Battletech: The Ghost Who Walks (Battletech Isekai)

Imperator Pax · Jan 30, 2022

Part 10 Elidere IV

Brown eyes narrowed as the reticle lined, and a three round burst of 120mm slug ripped apart the Jenner's face. Gene stepped the Marauder over the Charger's remains that had been his previous victim. "Grid coordinates," He ordered into his throat mike, and instantly was rewarded by the illuminated map indicator.

The Kuritan BattleMaster attempted to return fire but he was at long range and they were shooting up a hill at him. Rather than charge his open line into Kuritan Regimental Comms were opened with the snarling angry voice of a thirty or maybe forty something man berating them that it was just one mech, and to 'Get him'.

Which was enough for the hornets to come out from under the porch... so to speak notably the BattleMaster didn't throw itself forward.

He tossed the mech back in reverse while looking at the ammo indicator. He lobbed a couple of more shots in ballistic flight from the half click out just before he dropped beyond the hillside. A couple of hits but nothing died.

He had their attention, which was the whole damned point of this. "You have their attention commander. One moment," Tristan gave the AI equivalent to a vocal frown, "Battlemaster and Atlas MechWarriors seem to be arguing." Good, let the enemy officers fight among themselves. "Commander might I recommend you withdraw to the access point, and clear weapons hot." As if to hope to sway him changing the plan the command mech's hud illuminated a map of Time on Target artillery strikes aimed at the enemies and their current positions.

But realistically the accuracy wasn't good enough.

Half a dozen or better combine heavy mechs inbound were faster than his Marauder. Even if he could get to a subterranean access point and lose them dropping artillery forward of the original target had a much higher chance of civilian casualties. Civilians by the Combine for whatever reason who had decided to start shooting up the town.

They chased, and he ran. He didn't have the ammo for a sustained fire fight. Even discounting the possibility that the prototype LBX might decide to jam on him, a probably he might potentially have with the regular Whirlwind found on a 2R, he didn't have the ammo. A single ton was sixty rounds, or twenty three round bursts from the autocannon.

The problem the combine had was that they were chasing him with the old mark one eye ball... and that wasn't working so well. "They arguing still?"

"Affirmative commander."

He swung around a copse of mature trees and imagined the noise the mechs chasing him must have been making as they ran through the valleys. He hadn't been looking for confirmation. There weren't a whole lot of people who'd have been arguing with a Combine Regimental CO, never mind a brigadier general not a full bird. That short list, "The ISF liaison is demanding that Sho-Sho Samsonov join the pursuit."

In a fucking Atlas?

The asshole in the BattleMaster had a better chance of catching even without being closer, and it didn't even look like he had moved yet. There could be excuses for that. The BattleMaster had attempted to shoot at him... maybe the ISF couldn't walk and hold an argument, which seemed unlikely given the Atlas was trundling through the woods. At thirty kilometers though the Atlas wouldn't beat him to the river bank. He'd be on the other side before the hundred tonner made it... but there was a good chance given its position it would get there sooner than most, and they'd have company soon.

He pushed on. Get over the river and then let the steel rain fall. Spring the trap, turn and engage force the combine down into the engagement with their main force... and deal with the DropShips as they made their final descent. They had hours... and given the ISF man's barking he wasn't sure which of them or if both were responsible for this overcommitance to this shit show.

This waste of life.

He wondered if these officers were just here chasing medals?

Tristan asked whether or not he wanted to begin to move the drones into their step off positions, but it was too early. He didn't want the fusion signatures to tip off the Combine until it was too late to realize they were already dead. "There is a significant probability that Atlas will be inside the arc of fire."

"Then I'll deal with it." Preferably from half a klick out with the river between them, but Gene resolved to do what he needed to.
--
"The boss said that." Not that Septim doubted the machine spirit, but... "He's going to take that Atlas?" He ran a hand through his hair, he ordinarily would have needed a shave and a hair cut... he still needed a shave from two weeks in the field, but the SLDF issue neurohelmet was great.

"I know you guys are confident in your artillery but," Andre trailed off from within his Dervish. "Are we-"

"Not to worry dear boy, I've seen this a time or two," Abner declared stopping his trawling questioning of their situation. "Nothing to worry about, the Major will be fine, and he has more than artillery supporting him... and remember that our bit is coming up."

They couldn't really explain Tristan ... Septim had to wonder how would they even start that discussion. The boss had been frozen in a stasis tube for two centuries. They had found stasis tubes inside the Castle... and Tristan had lamented that none of his Terran officers had survived to use them before the traitors had killed or mortally injured them. The final ranking hegemony officer had ordered the AI to pump the whole base full of nerve gas to prevent the rebels from seizing control of the facility. In the close quarters with scarcely anywhere to move and take cover automated defenses and drones had scoured the base of the invaders... leaving the machine to weep over his dead, and then wait.

Maybe the boss had been hoping that there would be somebody in one of the tubes, but the professor was right. Their part was fast approaching. The enemy reinforcements were coming... and there was a whole battalion on Ander's moon as well... and if his dreams really were more than dreams then Pasha was on the way even now with reinforcements. There had been no word from Robinson in response. The duke had money to burn. Through a hundred thousand C-Bills on a phone call was pocket change for him, and that was probably why they were going to get reinforcements.

"The combine is making good time," Bard Cameron declared, "They're sure to run him a hell of a race."

Inside of his Merlin Septim checked his scopes... or more correctly the feeds that the Star League thinking machine was feeding to them through Abner's Atlas. "Bahar are you seeing this?"

Her dark eyes narrowed, but managed to keep her affirmative professional. Bahar's Mongoose was in a nest of other fusion signatures... a whole company of vehicles for her to point at the snakes.

Not unusual by the company's standards... they had drilled and practiced with Bahar leading a scouting and reconnaissance unit that would also screen for her to direct the Company's armor assets on target. So as along as nobody got to close... well nobody should notice. "We still are going to have to fight our way through the newcomers... and then go to Anders, Castle Brin fell already..." Vandenburg probably wouldn't last much longer either. The duke of Ander's Moon had consolidated his forces but his seat of power was better suited to protecting its defenders than the open fields of farmland.

He hoped that they'd be able to hold out. The Vandenburg dukes were obvious more martial than House Makios... if not nearly as well off financially.
--
He had consulted the LandNav package on the way in so he knew exactly where to cross..

They had chased him over the valley and as he expected over the farmlands, but he could see the riverbank, and Tristan began to signal he had begun the start up for the machines. The AI flashed a signal to Bahar to stand by even as his mech treaded through the river, and neared the other side.

He still had mechs incoming. The seventy five ton Marauder cleared to the other side and backed up as his command systems started coordinating the finalization of the artillery's orders. His DalBan reading the powering fusion signatures of the ground combat units.

The lasing on his mech's comm area jerked his head up to the Atlas paring with his SLDF Comms system. "I am Sho-Sho Grieg Samsonov, Commander of the 19th Galedon Regulars. Well fought, Mechwarrior, do you care to trade pointers with me?"

Against himself he laughed, Tristan had played the Combine General's message for ... maybe not the whole planet to hear but loud enough, and shook his head, and then accepted the challenge to 'exchange pointers'. He wondered how Bahar's challenge to duel had been made, but he had other concerns as he would have sworn the mech actually bobbed its skull like head when Samsonov's hologram shifted as he grunted. The Mech had PPCs in each arm, clearly combine retrofit Lord's Lights and fired wide.

Gene steadied his Marauder, Samsonov's Atlas was standing still, and the width of the river made it too far a shot for his Medium lasers even if they'd both been right at the edge. If Samsonov had walked up to the river bank he'd have been comfortably within the effective range envelop for a medium engagement with the PPCs. If he had had a standard Atlas he could have thrown LRMs... but then that would have been really the only weapon he could fire. The Combine General had turned the Atlas into a slow long range bruiser.

His own dual lighting bolts answered and scored long angry flashing streaks across the mech's torso as bits of leaves and tree limbs ignited. Samsonov didn't reply to first blood being scored and fired as his targeting sensors failed him again Gene fired adjusting left into the right torso where after his second barrage Samsonov decided to close the distance... and Gene could see why.

There were other mechs approaching, and Samsonov was about to be on the spot for failing to have resolved his duel. "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 indicators for artillery greened as he placed the LBX's reticle onto the skull face. Just over half a ton over armor protected the grinning jack and that vanished under the near alpha strike just as the mech touched the water's edge.

The Combine Mechs paused no doubt as his voice echoed over their speakers... or as their commander's mech slowed, and toppled into the water. He swung his arms as the sky deafened with the roar of artillery coming down like thunder. His seventy five tonner crossed into the water it hissing into steam as they helped his dual heat sinks, and fusion powered hover, and tracked vehicles rolled forward. "Tristan, Pipes and Drums march."

The Combine's communications lines ceased being of any use as all that went over the lines was Farewell to Gibraltar, echoed by it coming over the drones speakers. Over a hundred fusion signatures rang through the hills over the other side of the river. Light Mechs backpedalled in place twisting and turning in place orienting to the new contacts, and likely being deafened by the bagpipes from their own speakers, as well as ringing through the valley.

--
Commentary: and we have two more Elidere IV pieces before we open I Davion, but yeah in terms of realistic load out the Marauder's 60 rounds of one twenty is actually surprisingly realistic for only a single ton of ammunition.

Imperator Pax · Feb 6, 2022

Part 11
Staff Interlude

Her mongoose lacked either Royal or the Gunslinger versions complex supporting systems. No Beagle, no null signature or light polarization shield, but the same two medium lasers in each arm, and of course her SRM 6 packed load was by Azami standard, and clearly her new unit standards, loaded with Inferno missiles. Ideal to crippled enemy vehicles, mechs, and keep anyone else distracted while other units maneuvered.

Of course that was possible because of the skill and careful work of Azami technicians in keep its system's operational. She had hoped of course... the prospect of a Star League facility intact might yield potential resources to help the colony founded in the periphery. Professor Abner had hoped to return there in a year or two even if they didn't unearth anything but there had been other developments since.

The Star League shooting at one another would have been unthinkable but made a frightening amount of sense really. It was painfully logical that of course not everyone would have agreed, plenty of units had remained behind... and that Kerensky's supporters might have used violence... and of course if the lost tribe were star league returnees why had they returned, and of course where were they going.

Had they been trying to find a distant Cameronian bolt hold? It would be something to mention to the elders.

"All systems nominal, captain." The machine spirit declared.

Bahar looked down at her radar array. "Regimental Air Defense Battery stand by," She received an affirmative series of chirps from the machines. They would only get one shot at this, they were going for local air defense options only which meant that at best they might manage to down only one of the unions, but they had to least try.

Unlike the command mechs, like a Marauder or Atlas, her Mongoose lacked the complex integration of satellite and communication overlays to directly interface with so called 'near orbit' predictive algorithm avionics. She was relying on the drones to take the data being fed to them, and then she would order them to attack the DropShips by available target as they came in.

The assembled DCMS troops should have lost comms now. Jamming outside of the planetary gravity well was beyond Tristan's capability but the DropShips wouldn't be capable of maintaining reasonable comms anyway during atmospheric descent... the singular possibility was on the ground at least Laser Comms but that required local proximity.

Presumably the forward most mechs having just watched the tail end of a gun duel with their commanding officer wouldn't immediately know who was in charge. The ISF BattleMaster was too far back... ironically in choosing not to pursue had left himself neatly within the bracket of the artillery.

"Artillery going out." Tristan announced a message flashed across her Star League comms identical to the one that would passed to Professor Abner's Atlas.

--
"Well yes there you can see the rain," Abner declared pushing the hundred ton mech spryly forward. His Atlas was now certainly the heaviest BattleMech on the field surely that must have been a comfort to the FedSun Boys. To see a proud Atlas, and in Star League parade colors no less. The locals might take some comfort in that as well, the aging lyran considered scratching his chest.

OF course, he supposed, rain could be taken another way. He could detect the upper atmosphere signatures even if he could not see the fireballs streaking of the entry profile of the enemy's dropships.

His musings were cut short as the Duke of Elidere's major domo appeared on the holographic globe of his Atlas's comms system. "His grace wishes to inquire-"

"That racket in the sky is ours," Abner grunted tersely within his Atlas to the majordomo, "Not the enemy dropships they haven't gotten here yet." Not, quite yet... twenty minutes maybe according to his Atlas.

"As you say Lord William, I shall assure his grace that the situation is well in hand."

... Professor Abner glanced at the other feed to the Federated Sun's instructor. Cameron's Wolverine was at the other end of the block. The duke had decided to remain in his palace, which admittedly was fortified if probably not to the degree of the Star League era shelter, but they remained here so long as the priory members were shepherding civilians into the shelter.

He keyed the mike, "Captain Alexander how are you doing?"

'Septim' Alexander shook his head from within the cockpit and pushed slightly against the restraining harness of his mech looking at the signatures. The boss's poetry had echoed off the comms to notify everyone what to expect. They had the snakes on the back foot now. He thought about the bird's claws burying into the black snake, a eagle, an ibis maybe, some kind of bird the dreams were fuzzy times. "I'd feel better if we had a better connection to the magunacs on our territorial fringe." He admitted He didn't have to worry about the drones the Hegemony's magic computer had them handled and even if they weren't Bahar should be able to manage.

"Can't be helped," Bard declared, his holographic image rippling "Even in the best of situations a regiment is lucky if it knows what everyone is doing."

Septim pegged that the older MechWarrior was wondering how their 'treadheads' had managed to roll the armor up with this much coordination without losing comms before hand. "Well we're going to be in the thick of it."

"Aye the snakes will realize they have more company than they anticipated."

Translation could the armor handle that? Would the treadheads manage? Conventional wisdom said no of course. Alexander knew that armor had a place in conventional military application. They were a vital part of the LCAF, and the AFFS for that matter, a whole fresh mech Battalion was coming down, even if the Snakes hadn't brought their own armor to the party. "Yeah, I think we'll manage," Cause... yeah the Maguanacs were good and all but the machines they had weren't what conventional wisdom had in mind.

Ford abruptly cut in over the line, "Alright so I've gotten the Triumph ... fixed. I think." What? Septim looked at the line as Ford's face appeared. "Don't give me that look, the ship will fly... Tristan is sure at the very least that we can take it and relieve the Vandenburg position once we're all settled up here. I mean after we load all of our armor back on board, but I daresay Tristan thinks we'll have to get inventive about getting landed."

"Ah yes jolly good," Abner declared resting his hands on the rockers of his forward controls, "Yes yes splendid mister Ford I knew Tristan and I could put our faith in you thank you for your hard work."

Septim had the sense to cut his own holographic feed before his face gave anything away. He could put two and two together from Abner's comment. Four was, ... well somewhere or another the AI had found a DropShip that Ford must have been tasked with repairing... which meant most likely... most likely the AI had shown Ford where his disappeared Starport was hidden... if Septim were to guess.
--
She had heard but not spoken up. "Apologies Captain. We thought we had more time before needing to employ this ruse." Tristan declared. "Truthfully Mr Ford does not have the Triumph-class Dropship ready for a real sortie, and certainly not one contested by enemy ASF. I did not consider it particularly probable that we would interact with the local Federated Suns government or military assets in this manner. Not in this time frame."

Mr Ford had assured the thinking machine that he could source the paperwork and documentation for the ship if it came to that, but nothing that would stand up to scrutiny without months to prepare so the best solution was to avoid drawing attention... but they had needed somewhat to explain large numbers of combat vehicles.

They were going to be pushing it though... but the situation was one where they either withheld the forces to conceal them ... and put everyone at risk. They could hardly admit what they had found, even the interstellar expedition staff hadn't been told... neither her fellow Azami nor her fellow mercenaries hadn't been told, not entirely.

Tristan must have just completed a cycle of his trans orbital array because he was suddenly calling for Doctor Abner's attention. The Combine DropShips were hitting the upper atmosphere, and they had made last minute course corrections. Their fighters were in the air, which made sense of course unions were not a practical launch platform to launch ASF... but that wasn't the issue. It was the latest projections over where they were going to come down.

"We can't worry about that now, we need to mop up their first battalion. We will turn and engage after." A reassured professional voice answered.

"Quite right major, I-," Dr Abner's holographic face fell to his console, "This is, this was my decision I chose to."

It couldn't be helped, especially not after the ISF liaison in the BattleMaster had presumably ordered the attack on Scarborough's civilian population... which had probably been bait all along to draw the Davions into sallying. "All we can do now is start a clock, it will take them time to offload. Bahar keep screening if the battalion air assets try and go up." It was all they could do.

She doubted it. The planetary militia might not have been equipped to fight BattleMechs but they had managed to orient enough anti aircraft fire to deter the combine from making any further air attacks.... which had been why the streets of Jasos city had been packed with people.

"Enemy BattleMechs on scope." Ishida declared from within the Cicada to her right. "They are running like whipped dogs, looking for a place to hide." He added with a bit of a snarl. Bahar could imagine why as her scopes tracked one enemy mech simply disappear as a 'Fury' cored it from the rear with what her warbook called a Gauss rifle.

Her handshake with the drone version told her that these particular 'b' models had been originally constructed on Bristol in the Federated Suns like all others but had been outfitted by the Hegemony as drones utilizing an improved iteration of the Nisaraki that was apparently found on standard versions of the combat vehicle. Tristan was advising her through the comm link to allow the war machines to screen for her apparently to protect their mechs from missile attacks. "It will provide some cover, and if my gathered data is accurate it should provide you some initial cover. Avoid short ranges, direct measures. If I may, no more dueling captain our objective is elimination of the hostile force, and conservation of our forces for the next battle."

... and the one after that... and the one after.

She glanced down to her map, the icon marked Hanzo's Cicada and flagged him a lieutenant, and further distant but approaching was the professor in his borrowed Atlas as it approached Scarsborough... or what was left of the village. Further back were a scratch company's worth of Davion mechs... a distinction in the projection. Her fellow company mechs and armor were flagged in Terran colors, the Davions in AFFS colors, and the enemy... in Kurita red.
--
Commentary: Looking for feedback on the extras/non canon / future possible snippets and whether or not I should keep the section in spoilers, or for future ones go back to the original of just having them posted not in a spoiler tab?

Imperator Pax · Feb 13, 2022

Elidere
Part 12

19th Galedon Regulars Planetfall + 17 Days.
They had chased them all the way back to Scarborough, which ultimately hadn't been good for the smoldering town. The combine had already put the town to the torch, or started to, but having been forced back to it had only made things worse. He wondered if the DCA officers would attempt to lift off... if they tried could they manage to get off world.

