Battletech: The Ghost Who Walks (Battletech Isekai)

[Bofors40mm]

Hmmm I assume that a lot of Arrow IV ammo and the schematics and manuals to maintain them would help get the type back into production earlier than otl

 

[Imperator Pax]

Hmmm I assume that a lot of Arrow IV ammo and the schematics and manuals to maintain them would help get the type back into production earlier than otl

Click to shrink...

To be honest, and beating a dead horse, I don't understand how the 'unguided' version (I can understand some of the specialty munitions going out of production and then just being forgotten about and never reentering service) of the arrow went out of production and service in the first place, but yeah certainly before the 3rd succession war ends back and available.

 

[Bofors40mm]

To be honest, and beating a dead horse, I don't understand how the 'unguided' version (I can understand some of the specialty munitions going out of production and then just being forgotten about and never reentering service) of the arrow went out of production and service in the first place, but yeah certainly before the 3rd succession war ends back and available.

Click to shrink...

Honestly I suspect the reason the unguided ammo went out of production was by the time the means to build those was lost so were the vast majority of Arrow IV equipped platforms so no one rebuilt the ammo plans before the knowledge got lost

 

[Doomsought]

To be honest, and beating a dead horse, I don't understand how the 'unguided' version (I can understand some of the specialty munitions going out of production and then just being forgotten about and never reentering service) of the arrow went out of production and service in the first place, but yeah certainly before the 3rd succession war ends back and available.

Click to shrink...

If you compare the performance of a thunderbolt-20 to the Arrow-IV, there is a massive difference between the performance of the propulsion systems. The warhead is also much more impressive, doing 20pt AOE rather than 20pt direct fire, the latter is far less energetic even if more effective against armor. Thunderbolt 20 ammo is heavier than Arrow ammunition.

 

[Imperator Pax]

Extras Nominally Canon Extras

House Arano Introduction Part 2
3019​

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Still Bahar's Highlander wasted little time

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Commander!"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"I am afraid not."

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


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Why do I not like that look?"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

​

 

[Silverbullet]

This is going to give more weight to Espinosa's arguments. Which to be fair were good ideas on centralized Government and Industry. It's just the manner in which he came to power and held on to it that caused issues. A Tyrant with good ideas is still a Tyrant, but Tiamati is too unwilling to sidestep the High Council and make an Executive decision as his role of First among Equals. This may cause him to seek out the Argo and potentially the Artu Outpost when he learns of it to gain more Losttech given the statement by Espinosa.

Why are the Ambassadors at each other's throats again?

 

[Imperator Pax]

This is going to give more weight to Espinosa's arguments. Which to be fair were good ideas on centralized Government and Industry. It's just the manner in which he came to power and held on to it that caused issues. A Tyrant with good ideas is still a Tyrant, but Tiamati is too unwilling to sidestep the High Council and make an Executive decision as his role of First among Equals. This may cause him to seek out the Argo and potentially the Artu Outpost when he learns of it to gain more Losttech given the statement by Espinosa.

Why are the Ambassadors at each other's throats again?

Click to shrink...

Because their respective governments have been accusing each other of taking advantage of or even supporting pirates against their neighbors (I mean its the periphery so thats technically true historically) which escalated to the Canopian ambassador accusing the Taurian one of being responsible for the ongoing pirate attack

[As opposed to the we should put our differences aside because Black Jack is a revenge addled warlord with a mountain of star league era metal, maybe we should not fight among ourselves]

 

[Bofors40mm]

This is going to give more weight to Espinosa's arguments. Which to be fair were good ideas on centralized Government and Industry. It's just the manner in which he came to power and held on to it that caused issues. A Tyrant with good ideas is still a Tyrant, but Tiamati is too unwilling to sidestep the High Council and make an Executive decision as his role of First among Equals. This may cause him to seek out the Argo and potentially the Artu Outpost when he learns of it to gain more Losttech given the statement by Espinosa.

Why are the Ambassadors at each other's throats again?

Click to shrink...

i will note assuming you make sure to copy the data on the argo so you don't lose it due to the locura....it has a map with locations of many a star league facility. which would be huge for the aurigans both in material terms for stuff they can directly get and diplomatically speaking. and the very capable machine shops and the like aboard her aren't small potatoes either

 

[Fragment of Serenity]

Because their respective governments have been accusing each other of taking advantage of or even supporting pirates against their neighbors (I mean its the periphery so thats technically true historically) which escalated to the Canopian ambassador accusing the Taurian one of being responsible for the ongoing pirate attack

[As opposed to the we should put our differences aside because Black Jack is a revenge addled warlord with a mountain of star league era metal, maybe we should not fight among ourselves]

Click to shrink...

