissed as one of the continents mountain ranges on a planet with lots of those to begin.

When there was nothing, he moved on to higher ground to observe the fight ahead as the command vehicles fed him data from across the advance... he picked one area and marked where he needed to be and set off pushing his Marauder forward into a sprint

Ahead of rolling tides of iron came the steel rain as three lances of thumpers screamed against the sky, The regiments of foot infantry were planetary militia, who were where they were supposed to be. That wasn't the problem. So much as there were just a lot of them. A lot of infantry

The invasion of Dieron had temporarily swollen the company ranks giving them the added firepower needed to fight at this level That would be in exchange for conducting a second exodus trip out to Alamut when they shipped back to the periphery. He wasn't sure exactly how confident Alexandra Cunnhingham, the young Davion noblewoman who'd been appointed their liason, was with the expanded magunac corp, but so far there had been no issues. There probably wouldn't be if they managed to pull this off.

Maguanac 1-1, the original and still delivered by Sam Houston was now actually understrength compared to 1-2 and 1-3 deployed from the similar Drosts', registered as Crockett and Boone. Both dropships were deploying with their own Mech Lances as a combined arms formation that he was referring to as a tactical group.

The three DroSTIIA had served as the original element of planet fall ahead of Baffins covering San Saba. They were now on the surface and deployed as the far flank of the general davion invasion force centered on the Davion Heavy Guards. It was them, some others, and the Eridani Light Horse forming the invasion force. Hanse Davion's goal to tweak the Combine's nose good.

Against them the day before had stood the planetary militia who were supporting the Fifth Sword of light on one flank, and a Sun Zhang cadre on the other. The plan was to take their advantage and pin in place who they could and fight. If they could destroy their direct opposition and swing into the enemy force, that would presumably mean the Eridani swinging into the Gold Dragons while the Davion Guard aimed to seize the capital against the hopefully reduced forces holding San Martin

So that had been the plan. The plan which did not appear to be surviving contact with the enemy. The problem was apparently that the Combine had decided to redeploy in the night using their infantry regiments as ablative armor. The fusion signatures he was detecting were a company of mechs from the Fifth Sword of Light.

His Marauder's Dalban started cataloging mass and signals throwing up war book identifications that ran from light mechs through to the single Assault eight five tonner that was putting out too much signals for the mech's health. Most of the enemy force though weighted in as mediums or heavy Battlemechs a stark contrast to the expected Sun Zhang light mech cadres they'd been expecting to punch through and engage. It could have meant that this independent company had been thrown in front of them while, he assumed, the Kuritan's attempted to use the fast swarm of fresh meat to launch a suicidal banzai charge against the Guards, or the Light Horse closer to the capital of San Martin.

Or they could have been doing something else entirely.

"One-Two, One-Three break left of my position along the salient." He received a perfunctory acknowledgement of the order and a pair of jenner 7As from the One Two Tactical Group's mech lance zipped past his marauder churning through the dusty red sands. Following after them were a mix of Harasser, and Saracen LRM hovers. Machines that if they could pull this off, he expected he'd be able to replace wholesale with Bandits, but first they had to get through this.

The other machines of the combined armed units followed.

The good news was that their intelligence appeared valid. The entirety of Fifth Sword of Light wasn't present. Intelligence had said One battalion was off world. Of course that meant that if they did win the Regiment would survive, but it meant they would have to fight one less battalion of enemy mechs. Normal Azami doctrine was oriented towards lighter, and where possible less ammunition dependent raiding and strike forces, but that had its limitations... and of course here that role was largely already being filled by the Eridani Light Horse.
--
The radio intercepts had thus far been more or less the expected. Nothing really actionable. "We are Samurai!" The pronouncement brought a banzai cheer from the ranks of combine mechwarriors more than a dozen strong, a company and its command element. If his intercepts of their IFF was right a forty something year old DCMS Major.

Gene grunted, rolling his eyes, before keying the comms to the unit at large, a series of holographic projections manifested, "That one is mine," He ordered into the mike highlighting the offending Combine Mechwarrior's heavy battlemech in the battalion wide tactical network through his Marauder.

He received a series of affirmatives, before a brogue voice cut in, "So how long are you going to need, cause," The Volunteers commanding offficer, Bard Cameron, cut off in a fit of static, before his image reasserted, "Yeah we're taking intermittent LRM contacts."

"Can you identify their position?"

"Nothing, just the general direction of fire." He would have killed, probably literraly, for an effective ground based tracking radar but with all of the countermeasures going out there was too much interference. "We're scouring the hills for light mechs or vehicles that might be spotting for them, but nothing so far."

"Weight of throw?"

"I'd guess ground based hover vehicles. Fives and tens, but" The image shuddered, "Definitely not LRM carriers, but we're getting pecked."

Gene nodded, and prepared to finish orienting troops into position before an overhead observation plane spotted a bigger problem. "Bard, Break contact and pull back." He didn't get an immediate response, he switched channels to the Service Company ordering them to bring trailers up, and then cycled through the roster for the fastest vehicles they had in situation with the intention to send them as couriers to physically bard to drop back from where he was in advanced contact.

The holographic display of the planet's geography as it spread out through the broad shallow river valley that fed down into the great lake that was really a freshwater inland sea given its size presented them something of a tactical and operation bufferzone to one side.

"Commander?" An Azami Tech asked within the Daimyo HQ vehicle, "We're moving the devestator now." The trailer containing the hundred ton assault mech needed to be moved to as close to the hill he had highlighted in the mech display.

He acknowledged but was already running up how quickly artillery could be brought on line... the thought of how limitted their stockpiles of chaparal... the arrow IVs were but the vehicles that had been pulled out of a brian cache intended to fight the combine. H'ed need machines to lase targets for missile bound artillery strikes as well... that meant he needed to remain in the Marauder until the last possible transfer time... switch machines climb up the rest of the hill and hope the topographics were right and then expend as much of the machine's forty gauss rounds as he could before the enemy could rush in.

It was a pity the devastator hadn't been built with command and control in mind. The Atlas was too generalist for his taste. He somewhat regretted at the moment handing over the Ought 10 King Crabs from the Northwind find... but he had had no idea they'd be in this position. He flipped a switch to tag his movement to the illuminated waypoint and turned the Marauder to move while keeping the nose of the machine oriented towards the horizon where the enemy were coming from... if he was right then Bard was being peppered Sun Zhang cadets being fed at him piece meal and that there was probably a battalion of sword of light behind them as well...

... which just raised the question of whether or not the intelligence was wrong. Was the the whole regiment here? Or had the Combine simply consolidated more of their forces?

The Combine Commander may have assumed that if he smashed them and turned and rolled up the flank he'd be able to sweep through the DMM and then face the Eridani or the Davion Guards in an encirclement... which only made combine was going deepthroat on the whole elan vitale concept.... or in its Japanese concept Kokutai.

It was probably that. The Combine expected to start a rout... and that just wasn't going to let that happen. He reached up and flipped the toggle, and punched in a key series, and waited for their ASF detachment to move to standby.

Seven minutes later he was starting the boot sequence on the Devestator, and then moving it up the rise to the crest of the hill moving the master arm switch to on, and transferring power to the Gauss rifle capacitors... while still trying to field questions from the countess of Kestrel on what was about to happen, and why he'd pulled Bard back into the main formation.

The Marauder had been left on standby... if he had time, if he could expend his ammunition and do enough damage he'd swap back to the command mech... but that wasn't a sure thing. The Marauder's targetting data fed 'mr samurai's position as the man's parade paint heavy mech as it crossed nine hundred meters.

He ran the ballistic calculations, and started plotting the spread and displacement of the other mechs in the hostile company including the lead mech's wing man and the other lancemates. He let a breath as they continued to come on. The reticle resolved and went green. The sixty ton mech's head disolved in slow motion in the video feed, but he was already adjusting the left gauss rifle onto a catapult k2 and preparing to let fly.

Without the Marauder's dalban he could no longer manage regiment wide command structures down to individual tank and infantry platoons. The last orders to finalize positions and prepare support ppcs, and inferno loaded srms ahead to break any following action would be the last orders those units had received. The tanks needed to be prepared to fire from protected positions and then move back if anything came through.

With more time, with more warning, he'd have tried to maneuver fury and alacorns to enfilade the oncoming attack before directing the mechs to attack... but this banzai charge had been screened at first as a probing action rather than what was looking like a human wave assault... in hindsight that made sense doctrinally.

This was obvious a prepared counter attack as opposed to a probe. A counter attack after their own meeting of the DCMS infantry earlier this morning.

--
Notes: The lesson obviously is don't be combine infantry, being a pbi is not a good experience anyway, but this is a teaser of the events of spring 3018's main battle.

Imperator Pax · Feb 19, 2023

Highlander Faire
15 (c)

Field Marshal Davion's expression largely remained placid save the vaguest narrowing of the eyes, which suggested she wasn't ignorant of yesterday's ... altercation after the evaluation of the Blackwell vehicles by the cadets. An altercation that seriously undermined... well he suspected the only reason the duke of Errai was even here was because he felt entitled to something... but it wasn't a good look

The what, how and why weren't clear... but the specifics didn't matter but obviously that must have played a role in them getting camped in the Davion box. The pipes swelled at the hipowered search lights focused on the top rated students, but they were only one set of participants...

The last match had been placed in one of the training grounds for the school that hadn't been in use for the faire, and was dominated by a large false concourse of rail line complete with fake derailed train. There were some fake buildings that might or might not have supposed to have been a train station it was kind of hard to tell from here.

Whatever the case the game's commission had endeavored to make things stand out, and of course to give plenty of destructible environments around for the show. Next weeks events were to be more... perhaps not sedate, but laid out to allow one on one Mech matches throughout the course of several days each of which might last five or ten minutes if both opponents began within shooting distance of each other. Today though they had plenty of wide open spaces.

And as soon as everyone was on the field and deployed he wasn't surprised as simunitions of PPCs began to start flying.

Pasha rested a hand on his shoulder and indicated the Griffin, "She is very good." The fifty five ton mech retained the primary PPC armament.

"Its like a smaller version of a battlemaster." Septim agreed as the machine cleared ninety meters to the left. Without the machine guns, but then really what good were those in a battlemech fight in most situations. The comparison was apt though, for even though the griffin had given up its LRM capacity the trade was probably worth it, as long as the pilot knew what they were doing... it was almost assuredly a machine that had seen a lot over the course of the succession wars.

Unlike their original booth the Davion booth had terminals keeping active tracking on the judge's score calls.. and Gene doubted it was to keep the judges honest either. A series of PPC blasts knocked a warhammer out within two minutes of the buzzer.

Some of her fellow new arrivals were proving as lucky, or a s good. A Pheonix Hawk sandwiched into the left corner was down an arm, and was lucky they hadn't called an ammo breach, and likely wouldn't last much longer as a pair of heavies chased the golden mech. Whatever Gene had expected, and there was some showboating going on, but there was really less than he'd expected. He watched the two heavies chase the Pheonix Hawk down and dropping it out of contention rather than face each other both pivoted off to move towards a tartan clad heavy pilotted by one of their fellow cadets showing they were equal opportunity about ganging up on someone else.

Gene watched the feeds more than the field, not because of the scoring but because there was too much going on. If he'd been in his Marauder it would have been different... he'd been on the field with this many machines moving but that number was being trimmed down quickly... and faster than he expected. "The top scoring cadets are all avoiding each other."

"They want to fight each other one on one."

Sure... and it wouldn't have surprised him if the game commission hadn't told them to save it for those later matches given a quick glance at the noteputer provided him with the current odds, favorites and the amount of money being wagered.

In the back row behind them there was a chatter about the solaris game.

They were down from thirty mechs to twenty two... twenty one now as the games commission called another elimination with only four minutes after the starting buzzer. A victor's auto cannon dropping a lighter tartan painted mech eliminating it from the roster before the assault mech started taking PPC fire.

One of the judges' face went slack for a minute then hit his buzzer signaling he was calling a head shot on the Victor. The Machine wasn't out but the display showed the machine's head as in the red. The Victor... since this wasn't real energy weapons was trying to turn and find where his attacker had come from... which was a little hard when your cockpit was covered by simunition paint.

There was no point complaining about the kid's mistakes. He'd taken a closer quarters brawler into the open, and to be fair he probably hadn't assumed anyone would head shot his mech. That was the bigger problem over anything else he'd done wrong.

A minute later, just as the big digital display ticked five and a half, another simunition PPC packet repainted the Victor's face from where the 9 Bravo had tried to wipe the paint off the cockpit. "She's showing off." He remarked. "Waiting for him to make a move in this mess wasn't the right move." Even if it was what Combine honor duels would have required, to allow the other opposing mech the chance to do something, and to focus on him, and in ranged combat. "Are we monitoring their feeds, I assume their radios work?"

"We are, but normally we don't broadcast that." A plump short man in a kilt remarked slowly. "Beginning the colonel's pardon its more of a safety thing, sometimes the lads get a little excitable... and admittedly we've had some of the fellas... skirt the rules a bit."

"Did she challenge the warhammer or the victor to a fight or didn't she?" He wasn't ignorant that she could have called them out before the fight, but if she was going through a list... they were a little beyond showing off, and well into something else.

"I could ask." The man waffled clearly unused to this kind of request... which might have suggested Yvonne didn't ask him to do anything or requests regarding pilots were on a different sort... or just some other factor.

Gene nodded and looked back at the display as the Griffin peeled off towards its next victim. The dispersion was different, how much of that was the map's terrain forcing them to use different starting positions but there was a convergence point where the fake hills forced some of the mechs to get into close quarters. The kind of place where a mech like a Stalker, or a Longbow could just sit over the rise and throw rocks at your head from top attack. The breaks in the terrain were such that a mech with jump jets could hop, and go between cover and protection... or a mech could stand up on the hill for a little extra vantage force someone to shoot up the hill from the base or below it.

The fake railway buildings being little more than ply wood and canvas structures were not doing well either from contacts with simunition still having enough force to break them or just cadets driving mechs through the fake structures. That meant there was an increasing lack of cover from the buildings in the area around that end and with mechs congregating in that area the judges were calling hits left and right.

"That was a bad choice, if they keep this up they'll have the quota."

Two 'mechs went down as they moved into close quarters blocking the road access and boxing in another six mechs representing a substantial number of remaining mechs on the field, right as the Stalker came over the hill within its SRM range, and the pilot behind the yoke of the 85 tonner didn't waste any time running his mech hot with SRMs, his large and medium lasers, taking advantage of the boxed in smaller mechs and before the judges had called it the pilot had knocked all of them out, and seized top spot for individual mech kills in the match.

"This is the kid going to the Crucis Lancers I take it."

"He is." Yvonne replied. "I take it he meets with your approval."

"Certainly you could do a lot worse," He replied. The new subaltern would have six months before he was brevetted to lieutenant time in that rank after which he'd probably be confirmed to the rank within his posting to the 7th Crucis Lancers.

He watched the names and the scoring go up. By knocking out the mechs, they weren't eliminated, they did take a score penalty, which was probably going to effect who they went up against next in the one v ones that would start next week. He tuned out the narration, and glanced at the clock that read just shy of seven minutes. Not the fastest of the four but faster than he'd been expecting.

The one v ones next week would take longer four sets of advancements, four brackets even if every match was as expected to be in size of a few hundred meters starting where they'd be short and brutal it could still take ninety seconds. Four matches on monday... well they'd see.

"So what is one the schedule now Field Marshal?"

There was a pause. "Realistically the volunteers should be your priority, but for the moment and think an early dinner will suffice, and discussions about how to prepare."

Imperator Pax · Feb 23, 2023

I Davion 3 (b)
'Its time to switch to whisky, we've been drinking beer all night.'

The hoppers lifted the kinetic penetrators in between the first set of charged rails that formed the 'breach' of his gauss rifle. There was a pulse of dust as the mass of metal accelerated down range several times the speed of sound. The K2 skidded down in a lopsided manner its front glass shattered as the machine rolled to a stop on its side.

The radio crackled giving him the bad news that Bard had found that other Combine Mech Battalion, that it was the sword of light was coming down. He reached up to flip the controls as the left the left Gauss roared tearing into the side torso of a humanoid walking war machine. Gene hissed in incandescent fury against his harness, "MacIntyre." He ordered into the throat mike, the other lieutenant colonel's image flickered into his cockpit, "go pull the volunteers out of that mess, and then put your Thugs and Highlanders where they can do the most good."

He ignored comments about cadets earning their spurs. The other gauss rifle snarled and he adjusted the left to delimb another mech sending it crashing into the ground as it attempted to pick up speed. The Combine was couldn't rely on non smart thermals effectively. Too many other heat sources, and while his VLAR was running the capacitors were highly heat effective.

The display greened. Hoppers dropped rounds as they cleared under five hundred meters. The gauss rifles fired. A dragon's fusion signature died as a couple hundred pounds of tungsten allow ripped in and out front to back.

Twenty three rounds left, eventually became twenty three rounds expended and returns on his machine's sensors confirmed contact further north as the battalions other companies continued to throttle up the engines intended to commit to battle. Not realizing that they were already too late as the last of their lead company dissolved at just over three hundred meters to the bloom of man made lightning of his PPCs converging on the machine's head.

He registered Chang's Marauder steadily trundling forward , and not the only relatively slow mech pushing up. A Fury flash cabled a text update by lasercom of the archers starting to pour fire into the advance element that had been harrassing Bard and hold his attention while the Sword of Light came along. Grasshoppers and Quickdraws among them.