"Commander I am processing your combat uplink now standby." Tristan told him as he neared the uplink. The armor they had carefully shepherded, no pun intended, had been intended to be sprung on an enemy force that shouldn't have been expecting it. That and to hit a fresh enemy force still in the process of deploying.

The combine was supposed to have been coming here. "Thank you Tristan."

"Of course Commander. The ISF attache appears to have ordered the redeployment of forces we are presently seeing."

"Do you have him on scopes?"

"No commander, I expect his BattleMaster was caught up in the artillery strike on enemy positions. Whether he was KIA in the resulting strikes I cannot ascertain. His orders to redeploy the regimental reserves though appears to have been issued contentiously."

"But the DCA officers obeyed it." He pointed out, but he wasn't strictly speaking surprised they had obeyed the order. It would have been great if after the asshole's signature had disappeared in the storm of steel that had fallen they had decided to just cut their losses... but no such luck

"Indeed."

Gene eased his Marauder around the burned out remains of a barn and a two storey farmhouse. He was looking for something to vent his frustration on, but the enemy mechs were slagged. An ER PPC had the same damage potential as his standards but even though they ran hotter they extended his range envelope to a distance well in excess of anyone thinking of trying to shoot back at him. "Where are they now?"

A territorial map expounded from the uplink red lines falling back from the town towards the DropShips. He wondered if the enemy were going to run, even as he ordered a projection of enemy combat losses. They had gutted the battalion. Its ASF units had been by all indication caught on the ground when the artillery had come down, which was of course very nice to hear.

1st Battalion 19th Regiment was a Battalion in name only. If Tristan's readings were accurate there was nothing left of them to form any kind of detachment that would be useful in combat as a unit.

"Do I have permission to proceed with fire missions on the enemy dropships?" The AI inquired in a sanguine tone.

"Affirmative." He gave the authorization and watched as the drone artillery platforms chirped acknowledgement to his command. That left them the pivot and sweep overland... or rather that was the maneuver that the enemy would be expecting. "Do we have casualty assessments for the camp?"

"Minimal. The directive to withdraw personnel into the Star League Civil Defense facilities was completed. Mister Ford accounts for approximately eighty wounded, and approximately a dozen personnel dead among the infantry." The men who hadn't been shielded by the combined anti air envelope of Baffins and Sam Houston.

A part of him as he continued to dance the Marauder around the debris was that he should have been extending the Combine the courtesy to allow them to quit the field. That as knights they should act in accordance with the spirit of the long defunct Ares Convention. That he should be the bigger man and let the combine make for their JumpShips...

His Marauder's 'Thompson gun' tracked over the delimbed enemy mech as its machine gun ammunition cooked off from where it had been sitting in a smoking ruin of a building. Gene rubbed his eyes as he dismissed the reminder from the software as he safed the autocannon to file his evaluation report to the long dead Colonel Thompson at Hegemony R&D.

Bahar's Mongoose, and Hanzo in the Cicada appeared around the curve with a pair of vehicles in tow. They hadn't found anything either. Not that they had been expecting to. He felt the tentative return through the mind machine interface as his scopes picked up the Wolverine, and Dervish bringing up the duke's aid parties. They were escorting militia, first responders and volunteers to try and sort out the damage.

"They're done in." Cameron declared without preamble, his face in the hologram obscured by the ugly modern neurohelmet, "The Duke wants you to come back to the city so we can coordinate dealing with the other." He maneuvered around the shattered remains of a firestarter that had allowed Abner's Atlas II... well there wasn't much left of the machine's hollowed out internals.

He considered Cameron's report that the Duke's apparently repeated very expensive phone calls to Robinson had apparently yielded some results. Or at least he was being allowed to have conversations with the reign duke of the Sandoval dynasty... which meant he was bouncing off two fucking HPG stations to get there. ComStar must have been making a lot of money off House Makios... Gene didn't even want to think about it. Not that the duke was so spend crazy or worried he was talking about insisting to the precentor to hold the line open and wait... Makios seemed to have more money than sense, but had at least that much sense. "Bahar take armor command go reinforce and dig in."

... he was going to go deal with any command level issues. If Bard intended to protest that he thought better of it, but more likely he didn't' intend to do any such thing to begin. The Baffins was the problem. The Sam Houston could take off and fly to the starport if it came to that, but the Union was a spheroid dropship. In a non hostile situation it would have been different... but it trying to take off in this clusterfuck... no. It was an unacceptable risk... and while the Star League era rail transports could in theory handle the weight of a dropship there was no apparatus to load it or offload it. They couldn't move the Baffins right now.

Tristan's connection stabilized across the command's hud projecting the condition. Flagging the recovery of Hegemony equipment to prevent it from following into unauthorized hands appeared, but he had expected that. There would be questions raised if they didn't, "Do you have equipment to handle recovery?"

"For debris in general, yes. However that doesn't preclude parts and scrap being left behind."

Gene doubted that they'd be able to bring bay personnel from the Sam Houston in, certainly not quickly. The flagging came with casualties presently sustained, which were better than what the Hegemony's projected attrition had made assumptions on facing rebellious member states with Star League era weaponry and training, even considering rebel SLDF troops. The problem was of course that those casualties were something that could have been easily replaced in the age of the Hegemony not exactly the case in 3017 centuries after the downfall of the Star League.

"If I may make recommendations on loading the Triumph?" Inventory screens appeared. Ammunition was surprisingly not something to be concerned with. "Battle plans for the relief of Castle Vandenburg," approaches, landing sites joined it on Ander's Moon.

The AI was giddy if that was the appropriate description at being able to do its standard function, but they were getting ahead of themselves. There was a battalion in front of them to deal with.

The holographic representation of the continental landmass shifted, and he paused the shifting terrain as directional arrows appeared from the subterranean access lines. In any prolonged engagement it would probably be a matter of time before the enemy noticed there had to be some kind of infrastructure moving the units around underground. This wouldn't have been unusual in the Star League era, and on a more built up world in the present day people might have suspected it, but Elidere had taken a pounding through the succession wars so they had the advantage of surprise for now.
--
Kotaro reached to touch his jaw. It wasn't broken at least, and if he thought there was anyway that they might survive this cursed planet then he'd have lamented the trip to the dentist... but that seemed unlikely. It was best to be realistic at times like this. He had considered that Samsonov might have betrayed them into this trap, but more like the 19th Galedon had been destroyed by the vagaries of fate.

Even if they managed to survive this battle it would be impossible to hope for the honor of the coordinator's garden. As the regiment's ISF liason he had been prepared to relieve Samsonov, and of his head, if this had been treachery... but for good or ill that didn't seem to have been the case. Samsonov-shosho had admittedly well died as a mech warrior should... much as Kotaro loathed putting that in writing.

Their initial suspicions had been this was a unit of the Davion Guards. The lack of air support had eliminated the Second Davion Guards even before they had started to piece together what units the enemy had in the field. That had still left them with the possibility of facing the Fourth or the Heavy Guards.

A cheer rose from the lips of the crowd as one of the duke's portable holographic projectors, no doubt dragged out from storage somewhere showed the hulking form a white gray painted Marauder scything down Combine Light Mechs as the armor, in similar paint, kept others at bay in the chaotic frenzy. Another BattleRom clip changed this time to show an Atlas but Kotaro turned away and stepped forward to the beckoning robed man.

ComStar's professions of neutrality was a disgusting farce, Kotaro knew if he wasn't careful the giddy robes might well attempt to waylay him and turn him over to the planetary authorities... and he couldn't allow that. He had a final duty to the dragon before he could die. Someone had to know how wrong all of this had went...

That was why he was in a tweed suit and a jumper pulled over it. He had changed clothes in order to blend in... not that with the swarm of refugees fleeing the battle it had been hard to do. He had blended in easily. It only served as a reminder that the planetary populace, weren't the real enemy just peasants looking to exult in the proximity to victory won by warriors. The real victory was being won by mercenaries, which was galling to his pride. He rubbed his jaw again and handed his travel papers to the Robe.

"Thank you Mister Thornburg," The balding man hand by the Lyran paperwork.

"I need to make an important call to our office, I know that it is just a matter of expense." As if money were any object to true service. The service fee rate was from a Lyran based Class A HPG station, but it shouldn't have mattered. It was obvious of course that ComStar had been hit as severely as others, records of the ISF from the star league suggested that HPGs should have been much more capable than they were... or at least much more regular. Prices had also increased of course, but money was not an object of concern.

When the Adept started to protest Kotaro felt the urge to yell at the man, but his excuses made sense... of course the Duke would have the money to make such an expensive communique. ComStar was not the Star League it didn't have the resources of the League so it had to stagger messages. The duke was, much as Kotaro had intended, circumventing the queue established.

He spent a good eight hours before they admitted into the sixty acre compound Comstar maintained near the heart of the city, and the ducal palace. It was ridiculous that they had taken a tram that directly connected from the palace to the ComStar facility. At least he could breath something of a sigh of relief. He posted a dozen shorter smaller parcels of information out even though there was no telling when or if they would ever go out... he needed to access an immediate outgoing feed.

The troops on Anders Moon were still fighting. They at least were only fighting provincial backwater warriors. The Regiment's first and third battalions... not that there was anything left of first were lost. The third might yet succeed in crippling the enemy regiment's dropships, but given the volume of artillery being reported that seemed faint. Samsonov's insistence that they could cripple the enemy's mobility and catch them in a pincer had failed... not that he was surprised Kotaro had been skeptical. They had misjudged the readiness of the Highlanders, made all the clearer when those awful earsplitting pipes had interrupted their lines of communication.

--
Ishida contemplated the daisho. They were still working to salvage the Atlas, but the swords had survived their master's death as the armored skull had caved into the shell of the cockpit. Burying the Kuritan general was not really feasible. It wasn't quite so bad as needed to actually hose out the cockpit as he had described for others, but repairing the Mech's head would take work. They would cremate the dead warrior's remains, that was the best they would be able to do.

... assuming they were going to keep it, but it had been dragged from the water's edge by winch. Andre Sutton fidgeted in the clean pressed white shirt, "I wish I'd been there." and that they'd be returning to battle soon, it was obvious... he didn't wish to be here in his finer closers.

"Bahar has our line redeployed." Then, most reassuringly, "Once we find out what the duke wants we will go back out there."

Ishida had returned only because he had been ordered to, and it was a temporary return. Bahar had received word from the JumpShips that they were returning with Davion reinforcements. The message delivered by some Star League marvel called a black box. The Davion defenders, or rather the duke of Robinson's relief expedition had been happy to take a ferry ride aboard the JumpShips returning to Elidere... but they were still weeks out.

"Yeah but how many mechs have you head capped?"

"Pull the BattleRoms," was the reply to the Dervish pilot's question, "I don't keep count."

Captain Alexander snorted. "I think everyone is watching the BattleRoms." He trailed off as they passed a businessman arguing with one of the ComStar acolytes about yet another delay in service. At first Ishida would have been prepared to dismiss the man as perhaps a visiting Lyran, but the man's aura was wrong. He dressed the part certainly, but he carried himself wrong. He felt like a killer, a demeanor of barely contained fury as his eyes saw the swords that flashed with recognition.

The holographic display near them did them no favor, but perhaps the most damning distraction was the duke, and the precentor who were animated in seeing them. Neither the duke, nor the precentor were impressive men. The duke had served in the AFFS of course, but he'd been out at least a decade at least for anything non ceremonial. The man was not totally to seed and his captain of the guards, a big man named Bates, physically threw himself over his charge.

Precentor Gregory Killos wasn't so lucky, and wasn't fast enough to get away.

"You!" The howl of anger wasn't enough to deter the fake salaryman from not processing the duke was outside of his threat radiance, and instead he had grabbed onto the precentor, and yanked him back before he could get free of the grasp.

"Mr Bates, what's happening, I can't see," The duke's muffled report came.

The big man heaved over and shuffled the duke away from the man in the suit trying to survey the crowd while watching the furious man at the same time. "It'll be alright your grace." The pistol that had appeared in Bates's hand looked like a child's toy.

Ishida's pulled the stainless autopistol at his belt, and wasn't the only one. Within the span of breaths they were in a standoff as a semi circle of men with a differing pistols of various makes stood there as the man in the suit dug his hold out pistol into the precentor's collar. If it had been a knife, Hanzo would have been confident he could have killed the salaryman without too much worry. The gun though, that might go off if he took the shot.

Bard Cameron was facing a similar problem as he levelled his Howdah Auto Magnum, and pushed Andre Sutton further back. The Dervish pilot was the only one in the group who had come to see what the duke had wanted of them without a pistol.

Septim knew he had no shot, not really an avid pistol enthusiast to begin with he had kept the LCAF standard issue sidearm for officers out of familiarity and in recognition he knew how to clean it. Even at ten feet he knew there was no way he'd have a shot he'd have been willing to take... and it was doubtful they could expect anyone else. ComStar security was for dealing with drunks and distraught people not armed madmen.

Kotaro snorted furiously, and bit his lip. He wasn't close enough. He'd hoped to grab the duke, maybe they could have salvaged things. In theory he could still drag the Precentor backwards. He wasn't close enough to be sure he could hit any of the men in front of him, not with squirming robed man who outweighed him by six Kan, or maybe about fifty pounds. The holdout pistol wouldn't care, not at this range, the shot to the neck would kill him if made too much trouble. If he dragged the man backwards though he could force him to let him access the HPG and make him send the encoded signal.

His actions would be disavowed of course if the Davions or ComStar ever connected him to the ISF but they'd never take him alive, and he'd have completed his mission. Someone would be able to provide warning and knowledge to the dragon of this failure, and the destruction of the 19th sooner rather than later.

"Let him go."

They were fanning out. Looking for a shot, and minimizing the threat he posed to them as a group. The kilted man and the Lyran had no shot. There was no way the Davion would risk using his hand cannon, and the lyran's whole posture and movement told Kotaro enough about his confidence. The duke's bodyguard's priority was protecting his master. That left the man carrying General Samsonov's daisho, and the Mercenary Commander.

"Now see here sir, if you put the gun down, and let gregory go we will let you go, we will put you on the first dropship off the planet, you can go back to the combine." The Duke declared. "Isn't that right Gregory?" Kotaro scowled as the Precentor swallowed against the muzzle of the gun nodding. "this isn't necessary."

Kotaro would have laughed at their weakness, but it was good. It was a distraction he could use. The duke's bodyguard would focus on keep his master out of harms way and that meant he could focus on t he two men who were real threats. He dragged the Precentor further backwards.

"I don't,"

"No, no, don't do that. Please let Gregory go." The duke begged, and the Precentor was struggling more to avoid being pulled back further... but the further he was the less-

The last thing Kotaro Tanida realized was that the pistol in the major's hand was a laser pistol. His thoughts that it must have been a hold out model given its small size, and that he was safe now from it terminated in a red flash that ended his life as the recoiless light speed weapon fired.

The result was most of his head vanishing, boiling away, and dropping him backwards like a puppet with his strings cut.

Gene slid the Terran Hegemony issued compact laser pistol, approved in the 2760s, back into the dress uniform's synth letter holster, making a mental note to thank Tristan for mentioning it was in the outpost's armory.

"A crack shot, I say." Not really, since lack of recoil and a two pound trigger press really made it a matter of putting the dot on the target, but he didn't interrupt the Makios dynast as the duke and his guardsman went to check on the precentor. "Good heavens are you quite alright Gregory, I was so worried about you man."

"Precentor."

"Commander." The head of station nodded.

Gene bent down to peal the handgun out of the man's hand and handed it to Hanzo behind him, before rifling through the man's pockets. "This looks technical." He muttered pulling a cylinder out of a pocket, "Looks like it plugs into a terminal," Gene shook his head. Looked like big thumb drive, but no obvious data reel or something.

"Oh heavens look at the time, we'll be late, we'll be late." The duke exclaimed, "Robinson, Duke Sandoval will be calling."

... ah that explained it.
--
Commentary: Ok tuesday I will be putting up the triumph star port bit that is set in the early part of Part 11, we will talk about that then, its nominally canon as it will be going up, so I probably won't be spoilering it but its also not touching on everything that was going to be covered.

Imperator Pax · Feb 20, 2022

I Davion
First Davion [Contract]

Jasos City
May 3017

Without the threat of Combine attack, or at least the immediate threat of a DCMS Mech Battalion coming down, or an air raid the capital of Elidere IV had begun to return to normal even though Ander's moon wasn't so lucky. Gene finished lacing his new pair of boots. Lord Aaron was paying them to liberate Ander's Moon... or keep the Combine Ground Pounders occupied until reinforcements arrived when Pasha and the Jumpships carrying them came round. ... so they were officially under contract with the Field Marshal of the Draconis March of the Federated Suns.

The door opened up to bring everyone in. They weren't going to need JumpShips for their own machinations de le geure. It would be simple in its own way. Get on the DropShips fly to the gas giant's habitable moon and execute what was a cracking flank maneuver before the Vandenburgs could be overwhelmed... but if it was to succeed they needed to go. They needed to get underway soon.

He'd expected Ford patching the Triumph would have been the issue, or loading up the drones or onloading their own mechs Baffins, or armor Sam Houston. They were but not the only issues. "Do you even sweat?" Bard grunted, speaking of the spare full body black pilot suit tossed on the table, then shook his head. "The duke has agreed to the plan," not that he had really much choice in the face of Aaron Sandoval telling him to, but having him sign off on it made things easier. It bolstered their numbers by another company of mechs. This would be closer to a fair fight that way, "We're loading as it is, but we're going to have to land."

"I wasn't going to suggest an orbital insertion."

The look Cameron gave him suggested that he wasn't sure Gene was telling the truth.

Abner shuffled in, "I'm quite appreciative of that consideration for those of us getting on in years." The professor declared, "The Combine are having to fight an incursion across a quarter million square miles, but they've done most of the heavy fighting, the Dukes of House Vandenburg have been driven back into their core heartlands and most of the ducal guard is, well its not good. The canyons allow their infantry and they've ambushed the enemy with tanks, but since the McBrin have been overrun the Combine are closing the noose. Its only a matter of time, I'm afraid."

If Elidere IV or at least this slice of it reminded him of England Ander's moon had, presumably been terraformed, to be a dead ringer for a swathe of southern mexico writ large... unfortunately deforestation and subsequent desertification and all the fighting meant... there were strips of barren terrain that was closer to desert than the jungle.

