Battletech: The Ghost Who Walks (Battletech Isekai)

[Laxard]

Uhu, MRB totally not gonna side with Draconis on this one, it's not even Draconis issued contract and they didn't paid for transportation so all that regular scummy excuses not gonna fly.

And I think there is minor issue at the chapter where author telling us what will happen in future during MC POV. I refer to the knowledge of the third ship.

 

[RoyalTwinFangs]

Is the MC going to do the mission chain for the Wolverine jump ship? The reason why he would be in bad terms with the WD?

 

[Imperator Pax]

Uhu, MRB totally not gonna side with Draconis on this one, it's not even Draconis issued contract and they didn't paid for transportation so all that regular scummy excuses not gonna fly.

And I think there is minor issue at the chapter where author telling us what will happen in future during MC POV. I refer to the knowledge of the third ship.

Click to shrink...

Oh certainly ComStar (... the MRB particularly) is going to tell the Combine to get fucked eventually. They just going to go through the paperwork and the mercenary court process to get there. "Yeah, yeah we heard you say your bit, but it doesn't change the fact you don't have a case" *angry dragon noises*

and yes, the third JumpShip, it needed to be included, and I know it was clunky where it was but I couldn't find a better place to include it at the time.

 

[Imperator Pax]

Detroit Part 5
The Aftermath ​

The problem with a big flashy pirate attack like this was it made selling stuff like Germanium a headache. Mainly because the commodity traders were all skittish. That didn't mean Aquagea's people hadn't been trying. They were in discussion with a Taurian company, a Canopian company, and the long shot was a Capellan firm that might be able to pony up some cash. If Gene was going to guess it was probably going to be the Canopians who sealed the deal, but that wasn't his concern.

Mostly because the Canopians were more likely to have the equipment that Via Caballero wanted more than they had money, but that was always why the Turians were in the running. New Vandenburg could get them mining stuff and whatever else potentially. Since the Aquageans also didn't have much use for K-Bills from the Resistance Haul, which was still a stupid fucking name Darryl, they'd cashed their shares out not that C-Bills would be much more useful on their home planet.

... and on his front? Well Gene was still looking for something quiet and local. It was partly to generate work history for when he did inevitably move off world again. Or at least that was what he was going for, and he was pretty confident on a call back for the local Ceres Office even if they probably really didn't need a Heavy Mech on security. That was true for patrolling some of the mining sites up on North as well. He knew that if he got lucky he might snag a three month babysitting gig and that would take care of most of his sitting around.

The problem was the origin of the pirates.

The Azami were one of the first Muslims to migrate off Terra in any significant numbers, or rather they had left the Earth to colonize specifically as a group. They were nominally adherents of a Shia school offshoot from the early twenty first century. Not surprising in and of itself, plenty of new religious sects or old religious sects had gone out amongst the stars to 'find themselves' or a 'find a new start', and the Azami hadn't been unique in that respect. The problem they had run into was that House Kurita or the Draconis Combine had wanted to add their worlds into their burgeoning empire. The result had been a negotiated admission into the Empire, and even though that had been centuries ago there were Azami who didn't like that.

That wasn't unheard of either, the lyrans had the various Skye independence movements, and the combine for that matter also had Rassalhague and there were plenty of others. The difference was that the Combine held enough of a grudge to want to do something about it. There was money, and a lot of posturing involved. It wasn't helped that the Combine rep had tried to snatch up all the salvage on the grounds that the mechs were the property of the dragon... which Comstar had shot down pretty quickly, but he had still felt the need to try.

It seemed pretty brazen given he was trying to rile up the mercenaries to go pirate hunting... except no one had any leads... and it was a little ridiculous to chasing rumors. Chasing rumors cost money, and didn't necessarily produce results. That meant that most mercenary outfits who had survived their first year solvent and in the black didn't want to play. The desperate were another story, but even most of them weren't going to go chomping off such a run while there were still easy paying jobs around unless they were really hard up.

"What you reading?" Darryl had thrown himself into the couch.

Gene put the noteputer away. The truth was the Azami weren't the only pirates in the region, and while they had the attention of... well, "Apparently there is an influx of pirates and brigands in general across space."

"Why?"

"Who knows. There seems to be a lot of traffic coming anti-spinward, Taurian and Davion side of the border." Gene shook his head. Unfortunately due to the limits of HPG technology, and network coverage what information ComStar and the MRB had was scarce, and not enough to prompt any kind of hiring craze. Relative spinward to Detroit polities like the Duchy of Don't, or the Aurigan Coalition were more likely to be targets first. "its not the only direction." The Magistracy didn't exactly have a large military and it seemed that there was a big bandit kingdom west of them raiding for slaves and what not too.

"Do you think they'll come back?"

Maybe. He wondered if Yamaguchi knew there was probably a bunch of pirates bearing down on this end of the periphery. "Don't know." The combine could just be holding a grudge, but if in a couple months all of a sudden there were a bunch of bandits robbing everything not bolted down from ur Cruinne to Herotitus then there were going to be a lot less desperate mercs chasing one specific group. What made the Azami more interesting than any of the other MRB reports was their better equipment, which was relative of course. "If I had to guess, I think they hit a DCMS depot before skipping combine space," Not that he could find anything to corroborate that. Not something House Kurita would have advertised... and really the question was how recently they might have done that... or maybe that wasn't really important after all. "So you're leaning towards Ceres over Majesty Metals?"

Darryl nodded.

He hadn't expected Aquagea to feel any pining old loyalty for the old country any way. Not that Ceres's pay was bad for what he was doing, but it was mostly another corporation to put on the resume more than anything else.

--
It was well into his third month on Detroit now, and he was sitting in the cockpit of the Marauder baby sitting some excavators and survey equipment. The same thing he'd been doing about a week now up here on North... but quite frankly the money and more than that the favorable Merc Report were worth the boredom. Majesty Metals and Ceres were both Canopian industrial concerns, and involved in the same industries... he was pretty sure both of them said they manufactured Marauders actually, which was interesting. Gene hadn't really thought of the Canopians having much in the way of a military so having Marauders in production was ... interesting to say the least. Then again it seemed like GM had apparently ended up licensing out the Mech to every major state that existed. It wasn't exactly a surprise the Taurian Concordant built them after all.

The boring babysitting was good, especially since they were paying for transport costs. He was still looking at options a few months out. He could move planets, or stick around here. The problem was still the salvage court being tied up like it was... not helped by House Kurita lawyers stalling for time. Neither Majesty Metals, nor Ceres were hiring any big mercenary groups right now, but there were a few sites off world where either company would pay for transport to and back on completion. There was always going to Herotitus to see if any of the Merc groups there were hiring fresh MechWarriors as well.

The corporate circuit he was working right now though was quiet, and paid fine... and ... then then his radio unit squawked and the concerned sounding voice of one Corporate officers came over, "Gene we've got what reads as an Overlord class DropShip on our scopes." It had said something that this stint was quiet enough that everyone was on first name terms, "I'm going to get Diana's team and back up."