The display updated, and he ran the math, and ordered Bardiche to swing into reinforce the position the DMM troops were supposed to be vacating. "Anyone able to tell me what the Eridani are doing?"

"Still contacting infantry, and armor. Dug in support PPCs, and inferno missiles, to the east they haven't been able to break through and reach the capital." A voice answered from the command vehicle.

That suggested but didn't conclusively prove that the Combine had divided between conventional assets and Mech forces after this morning, if they hadn't already had that underway with something like this kind of attack in mind. He swapped channels, "MacIntyre, divide that battalion and drive them towards the lake when I signal."

"Whats the signal colonel?"

He hit the mike, and started cueing their aviation assets with orders to the DroSTs to prepare to dust off and potentially put their small craft in the air. He watched the battalions as they continued to advance on his broader arrangement of forces.

This was going to get very messy very quickly and do so from west to east. Most likely the combine had expected that first company to hold their attention, while the DMM had been held in place or potentially even pushed by the Sun Zhang cadre, that was even now trying to push into close quarters where mech combat was often the most lethal in normal engagements.

... but what he suspected, and what his own Azami officers had reached consensus on, was that this was a combine trial by fire for its green troops as disposable meat shields to soak ammunition ahead of a more elite, or really one of THE elite units of the DCMS to launch a concerted attack.

The devastator registered the boosting fusion signatures of the aerodyne dropships, small craft and ASF as they started preparations. He didn't much longer to watch as his computer informed him that he was less than half of his combat load as the other mechs began to resolve into extended ranges against their counter measures.

Seventeen rounds was going to go fast. If they could pull this off it would cement a Davion victory at Dieron, because the combine in committing to a decisive battle were facing not a large mech force, but also one with better equipment.

"What are we doing?"

Bard's voice was a distraction he didn't need, "Colonel Cameron I am pulling you from the rotation, and redeploying you to screen the pivot we will execute towards San Martin." He ignored the protest that the enemy was right in front of them. That it was true didn't change things, he had wanted to pull the combine units further forward, and spread them out originally... that had been the entire reason to pull the Volunteers back. In terms of average overland speed the DMM troops would be faster to redeploy along the line, after that even accounting for the presence of cache machines in what constituted the battalion was, Bardiche with Claymore being the slowest Mech Battalion in relative terms.

The Gauss rifle tore a leg off of an advanced mech as the conversation played out.

An argument they were still carrying on when the computer warned him he had ten rounds remaining and still a full company pushing forward but he didn't care about that third company so much as the nearer remains of the second. The gauss rifle continued on down the lances and then draining the capacitors to the gauss rifle as his PPCs began to flash.

"Bard I am switching machines, standby." He ordered as a machine died to man made lightning, and he took the assault mech a step backwards, and down the hillside and walked it back to the crouched form of his Marauder. He looked at the Azami techs. "Get it loaded, and bug out, we won't use it again today." He ordered stepping of the ladder to make for the dust and mud caked 75 tonner machine, before starting a full on sprint to the machine.

Start from Standby and bringing the Marauder to full power took ninety seconds to make sure the ER PPCs were live, and that the Thompson gun was good to go. He blinked through the message from testing and evaluation command. The 120mm hopper told him he had ammunition in the chamber. The VLAR 300 pushed the machine into a sprint of its own even as heard the 185mm chemjet thunder from an assault auto cannon. The enemy were now in close quarters with Chang's screening force, as more AC/20s opened up all along the line.

The familiar connection through the MMI to the Dalban's mass of data was reassuring. He could perceive the whole battlefield spiritually process the presence of Chang's Marauder, or Beau Dervish their brawlers, or missile boats respectively. The Kazakh river was just north of them to the east lay the planetary capital. He stared at the holographic display, a blinking indicator in what ordinarily would have been his peripheral vision.

A handshake from a Terran Hegemony Command.

Not now.

When the Snakes were dead. The Machine crested the hill and his ER PPCs opened up even as his sensors processed the PPC visual returns to the west towards the lake where Thugs were wading into battle. If any of the combine had gone to thermals he knew his 75 must have looked like a small sun from the waste heat of the extended range model Hellstars.

--
Notes: This is (b) and together they approximate a rough outline of the main and iconic in universe action on Dieron, with a significant emphasis on how aggressive, to the point of wastefulness combine doctrine is when they aren't engaging in individual duals, and this is based off of the IJA's doctrine, which was itself like the Russian infantry doctrine based off late Napoleonic ideas of infantry doctrine pioneered by french thinkers.

And in Battlech canon we see this with the Combine attempting to grind the dragoons down as well as elsewhere. Dieron as an arc, especially in terms of how much it effects the geopolitics of the Inner Sphere, being right in Terra's back yard, is a comparatively short Arc in terms of outline. Actual combat is as suggested by these two snippets is limited to a relatively short, very brutal engagement in a limited geographic environment. Now I expect the actual Dieron chapter to be ten to twelve segments, with the rest of Dieron being post combat events. In short Dieron was written in a similar fashion to Elidere was just kind of in a different order. Its the deployment on the planet its Bard's perspective, Gene gets in the Devastator, Hanzo, Bahar, Septim, Kiyone, interludes, Glimpses at the combine perspective, and in short order Dieron falls to the Davions.

I expect to start Dieron as a chapter in March. Highland Faire as a chapter is fairly large, its kind of necessary because of everything it sets the stage for, but the Jump to Dieron should go up in March as a main chapter story

Then after Dieron probably this summer there will be the summer 3018 'side quests' as they're in my notes before the return to the periphery as the escort of the exodus fleet and the shooting phase of the pirate wars.

And speaking of the pirate wars with all the talk about magistracy nobility there was another non canon snippet I was considering putting up, as I've already mentioned in the span of the davion section Yvonne's pretty incredulous by the Magistracy not trying harder to keep Gene on station, now admittedly that was all pre Elidere and certainly elsewhere but we will get to that in the Pirate wars and some of how the Magistracy has noble politics, and pirates that need killing. That snippet is more expressly non canon but does contend with some of the facets of the magistracy that have been on the books for a very long while but that the canopians are probably leery of actually practicing on foreigners because well they like trade with their neighbors and not being pariah states (I'm looking at you roman cosplaying lyrans).

Imperator Pax · Feb 26, 2023

Highland Faire 16

Field Marshal Davion was right they needed to focus on the DMM troops.. but it wasn't that simple, because they were in uncharted waters as to how to handle this from a training and logistical side of thing. "I did say that the Archer was perhaps the most common 'mech in Terran service." Gene replied flipping over the list, "And the Highlanders were iconic to the Hegemony as well," Or to mercenary based from the Hegemony's neck of civilized space... but it was understandable that Northwind's clans had all but scrambled for the totem mech. "We should have the next set of trams offload tonight so I think we should be settled until then."

Septim paused, deciding to change subjects, "So I got mail from home." He paused, and leaned back crossing his arms over his chest, "My family they heard about Elidere."

Gene leaned forward folding his hands, "You're from the Lyran Commonwealth." It wasn't really a question so much as a statement of the fact.

"Right... I know the plan is to go back to the periphery."

Gene paused considering his words, "Septim, if you need time off I can give it to you, I'll need a time frame, but I can see to it you're free as soon as we're done fighting on Dieron. The Azami need our dropship collars, the extra space, extra supplies for going out to the periphery... and lets be honest. It will be easier to do repairs here, than try and effect repairs either enroute or only after we get back there."

Septim appreciated the understanding, but at the same time. "Its really okay?"

"Its more a matter that I need a time table to work around. If I need to I can sit close to Terra and deal with the GM and Blackwell people... and,"

"The Landhold talks?"

Gene wasn't prepared to commit to that. He didn't have the manpower for that, and of course, "The Davions would prefer I settle somewhere that they can vet. The clans would prefer I settle on Northwind... I suspect that the recommendation,"

"Is Kestrel." Dante's voice interrupted, the AI clearly a bit testy at the notion.

It wasn't a suspicion. The AI was in the Davion's data networks. He suspected that the AI agreed with his human natives of Northwind that the planet was preferable. Gene pursed his lips into a narrow line. In fact it was more than the AI was in the data networks he was actively monitoring their employers... and everyone else presumably at the fairy. The Machine was carefully guarding his homeworld more actively than he had been in centuries. As a result there were a variety of details that were being tabulated, and run to generate odds.

It had probably been from the implication of those reports, though it did not appear explicitly stated in documents that that might have been the intention all along. It wasn't definitive, because of initially the Draconis March's dukes... in the system of Elidere as well as on Robinson... and of course New Avalon wasn't an option simply for the optics it would conveyed. It would have looked a little high handed.

"There are talks going on, but nothing is definitive at the moment. I also plan to bring the Highland units back here after we rotate off Dieron in order to let the cadets decompress. That will give us some time. If you need to send a message planning for a where and when, then now is the time."

Beau cleared his throat. "We gonna talk about the Landhol', Or back about mechs, bushwhacking snakes?"

"Something in particular?"

Beau shrugged, "We have a lot of archers, so we should be good. I mean as it was the lrm sections have been pretty squarred away, anyway. Unless you want to complain about ten tube launchers to General Kersten."

He'd only been pointing out that an LRM 10 was inefficient in terms of mass, and that he didn't think the Eridani choice to downgrade from the LRM 15 the Thunderbolt ordinarily ran was a particularly good idea... not the least of which was because it was decrease in throw weight. "Nothing we can do about that how are things we the LRM carriers?" Or specifically the new drivers.

"No problems we're good. They're green, but they understand the game we're playing." Beau detailed that he planned to lay out a combination of missile boat mechs from the volunteers along with their LRM equipped vehicles to screen. "I think we will be okay."

That was good. He glanced at the clock. A look mirrored by the others, "Feel free to go grab beers, we're done." They shuffled out, then Septim paused and stepped back in. "What?"

"This, about Bahar's group."

"I'm going to take the twelve sunday." He replied thinking back to the conversation with the Field Marshal.

"No I knew that, I meant how are the Highlanders ... we have have so many of them." He meant Northwind natives, though they did have a handful of the totem mechs in inventory.

He shrugged, "They haven't said anything yet," It was only a matter of time, "But it was frankly too late to focus on adding more to the group. Has there been any more problems with Rio?"

"He's fine, I think Bard has the kid on a short leash." Septim replied, then glanced to the dark eyed woman.

The Mongoose pilot shook her head. "He still talks too much, but thats not surprising."

Septim bit down a snort. It was no secret that Bahar was no slouch in close quarters. An SRM 6 at close range... inside a football field was really no space at all to get away, and with HEDP or Inferno a machine carrying ammunition of its own would have a bad day. It would have been better if the Mongoose, ferro fibrous or not, had been larger and more armored but it was a very much high skilled machine. "Take them into the upper levels of the Northwind castle there are training pods there, I'll have Dante clear them for programs that should help."

"Like Gunslinger programs?"

"No, the MechWarrior Advanced Gunnery Course." Dante stated from his speaker box as Gene punched up the syllabus in the noteputer. "I'll need to make adjustments for their non standard machines, give me twenty four hours."

There was a pause as they tried to move through the doorway and out into the adjoining office / lobby / living room space without trampling over the ELH officers. They must have heard at least part of the last bit of the conversation. "You should warn them they're up for two weeks of hell." The Eridani major remarked.

"Yeah, why's that?" Septim asked, the lyran glanced back and forth to the Light Horse Officer.

"Exam requires a hundred percent to pass." The major remarked, "You have a master gunner's certification colonel, you tell the captain how it is."

Gene shrugged mimicing the amicable man's tone, "Master Gunner's course is Thirty nine days, six exams. Am I to assume, General Kerston wants the testing program then."

"The Eridani," Funny how it was the Eridani right now instead, 'the star league', but he didn't say that, "Doesn't have a copy in our library so the General did send me over to borrow a copy."

He shrugged moving into the larger space, "Come by Sunday, I'll have a rom for Hegemony Mech models." Which actually meant he was going to pull them from Dante's library of tradoc related materials... but that still would run into the problem that course work had been developed in packets specifically because the SLDF ran whole units at time, and typically lances, of single model battlemechs. It would be one thing to run a Marauder, or an Archer through the course as in weapons terms their load out had not changed over the succession wars. To the best of his knowledge the Grasshopper had never had an Advanced Gunnery Course planned, and without that he doubted a master gunner course likely hadn't either. The 7A probably hadn't either, but since that mech only carried a Large Laser and was explicitly a scout platform it shouldn't have been as difficult... but still he doubted the League had ever gotten to it... never mind the version of that machine that had actually entered production for the successor states.

Dante made a rasping cough, scoff approximation over the speaker. "They'll lack the instructors to run the course." The scottish machine spirit remarked.. and he was right the advanced level courses were more than just semi smart tests to simulate conditions they were supposed to be tests with skills being passed on from the field from instructor to learner. There was an ample classroom time component in addition to the field exercises. The Hegemony had an expectation that classes would all pilot the same mech that was why they were focused on specific models.

There were exceptions in the Gunslinger material but even there, there was an emphasis on PPC gunnery because that weapon class tended to be the preferred weapon of both the program as well as its key opposition; in the Combine Ronin. The problem there was apparently somehow the Succession Wars had had problems with PPC technology, in production, and installation in new machines. The technology wasn't LosTech by any means but production hadn't kept up with demand and it wasn't a simple plug and play system compared to say running an LRM box to a fire control system. He didn't understand it.

They didn't have time to worry either.
--
Sunday arrived a little earlier than he'd have liked, but the sleep had helped. He was decompiling material still, but planning for Dieron was hard without specifics. There were more political questions cropping up. This wasn't just taking a provincial capital either. This wouldn't cut the Combine off from Terra, the one jump from Terra mark... it certainly wouldn't prevent HPG transmission ... but it would force ComStar to restructure apparently... and that was something that apparently was a point of concern within Davion command.

The general suspicion was that though ComStar professed neutrality the order was not above national sympathies. To that end in papal terms, obviously a FedSuns Primus, loyal to New Avalon or at least sympathetically inclined would have been best, but it would be good enough to have a Lyran or even a Free Worlds League Primus than one from the Capellans or the Combine.

Gene was a little surprised that the office of primus wasn't a terran dominated position, but ComStar was not the Ministry of Communications. They were techno cult holding things together with duct tape and prayers... suggesting that with the League's collapse the mother doctrine had probably cut both ways.

He looked at the twelve Davion pilots. "We're moving forward with your training. The next two weeks will focus on a program of advanced gunnery qualifications. You'll be in class a lot." It was best to just be blunt with them, let them know what they were in for, the Thunderbolt pilot was already groaning, and Bard didn't look especially enthused. "This is not going to be an easy or routine course work. You want to pass the exam at the end of it you need to hit every target." The holographic projector triggered. "That means if you are using an autocannon or missiles you will need to make the decision of what is the best weapon for a given target. There will be known and unknown ranges. So in preparation for what I'm sure you will hate tomorrow is we're going out into those muddy flats for mech exercises."

Alexandria shrugged out of the rain jacket she was wearing over her piloting suit, and looked at one of the standard Marauder II assault BattleMechs.

Imperator Pax · Feb 26, 2023

Not counting Bardiche, and the expansions on the Maguanac corp (which I will get to), and the naval side of things, the main thing I've really screwed up on is the independently attached armor.

Command Company (Nominal) January 3017 Northwind Arrival

Gene: Marauder
Bahar: Mongoose
Septim: Merlin
Chang: Atlas
Beauregard: Dervish
Ishida: Cicada

Maguanac Group 1 (aboard the Sam Houston)
1 Daimyo Command HQ
Refitting at time of arrival on Northwind [Extra Vehicles being carried aboard the San Saba]
+ Infantry Company (Aboard Baffins)
+ Independent Armor 'Hammer' which is also Nominally on paper a company.

Claymore Battalion (Standing up) late January 3017
Ancients Company: https://forum.questionablequesting....-battletech-isekai.15094/page-28#post-6422537
Cadets (Nominal)

Attached Davion sourced Pilots (Active: 8 Rapiers; 2 + 6 Moving to 12 in two wings in the overlords)

--
This doesn't currently mark out the expanded Infantry and Armor or Bardiche that will stand up shortly

Imperator Pax · Mar 5, 2023

Highland Faire 17

The first bouts were.. weren't scripted per se, but they much more formalized than the free for all format that the melee's clearing houses had been in. For one the participants had been expected to follow civil etiquette and salute one another from their respective starting position. It wasn't specifically a Davion thing but he suspected that it was more part of the spectacle than anything else. The sets were tallied up by points won in the free for all... and that meant most though not all of the competitors who had advanced were pilots who hadn't been knocked out during those first four scrums.

The matches Monday had themselves averaged a surprising between five and seven minutes. The scoring was a bit more game like and there was more play in the bout. It was easier to focus on just the one guy in front of you. While not alphabetical, the first two scrimmages had been organized close enough, first half of the alphabet, second half, the latter two had originally been lower half, and the top scorers. That had turned into something of a scandal because the subsequent knock out of pilots in Friday's match had eliminated pilots who likely would have gone on, by points.

The games were an important ritual though, and they went on, even if there had still been some grumbling about it. Gene put the comms transcript aside, and looked at the surly teenager. Then to the Rasalhague Assault Mech pilot.

Soren piloted ... well what had started life as a Ymir 3 Alfa but the last two hundred years hadn't been good to the machine as it had sort of backed tracked along the way to its 2 Echo roots. Yusuf had said the Hermes 360 in the Machine had a manufacturing date from 2601 and had probably come out of a Hegemony Militia Mech. It had a pair of Fusigon PPCs as its primary armament, and ran hot even with DHS installed.