So... Battletech on the whole. Got it.

Will be amusing to see how the two heiresses change with learning from and interacting with Gene.

 

[Bofors40mm]

So... Battletech on the whole. Got it.

Will be amusing to see how the two heiresses change with learning from and interacting with Gene.

Click to shrink...

Well with a visible external threat causing much needed reforms for one the odds of the Aurigan Civil War happening just ended. So at the very minimum the two aren't likely to end up in a duel to the death

 

[Imperator Pax]

Well with a visible external threat causing much needed reforms for one the odds of the Aurigan Civil War happening just ended. So at the very minimum the two aren't likely to end up in a duel to the death

Click to shrink...

At least on the latter yes, but on the former I don't know like my Take on Tamati was (and some of this writer's inertia where I've already written a significant chunk what may well end up its own thread in terms of a timeline's novelization of the civil war covering major campaign missions) unwilling to make reforms because the council kept dickering about things and then he died leaving things unfixed.

Now certainly here, there is a much larger pirate threat, but does that fix the interal system? Because Espinosa seems to be talking about how the reach had been in decline already (which I have a here, in universe explanation for) and had been declining before the pirates (also apparently in 'canon' on Fjaldr Markham lost a dozen mechwarriors so I assume Markham's marauders is at least a company sized element not the much reduced medium lance and leopard that the HBS game opens you with)

 

[Silverbullet]

Now certainly here, there is a much larger pirate threat, but does that fix the interal system? Because Espinosa seems to be talking about how the reach had been in decline already (which I have a here, in universe explanation for) and had been declining before the pirates (also apparently in 'canon' on Fjaldr Markham lost a dozen mechwarriors so I assume Markham's marauders is at least a company sized element not the much reduced medium lance and leopard that the HBS game opens you with)

Click to shrink...

It will at the least drive home the need to make the ACM a force with more teeth than it currently has as well as give Tiamati more fuel for his Pirate War on Fjaldr. Though that apparently was a slog of a campaign and as you said the Marauders suffered badly in it. Likely so badly they were in the straights we saw them in in the campaign and pretty much surviving only by being on retainer to House Arano. Which dried up after the coup and put them in the debt cycle that eats up so many merc companies or forces them to go pirate. Who then get hunted down by Government Forces or other Mercs and the system that creates them continues with only the banks and military industry coming out on top as always in the Sphere...

 

[Bofors40mm]

the best way to reform the aurigan coalition is to make it more federalized and give the high lord or lady more power especially over military and foreign policy matters.
on another note would bribing the taurians for the data on what SLDF installations the argo has the location for in their space for a formal recognition of the AC being a sovereign independent nation work?

 

[Fragment of Serenity]

The arrival of Gene's forces also opens up a solid opportunity for an expansion of the Concordat's skill base. Should they be hired on for the creation of a training cadre, both heiresses are going to be in for some serious changes of thought processes. Gene doesn't have time for stupid or arrogance.

Added to that is the opportunity that the castle Nautilus offers. An Atlas II would be... spicy.

 

[Molder]

What even is the company's name? Because I don't think it's been said yet.

 

[Imperator Pax]

Highland Faire 7​

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

Mail.

Priority mail.

Still mail though.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"As the wind the blows I am afraid."

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Did you invite them?"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


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

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

 

[Imperator Pax]

Highland Faire Interlude
7-8​

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

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

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

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

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

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

The door opened and they all stood.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

[Imperator Pax]

Highland Faire 8​

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Well what is it?"

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

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

Judging from the situation...

"Just left here?"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"God in his heaven."

"Yeah."

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

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

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

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

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

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

It was an unnecessary sullen comment from the highlander.

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

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

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

"Dante, was this an SLCOMNET Tender?"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

[Imperator Pax]

Highland Faire 9 (a)​

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Why would they do that?"

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

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

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

"Something wrong?"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"And that they want feedback."

"I understand that."

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

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

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

"This is a dedicated close quarters mech killer."

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

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

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

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

 

[Imperator Pax]

On another note I wonder just how much stress the typical BT CYOA causes the local MRB/ROM office when a random 20 year old shows up and registers basically a reinforced combined arms regiment including its own lift which includes jumpships and a full wing for air cover with gear comstar has no idea where it actually came from

Click to shrink...