The Dalban was already up and running. "Orbital pathing says its making for Ann Arbor, Darren." He replied, and he tapped a few keys and scrolled, "Its broadcasting a Draconis Combine transponder symbol." Good or not even an Atlas wouldn't have been able to track the JumpShip it came from, but he suspected this was why the lawyers had been stalling for as long as they had. Or not, he could have been wrong. "They're a long way from the Combine though." Then again almost as soon as the Azami attack had started Yamaguchi had tried forcing his way into the ComStar station to send an HPG message, damn the cost. Even coming from Dieron there was no way these guys could have gotten here this fast, unless they were already outside Combine Space to begin with. Had they already been in the Periphery or just on the edge of the Inner Sphere chasing the goon's trail.

If that was the case? What had those assholes stolen to warrant that kind of diversion?

Darren got off the radio to place a call to South, and the Detroit government, which did, after about an hour of waiting around, turn out that these were Combine DropShips. Civilians... nominally speaking... which just meant that they had money. Apparently they had lawyers in addition to money and guns. Gene adjusted his controls and moved up the ridge back to the mining base camp, the truth was it wasn't just pirates he was worried about. This whole area was rife for mineral exploitation but it was unstable... and not just in the geological sense.
--
Commentary: So rather than spend the down time chronicling babysitting a bunch of engineers as they go around checking mineral veins we're going to go forward. As I noted above, (the post above this one), the Combine is basically throwing a fit, which will be better explained as we go into the following two planets (chapters of sorts.)

I'm going to sleep now, but I may end up putting the last scene of Detroit up today, this afternoon and go ahead and finish it out.

 

[Imperator Pax]

Detroit
Conclusion.​

He could feel it in the air. Just as much from the rich people, as the every man on the street.

Ann Arbor was more than a little on edge even though the planetary government had put on a nice song and dance with their Kuritan visitors. It didn't matter if Overlord-class dropships were 'relatively' common in the Combine, that was the Inner Sphere, here in the periphery that was a mighty big stick, and it wasn't alone. He had heard some body try and claim, with a straight face, that they had been conducting a trade mission in the Aurigan Reach.

Leaning on the railing Gene was tallying who were Ronin, Mercs, probably ISF agents in disguise, and who knew what else. Somebody was pissed off, but it wasn't his fight. They had no leads on the pirates, and quite frankly if he had any interest it was in where these guys had come from. A representative from the 'pillar of Jade' was currently talking it up with his corporate point of contact for the job he had just finished, but it was probably just small talk.

With a sigh he signaled the maitre d'hotel of the establishment for another drink, and the only reason he had to go through the old man was because there were a bunch of actual fucking kids around and the regular staff had been told strictly no alcohol for them.

He was about half way through his second local rum cocktail, that sort of reminded him of a Hurricane but more mango and pomegranate, when the robed Gamma marked precentor came over occupied with a plate of cheese puffs. "Are you considering taking the Ur Cruinne posting?"

"I'm considering it." Gene answered without pausing, but that didn't mean he was happy that word was getting around. Majesty was offering a pretty nice pay check, and to cover travel, to go babysit some engineers... and they would be covering any maintenance his mech needed, which was another bonus.

"I am sure you're aware that Hyperpulse Generator stations are few and far between on the periphery, but, well given our recent guests I thought it might be good to share the news. There was a reported pirate attack on Fronc."

He didn't really know where that was, other than rimward of Detroit off hand, "Oh?"

"The blessed order doesn't generally involve itself in matters of law and orders, but our facility on Fronc suffered several casualties due to the raid. I don't believe that House Kurita would prioritize taking steps to hunt down these ruffians,"

"I imagine they will still give chase."

"By the time they get to Fronc the villains will be long gone. Moving on to their next target" The man shook his head, but the delivery of the last bit made it seem like he had an idea on where that might be. "I've been speaking with the Magistracy, and we're in agreement that the next raids will probably be against Magistracy worlds, if they hadn't hit them already." Because if his knowledge of the rimward periphery was accurate, Fronc was only two jumps from Detroit... "Three," The Precentor corrected him absentmindedly, "Jumps is the most direct route. We think they moved spinward, they hit Appian after their attack here, then rimward hitting Independence and then moved anti-spinward hitting Fronc, and we believe they continued moving anti-spinward."

Why though? That was what Gene couldn't figure out, because they couldn't have all that much cargo space... unless they hadn't been able to steal much, or what they had been after on Detroit. Unless they were offloading it to some other jumpship... how big of a ring were they talking about here. "Where do you think they're going?" He asked.

"Luxen."

Oh. Oh, that made sense. A world that had largely escaped the horrors of the succession war. A world that so far as he knew was famous for medicine, doctors, and gemstones. "You said you talked to the Magistracy?" Apparently, given the bee hive haired woman's beckoning over, the Magistracy's government was poaching the ones and twos hiring MechWarriors of Majesty, and other Magistracy companies as a kind of snap fire brigade. They were sure going to look dumb if they were too late, or if they were wrong. All this was a lot of snap legal paperwork, and had the local MRB adepts working overtime. It would have been worse if this had involved larger proper mercenary units rather than mostly just the individual contractors, but this was an ad hoc scratch unit being thrown together on a gamble.

"The magistracy," The lady with the bee hive hair stated, "Has a circuit in place that should make it possible for you to jump from the border to Luxen in short order."

"That still means a month of travel." He pointed, sparing a glance to the Kuritans. He could guess why they weren't being involved. Distrust on everyone's parts, and chances were good that the Kuritans wouldn't want to leave their JumpShip behind... "I'd be pretty remiss if I didn't say that there is a chance we're going to be too late."

"Which is why we're expediting the paperwork as quickly as possible." The adept from the MRB commented nodding along. "This is considered an exceptional occurrence and various factors like that are covered in the contract."

Bee Hive Hair nodded, "Loading equipment will need to be expedited as well, we want to be underway as soon as possible."

It was the kind of statement someone without military experience tended to throw in in order to make it sound like they understood logistics or rather that was how the delivery of the interjection made it sound. She would have been better off just telling them all to hurry the fuck up, in Gene's opinion. It wasn't like he wasn't already committed. This was risky, yes.

He glanced at the Kuritan delegation... well he supposed they would find out. If they were right though, and they got there in time, there was still going to be a hell of a fight, and more than that the Kuritans were probably going to be awfully snippy about being left out. If it worked out though... if it worked, well this was a really big contract given the need for speed.

--
Commentary: So the reason this is relatively short is as I mentioned in a previous segment I deleted two Combine scenes in particular the 'arrogant samurai shoving match at party' scene that would have taken place during this as well as the resultant fight the following morning in BattleMechs.

Anyway this concludes the first Detroit chapter, we will come back to this world later on.

Just as an aside, just in case I messed up anywhere. Ceres Metals Industries is a Capellan Conglomerate though they are active in the Periphery trade. Majesty Metals is one of the Major Canopian industrial concerns.

 

[Kyryst]

So what happened to the drac salvage Gene took? Between the salvage he passed over on Aquagea and the drac mechs, he could of had a nice merc company together if he had a frontman and pilots. This is Battletech, lives are cheap, mechs aren't.

 

[Imperator Pax]

So what happened to the drac salvage Gene took? Between the salvage he passed over on Aquagea and the drac mechs, he could of had a nice merc company together if he had a frontman and pilots. This is Battletech, lives are cheap, mechs aren't.

Click to shrink...

