Battletech: The Ghost Who Walks (Battletech Isekai)

[brewka]

At a guess the Davions are trying to find a way to tie the genuine supersoldier from humanities golden age they managed to find to the Suns/ The House. They've been digging to try and find a way to do this while pushing the cute noble who he's friendly with to try and tie him down.

Now it looks like he might have potential family in the exodus, which we know means jack because the Clans are a loons fever dream of eugenics and families aren't a thing with them, but now they're worried the Dragoons are going to say hey your related to the Shepard family back home wanna go and hang with them back on their planet and he 's gonna leave with all his lostech caches and fancy training programmes.

That is my read anyway. Not 100% and I didn't really find it that clear but I think that's what is going on.

 

[Imperator Pax]

Honestly, I'm a little confused, what does Kharkov have to do with it? Is the colonel's father dead or not? How does it come down to a Triptize?

Click to shrink...

My bad, it may have been a mistake to add the brief snippet of the Fed Suns space to the end of the most recent section.

In part the Davions known Shepherd is asking questions about a Warship, but it is not the warship that was known to have run the blockade loaded HAF senior officers.

 

[Imperator Pax]

Serious question should I remove the snippet in Davion space from the end of the last segment?

I'll put it over in extras as Meanwhile on New Avalon 3020 if people think it detracts from the segment

 

[Terens2]

My bad, it may have been a mistake to add the brief snippet of the Fed Suns space to the end of the most recent section.

In part the Davions known Shepherd is asking questions about a Warship, but it is not the warship that was known to have run the blockade loaded HAF senior officers.

Click to shrink...

So he misunderstood Shepard's question about the Triptize? And they think he's looking for information about his father? Although in fact, he is investigating the possible existence of the lost Camerons.

 

[Terens2]

Serious question should I remove the snippet in Davion space from the end of the last segment?

I'll put it over in extras as Meanwhile on New Avalon 3020 if people think it detracts from the segment

Click to shrink...

I don't even know if it's possible if you're going to expand this fragment significantly.

 

[Imperator Pax]

Pirate Wars
Davion Interlude: Meanwhile on New Avalon
–
Chequers was a tall building with a face of red brick surrounded by walled gardens the ensured the privacy of the property. The country estates of New Avalon followed largely the same lines. They had been laid down and immortalized by traditions in the early years of humanity reaching distant stars from Earth. The capital of the Federated Suns was teeming with celebratory masses congratulating members of the armed forces for the defense of Robinson.


New Avalon's high society, the high society of the Crucis March and the Federated Suns had welcomed her to the capital. With accolades from the campaign on Robinson's fighting, and the thorough beating handed to the combine, Alexandria had some breathing room, but the Prince's Champion had summoned her and so she'd come immediately. War Hero from the Crucis March or not.


Truthfully she wasn't even surprised by the summons. While Davion channels were talking about the shocking proclamation from the petty pirate king it didn't directly effect the war against the Draconis Combine at least not yet. Yes, the Free Worlds league had been embarrassed publicly, but the public at large was ignorant just how damning the pronouncement might be to the Combine. So the summons probably had been forthcoming. This country house, it wasn't lost to here, had belonged to House Davion for four hundred years, though it had been substantially refurbished it was named for some even older home of significance that had once been on Terra.


She had been lead deep inside the sprawling home to a secure room. DMI personnel in a variety of costume patrolled and secured the interior and exterior of the property, but the smoking room she'd entered had only one other occupant. Yvonne Davion the champion of the fire prince. The duchess sat with a holographic projection up her brows knit as she regarded the system that lay before her.


Only a fool wouldn't have known what solar system it was... even nearly a millenium after humanity had left the solar system was it still recognizable.



Sol.



The Solar System that had birthed mankind, the cradle.


The holographic image, still, suddenly resumed.


"Ah good," Lights flashed, warships spewing destructive fire at one another, nukes exploding. The long forgotten memories of the time before the succession wars. She didn't understand, "This is a command McKenna, a variation of the battleship." Yvonne stated gesturing, almost like one of her instructors at Sakhara had, to the warship under fire... and the ordering was wrong. The positions of the ships were wrong... these were star league ships but they moving away from Earth, moving towards the jump points.



This wasn't Kerensky's liberation of sol this, "This is -"



"The unfolding of the massacre on Terra, when Amaris seized power." Yvonne Davion confirmed her hands moved to a control slate and twisted the vantage point of hte image. The battled scarred ship's name read SLS Enterprise, "Only six of these were built, one survived Kerensky's flagship, the other ships apart of the1st and 2nd fleet were destroyed," She stated as the footage unpaused and fire rained. Enterprise endured for now. "This ship, and its battle group were shielding another. The Black Lion class," The footage altered,"Tripitz." She declared.


Yvonne Davion stood and adjust the holographic system. The solar system vanished so quickly into the night that it might have been dust on the wind. It was replaced by brighter images. Familiar images. The work file for Shepherd.