He wasn't surprised that the Griffin pilot had actually challenged her opponents in order, or that she'd gone into the match with that in mind... with that sort of plan. She seemed confident bordering on unreasonably cocky that she'd make the finals. He suspected that was probably in part based off of having survived starting in the deep end with the top ranked pilots, but it certainly reminded him of Rio's attitude.

That was only part of the problem. Free Rasalhague was the other one. Rasalhague had been one of those by products of the exodus from terra in the 23rd century, a blip that might have faded into history if what might have just been seen as queer early exodus colonial parochialism that might had turned into a national identity that had never existed historically. That was to say that Combine had through a pattern of cultural repression and driving a literate educated populace underground had insured that the idea of a rasalhague national identity had survived. More than survived thrived as an expatriate community, a literary movement, and militant factionalism.

The combine's attempts to go out of their way to crush competing social identities the more hardy those identities became... self defeating was maybe was the best even description...

That said it was still a little difficult to take seriously claims to represent the Principality in Exile... especially when the claims on what world were natural Rasalhagian was somewhat grandiosely nothing short of the entire Military District.

Of course it was entirely possible that Soren's bosses were banking on talking big would win them points, or that it would cause them to be taken more seriously. There was no telling how real their profession of local support was... but they did have money, and manpower and equipment and they had support from other groups. The azami endorsement of their character was a plus, at least so far as he believed Pasha in that the old JumpShip captain held that it was sincere.

He was also pretty sure that Soren Holmgren was volunteering for this because if they succeeded in taking Dieron it might not only win Davion support for their political ambitions... it would them kudos and recognition more broadly. A rasalhague contingent at Dieron, a victory or even just a presence against the combine would be a statement. A political statement. A potentially very loud political statement.

In order to participate though they needed a structure. There were no shortage of mercenaries in the inner sphere, and as in the star league era before it the succession wars had plenty of mercenary outfits that were little more than private military arms of the patron noble house or corporation that sponsored them... actually that was perhaps both more or less common now depending on how one looked at it. The more things changed the more things stayed the same, but again the problem was that Rasalhague wasn't a recognized government. The movement to which Holmgren and friends belong also couldn't just register as mercenaries for a corporation that might being paying them either... not unless they were willing to risk their backers getting the full attention of the ISF or possibly even combine regulars.

That left enrolling as mercenaries under an existing company for the purpose of learning the trade, and in truth learning the trade of arms to ideally serve as the center piece of a future free Rasalhague state. How much they'd been banking on riding out into the periphery with the azami going out there to work in the periphery, a distance out from Combine scrutiny and presumptive retaliation was unclear but a chance at an active strike at the dragon was probably too good to pass up.

This was in what history, what annals, and chronicles of the company... a Highlander brought in tradition would record as establishing Bardiche. In historical record more broadly it would be the day that the Rasalhague government reaffirmed its signature on the Ares Conventions originally signed as a nominally independent power in 2412... though its signatore had been a member of House Kurita... which of course no one had been ass enough to bring up.

"We'll start intake procedures for pilots, your mechwarriors will go through the same familiarization course as the highland cadets. With minor modifications to accommodate for outfitting the Battalion. I'll have you a berth aboard the San Saba prepared."
--
Septim looked like he was going to break the stylus as he attempted to compose the monograph, presumably to his kinsmen back home. The Highlander officers were currently engrossed in a conversation over the contents of the caches here and on Robinson, and on Elidere with Bard as the rain continued to shake the windows.

Considerations for the expansion of the unit were going to be complicated... Gene had to question why the Hegemony had never acted more forcefully to encourage the break up of the Combine. It made little sense. The limits of KF drives and the perpetual belligerence of the Combine had always been topics of discussion. The lack of a clear indictment over who was responsible for the assassination of the second to last Star Lord, and the previous Davion succession crisis had been too late to effectively act on... the Hegemony had lacked strong leadership by the end. By 28th century the Hegemony had been too unwilling to act, and whether the Hegemony even could have been saved was a pointless what if.

What was left were the Hegemony's weapon stocks and that they could be used against the Combine... maybe Rasalhague could succeed, become independent. Maybe the Azami too. Maybe it'd just weaken the combine more. The odds were too hard to calculate but they were still favorable enough in terms of making the combine's life hell that Dante was willing to throw the dice.

"Even distributing some of the Rasalhague pilots with the Storm hunters, we don't have enough assault mechs to stand up another Dragoon Battalion." It wasn't as if the Rasalhague didn't have some mechs of their own to contribute, but they'd most likely have organize those into Scout Lances, which would overlap them with the lighter mechs that the Azami would likely be adding... that was actually probably a good thing... but Pasha was still in conference with the exodus fleets elders about where they stood with their own forces.

He'd seen estimates for exactly how many civilians were up there... and transporting that many people to the periphery was going to put them on a time table just for the simple facet of keeping them fed, and also with regards to water... but also staying in one place for too long might attract unwanted attention from the combine.

Mercenary units were rarely mono ethnic in the periphery. People came out to the periphery in order to get out of the Inner Sphere... there was a little more homogeneity in the Inner Sphere, but that got back to how many merc units were corporate security or some noble's private bully force Active working mercs were more likely to be a combination of different national origins, but there was that and then there was... well there set up.

Dieron would be the real test.

"There is also the matter of hiring pilots into the company itself."

They had slots open, and she was just talking mechs never mind the whole armor issue. "I know." He replied to Bahar's statement, "What's your opinion?"

"She's reckless. I think she has great potential, but she's very angry, and that could get her killed in a real fight."

He tapped the application for hiring the Griffin pilot, and her surviving retainer. "Is that a yes?"

"Its a yes."

They'd been planning originally to make hiriing offers to the participants after the the games concluded but nothing about this trip was remaining static in terms of planning. "I'm not entirely comfortable at this stage reading her in on events that lead into the first succession war."

"It probably wouldn't matter. The dragon has committed an extreme breach of personal honor in its actions, I doubt she's at a stage where she's consciously processed that misfortune never mind crimes committed by generations past." He nodded in concession to the point even as he thought back to telling Septim about the the things during the lead into the battle for Elidere IV. It was not unreasonable to assume that regardless of present employment or indeed perhaps because of it, the Lyrans military and intelligence services would want statements.

They weren't likely do anything untoward, but Septim would probably be asked questions about the success of Elidere, and the condition of the Combine's forces in real combat. Only Septim would know how he was going to answer those questions. It was a risk, but throwing a look up towards orbit, and the artificial stars in the afternoon sky. "We have a lot of people who are going to need to be moved." That meant supplies, an exodus from the inner sphere, meant a lot of supplies. He was sure that the Azami had made progress towards that, but he also knew that the road to Alamut was long, and that they were hoping to pad that reserve out, so they'd need time, after Dieron.
--
Notes: Dieron as I've said is going to be a fairly short arc, it covers a small chronological period of time, but it has a significant outsized effect on what it sets up for. It is among other things a demonstration that Elidere was not some fluke. It is also a major feather in the FedSuns cap for other reason and it has major knock on effects in the wider Inner Sphere and in particular for going forward.

While its not definitive, the outlines are not concrete yet, the events on Dieron shape how the 4th Succession war plays, it shapes the clan invasion when that occurs... at least it does in the current versions, and we will get to that.

And regarding the clan invasion what will probably happen is that there will be a breakdown of large polities into smaller ones because Jihad... but more of that will be set up for in, hinted at in Smoke Jaguar 2 in the extras segment because well decade in the future.

But yeah post dieron there are some travel stuff, and then a time skip to allow for Jump Travel distances to the periphery and what not and the pirate wars start. While the Pirate Wars are going on we will probably get some follow on from the Davion side of things from Yvonne and Kersten (we're actually missing a few Kerston segments that just never got finished) as well as ComStar and Wolf Dragoons stuff.

Imperator Pax · Mar 12, 2023

IN the event I have forgotten to post this:

This is what played over combine's comms system when 1st Battalion 19th Galedon Regulars were put down ahead of 3rd Battalion Galedon Regulars coming in.

I'm pretty sure I've posted the Black Fox song, so from the still technically non canon New Kyoto karaoke night

Speaking of non canon, the Whoops there goes the HPG network may get an update at the end of the month we will see.

Imperator Pax · Mar 12, 2023

Highland Faire 18

Truthfully he would have liked to have said that the Faire was ... that they'd been able to network with other mercenaries... but the truth was it hadn't. Part of that was their existing contract with the Davions, and the invasion, which was what he was dealing with at the moment.

Gene punched up the Davion's files for Dieron, the Azami data, and the historic data that ... went back to both the second succession war as well as to earlier, including the hegemony files. Fortress Dieron being intact was what worried him. It had been abandoned when Clancy had gone, so he had locked the facility... but theoretically the wolf dragoons, or even for that matter the Eridani probably could have accessed the facility or gotten the AI to open the door for them if they'd known to ask.

... and the Eridani were not the only SLDF unit that had turned mercenary, far from it as he was finding out, and of course there were people out there with less scruples than Abner, who could have Star League credentials. Then of course there... weirdos like the knights of ST Cameron... and he had know idea how they'd respond to a Hegemony AI.

Invading Dieron wasn't going to be easy. Invading a planet never was, never mind one with five billion people. They needed break the combine forces quickly. Try and take the capital... but Dieron was a mountainous planet. There were not a lot of good places to land, there was really only one place to land and that was west of the capital of San Martin where you could actually drop to the planet's surface offload an invasion force of any substantive number, mass and then go overland against the capital.

"Can it be done?"

"Of course it can be done," He replied to Pasha's question. The bigger question was could they hold Dieron... but that like the question of defending forces was a matter of what forces were available... which was part and parcel of why the Davions intended to drop the mech force as it was... the mech force they had planned before the 'Caches, and the volunteers swelled their ranks. The succession wars had worn down the number of BattleMech regiments that were in service... and what they had available. The truth was, "As soon as Elider happened, or resolved I should say," given that the Makios duke had spent the liquid capital in order to pay for live communications, "The Davions probably were putting plans into place."

The Davions had a thin materiel advantage in numbers of regiments and were banking that chauvinism aside that the Combine wouldn't strip the Commonwealth border of units, especially with Rasalhague worlds proving restive. Whether that would be born out remained to be seen, but the bid to take Dieron was something that the Davions had run the math for, and especially with Mercenaries padding their numbers considered practical. That the Davions were trying for some mad dash to completely cut from the Terran corridor, much as they might have wanted to, suggested they had a good idea of what they could and couldn't sustain.

What they could take and hold.

That was also in part why the Davions were hoping to recreate Elidere if possible. Minimal losses to FedSuns aligned forces, maximum losses to Combine Forces. In part that was what Altair was aimed at as well, aiming to destroy combine regulars with more standard Davion forces. Every little bit would help, but investing Dieron provided the opportunity to devastate both a Sword of Light Regiment, and also a training cadre of future mechwarriors before they could come online. Inflicting those losses would mean not only would combine losses entail elite troops, it would also damage their replacement capacity... if they succeeded then the combine would be forces to stretch units, the units they had left even thinner...

"It is unlikely that the Lyran commonwealth would move to take advantage of this."

"That might be why the Davions are willing to give Rasalhague," And their bombastic claims, "The time of day," If the RMD's ethnic rasalhague units elsewhere in Combine space switched sides, or just started getting into shoot outs with the ISF or whomever on the Combine side because there was an idea that there was going to be an independent or a restored Rasalhague that would seriously mess up the combine.

What Pasha couldn't promise was that the Arkab legions would change sides. It was one thing for the Azami community to agree to allow clans, even collections of clans to peacefully leave, it was another to brook open rebellion... and that was understandable given the Combine's historical success of putting down rebellions.

Surely some of that was also that not everyone remained committed to the historical memory of the Star League, and humanity's golden age versus surviving in the reality of the present Inner Sphere, and its political situation. The Azami ... lack a coherent nationalist rhetoric a desire to have their own independent state at least in comparison to the ambitions of Rasalhague.

... and both, or even just one of those would be enough of a headache. If the Combine splintered then there was going to be nightmare... because for all that had changed compared to the Star League the Succession wars, the states competing to succeed the hegemony in the position of preeminence of human states at the heart of human space, none of them had simply sloughed off entire ethno-nationalist successor realms. If that started happening... well it had the potential to get very bad very quickly, even by the standards of the succession wars... but that wasn't Gene's problem... because Dante was right it was hard to be worse than the combine

... well unless the clans invaded.

Or as it turned out someone decided to try and recreate Amaris's empire in the periphery... but who would have predicted that.
--
Gene looked over the crowded mass all occupied by the assembled hundred tonners. The Marauder IIs were unique to the Company outside of the Wolf Dragoons who had 'helped' Blackwell develop them... and it was hard to miss the tartan badging applied to a lance of the standard configuration 'mechs.

Seeing that look Cameron elbowed him in the ribs, "What do you have a different clan tartan. There is a Shepherd's check-" Gene tuned him out, because they'd been through this. The tartan piping on the mechs was a temporary applique, it would be replaced once the final insignia for the Highland Mech Battalion was ... finalized, accepted whatever what one wanted to call it. There were stylistic issues with sword and wolfhound for putting on BattleMechs uniformly, and then putting them on file with the MRB.

He had absolutely put his foot down at talk of trying to use the Rakkasan snake eater ibis motif that his White Horse had in its parade configuration... but even that intransigence might well eventually fail if the unit continued to grow at this rate over the next year. That was the big thing, they survived the significant lethal period of a merc company, and were now in the big leagues with the slate recruitment... it was just that recruiting was unique.

"What are you going to do about the Swedenese?" Cameron asked.

It was a valid question, "We'll see how well they hold up on Dieron, but I'll run their units in the same scope as everyone else... and if nothing else," Gene stated, "As missile boats it will provide us a fires advantage." Running part of the Rasalhague contingent as scouts would be dangerous, there was no point pretending otherwise... invading a planet was dangerous work, "I want to be able to put as many missiles onto Combine squares as possible before we close to engage."

Truthfully he was hoping they could force the enemy to engage them west of the city in and along the Kazakh valley where they would have to drop in order to have enough flat open space to utilize Fury, and Alacorn gauss rifles from dug positions of ambush. Whether they would would or not, they wouldn't know until they were planet side.

The conversation froze as the machines started, and a handful of cadets from the Highlander's academy made their way to the machines for their first test of the assault mechs. Beyond the barricade they had just passed through at the observation deck were the mass of onlookers from various participants of the Faire, both mercenaries and corporate.

"Why the 3D and not one of your versions."

"Simplicity." He replied, "The 3D is an entirely reasonable modification to the Marauder," Accepting the loss of DHS and ferrofibrous, and frankly replacing it with Lamellor armor was understandable change from Royalist machines, "The 4A," The Marauder II, "Addressed the heat curve issue," For unskilled pilots, which frankly as a machine the 75 ton Marauder shouldn't have been issued to anyway, "It doesn't completely eliminate that, but realistically that's a necessity." If you had to fire everything actually were in a situation where that was warranted them that was the case.

Naturally Bard brought up the routing trick, he'd demonstrated on the fire course... the same course that the cadets were about to take on. The range master cleared them, and the lights from their vantage point greened, and a clock started with the first Marauder II took a step forward and then accelerated into the track. "They're not going to beat your time."

"I don't expect them to do that, I expect them to do their best on the course." And then shrugged, as he watched the reports from down range, repeated the gesture, "The 4A or one of my Hunters or a Hammer are all assault mechs. 19 ton engines, and good armor coverage." If he needed to rerun the course in a 4A to demonstrate that you could do it in a factory Marauder in that time, with that demonstration of piloting acumen then fine. "Dieron is going to be the first real combat, and they won't be on the back line they'll be up front in real mechs, facing real opponents with probably years of experience."

When they had run the DMM participants who had been allocated MAD IIs they had done fine they could do better, but the mistakes were understandable. Either too slow or too fast more often than not. "Do you think the Eridani will start procuring themselves some?"

"I think Kerston is going to try... I don't know what the relationship is like between Blackwell and the Dragoons are... but I get the feeling that Blackwell's CFO," And probably the CEO felt the same way, "Thinks they should at least try and get the Dragoons consent, which GM is already suggesting that they should be able to produce the Marauder II." But that was for the lawyers to fight out, and for royal patronage and what not.

... and speaking of patronage, the Field Marshal, well Field Marshals since the duke of Robinson were both coming over... even with the crowd parting it would take them a couple of minutes, "So why did you paint them?" Bard asked as they waited.

"What, oh due to the interactions of the neurohelmets, pilots actually see positive improvement and reinforcement to the mech's appearance."

"I'm sorry did you just say that a pilot gets better based on how his mech is painted?"

That's was a... a bad description, "Pilots respond to tactile, and perceived features while connected to the machine. The tartan is reassuring, and that comfort helps improve synchronization at least in a statistically significant number of mechwarriors."
--
Notes: Obviously Rasalhague will be a thing, not strictly as it was in canon, but that will happen, and frankly because I am of the opinion that the successor states probably should have broken down or lost pieces to movements sooner, if it was going to happen. The skye, and tamar and what not all felt really shoehorned in with how it was handled.

Imperator Pax · Mar 25, 2023

Teaser: Aquagea 3019 The Pirate Wars

... The centurion was in surprisingly good condition. The only immediate oddity was in the torso where... something had replaced the two medium lasers... they looked like medium lasers but rather than just singular weapons it was... putting off more heat, but that was understandable. It was like someone had mated together two Medium lasers without including any kind of extra internal cooling. Twice the punch twice the heat, in a single ton weapon system.