Having thirty something Combine mechs tramping through everything, and shooting inferno missiles into productive farms didn't help either. "There is one thing I do want to touch on," that the combine probably would not have stuck around this long. If he was being blunt... the information that htey had put together at this point, if it was accurate. Then this had supposed to be just a stupid raid, a macho posing peacock display of look how tough we are. Go in trash some shit, maybe steal some stuff... it was little more than state sponsored piracy, "We've put the Combine into a place they can't escape from, we should be prepared that they will fight to the last man, and atrocities against civilians should be taken as likely." The DCMS were backed into a corner and were going to fight... and that was probably going to be messy.

That meant they needed to fight smarter... the last thing he wanted was the fact that they were no longer lopsidedly out numbered to mean they'd start doing stupid shit.

Doctor Abner cleared his throat, coughed again, "Well Second Battalion 19th has had its share of losses, regrettably fewer than we might have liked, but we are still facing two largely full mech companies with some support and a small reserve of mechs." There was no word on how much technical support the Combine had, or if they'd be able to repair their damaged or replace their lost mechs, but it wasn't something they expected either, "The Headquarters of the Second Battalion appears to be a Stalker that determination is based on the fall of Castle McBrin."

Gene resisted the urge to run his hand through his hair, which the auto-doc inside the Castle had trimmed down to regulation length as he stood up, the new boots clacking against the teak hardwood floors. The holographic globe shifted, adjusting into a flight path from Jasos City, a simplification, and Elidere orbit to Ander's Moon of the DropShips. "The assault force will move as a convoy formation, and will separate in the last moment for descent." The individual dropships would be miles apart but the idea was to give as much anti air cover as possible up until the last minute. "We will step our landings," The orbital telemetry dissolved into a map of the 'planet's surface, "I will be going with Bahar and Hanzo and heading up a tactical group to secure the initial landing here. The Baffins will land, here, and offload its Mech Compliment," A combination of their assets, and some volunteers with lights and mediums. A second Union-class appeared a few miles away, "Bard will offload the main Elidere forces here, and the San Saba," The Triumph, "Will land in the middle, to offload our armor assets."

Tristan had made advisements on what form the battalion of armor that could be carried aboard the more than eight and a half thousand ton aerodyne should comprise of. There were pros and cons of different vehicles. Elidere was a bit more mild of a climate than Ander's moons more tropical humidity but that shouldn't readily effect operations.

The two lances of fifty ton hover drones had been easy. Figuring out which eight tonners to bring was a harder choice. The Furys with their gauss rifles were an excellent example of the trade off. Their range was one thing, but ammunition would be a problem... that and having them damaged would be an issue. While Hegemony doctrine held drone units to be expendable and to be used at the discretion of Terran troops as needed to destroy enemy forces, Gene had already intended to risk them as little as possible. The range of the gauss rifle, and ammunition constraints had to contend with the risk of them being destroyed, and someone poking around in the internals. That and, once they were done with them they'd need to be flown back to Elidere and returned to Tristan for maintenance and used to keep the outpost castle secure.

"There are two primary considerations." A direct conventional engagement was the more likely, but there was, "The Combine may agree to resolve this in effectively single combat." Mech to Mech, he spared a brief glance to Bahar, "This would minimize casualties but would need to be recognized on both sides. Individual Mechwarriors, only. When we touch down a message can be transmitted to establish a basic frame work for these duels." Tristan had organized the frame work based on historical ronin duels interspaced with enough flowery language and quotes from his first edition Dictum Honorium. "The frame work should preempt the combine from making a challenge. If they accept we will reciprocate." It probably wouldn't save the Vandenberg defenders but it would buy time for the Field Marshal's relief forces to arrive. "The alternative is a conventional action." At least in the sense of actually fighting with combined arms.

The two unions would offload two understrength companies each of mechs. Not ideal but it was what they had. He wasn't happy precisely that Abner was insisting on joining the Baffins deployment, but they weren't in a position to refuse the firepower contributed by the Atlas. They hadn't had enough time to find other pilots, and techs hadn't had near enough time to salvage and bring any downed combine mechs back on line so they were going to use what they had immediately ready to go.

There first objective was to take a town along a river, and then move along it for the roughly two days travel northward to where it took a sharp eastward bend. The Combine Battalion were acting as independent mech companies, and they wanted to cut the force that had taken Castle McBrin from consolidating if they tried to do that.

Their information on current opposition was limited, incomplete. Their two mech companies were going spread out and act independently across the front, simply because they needed cover that area.
--
"You saw what they did at Scarborough, can't let that play out somewhere else," Abner informed his protégé. "And besides, I'll be in a proper BattleMech. That Atlas will keep me safe enough." He continued on. He cleared his throat, "Well that out of the way, we have other matters to discuss."

The conversation took a darker turn. In LosTech prospecting it wasn't uncommon for double crosses to happen, Spies were an unpleasantness, but not an unexpected one. Interstellar Expeditions ordinarily prided itself on its background checks but sometimes there slip ups... or just rivalries that went a bit too far.

They would take the appropriate precautions.

"What about, well,"

"Miss Bahar. You did pull the Kolassa file from the directory didn't you?"

"I did." Ford replied.

"And?" Abner asked leaning forward, bushy eyebrows knitting in anticipation.

"Tristan estimates that the nuclear strike on Bristol by the Combine at the start of the first succession would not have breached the secure underground storage facilities. They're basically bunkers after all."

Abner nodded, "Well that's another reason for me to go like this. We're going to hand Hanse Davion a victory that has resulted in the destruction of an entire Combine Regiment, I trust you'll be able to leverage this with your contacts."

Ford somewhat reluctantly nodded. There was no way they were going to tell the Federated Suns about the Outpost Castle. Never mind because Ford suspected that the Hegemony AI would trigger the nuclear magazine of the facility to deny it to a successor state... and that was just completely an unacceptable risk. Tristan was an invaluable insight into the Hegemony of the Star League. It would be almost unthinkable as admitting to a successor state that they'd found a Hegemony officer who'd been shoved into a stasis pod after Amaris had been defeated and Terra liberated.
--

Commentary: Some of the Ford, Abner scene including comments about the Wolfs Dragoons it simply wasn't working. This is as obviously implied the First Davion Contract, hence I Davion. It will be roughly equivalent in length with Elidere, or for that matter II Luxen if you haven't checked that out it has its own thread for the expansion of that, but its not necessary to read either. It just adds some extra content.

Imperator Pax · Feb 27, 2022

I Davion Part 2
May 3017

Within a fitful sleep, The golden bird flexed its talons slashing at the black snake before lifting it up to perch on the fortress walls, Septim shook himself as the rumbling engines made their course corrections. He stretched, "What time is it?"

"We're still two hours out."

Septim nodded, and yawned, "At least Haqim managed to talk the boss out of his orbital insertion plan." ... though probably only because no one else had the certifications. The jump at Luxen had been crazy, but Septim supposed it made sense. "What needs to be done?"

"Final checklist before we start operations." Doctor Abner declared coming down the ladder, "Especially important since we've a few more friends along Mr Alexander, sorry yes the both of you," He chuckled to himself.

Septim nodded to the older Lyran, "Yeah, Stingers and Blackjacks," They weren't going to be a whole lot of use, he felt, "any suggestions doc?"

"If the combine agree to settle this like gentlemen," And his tone suggested he doubted that, "There won't be much for them to do I'm afraid. If it comes to a brawl though... well that will make it a real mess."
--
Technically speaking the Sam Houston wasn't even pushing her engines at all. The aerodyne combined arms carrier could have left the two Unions well behind, but that would have defeated the purpose, "Any sign of ASF?"

"No sir."

Good, "We're going to start the briefing." The Azami ensign at the comms panel hit the requisite intercom to direct to the briefing room, as he turned away from the view of the gas giant. The Sam Houston had room for two square companies of infantry, but they hadn't left Alamut in the deep periphery with Azami infantry. They just hadn't been available. Truthfully he was surprised to have the volunteers for the technical support section he had, but he had the armor. The infantry they had hired on Detroit were aboard Baffins. The plan was to have them dig in and emplace their SRM and support lasers to deter any Combine light mechs that felt froggy.

The Sam Houston's briefing room was not the biggest, and with a full complement it would probably would have been better to hold it inside the vehicle bays, but this was officers only. So while not a lot of space was enough for them and the hologlobe.

Three Mechs, and a company of armor... a demi lance and a company of armor. "Our immediate priority is to dismount the dropship and punch forward to each respective zone." The plan was to take a forward position and spread the pairs of six hover vehicles out. The LRMs they carried wouldn't be much of a deterrent, but it'd give them something of a trip wire. The Daiymyo, and its minder would offload next, extending their lines of communication to the east towards the Elidere Volunteers. The heavy armor would have to come off last.

It was doubtful the combine would be able to confront the landings. They would have had to pivot and drive the opposite of their advance. The only things that might be able to contest the Sam Houston's offload would be light mechs but the bigger issue would be covering the perimeter and securing a landing zone for San Saba.

In an ideal landing Baffins would have offloaded the Atlas II and Professor Abner would have its communication array up to anchor the western command link.

The problem was offloading everything before the combine could recognize something was going on. Most likely they'd notice four dropships, two of which were unions, on the descent phase. What the combine response would look like... well they wouldn't know that until they were on the ground.

He hunched forward, and looked at the holographic representations of Combine Mechs. Hideously grinning jack o lanterns floated over the map. The Dragon was the Combine's standard heavy mech, being even more common than the catapult, or the Grasshopper.

They had talked about and discarded any orbital insertion to directly relieve castle Vandenberg. They were fighting the clock though. If the Combine succeeded in taking out the defenders before they landed this would be significantly harder. With a heavy sigh, he rotated the holographic projection, "Alright, contingent on the Combine accepting mech duels as a conflict resolution tool, armor assets will offload establish a perimeter, and screen while the San saba unloads its unit. Our principle objective in that case will be to screen, and insure that the artillery can be offloaded quickly and effectively." The grid shifted, "If that happens our objective shifts to engaging the combine mechs as we offload. The tactical objective of concentrating our armor forces in the event the Combine breaks the agreement," At which point in theory they would hammer and anvil the shit out of the combine in a classic double envelopment... but that of course assumed the combine choosing to agree in the first place.

A tone sounded... not that it was really needed the feeling of turbulence more than signaled to everyone present that they were now on their final approach and that very very soon they would be touching down on the dust ball. He checked the last page of the report... estimated highs put the temperatures at over a hundred degrees Fahrenheit and then a sharp decline after dark.

"And if the combine refuses single combat?"

"Then we will attempt to narrow their avenue of approach by Fascam, and attempt to force them to come to us, or failing that cut them off from their dropships and harass them at range until we can isolate and destroy enemy leadership."
--
Sam Houston made a relatively soft landing, easier than some helicopters as it settled under its VTOL oriented fusion drive that then slowly whirred dimming and then cutting off. After a moment to let the dust outside settle, the cameras outside began feeding surrounding footage, and a light flicked on in the bay. A green bay door light flipped on replacing the red on signaling it had unlocked.

The harnesses started to click off one by one down the line easing his marauder away from the secured gantry. Bahar's Mongoose was already loose of its restraints and easing its reactor through the start up checklist.

"Commander, the Baffins has ignited their beacon, and are on final descent now. They should be out of contact for approximately twenty minutes."

He nodded looking into the camera, "Give them another five minutes, and check the radar, and lidar tell me if we get any returns by fast movers by then." The Unions were, well the Union-class was robust enough that it would very hard to take them out with anything but a significant commitment of air assets. The Unions should have been able to deter any in coming attack head on as they descended, but they didn't need to take an unnecessary risk. Once the mech carriers were on the ground and the Triumph was in its final approach they would go ahead with the broadcasting the challenge.
--
"We are receiving an incoming transmission, sir."

Sanada Sasuke, commander of Rekka Company, turned towards the communications officer who had called for the Battalion commander's attention. They had already been fast approaching the limit of their supply chain. If this had only been a raid it wouldn't have mattered, but they had committed to throwing down the descendants of traitors, and had had to go to great lengths to clear an area enough to avoid being harassed by the rabble.

"From the navy?"

"Its on all frequencies Major." A pause, and then the obvious, "The enemy." The communications officer remarked rigid holding the print out to the battalion commander.

Over the three weeks that they had been engaged in operations against the rebels there had been a steady break down in communication with other forces. The first indication that something was going wrong on elidere had been really the calling of reinforcements in the form of the regiment's 3rd battalion.

There had been no indication when they had arrived in system of significant Davion resistance. General Samsonov in personal command of 1st Battalion should have faced no more significant resistance than they had. Truthfully Operation Ashika had shown no indication of any meaningful resistance... and it was only with dawning horror as they pieced together what was happening on the other inhabitable world as 3rd hurtled towards the planet.

General Samsonov's unit was being chewed up by some sort of heavy-medium Mech force supported by, by all indications their own supporting regiment of armor and artillery. Whispers had made their way around the the unit of Davion Guards who'd been on exercise. They hadn't had any real confirmation... just a game telephone as the DCA personnel communicated with one another and then rumors making their way from dropship crew to dropship crew to DCMS personnel.

... and then General Samsonov had been killed in battle. They had been able to intercept the broadcasts of the duel. A white Marauder had cut down the Atlas after each had exchanged volleys. The only White paint scheme in entry recognition for House Davion were the Avalon Hussars, which did at least support the theory that they had stumbled upon Davion elite. The Avalon Hussars would have been the right sort of unit to field medium and heavy BattleMechs.

That should have been explanation enough. Save that it was dispelled... by the Mech's upper hull, and the crest painted there. A torri gate featuring a proud looking bird.

Sanada didn't realize he'd been hovering beside his superior until the major cleared his throat, and with a sour look foisted the paper at him. They had been challenged... that was likely the only reason the major hadn't berated him for getting so close. Sanada swallowed to himself.

"We must accept." Major Hashiba replied after a moment, "Assemble your company. They've sent this challenge planet wide... I would not be surprised if the DropShips and JumpShips both received copy of a challenge in accordance to the wisdom of the Dragon, and Bushido."
--

The damage was extensive. Hell extensive was probably an understatement... the combine pilot had really beat the shit out the Merlin. Septim would be fine, but the rebuild would take, more time than they had, "What do we even have on hand?"

The senior Azami tech shook his head in the negative. "Its pretty bad." He declared continuing to shake his head. Then at the question of if it could be rebuilt he nodded, slowly, "We don't have a spare engine."

"Can you retrofit that spare 300?" Haqim frowned. He had planning a conversation with regards to approaching Mountain Wolf BattleMechs with a faster 'cavalry' Merlin with a VLAR 300 but he wasn't even sure if they were even interested in that proposal. "If you can do it, replace the PPC with one of the large Lasers in the hold,"

... and so gradually the Merlin's rebuild was sketched out even as assistant techs build off burned and busted parts of the machine. The Martell Model 5s would be the easiest thing to replace, with Magna Mk II. The real good news was that Septim wasn't going to end up dispossessed the mech could be rebuilt. Talk of the LRM 10 was considered before being decided against to put in just a second LRM 5, both for gyro balancing, and cost and availability.

He was through the door, and down the hatch, "Who's next up?" He asked passing Bahar coming from the outside.

"Bard."

"And?"

"He should be fine," She replied. "Septim?"

"He's fine, his opponent?"

"I'm not sure about the pilot but I don't know if they'll be able to get the Dragon operational quickly." Gene nodded... that was technically a victory then. "The enemy commander is still delaying until all of his officers have had a chance to find an opponent." That was actually fewer mechs than one might have thought. The Galedons did have enlisted mech warriors, and while those samurai were entitled to the chance for honorable combat it was not the same as giving their social betters the opportunity to fight.

"Anything I should be worried about."

"Regarding this?" She asked, and shook her head, "No, this is entirely normal. I believe he's prepared to see this to its completion."

The quotes from the Dictum Honorium had apparently been what had made the difference, though Gene was sure having basically broadcasted the challenge to the whole damn system had probably helped. Quoting Kurita Omi by name had probably ensured that the samurai felt it absolutely necessary to do this above board... and well... if they didn't... well he'd taken precautions against treachery.

They had twenty... twenty six mechwarriors and mechs ready to go. "Is Hanzo going to need to switch mechs?"

"The Cicada is fine."

"If you need to you can swap to the other mongoose." He suggested, Bahar gave him a dark look in response, "We're in a situation where realistically, I would very seriously consider swapping to another fresh mech. That is an advantage that we currently enjoy."

The walk outside showed a large holographic... for lack of a better description a billboard with brackets on it. Every combine officer ... who was a mechwarrior was on one side displayed in a format similar but not identical to the way the 'judicial duel' on detroit had been displayed. That might have been slightly more reassuring if they had actually had precentor Killos along to record and adjudicate any disputes.

Opposite the brackets was another projected 'billboard' projecting a mech scale projection of first edition handbrushed copy of the dictum honorium.

The Combine Mechwarrior was a ready looking red haired man who looked about Bard's age... and looked more academic than soldier, especially peering at the image. The kilted david bowie look a like was waiting on their side, "They're all doing that," He drawled as the Combine Warrior bowed to the words of Omi Kurita, then his superior and fellow DCMS officers. "Means he's ready to die."

Bard Cameron set off for his Wolverine leaving them to watch both Mechwarriors approach the fighting arena... or the area marked off in the middle of the dry river bed that they were using for it. "Is he really going to let Sutton fight?"

"Do we really have a choice?"

... not really, "He has a 6MD." which meant Sutton had the advantage of armor protection, but it was a wonder to him that the Mech's XL engine even worked.

"That works to his advantage, these duels emphasize ranged combat until a participant concedes that they can't hit. They won't want to admit that in a duel with a green mechwarrior his age." That reminded him that Samsonov had been trying to close with him before Gene had shot him down. "They won't be expecting 30 LRMs a salvo. That should let him win his match." Bahar assured him... and that would be the last duel of the day and then dinner.

Then theoretically they would all say see you tomorrow and fall back to their respective camps, and wait until tomorrow. "My concern goes beyond that," Gene remarked, "I don't particularly want lord Vandenberg getting involved in this, but I've got no way to stop him if he shows up in his orion." Worse, Lord Michael Cameron Vandenberg coming to this dance would knock him down in the queue which wasn't by itself a problem... except it would mean that the local duke would be fighting the enemy battalion CO's Stalker.

--
Septim groaned, his mouth was dry, and had the faint lingering metallic taste of blood. He smelled disinfectant, "ugh what happened." He voice came out more of a distorted croak.