The 'Mechs at Detroit that Gene shot down are currently sitting in a ComStar administered (well MRB) warehouse with Detroit's planetary government having signed off on that they are in fact in the warehouse, not having been stolen or whatever. The MRB is basically humoring the Combine by giving them a full Merc Court hearing to give the appearance of not just blowing off a great house even though the Combine is definitely trying to throw its weight around.


The following is partly spoiler

Spoiler: Back 2 Detroit, and Aquagea

The 'Mechs on Aquagea will eventually end up as part of Via Caballero's Rangers, after being expanded... we will get to the how and why that happens later.

When the Merc Court basically tells the Dracs to take a hike and Gene gets back to Detroit to collect he'll have a couple of pilots including one for that Catapult that had jumpjets.

 

[Kyryst]

Cool. Things that he can start working on immediately are trustworthy people to handle paperwork, lawyering, logistics and technicians. Those will be the true base for mercenary work. Just having a shipping factor in place to buy food and ammo would be great.

Set up an import/export business using the warehouse as a base, and you can eventually slip in goods to sell that people don't need to know where they came from. Say you picked them up on your last contract or from a mysterious seller and watch the spies scurry.

 

[Rodon]

Gene seems to be gaining a fairly large local rep, large for his age (13-14 years old). Pilots a mech well, can deal with low combat potential jobs, and can think in advance. As when he had the local militia secure the mechs he had downed instead of following him for no gain, and potentially a lot of loss as the local Captain Fields was a bit too hot to trot. Along with dealing very well, with the yelling mess during the raid may make him, even with his young age, a rather promising find for a mid-level Magistracy noble, to try and hook him up with a daughter. Not that I expect them to try too hard.

Given that mech production seems to be a bit better here than in cannon. With two companies in Magistracy able to make Marauders, not that I expect it to me a massive output of the mechs, but in cannon a heavy mech in the Periphery would be a rather important mech locally. Less so here it seems, but that isn't to say a heavy mech is un-important (not like HSB, where almost every lance in the late game has at least a heavy).

Speaking of which, how much more or heavier mechs are out there, or will that be shown later?

 

[Imperator Pax]

Gene seems to be gaining a fairly large local rep, large for his age (13-14 years old). Pilots a mech well, can deal with low combat potential jobs, and can think in advance. As when he had the local militia secure the mechs he had downed instead of following him for no gain, and potentially a lot of loss as the local Captain Fields was a bit too hot to trot. Along with dealing very well, with the yelling mess during the raid may make him, even with his young age, a rather promising find for a mid-level Magistracy noble, to try and hook him up with a daughter. Not that I expect them to try too hard.

Given that mech production seems to be a bit better here than in cannon. With two companies in Magistracy able to make Marauders, not that I expect it to me a massive output of the mechs, but in cannon a heavy mech in the Periphery would be a rather important mech locally. Less so here it seems, but that isn't to say a heavy mech is un-important (not like HSB, where almost every lance in the late game has at least a heavy).

Speaking of which, how much more or heavier mechs are out there, or will that be shown later?

Click to shrink...

So with mech production I'm not going full video game logic, but more mech production survived the succession wars. There are also more new production. Its not going to HBS or MW5 level of mechs being common, most vehicles are still CVsand Heavy BattleMechs are still a status symbol but we'll get to it.

The main reason though, is FASA numbers are dumb. I mean yes Mechs are pretty durable and can be patched up but... yeah the Source Book numbers for Mech Production are just abysmally low

 

[Laxard]

Its not going to HBS or MW5 level of mechs being common, most vehicles are still CVsand Heavy BattleMechs are still a status symbol but we'll get to it.

Click to shrink...

In MW5 there are battalionls on every poor planet, but what wrong with Battletech? The game doesn't field that much mechs without Roguetech mod. I never felt like "where shouldn't be that many mechs in such situation) in vanilla game, even if I thought that game is unfair sometimes. And considering that many mechs ends up as a salvage over and over again by lore, it's not that strange that some are in use for 300 years, even if it's patchjob over patchjob and not many of original mech is tends to be left with time.

 

[Imperator Pax]

In MW5 there are battalionls on every poor planet, but what wrong with Battletech? The game doesn't field that much mechs without Roguetech mod. I never felt like "where shouldn't be that many mechs in such situation) in vanilla game, even if I thought that game is unfair sometimes. And considering that many mechs ends up as a salvage over and over again by lore, it's not that strange that some are in use for 300 years, even if it's patchjob over patchjob and not many of original mech is tends to be left with time.

Click to shrink...

The following is spoilered:

Spoiler: Spoilered

Discounting Merc contracts for gameplay reasons.
So in HBS's canon campaign The Aurigan directorate, and to a lesser extent the Taurians, has entirely too many mechs, and is using them entirely too frequently for a periphery power particularly one with a previously feudal based military that the Coalition used.

The biggest example of this early game is the liberation of Weldry. Its fairly silly that this backwater periphery power has Mechs specifically assigned to guard the gulag (despite yes the importance of prisoners), but even after the Taurians star supplying the directorate which doesn't make much sense if the Taurians think they're about to get into it with the Fed Suns but most of the time you engage the directorate it should be armor and little else in 3025. (And again this is because, for example the Taurians supposedly in 3025 have a little over a thousand Mechs in the regular army total, yes that is dumb but that is canon.)

Now that being said. There is a perfectly reasonable explanation I intend to use to explain why the Aurigan coalition has that several battalions worth of Mechs. This explanation will be supplemented by the already mentioned mech production is somewhat more reasonable than "Majesty metals makes less than 60 mechs a year most being light mechs.

Again HBS is much, much better in campaign terms, than MW5, but if you took tabletop explicitly in 3025 you shouldn't be fighting Aurigan Directorate Mechs that often, you should be fighting tanks, and other mercs / 'mercs' (read pirates) who Espinosa has hired on unless of course the reason that the Aurigan noble houses have that many mechs is that you know they might have fled to the periphery from the inner sphere and brought mechs with them, or cracked open a SLDF cache.

3025's canon numbers we're given are just very very low (which again is why I threw in the jumpship comments) we're not going to be working with just fasanomic numbers because they're the opposite extreme from MW5 where every planet is like a battalion of mechs

EDIT: If anything the bigger issue with the HBS campaign is the non campaign merc contracts having randomized mechs include machines that simply shouldn't be showing up in the period.

 

[Imperator Pax]

So as we move forward I figured I would share something:
This was something Grin Reaper at SB https://forums.spacebattles.com/thr...domini-rule-frails-drool.220143/post-76856401 posted for someone else, and I thought it was a cool design. The DroST is in general a cool ship and old enough to have been modified by everyone in the Inner Sphere

I knocked up a quick custom mercenary transport DroST with a bit of something for everybody. 2 Small Craft, 2 Fighters, 4 Mechs, 4 Heavy vehicles, 4 Light vehicles, 10 infantry platoons, and still nearly 500 tons of cargo.