[Pulling this from the other thread]
I suspect it varies and this is sort of the way I treat it in Ghost who walks, obviously in Essence Wielding Social General the situation is a little different because there there is a somewhat paper trail for said twenty year old heir and well its a Lyran the local MRB isn't the issue so much as its all the JumpShips, and potentially neighboring successor states that are the problem

And while it hasn't been covered to much in the Ghost, in Gene's case its more a case of a broken OODA loop. ComStar hasn't caught up to things as they sit, which is in part 'oh periphery' and that its more Combine arms battalion prior to Dieron.

ComStar /MRB on Luxen 'Friar Tuck' is literally there because he's been shunted off to a sleepy world where he can't cause too much trouble for drinking all the time (The Canopians aren't going to care if you're a high functioning alcoholic), Detroit's office is a little more hands on but they're used to periphery merc companies forming and then going bust (sure someone in that office probably thought it was a little odd the company credentials list jumpships and dropships for its size, but thats a case of 'not my problem' because they have other things to deal with on Detroit)

PNA, the Precenter New Avalon, the Combine just violated ComStar's neutrality on top of his other problems Vandel has other stuff to do than worry about the murder battalion [and frankly its in ComStar's internal interest to pay special attention to the Elidere campaign] that just rolled in from the periphery on top of the combine breaking neutrality.

You show up with that much metal I expect it has as much to do with what you showed up with, as much as it does who's running the desk that given day on where you showed up.

 

[Imperator Pax]

Highland Faire 9 (b)​

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

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

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

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

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

Breakthrough and exploit.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"It could just be a late comer?"

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

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

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

"Stand by." The Hegemony Machine Spirit replied.

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

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

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

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

"I'll be back in two shakes."

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

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

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

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

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

"Yes ma'am."

 

[Fragment of Serenity]

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

Click to shrink...

No no. I'm afraid this is standard IS idiocy. At it finest.

 

[HellTeddy]

Thank you for the updoot!

Who'd be crazy enough to attack the Fair?
There's probably hundreds of mechs on planet, if not more.

 

[Imperator Pax]

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


Spoilers:

Spoiler: General Commentary

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

FWL:

Spoiler: Marik

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

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

CC:

Spoiler: Liao

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

DC:

Spoiler: Kurita

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

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

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

Spoiler: Spoiler Highland 10+

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

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

​

Spoiler: Sharky boys

Well this is from Ep 2: timestamp 1:20

​

pay attention to what he says.

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

Baffins Union Combine Arms variant
Company of Infantry

San Saba Triumph Undergoing modifications.

 

[Imperator Pax]

Scrap Highland Faire Alternate​

[NON CANON, ALTERNATE ft Wolf Dragoons]​

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

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

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

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

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

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

"one of the Highlanders?"

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

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

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

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

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

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

... this was honestly probably worse.

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

"Yeah," He replied.

"So is there a cache here?"

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

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

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

"Something else?"

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

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

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

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

"Labor isn't a problem."

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

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

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

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

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

"Shouldn't we have more time?"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"So like Robinson."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

[Fragment of Serenity]

In which the Dragoons have now fucked around and the SLDF AI's around about to show them the 'find out'.

Because those are SLDF mechs. And it would be hilarious if Dante just went 'and... your power button now won't work.'

Be all kinds of awkward.

 

[Imperator Pax]

In which the Dragoons have now fucked around and the SLDF AI's around about to show them the 'find out'.

Because those are SLDF mechs. And it would be hilarious if Dante just went 'and... your power button now won't work.'

Be all kinds of awkward.

Click to shrink...

That would be funny.
--
Jaime "YES GLORIOUS BATTLE AGAINST THE ERIDANI"

Dante: "No"

No stompy robots for you.

B.General Kerston: "You are all under arrest for absconding with property of the Star League."

 

[Bofors40mm]

to be fair not like they stole them themselves and its not like countless caches and ex SLDF mechs aren't in service in the IS even discounting comstar's

 

[Imperator Pax]

Scrap Highland Faire Alternate​

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Four?"

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

It was data.

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

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

So that was why they were attacking Northwind.

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

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

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

"Battlecry. Battlecry."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Identifying Marauder II BattleMechs on scope."

No surprise there.

"Acknowledged." He replied.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"They have a lot of those."

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

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

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

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

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

There was no easy out.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Thirty seconds.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Did you see that?"

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

"acknowledged." The tank platoon commander replied.

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

Gene adjusted his targeting system and fired.


And fired.

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

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

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

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

"What do you think?"

"I assume its a gamble."

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

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

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

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

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

 

[Fragment of Serenity]

Nemo me impune lacessit.

Put simply, the Clanners have done poked the bear. The bear took offense at this.