A few seconds later, "You lost." A synthetic voice remarked through a speaker. The Star League AI tristan broadcasting through a relay somewhere beaming back to Elidere IV. "Unfortunately the brackets are proving a bit more in the draconis combine's favor." The AI tut tutted.

"Bahar was coming up,"

"And she won. As it happens putting an SRM 6 with specialty munitions into a machine that already by design runs hot is remarkably effective." A heavy sigh, "Optimally we can buy more time."

"Any sign of SLDF beacons here?"

"Its not that simple." The AI replied to the question. "The local feudal powers have coopted much of the Star League era infrastructure, but that has largely meant salvaging it and relocating it into their... own castles." Septim didn't have much of an idea of what Ander's moon had been like during the Star League, but the first and second succession wars had seen the ascension of the ancient colonial families into positions of power when the Davions had taken over in recognition of their part in taking the planet from House Kurita. "I expect any regimental or battalion structures left from the 63rd Mechanized Infantry Division would have been picked over, if not by deserters than by subsequent scavengers. I have seen no indication that any directional guides are operational."

That just meant they weren't likely to get any more help. "What are the snake's doing?"

"It appears that their last company is maintaining a rear guard, or staying deployed along the front to prevent the planetary elite from sallying. Its just as likely they can't move either. Something will have to give."

Septim scratched at the scab along his scalp. "What do you mean?" He asked as he reached for the water.

"The Combine has very, very limited supporting forces. The 19th Galedon deployed with just its mech forces and some infantry. Infantry which is outnumbered by the local militia. In responding to the challenge the Combine may have pulled enough forces back to answer the duel to allow a local break out."

"That's good right?"

"The DCMS has numerical BattleMech Superiority."

"scheiße," He attempted to sit up pulling the IV. "Shit.

The AI continued without noticing the expletive, "Degredation of force strength is according to my projections expected to continue over the next several days of combat."

"What happened to my mech?"

"Presently being retrofitted. It won't be possible to repair it in time." Tristan's tone implied he wasn't sure it should even be a priority. A tone sounded. "I can connect you to Haqim in the hangar if you like, but I must take my leave captain."

Imperator Pax · Mar 6, 2022

I Davion
Part 3

They had relocated to the remains of... what his map beacon said had been a precious jewel mine that had at some point eaten a nuke during the first or second succession war. It had been a small nuke of course, an alamo was the most likely culprit. Background radiation was nothing dangerous... though you probably didn't want to drink the water without double checking it, if you could help it... but that was more likely a is this tainted by industrial mining run off than the nuke.

In real terms though it made a change of pace to duel the combine in. The truth was that the Combine had a greater reserves of Mechs though... and it was starting to show. Hanzo's Cicada was after three rounds no longer able to continue... and they were lucky it had lasted that long. Bahar was hanging on, but Septim's early knockout from the 'competition' had done them no favors.

In a way he was kind of glad that the Combine only apparently had the single Stalker left in the Assault weight class. Abner had yet to be challenged, and most of the fighting had been confined to medium and heavy weight mechs.

The grey white Marauder paced into the arena at a canter. The big pit was ... well miles across, complete with access to mining shafts large enough for BattleMechs. He reached up to adjust the Dalban as it lased a connection to Abner's Atlas II, and from there to the SLDF Drones waiting. They had a trip wire of Furys standing by, but he was hoping that that wouldn't be necessary.

"You killed General Samsonov?"

"and," Well probably both first and thirds officers... though Bahar could have nailed 3rd Battalion's CO... "Colonel Tanida as well."

"Ah, did he die well?"

"Cleanly, at least." He replied.

"A good death is its own reward." The pudgy major agreed taking his eighty five tonner over the concrete divider, and low chain with a sandblasted stop sign.

Gene blinked through the notification to relay his report on weapon performance to Hegemony R&D as he turned master arm on, and unsafed the Marauder's weapons. He didn't respond to his opposite's comment... even though he'd almost quipped that was a lot more appealing when a Valkyrie said it.

A timer from the projector started. A bright red 3 2 1...

The Assault class workhorse fired both LRM 10s and large lasers. Only the lasers came close but the LRMs kicked up a mass of dirt and dust that filled the old open pit mine. Not that he needed visuals, the heat on thermals through the MMI feed from his Dalban made the bigger mech standout. PPCs opened, scoring angry blue, and then orange white flames as the dust burned into the left torso armor of the Stalker.

Major Hashiba did not immediately return fire. A few seconds passed, and for a moment Gene considered whether or not his own thermals had given an implication away regarding the fact his mech had double heat sinks. His Dalban had started flagging comms traffic through the net... something else was going on.

Hashiba's face appeared, "Ah, gomen, a moment please to resolve this disturbance."

Gene nodded silently and the channel closed. Once the line was closed his eyes narrowed, he didn't like this. He knew the combine had another company out there checking the locals... and the most obvious situation was that something had happened with them. They clearly hadn't stolen a march this way, as he was relatively sure that would have tripped their pickets on look out. He keyed the SLDF secure royal comm channel, "Abner whats going on?"

"The DCA just broadcasted something. It wasn't, it wasn't a message, some kind of warning. I'm trying to resolve now, Tristan said he'd get back to me." The professor replied from his Atlas. His first assumption was incoming airpower of some sort. Conventional Air Breathers, ASF, other dropships... which was close but not quite accurate. Abner's line reconnected to his mech, "Mister Pasha has returned with Davion regulars to reinforce."

Which sounded great. It did. Except that there were a bunch of combine mechs around them, and the distance from Jump point was measures in literally a week and change. "Stand by." He turned the com laser to Hashiba's stalker, "Given the situation we have a few days to resolve this before the new comers spoil things." Please work... please don't decide to banzai charge into a general free for all.

Hashiba's image solidified, "Hai. I am prepared to resume." The still running warm eighty five tonner lumbered forward a couple of paces, and fired the same weapons to a similar though magnified effect of kicking up an interminable amount of dust.

In hindsight it made sense that the auto cannon would jam eventually, and would choose to do so after that three round burst had woofed over the Stalker and bit into the pit mine's outer ring. The PPCs slashed into armor, but Gene cursed the missed shot and not having advanced all the same, especially as Hashiba once again advanced his mech and the SRMs joined the LRMs pushing the Stalker dangerously hot.

He grunted as a missile found its way home in the mech's shoulder while another probably had his the left arm. The rattling subsided as he glanced at the inoperable notice due to the jammed ammunition feed. Gene reached up to safe the Autocannon as a matter of procedure and brought both Medium Lasers online. The strikes his the beak, but more center armor line than the cockpit, probably all on the center armor belt if he had to guess.

No lasers this time, Hashiba had figured out getting closer was the way to insure his big mech could hit, and they were within three hundred meters. After the vibrations cleared though and he blinked through the armor display he flipped off the PPCs and punched the left torso, and into the ammunition bin for the SRM 6 that just made his ears ring. An explosion followed and something in the mech's shoulder gave, probably fragments into the gyro given how the Stalker suddenly lurched rightwards and took two drunk steps in that direction as it tried to correct.

Hashiba was already too far, overcorrecting for the lurch and pushing his nose the other way and brought his mech forward as he did so. A warning indicator on the Marauder's dash warned him of hte incoming alpha strike a split second too late the right SRM 6 sent two wide entirely flying into the wall behind, another smacked his left arm again, a torso, and left leg. Gene rearmed the PPC advanced into effectively point blank and fired both through the cockpit at roughly forty meters in a gratifyingly gratuitous overkill coup de grace. "Tristan, stand by for potential fire mission." He ordered as he started tagging secondary target areas for the AI. He wouldn't have time to direct the drones so the best he'd be able to do was assign targets in specific areas, or specific enemy units.

A Dragon walked down into the arena the jack o'lantern painted on it wreathed in stylized flames. "My turn." The pilot declared raising his autocannon... and then proceeded to completely underestimate the range and drop all five shots of the burst into the dirt seventy odd yards from the Marauder's feet.

Gene keyed his mike, "Standby," He ordered along the company channel. His hands found the joysticks and adjusted his machine to face the new challenger. A glance at the controls informed him the DHS were doing their job at least where with standards he'd have been fighting serious waste heat from the Extended Range PPCs he didn't have that problem ... or at least not as much of it.

Not that Sanada had any real way to know that as his sixty tonner found that his Imperator A had fallen short, direct fire energy weapons didn't so much drop as disperse... and didn't do that at ranges below a kilometer... not to any meaningful degree in the Hellstar's case. At half a kilck both PPCs hit the grey snout of the Rekka company command mech, relatively high for where he'd been aiming. One and a quarter tons of armor boiled away under ball lighting, and leaving less than a ton protecting the internals of the sixty ton mech's center torso.

The almost painfully cliche totem mech of the Combine charged head on right arm sending another five rounds down range, and missiles spewing from blackened chest. He might have honestly been better off doing one or another. Running and shooting while possible was often not practical. A second pair of lightning bolts burned through the rest of the armor and into the center torso, failing to find anything critical in its VLAR 300 but either hitting, or as a by product of the particle beams, otherwise fritzing the gyro sending the mech crashing into the dirt.

He heard professor Abner give a quiet sigh over the line as the Dragon's engine went dark.
--
Septim resisted the urge to rub his nose, and sucked in another breath. "Where's the boss?" He asked looking around the Daimyo for something to do.

"Currently on patrol as a precaution."

Leaving aside that he was pretty sure the combine troops who hadn't died in the duels had found themselves in something the bossed called a double envelopment, which seemed like just a really complicated pincer maneuver involved two dozen heavy drone tanks suddenly crawling up the snakes' backside... "Ok where is Bahar?"

"Liaising with the JumpShips." The Maganac officer replied.

He wasn't sure if the six JumpShips, he didn't think so, that had been stated to be at the Nadir point included the Combine JumpShips or not... they could have been at Zenith he wasn't sure. Whatever the case they had a few days to untangle the mess before things moved on. "So what's this then?"

"The report for the 63rd Mechanized Infantry Division Depot we managed to get open." The Armor captain declared. "We're going to take stock of what's there, and rearm and refit with what we can. We noticed it has spare parts, myomer bundles some vehicles we can load as replacements. Most of the depot was cleaned out by units Tristan reported were subsequently shot down over the ocean."

The mention of the AI made sense. They weren't going to tell the natives about the Star League Machine spirit or its castle... hell to the best of Septim's knowledge after the ... probably combine spy .... traitorous TA they weren't even going to mention the castle at all. Most of the Interstellar personnel didn't even know, and the hidden tram line was separate from the others sealed off behind a hidden door with some kind of super secret hegemony lock that only responded to the credentials of Hegemony Knights or something... "Are we going to hand it over to the Davions?"

"That's the plan. The facility anyway, but we need to take the San Saba," Their new Triumph, "And I need a ranking officer to supervise."

... you're the only one who isn't busy went unsaid, but certainly implied. "Well," Septim chuckled, even though it hurt to laugh with his nose, "Well I'm not doing anything lets go be industrious."
--
They had given the DCMS personnel two choices ... well three the implied you could always surrender though had been there. The first of course was to resume dueling this out in honorable single combat and stuff. The second was to go to a full free for all. What they hadn't exactly mentioned was that they had already begun collapsing their armor pickets into the area around the dueling space, and had unsafed the Sam Houston's weapons in case they picked the latter.

Most of the Combine warriors had picked the former though.

It would still take ... probably weeks of work to repair all of the damage, months even but such was the case. Nothing he could do about it. That left him with other things to do. Ford was sitting at one of the terminals, "Did you write this?"

Gene leaned over to look at the screen. "I did."

"This is good." The Federated Suns native laughed, "I mean especially if you wanted to really tweak the combine's nose."

' ... The Kazoku, or most commonly translated as peerage, on Terra was abolished in 1947. It had replaced an earlier split aristocracy in the form of the Shizoku and Kuge to distinguish them from commoners... to that extent this historical backing creates problems with the modern Combine's preferred rendering.

Daimyo means great name, and while it is not completely unreasonable to equate this to mean to Marquis Tozama Daimyo were in the ancient rules of Japan on Terra were 'great names' who existed as part of lineages who were not historical vassals of the last of Japan's great unifiers. Indeed Marquis might be a more appropriate use of Tozama Daimyo than Daimyo as a stand alone... within the Kazoku the equivalent to the English Marquess, the basis for the latter unified Terran peerage, was Koshaku. Count, or Earl, was equivalent in the Kazoku...'

It went on, and into a summary table, with a distinction in the characters to write Koshaku for Prince or Marquess respectively Then through count, viscount and baron.'

"I just found the Combine's use of Shogun for Ducal titles to be, quite silly, and it spiraled from there."

Ford marveled at him, and laughed, "I have to have a copy of this. OR better yet, get the Professor to circulate it on New Kyoto, they'll be happy to publish it." Ford's humor continued, "I mean for that matter, your annotations on the first edition of the Dictum Honorium were really what I was looking to read. I could never get through the modern edition of the book. Its positively exhausting to read through."

"What edition are they up to?"

"The eleventh, revision they call it. Horribly ponderous, six volumes." He shook his head, "I heard about Mr Alexander, he's going to be alight?"

"He's got a broken nose from the ejection seat, but at least it worked." He replied, "The Merlin will be getting a rebuild." was being rebuilt.

Ford prepared to say something, but stopped as the sagging tired form of professor Abner saddled into a spare chair, "I know its part of the job, but I feel horrible." He exhaled, "I never expected all of this, I certainly didn't mean for you to end up wrapped up in the games of the great houses, or their bloody wars." He complained that while the dig had exceeded his wildest expectations and he couldn't say things had not been worth it, "We will pay you for all the damage, and passage to Robinson at least. We'll be going there as well. In fact, Mr Ford?"

"There is a good chance that we will be all of us going to New Avalon apparently Precentor Vandal of New Avalon is apoplectic at the Combine's man taking their man on Elidere hostage in the HPG station. Word about what all else has happened on Elidere has also started making the news. You'll never have to buy drinks in at least the Draconis March ever again." Seeing his face twist, Abner's eye brows knitted up again, "Something the matter?"

"Normally I'd run this by Pasha," But the JumpShip Captain was still busy ferrying them more Davion reinforcement... that admittedly they didn't need. "We got in the 63rd MID's depot," Not much there, most of its contents had probably been splashed into the sea when Tristan had shot down the Dropships... but that wasn't the point. "There is another depot that should be intact, its on Galtor Three."

"And you're wondering what to do with that information?"

"I'm not going there, to be honest, I need to hire more people, and that was true before we took this gig. The unit is understrength, and after this I'm prepared to spend money to get that underway," Even if he didn't expect to have that fixed, "before heading back to the periphery."

The two academics shared looks, "Well," Abner cleared his throat, and made a show of checking his ornate pocket watch, "I can understand that. I must be off my fellows, lunch is calling."

"Hiring would be a good idea. Lord Aaron I'm afraid is a man of grand ambitions and will want more from you than just this victory against the Combine. I think he plans to mount a grander offensive, especially if he can convince the First Prince." Ford remarked. "He's not the only duke of course."

Gene didn't need reminding of that. The Duke of Robinson wouldn't have been the only duke clamoring for their attention... because Sandoval had exemplified political astuteness by hedging his bets. He'd hired them on to lead the relief effort of Ander's moon after the destruction of the bulk of the Gaeldon regular, but it would probably be tidied up in media portrayals as 'Duke of Robinson's 'forces' fend off piratical kuritan invaders' accompanied by probably significant footage of Robinson regulars on victory parades after. While those Davion regulars were enroute the local aristocracy had other priorities now that the immediate military threat was over. "I thought you were handling that for us?" He responded after a minute.

"Oh certainly, the locals are peculiar, I keep hearing something about the chalice of herne. I've only seen pictures. Its part of why I was going to ask about the mech repair?"

"They're fitting my Marauder," Royal, "with replacement armor sections now." He could hardly use his other Marauder for a parade when all the locals had ever seen him use was the white one. "Have you seen Bard I know his wolverine nearly lost an arm."

"I have not, not today."

Gene nodded, "I was hoping to find out if he is planning to travel with us."

"You don't really have space on the Baffins, not if your planning to take anything with you, and you heard Professor Abner he insists on take his Atlas home with him, so he'll need berthing for the beast."

... and the Dervish. "Don't remind me," he halfheartedly protested. Even before hiring they were probably going to need to get another DropShip. He left and made his way out into the open sunshine of the starport near castle Vandenberg that loomed atop the hill in the distance. In spite of the sun it was quite mild now, barely eighty degrees compared to the hundred twelve high recorded a week ago.

Though he wasn't a native of Ander's moon the future robinson battle academy cadet Sutton and his Dervish were not hard to find. He was a native of Elidere IV and that was enough to draw a hero's homecoming welcoming for the teeming masses of people who had hidden behind Fortress Vandenburgs defenses against the combine. The fact that he had battle roms dueling combine medium mechs certainly didn't hurt either. It took a minute before Sutton could extricate himself from his adoring fans. "Colonel." The salute needed some work.

Gene returned the gesture, "Has your mech been looked over?"

"Uh yes sir." He replied with a boyish falter, "Are-"

"We're not under attack, I just wanted to make sure it had been seen to." It had an endosteel frame if that broke... the damage done Septim's merlin was going to be time consuming given all the wrecked heat sinks and everything else. "Have you seen Bard?"

"He's with some of the Robinson personnel, they're working on repairing his Wolverine for the parade now that you mention it."

Good, the truth was the Azami were already swamped for work as it. "Future classmates, or staff?"

"Its a bit of both, the training cadre was mobilized with the rangers to respond." The presence of the Robinson Rangers reflagged a concern he was going to hear some variation of either One Riot One Ranger, or Rangers Lead the way... or something similarly corny, but there was no helping it.

"Alright, I won't keep you, you look busy." He remarked glancing over the crowd that ws surprisingly not mobbing them... and he certainly didn't want to stick around for that.

Imperator Pax · Mar 11, 2022

I Davion
Part 4

May 3017
The captain of the Lebanon remained aboard his vessel, but one of his officers had been spared to hand ferry reports beyond just company documents regarding contracts expenses and incomes. The lieutenant had managed to touch down zero dark thirty local time, and still wasn't even dawn outside, "Given this victory over the dragon's servants, recruiting should not be a problem."

"What are we going to be able to source on Robison?"