Ordinarily a centurion's two PhosTec Medium Lasers were split front and back instead the locals had some how cobbled the two weapons together. Two third of a ton of standard grade armor could be blasted through ... it was true it didn't have the range of a PPC but Darryl's cobbling had generated a weapon that didn't produce anywhere near the waste heat of a PPC either.

No one would have thought that this development would become the defining weapon of new brawler mechs used by what would become the Via Caballero rangers.

"They're pretty cool aren't they?" The pimply faced tech asked in the local twang of english, a twang that he couldn't particularly say he missed.

"I don't have this model Medium laser." But he could provide Martel and certainly Magna equivalents, "If you think this could be replicated."

When one got down to it there were differences in individual weapons. Whether this could be replicated or not of if Darryl had somehow found some magical exploit, they'd have to see. Ultimately Myomer, heat sinks and armor were largely interchangeable. What made a mech a mech was the Chassis. That was the skeleton of the mech and the internal components.

The eventual Canopian Centurions, deeply ironic since the Marians would move to produce a truly retrotech totem mech Centurion, would be built under license from the Federated Commonwealth as part of a technology sharing agreement but would be a variant on the AL. Given existing Magistracy weapons production that variant would carry a PPC in place of a large laser and thus run a bit hotter.

Simply put with no reliable locally built trade options it was easier to field two Holly LRM launchers and standardize the parts used. Even by the time trade with the Duchy of Andurien became feasible it was a simpler more capable solution to product demand. As for Darryl's medium laser combo they would prove remarkably effective though wouldn't enter production until well after the current threat of Black Jack McGirk had been put down.

Aquagea simply didn't have the population base. It could support mech refit yards certainly, but battlemech production was simply beyond the local population's ability to provide for... especially given the focus on supplying germanium to market and the growing agriculture sector with new irrigation and drought resistant plants. It would only be much later, towards the end of the following decade that the Aurgians would begin production of Griffins and Dragons and even these would initially be built largely using imported weapons from the Canopians so the eventual supply of AC 10s and LRM 10s never were readily available in enough numbers to convince the Centurions to switch back to the original version of the Centurion.

This stop was about other things though. Whatever interest a specialist weapon was, lucky, today was more about stopping at Aquagea to deal with problems in the region. Aquagea had already been having problems with its neighbor of Zathras, which wasn't that stable. Gene looked over the scrub country. "If Black Jack is going over the border into the Free Worlds League, we can be reasonably sure he's probably jumping over the Capellan border as well." Given previous attacks on the Fed Sun that seemed pretty likely scenario given what they knew... but it wasn't what he was reallyu concerned about, "If ComStar's footage," That they had picked up from their stopover on Detroit was accurate about what happened. "Was accurate BlackJack has been hiring on... I have to question how much control he really has." Or if the rest of the pirates nests in Tortuga and wherever else the vermin lived were going along with it because he had the biggest big stick of any of them in terms of mech forces at his disposal.

As it was no one hit by the pirates was having a good time. This was no longer about raiding and pillaging. Oh that was going on, but the rate of atrocities being committed was increasing with little rhyme or reason.

Not that they'd been a professional military force to start with but increasingly FireStarter and other mechs had been deployed in a clearly organized terror campaign over the border with the League targeting civilians who clearly weren't a threat before they had bugged out.

That kind of behavior just went beyond the pale.

"That's not all is it?"

He blew a breath out, and glanced to the mongoose pilot, "The attack on," Probably managed by jumping to Viribium first, "Claybrooke showed a Rampage. Eighty Five tons, now to be sure the Rim Worlds republic exported these to the Taurians, and for that matter anyone with interest but certainly all the territorial states had them before 2765. It isn't insane to think that one might have survived... but it was in Amaris colors. That strikes me as very unusual." Admittedly it was the only mech he had seen in 'correct' colors, there had been other mechs using shark iconography but nothing recorded in the roms had been put up that suggested anything some asshole pirate decided hey I'm going to paint my mech in how it would have been the Amaris Fusiliers in the 28th century.

It could be nothing... but it was an outlier that did stand out in the footage. It also broke with Black Jack's known habits... he hadn't repainted of his mechs in that kind of parade job. He didn't seem to have a parade use at all. He seemed to have liked black and red. He liked skeletons and devils, skulls and crossbones but even that wans't uniform.

The mech stood out because atypical compared to everything else in the video.

After a moment of contemplation, Bahar answered, "Somewhere like Pioche perhaps. Many worlds were lost when the Star League fell, and more were abandoned over the long darkness of the succession wars, could he have found another hidden rim world outpost. These could also be the ones who attacked the Aurigans,"

"No, I considered that possibility. The JumpShips are different and the machines, I went back through the Aurigans roms there is no indication of non SLDF mechs. The attack on Cormodir seems to have been core units of McGirks force... these seem different." Whether it was or not, it didn't change the fact that McGirk was rampaging across the rimward frontier.

Whether it was directed or he just let his subordinates run rampant the truth was the pirate wars of the late third succession war era were to effect everyone in the rimward to some degree or another. This was to include the three states of the Inner Sphere, and the major , and minor periphery powers.

McGirk was ultimately a raider, maybe a warlord at best in terms of administration, threatening and extorting whatever world he temporarily occupied, but he wasn't staying anywhere for long periods of time. No one could say where the Orion pilot was, just where he had been, and some times not even then. McGirk attacked with his host and moved on rather. There was no pirate nest to go attack like there had been at Fjladr.

Establishing a landhold on Aquagea put them on a planet where they could deploy forces... and certainly since Aquagea mined Germanium... and the Alamutian Azami needed Germanium, or would need Germanium in the long term it made sense to have a presence here. "We'll see what the thrust into the League yields... if we can catch them on this side of the border, so much the better." As it was the rumor from the League side was the Duchy of Andurien was not happy about the situation and there were concerns that in addition to black jack that the Capellans might try and take advantage of any Marik weakness. "What do we know about what happened on Claybrooke?"

"We know that they didn't destroy the HPG station there." Bahar paused, "That is a break from how McGirk has been acting."

He nodded. That was true. He hadn't considered that, but the survival of the HPG station was a break, previous to this attacks on worlds with an HPG station aimed at hitting COMSTAR so that they couldn't beam word out that delayed knowledge of, or would delay knowledge of pirate activity. Precentor New Avalon had cited the loss of the HPG station on the davion side of the border as reason for his office to issue bounties on the pirates... even though it had been very clear that Huthrin Vandal had wanted to act against McGirk before this.

Financial conservatism within ComStar's higher ups made a certain degree of sense, but had a gnawing suspicion that there was more to it. Where had Black Jack gotten his material in the first place... how had he managed to operate as long as he had?
--
Notes: Again in this timeline Black Jack defeats 1st Division ComsGuard in his battle with them, so he has a substantive amount of material to use after 3005, on top of being able to recruit people with the promise of plunder.

Now at some point I do need to finish the 1st Circuit argues before Tiepolo about the situation with Black Jack to provide some context to the divisive nature of the organization, because in this period ComStar is already pretty divided in opinion.

Anyway I'm currently working on going through my notes, I'm posting this just because its more or less ready to go, but Sunday we will go ahead and start moving to finish up the faire and move on to the conquest of Dieron in April just other things have been coming.

Imperator Pax · Mar 26, 2023

Highland Faire 19

When you got right down to it the it was somewhat baffling that someone hadn't tried to well do a lot of things with what was feasible on the Marauder Chassis. Why no one had reinforced it before... particularly given historical Star League era examples was a little shocking... but now that Blackwell had done that... chances were good anyone who could still manufacture Marauders would theoretically be in a position to domestically produce an assault mech version... but that would take time... and money... and money was probably one of the potentially limiting factors at least in terms of capital expenditure to just get started and develop a prototype.

Was that worth it?

That would depend on a manufacturers unique situation.... and Gene wasn't an industrialist. He wasn't sure how you weighed that kind of decision or justified to a bank or whoever was putting up the equity.

Score tally posted. "that's not bad." Bard observed.

"That's a good sign actually." He replied. The Marauder II was a new mech, and he doubted that most of the cadets had either much time on the original or on an Assault Mech that was similar tothe Marauder II's armament. "Twelve minutes for a first run on this course is not bad at all." Elidere as a campaign was a contract, a payout worth a significant amount of money. The salvage value receipts were still being calculated, and god that would probably really need lawyers to really be sure, but the AFFS had picked up the bill... and rather than just pay it out as cash, they were pumping into Blackwell to buy up production of machines to turn over to the company. That was going to take time, they wouldn't, weren't likely to get the next shipment of vehicles they were allocated until after they hopefully came back from Dieron in one piece.

... and if they succeeded in pulling Dieron off... well that was the whole point of a merc's gig anyway, it was to get ... well what was the legalese? ... 'material compensation substantially in excess of that promised or paid to combatants of similar ranks and functions in the armed forces of that Party'...

"You think these will make the difference, then?"

"I think they'll help." They wouldn't be something that the Combine would be expecting... but the Combine likely wouldn't be expecting the greatly expanded Davion Force the plan had been to hit them with a significant force to begin with, they were just ... increasing the margins, "The Field Marshal is serious about this request to do as much damage to the Sword of Light."

"That's a dangerous job."

The best idea would be to wear them out as much when they inevitably counter attacked... if they attacked them... "There is a chance they'll go for the Guards, and we can catch them in a pincer maneuver." If they were already engaged then it'd give them the opportunity to advance the Pillagers into close quarters and at flank angles ... it was an appealing prospect.

"You've got an evil look on your face."

"We're going to have to see what happens, won't we?" He replied, they were interrupted in continuity as the swollen bearded highlander Lieutenant Colonel arrived ahead of them.

"What are the chances you'd let them use one of these in later melee bouts?"

The question caught him off guard, "I'd advise against it," To be frank the machines were too new, leaving aside impressions, "But I would imagine that that would be for the games commission to decide." certainly he would have assumed that you in theory continued with the mech you started with but if that wasn't the case then it raised up a host of other questions. Not that it didn't make sense that with the Faire's typical structure there was a general expectation that you'd have more assault mechs... the upset in the last of the large scrimmages probably left the Commission wanting to spice things up.

"And?"

"Well, Little Lord Rio is proving to be something of a loud mouth." He half considered feigning shock, but it would have been too ridiculous. Cameron shook his head picking at his ear idly. "Truthfully with the way these things go its not unusual to have adult matches, its just a little different this year... I'm actually surprised you haven't... from what I understand Bahar, and Hanzo both have their share of challengers."

They hadn't said anything... but he also wasn't surprised... they had managed to avoid having to fight duels with the locals after ... and well Robinson... "So I take its because of the delay?"

"It doesn't help the situation... but this year is different... the Combine getting a thrashing and the Davion's going on the offensive, aye people are a special sort of anxious."

It made sense though that the Davions would be interested to see how the hundred tonners would perform in the later stages of the squires tournament. For their own reasons, they too wanted to see how the Blackwell Assault Mech performed, preferably in its base configuration, but they weren't going to oppose variants being used.

Gene frowned a bit, "If we're going to go that far... I'd want to go ahead and transfer candidates to our Hegemony Mechs from the cache get them off Academy mechs entirely. The sooner they transition to standard machines the sooner they'll settle in."

Which admittedly was not how, he was given to understand the the tourney was supposed to operate... but they had a planet to liberate...

They discussed the issue. The problem with changing thing, with the Hegemony machines was in standard mechs like the Archer wouldn't go well in the tourney configuration. Gene watched the final rankings go up. The same displays were mirrored on his noteputer which then changed as Dante started running Hegemony program evaluations and modelling different scoring metrics from their performance. Bard cocked his head at the techno wizardry of the screen's dancing pixels.

"Is that better or worse than us?"

By us he meant the DMM portion of the invasion force. That was comparing apples to oranges, and he replied as much, before pausing to watch the countess's dusky expression, "Anyway, its not the same thing. We really won't know until we actually make contact with the enemy. The training we can do now is how we can prepare for working through any complications on the ground."
--
When you got right down to it, the press releases tended to emphasize Elidere IV. It had been the larger share of the fighting of course, but there were other reasons. As a part of the campaign the fighting on Ander's moon had achieved strategic to the campaign goals... but people watching the holos of the combat roms didn't give a shit about how the maneuver had insured that the Combine advance on Ander's ducal capital couldn't be pressed, or that by interrupting that advance is kept the combine from being able to force the duke into a head on engagement.

Most people just wanted to watch the duels between mechwarriors, and that was it. If it was just the fighting there were details that were lost, but the combine's dueling culture ... well ignoring propaganda that tried to claimed two thousand years of history going back to the bushi of Heian era Japan... which Gene found absurdly ridiculous it was true that the samurai, and their martial forbearers had been a part of an urban literate society whose elite had practiced a lot of dueling... but there was a difference between one on one with a sword and giant stompy robots.

Similarly Omi Kurita's seminal work, the original first edition of the Honorium... or for that matter the daughter of the Combine's founder's death predated the first test of the mackie by over sixty years. Certainly having read the book, and that Omi generally opposed wanton bloodshed... and supported a prototypical notion of limited war in the vein of the Ares Conventions ... in so far as her opinion on the use of strategic grade ordinance on population centers... it was hard to suggest to that she somehow could foresee the coming of the BattleMech.

The First Edition was very clear. Taking prisoners, and treating them well was entirely honorable. You shouldn't molest civilians. The treatise was written... penned in ridiculously flowery archaic even by 24th century standards language but the general expectation was that honor entailed filial piety and respect for others. It was neo Confucian and zen at its core and certainly part of the neo feudal traditions of exodus space colonization , but it was was as he had noticed very different in key passages from the modern editions... in ways that simple grammatical changes and word differences didn't explain.

That wasn't to say that the Combine of the 24th century had been nice, or not prone to aggressively warring and conquering their neighbors. They were just less bad than the Combine of the modern era... the 24th Century Inner Sphere... had been a pretty unpleasant lawless place.

So on Ander's moon the Combine had accepted the duel and made sure that things were above board... and in the official media, and recordings for both sides... there were no indications that Gene had prepositioned gauss rifle equipped drone combat vehicles surreptiously near enough that if things went side ways the 2nd Battalion 19th Galedon Regulars would get very far. That didn't make it into the public record.

People who watched the full record saw honorable conduct, saw honor duels being largely satisfied up until basically the arrival of overwhelming Davion relief forces Jumping into the System. That was the picture that was painted.

Ford nodded, "Most people can't read it."

"Hmm," Gene glanced up to catch the Lyran businessman who... well very interested in Blackwell's assault mech... the man wore non descript suit in vaguely late 19th century german continental styling's... it was fancy, big epaulettes, but not ridiculously so in the face of what other people were wearing... there was a guy from Andurien literally in purple lesiure suit with a diamond studded cane.... and there were people from the periphery who were much more outlandishly dressed in attendance at the faire which was characterized by thousands of men in kilts... so if the guy wanted to wear Lyran colored suits .... and that was okay.

"Well that's an exaggeration, its archaic in speech, which you know of course, but some of the characters fell out of use," Actually before Omi had even written the thing, and her use of them was probably very intentional. She'd been going for archaic, and harkening back to ye olde glory days of Japanese culture... and Japanese was a very common language post Exodus from earth, it had been common in the Hegemony, in the Lyran Commonwealth, in minor states that had been absorbed by the Free Worlds League, and others... but that was because Japan had been a member of the western aligned power block, and a member of the alliance, and had enjoyed a significant 21st century cultural popularity .

Hanzo sat down with a dog eared copy of Inanzo Nitobe's Bushido originally published at the end of the 19th century, and intended for a western audience. The medium mech, or oversized bug mech, pilot had a list of annotations of his own about the book. It was interesting that Hanzo, and Ford had struck up a friendship over philosophical, historical study of old books.

That there had been a copy of the book published by a Terran publisher in the era of the Star league in the library. It was in English, naturally.

"What Mister Ford is observing is that there are many characters that are no longer taught in common primers."

"A well educated person is considered such if they know about 2100 characters." Ford remarked, "That's the minimum I think you need to get into higher education in the language... and of course we have to recognize that so many so many schools were destroyed in the last two centuries, during the star league literacy was almost universal across the inner sphere."

... and there was a university, a surviving university on Dieron. "Excuse, me," He got up, and was almost to the door without a highland escort when Alexandria stopped him before he could make to access Hegemony archives on the University of San Martin at Dieron. Maybe that was just as well, there was no way to be sure the University of Dieron was still the same... or that archival data would be useful. The countess of Kestrel also had a point there was the social assumption he'd attend the matches even though this Faire was proving to be a bit odd.... but also she was supposed to stick around to deter any other Fed Suns nobles or any nobles in general from trying to poach... or something. That and apparently there was a request from one of the pilots to use one of the original versions of the Pillager that he was supposed to at least hear out.

... Chang had a point it really did convey an unfair advantage.

Imperator Pax · Apr 2, 2023

Highland Faire 20

The paper work might as well have been in some secret hieroglyphics. There were scotts, and swedense names and schedules, and all of it... but he was having a hard time focusing. He'd sent the letter already... now he was waiting to see if he got a response before they shipped off. Septim continued to look at the gunnery tables the boss had laid out, but that really wasn't where his head was, or where the conversation had been drifting away from assault auto cannons. "Would you care to explain what that's supposed to mean?"

"Not particularly." He replied. There was a pause between them.

Chang grimaced and then scratched her head. "Do you have any idea what's going to happen?"