DroST IIa Transport Mercenary Custom
Type: Military Aerodyne
Mass: 5,300 tons
Technology Base: Inner Sphere (Standard)
Introduced: 3000
Mass: 5,300
Battle Value: 3,559
Tech Rating/Availability: D/X-E-D-D
Cost: 325,000,800 C-bills
 
Fuel: 200 tons (6,000)
Safe Thrust: 5
Maximum Thrust: 8
Heat Sinks: 94
Structural Integrity: 16
 
Armor
	Nose: 160
	Sides: 160/160
	Aft: 120
 
Cargo
	Bay 1:  Small Craft (2)		 1 Door
	Bay 2:  Mech (4)				2 Doors
	Bay 3:  Heavy Vehicle (4)	   1 Door
	Bay 4:  Light Vehicle (4)	   1 Door
	Bay 5:  Fighter (2)			 1 Door
	Bay 6:  Infantry (Foot) (5)	1 Door
	Bay 7:  Infantry (Foot) (5)	1 Door
	Bay 8:  Cargo (243.5 tons)	  0 Doors
	Bay 9:  Cargo (243.0 tons)	  0 Doors
 
Ammunition:
	96 rounds of LRM 15 ammunition (12 tons)
 
Escape Pods: 1
Life Boats: 2
Crew:  2 officers, 4 enlisted/non-rated, 4 gunners, 354 bay personnel, 9 passengers 
 
Notes: Mounts 33.5 tons of standard aerospace armor.
 
Weapons:					Capital Attack Values (Standard)
Arc (Heat)			  Heat  SRV	 MRV	 LRV	 ERV   Class
Nose (26 Heat)
2 LRM 15				10   2(18)   2(18)   2(18)	0(0)  LRM  
	LRM 15 Ammo (32 shots)
2 Large Laser		   16   2(16)   2(16)	0(0)	0(0)  Laser
RW/LW (26 Heat)
2 LRM 15				10   2(18)   2(18)   2(18)	0(0)  LRM  
	LRM 15 Ammo (32 shots)
2 Large Laser		   16   2(16)   2(16)	0(0)	0(0)  Laser
RW/LW Aft (9 Heat)
3 Medium Laser		   9   2(15)	0(0)	0(0)	0(0)  Laser
Aft (9 Heat)
3 Medium Laser		   9   2(15)	0(0)	0(0)	0(0)  Laser

I also beefed up the armament a bit, mostly because I felt like it and it cost very little to do.

Also discovered a hilarious MML bug while I was working on this, where it kept changing the quantity of the infantry bays to the tonnage. Hilarious knock-on effects included it telling me that it wasn't a legal design because it required a crew of 9 and had a crew of -16,400-something and cost -2 billion c-bills from me resetting the infantry bay sizes repeatedly

Click to shrink...

Base Model: https://www.sarna.net/wiki/Drost_IIA

And another version

Feel free to. Though that was really just kitchen sink approach to show the variety of stuff you could fit on it. After I posted that tinkered with it more.

DroST IIa Transport Mercenary Custom
Type: Military Aerodyne
Mass: 5,300 tons
Technology Base: Inner Sphere (Standard)
Introduced: 3000
Mass: 5,300
Battle Value: 3,634
Tech Rating/Availability: D/X-E-D-D
Cost: 328,240,800 C-bills
 
Fuel: 200 tons (6,000)
Safe Thrust: 5
Maximum Thrust: 8
Heat Sinks: 94
Structural Integrity: 16
 
Armor
	Nose: 160
	Sides: 160/160
	Aft: 120
 
Cargo
	Bay 1:  Small Craft (1)		 1 Door 
	Bay 2:  Fighter (2)			 1 Door 
	Bay 3:  Mech (4)				1 Door 
	Bay 4:  Heavy Vehicle (4)	   1 Door 
	Bay 5:  Light Vehicle (4)	   1 Door 
	Bay 6:  Light Vehicle (4)	   1 Door 
	Bay 7:  Cargo (247.0 tons)	  1 Door 
	Bay 8:  Cargo (246.5 tons)	  1 Door 
	Bay 9:  Infantry (Foot) (5)	0 Doors
	Bay 10: Infantry (Foot) (5)	0 Doors
 
Ammunition:
	96 rounds of LRM 15 ammunition (12 tons)
 
Escape Pods: 1
Life Boats: 2
Crew:  2 officers, 4 enlisted/non-rated, 4 gunners, 145 bay personnel, 8 passengers	 
 
Notes: Mounts 33.5 tons of standard aerospace armor.
 
Weapons:					Capital Attack Values (Standard)
Arc (Heat)			  Heat  SRV	 MRV	 LRV	 ERV   Class	
Nose (26 Heat)
2 LRM 15				10   2(18)   2(18)   2(18)	0(0)  LRM	  
	LRM 15 Ammo (32 shots)
2 Large Laser		   16   2(16)   2(16)	0(0)	0(0)  Laser	
RW/LW (26 Heat)
2 LRM 15				10   2(18)   2(18)   2(18)	0(0)  LRM	  
	LRM 15 Ammo (32 shots)
2 Large Laser		   16   2(16)   2(16)	0(0)	0(0)  Laser	
RW/LW Aft (9 Heat)
3 Medium Laser		   9   2(15)	0(0)	0(0)	0(0)  Laser	
Aft (9 Heat)
3 Medium Laser		   9   2(15)	0(0)	0(0)	0(0)  Laser

This version drops one of the Small Craft for another set of light vehicle bays, to make it easier to provide transport for all that infantry.

Click to shrink...

I like this one a bit better. Just to reiterate that these are in Platoons of Infantry, hence the comment 'all that infantry'.

 

[Imperator Pax]

First Luxen 1​

There wasn't much to do during Space Travel other than to study away the tedium of it. The Magistracy was stressing that they'd have support techs and staff available on Luxen to handle any work that needed to be done over the contract. This was strictly supposed to be MechWarriors, and their Mechs no dependents coming along. It wasn't just that, they were going into this with no ASF, well very little ASF coverage, but he accepted that they were in a hurry.

So basically he was sitting in the DropShip reading. The Magistracy of Canopus was... was a product of the Earth that was. It really was an excellent example, just as much as the Azami worlds were, of people who had fled the the old order to colonize the stars. The Magistracy had been founded by people running from the incompetence of the Free Worlds League, but it had been founded by like many of the post earth states people getting away from the old political status quo. He suspected that the Azami like all the other collection of small and large interstellar polities must have had some great man of history who had organized and lead them into the stars.

It was just how the universe was. For the canopians that Great Woman of History had been Cassandra Centrella... who if she was mentioned at all in the current FWL sanctioned media was a deserter and coward. The Canopian side of things was that her unit had been stranded by the incompetence of the FWLM and left behind... and Gene kind of was willing to believe their version of events over the Mariks, or Andurien or whoever. (Though House Davion's reports threw around words like Pirate, an awful lot in their descriptions as well.) Cassandra though had rebranded herself 'Kossandra' and gathered up a bunch of other people with political views like hers and struck off for the Canopian system.

They had had a good run of it in terms of expansion and growth which had also come at a price. Kossandra had gotten a little loopy in later years engaging in a degree of political repression that would eventually see to the Star League getting involved. SLDF involvement during the 'reunification wars' had meant male suffrage in canopian space... but at the same time had involved a campaign of what the Canopians described as literal rape and plunder by SLDF troops...