Alexandria felt her eyes turn to the image of a then teenage major with an admiral beside him, "The Colonel's mother was Killed in Action when Amaris seized Terra," Yvonne remarked still standing, and then moving to a decanter with a heavy sigh as she uncorked it and poured a whisky neat, "at first I considered whether or not she might have been aboard... but I reviewed Admiral Clancy's report from the Black Watch. Those records state with confidence Admiral Krennick died during the atomic strikes that came on the 27th of December. So I moved on from there," She took a pull from a tumbler, and indicated files from taken from Dieron, "Colonel Shepherd's father as we can ascertain from the ISF records was aboard THS Allegiance and was Killed in Action when she was destroyed as a result of House Kurita forewarning Amaris of the battlegroup's approach during the Liberation Campaign. I had considered that any survivors, any warship might be a desperate hope but MIIO and DMI have both collected chatter that does not support that theory."


A part of her understood. She understood the logical basis of where the Prince's Champion had begun looking. "Chatter, ma'am?" She pressed.


"The Colonel stated that the Triptiz ran the republican blockade of Sol, which our evidence confirms. SLS Kharkov survived as well, but Shepherd doesn't seem to have made much of it despite the litany of senior Terran officers aboard her. Kharkov carried very senior officials aboard her, admirals among them." She reiterated.



"What became of it?"



"It," SLS Kharkov, "departed with Kerensky's exodus." Yvonne Davion explained, "The Tripitz has a much more interesting fate, it reappeared in the official records when it was scuttled into the gravity of a gas giant by the mysterious Vandenburg White Wings, which seems to have drawn Shepherd's attention and pushed him to reach out to his contacts at IE."


"Another relation perhaps?"


"Doubtful," Yvonne replied lifting her glass again, "Not impossible of course, and so far as we know from Shepherd's service history he was already in the periphery or en route at the time of the coup. He was certainly not on Terra to escape aboard Tripitz which was another theory put forward. What makes the Triptiz interesting is that the Colussus class DropShip docked was sheltered by space assets under command and control from the ground that Clancy's records refer to as the SDS. It immediately burned for Tirpitz, not Kharkov."


It was another mystery, and didn't they already have plenty of those. She felt the immediate need to reiterate the question, "With all due respect Lady Yvonne, what is the significance of this chatter... given the attack on Kalidasa, and Jaime Wolf taking the majority of the dragoons presumably back in the periphery what does this battle mean in the present?"


Yvonne sighed and shook her head, "I don't know, but both DMI and MIIO have intercepts of discussion both from IE, from Northwinders speaking to the Wolfs Dragoons while on Northwind about matters that included references to Triptiz. Unfortunately we don't have the full context of those conversations."


The Highlanders had been eager to discuss survivors that had left with Kerensky, to the point that it was a prevailing concern that they might have told the Dragoons too much. "The Dragoons were reported to have been informed that Amaris was provided information by the Draconis Combine."


"Not only via the HPG recording, but also through the ISF archive. We considered curating the documents, but ultimately we did include the protests and arguments from the Keeper of House Honor that those actions were a mistake, and that they attempted to warn the SLDF of the leaks." The general consensus remained that that had hardly been anything other than self interest, self preservation on the Combine opposition's behalf. "Wolf has copies, which we must assume he is taking to the other descendants of Kerensky's exodus. What MIIO, and DMI do not have are concrete reactions to a living Hegemony Gunslinger. Recordings, and intercepts from the dragoons have isolated words we don't have references or the full scope of, but Amaris, Amaris pretender I should say seemed to have started some kind of bidding within the dragoons. Bloodname, a title of nobility we believe, was mentioned as a possible reward for killing a pretender to Amaris's title, political ideology though for whatever reason Kerensky herself seems more interested in hunting down Kelly, but that doesn't seem to be the same for her company at large."


"Which is what the precentor New Avalon wanted Shepherd to do if he could find him."


"Precisely."

 

[brewka]

That reads a lot better than the previous version.

 

[Terens2]

I agree, everything is much clearer in this version. I am glad that you skillfully show such an outside point of view! I wanted to know if you plan to post to other sites. Because, in my opinion, your story is one of the highest quality I've read!

 

[NPC]

Kerensky herself seems more interested in hunting down Kelly, but that doesn't seem to be the same for her company at large."


"Which is what the precentor New Avalon wanted Shepherd to do if he could find him."

Click to shrink...

Comstar actually has a way to spin this. Though who knows if someone will be fast and smart enough to rewrite that narrative. Something like, ROM got wind of nefarious activity and were investigating, often by agents posing as arms dealers (of course they had to put up some hardware to get traction with pirate scum). Once they realized it was neo-Rim Worlds nutjobs they tried to bushwhack with their own green security troops, but the whole operation went sideways due to a leak. So they hired some professionals to wipe the pirates out and see if they could turn up the leak. When the pirate got word they went for broke and declared the second empire.

Though Comstar waking up a final contingency of the old regium might make for a better propaganda movie.