There was a pause, and Gene expected the naval lieutenant to be about to hedge that he should ask Pasha such a thing, "Robinson is an important planet, there were DropShips which could be purchased, certainly spare parts, and ammunition as we require. Hiring is possible." He hedged, but clearly the Azami officer wasn't thrilled with the idea. "Captain Pasha relied reports of your initial successes against the Regulars on Elidere IV to others among the people, word of the battle may be spreading, more quickly than most would expect as a result."

Translation: After the Duke of Elidere had made multiple live calls via HPG people would have known about the attack, but the destruction of 1st Battalion being reported had probably been shared along the fax machine network. A k-series transmission had a hundred light year range, and took ten days to reach maximum signal propagation... but presumably there was someone in place to relay that information to the deep periphery.... and presumably back over the border into combine space as well.

The Azami elders had stated that they had gotten their black box from friends in Rassalhague, which presumably contributed to the Rasalhague resistance's ability to survive underground for so long. "Well Robinson is four jumps from here, I'll have plenty of time to consult Pasha on whatever steps are to be taken."

"Sir." The Naval Lieutenant saluted and departed the dropship's stateroom. Gene sat back into his chair and scratched the back of his head. He had hoped this would be a quiet lucrative gig, which is certainly was going to prove the later, but given the developing situation, there was no way they were going to make the fall festival for mercenaries, of sorts, at Northwind. It was four jumps to Robinson, so they'd see what they could pick up from there. Five jumps or roughly five weeks from Robinson though was the capital of the Federated Suns proper. New Avalon.

Gene glanced at the empty mug of coffee, and got up, snagging it as he passed around the desk. The truth was he was dragging. He would have liked nothing better than to actually do something defense related... but part of that was with Robinson Rangers arriving in force to both planets a prevailing notion of security had taken up with the nobility. The 'salvationists', as Septim tended to refer to the Star League venerators, had declared a religious holiday that had gridlocked most the roads.

"Ah Commander Shepherd," Ford remarked as he made his way towards the smell of fresh brewed coffee.

"Doctor Ford. I don't suppose there is any possibility of maritime salvage?"

Ford shrugged, "I'm not familiar with whatever the dropships were struck with, it would be a lot of specialist equipment to pull them out of the Dog's Sea. I'm not saying its impossible, but it would take me more than a year to put together the kind of experts needed to even to preliminary dives at even one of the locations we think they splashed into."

"I understand." Maritime recovery, especially since it had been two hundred years hadn't been something he'd been holding out much hope for... there was no telling, ragnarok proofing aside, what exactly might even be salvageable from several hundred feet of water. Not his area. They managed to get into the Sam Houston's mess before it started to fill up as they day really began. "What is it?"

"Lets just say that... Precentor Killos, made a call to the Precentor New Avalon about the ISF's actions, the fellow you shot down, he apparently had a HPG control override stick, now telling how he got that but... well ISF certainly. The combine will deny it of course, but. Precentor Vandal was apoplectic say the least by all accounts."

"Interdiction?"

"heavens no." Ford shook his head, "But he is a towering fury at the violation of Comstar's Inviolable neutral status." Gene gave an irritated click of his tongue. "There will be trouble for it for sure, but it will most likely be financial penalties."

Nothing that he could do about it, no sense sweating about it, "Were you able to get into the device?"

"It was, an encrypted report."

He frowned, "What did it say?"

"Just the battle," Ford replied, "i get the impression that Colonel Tanida would have preferred to blame General Samsonov more. The earliest part of the battlefield report clearly are more critical prior to the the counterattack we launched once the massacre of Scarborough started. The real change are the documents written, presumably after his Mech was lost, and we started engaging the newly arrived third. Officially Colonel Tanida places the blame for the loss on Davion Heavy Guards being disguised as mere mercenaries."

"If the Combine thinks they could get away with it, I wouldn't be surprised, if they claim Samsonov was acting without orders." He stated mixing the honey into his coffee.

"It won't matter, ComStar will extract some kind of payout, but with an entire mech regiment destroyed... Hanse Davion is going to exploit this to the hilt." Ford sipped his own coffee, "I think you'll see that soon enough, I expect Lord Aaron was probably in contact with New Avalon as soon as it was apparent the 19th Galedon had bitten off more than they could chew."
--
The money in the bank... was big, that was how Gene decided to mentally sum it up. Putting it in writing or in a speech he would have used 'windfall' or 'lucrative', but Lord Aaron's contract had been for a regiment scale action, retaining that many mercenaries was ordinarily expensive, there were overhead costs, and hazard pay, and so forth. Destroying a DCMS Mech Regiment in the process of invading the Draconis March was by conservative Mercenary Review Board was tens of millions in C-Bills... never mind DropShip salvage value. Ordinarily that would have meant upkeep, maintenance, spares to go to the entire regiment being retained so while a hefty payout, would have been less obscene of a profit.

It was enough money to make him queasy.

"The MRB still, they're currently tallying off destroyed Combine Assets on Elidere," It had taken less time to finish on Ander's moon." The Relief Forces sent from Robinson had already known that Elidere would clear of hostiles by the time they arrived so had already planned to launch and secure the moon, and that on top of the smaller Combine force a much easier prospect to total up, and account for. "Robinson wants to set us up with a merc liaison they say they have something in the works to tied us over, but we need to address our ASF issue, and we need at least another Union."

"What are they offering?" She asked

"Tied over is a nine weeks cadre course out of the Battle Academy," He pushed over a set of files that had come with, "According to Robinson the 19th did a number on Robinson graduates over their raids the last several months, they're bringing in a mix of graduates and incoming students." He paused, "I haven't had a chance to talk to Septim," Who was still on Elidere IV, "But Ford, and Pasha have independently stated they suspect something bigger is in the works."
--
The Chalice of Herne was only brought out of its vault for important, paramount even events. The annointing of the duke upon his coronation with sacred unguents, ashes and offered a cup of wine from the chalice were a huge ceremony normally, and was in living memory the only time the Chalice had been taken from the star league venerating cathedral within the capital of Ander's Moon.

Gene had never really been a wine guy anyway, but swallowed it down, and accepted the ashen attempt of a starburst on his brow as the ceremony required. "What is it?" Ford asked as they finally got through a long hall and into the reception area.

The Chalice, which bore the name Herne, "Do you know what the Martial Olympiad was?"

"Yes, of course."

"Its the first place cup for individual duelists," The Olympiad had entailed over a hundred events and entailed both ground and air unit participation, as well as the Fleet, "If you look at it, it says, Mars, and the dates 268 something. The last digit was too well worn to be sure, and even the others were nearly as worn as the jewel encrusted trophy cup had lost some of its luster. The relic had allegedly been recovered from a vault somewhere, and more importantly bore a pristine Cameron starburst on its face. "They moved the games off Mars for whatever reason to a planet called Outreach," He laughed, "I have copies of Kenyon Marik's court martial proceedings, it mentions Outreach, one of his conduct unbecoming officer involved events at the Olympiad, I gather he and his staff got drunk, crashed an air car," Some kind of fratboy competition with with one of the royal regiments present... and none of the Terran troops had got court martialed naturally, but really it was only one in a long stream of incidents of back and forth that seemed to involve Kerensky and Marik and their respective political backers. The whole thing, regardless of the facts, smelled like political griefing... Someone had gone through tremendous effort to document Kenyon Marik's clowning around. "Got into a brawl, its embarrassing egg on the face stuff." But not nearly the getting drunk in the Star League Council Chambers and causing a ruckus there... like some people who could be named.

That thought just, to him anyway, underscored ... how fucking sureal these people's veneration of the League was. Seeming to catch his mental drift Ford quirked an eyebrow, "I suppose you probably think of the Hegemony or the League as well as we think of the Federated Suns."

"There has to be a government, anarchy only lasts until the first group of guys with sticks knock enough heads to be acknowledged as in charge. Certainly you can do worse than the Davions." He signaled he was getting a drink and walked over to the bar.

He took the local's attempt at an oak lily and glanced to Sutton, who was looking probably more out of place than he was, "What are they not letting you drink?" He asked the dervish pilot looking at the ginger ale he was holding.

"Uh, I never expected to be knighted... I mean maybe in the future, but I haven't even started the academy yet."

"What's this then?" Bard asked, "Corrupting the youth?"

Gene sipped his drink, "No, its his choice not to drink. As long as he has the option, you can pull the trigger, you can drink."

"Here here." The Ranger raised his stout. "I appreciate the offer of the ride, but I have a DropShip that will be taking Sutton and I to Robinson, but since," he shrugged, "we'll be happy to take a docking collar if you can spare one. The School will reimburse you for the lift, Sutton and a couple other cadets will be aboard." Bard elbowed Sutton, "Drink up you won't be able to drink with us while your our pupils."

"Huh, what?"

"You didn't hear, Lord Aaron has hired the battalion to run a training cadre it will be your first term at the academy."

Technically speaking Gene hadn't actually signed on the dotted line, but he supposed that really was a formality. Ford was shipping to Bristol after going over the IE personnel at Robinson, and apparently they had some other dig. "I have some lesson plans from my last cadre duty," He doubted the FedSuns would have any interest in the Six unit model, but the SLDF would likely be just as useful, "Truthfully Robinson is a good place to start hiring until I can get to Northwind."

"You'll have no shortage of volunteers the 19th Galedon plundered from here to Errai, I know they hit McGhee and Kesai IV. You'll never need to buy a drink in the Draconis March as long you live," That might be something to mention to Septim who had been absent this bit of festivities, though he'd be present for when they went and presumably endured a similar one on Elidere with the rule duke of House Makios.
--
"I'm sorry I missed your speech boss."

"It was a good speech boss." Chang added.

Gene looked at the rain beating the windows of Elidere IV, "I gave credit where credit was due. The duke of Vandenberg did the smart thing by putting his infantry where they could harass and make the combine's life miserable to buy as much time as he could to get his civilians out of that." Apparently Lord Vandenburg had evacuated his civilians as the fighting had neared the castle into the miles long tunnels underneath the fortress that would have protected them, and gotten to safety if the combine had managed to breach those defenses. That hadn't been necessary, but it demonstrated forward planning for the worst if... there hadn't been someone to show up and draw the combine main force off into a long delaying action.

It also said a lot that Makios had been unwilling to leave his capital even if he had had less confidence in the ability of infantry to do anything meaningful to delay BattleMechs.

The tri vid projection changed as the ComStar news service tuned in from New Avalon where Precentor Hudrin Vandal appeared. In their room Precentor Killos and the MRB liaison on the planet entered just as Vandal started giving the combine a tongue lashing, and Killos nodded with supreme concentrated smugness. "We need more of that. The combine has a long history of acting like they're above reproach." He declared.
--
Notes: It is Friday, this is an early update there will probably be a smaller update on Sunday. There are some minor timeline issues I'm probably going to fudge. My saturday gaming group has input that the time frame issue of I Davion runs into similar problems to II Luxen... and also Ardan Sortek 's stuff needed to be changed, which just reminds me of the whole doppelganger plot.

To clarify on the JumpShip thing I mean that the inviobility of JumpShips generally applies to those belonging to the successor house or other legitimate entities.

So a (B) section will go up Sunday most likely. It will be shorter than this fifteen hundred probably, and I may be doing revisions to Davion I . [By which I mean I Davion as a whole chapter of ~30 thousand words]

Imperator Pax · Mar 13, 2022

Part 4
(B)

Elidere IV
"These are retainer contracts, similar to the ones you signed before shipping off to Ander's Moon," The MRB liaison declared, not necessarily comfortable with the way his boss seemed to be hovering to make sure the MRB liaison didn't screw things up somehow. "The real contracts for the cadre training, and any other contracts with House Sandoval or the Federated Suns will be handled on Robinson." With another awkward glance to his superior the MRB liasion bit his lip, "I do want to clarify, MRB records document that you have detached-"

Saving the man some time, "We've got two mechwarriors in the Magistracy, in the rimward periphery running a small security gig for Majesty Metals. Its long duration, but they only wanted a couple of reliable mechwarriors to protect a mining site. We were coming in to run the I.E. Security contracting with plans to make purchases in the Inner Sphere."

"Right. Well detached commands, and units are nothing unusual. The realities of the succession wars, just so that we have the paperwork in order, so Robinson doesn't create any confusion."

Precentor Killos's face gave a twitch of impatience, "Get on with it Paul." and from his tone, and the presence Killos must have felt he needed to be present despite, well Gene was willing to bet money that most likely Precentor Elidere never interacted with the MRB on a regular basis... and had probably sharply changed that habit over the last couple weeks.

Another throat clearing, "Well, so this," he flipped through three sheets, "Outlines the transport of students, and other personnel aboard an AFFS dropship, via JumpShip to Robinson, it includes JumpShip fees, docking, accommodations, all the food, room and board. All standard, this is boiler plate." Not what Killos necessarily wanted to hear, but it was true. This was barely any different to space lift contracts that Friar Tuck had drawn up back on Luxen. The rates were higher per DropShip but that might have been market driven, and there was probably more demand for Docking Collars right now.

Whatever the case nothing here was anything unusual. It would be a simple matter of talking to Pasha and having him allocate a dropcollar to either Colorado, or Lebanon.

The second batch of papers were final clearing out of the original I.E. Contract. The other half of payment, and of course the hazard pay for actually deploying into combat. The transport and berthing fees for Abner's Atlas to Ford included, and were already signed off on by a Lyran backed banking institution out of New Kyoto. "I'll pass this to Pasha, and let him handle cargo, and settling," The Lebanon's captain was the senior of the two squids, and better to leave JumpShip, and Dropship allocations to them. "Whats this one?"

"Finder's fee, and legislation from the Federated Suns." Paul clarified, "That Duchy of Elidere," He flipped two pages, and highlighted the section of the paper's start, "The Draconis Marcher lord on Robinson," started the tail end of the three, "and the office of the first prince. Mr Ford, representing Interstellar Expedition, says that there might salvage in the ocean according to filing, but given the state of martial law its unlikely further archaeological ventures will be permitted through the year."

The details of the find were... well it made him queasy in other ways. Disclosing the 63rd Mechanized Infantry Division depot would end the rumors about what had happened to it, and it did make a certain amount of sense that every level of the Fed Suns would want a piece of what was found. That was admitting to finding regular army equipment.

"There is one other matter."

"Yes?"

"it is normally customary," Oh boy, that was never a good sign, "To allow captured mechwarriors to ransom themselves. Family mechs are generally offered to be ransomed back to their houses, most of the defeated mechs belong to the Combine proper."

Killos grimaced, but Gene stopped him, "Is the Atlas a family mech? Samsonov's mech, I was considering keeping that one," The duke had expressed an issue in buying its salvage shares out, nothing quite said tweaking the invader's nose like taking their equipment. "Major Hashiba's Stalker?"

There was a pause, "The Stalker is a family mech, are you willing to remit an offer to ransom it back,"

"If they don't bite led the davions know its available." House Vandenburg wanted the battalion commander's mech. "I've got a catapult I need to rebuild as it is, and I need to train Mechwarriors for the unit anyway." ... as soon as he said it he regretted adding that remark to the official record, because it was probably going into a file somewhere.

--
The massive siege doors opened, to admit the forty odd vehicles returning to the bays, "Holy shit." A labyrinthe of gantries, and ramps, elevators set into polygonal cubbyholes. "This is huge."

Tristan's ghostly voice chuckled, "This is but an outpost, Captain Alexander."

"A castle Brian is intended to be able to service whole brigades." They were here to reintern the drones on Elidere. ... apparently Tristans machinery could fabricate spare parts, and ammunition.... admittedly Gauss rifle ammunition was pretty simply, but there were limits to other things. To the best of their knowledge the circle of who knew about the Outpost Dumnonia. Tristan has specifically invalidated, two centuries earlier units planning to desert with Kerensky, a list which had only expanded thanks to IE's much more complete list of units that had gone onto the Exodus.

"You have the updated list?" Gene asked.

"I do."

"Revoke." He intoned.... and with that single command all SLDF units known to have survived the dissolution of the Star League and had either remained on Terra, or had joined a successor state ... or gone mercenary wouldn't have valid access credentials. Tristan believed he could repair most of the damaged systems and lock everything down. Anyone attempting access would need Hegemony Intelligence Credentials... and hopefully he was just being paranoid about anyone trying... and Tristan was capable of hearing out an argument... so if someone did come out of a stasis pod... well that'd been different. "I'll be back in a couple minutes."

"Yeah, we'll stay here, and not touch any thing." Septim replied still treating the whole base like was some haunted tomb.

CID's Annex was one part communications bunker... but frankly that was somewhat less useful without an HPG connection. Star League Comm Network, the HPG network that was in the contemporary era operated by ComStar as a successor to the Ministry of Communications had been part of the Mother Doctrine designed to maximize the influence, and soft power of the Terran Hegemony. As part of the Hegemony Nuclear options destruction of the HPG network in part or in full could be triggered either by officers of the Central Intelligence Division, or the highest echelons of the ministry of communication. Unfortunately those capable of issuing those orders had all be killed in much of the early decapitation strikes against the Hegemony during the coup, in no small part to orders from Richard Cameron, and signed by Kerensky to allow Rim World troops into Hegemony facilities, like the castles on New Dallas, and elsewhere.

"Commander?"

Gene placed the BattleRom into the projector, "Start analysis."

The clip played, "This is most unusual."

"I've run the warbook for what they call the Imp," and nothing turned up, "2 PPCs, LRM 15, five Meds," Medium Lasers, "But the other hundred tonner is an Annihilator," A downteched version but that actually raised more questions than it answered.

"Which entered prototyping just before Operation Liberation. Entering production in 2779 shortly after the Liberation of Terra. It would have carried LBX 10, and a suite of pulse lasers." The AI replied.

... and as far as the Inner Sphere had been concerned a decade prior with when five pristine regiments of BattleMechs had shown they hadn't even known what they were. The Imp was certainly a product of design doctrines and trends... Kerensky, it made sense. "Given the state of their battle mechs and their Hephaestus station, and the likelihood that it is a black box manufacturing center, Wolfs Dragoons are -"

"The descendants of Kerensky's deserters, I have pulled their officer files, a Kerensky, N. Commands this newly formed Black Widow Company," Kerensky as a name was circumstantial evidence at best, "I would need a genetic sample to confirm."

Gene doubted he'd be able to get one of those, "Options, and recommendations? Speculation." He added.