History lessons aside he had other material to cover in his readings, and the Canopians actually had mostly functional distance learning systems. It was a stark contrast to the sort 'tinker' education that filled most of the periphery. Not that it was much better in the Inner Sphere compared to how things had used to be. The Inner Sphere with mostly function governments at least had certifications that were largely recognized by all the major interstellar powers... most of the time.

The succession wars had done a big number on organized education, and recognition of education credits between frequently hostile nations. The decline of publicly available education had also meant that most corporations had developed their own ways of doing things, and that didn't necessarily always translate over to other companies either. The inner sphere was its own sort of mess.

Luxen though? It had a legitimate claim to having an actual fucking University... it primarily a medical school, but still it had managed to avoid the succession war's worst... and now was probably about to get wrecked by pirates. Well maybe they could stop that.

The problem was how long it was going to take. The circuit jumpships going back made sense, Luxen was a provincial capital in the Canopian system of government, and given how scarce HPG sites were it made sense to have chains running back forth at least somewhat. Most likely the capacity for that only really applied to important planets like Luxen where there was basically a straight shot to the border.
--
The Union-class DropShip was not a comfortable ride. It was silly if true thought, because it was intended as a mass production military Mech Transport, but true or not it didn't alleviate the cramped conditions. Gene was glad he wasn't claustrophobic, but there was only so much time he could spend studying.

Once they had hit the circuit though, ugh. Several jumps in the course of a few days was rough even for someone without TDS, or another similar disorder. The five minute heads up ahead of the jumps just added to the general anxiety that was slowly becoming all but palpable throughout the DropShip. "Tell me that was the last one?" One of the other mercs, nicknamed 'bubbles' rasped as the last of 'eddy' from the jump subsided.

Gene felt a chill work its way up his spine something wasn't right. "It was supposed to be." and then the klaxons started warning, and they were probably late. The Union had a mix of Jeffery tubes, that was to say ladders and crawl spaces, and elevators to get around from deck to deck. The ladders were slower but safer to use, especially when the ship wasn't parked on the ground... the problem was that they were slow. Getting a bunch of cobbled together MechWarriors who'd been hired on as an emergency measure fitted onto the DropShip's bridge wasn't comfortable.

Luxen's jump point was about three days from the planet, which was very convenient. Unfortunately it was a double edged stellar feature, since it meant pirates didn't need to try risking a pirate point in order to show up. Gene had only gotten looks at the suspected Azami JumpShips well after all the fighting had been over. It wasn't like those pictures helped, the JumpShips weren't painted up anything special, and they were named anything like say AZAMI LIBERATION FRONT Vessel whatever ... nothing incriminating. They just looked like regular JumpShips.... for whatever regular JumpShips counted for.

The Magistracy Merc Rep along for the ride held up a hand to more or less try and get everyone to shut the fuck up while she pressed her head to a truly archaic cobbled together with duct tape sort of comms array, but it was obvious something was already on going on the planet's surface. Gene pulled up the planet's information on his noteputer. Luxen was well would have had a big population for a good sized European country in the the twentieth century... but for a planet was sparsely peopled. Part of that was probably the higher than average canopian standard of living, but it was a small all the same.

There were less than a hundred million people on Luxen, and if these had been typical pirates he would have guessed the mining towns on the southern continent might have been the target if they'd been looking for something easy to sell for cheap. From the way the Merc Rep was acting, that didn't seem likely, especially with the hurrying to get them uncoupled from the JumpShip and get them underway to the planet.

The situation as reported groundside wasn't good, "The majority of the Luxen Volunteers," That was to say the professional full time troops of the unit, "have been destroyed or incapacitated since the pirates began their attack last week. Much like the attack on Detroit we believe they scouted out the defenses first and then sent word back via JumpShip, but right now the planetary defense forces are barely holding."

He let some of the other people in the room ask their questions, "Is this Union configured for hot drops?" Gene inquired, "Can I combat drop my Marauder along the river that forms this natural salient?"

"We have DropPods." The captain of the ship added a little unsurely, and none of the other Mercs seemed particularly thrilled at the notion of an orbital insertion, which was fine. He wasn't going to push anyone who wasn't confident that their mech was ready for that. The truth was he had about sixty hours, not including time spent sleeping, to go over a refresher of SLDF Orbital Drop protocols, but even then the Marauder's navigational computer would be handling much of the fine course corrections anyway. Then again plenty of mercs in this era made combat drops without the benefit of SLDF software, and lack of formal courses on the subject. It wasn't quite a routine thing, but he wanted to be on the ground, and in the fight, and didn't see any other way to get there.

The DropShip would need to land and offload and that would take valuable time. After that they'd need to, after offloading the scratch company, need to actually maneuver to the front and there was no telling how long that would take. No he wanted into the fight, and it didn't hurt that the suggested landing sight behind Canopian lines was probably not nearly as secure as they were making it out to be. The Azami in DCMS were specialized raiding units, assuming that these were deserters who had left with all of their gear a DropShip would surely be a tempting target.
--
Gene kicked his duffle back into the netting. Technically they were under thrust gravity, but not a lot of it. He had a change of clothes in the duffle, a first aid kit, and some necessities. They were in the final preparation stages and he was zipping up the sealed body suit. It was SLDF manufactured and rated for void operations, but unlike the usual Terran Hegemony stone gray color it was mostly black with red trim lines.

"You don't have to fucking do this, kid." Gene picked up the sealed environment helm that vaguely reminded him of a bird's head, "A hired soldier doesn't need to rush straight for the front lines." He ignored the probably decade older mercenary and slung the bag over its shoulder as it came back up.

The light in the bay flashed red. "That's the five minute mark." Three hundred seconds. They were way past calling this off. "I'll see you on the ground, Septim." The other merc's call sign. He pushed off the plating of the floor and to the airlock hatch leading into the bay where his marauder, or more specifically the pod, was undergoing final checks by the Astechs in preparation for the launch.

It looked completely different, the union's mechanical systems, than the SLDF Outpost Castle's gantries. It had a used lived in feel of being cobbled together and patched over the centuries. The seventy five ton heavy BattleMech was a palpable hum as it sat in the folding nest of ceramic and ablative gel dispensers that would carry it through the atmosphere. The egg would fold shut and then be jettisoned from the bay door once final checks were completed.

After he was out of the airlock the egg would make small course adjustments to the planet's surface through the atmosphere, and would ablate and slow the machine down as it head for the surface. The final course corrections after the last of the pod fell away though would be handled by the Mech itself, and its JumpJets.

The reactor readings looked good from the brief glance he threw to the machine's console as he climbed into the cockpit. He stored the bag behind the seat, belted it down, before belting into the chair, and closing the hatch. Running lights illuminated the interior console, and the exterior view through the cockpit darkened as the egg closed and final authorization was granted.

There wasn't really a catapult launch to deploy the drop pods. The union more or less gave a gentle shove, that pushed the marauder out. If this had been an SLDF warship or something like an Excalibur or some other 'last generation' SLDF system intended to deploy the hammer of Terra to the surface of a world there might have been, but the pods were what did most of the work, and in a simple largely unassisted by ship factors. Just a gentle push really.

--
Commentary: Its Wednesday and ordinarily I would be updating Jumpchain today... and I will likely post an update for HPGENFANFIC this week, but other factors cause me to post this today.