"Not a clue." Septim replied reaching over and taking a pull from his beer, "The boss said I could go once we're done on Dieron..."

"Right," She replied and exhaled in annoyance, repeating the word quietly under her breath. "What's it about?"

"You just asked that Bubbles." The Lyran groaned, "In all honesty... I don't want to talk about it, because its probably just gonna piss me off... its got to deal with Elidere for sure... but, " He'd been wracking his brain... and she put it into words.

"I mean its not everyday the Combine loses a whole mech regiment."

"Right." He agreed... and he'd go find out what papa wanted, but truthfully he was expecting to get his ass chewed out. "What about you, surely you've got family who's heard about?"

"My sister Shenhua's in the Red Lancers, but I haven't heard anything from her... paying ComStar to relay mail is a lot of money, and I don't rightly know if the Confederation would have gotten the news," She shrugged, and laughed "Of if they'd even realize I'd been involved at all. That they knew you were involved means that your family was looking out right?"

Maybe if you were optimistic, which he had a hard time being given everything going on. He had had to leave the Guards for personal reasons, and they'd been his reasons, but it wasn't like he'd have had much option, promotions had passed him by already, and he couldn't stay... so he'd gone out the periphery to make a living...

... which he'd never expected the situation he'd found himself in, prophetic dreams didn't make him all knowing.

They were interrupted by the announcement that the next match of the day was slated to begin shortly.
--
He was a little disappointed by the meeting with the Federated Boeing representative, but it was everything they could do on short notice, and without much in the way of prep. He'd take the pilots, and make sure that they were ready as they could be which he wasn't going to rely that having the Eridani, and the ... Blue Star Irregulars assist with that was a boon he couldn't refuse.

The other concern was maintenance of the two Overlord-class DropShips... apparently the main drives of the big bastards were well on their way to being LosTech... but he hadn't planned for sending either into hot landings... or the Triumphs. The most valuable contribution though was the spare JumpShip collars... this wasn't commercial running, this was an invasion of another major power, and each collar carrying a DropShip was a major asset being brought in.

"I have to ask at this point," The countess began, her voice low, and almost drowned out by the broadcast, "You stated a Terran world would have been reinforced by successive generations of house cameron..."

"Dieron," Which had been a part of Lone Star Province, and with Fortress Dieron, which he wasn't going to mention by name, "almost certainly produced billions of tons of electronics per year, and there should be a boneyard in the Atacama desert, and the Combine probably is inadvertently telling the truth that there were caches built into the mountains... what's left after two centuries I can't say... but if the Field Marshal's intelligence is correct and there are active resistance to combine rule on Dieron then we will have to wait and see."

"But there could be stockpiles on Dieron."

"Yes." He shrugged, "The Hegemony believed in a castle doctrine," The first castle facilities predated Brian Cameron, "And originally began stockpiles for a war against the Combine, are there things left probably... but that's a question of how much time and resources can you put into digging in the desert or in the mountains looking for buried treasure."

"Such cautions might have been the conventional wisdom before now." She rebutted.

Gene shrugged. His thoughts turned to Lone Star's memory core. Lone Star the provincial capital of the Hegemony era was two jumps away... and a dead world now... Dante advised against going there ... not when there were other major Hegemony worlds that in the AI's opinion rated higher... and that they needed a clearer picture of what Admiral Clancy had left behind at Fortress Dieron, and particularly the personnel who had gone with him. There was something nagging him about the whole affair... Dieron's domestic electronics industry could well have stockpiles of medical equipment and other material in storage could be useful... or it could have thousands and thousands of tons of entertainment computers that weren't.

It depended on what had been found, and what hadn't.

He made the comment the match was starting as the machines entered the field.

He hoped that the Davions weren't going to try and prioritize seizing all former Hegemony worlds on the chance that there were caches to rebuild their forces... or that the other houses wouldn't all start looking at the worlds in question and doing the same and that he hadn't inadvertently made the third succession war get worse.

The truth was the match between the two cadets wasn't holding either of their attentions, which was probably impolite but it couldn't be helped. Gene knew the situation had changed markedly from just the ideas drafted after Elidere... that they had changed things. They were beyond one dead combine regiment.

One of the fake buildings, a Potemkin structure of plywood and tarps, shattered as it was plowed through by one of the cadets as they rushed to close into close quarters. It was more of a showy move than a practical one... even if you could do it in real life with real buildings, it was chancy, but it was known to work... and more than anything it stood out, and impressed the crowd... even if not as much as the real thing would have.

"If we want to get down to it, that's the sort of thing I want to avoid when we're on Dieron."

There was screech as a battlefist scraped paint off of standard plate, the crowd went wild as the fisticuffs commenced, and he wasn't surprised when the two cadets didn't stop when the judges called for them to stop. At least not immediately... but that was adrenaline as well the neurological connection to the machine, the interface that allowed man and machine to form that extreme presence on the battlefield could drown out all other sensory inputs under stress. That could be problematic, but it happening also indicated a high level of aptitude with the neurohelmet functionality... case in point Rio may have been a pain in the ass but was a capable pilot for all of his blustering.

... Dieron would be the real test though, and that was what they were going to have to focus on. "If there is anything I don't want to do is get bogged down in urban fighting, if we can ensure the DCMS is out in the open thats for the best."

She started to wrinkle her nose, "That's why you insisted the Sword of Tyr affirm their commitment to the Ares convention." ... and the question was whether the Sword of Light would feel quite as obligated to what was, in truth a legally defunct treaty.

"It doesn't hurt things," He replied... but he understood her point he was asking a rebel group admittedly one with pretensions to government standing to honor a treaty originally signed centuries ago, and one that had been declared void centuries earlier. "I'm fine taking their pilots with me," Whatever the political fallout of that might have been he knew that more mechs and more heavy mechs would be better for fighting the combine.

... the truth was what he expected to happen was that the Highland government would start looking for other caches ... or at looking at the less likely likely to be productive caches once Harlaw was cleaned out... and he expected that the Davions would want their 'cut' so to speak... or that the AFFS high command would want to start looking for its own.

... and before long well the Combine might try to make a move, but so might the neighbors... the Azami fleet could just as easily been an invasion force... and and he knew he wasn't the only one thinking that. Though he wasn't betting on the matches he did give it good odds that it was only a matter of times before the Church of St Cameron became involved... and talk of Cameron survivors who had escaped the coup circulated and once it hit people who didn't know how to keep their mouth shut it would spread... now whether that would mean anything or not in real terms that was another matter.

He hoped to have Dieron done before then. He planned to take a select group to New Dallas's CID facility if they had time, depending on what they uncovered on Dieron. The problem with that idea, was it was within the modern borders of the FWL... they'd have to work out some kind of itinerary, and he wasn't ready to start charting jumps this early.

"Lord William," Doctor Abner, " and Mister Alexander are pushing for a change of venue to the Lyran Commonwealth."

That wasn't exactly accurately reflecting what actually had been said, "Septim is taking leave to visit his parents," Which from what he did understand wasn't what the Davions wanted to hear, "Yes, Doctor Abner would like us to visit New Kyoto. If that happens I may grant parts of the company leave to visit Solaris," For these games things... that wasn't the point though, "The next job after Dieron is this Exodus," And while he'd been about to comment that he had a speech he needed to prepare, and he almost expected that she was about to ask something along the lines of 'you're coming back aren't you?' they were interrupted by the entry of the Precentor New Avalon, who looked a little more peaked than he had on New Avalon.

Who if, and in the interest of peace and fair trade... and a lot of other lofty ideals as well as just stopping the butchery of civilians, he was going out into the black wouldn't mind trimming the ranks of Black Jack's pirates. At the time PNA's singling out of this 'Kelly's Kommando's' band of cut throats didn't raise any alarms. He took Vandal at his word that 'Kelly' had smashed a ComStar facility on the Davion border at his word, before the pirate had jumped off, presumably to rejoin BlackJack McGirk on their continuing escapades of destruction.

'There needs to be action taken!' A comment that was really unnecessary, but the PNA was really speaking of the inaction of the First Circuit.

They would have taken action they would have fought those pirates this would solidify what would become known in the history books, at least in the Aurigan Reach, and the Magistracy of Canopus 'the Pirate Wars.'
--
Notes: this is the End of January 3018. I need to go back through my notes, either I originally intended for Chang to have two younger sisters/ more than one sister, or I changed names of the character. Anyway we're moving into the Dieron chapter, that will among other things set up for some of the big changes that happen on 'the map'.

Dieron will be a much shorter chapter, mostly centered around the destruction of the 5th Sword of Light west of San Martin, and the liberation of San Martin before setting up for Fortress Dieron which will be another short chapter, and the interludes between this and the start of the Pirate Wars, which this is obviously calling forward to.

Imperator Pax · Apr 9, 2023

Highland Faire 21

Gene looked at the glimmering star map of known CID stations... known to Dante at the time immediately preceding the atrocities. If Dante was right about the storage facilities on Dieron... if there was electronic material stored there, then ... well they might be useful they might not be... they wouldn't know until thy looked the same with all of these other places, but the truth was they had to get through there first.

So much in the Inner Sphere had been lost... and that wasn't even the half of it... how was he supposed to go searching for the Tripitz's trail. Never mind wherever the Black Lion-class ship had been supposed to be going. Even accounting for Pasha being right and that they would be able to, somehow, convince the Alamutians that ... to support them with the manpower, and spacelift to search the rimward it would take probably years.

Dieron first... and then New Dallas to see if thee were any other leads... to see if they could chart a path from Terra to how it had ended up on the Taurian front... it was possible that the protocol had been broken that someone had insited on trying to get to Kerensky and ordering him to launch a frontal assault with the commands to disable the SDS or turn it against the rim world... and they had just never made it.

They didn't know enough.... but a few months, a couple years more weren't going to make a difference. Not after all this time. He eased back in the chair, and put pressure on the joints of his fingers and cracked them. "Alright, geography, show me landing paths and directionals for Dieron again." He ordered the AI.

The rippling star map gave way to a brown, and green and blue world. The world he was going to invade. It took hours before he was satisfied with the plan... and that was just for bringing down his combined force... never mind the Davion Guards, and the Eridani.

... but he had the DMM troops under his command... a gesture of good faith... but probably also that the duke of Robinson was confident that all together they would wreak a bloody vengeance against the DCMS. Dante suspected it was part of enticement to convince him to follow Clancy's example of if not outright joining then following the example of the Blue Star Irregulars and being effectively indistinguishable from house troops other than some paper claiming to still be legally mercenaries.

Was that what the future held? It was hard to say.

He cleared his throat, "Alright, Dante punch this up," Print the documents, "And give me a data rom with the plan, I'm going to go run this up the chain." and he also had a speech to give... it was time to talk about what they were doing.

Several hours later, he ignored the questioning as Septim's comment from back on Luxen was unknowingly echoed by a Davion officer of comparable rank. He also ignored the shuddering barely suppressed chortle from the Lyran as he finished outlining planetfall securing a planetary beachhead south of the Kazakh, and west of San Martin.

... and that what he didn't mention was the chance that the Hegemony transport network being intact would mean a potential way to bypass Combine defensive positions in and around the planetary capital. Those had, according to the update on the condition of Fortress Dieron, had been intact in the 29th century ... and they were probably as intact as the ones on Elidere had been but they wouldn't know for sure until they were physically there to check them.
Yvonne paused leaned over to talk discrete aside with one of her staff... something about recording things ... but that did make sense the invasion of Dieron was going to be accompanied by pomp and circumstances. The Draconis March alone was eager to take the fight to the neighboring realm... and from the bits he'd picked up on the Field Marshal really did not like the Haseks... if she could show them up, make them look weak as a result of their inaction against the sick man of the Inner Sphere but decisively wailing on the Kuritans well... that without even considering avenging her nephew the previous first prince who had died against a Sword of Light unit.

Which would do the realm some good to hear they'd been paid back... even if this was the wrong regiment. What mattered would be how they framed things to the public... so they had speeches, and parades... that was the advantage of the downside to the speed of the HPG system. Dieron would be conquered by the time the Davion's released the recordings from Northwind, and would likely already have footage of Dieron... so the public would only see the whole thing not how it was all made.

More importantly speeches done indoors meant that doing it on Northwind did not require figuring out the specifics of arranging the mechs in any kind of uniform parade colors which might raise questions, or confuse an audience, even if by the standards of contemporary Lyran blockbusters the clip would have been considered a little unpolished. For all but the highest budget productions of the Inner Sphere though the clarity of the holographic footage and sound quality was superlative. The footage lacked the post production effects that would have been found in a propaganda reel. Nor was it the sort of quality one would have associated with a spy's, or a private investigator's, clumsy recording devices. After all why would House Davion not use very excellent devices for their own historic recordings of the day's proceedings.

The Star League Vintage cameras had been given an excellent vantage to do their work, and given the business of the Faire it had been easy for not one, not two not three, but quite a number of intelligence services to splice into the original feeds and insure they received copies to private terminals... and of course for those personnel of intelligence agencies who hadn't wanted to gamble on such obvious bait a few found it much easier to simply borrow a copy of the footage from a film aficionado at the MRB who had found a copy.

It would still take time to disperse the recording of the day's proceedings. The Combine had known something was going to happen, but by the time the word had gotten out there were other complicating factors. The ISF was already busy ... busier than normal ... and the voice of the dragon had done an alarming capable job of convincing the the DCMS that the New Avalon Hussars had been responsible for the losses at Galedon... a unit of whom supported by elite mercenaries and other Davion troops had already begun the invasion of Altair...

Really the recording came too late to warn against the strike on Dieron even if commanders would have been willing to question official combine propaganda. The recording lacked any details that would have telegraphed future Federated Suns strikes, in the following years...

.... the raid at Galtor, which had yet to be planned at the time of the recording

or

...the liberation of Tancredi, which the Federated Suns had already been planning and revising for decades now.

"Everyone gathered in this hall has accepted a unique risk. In many ways this operation is beyond the standards of basic soldiery or practice of arms. Regardless of past or present experience this coming battle is different." The speaker was a younger mercenary colonel standing in front of a marauder painted in white and gray parade colors. The great ibis that dominated the machine's crest prophetically devouring a snake.

The primary body of the speech laid out in no uncertain language what was to be expected. Every soldier, and every mercenary expected to risk life and limb facing the enemy. It wasn't even unusual for commanders or political leadership to speak of liberating foreign worlds.

"To those most recent cadet graduates gathered here, this is a distinct opportunity to participate in something beyond oneself. When we make planet fall in this coming campaign you will be among the striking force. You will not be relegated to a bench warming for attrition or a mech to be freed up or provided due to casualties or a later advance. Each and every one of you gathered today will spend the following day training in a heavy or assault battlemech that will carry you on the field when we begin combat operations."

The final weeks on Northwind ahead of the early spring of 3018 were to be an interesting time. The speech at the end of its just more than fifteen minute run concluded with the expectation and that nothing less than full victory would be accepted. That might have been dismissed by observers coming from other speakers as simply bravado or even an impossible demand. If the recording had circulated around before the invasion it would have been more or less ignored by the other successor states.

Instead it made the rounds among the other great houses coinciding and viewed through the lens of not just Dieron falling to Davion hands, and the monster that prowled the battlefield on their behalf... but that point at least within the Inner Sphere the MRB had up to date roster information for the Dieron battle.

That information was supposed to be for the purposes of considering whether or not a mercenary company was suitable to a specific employers need. The MRB was supposed to be a neutral arbiter of disputes of course.

Twenty four recent graduates of the Northwind Military Academy filled the ranks of would become Battalion C, Claymore, Shepherd's Highlanders would distinguish themselves on the shores of the Kazakh river west of San Martin. A distinction of action with the hundred hour whirlwind of battle that had prompted the MRB office to rate an otherwise freshly raised BattleMech battalion as Veterans, raising their approximation over Regulars, to reflect participation in the destruction of 1st Battalion / 5th Sword of Light and the subsequent capture of the planetary capital.

But on that February afternoon all of that was still in the future. Indeed a few days earlier Precentor New Avalon had only just received a report he had requested on paramount importance. After all, what had not yet made the news, had not become public knowledge, was an attack over the Davion border in the periphery and the loss of an HPG station at the hands of a revenge addled warlord with Star League war machines of his own. Huthrin Vandal had decided it was in the best interests to bypass discussions with the first circuit using options he didn't need their permission for. That meant looking for a solution with the resources he had available.

That was to say, money, lots of money. It was a very lyran solution to the problem the Precentor New Avalon would have admitted, but the problem of Black Jack McGirk had been ongoing for over a decade by this point and the arguments over how to deal with a pirate king who had destroyed the 1st division of the ComsGuard Militia. A destruction that had included, to add insult to injury, the pirate absconding with the remains of the 1st division as salvage. It was a problem that had dragged on entirely too long. They simply could not afford the loss of any more HPGs they couldn't replace the ones that had already been destroyed in the periphery as it was.

They had dithered to long within the first circuit and Huthrin Vandal had decided enough was enough, and measures had to be taken. Vandal would bullishly declare such to the rest of the first circuit as attacks in the rimward periphery expanded as McGirk saw increasing forces attacking and carrying off of ComStar personnel.
--
The holographic image was of a stern looking blond woman in the uniform of a Terran Admiral. She could have been in her late late twenties if not for the service ribbons which suggested thirty plus years in service with the HAF. Admiral Krennick was long dead of course... she had been killed during Amaris's attack on the capital of the Star League and the Hegemony.