"Their appearance in 3005 is, anomalous. Their equipment and general bearing highly suspicious, the implication from that disposition is that they had no current Intel, or very limited intelligence on the Inner Sphere. The Exodus Route as Doctor Abner refers to it terminates on the now abandoned world of Gutara. They could have continued coreward of the Caliban Nebula, there were estimations from the League satellite based telescopic network, observations suggested that there might life sustaining worlds beyond it, but given the distance no attempts to confirm were mounted prior to the Coup." A pause, "Apologies Commander, I have insufficient information to provide effective advice on these Wolfs Dragoons."

Well it had been worth a shot to ask. That left really only the last matter, handing the AI the incomplete details of what they knew.. The combine had just lost one of its sixty something mech regiments, or about roughly 1.5 % of its overall Mech Regiment strength. In other arms that would have been less in away of an expense, but where as combat vehicles like tanks and IFVs could be produced like way back in the 20th century the venerable internal combustion engine the realities of density and energy weapons meant fusion engines were part of the factored in expense of BattleMechs.

"If these numbers are accurate," That was the AFFS having nearly eighty mech regiments, not including mercs, or other irregular forces, "I would consider it highly likely that a Federated Suns offensive would be launched. The most obvious strategically sensible motion, would be across frontage or against specific high value worlds."

.... The Terran Corridor.

But that was for the FedSuns. Loosing an entire mech regiment to a world might vrey well be enough of a slap to the combine's ego that they felt the need to retaliate... and that made Elidere a very likely target. Especially with the expected disclosure of finding the 63rd's depot. "Recommendations for defense of the planet?"

"The 63rd Mechanized Infantry Division Depot's self destruct mechanism should be intact-"

"No,"

"The remaining stocks could be stripped from the facility before-"

"Tristan the self destruct on that facility is a megaton scale nuke," He replied, "Even if the Combine drops a whole fresh regiment of," For example, "Sword of Light a nuclear strike could potential convince both sides to start throwing cans of instant sunshine around."

Unlike in the case of a Castle the... detonation of the base's self destruct would be significantly more obvious as a nuke going off. Some of DOME castle designs barely gave any indication outside of the immediate local area if destroyed intentionally, they just folded in as the structural supports blew out, "Stripping the facility should be a priority, relocating material offworld would significantly devalue the facility. Potentially creating propaganda material demonstrating the facility was empty, or being repurposed might reduce value of a strike sufficiently enough that one might not be mounted."

It was better than a nuke exploding up through a mass of carboniferous limestone, and causing who knew what ecological damage, "There is one other thing, I need to log an update. 131st Division, Query JumpShip losses bearing supply," He uploaded the picture of the Cairo, from the Sam Houston's database, "Cause of lose unspecified Combine sabotage."

"Logged." A pause, "Date of recovery?"

"... officially it was recovered recently. It has been put back into service as a JumpShip." The Azami had found it misjumped into a dead system in Combine space but actual recovery operations had probably only begun during Hurgai Kurita's reign, when Pasha had been a boy. It taken decades to be sure the JumpShip was ready, and apparently had only reentered service before the present coordinator had come to power.

"JumpShip and DropShip cargo manifests?"

He confirmed the print order, "There were likely other 'accidents' that were not accidents. Flag any MisJumps to the Draconis Combine assigned units."

"If I may make a recommendation, it would be possible with CID command codes to override the HPG network, and broadcast the meeting between Kurita, and Amaris across the Inner Sphere."

"Comstar claims that the modern network has degraded from its SLCOMNET Capability."

"That is," Tristan paused to run calculations, "Quite likely, given the resources required, and the decline in number of HPG stations. It is also likely an override, has a statistical probability of burning out the cores of already damaged stations... but that should be an acceptable loss."

--
Notes: Alright this is (B), an addendum of sorts, so as some people are aware there is a separate Luxen II thread basically going back to flesh out some of that part of the story. That's a sidestory it doesn't really effect my update schedule, unfortunately there are other things that effect that unrelated to the story itself. However, parts 5 and 6 should still go up on time.

... and daylights savings time this weekend, fuck. Anyway, this touches on some other things.

As an aside what might happen is I may, for organizational sake redeisgnate this something like Elidere Contract Conclusion, but this mostly foreshadowing throw out to things outlined for much later.

Imperator Pax · Mar 20, 2022

Davion Travel time interlude
#1

Hoff, Zenith Jump Point.
Summer 3017
Lebanon's crews were currently running a safety stand down in preparation to deploy the jump sail and begin recharge of the capacitors that allowed the K-F drive to 'Jump'. Ford's DropShip had finished separation and was, the drive fired as it reached safe distance and started its trip towards the planet. "Do you know what he's going for?"

"I don't." He replied to Pasha's question. Ford had said he'd find his own way back with his personnel at the last minute. I.E. had paid for the contract as if they were going with the whole crew, and Ford hadn't asked for a refund or anything, he was just leaving with the dig crew. "He told us to go on without him, can you find another DropShip looking to go to Robinson?"

The captain sipped his tea, "Probably so, " It was clear the old captain wasn't happy with Ford's abrupt detour with most of the IE personnel but he accepted there was nothing to do about it and especially not with Ford's dropship burning towards the planet. "I was under the impression their destination was on Bristol.."

"So was I." Gene said sitting down, they still had Abner and maybe a quarter of the other I.E. People in another civilian DropShip. The Professor still intended to go for Bristol, or so he had said, "Have there been any other developments?" He said hedging to the real matter.

He gave a heavy sigh, "but that isn't what I wanted to talk about," There was a printout from a K series Fax Machine on the table. Pasha had expressed his disappointment after he'd been debriefed... after they had all debriefed about their respective commands' adventures... not getting to see the outpost, "Our friends in Rasalhague have been apprised of the victory at Elidere."

He raised an eyebrow, and looked at the printout, "There are limits to those things, so I assume they're using the HPG network." and never mind that people probably would gossip, that meant a dispersal of the news that could increase significantly as it spread. "Leaving aside, how, what is probably the more important question to ask... What does that mean?"

"The present coordinator is a tactically astute leader, if one prone to suspicion, and mistrust, I expect we will see a wave of repression as the realization mounts." The loss of a Mech Regiment on the Davion border might have been better planned for if the Combine had been launching some sort of direct offensive, Samsonov leading his unit into destruction on what should have been a typical raid... wasn't, "The community of elders believe that we should prepare to make another exodus to the periphery, before it becomes too late."

He paused, "What about the Azami who stay behind, that paints a target on their back if Takashi," and defaulting to using the Coordinator's given name casually wasn't the best habit, or necessarily polite, "starts purging people, even if he starts in Rasalhague."

"This is known, we will exercise caution, but we hope to be ready to depart Al-Nair by the pilgrimage season."

Gene gave him a blank look, "Get me a time table, and some idea of what to expect," Al Nair wasn't exactly a Terran corridor planet but it wasn't out of the realm of possibility that the Fed Suns might attack it.

"Its precisely that, we are counting on a Federated Suns Invasion, the present coordinator's paranoia is not misplaced, many have attempted to take his life within the combine, and with the recording of his ancestor's betrayal and memories of Kentares remain strong on both side of the border." He put the tea cup down, "If we are lucky then we can convince many to uproot themselves from their homes before the storm comes... but I expect many will wish to remain. Our friends in Rasalhague have pointedly refused to abandon their worlds, still dreaming of independence... but I fear they'd end up as nothing but a buffer state between two successor states... condemned to be ablative armor between the Lyrans and the Combine."

"Its twenty jumps to the periphery from periphery easy, that's not even counting the trek out." and with a pointed pause, "I was under the impression you wanted to maintain secrecy."

"There is a point where the risk of atrocity outweighs the long term need for discretion, it is very likely that this will draw attention from others besides the Dragon. There is another matter, besides... if our families were not under threat from the dragon's servants, there are an abundance of young warriors who would then be free to fight under banner of freedom... and given Elidere the Dragon is unlikely to forget its defeat."
--
There wasn't all that much to do during JumpShip transit. Jump, wait for sail to charge, Jump, repeat until you to where you were going and could detach the DropShip from the JumpShips and then it was more waiting as it usually took a couple days to make it to the planet you were going to do, but it was still different. Right now different would have been nice, he could have done with different he really hoped that Pasha wasn't talking about ... about what? The Rasalhague, and Azami planets in the combine kicking off a full scale rebellion? It didn't sound like it, and he wasn't sure how wide spread the tape of the deal with the devil had gotten. They obviously hadn't done what Tristan wanted done, and blasted it all over public space... but if the AI had wanted to do that to maximize the disruption it caused to Combine status in the short term... how long before someone tried that without the technical systems necessary... and what would the response of that be from the other successor states.

He finished stretching and glanced sideways. "So what is ford doing?"

"He thinks he might be able to dig something up," Abner replied, "I really thought it would be better to wait, but he is bound and determined."

Dig up what was the question, Abner's response had been somewhat evasive, "I thought you were going to Bristol to dig?"

An exasperated sigh, "Yes," The doctor shook his head, "I believe Bristol is more likely to yield real results than here, but and I've told him as such... but he is bound and determined.... and he has a point Hanse Davion is a nice young man, but when he makes a decision, well he's going to want 'those stars in his hand'. So I suspect we will see a very impressive declaration, or attack if not this year, than next."

"This is about good will from the first prince?"

"That's one way of looking at it, bluntly Mr Ford should not have any trouble finding you work in the Federated Suns if we're somehow wrong about an invasion of the combine," He paused a moment, blew out a breath, "but well, I would say now would be a good time to start making big investments." Abner paused, "If I might, your reluctance to settle in, in any successor states makes sense, especially given what we know of House Kurita's behavior, and the Mariks hardly cover, none of the Great Houses covered themselves in glory after the downfall of the Star League... but a permanent base of operations in the Inner Sphere would probably be something to plan for. This is not is not the Star League, where rebuilding a Mech Regiment can simply be done by fishing out spares from some depot and furnishing newly graduated pilots."

Gene nodded to the old man's advice, "If Sandoval is willing to sign off on it, I'm going to grab whatever whoever I can hire, whatever DropShips and crew I can, and run an abbreviated SLDF MechWarrior course."

"Is that what you were doing with Tristan?"

"What, oh no," The AI had actually made him sit through, "I ran the staff officer's paper exam, and the brigade level tactical operations course." Both were like six hour two part exams, "The course work is Regular Army, Robinson will have simulators."

"Yes, House Sandoval had invested quite heavily in the battle academy, I daresay its a very Lyran thing to do," Abner replied with a shrug, "But what will you do then?"

"Run everyone at all level of skills through the same, run debriefs on who did what why, and discourse on what informed those decisions." The bigger problem was the question of how to run armor in that scenario, Robison apparently has infantry and armor schools, but I don't know how much support for non battleMech arms will be provided." The use of drones had been a key part in their victory, but drones by themselves hadn't been the exclusive. "High mobility and stand off capability is critical to a maneuver environment," It wouldn't work in an urban situation, not in built up urban fighting... and that did still happen in the succession wars. He shook his head, "It'll really depend on what it is that Robinson wants out of this."

"What do you think?"

"I think they want to know if it can be replicated, and to distribute as much experience as possible, either into local training and doctrine, or at a federal level ahead of a major offensive."

"Do you know very much about the current First Prince, about Hanse Davion?"

"I know he's the reason Bard kept making fox jokes."

"Let me tell you about Ian Davion, the Prince's brother, and his predecessor."
--
Notes: This is an interlude and basically a we're travelling across the sea SPACE, FtL hops take time in BT.
And in Whoops divergence from the timeline even though its non canon, well we'll talk about that when Yvvone shows up next chapter.

Imperator Pax · Mar 21, 2022

I Davion Part 5
(Segment A)

July 3017
Robinson
The Sam Houston had touched down, it had been a month since they had departed Elidere IV, and he was glad to be off the JumpShip, and setting foot on Terra Firma, even if Baffins hadn't landed yet. "Good afternoon," The fifty something year old woman with the entourage remarked in a cordial if still commanding tone.

"Ma'am."

"You are Colonel Shepherd." It wasn't really a question, there was no question the woman in the tailored conservative long jacket, and pantsuit.

"I am."

She glanced once at the pinned eagles on his collar, "I am Field Marshal, Yvonne Davion," the newly identified flag officer gave a polite English smile and turned, "This," She indicated a pretty young mocha skinned woman in court finery, "Is her ladyship the countess of Kestral, Lady Alexandria will be your official liaison with the Federated Suns for as long as you're with us."

Gene got the feeling either something had happened, or that the nine week training gig Robinson had suggested was a little more than that. A feeling that mounted as the staff car, and procession left the star port of the planetary capital in silence. The ride took the better part of an hour, and did eventually bring them to the ducal palace where the duke waited. Even in a wheel chair the duke was a formidable looking man with a still largely unlined face, and whose biceps would have looked more natural on a twenty something marine non com than the ruler of a planet, and certainly not one now in his later fifties. "Welcome to Robinson, Colonel." The duke's handshake reflected the size of his muscles, firm, though not attempting to crush his.

"Thank you, your grace." Gene replied, wondering if he shouldn't have double checked to make sure that was the correct way to refer to a duke of the Federated Suns. The duke wheeled his chair around and gave them a tour through the halls, with a narrated history of his realm, and its relationship with the Combine. The Draconis March was to anyone present, from the duke's perspective the single most important front of the succession war, and protecting it against draconic predation, and the infinite avarice and wrothful pride of the gluttonous coordinators had provided them with the opportunity to strike back.

All of that rhetoric aside, and while it was clear that this wasn't just hot air from the pulpit, it was clear that the duke wasn't just saying this for them. The field marshal's presence was probably not something he'd counted on.. and if Abner hadn't explained the present royal house and significance of the Prince's Champion Gene wasn't sure he would have recognized it immediately. Sandoval must have reached some kind of agreement with the First Prince, and the broader AFFS , but whatever it was they weren't going to tell him yet.

After a good twenty minutes of walking through the ornate halls of Castle Sandoval they reached a massive hall two floors down from where they had started with guardsmen protecting the door, and inside was obviously some kind of strategic map room, and command center... probably the duke's lair on any ordinary day, or at least when he wasn't holding court.

The doors closed and locked behind them leaving them in a cavernous, if well lit, room built to seat probably hundreds of people, that felt empty with a retinue of merely twenty or so, most silent aids, or batmen waiting for fetch and carry assignments. Yvonne Davion spared a querying look to the duke, who bobbed his head.

"Well, its certainly true events on Elidere provide us an opportunity that we never considered having." She admitted, "And the First Prince does absolutely consider it necessary to capitalize on it. General Samsonov had spent the last year and a half raiding the border, and while he never had any astounding successes he won more than he lost and out performed other combine raiders. His successes against several units had already underscored an interest in study," Which was the ultimate reason why the field marshal had been 'in the neighborhood'. Units that originally the duke had wanted pulled back to learn, were being pulled back ... well to learn, but also to refit and rearm in the face of a planned Davion offensive over the border.

"its not false pretenses. The official contract will involve a teaching position," Cadre duty, "At the battle academy full lodgings and technical support will be made available at Tiberias. Completely discretion to run the course with whatever resources you need," Within reason of course went unsaid, there were always limits, but the Duke's delivery had the energy of a waterfall, excited at the prospect of what might come of it, "However its preparation for the real work."

"In September you will leave for New Avalon," Yvonne cut in, "A meeting with the first prince, the Davion Guards, and the Eridani Light Horse. The objectives will be outlined there and we will begin final prepositioning for the offensive next spring."

The duke if he objected to being interrupted didn't show it, "We intend to bleed the Combine, ideally we will be able to cut them off entirely from the Terran Corridor, in order to bring that about I am prepared to offer any assistance. Your unit will have access to the Academy's personnel, access to staff, students graduates, the industry of the entire march in order to prepare the brigade for action. Hire who you need to, purchase what needs to be purchased, make whatever preparations you need to."
--
Robinson was functionally a second earth in many ways, a lesson made all the clearer by the ride back from the Ducal Palace to meet with the rest of the unit. Significant efforts had been made by terran colonists in the early centuries to settle the planet and spread terran animals and fauna across the surface, and they had thrived. As a result Robison was a jewel of a world... and even if it had been a harsher existence it still made sense that the Duke would want to protect his home.

The official offensive was to be considered secret information. Until the brigade, as they were being called, was stood up and ready they weren't going to be told the official target even assuming that decision had been made... but they were going to attack somewhere over the border, and in Sandoval's mind they should be attack a lot of somewheres.

"So that's the situation." He finished. They were not actually getting a land hold... the duke probably wanted them to permanently settle somewhere on Robinson, but there were politics involved, well beyond the Draconis March. The Duke, and Field Marshal Davion had had some heated words over the Capellan March that Gene had only caught bits and pieces of , but on top of that the First Prince was probably at some level looking to avenge his brother and the previous First Prince by militarily crushing the combine with an offensive that he could put his name to. "this will not be like on Luxen most of these students have experience in mechs," and with that in mind he was hoping that they would be able to spend the bare minimum on basic mech operations, unless there was some egregious error. "But there is the issue of politics all the same. The Duke of Rio's son is here, and his father has insisted to Lord Aaron that junior be given the opportunity to trial for a position with the brigade." ... and to say that Gene was not thrilled about that particular missive was... well an understatement. "I haven't met him yet, but chances are we're going to get a lot of people all around trying to showoff... and I doubt Lord Castro is going to be the last noble who wants us to give their boy a shot. We are going to disperse paper work first and foremost on Mech weight, we will go to mech roles later."

"What about a DropShip?" Septim asked, "I heard something about a dropship?"

"Yes, Lord Sandoval is giving us an Overlord that has been in his family since the 1st Succession war. It officially in recognition for services to the Draconis March," And he'd be damned if he didn't have the Maguanac tecs go over that with a fine toothed comb, "Its called the Hidalgo," which was ... could made to work with his preference for naming Ships, even if one of the duke's ancestors had literally named it after his childhood horse... "it was built by Boeing Interstellar," what was now Federated Boeing. "I'm told its been some what modified, and is in good condition. The idea is to use it punish the combine..." For Great Justice... Lord Sandoval's son was... very dramatic, more so than his father was, but it probably did run in the family. Which meant that they had one dropship slot out of their twelve... well inside Baffins, and Sam Houston... so really it was one more dropship out of their twelve filled. "The duke is going to be making a public ceremony... holiday out of it to commemorate the defeat of the Galedonians on Elidere." He glanced at the clock, "That will be Friday... which probably be a problem for like seventy percent of the company. "If you need something dress wear, that isn't a uniform, I would suggest going after we finish. It doesn't have to be bespoke, but tailors, and some hemming wouldn't be out of line. Moving back, an emphasis is going to be on Medium and Heavy Mech use, Bubbles we're rebuilding the Atlas still, and by preference I'd rather you handle any assault course operations." The Stalker they had had to leave on Elidere, which in hindsight he somewhat regretted... but maybe Lord Vandenburg would be happy.... or maybe he'd end up breaking it again if it ended up with one of Hashiba's relatives.
--
With his own MechWarriors sent off to handle their own affairs That left him to return to meet up the Field Marshal and the Lady... the duke had a march to run after all. "Just so that you understand that House Davion's concerns are for the entire Federated Sun's safety." Yvonne remarked in a clipped tone.