As an aside Luxen plus the following arc (which may yet still be fluffed out some more) is sitting (with this part) at forty pages plus. That's single spaced not double, and the following arc is already being written.

 

[Laxard]

It's a Titan MechFall!

 

[stads]

nice chapter thx for writing it
welp being willing to do a hot drop should give his merc creds a big boost for potential clients

 

[Ryven Razgriz]

More action, yay! Also can I request a threadmark post about the character, his build, and his mech? I kind of forgot what he looked like and what his mech is equipped with, I mean I know it's a Marauder and I sort of vaguely remember it not having a Gauss/AC on the right shoulder and 2 PPCs of some kind but that's it.

 

[Imperator Pax]

Extras, descriptions

"and his laughter shook the trees, and he turned to the huntsman and cried, "Ride on my gallant huntsman, when must I come again, for you should never want for a fox to chase all over the glen." The highlander crowed to bunch of drunk or near davion troops and mercs.

- Davion Defender's celebration after the defense Elidere​

--
The original Marauder before the DHS and Ferro Fibrous does indeed remove the AC / 5 found on the 3R. It mounts ten additional regular (single) heat sinks, a centrally mount small pulse laser intended to deal with infantry, and jumpjets. I have a sheet somewhere in the format of the Drost IIA custom up above somewhere from where I've used this marauder version in campaign, but its not on this computer. Post Aquagea refit is the change over to double heat sinks full ferro fibrous armor, and the installation of two additional medium lasers for improved close in firepower. This culminates in the mech being much more crab like in appearance, even though the armored gauntlets of the Marauder don't actually contain pincers. The ferro fibrous armor creates a more 'brutalist' shape to the mech in a sense, it makes the Marauder look less lanky in form than the usual versions, especially without the shoulder gun in RT. Technically this refit leaves some free tonnage behind, but on the matter of appearance it makes the mech look more sinister especially in dark colors.




As for Gene himself, at this point the best descriptive would be young, dark haired, early teens. He's probably five five five six in height slim build. Referencing the above much much later quote, For example in the Elidere scene as it is presently written has 'Bard' describe Gene the titular Black Fox with 'eyes like molten gold', which is some artistic license. Clothing wise, Gene has mostly dressed thus far in a featureless (that is sans patches) gray uniform frock coat, imagine some like the US WW 2 uniform but in gray, the common US state police uniform in gray but with a dress coat, and 'cavalry style' boots. The alternate suit featured here can be best imagined as like Heero Yuy of Gundam Wing's Zero pilot suit complete with the Wing Zero style bird helmet.

I will try and include more physical descriptions, though normally I tend to focus on movements or when its relevant to how someone is speaking or acting.

 

[Imperator Pax]

1 Luxen
The Shooting Star She Saw​

The MAF was small, and smaller now. The Magistracy was a peace loving society and had little appetite for the massive standing militaries desired by the patriarchial inner sphere as her classes had always espoused. The Magistracy Armed Forces thus was divided into various commands with the Canopus IV based headquarters being the center of the Federal Military, and provincial forces being directed by their respective Provincial capitals, or more realistically at local planet level. Luxen was reasonably well equipped as a provincial capital with BattleMechs, but like with most planetary defense forces relied primarily on armored vehicles, and infantry to handle the bulk of the division of labor.

That was how it had always been..

National Service in the Magistracy began at 16, though it was dominated by civilian jobs, and military service was an outlier rather than the norm. The prospect of somewhere like Luxen being attacked was, well as far out of the realm of possibility as was basically possible for someone who still lived in the Periphery. Luxen was generally considered a very safe planet to be on, and then the DropShips had opened up and started disgorging vehicles and BattleMechs, and ASF had started attacking.

The Luxen Volunteers had answered the call, and the gendarmes and other second line civil defense personnel had moved to their positions, and then it was like everything was on fire. They were holding, for now, by what seemed like a string.

"No radar returns ma'am." Fiona Short glanced from the enlisted man operating the radar returns, and then to her unit's commanding officer, and the fact Major Seghal was basically the ranking officer left unharmed and in action. The enlisted man turned back to his terminal in the mobile headquarters "No Ma'am. It looks like a mech reentry pod, but I'm not getting any kind of signal return. It doesn't show any kind of register on any of my scopes."

She looked at the video feed of the shooting star streaking through the sky. The feed slowly changed as petals streaked away as the pod blossomed. "Some kind of atmospheric interference then?"

"No Ma'am I've never seen anything like this, but looking at it, that is definitely a BattleMech."

Her superior's questioning continued as the pod fell away. They still couldn't get a return even as the BattleMech fired its JumpJets. A single BattleMech though? It couldn't have been the pirates why would they bother.

"Major Seghal?"

"Its firing." The radar man blurted as tell tale blue streaks of ball lightning slashed out of the sky.

--
Bumpy would have been a good way to describe the ride down from orbit... well ride was probably an exaggeration, controlled fall might have been more accurate up until the last of the retro thrusters had deployed and then the pod had begun to aerobrake.

It wasn't really flying after that even as he cleared the final descent and then it was all the Mech. He had followed the computer's instructions on adjusting the mech's trim, and when to fire the jump jets and coasted to twenty five hundred feet. "Enemy detected." He acknowledged to the Dalban HiRez's return. He was still half a kilometer high as his jump jets cycled, but he was low enough that he could turn the master arm on and actually expect to hit something with the PPCs.

Gene feathered his mech's foot pedals, and adjusted the BattleMech's posture as his arms tightened against the Gee forces. The reticle showing the convergence for the two Hellstar PPCs tracing through his neurohelmet's psychic 'HUD'.

The converging beams of both PPCs staggered the Pheonix Hawk. The eleven meter tall bright yellow mech's armor was scorched black as he continued to throttle his jumpjets and 'glided' in towards the green grasslands below. The seventy five ton heavy BattleMech bled the last of its speed off an dropped into a crouch and rising within a hundred meters of the teetering Pheonix Hawk. "That's a Kintaro over there," Gene muttered checking the scopes as they flagged the other GM's product. There was no sign of heavy BattleMechs close, never mind Assaults, but he had registered PPCs and LRMs being fired from other positions to support pre drop information about Catapults being sited. The Kintaro wasn't the only medium mech either, never mind the Pheonix Hawk.

Gene swung and fired his medium lasers and dropped the Pheonix Hawk into the slow moving river working down its course. His Marauder's cooling fins bled heat from in a haze around the mech. He glanced down at the blue water, and the scarred yellow mech, but the radio call coming in from the DropShip announcing it was starting its own descent from orbit distracted him from anything further. Nothing came of the brief conversation, other than the news that the Canopian defenders of Luxen's capital knew he was friendly.

Surely they knew what a Marauder looked like, and since his mech was basically streak black from the ride from on high they couldn't confuse him for one of the invaders either. Hopefully... then again they were probably a bunch of militia weekend warriors so who knew? Yeah short of someone at whatever the Canopian equivalent to general showing up with authenticated command authority he was just going to dance around the enemy's lines and shoot them... preferably starting with anything that carried missiles. If he was being honest the azami's hover platforms were probably the most dangerous thing they had, not just because of the LRMs, but because of how many of the damned things they had.