Still the Admiral looked impressive, formidable. The black naval dress uniform fit Talia Krennick well... like a glove. The personnel jacket of the Terran Hegemony listed two divorces. A single son who had in contrast to his mother had joined the HAF Army. Not really a surprise Krennick while apparently still on amicable terms with her divorced partners, given they were still marked on her file's emergency contacts had both been naval officers as well.

The Field Marshal suspected that Terran medicine being what it was Krennick and her ex husband had probably still looked quite young when they had died. This holographic image floating in front of the field marshal was dated a year before the usurpation and massacres on Terra.

She had seen the picture of the son an amber eyed mechwarrior with close cropped dark hair who wore the insignia of a Terran Major, and the gunslinger tab on his uniform jacket... that was a better than ninety percent match of a picture taken two years earlier in the Magistracy... which raised other questions

It suggested a great deal but proved nothing. She turned to the MIIO officers who had entered. "tell me you have them?"

"A couple of SAFE operatives thought they were being clever." The man's partner elbowed him in the ribs, but she waved off the man's lackadaisal response, "Sorry ma'am. We identified potential couriers from other intelligence services. We are still tracking those there is a potential combine agent at large, but from his previous behaviors we suspect he'll turn up in the morning."

"Do tell?"

"He's very predictable ma'am. Standard patterns of behavior for his cover identity. Frequently moves to ingratiate himself with large corporate entities."

"Where all has he been?"

There was a pause, and The prince's champion frowned. "He's been to several of the demonstrations of the Marauder II BattleMech. He's basically ignored the Blackwell industries presence with their combat vehicles, which is why we didn't catch it originally,"

She could understand that. The Marauder II had attracted quite a lot of attention... and she could guess why they were so confident that there was going to be an appearance tomorrow. 'Wonders of the Star League'. The King Crab had been distributed to the Great Houses as a 'gesture of House Cameron's benefice' shortly after its debut. Not in any significant numbers of course, but also as notation to the other house lords surely that the Hegemony's new Commanding General was of astute mind when it came to BattleMechs.

Cosara Industries of the Terran Hegemony had created a vicious close range combatant at General Kerensky's request. The King Crab had been licensed to GM and who had continued to produce it until they had lost the ability to do so as a course of the succession war.

The conversation winded away, and eventually she dismissed them directing the countess to be shown in. The Duke of Errai was unsurprisingly proving a problem. The Thug had been such a ubiquitous mech in Terran service there was no way they'd be able to avoid his learning of additional machines. The Thug predated the start of the reunification war, and the introduction of machines like the modern version of the Wolverine; in its 6R configuration.

Admiral Clancy's files had proven... not especially helpful. Thankfully the admiral had made a searchable database but not a complete one. It hadn't answered many of her questions. She had plugged in the various alpha numeric data entries and only received partial matches. There were tantalizing suggestions to answers.

And, places to look. She opened with a rhetorical question, "You said the DropShip's name was the Argo?" There was a perfunctory nod from her lady in waiting, "I haven't spoken to Galax's people but it did make its way into the periphery ahead of the New Vandenburg uprising. It disappeared, presumed lost and I don't imagine even Admiral Clancy though knew much of it, but we do have confirmation that it and a sister ship had been planned."

Unfortunately that was really as far as her information extended for the time being.
--
Notes: I made the decision just to keep this basically as it was after the first bit, but will be moving on to Dieron next
This may be of interest to readers, it is not my creation, and does not necessarily reflect canon for later in the timeline: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1UUdhNDI1R_Qkl08LhUezgAxyiiVIy1NDnTubLGqH2Kc/edit#gid=0

Imperator Pax · Apr 16, 2023

Dieron Spring 3018
Gene didn't like some of the communiques going out... but there wasn't anything he was able to do about it. The Duke of Robinson, though not present, his catholic clergy were couching this in extremely loaded religious terms...

... and the Azami were not far behind either. On the other hand... he didn't suppose they were really any different than statements made on Robinson in celebration of the Combine's defeat.

The Sword of Light had a reputation ... and it was very possible that that would be what would happen... that this fight would turn into a messy atrocity ridden slog of a scorched earth campaign. It was a worry he'd already had before the step off , hell before the last few matches of the game... and those had mostly gone as expected once the matches had shaken out. The stalker pilot who'd already taken a post with the Crucis Lancers in the AFFS had taken the top slot... though that had not been without some grumbling from his peers.

... they had had to restrain Rio from trying to challenge the victorious 'squire' before they had left. Hanzo had had to put two different Pheonix Hawk pilots on their asses in the arena, but at least he'd had a good time. Of course that in itself was complicated.

Northwind had been ... had had its share of surprises... and Gene was worried about what this world would have in store, but he reached up to flip the controls and shut the noise off. They hadn't gotten a return to their broadcast signal when they had jumped in... but he wasn't surprised either. Dante hadn't responded initially to the transmission... so they would have to wait and see if they received any signals once they were groundside.

They had waited long enough to see if they had gotten a response, and it was time to drop, "In Fury Born." He transmitted. Drive signatures confirmed the command as Tartan banner icons on his display moved to orbital insertion positions to begin the descent to planet's surface.

He traced the movements across the eastern frontier as the Eridani, and Davion Guards began their own force drops. There were a dozen plus unions on his, well the DropShip's scopes broadcasting SLDF IFFs. The majority of those were the signatures of the Light Horse. His display painted 3rd RCT units and their projected flight paths.

There were no plans to drop mechs from orbit. The Unions, and Leopards, also their DroSTs among other frontline dropships would make the run down to planet's surface then they'd offload. It was less risky that way... especially with as many units as they were fielding The simple mathematics meant that error probabilities was already dangerous for deploying this many dropships to the planet's surface so they'd be landing in waves anyway.

Reflecting their in house advantage in numbers, Kerston had command of the invasion force's air units for the drive in. That air coverage included assault dropships to make sure the combine didn't do anything funny... or at least to soften up any combine ASF. There had been objections to that, including ones that it put all their eggs into one command basket that if Light Horse C&C went down coordination for that many fly boys would be a problem... but it was what they were doing.

ASF, any aircraft really so especially DropShips, needed a safe distance to operate on. What looked good on screen for blockbuster movies was dangerously cavalier flying. That meant timing their landings especially when they brought their dropships down to where they needed to be. Once they were on the ground though , there would still be a risk from ASF but well they'd have options to shoot them... and with a combined arms force Gene was less worried about the frankly anemic air resistance.

The planetary drop approached. The aerodyne dropship's display of the front, a projection of those nose cameras showed increasingly the horizon dominated by the sphere with increasingly fewer stars, and once the nose of the aircraft dipped down well they'd start losing reception as air temperature force them to rely on sensors rather than video telemetry... but he wasn't piloting the dropship.

He compared the clock to the local time. "Won't be a gentle morning," He muttered... but the Combine defenders were probably already up, and waiting for them to come in." Just as they hadn't moved for an orbital drop, they also hadn't executed a truly high Gee burn from the jump points... the DCMS would have some warning... and it would take probably better than an hour and a half to fully come down from orbit given their numbers. By the time the Triumphs touched down there would DroSTs, Leopards, and Unions already throwing out forward pickets. Gene turned to the Azami Armor officer, "Are those chapparals ready?"

"We will roll them off once the lances sortie." He replied, he was still somewhat reluctant, by carrying the lost technology fifty ton artillery vehicle they were giving up a very useful scouting capacity from their light vehicles. It broke with how they had been operating the company.

There had been arguments about that. Given the Unions and Leopards it had been considered that maybe throwing organic artillery out front might be a good idea. He'd disembark the Sam Houston and form a part of the clearing section, and landing security section ... and if the Combine decided to directly contest the landing... they were going to get unpleasant surprise.

... and if they didn't they'd get an unpleasant surprise later. He'd have liked to have put a cruise missile... or twenty... through the 5th SoL's headquarters, but he dind't have that option... and that wasn't even accounting for as a DCMS unit its headquarters was most likely a mech rather than a command vehicle or fixed installation.
--
The flight in wasn't so bad. About average turbulence to be expected from an aerodyne inflight descending into a gravity well. He adjusted the marauder's trim and eased up over the ridge, but there was nothing to contest his seventy five ton heavy battlemech the last three hours had seen the offload of an increasing volume of metal.

There had been no initial resistance allowing the DroSTs to offload their Daimyo HQ vehicle as well. They had lit its beacon and Sam Houston, and her sister Ships the recently, hastilly even, renamed, and repainted DROST IIAs Crockett and Boone advanced. They had leap frogged into forward further fighting positions disgorging infantry and light CVs... in the form of the Blackwell OmniVehicles which had been loaded aboard the two other DroSTs. That was the sight that spread out from his cockpit, but it was the heads up display from his regimental management tracking software that he was really focused on.

Sixty plus DMM Mechs, the volunteers, were still orienting to his west, but the pilot images of each of that original volunteer force were displayed in the Dalban integrated systems. Their ranks were further supplemented by Highlanders, and the Rasalhagians, and also the Azami forces forming the broad western flank of the Davion Invasion Force.

A data package pinged and updated from orbit providing him a view from satellite coverage, with the invasion of Dieron now hours underway the Combine was beginning to spread out their own battle lines. Dieron's militia defenders... and their pre landing intelligence seemed to be confirmed by communications intercepts... weren't actually planetary natives. They were 'Dieron Military District' troops but apparently the Combine didn't like stationing their troops on their home planets ... he had known they did that in the Rasalhague district but he supposed that it was a more general policy it was probably to keep planetary nobility and governors from getting any of hte wrong sorts of ideas, if he had to guess.

... but the important thing was that the DCMS was starting to move to meet them... and that there were a lot of foot infantry.

The thumpers courtesy of Robinsons own ground pounders a part of the March Militia would need to be brought up. The FASCAM shells might have been lostech but he intended to use them to force the enemy to either attack through mine fields... which the combine might choose to do, or to attack through pre prepared channels, but to use that they would need to keep rolling forward, hot if need be.

"Bard," The holographic static image of the wolverine pilot, he had chosen not to pilot a Highlander given the duelist program he'd been a part of, turned into a live holographic feed of the man rotating through his own feeds. "I'm forwarding you data positions to bring your force up a series of number hills," They were fairly choice ground. Calling them hills might have been a bit of a misnomer, a hill on dieron could be several hundred meters of AGL but this planet had obnoxiously large mountains... as in Everest on Earth didn't even rank here.

Thankfully they wouldn't have to worry about any of those monsters, but the mountainous nature of the planet made the cauldron that Iran on Earth sat in in terms of Geography look cute in comparison... they were in many respects in a giant arena until this thing was over.
--
Notes: This opens Dieron it is a little shorter than I had initially planned but this is a very combined arms campaign in planning, and obvious as indicated by various preview content not the kind of fight that the Combine especially the combine of the 3rd Succession war deals well with.

Imperator Pax · Apr 23, 2023

Dieron
Part 2

Hanzo checked the Cicada's scopes again. The machine spoke to him. They had been on this planet for five hours. The DroSTIIA Daniel Boone was only about a kilometer from his medium mech. Dust, and sand still swirling from where the DropShip had dropped its forward ramp and coating his machine's 'arid alpine' brush stroke camouflage. Bandit, and Badger vehicles were currently disembarking.

Every man down the lowliest foot soldier had his place here. That, of course, had been true on Elidere as well, but not to this volume of manpower. His displays were filled with identifications, so many as to make his head hurt. That was without even considering the electronic noise of radio chatter from so many sub units. He was grateful that English was so common across human space... but it did not change the fact that dialect, and accent could vary wildly across planets... never mind linguistic drift between planets.

The radio traffic involved thousands of voices, and that was only a fraction of the many involved in this action. This was a true battle. One of strategy and operational art, not simply tactics, and maneuver. It would mean that today would largely be one of crossing the wide river valley north, coming down from great hills, and advancing to contact with the enemy rather than true battle... tomorrow, perhaps the next day would be when honor was won.

There was a bloom on his thermal scopes. The Davy Crockett lifting off and pushing to its next way point further ahead of the line of advance. From behind him he could also register the advance of the half dozen missile artillery tanks ... the Chapparal. Their Nissan 200 Fusion Engines were otherwise easy to miss in the multitude of such engine returns. There were very many battlemechs who also used the engine from the not so common Mongoose to Hunchbacks to the many Centurion and Enforcer BattleMechs to his west.

He watched as the vehicles from the Daniel Boone, and specifically the hovercraft paired off and began to push forward away from the DropShip. The Robinson infantry soldier had no such benefit they were largely driving forward via jeep, but at least they were not having to walk. Still they could not simply board a Leopard like troops aboard a DroST could. They could not bound forward and then reconnoiter. Indeed many companies of Robinson Infantry were only occupying initial landing positions established by first wave troops carried by DroST pattern DropShips.

--
There was a groan from the other end of the comm line, and Gene had to agree the Combine return signals were still pinging back and forth that he was pretty sure they weren't sure what they were gonna do. That was a problem. If they had been closer to the line of contact... if they'd actually been in contact maybe they could have done something about that but right now? They couldn't do anything other than keep moving forward and waiting to see what the Combine was going to do.

The problem with their advance wasn't the aerodynes, it was the spheroid dropships. Repositioning them was going to be a bitch... so what they were likely going to end up doing was to use the Triumph class DropShips as supply tenders closer to the front... they were going to need to throw together some sort of make shift temporary forward air base to handle rearming and refueling their ASF assets... which would probably mean working through the night. He didn't like the idea of having to pick somewhere west of the city to serve as an airbase to mount attacks on San Martin, but that might be what they might have to do.

A part of him wanted to to try and interdict the air breathers that were doubtless moving planetary militia from bases to the east towards the capital. The combine had rebuilt the surface rail network on Dieron and probably could move planetary militia that way, but they would have to come from ... so far away even if they were mobilized they'd never reach San Martin in Time... not from the East. The forces coming from 'Tatsuyama' they were a lot closer, but would also have to cross the great lake to make contact, or go north of it and cross the Kazakh river unless they were going to ignore them entirely and move north skirt them and head directly for the planetary capital.

He doubted that the Combine was going for that. Not whatever forces they'd been able to scramble on the burn in were probably going to try and force a confrontation if for other operational reason than stopping them from encircling the city... and just as likely combine doctrinal aggression ... elan vitale... or really its revisionist Japanese equivalent was to push to engage with the enemy. They were most likely going to run into an emboldened head long assault tonight followed by arriving regiments of infantry ...

... which if the reports were right that might also explain a lack of commitment to defense, instead of a focus on the offensive. If these militia troops weren't from Dieron then they had no concern for defending the planet other than what their leadership ordered them to. So attack, attack, attack seemed the order of the day.

"Have we identified them?" He asked tapping through the holographic display to adjust his Dalban communications suite.

"Given movement profile we estimate its a portion of the Training Cadre. They are still too far out to do more than guess at a mix of medium and light mechs." They needed to be able to bring Baffins forward to serve as an anchoring command post along their lines though... he didn't mention that... ideally they could leap frog the Unions and Triumphs before it got dark... once the sun set the naked eye would show fusion drives for hundreds of miles... certainly from the other side of the lake as they came down to relocate... which meant they were running out of time.

Looking at the punched up data slate, he almost asked how after their raid on Mara the 9th Sun Zhang cadre had survived. There was something in here about how the Kell Hounds had stolen their JumpShip? He didn't think Succession War etiquette permitted that... but he didn't have time to ask about it or question if the JumpShip had been ransomed back after being seized. It didn't' matter, it wasn't relevant to their situation, "Do you think they're attempting to link with the 3rd Battalion of the Sword of Light?"

Bard paused from the other end. "Yeah that's what it looks like." The Wolverine pilot made an observation that their nickname was well deserved, and that if they kept up their current pace they might be looking to see combat tonight.

"That would put them well ahead of any reinforcements that could support them." Gene replied.

"Frankly, colonel the little bastards might not give a shit."

He looked at the tentative long range returns coming south, "Fair enough." The DMM didn't have a vantage from their spotter planes that were currently loitering over the lake on the elements of 3rd Battalion 5th Sword of Light. "We'll know in a couple of hours," maybe even sooner if they were trying to charge forward, or if they were aiming to link with the Sword of Light. He ran the mental math, but it didn't give him anything but best guesses... Elidere had been a string of aggressive frontal assaults... this would probably be similar.

It wasn't long before the communications chatter was filled up with complaints from Davion Officers who hadn't been on Elidere that they should have deployed more aggressively. That was one thing for the Davions Guards to suggest, and if it had just been them or the Eridani that was one thing... but the DMM readiness and interaction wasn't something he was prepared to run on...

... and leaving aside that he spared a look at one of the clocks on his Marauder's HUD. Tomorrow sometime they'd try again to see if they could force Hegemony systems to boot and reply. Part of where they had dropped had been that maybe they'd be able to remote boot Fortress Dieron, and potentially dramatically expand their available on call artillery. So far they had had no use... and while a part of him wanted to try and access one of the underground the subway access station they couldn't afford to slow down. They needed to push the advance forward.

On their current time table their best option was to try tomorrow hopefully being able to access potentially surviving, well intact, hegemony civil defense facilities on the lake to the west... and hopefully they'd be intact enough to deploy troops into San Martin bypassing Combine defenses if they couldn't use them to access Fortress Dieron directly.