The Prince's Champion dominated the Davion side of the discussion, which somewhat flew in the face of the introduction at the Star port this morning. It had only been ten hours since then so maybe it was that the Field Marshal knew she had somewhere else to be.

"To start with from an operational standpoint, killing Samsonov prevented the reinforcing 3rd battalion from coordinating with the remnants of first. Fighting 2/19," 2nd Battalion, 19th Galedon Regulars, "Was for the majority of the engagement fought Combine terms as individual mech duels it was only on the realization of in bound davion reinforcements that that was breached by first a lance leader and then the surviving unengaged company commander. All three battalion engagements involved combined arms of BattleMechs, Tanks, Artillery and other combat vehicles." He caught the skeptical looks from various Davion officers who's only real purpose seemed to be to sit in the chairs down the table and look stoic.

Yvonne nodded, "I've reviewed the battlefield reports. Artillery in particular was used to suppress enemy forces and disrupt the coordination between enemy mechs," Particularly in dealing with light and heavy mechs with significantly different overland speeds, "and significant effort was employed using harassing units to prevent the enemy from regaining their initiative. Most of the actual kills were conducted by a handful of MechWarriors."

"That's an accurate summation." It felt like a concession. There had been combine mechs destroyed by vehicle kills, both manned tanks, and drones, "And if you're looking for MechWarrior preparation focused on direct engagement, thats feasible. The operational art involved at Elidere was fundamentally a combined arms one, it was that combined arms which kept causalities low." He stopped himself, before he turned that into a winding justification about how low unit casualties improved sustainment in the field... there wasn't a point in trying to go into that.

"But you can replicate these kinds of operations?"

Don't exaggerate, don't elaborate... don't bore them with the details. "Yes." The explicit question had not after all been can you kill another combine regiment, it had been can you run the operation... and at a battalion level he had been since they'd come back from Alamut with the Azami in tow... so the answer was yes.

The conversation meandered from there, until it slowly, eventually wrapped around to the matter he had broached with Chang regarding the Atlas. The lack of Assault Mech drivers... and that was where Blackwell Industries of New Valencia came in.
--
Notes: This has been cut roughly in half, we are on Robinson, I'm posting this today (monday), it sets groundwork for some other material, Sunday will be the normal update and carry with Part B.

Onto some other matters: "Whoops there goes the HPG Network" will probably not get its own thread... and I'm not going to pull a With This Ring and have two main timelines running concurrent to one another, but I do want to talk about that.
Spoilers for that.

So Whoops as a story idea diverges roughly speaking in about a year from present in story, the New Kyoto eatery scene and the rest occurs in mid 3018 when in what we shall call the main timeline the plan to return to the Periphery is still being prepared. This is the chapter 'Exodus'.

Now the principle difference that occurs after the broadcast in outline terms is that due to knock on effects we get the FedCom early, now what I mean by that is the Archon (Katrina Steiner) had already been considering the peace proposal that canonically she would send in a year and change (and canonically she had started considering the peace proposal in 3015, but I'd have to go back through some stuff). Regardless, the Combine bluntly goes off the deep end as a result of a combination of the footage directly, the damage to the HPG network, and then the reprisals that start that summer.

[Also the Wolfs Dragoons sign on with the Commonwealth, because the Clanner Reaction to knowledge any great house collaborated with the usurper is probably going to be significantly more magnified than even your average person in BT].

So among other things this cues up introducing Rasalhague earlier in the timeline, which as Pasha mentions gives the Commonwealth a nice buffer state in the middle, the Azami revolt en masse. Teddy ends up Coordinator but also outs ComStar as having been trying to coerce his father (back under Primus Russtein, the guy who Tiepolo replaced, andalso the guy responsible for the Jolly Roger affair). The Combine survives but looses a lot of territory (and unlike in canon BT) would never really get that back. The road is set for the FedCom here earlier than in canon (or in main timeline).

Gene and company largely swap to being full time Davion troops here. The HPG net being much more patchy means JumpShips are even more important, and eventually results in Volgadon's library being brought back from Aquagea and distributed between the two states of the FedCom, plus the Azami and Rasalhague.

Imperator Pax · Mar 27, 2022

I Davion Part 5
(Segment B)

Gene had a shopping list that was metaphorically a mile long. Part of that diversity was more ... well was grounded in the fact that he didn't expect to be able to purchase more of the Tokugawa tanks that the Magunacs had. Then there was the matter of what the FedSuns produced normally, what was on market at present, what could be reasonably be shipped either to here, or to New Avalon. It was a lengthy list... and of course there was the matter of San Saba as a triumph-class could be modified to deploy BattleMechs or ASF if they came to that. With the way the DropShip Market was there were significant aftermarket involvement in addition to people posted what was available in catalogs through, in the case of the Draconis March, march wide.

The shopping list was also effected by another factor. The victory at Elidere by itself, not even accounting for the completion of the 19th's destruction on the sands of Ander's moon, won lots of good will, and the possibility that that sort of victory could be recreated was credit. Political capital was another good description.

Gene tapped the rotate on the projector, one hundred tons, familiar PPCs, Medium lasers, and engine. The Marauder II as had debuted on New Valencia in 3012. In a lot of ways it made sense for the hundred tonner to be a version of the Davion's Marauder version, replacing the persnickety GM Whirlwind with a Magna Mk III Large Laser. It would do. Convincing the New Valencia based corporation to produce more, and to produce an order of vehicles was not something the AFFS saw as any kind of difficulty.

The perceived obvious appeal of the Marauder II with its increase to Assault chassis was not shared by the new and perceived unproven vehicles... "If you're certain they'll help." Which got them to the nuts and bolts of the matter... the contract. There objectives that the Federated Suns as a polity hoped to achieve. All of the Successor States wanted to be top dog, no surprise there. The way you usually graded a cadre contract's success was how well its students performed after, and that usually determined whether or not you rehired the unit, or of if you changed the coursework. For Yvonne Davion that training was minutiae that wasn't her responsibility, "It'll take months in order to purchase them, I don't know if I can assure they'll be available by the time you reach New Avalon."

"I planned to go the Northwind faire," a biannual hiring and networking Convention for all conventional description, "Obviously I won't be able to make this summer, but the one at the start of the year, will I have time for that before the offensive?"

"You should yes. Prepositioning and reallocation of units will take time. We can station you on Northwind to continue training the brigade before hand." Which brought them into the matter, Field Marshal Davion continued, "His grace," The Duke of Robinson, "Is insistent that the Academy cadre participates." Not a surprise this had been talked about. Not in any detail, but Lord Aaron had made it all too clear that the honor of the Draconis March was at stake if they didn't participate in the offensive. "The form that participation will entail remains to be determined, but their success in achieving objectives, and effectiveness against the enemy will be a priority."

He took a sip of the coffee, "I understand." He put the Battle Academy embossed mug back on the faculty table with a clink, "Two months here, are they coming to new Avalon?"

"No, Colonel Cameron will take over the course work, before we begin pre positioning of forces." It would still take three months to get from New Avalon to Northwind.

Gene considered taking another drink, "What happens if the Combine comes over the border in interim. If their response to Elidere is to mount a hastily prepared offensive, will we counterattack as an ersatz force, or -?" He left the comment hang.

Yvonne Davion smiled, sparing a glance to the Countess of Kestrel, "the prospect of an immediate riposte would be dependent on where the attack was launched from. The Eridani Light Horse is presently on Colchester, if the Combine attacks in the Draconis March you will join them for a planned offensive over the border. In such an event you are to destroy whatever DCMS forces as possible, a bounty for any battlemech formations rendered ineffective paid out. Preferably we would like the salvage in order to deny it to the enemy."

--
Among the very earliest acts the Usurper had under taken was the nuclear attack on Mecca soon after his seizure of power It had been one in a litany of atrocities the Satan Amaris, and his despoilers had wreaked upon humanity.

Islam had already been behind most of the other peoples of the book, between the plagues of the 21st century, both literal and metaphorical Yusuf had known his ancestors had had to contend that the majority of the faithful had been among the most loath to leave the earth. The advent of the Kearny-Fuchida drive had sparked some interest and novelty, but it also been an unconscionable expense. The wealthy sunni dominated emirates had invested their sovereign wealth funds to colonize worlds like Rigil Kentaurus, rights granted to them by the western government for their support of the early colonization, but those colonies had only demonstrated the hurdles of conservatives to fulfil the pillars. How exactly did one pray towards the holy city in space, never mind when one was on another planet entirely... for that matter it was much more difficult to maintain the calendar and keep track of the holy days, and travel for the Hajj if one normally lived on another planet.

... and all of those concerns had deterred most conservative Sunnis from straying too far from the bosom of Terra... and that was long before the terrors of the satan Amaris had destroyed the holy cities, and devastated wide swathes of the mother world... and of course the whole Hegemony had suffered under the tyrant's yoke.

Adherents to the doctrines of Sunni Islam remained the majority of the faithful of course, they had started with a much larger population base to begin with, and could be found across the Inner Sphere... and it was true the various sub schools that broadly comprised Shia Islam were also more fractious to begin with. Still, it could easily be said that the Shia adherents, particularly the Azami had been better suited to thrive in the post Exodus of Earth, and weather the conditions of the down fall of the Star League better than most.

"You look bothered." Colonel Shepherd's voice cut through the ward room's silence. Truthfully he had been so distracted that he hadn't even noticed the mechwarrior pad in.

"It is nothing colonel." Which was a blatant transparent lie, and the younger of the two jumpship captains was hasty in trying to change the subject. "Are you particularly religious colonel?"

"Not particularly."

Yusuf nodded, "There are disagreements," which sounded like an understatement, "there always have been there are those who do not wish to leave their homes, and those who believe the correct decision will be to join the Rasalahagians in their struggle openly against the dragon's betrayal, and greed."

Pasha was presently somewhere in the planetary capital negotiating shipping contracts as a follow on to what they had been doing before Elidere had blown up. In the modern age with jumpships being effective inviolable due to... well the first one in particular, but the second as well, that meant taking tea with other JumpShips to gossip over tea. Especially with the way the Davions were now spamming the Elidere IV battle Roms all over the media since they had got in the previous morning ahead of what was looking to be a pretty significant public holiday.

"The federated suns," and Pasha had mentioned this as well, "Have a historical distrust of our people. The long tide of the succession wars, has fueled this on both sides" Yusuf made a gesture, "Us not so much, but I would have concerns how the Suns would react to an Azami free state on their border, or even simply to our dependents, or rather the dependents fleeing the combine, while others fight."

"I wanted to ask about that."

"The unit will be fine, truthfully we have so few Mechwarriors," Bahar, but, "with us that it isn't an issue. Not being required to attend will leave those who wish to attend Friday prayers time to do so, at least aboard ship."

They were interrupted, as the senior tech came through the door, "Ah boss, we're ready to test the ammo we turned out for that auto cannon."
--
Yvonne Davion's job description as Prince's Champion was to manage affairs that the First Prince wasn't available or suited to handle. In a sense she was a gate keeper of sorts. It was her singular most important job, but it wasn't her only job. Even before becoming head of the department of military intelligence's studies section, the ASD, she had recommended combined arms.

There was a difference between making recommendations, and watching, for the umpteenth time, a smaller combined arms force basically murder an entire BattleMech Regiment over the span of a couple of weeks. Even suggesting that such a thing was possible to her professors at Albion would have been enough to have her laughed out of the hall... and yet the facts were what they were.

So she was to analyze and speculate. "In my experience, commanders who manage to accidentally win, tend to bluster about how it was all according to plan, or they're less frequently upfront about it." She replied to the question over whether the whole affair could have been an accident, "And you don't just accidentally dismember entire battalions, with only a handful of your own dead to show for it." The girl, the young woman, across the table paused, "We want to keep them close. We don't know enough to offer them what we would give one of our own, and if there is the possibility that they'll accept citizenship that's hardly something we should miss. The possibility they can inflict further damage on the combine is extraordinarily valuable, and if they can repeat that damage or even to a lesser extent we benefit immensely. If the colonel is being on the level about training troops to fight as they did on Elidere then marrying him into the aristocracy of the Federated Suns should be considered a priority of national interest."

The trivid projection showed the splash of the water as the Atlas fell. The image changed to sensor reads of magnometers from theater wide as fusion engines from the armored regiment laying in wait came on line, and the artillery began to rain. The volume, not quite muted, low allowed the beginnings of the pipes and drums to play. People who blundered their way to victory generally didn't have the time or skill to get in the enemy comm system and interrupt it by signaling their attack across all frequency with a highland march after all.

There was a knock on the door, "Field Marshal," a man in the dress uniform of a captain of the Davion Brigade of Guards' general staff remarked, "The additional ROMs from the MRB, ma'am."

"Thank you Mister Durand that will be all."
--
Note: and as a notation, this is Part B, and it follows on within basically the same twenty four hour period of touch down on Robinson as the previous section. Now what is presently in the process of happening is that I'm dividing and expanding I Davion as a chapter (~32k total present word count) probably into a separate chapter for Dieron (Tentatively titled Fortress Dieron) for the battle and its fall out, while keep Northwind and New Avalon in this, and with Interlude Bristol hopefully being finished and going up some time in April.

Imperator Pax · Apr 3, 2022

I Davion Part 6
(A)

Castle Sandoval's great hall was draped with flags, and pennants and all range of battle honors, some of which Gene was sure predated the Federated Suns and certainly the Star League. That wasn't the issue though, they had managed to get through the parade to the castle, but the previous day's orientation, for lack of a better word, was having knock on effects.

Gene spared a look between the two Davion mech warriors as they bristled at each other. Not a great start. Jason Castro, call sign 'King Wolf'... which Gene was willing to bet money he'd selected himself, was the first born son of the Duke of Rio. His daddy was currently making small talk over hor d'oeuvres with his friend the Duke of Robinson... why exactly Jason had attended RBA and not a school... well somewhere like say Albion... it didn't matter... what did matter was that this didn't spill into brawl in the reception floor. "If either of you hope to see combat against the DCMS ever again you'll stow this away." He hissed.

Monday could not come fast enough. The parade had been ... the same as on Elidere, or Ander's moon... well lacking the SLDF Star League venerating religious bits, but that was something of a relief. The duke, of Robinson's, speech had been similar in tone and character to the one he had made when he'd first arrived, extolling to the public the need for champions to stand against the dragon's tyranny... and so, sharpening swords. The religious aspect had come from the local bishop invoking Saint George. The chief rabbi of armed forces of the Draconis March... who was in uniform... had delivered much less religiously loaded speech after.

"Are you not enjoying yourself?" a feminine voice cut in. The countess of Kestrel normally dressed up, but the deep purple silk accentuated the gold jewelry in the kind of state of wealth and opulence that would have made the Medici, Crassus and the like feel under dressed. Taken with most of the high society attire it was like the Victorian period drama on steroids, cranked to eleven. Of course the reality was that most dress uniforms of known space were largely modelled on the styles of the Great Powers of the late 19th century... and if he were honest that wasn't the worst comparison.

Before he could answer Bard Cameron had taken a forward position on the stadium to speak. In something of a contrast to the previous Marcher Officers Cameron had been present at Elidere, fighting on both worlds. That didn't make his speech any less charged with rhetoric, but provided it with a somewhat different character from those of higher officers. When he was finished Gene wasn't sure whether Bard's speech had gotten enough or received too much applause from a room dominated principally by nobles used to hobb nobbing at each just as they had done for centuries of warfare since the fall of the Star League. There could be no separation of money, and influence either, even if there was some difference between just being rich and being a noble.

He snagged a replacement drink from a passing red jacket. It was better than the champagne that they had started the evening with. "We've been here two day, Lady Alexandria. The Field Marshal wants us off world and enroute in September. It will take us a month and change to reach New Avalon." He had been told that Robinson was one of the less ring knocker institutions, not in those exact words, but that there was an emphasis on learning to fight against the combine here than other institutions that relied more on noble networking schools. He wasn't seeing it. "In order to get anything meaningful done we need to be out in the field... and the last thing I need is some," butter bar, "First lieutenant slugging it out with a cadet anywhere, but certainly not at one of these."
--
The display on his clock ticked from 1101, to 1102 local time.

He buttoned back up in his cockpit. There were ... besides the time constraints other limits to just copying and pasting the SLDF instruction program for MechWarriors. Cutting PT, runs, crunches, and push ups and so on didn't sit well with him. They didn't have a choice though. They didn't have the time for it, even if the RBA had a gym that was second to none.

Rio's Thunderbolt, and he refused to use the lieutenant's declared call sign of king wolf, was standing by on the firing line. Not everyone was adhering to that. There were almost sixty AFFS battlemechs across an area, innocuously designated Scrubland, the size of Salisbury plain in England on old Earth.

Gene reached over and pulled the harness over his shoulder, and then the other latching in, "Alright, as a reminder this a maneuver exercise you want to maintain a safe distance between your lance mates." As Jason Castro had already graduated the RBA and held an active commission in the AFFS he'd been given one of the Lances to command, but nothing higher than that. Given that he was a duke's son that might well prove a problem since there were three provisional units on the field. "this is a maneuver course and ability to navigate terrain both real and simulated. Your weapons are to remain safed except at designated fire zones. On the flare." He couldn't hear the mortar like noise the launcher made as it threw a red strobing beacon into the air but he could see it fine. Bard's handshake pinged. "Battalion Commander," He greeted.

"Should I be referring to you as Regimental Commander then?" The david bowie look alike replied with a brogue drawl.

The truth was it didn't matter, "That depends on whether or not the Field Marshal thinks you should, or not. Colonel is sufficient."

"How about Ghost, its not nearly as long as Phantom, not nearly as pretentious as White Death, and you can call me Bard, it'll be like on Elidere." The Ranger replied.

... yeah the prospect of being outnumbered by an entire mech Brigade sounded lovely, but that wasn't what Bard had meant, "What do you need Bard?"