He supposed that must have been because these were military deserters rather than your more typical periphery pirates. They probably had a couple dropships just intended to carry 'light' combat vehicles, and maybe cargo or infantry. Either way Luxen had a stretch of high promontory points that messed with line of sight.

That meant anything given how many LRM carrying ground vehicles seemed to have been around, and with scouting mechs zipping about he didn't understand why the pirates hadn't simply decided to paste everything. He pulled the warbook up. These ones, they were different than the ones he'd shot up, stepped on, and otherwise exploded at Detroit's starport. Those apparently had been designed in the first succession, which he was glad he hadn't woken up. These ones were better armed, if his sensors were right, though they were still powered by internal combustion engines.

To make matters worse his computer was reading mines... he assumed that was the Azami heading off any potential counter attack... not that one was forthcoming, but apparently there was a numall built hover vehicle his computer was calling a beagle out there ... or more likely several... zipping about seeding mines at potential points of attack on Azami positions.

Which suggested that they were planning to be here a while, and that wasn't good. That didn't make any sense though. Even months after the fact a complete list of what all had been taken from Detroit was still considered incomplete, but it had probably been mostly foodstuffs, and ammo. They had made off with other things, but in the periphery it would have been easy to hoc various spare parts, or use them yourself. Of course if the Combine was willing to chase them as far as they had from Kuritan space it made sense not to stick around...

... but there was no way that they could hope to stay on Luxen without expecting some kind of response... unless they expected the Magistracy to surrender and give them what they wanted in exchange for leaving, which wasn't impossible Gene supposed, but that was contingent on them being here for something that wasn't a deal breaker.

The basic conclusion from the Detroit raid was that the Azami had to have a couple of JumpShips of their own at least, and that they were using a merchant component to reconnoiter locations before moving... but even if that was true the merchants were actually trading. They were involved in buying and selling goods, and the Magistracy certainly would have sold them medical supplies. Reaching up to run his hands through short dark hair, he supposed that wasn't his problem, the pirates had made the decision to attack, he was getting paid to fight the pirates off, and protect the city he just needed to worry about that.

--
Commentary: This in particular, and the next segment are relatively brief. Before we move on, the Magistracy operates on a purchase your commission system with the rank equivalent to Lieutenant Colonel (called Force Major) requiring the head of states consent for such an appointment.

 

[Laxard]

Hm, can PPC trigger this particular mines?

 

[Imperator Pax]

I Luxen Part 3
The Devil on the River Bank​

The middle aged prematurely gray haired man was dressed in a khaki pilot's suit the same as his men. It still even retained the red back green triple stripes of a Tai-Sa of the DCMS. There was no point in discarding what had honorably been earned.

The Sheik mournfully shook his head, grateful that the merciful creator had endowed him with the foresight to prohibit his eldest son from joining them in this raid. That did not make the pain from loosing so many of his Saracen hover platforms hurt much less. Many brave Azami had in battle against the Devil they had first seen on Detroit those many months previous. Even now the seventy five ton monster stood darkly daring them to challenge it on the rise of the river bank.

How had it been that that particularly marauder had gotten here? A test of faith perhaps? Or simply Allah's will that it should be for some other unknowable reason. The Gunslinger was here. He had seen the MechWarrior carefully navigate among the civilians, and shepherd the disoriented periphery soldiers as he observed from the shadows.

His own BattleMech's SLDF computer had spit out a name to go with the Gunslinger's identification friend foe code. A name that had been confirmed by members of the faithful who had remained behind on Detroit. He had thought that as strange as his cherished ancestral BattleMech's knowledge had been it was just a curiosity in the scope of the infinite world that they lived in.

It was not impossible of course that the MechWarrior could have been here for exactly the same reason they were. That he required provisions for the journey, among them medical supplies. He doubted that. He had watched as his Mech had traced the shooting star as it streaked through the sky. A textbook SLDF orbital insertion, feet first into hell as it was called, the only thing standing out that it was single solitary hunter rather than the tip of Terra's spear.

Now of course the seventy five black devil stood on the river bank. The heavily armored warmachine daring them to cross the river Jordan. Preventing their crossing in where it would be easiest, but they had other places where they could cross. They needed supplies for their journey, and of course Luxen potentially might grant them a piece to the puzzle they sought to unravel.

He had the attention of their enemy though, and if this was trial he would have to overcome it. "Signal a general disengagement, Yusuf." He ordered the captain, "We have their attention." The original plan of convincing the defenders to surrender would not work with their saracens destroyed. He had after all hoped the mere threat of so many LRMs concentrated after breaking the majority of their defenders would allow them to do what they needed.

"It will be done." The middle aged man replied not bucking as a much younger officer might have at the command to disengage despite the numerical advantage.

He lifted his binoculars and watched heat bathed form radiate a mirage around it. Yusuf returned suddenly carrying a message from the elders aboard a distant JumpShip. At least he wasn't being second guessed he supposed looking on the bright side.
--
Gene cracked his neck to the side. Even with SLDF neurohelmets he was glad his hair was cut short, because even so he was sweating.

He'd been inside the cockpit for hours now. There was nothing he could do about either extreme of the defensive frontage. A hundred fifty plus miles of, and that was assuming the Azami didn't somehow get behind their lines, in which case they were pretty well fucked. Luxen had very little in the way of hardened military assets, and while better, and more organized in terms of defense than Detroit's government... that wasn't saying much. The magistracy had powerful corporations, but those same corps were the ones pushing Detroit's government around.

He had degraded as much of the enemy's long range capability as he could get into his sites, but that didn't mean anything. He'd scoped out two dropships that looked like were Drost II models of some stripe.... presumably refit or more likely had been built by someone new during the succession wars period. His warbook was sure the hull shape was a Drost family, but the weapons and equipment were different.

The PDF had stated they had observed at least one Triumph as well, but he hadn't seen it. He'd take their word on it, and most likely it was further back from the front. He should have tried to figure which JumpShips at Nadir might have been Azami, but it wasn't as if they were conveniently broadcasting an announcement or painted with a big emblem. Not that he had spent a lot of time looking at the ships at the Jump Point. Whatever their numbers this was beyond your average band of scum sucking pirates, and they were up to something... acting with a military objective that he had no clues as to what it might be... and that made him nervous.

It didn't help he kept getting anomalous system network contacts over his comms system. That was probably beagle active probes ghosts being detected by his Dalban HiRez, but every time it happened it was fucking annoying. He didn't have the speed to run those down, and the mines made him leery of where he stepped. With a lull in the action though, and no enemies in sight, and no immediate returns on fusion reactors, he started trawling through the SLDF database.

There was nothing about Luxen, at least nothing that had been 'current' at the time of the Amaris Civil War. The SLDF had never had to come this far south, despite the Vandenburg uprising, or if they had it hadn't been important enough to warrant any updates. Luxen had been a prosperous portion of the Magistracy, and a world supported under the duchess of Andurien's tenure as military governor on behalf of the Star League... but there was nothing to suggest this world had any sizable military caches secreted away on it... which didn't mean there weren't, but it had been spared from the New Vandenburg uprising, and the Succession Wars that had followed after.