His thoughts, and some of the grousing that they should have landed further north in the first place, were interrupted as air alerts went out signaling that their jaeger mechs and blackjacks were about to get some action given there combine ASF and air breathers coming south. There were Sabres, and Shilones, and some positively tortoise paced thirty tonner coming along in waves. If they had had flak ammunition for the auto cannons for the unit they had segregated off the Black Jack and Jaegar mech pilots into as an ad hoc brigade AAA Mech detachment things would have been better... but again losses due to the succession war meant that such production were almost artisanal in terms of what they had available.

This part of the conflict was to be fought with air power, and most mechs weren't effective at shooting angry metal pigeons as he had experienced on Aquagea... well it would have been nice to have more rifleman... enough that they could have swapped all of them into the unit and run it... but they didn't... this wasn't the SLDF.

He acknowledged the threat of the incoming aircraft and switched channels. The DMM anti craft section would from their current flight path get first shots, but after that, well his Dalban linked into the fire control network of the Nirasaki computers aboard the Fury tanks of the Company.
--
Notes: Anyway as I've mentioned Dieron is a relatively short chapter/arc and most of the parts are two sections, brief glances into other people's views, opinions stuff we didn't fully get too on Northwind, and also Combined Arms and Mech battle. Once the Battle for Dieron concludes there will be post battle Septim goes to his see his relatives, there are some Davion stuff, there is briefly Dieron's new government, some Highland discussions and the preparation for the return to the periphery which leads into the Pirate Wars, which will be divided into several smaller sub arcs.

The travel to the Periphery will largely be time skipped due to JumpDrives being suck and jump charge jump charge, and the Crews handling their end of things up until we get to the Periphery. [the House Arano introduction, and so on]

Imperator Pax · Apr 28, 2023

Another Story using essence of mech lab... when I should actually be working updating this.

Initial Draft Version:

A Rabid Fox appears from the Heavens!
Mallory's world, 3013

There is a point in your life where things have settled down, and you realize you're getting older. That maybe its time to hang up the spurs.

... and sometimes the Universe looks at you tells you your fucking stupid, and to hell with slowing down... and then proceeds to kick your ass to another dimension.

My mouth was dry. It was hot, and sandy outside, and humidity ranked up there with Dubai in the peak of summer. The threat of heat advisory was overshadowed by the one for Combine invaders. I would have figured that if I was going to get dropped into BattleTech it would be as some Space Heir shenanigans... at least I hadn't been dropped into the worst parts of the timeline... or in the middle of the clan invasion.

"Fuck." I hissed as the Warhammer I had just said hi hows it going to started to turn, the Warhammer pilot must have been wondering what the fuck was going on. "Fucker." This was supposed to be the rear of the formation I had no idea how some asshole heavy mech had gotten here... and I didn't really know why I was fighting ... I hadn't woken up in the AFFS ...

...on the other hand I was a guy with a mech, on a world being invaded... I knew what the other guy was piloting, but I doubted he knew as much about this thing of mine... but we were both seventy ton mechs.

The armored gauntlet containing the lasers reared back and I punched the Warhammer that didn't want to show up on my scopes. Punching a mech is harder than it looks, never mind that it would make any 'true born of Kerensky's clans weep'... and I was in a clan mech but leaving that aside the battlefist hit the Warhammer's side torso. I had already run into it moments earlier, and I didn't let up, the left arm carrying the same energy weapons load out slammed into the Sword of Light's mech and into about a minute of pummeling I realized that I'd reduced the Warhammer to so much inarticulate scrap... just about the same time as I realized that I was surrounded by a bunch of other combine mechs...

"fuck."

I stepped forward, stepping on the downed Warhammer as I did so and fired the clan large lasers sending blasts of energy into the nearest combine machine as my targeting computer locked on. I couldn't keep that up, I noticed the immediate spike in my display of heat versus the DHS ability to address that kind of build up... and I knew immediately this was going to be bad.

The Clan Large Lasers, what were properly Clan Extended Range Large Lasers just ran too hot for the dual heat sinks to keep up... but not seeing any other options and accounting that I was outnumbered to hell and back... well okay there was a company of Davions around but we were properly hosed to be honest...

"Well guess you guys are earning your pay tonight." I grunted over the open channel as my seventy tonner took another step on top of the warhammer and then fired one arm and then the next hoping to avoid redlining my coolant system as the targeting computer fixed on the nearest mechs first. If they were going to kill me, I was damn going to make sure I took as many of them with me as I had to... never mind I'd been on this planet and in this universe for all of the morning.

... and that I was apparently fourteen again... that sucked too.

Sand kicked up, guns fired on all sides and the ... what the fucking history books would call the 3rd Battle for Mallory's world commenced amongst a wasteland of scrub brush, and dirt. My targeting computer and communications systems telling me all about the different mechs, and making sure I was only shooting at Combine Mechs or in this case mechs from the sword of light... the temperature gauge kept climbing as the cooling system struggled forcing me to pair down to just three of the guns as ferro fibrous armor was sand papered by enemy missiles, and withering fire... I got the feeling that eleven and a half tons really wasn't enough when there was a whole battalion bearing down... and just as soon as the heat would allow it the fourth laser came back into play...

... it would only be later that I remembered I could have routed my machines cooling to each specific gun and that not that I had had time to link the heat sinks into the weapons, and nor could I have pursued that for all four. It was one of those benefit of hindsight things.

So I just kept blasting, and with a preference to getting up close enough firing directly into mech cockpits whenever I could line the reticle up to do that, which was usually any time anyone got close enough to fire a medium laser at me.... which was by the end of it all was too many to count... and it was only after the shooting was done that the rest of the Davions decided to show up, and my armor had been shot to hell.

Nothing had gone internal but the armor was barely there any more.
--
I found myself panting outside the crouching mech... I didn't even remember getting out of the mech. I had unzipped the flight jacket. Post combat shakes. I was coming off the adrenaline dump, I told myself I'd been through this ... I needed to find something with a lot of sugar fight the crash that was going to come after this.

So what if I hadn't ever done in it a giant robot, or with laser cannons. So fucking what.

I stole back into my cockpit and managed to find a water bottle in the supply kit which I greedily drank down half of poured the fruit punch mix into my mouth and swished it around despite the grit and swallowed. Then sat back and panted behind the armored view screen of the closed mech... I don't know why I'd gotten out of the armored war machine...

... that had been stupid. Being in here offered me more protection than being outside of it. I didn't remember getting out, but that was the shakes. I grabbed a towel and wiped the sweat off my face, and shook like a dog... and then looked at the passive camera feeds and the broken war machines around... and the returns of incoming reinforcements.

I fell back into the seat as the Essence window popped up to nag me... maybe I'd just pass out sitting in the cockpit, and wait here.
--

A Rabid Fox Saves the First Prince
Part 2

Ian Davion watched the teenage mercenary mechwarrior retreat back to his cockpit. Any physical weakness after the battle was understandable... his Atlas had also gotten a bit warm as the battle had progressed, and he wasn't running an energy boat. His command company hadn't been expecting combat themselves that Colonel Kurita had managed to waltz his battalion so brazenly onto them was ridiculous.

... but it had been what happened.

With their forces battered, but intact Ian Davion knew that they could succeed in driving the Combine from Mallory's world. "Signal Colonel Kell."

Five football fields away the seventy tonner booted.

"Alright," The teenager grunted looking at the screens, a mix of physical and hard light. "If I slave these here then, these," He muttered to himself... the pips were representational. He was pretty sure if he was reading the output right he couldn't just slave all of his heat sinks to his weapons... not if he wanted to be able to move ... and given how bad off his armor was, he didn't want to be standing there like some kind of sitting duck.

A couple of minutes later the displays greened. The projected heat curve flattened but the computer still projected the machine would risk overheating if he had to fire all four lasers... but he wasn't surprised This was better than nothing in any event.

His index finger hovered extended over the console interface... he had a headache staring at the machine... or that could be the come down from the adrenaline high. Whatever it was he exited out of the diagnostics display without out any further changes. Ten of the mechs 21 DHS were now slaved to two of the Clan Extended Range Large Lasers... it would help manage his heat problem this was so much more of a headache than it was on table top.

Sand swirled around his machine as the wind blew through the wasteland.

He looked at the mech returns... "Man, if I make it through this I am going to fuck off to nowherese-ville... this Inner Sphere succession war stuff is for the dogs." He remarked to the machine, rather to an actual person. The digital display returns showed... well a lot... a lot of signals. There were mech regiments, and non mech regiments... and there were a lot of both... this was a real battle, not some dust up with pirates, or local militia types.

It was about that time his actual computer screens were over laid with some gamer esque display from the essence triggering showing him a bunch of values and options that he didn't have time to deal with. BV, Currency values, the ability to spend for skills and buy items... all sorts of things that he couldn't use right now.... not with a piddling 25 BV 'in the till' so to speak. He 'd work out all of this once he made it through the day.

It would be later on after he had made it through the day that he actually looked at his character sheet... which seemed to be akin to a starter roll up from Age of War the table top RPG that some ideas would occur to him... that and using the recycle button. Today's survival was about making it through the cluster fuck of being dropped into one of the major battles of the late 3rd succession war, even as the details nagged at him.

He paused, and vocally observed "Oh the Kell Hounds are here." The pieces slowly fell into place as he turned his heavily scuffed heavy mech around... and half remembered details from a book he hadn't read or paged through in a couple years slowly came together... well there went the timeline for the rest of the third succession war...

He'd recognized the Second Sword of Light, and the lack of returns from the warhammer that he'd managed to nearly run over... and to tell the truth the Kell Hounds had never been his faction... this was the battle where Yorinaga Kurita was supposed to kill First Prince Ian Davion.

The Davion in the Atlas over there.

Then Yorinaga was supposed to be all emo about not getting to carry off the body to the coordinator when the Combine got run off the planet...

... so yeah, "There goes canon." He took a glance through the semi opaque overlays to squint at the remains of the mechs... and in particular another seventy ton mech... the one that had his Rabid Fox's foot impressions over its battered armor.

That was Yorinaga Kurita's warhammer.

Yorinaga Kurita was dead.

Ian Davion in his Atlas over there wasn't.

... Ian was still First Prince, and thus not getting succeeded by Hanse... which risked potentially derailing the whole battle of Halstead station which risked fucking up the whole NAIS thing... which would be bad whenever the clans came a knocking... that would be bad.

His thoughts were interrupted by a Davion liaison officer intruding on them by handshaking his mech... more or less with an offer he couldn't refuse.

--

He grumbled to himself that he thought this planet was supposed to be a breadbasket world... not that complaining didn't do him any good, but it was something to do while he trudged the heavy mech through. The Combine didn't seem to know what the hell to do, to the point he had to wonder whether they were waiting for Yorinaga to tell them what to do... in which case that sucked for them...

... maybe Yorinaga had been hit by the good idea fairy and had taken his whole battalion without telling anyone or what to do at all? Hadn't the Combine lost Halstead station, he had know that the Kell Hounds had made Yorinaga back off in canon so maybe he hadn't told anyone and the Davion counter attack had found some gap to exploit and now they were backpedalling.

His targeting computer flagged a Panther even before it crested the hill and as it soon as it showed up he slathered it with some love from his large lasers dropping the 35 ton mech into a burning heat...

"Second Sword of Light, 2nd Legion of Vega, 9th Benjamin Regulars, 24th and 36th Dieron." He recited in annoyance.... what a mess, he perked up and started shooting the Jenners as they zoomed in, not wanting them to get close given his armor diagram's abundance of yellow and red indicators... but the Davion liaison was right the Combine was fighting a if we can't have it neither can you.

He put the reticle in line with the mech's head, and squeezed the right trigger, the ER Large Laser with slaved heat sinks in the arm fired, and down went another bug. He tapped his console to send the video footage to the davion hq vehicle... some command call the 'Brigands' of all things attached to the 7th Crucis Lancers and then turned bringing his left arm in line to fire on another slightly heavier BattleMech with shit armor and vestigial arms. It exploded into its own glorious fireball as the lasers ripped through standard armor.

Keep moving and shooting, survive and then figure out what the fuck to do from here.
--
Notes: As I mentioned I should be starting yet another thing, and especially not a BT, but this idea has been nagging me so this is Essence of Mega Mek lab (https://forum.questionablequesting....discussions-thread.4740/page-101#post-5134727) + A Simple Battletech CYOA (https://docs.google.com/document/d/1eden4TNeOBtrhSjClK8eVcJIiaVGEOzKIq02Pc6OMgM/edit) dropping into Mallory's world in 3013

The title is not fixed, its a reference to the Rabid Fox B configuration that is the starting mech. That information can be found: https://www.clanfox.com/downloads in the record sheet document available on this page.

This is currently sitting at about five thousand words ... coming up on an idea that first went to its first draft about twenty hours ago, and I've been doing other things today... some times its like that. I know I should actually be working on updateing the story that uses the essence first as such, but this operates using the same essence with a slightly different plot line... it is fairly Davion aligned, so more like GWW but it uses plot ideas from both. I hope to get an actual update to that story up in May, but in the mean time I'll probably post some more of this in the misc thread.

EDIT: Yes I wasn't paying attention and posted this here, and not in Essence Wielding Social General.

Imperator Pax · Apr 30, 2023

Dieron Part 3

Chang whooped in excitement as the flying wing exploded. The DCMS aircraft, a Shilone, turning into a fireball. She idly, within her borrowed Atlas, wondered exactly where the fuck their own aircraft were, but ... well while she didn't know for sure expected that they needed little things like refueling... which was probably a hassle given all the jostling and moving around that they were doing.

She watched another aircraft kaboom it plunging into the inland sea to her west as the chatter of auto cannons continued to streak up into the sky.

Now, admittedly she knew that what they were doing was a bit ... well not professional. They were invaindg a major inner sphere world. This was well beyond what they'd gotten up to on Elidere... people were going to make holovid blockbusters about Elidere she'd heard the Davions talking about. Never mind what they were going to say once they wiped out two combine 'mech regiments here.

Well admittedly it was most of one, and the 9th Sun Zhang was a training cadre so ... but still TWO MECH Regiments. Never mind all the normal soldiers... the mundane meat and metal that were so much more common for MechWarriors to fight... from a purely business side of things they werne't going to make as much bank in payout from wrecking that much metal... she'd seen the contracts and new they were looking at a nice payout...

... but she also knew that was because House Davion, big H big D, was probably leery of one of their big nobles having such a big stick. She'd seen the way some of the FedSuns nobility acted about everything. It was kind of embarrassing, on the other hand it wasn't like the FedSuns were a bad employer. They were making good money, and no one had tried any shady stuff.

Bubbles was hoping it stayed that way.

There was stuff going on in the background that she didn't know... but ... that creepy underground crypt beneath Castle Northwind made her head spin.

She didn't know what a Special Class A security profile was.... other than Special. The HAF was the Army of the Terran Hegemony the nation of the Camerons, of McKenna, and Kerensky. If this was like some kind of holovid drama maybe he'd be a vampire awakened from long dormant slumber in a destroyed castle... Northwind had been creepy enough with its high ceiling... weird robot bugs.

A message flashed across the Atlas's com display jarring her out of it.

Big heavy fusion returns started to go up. The Rapiers they had found on Elidere were lifting off, in a minute as they set their throttles they'd go supersonic. The 85 ton ASF were heavily armed. The two returns on the Ford 340s she was picking identified them as 101 models mounting three Magna Hellstar PPCs. Her computer updated to transmit the rest of the flight were RP 100s two PPCs supporting an assault auto cannon.

Half a dozen aircraft in total aimed at crossing through the enemy formation. They'd get the pass and then they'd have to move into chasing each others tails, but that was what fighter jocks did.

--
The projected weather forecast was so far so good. The wind projections were low, they wouldn't need to worry about rain, thunderstorms, sand storms, floods or anything like that today which would support their continuing advance.

The Presidio's air complement had just sortied to mop up... but also to cover rearmament of the Jaeger mechs and the 40mm whirlwinds of the BlackJacks as the break in air attack came. The air breathing aircraft were actually potentially more dangerous at night than their ASF counterparts, lacking fusion drives they didn't create nearly the visible light, and infrared signature in the dark.

... also they were cheaper.

With the rate that that brigade was knocking Combine Shilones out of the air that they might not have to worry about them. ASF were a precious resource in the modern era and the Combine pilots while good, had clearly not expected such a volume of ground based anti aircraft fire. Then again, no one expected Gauss Rifles in this era... once the Fury tanks had opened up, even with their limited ammunition their networked fire control ... well... Gene flipped channels delegating air command to the actual flyers... that there number of aviation assets was ... well what it was played a part in that.

He swiped his hand manipulating the holographic display... they needed to reduce Combine forces in the open as much as possible... just in case the Combine commander decided to switch tracks and go for scorched earth and deny the Davions the civilian population. He didn't see a whole lot of ways to do that, but on the other hand they had the Combine out numbered. That much was apparent with the way the regiment of student mechwarriors and the sword of light were spread out... they were trying to cover and move to engage now with too wide of a front.

A more conservative commander would have traded ground, and certainly wouldn't have put a river to his back, which was exactly what the Sword of Light's 3rd Battalion had done with itself.

Gene blew out a breath, and started a data packet for retasking

He ran through the Company's core membership, and then punched up a hail to the Highland Battalion. Claymore Lead took a moment to connect. The old Highlander, and his highlander that had had its gauss rifle replaced with an auto cannon at least a forty years earlier according to the report from the mechanics that was appended to the regimental management software was really in good condition. Given that the Northwinders had Highlanders with Gauss Rifles Gene suspected that some of those looted store caches from the invasion had disappeared into the hills and... that also maybe the Black Watch had known where others were.