There was nothing in his databanks that he could call up. There were no beacons that signaled SLDF or such. Luxen was far enough south that it had been spared the fighting that ruined worlds and worlds, about the only thing interesting was the fact that it was according to Star League Maps supposed to be the middle of Luxen province not on the southern border. He adjusted the trim on the BattleMech and crested a smile rise, careful to avoid smashing any trees.

At under thirty miles an hour it wasn't as if he was going very fast, but tearing through the woods would have been a sure sign to anyone watching their sectors that something was happening even if their sensors couldn't see anything... he didn't want to chance that and it was why he was maintaining cruise speed over going full out.

Still he'd been out here long enough, he turned towards the city, and maintained his present speed. He didn't like having to do that. It turned his flank to the enemy's lines even if none were in sight, but he didn't really have an option. Even before his sensors started registering large laser fire several miles forward he had basically come to the conclusion that this was a much larger raiding force than had hit Detroit.

The prescience of the crossed swords and paint scheme matching those on Detroit were the only thing that confirmed to him that these units were the same, or belonged to the same Azami parent formation. The units were somewhat different, but there was enough of the same in terms of BattleMech composition to suggest that the Combine Industry had provided some of the equipment at least.

He had initially assumed that the preference for energy weapons on BattleMechs was a Kuritan matter of design. Not that he disagreed with that thinking, but he wasn't reading the reports of any autocannon signatures just the heat signatures of energy weapons. Really it was more accurate to say Lasers. He had encountered Panthers with PPCs but there were none reading on his current sensor outlook.

His warbook started throwing alerts.

"Jenner, JR7 Alpha. Star League Recon Mech." He muttered as he jumped the seventy five ton war machine down the hillside, even as he watched seemingly armless mech fire its large laser at the canopian defenders. His neurohelmet was feeding SLDF program data directly about the machines he was facing. Single Large Laser, and a top speed of almost seventy four miles an hour meant it would have had no trouble strafing at long range while patrolling far from resupply. It still only carried a paltry amount of armor.

Certainly the light mech could have if it had seen him cresting the rise, could have disengaged and potentially even managed to get out of here. It hadn't, and it was the fastest mech out of its compatriots all of whom were already engaging the defenders. Just to be entirely sure he still put both PPCs on and shot the Jenner in the back though.

As it crumbled he kept the Marauder in cruise, and turned to face yet another Pheonix Hawk. This one flagged as a 1K meaning slightly more armor, and no ammo to explode, but also no JumpJets to worry about. He had mixed feelings about that, but not having to worry about it jumping around was nice.

House Kurita preferred Light Mechs, and energy weapons. The stable of enemy medium mechs here were trending heavily towards the Pheonix Hawk, and a couple of Cicada's he'd picked up distantly but hadn't engaged. Canopian comm chatter was reporting Crabs, but he hadn't registered any of those on his scopes. No Dragons though, which still struck him as odd. The majority of Mechs he was seeing here were fast light Mechs with little in the way of armor, which was a good thing.
--
Commentary: Devil is referring to the Marauder Gene pilots. As for the Jenner the mainstay Jenner entered service [that is the 'D' model] in 2874 but apparently the A model was intended for the Star League, the clan Jenner IIC in its normal configuration carries nothing but SRMs, no energy weapons... which is odd. (Yes there are other configurations.)

Speculatively, I expect that IIC given its weird loadout is a product of early clan developments. We know ostensibly that by the time Operation Klondike occurred the clans already basically had their tech base configured. That is DHS, endo steel, armor production and what not. Most of the weapons were already in development, Omni Mechs are 2840s IIRC so later, but I suspect the IIC Jenner was a product of the same era that produced the Naja (of cloud cobra) or somewhere in that era. But thats speculation

 

[Silverbullet]

I have to say from MW4 and 5 I never saw the need for jump jets and preferred to strip them and ballistics for energy weapons, heat sinks, and armor.

I just honestly never ran into situations where jump jets helped.

 

[Kamehb]

Yeah in the video games jump jets tend to be pretty useless compared to the table top. Mostly to do with crap map design I think.

Well except battletech jumping is pretty good there.

 

[Laxard]

I have to say from MW4 and 5 I never saw the need for jump jets and preferred to strip them and ballistics for energy weapons, heat sinks, and armor.

I just honestly never ran into situations where jump jets helped.

Click to shrink...

Jump Jets aren't really controllable in MechWarrior but on some campaign maps and high reward quests for MW5 they are usefull, in couple missions they are necessary. It can also see some use in early raid missions and assasinations if you are really good, but aside of it you realy is better without equipping them.
While destroying helicopters with flamethrowlers while in jump is fun it's hardly practical.

Hovewer, Jump Juts are very usefull in Mech Commander series and even more so in the Battletech.

 

[Tamarind]

Jump Jets aren't really controllable in MechWarrior but on some campaign maps and high reward quests for MW5 they are usefull, in couple missions they are necessary. It can also see some use in early raid missions and assasinations if you are really good, but aside of it you realy is better without equipping them.
While destroying helicopters with flamethrowlers while in jump is fun it's hardly practical.

Hovewer, Jump Juts are very usefull in Mech Commander series and even more so in the Battletech.

Click to shrink...

It helps in the HBS Battletech that everyone can get jumpjets. In MW4/5 it's a few variants which puts a big damper on it. The one time I managed a Death From Above with my Highlander was amazing, being able to do so with an Atlas would be even better.

 

[Laxard]

It helps in the HBS Battletech that everyone can get jumpjets. In MW4/5 it's a few variants which puts a big damper on it. The one time I managed a Death From Above with my Highlander was amazing, being able to do so with an Atlas would be even better.

Click to shrink...

Everyone? Isn't there is a limit of how many JJ platform can have with some mechs can't have any? I may remember wrong because I play mostly RogueTech, but I remember hlitting the limit more times than one.

 

[Silverbullet]

I know JJs are amazing in HBS and MC2. I never played MC1. It's just I don't like how they are in MW. Instead of a slow constant thrust it feels like I should be making an arcing jump. Anyway enough of that.

Anyone else notice the Azami are calling the MC a Gunslinger? I guess if the old SLDF Gunslingers made an impression on anyone it was the DC.

 

[Opossum89]

Everyone? Isn't there is a limit of how many JJ platform can have with some mechs can't have any? I may remember wrong because I play mostly RogueTech, but I remember hlitting the limit more times than one.

Click to shrink...

Iirc the limit is the same as your base Movement Points.

So a Marauder with 4/6 move can field 4 jump jets

 

[Tamarind]

Everyone? Isn't there is a limit of how many JJ platform can have with some mechs can't have any? I may remember wrong because I play mostly RogueTech, but I remember hlitting the limit more times than one.

Click to shrink...

Yeah, every mech can get at least 1 jump jet. In comparison to MW5, it's like 90% of Mechs can't equip them.

 

[killgore444]

I know JJs are amazing in HBS and MC2. I never played MC1. It's just I don't like how they are in MW. Instead of a slow constant thrust it feels like I should be making an arcing jump. Anyway enough of that.

Anyone else notice the Azami are calling the MC a Gunslinger? I guess if the old SLDF Gunslingers made an impression on anyone it was the DC.

Click to shrink...

Well, considering that the whole point of the Gunslinger program was to deal with supposed Ronin from the DC by challenging them one on one, I can understand why that might be the case.