... the door they hadn't been able to open had had Dante's annex behind it, but that suggested that their credentials were able to open, they just hadn't known where all to look... and given all the damage Amaris had done on Northwind... that wasn't actually a surprise.

Even two and a half centuries on, Northwind wasn't any where close to a billion people... and the truth was that wasn't a direct result of nuclear bombardment... or silly ideas about nuclear winter... it was the disruption of the planetary and interplanetary economy making an otherwise fertile world unable to conduct, organize, and transport food to its population leading to first a planetary die off, and then the subsequent longer lasting economic depression that resulted.

Dieron had fared much better than Northwind on the surface but part of that was Rim world incompetence. As a result Dieron's population had survived the crisis more intact so that there were five billion souls on Dieron, a real distinction from Northwind. It was part of the reason, he really didn't want to risk urban fighting. If they had to do that... well that why he had the devastators in reserve... if it came down to it they'd bring close range brawlers in and do what needed to be done... but he was really hoping the Combine would show some goddamn sense and abide by the Ares conventions, that when they lost they'd surrender.

... but the current iteration of the dictum honorium really was a hot mess. The original version was fancy archaic poetry but it was high minded noblesse oblige this and that throw backs to a supposed better moral place. He didn't believe those good old days existed but ...

"Colonel?" The highlander asked.

"Standby." He hit send on the data packet.

"They've no where to fall back to, sir." The Highland replied scrutinizing the Combine position, "Not that I think that they'd retreat anyway, but they can only go forward against us from there."

"That was my thinking as well." Still there was at least a regiment of militia infantry, with a second trying to fill out the gap if the spotter plane footage was right... a long scraggly mass of harried foot infantry rushing across pontoon bridges. He transmitted the artillery detachment information, he didn't like shelling the crossing not the least of which was hitting pontoon bridges at distance was something of an ask so they'd probably be wasting ammo but it needed to be done. "The 3rd RCT is preparing to feint and strike 1st Battalion / 5 SOL if they can make contact I need you to prevent the 3 – 5 from trying to relieve them."

He wasn't about to throw a new Battalion against fanatic veterans without something up his sleeve, but he also needed to protect their western flank, and that meant those infantry needed to be shaken up, disoriented if not outright destroyed as a viable fighting force.

Within his Command Mech Colonel Shepherd filtered the orders and sent them down to the Battalion level, attaching specialist units to an all mech formation.
--
Notes: So I should be asleep right now, but anyway, this story has Isekai in its subtitle due to that being what Cimbri had as his CYOA name, but I will be doing a slightly more Isekai BT story... that will at current rate be getting (see the extra thread mark most recently) its own thread. The first two chapters will be a bit rough covering the late 3013 battle of Halstead Station, and then the early 3014 battle of Mallroy's world using the Essence of Megamek lab power set followed by a time skip... anyway thats officially in the pipeline for May

Imperator Pax · May 7, 2023

Dieron
Part 4

As the returns filtered on his screen, Septim cursed more in frustration than anger at the situation. They'd kind of sort of had this problem back with the Canopians. The Merlin was the first new BattleMech in ages and it hadn't been built as a Command Mech. He didn't have all those fancy Star League computer systems to order hundreds of BattleMechs around.

... Not that he wanted to but in this case it was that the boss was doing.

Both of their new Overlord DropShips had been filled up with new people. 36 BattleMech the overwhelming majority being heavy or assault mechs... proper lyran stuff that the boss had just pulled out of storage to hand over. Septim had enjoyed Professor Abner pointing out that the Rapier was also 'a good sturdy Lyran flying machine'.... and well twelve of those had been loaded up with the company's new pilots as well.

They just hadn't had time to get to know all the new people. It was one thing to be in charge of, be responsible for the DMM people. They were good people, but they were also temporary. People joked about how Lyrans were used to money, and spending it and whatever but the boss hadn't batted an eye at digging ... who knew how much heavy metal out of the ground enough to just stand up whole new units and give it away... and even before that the boss had more than one BattleMech sitting in a cubicle.

It had only compounded with how Bubbles, and the quiet guy were reacting to the situation. Hanzo had proven good at coaching the DMM troops, seeing it as he put it a 'moral imperative' to provide a a good foundation to one's 'juniors' and what not... and while that wasn't any kind of problem once they had gotten back with the boss and landed on Northwind... well things on Northwind had been crazier than they had been before that.

Apparently exposure to the Davions, and the northwind, and Bard's singing had infected Chang with some ridiculous 'Clan Fox' brain bug...

He eased the yokes of his Heavy BattleMech dipping back behind the hill more to shelter against the overhead sonic booms than to minimize his profile of any potential air attack. His machine's massive VLAR 300 might easily confuse the Combine planes that he was something else, but they'd know a BattleMech when they picked on up on their scopes, and he didn't want to make them trying to strafe him any easier.

The sooner the snakes were in front of them the better. He was actually getting stir crazy. Bo at least knew what he was getting into with Echo Company being kept just behind the line of advance as a kind of reaction force... the idea was that if they had to the missile boats could swing to engage an enemy lance or company force already engaging DMM troops.

That suited the Free Worlder fine. Bo would be fine waiting.

... but even nominally sitting here on the front line he was tapping his foot like mad waiting for an actual Snake Mech to show up. He couldn't shoot down aircraft, but they also needed to keep moving forward... and they were burning daylight. He figured that was probably the point that the Combine was trying to slow them down. The Draconic March Militia units needed to bring up their infantry and combat vehicles and prepare fighting positions and an air raid threat was going to impede those efforts.

Even if he'd been standing on the crest of the hill, rather than in its shadow, the sun's light was fading... the sky wasn't that dark yet but dusk was on the way, and then it'd be dark... and who knew what the fuck that was going to be like. They had been warned, and warned, to be wary of a combine night attack being launched so they were going to have to stop and prepare fighting positions...

There was a chime from his console as the text only transmission reiterated that warning... he wondered if it was an automated message, as he continued to slow walk the Merlin down the hill. The 19 ton fusion engine was faster than the original Merlin's smaller engine, bigger more horsepower it was a trade off... the combine had seriously damaged his mech on Ander's moon after all. He needed to pay them back for that, even if the boss hadn't billed him for the repairs.

--
Standard Battle Plate was ridiculously effective for its weight in offering protection. That and coupled with contemporary ECM capacity, and the difficulty in resolving the interference from fusion engines to certain other targetting capacities... well tanks, and BattleMechs, were hard to kill at really anything other than close range.

If you wanted to kill something from a couple miles out... well your best option was artillery, the same as it had been for a thousand years now, which was why they were screening the lances of thumpers to come up. He idly wanted to park them, dig them in out of sight, and pour indirect fire into the combine... but they'd need ammo and the truth was there was a chance that the combine might mount an attempt an aggressive break through, and he wanted the artillery to have the ammunition to blunt any kind of assault combine infantry might mount and that meant things pre sighting positions before they lost all the daylight.

So that was why he was calling a halt to the advance. "We're refueling the planes now, we should be able to get one more flight but I think the snakes are wising up that we have aircraft ... whether they have an idea of it or not well we'll have to wait an see." The scots major remarked.

The DMM officers still connecting into conference. Highlanders, the mechs, were more suited to these sorts of communiques... or at least the machines were configured for it. There was also the problem that the DMM Mech units were not alone. There were another five companies of armor mostly things like bulldogs, and von luckner tanks that were supposed to be supporting the mechs... "And how are we on the time tables?"

The highlander colonel guffawed, "Aye, our own infantry and armor, well you can't complain about those blackwell toys. They're letting us move along." They were fusion powered no need to refuel them with petrol and thus no need for petrol lorries to come along and risk exposure. That meant that they could focus on transporting missile reloads for their vehicles. "The terrain is no good, though... we're going to have to reposition some of the dropships maybe before the sun comes alighting."

They had been talking about this. Their DropShips were carrying supplies... not as much... Overlords weren't cargo vessels... and Unions frankly sucked in that role as well, in addition to being cramped... but this wasn't intended to be a long duration campaign. Still Gene could understand why the Azami preferred energy boats and very limited supply dependent weapons, largely sticking to specialty SRMs, LRM ammo, and a single model of AC 10 for their ground forces when they could help it. He agreed with that thinking. Logistics won over sheer guts in a unit on unit slugging match.

... which was what they were in. "Do you think you'll need the added firepower if the Sword of Light swings to meet you?"

"It certainly couldn't hurt, but at the same time, I'm getting good feeds from those Fury tanks. If you be right that will maintain through the night, it might be better to have the dropships not come in sooner. If put them down close the Combine might take the bait and come at us." And while the Ancients Company of Claymore might be prepared to fight a Sword of Light unit head on, having the battalion taste its first battle in the dark against a veteran combine battalion wasn't ideal. The main thing was keeping the sword of light from bearing down on the Eridani's Light and Medium mechs and trying to roll their flank.

Not because he expected that was what could happen, it could, but the bigger concern was the casualties the combine could inflight if they were allowed to commit to that kind of attack without being interrupted. The Azami were a combined arms out fit their legion background was based off of light horse doctrine if filtered through a combine view of it, with an emphasis on PPCs for mechs in particular, the Azami had a lot of hovercraft, if it came to that he expected he could retask them as rapid reaction filling a breach in the front with so many Harasser and Saracens missile boats that the combine would have to fall back... or take such a pounding that he was able to shore things up... they would have to wait and see what the snakes actually did though... just be ready for it.
--
Notes: I have started a second Essence of Meklab story / BattleTech Isekai, Rabid Fox hews more towards Isekai tropes, and is more narrowly focused than this. GW2 is a story that takes place across really the whole inner sphere, with lots of travel. Rabid Fox at least in its current plan while it may dip into the rimward periphery because it does operate on similar ideas is primarily focused on Davion Space and the Inner Sphere.

I will go ahead and say that it will focus a lot on the principle davion side cast

Imperator Pax · May 14, 2023

Dieron

Part 5

Twilight had fallen. The Brevet General was both disappointed with their progress and impressed at the same time. The 5th Sword of Light had slipped away from them. The enemy force had won first blood, though largely on their weight. Kerston hadn't been willing to over commit to an attack and so they'd both broken contact... truthfully he'd been expecting the Combine to come forward after... but perhaps the Sword of Light commander knew better, knew the Eridani Light Horse's reputation and didn't want to be lured in.

Tomorrow though the battle lines would be fixed... they were already hardening into formations as refueling trucks and ammunition palls were brought up to prepare for tomorrow. The officer of the watch within the command vehicle relayed footage to his BattleMech's HUD Inferno munitions flying out to blunt incoming infantry attacks.

... he hoped that the Combine wasn't so callous as to be intentionally using human wave attacks to blunt their thermal scopes at night for something more. He had fought his share of night battles, as both aggressor and defender they were always complicated. This campaign was going to be more complicated than most.

If it had been up to him, they'd have waited before launching this. Taken more time to train together, better integrate their forces and that would have been true of any invasion... he wasn't sure what the Federated Suns had planned in the long term, but maybe it would be good for the Inner Sphere... good for humanity as a whole rather than just one of the successor states.

It was more than that though... and he was hoping that whatever was going to unfold that the Federated Suns would let them rotate back to a garrison contract... they needed, they were going to need time to train up. It took time to properly run a training course. The SLDF manuals were invaluable and were not the sort of instructions passed from master to student, knight to squire but were for preparing units, and built on the inherent espirt de corps of a body of picked men.

It was strange to see the interoperability of so many thrown together units... but Kerston wasn't stupid... he knew very well what ...

... the systems under Northwind had made that clear... a hundred seventy seven years since an officer of the Hegemony's Central Intelligence Directorate had been down there. The AI wanted blood paid for Hegemony losses... he understood that on Neue Karlruhe in the Lyran Commonwealth the Hegemony AI there had a priority to protect the Hegemony but that the Hegemony was gone, but there were still responsibilities to those left behind.

Shepherd was a Hegemony officer, a CID officer he had probably commanded member state, or at least advised them given his age, forces before the coup. From what the MRB had said he had commanded Canopian sub units since coming out of the stasis tube... but more than that Shepherd had asked about Cameron survivors something that no one had considered possible... that members of the Terran ruling house had made it off Terra during the coup.

It would have made sense for them to be trying to link with Kerensky, but could it have been more than that? Could they hope? But two centuries as a long time, and they had to be realistic about what they could do, and besides Shepherd had his hands full with enough volunteers as it was.

His BattleMaster's computers processed another packet of data. Their Kuritan rivals had a battle master of their own somewhere in the area... it was relaying command and control data to its own forces. They hadn't been able to throw a spotter plane up over it, before it was probably a Sword of Light Command Lance. There were a number of Kuritan command vehicles as well that was generating some interference as well. There were requests to start bringing up Thumpers to start plastering whole grid squares to destroy those command vehicles in an effort to disrupt command and control.

It wasn't the worst idea he'd heard... ordinarily the light horse would have sent light mechs and hover craft to try and head hunt such specialist vehicles from behind the enemy lines, but in this geography and at night against this enemy... and with an unknown enemy air threat forcing them to conserve their air power artillery was the better option.

--
Gene grimaced under the red night vision preserving lights of his cockpit. These banzai charge attacks were disgusting wastes of men's lives... and for what? The Combine was pissed that the Rasalhagians were rebelling? Enough to attack them like this. Disgusting.

The Azami commander had actually volunteered to sortie and bait the Combine into attacking his own forces ... and Gene was hard pressed to find a valid tactical reason to refuse the offer... given their situation.

The Combine's fantasicsm was worrying. Not that he hadn't been expecting night time attacks, but there was expectation, and then reality. Support PPCs were a good idea, were good weapons, they provided infantry with reasonable offensive striking capability and the combine fielded them in rather surprising numbers, but it was also something expected by 'dirty rebels' as the Combine thought of the Rasalhagians and the Azami.

Making a decision meant watching an Azami lance from one of their Drosts... one that hadn't been rebranded that was... that included a pair of classic catapults. The jumping heavy battlemechs were reinforced with half a dozen hovercraft and finally a pair of SRM carriers rolling in.

The Sheik's captain provided him a time table and assured him that it wouldn't impact wider operations for his whole combined arms unit to have the front anchored, and that the Rasalhague force would be able to rearm and reequip as they needed. With that handled he relayed confirmation to the Bexar allowing the Hegemony built Triumph to start its bit of hop scotch to Bardiche's AO.

He paused and swapped channels from the Azami officer to their Davion Liaison, "It would seem they're beginning to mount similar attacks against the Draconis March Troops."

Lovely.

Alexandria filled him in with what was filtering in from their far western line of advance, but there wasn't much to be done. The DMM troops were dug in for the night, and had organic armor support... and while they didn't have the cruel efficiency of inferno munitions at least they had good armor supporting them.

He closed the channel once the report was done.

Gene looked up at the dark sky. The moon was obscured by clouds, but other than that the weather was clear. Line of sight wasn't great given the preponderance of hills to the west that ringed the great lake that the Kazakh river flowed into, but that worked both ways... and that worked really well for anything that wasn't eight plus meters of bipedal murder machine.

What was worse was if his signal returns were right the Combine had over shot the nearest access point to the underground in their unseemly unhaste... it would have been nice to know they were going to do something like that so he could have had troops waiting to access the tunnel... but that also supposed the tunnels were intact enough to move troops.

They probably were. His Marauder's seismographic sensors gave no indication that a collapse had distorted the ground beneath them... if they had been collapsed then the cave in should have distorted the returns. He wasn't seeing any of that. That was promising, but it was something for later, he watched display shift.

He reached up to the master arm, and flipped it. Inferno SRMs in mech's hoppers cranked into their tubes and launched from the dark green and stone gray Marauder that waited in the night. The infantry men's screams he couldn't hear, but he was already bringing the machine forward as the nose mounted small pulse laser started to flash as his hud resolved targeting data on the pbi positions coming out into the open.

The men never had a chance, never saw it coming. One second they'd been bounding forward egged on by their officers exhorting them to fight for the dragon's glory and then missiles had started spraying an aerosilized gel that rapidly ignited into a viscous mass of fire, and from that fire they probably saw if only briefly the devil coming out of the black of the night.

He moved to one of the few trucks with the column and pumped a medium laser into it as a precaution as his hoppers reloaded from the bin. His heads up display told him that he was going to run out of inferno ammunition if he kept this up... and with all the fires he had started someone was going to notice.

... or they wouldn't.

He wasn't the only throwing Inferno SRMs... and it was also true that the combine mechs also had inferno srms ... maybe the combine would assume with no returns from his machine that this was blue on blue and someone had fucked up.

... and in a sense the combine had. They had rushed into the area without any apparent kind of screening in favor of rushing towards the objective. Not that scouts would have necessarily found him in the dark of night.
--
Notes: In addition to the Rabid Fox Essence story: Link, I also am considering doing one more periphery centric in the vein of using the essence to show up ala the Wolf Dragoons but playing Periphery kingmaker... but I'm currently kicking around ideas for that, as well as the Davion heir story, from which Rabid Fox has incorporated some of the ideas from that.

I do want to conclusively reiterate that Essence of MegaMek Lab is like most essences really freaking OP so both Rabid Fox, and its periphery counterpart are overpowered. Less so than in Essence Wielding Social General as Odin in that is more invested in the Lyran state as a political entity.

Anyway I need to go work on the rest of the battle of Dieron so next week's update will actually happen... and all of that is just Battletech content... never mind all of the other setting stories I keep saying I'm going to find time for.

... and also finding time to play Zelda tears of the kingdom.

Battletech: The Ghost Who Walks (Battletech Isekai)

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