"I haven't gotten through the entirety of the lesson plan, I admit that, but why three and not four."

"Are you asking why I'm organizing this whole unit as a single Battalion?"

"Well yeah. I guess I am. I mean not everyone will be going, we don't have the lift capacity."

Well, on that, "I expect that that latter could change." It wasn't in stone in any event. Scheduling would probably be the bigger issue, especially given the necessary trip to New Avalon, but DropShips could probably be found. "But the other reason is that the element that remains behind can be used as a continued training unit to reconstitute from. This is already a mix of current students, and graduates," Robinson did have a cadet cadre, but nothing to the insanity of combine's sun zhang's academy cadre. "We have more light and medium mechs than I expected," More Valkyrie and Black Jacks primarily, and fewer Assaults ... though there was an Atlas, an Awesome, a Stalker in addition to a Victor among the AFFS mech.

"That's another thing."

"It is," The JaegerMechs were probably going to be left behind, unless they had an abundance of mech carrier space that they just didn't right now. "I need to know how All of them do in overland navigation before we even consider putting them in the field with tanks."
--

Yvonne Davion had the luxury of observing from the command post. That meant observing without being physically present. "You should be there," She idly chided the countess.

"If I show up in a BattleMech it'll be little more than a distraction." She replied, "And if I wasn't in a battlemech at this stage I would just be in the way."

The duchess clucked her tongue, and bit down a comment that she was glad Rebecca Hasek was already married, "In an ideal situation it will be the Guards who liberate any worlds we take from the Combine, but the damage to them has been done."

Her lady in waiting gave perfectly polite, if perfunctory acknowledgement of the obvious.

"It would be against our interests, or at least not ideal to have the command move along like the Wolfs dragoons did, this isn't the first cadre contract either, there is a unit out in Canopian space which has been giving our periphery observers fits. Given who his friends are its not unlikely his next stop will be the Lyrans, no that's why this is an excellent opportunity to capitalize."

And of course any major victories against the Combine would serve as a political check against House Hasek, and potentially diminish their power in the long run. There was a significant advantage to this campaign, for Hanse's vendetta to avenge the death of both his brother, as well as the losses at Halstead Station by breaking the most belligerent of successor states as a military threat. "We have an opportunity to humiliate the Draconis Combine, and cut them off from the Terran corridor... and the only thing we should truly lament about all of this is that it didn't present itself when we still had the Wolfs Dragoons under contract."

Entire regiments appearing just like that, more than a decade earlier, Whatever their origins the Dragoons had sense proven their bona fides in the field as mercenaries though... and more importantly they were not on the opposing side.

The old woman sighed wistfully, and lamented that it couldn't be helped. "You see Alexandria our young colonel appeared quite out of no where. He shows up in the periphery as a Mercenary with a pristine battlemech, not unlike the dragoons, even apparently at a comparable skill level. No background, no house affiliation, a willingness to make an unsupported orbital insertion against a hostile force of battle proven Combine veterans. That the Magistracy let him slip away from them twice is just absurd." She reached a long bony hand towards the files, "In 2766 as a part of the purge of the Hegemony, and Star League facilities, Stefan Amaris ordered a general purge, to be carried out by any means necessary, of all SLDF and Hegemony military institutions of higher learning. These ranged from very thorough, nuclear attacks on Venus, and mars to nerve gas, along with the somewhat more mundane though still brutal massacres associated with the Gestapo. Faculty students, and caught in the crossfire were the documents and manuals as well. That's why even today even reprints of SLDF manuals continue to fetch premium prices."

That wasn't because they were completely lost. You could still get reprints made, but they were copies often of even basic star league field manuals still three hundred years later being reproduced by major universities, or military academies. There Eridani Light Horse still used those manuals.
--
Notes: This has also been divided in half, as part of the restructuring two parts before the opening of this segment were removed one focusing on Cunningham the day before the gala, and the second an introduction of Jason 'Kingwolf' Castro, the duke of Rio's son. The content of latter is being adopted to be reused in Part B as I restructure the second half of the first Davion chapter. I Davion will most likely resolve itself in the meeting with Hanse Davion on New Avalon now under the revised outline.

Discounting the various interludes that are assigned to this the ~ roughly twelve thousand words will largely confine itself to Robinson's various major factions and those acting on the planet as Part B will largely pick up with the resumption of Bard's conversation as the Marcher Battalion goes through its paces.

Imperator Pax · Apr 10, 2022

I Davion Part 6 (B)

July 3017
Robinson, Draconis March, Federated Suns
Three over strength companies to play with. It was a heady feeling, he had to admit. The prospective battle that awaited, well being on the offensive would be a relief. It almost made up for the hangover this morning had started with, but it was always a thrill to be in the cockpit.

He brought his fifty five tonner around the bend. The fighting on Elidere had been entirely too recent for the school's construction battalion to build mock ups from ply wood and fiberglass of the townships effected by the fighting, but for all practical purposes there was little difference in a frontier town in terms of how civilian buildings effected operations. You either avoided them, or you went through them.

... the Combine had demonstrated at Elidere that it was willing to go through them. It was true that that violated the spirit of the Ares convention, but the Ares Convention had legally been defunct for centuries... and while its spirit had reentered as something of a gentleman's agreement between the great houses after the third succession war had started, it was not legally binding. There were few real penalties for violating most of its strictures.

That was what the potemkin village reminded him of.

The wolverine slowed to a halt, and he pivoted the torso surveying the fake surroundings. Green foliage swayed in the wind, and then from the hills a seventy five ton mech emerged. The Marauder's black box like frame lacked the typical torso mounted Whirlwind, and the gray white paint job of the machine used on Elidere. He'd seen some of the trivid holographic combat footage of the machine in action though, specced out as it was for close quarters brawling.

There were rumors that it had been stripped down and been fighting at reduced capacity until recently, but he didn't know how accurate those were. Certainly the footage from Detroit didn't speak of a mech that had been fighting at a handicap. Whatever the case, there really should have been no way for the Heavy BattleMech to get this close... and yet there it was.

Two more mechs followed with a missile boat bringing up the rear.

"How'd you do that?"

"Terrain masking. There are enough fusion signatures active, and enough debris through the exercise field. This whole plain is a riddled with hematite and other metals. We adjusted for the changes in height and avoided generating any additional heat." The young colonel replied as the Marauder stepped forward. "That and most of your mechs were looking in the wrong direction, any time my Dalban told me you were looking at us, we stopped moving."

It made a certain amount of sense. "God in heaven, you maneuvered an entire armor battalion like that..." Which really was the defining aspect of Elidere as a tactical set piece battle. It was true the mechs had done most of the actual killing, but the Combine had kept getting shot from behind, and by flank seemingly left and right.

... and Bard could remember asking in Jasos city whether they could have carried the day without the planetary militia... and in hindsight... that answer probably was yes. Obviously they had contributed... but two entire snake battalions had died on Elidere's surface... and artillery had smashed most of the Combine's dropships. Hell he'd watched from a safe distance as four hundred LRMs had pummeled a Union as it had attempted to fly.... and he'd only seen the missiles not whatever carriers had been unloading.

The hologram rippled and the colonel's face scrunched, "Stand by,"

Bard resisted the urge toy with his own neurohelmet as they stood at the waypoint. "What's the plan... I mean, there" He drawled, dragging the word out, and clipping the next, "sixty mechs here... and that's not counting, any late comers."

"Or Septim's Merlin being repaired, or the rest of the unit being here." He added with a shrug showing the full length black sleeves.

"Aye, or that. But yeah, we've got more mechs than I expected," Bard shook his head and used his terminal to highlight one of the over strength companies, "His grace is watching... for that matter the Prince's Champion is here. So why run all of these at once?"

"Because most of these people have never tried to maneuver three whole companies of Mechs together, and we can evaluate how they handle that new experience, but more importantly we can acclimate them to being around this many other MechWarriors." Gene leaned back in his harness... "Engendering an espirt de corps doesn't happen over night, and I don't expect it to just appear, but I want the unit to be able to able to work together, and integrate not just as Mechwarriors, but also integrate with our armor and also aviation assets." Aviation assets that were new, truthfully Sam Houston and Baffins had conducted fire missions largely as stationary assets. "I also realize that we're going to be undertaking a lot of training, and that entails a logistical foot print."

"But we could do it," Bard replied as a group of mechs approached from the south east, "Most of these are green pilots."

"Good training creates good habits, and corrects bad ones. So yes, if put in a place where we have to fight the combine forces along the lines of what we saw on Elidere, if we have to fight another Regiment, we'd be in a better position. More importantly if this can be pulled off, whatever happens next year, the graduates of this course will hopefully have a better appreciation of the logistics and combined arms application at a tactical and operational level."
--
"What will you do about him?"

Bard was off with the Duke, and Gene wasn't sure what that meant. That wasn't who Field Marshal Davion was talking about though, "A certain amount of show boating is to be expected," He replied resisting the urge to thumb through Castro's file again... the clock on the wall read seven... a brass ornate thing that would have looked at home in Victorian england. "What do you make of it?" He asked turning the conversation around.

"Lord Jason has bluntly a chip on his shoulder. He's been brought up with no expense spared, told he would be the best... and then on his first real taste of action his entire lance is shot out from under them one by one in a duel, its a wonder he survived the ejection and didn't drown. That didn't help I don't imagine... and then to make things even worse, well." She waved a hand.

"Elidere happens." He replied reaching for the tea cup. The combine had not actually planned to conquer elidere, they had double downed in response to stiffer than expected resistance. The original had originally just been a raid in force.. and if they had impounded the DCA JumpShips they probably would have found the cargo bays stuff with loot from other worlds... "Or ander's," moon, "which I suppose is the root of his problem with Sutton," Who hadn't even been attending the RBA, just accepted, at the time of his duels. "Realistically," Since Rio was basically assured a spot in the line as a lance commander, "I'm going to keep them in separate companies... come Monday morning we're going to start dividing people into skill level courses based on time. We'll integrate AFFS, and Cadets in with mercenaries, but the truth was I needed to see them actually physically walk a mech from place to place, run a course of fire, and maneuver to rendezvous. All of them."

"No one failed." Yvonne noted.

"No one was supposed to." He sipped the tea, "Castro survived contact with the enemy," And clear survivor's guilt aside he hadn't eaten his sidearm, and showed no suicidal tendencies... but his attitude was going to be a problem. "I'm going to be honest, he isn't ready to lead a lance but if you say that's how it has to be I'll work around it."
--
It was almost nine o'clock, and in a way this reminded him of their stint on Luxen. They'd been allocated space at the academy and that included their own hall, dorm space, and the Mechwarrior component were all piled into the a dining facility meant to accommodate more like three hundred people...

Jason Castro still hadn't gotten on message. "So what was the point?"

"The point Mr Castro?" He replied, "IS you're a mechwarrior, being able to fight one on one is all well and good but you're a part of the premier combat arm, not the sole combat arm." Castro was taller than Sutton was, but that might not have meant much. Sutton still had traces of 'baby fat' in his face and Castro lacked some of the meat of his pater familias despite sharing the same high aristocratic cheeks though that expression was somewhat marred by the broken nose on the eighteen year old's face. "And you're not the only mechwarrior, your lance is intended to operate in conjunction with the others of the Company, and Battalion elements, and above that with the broader regiment. Inter operability is essential on the battlefield. Today's exercise was intended to evaluate how well you can maneuver and complete a course of fire under test conditions. You're performance was good... and then you basically screwed that by failing to maintain communications discipline during the last transit exercise moving to the rendezvous"

It would have been one thing if he'd been using the laser comm, those were mostly secure... barring well SLDF tech, and even then that only applied to detection. Castro had decided to carry on a conversation not just within his own unit but with other participants over radio and with encryption.

It was the reason that he'd gotten the call to meet Yvonne Davion once the exercise had concluded with the training battalion assembled at the rendezvous point.

Castro's face was as red as a tomato.

"Not tomorrow, but Monday there will an apparently all too necessary briefing on Operational Security, and Communications Security." Tomorrow would be dominated by debriefing from this course, as everyone was supposed to have filled out after action reports based on how they thought they had done. "This course is going to be two months, and will likely be very different to the usual curriculum. The goal is to prepare the battalion for the Combine's inevitable response to the destruction of the 19th Galedon Regulars at Elidere." Since of course telling them that there was a planned offensive was bad opsec.

--
Notes: You'll note I included the Date, including year, and location part of that is to cement that the Whoops snippet is non canon and its divergence from the main timeline is the following year. This takes place as a continuation of the previous segment.

Part 7 will open up the following monday afternoon with more mercenary administration stuff... also the realities of yeah tech in the Succession wars ain't great. The plan is still to run the usual Sunday updates, but yes First Davion will end in roughly six parts, with probably an interlude for Bristol, and then the New Avalong interlude. So really this should probably be called 'First Robinson' / 'First Draconis March'. Anyway...

AI various: so the Hegemony largely built its AI to reflect 'Hegemony Values, and we willl see this more in Whoops, which while a spin off non canon timeline shares certain factors. As already shown Tristan doesn't look fondly on Kerensky's Exodus, and this isn't unique to him as an AI, Dante similarly is very not happy... though Dante finding out there are still Amaris's alive, and people who support House Amaris and the Rim World cause would be a 'Commander we must break out the nukes.' on the opposite end of the spectrum you have Mother Bear for example who favors reapproachment and embodies the idealized better nature, protect civilization, help civilians rebuild administer good government the positive side of the Star League's work, and she's not the only one.

One minor thing, I have been told that and I'm not sure whether or not I'm going to go by current rules or not, but that you can longer (apparently this changed fucking ages ago) use specialty ammunition out of Streak SRMs. Thats dumb but that is currently the rules in PNP. I'm probably going to ignore that... even though apparently that shit was errated in twenty years ago. I can understand how I missed it though.

The rule change came during the height of FedCom civil war dumbshit, and I played only a bit of tabletop during that period. (This the same time as MechWarrior 4 released, which I still occasionally boot and play) The subsequent dark age stupidity just kept me away from the setting longer.. and didn't come back into association with the Catalyst canon until like... Obama's second term. [Alright that was somewhat ranty]

Imperator Pax · Apr 17, 2022

Davion I
Part 7

Eight hours of work, and he still had Haqim's detailed scrub down of the Hidalgo to get through The Star League V450 was earmarked for a second look, but the Hidalgo's significant find were it still had its Star League era Mech simulators. That was, and wasn't a surprise. As a star league, and they were talking about the peak of the Star Leauge, dedicated mech transport carrying 36 BattleMech it would have been standard practice at the time of Hidalgo's construction.

What the Overlord-class was not, as an assault dropship. Though relatively well armed, pound for pound an argument could be substantiated that the Union was better protected in terms of making planetfall in contested or hostile territory. It was true however that it was better armed than the Triumph. Most likely though any Davion first wave would conducted by Union-class dropships, potentially screened by Assault Dropships to break defending air coverage, or suppress enemy air defense... and if not they'd just drop and go overland from outside local ADZs which from orbital insertion much easier than with conventional air breathing transports.

"But that's approximately the sum of what I can draw up without a specific target, much less without a detailed intelligence packet to work from,"

Yvonne Davion nodded.

The third floor room had the usual faces, and company level officers he simply hadn't had time to really aquaint with. That would change over the next few weeks, but this meeting was really the first to include attached battalion level armor assets from the March.

"No, that's quite sufficient." It had been a mistake to mention the intel issue. They didn't have that at this time. "Beside the intelligence information, is there anything else."

The armor was here, but not infantry, and not ASF, "Realistically holding any kind of ground will require infantry, and contesting hostile airspace integrated ASF level control, being able to run six to twelve asf supporting a company would ideal. Failing that squadron level support at the company level, even if not as air lance configuration would provide some degree of protection."

"You have a number of Rapier Heavy Aerospace Fighters in inventory."

"Yes, I don't have pilots for them."

"We can provide you pilots." The Field Marshall replied. She glanced to the Duke of Robinson, "Lord Aaron believes he can contribute assuming that the Hellcats can be brought back on line." Though they had been considered a second line garrison fighter by the time Amaris, succeeded by increasing proliferation of more advanced aircraft the Hellcat was nearly ideal to the needs of the modern era's logistics situation. "The Combine's preference for duels between leadership is well known, deployment to the surface of a planet is only half the battle. Once on world there are two broad outcomes," Either a conventional battle along combined arms lines, or a battle more like the offer they had made counterattacking on Ander's moon.

That was when Yvonne triggered a playback of the 'arbitration' of the Detroit dispute. It shouldn't have surprised him. In all honesty it probably made sense that that kind of thing would end up in the MRB file... he wondered if the subsequent arbitration was in there. The Combine ... or technically Arisaka he supposed.. paying out in C-Bills for the salvage... getting bled for it.

That... made more sense why the company commanders, and the XOs, were all here though. "The neurohelmet is a piece of technology called mind machine interface, MMI is the bland acronym. Your brain interfaced to a digital system, a computer. You can pilot a mech without it, but a neurohelmet can allow you reaction times by feeding full spectrum data analysis... and even though it sounds like mysticism and hocus pocus there are ways to improve synchronization." He didn't think of anything when it came to be asked for examples, "The combine... well their highest scoring ace was Kerra McAlister, an alias suspected to be one of Urizen Kurita's illegitmate daughters. She's estimated to have killed 12 Gusnlinger graduates, and almost fifty other royal division pilots during the Davion Succession crisis from a Marauder 2R." ... and her mother had probably been either ISF or O5P, but that wasn't relevant to the conversation, "She'd been practicing Kyudo, traditional longbow archery since she was five. I can give you pointers," But just putting a packet together wasn't going to be a cheat sheet...

... and that conversation was how he ended up watching a pick up game on the school grounds. He leaned back against the ball court seats, personally he found cricket to be boring... but then he also gave no shits about baseball either.

"I prefer football." She meant soccer, "You said sports help."

"I don't think this would help." Supposedly boxing did... well for Mechs like the... well a south paw in an awesome was supposedly even more scary than a regular Awesome. "Regardless of what Wellington was alleged to have said about Waterloo, and Eton."

"What would you suggest then?"

"If you're serious about this, we can organize duels." It wasn't the worst idea, "Simulators will give us some degree of benchmark, "I need to be upfront, Mech weight gives some degree of padding," for lack of a better term, "But some of it is instinct. Mechwarriors used to be more scarce than machines to pilot, there is a certain degree of skill, Field Marshal. A combined arms action is more likely to pay off than playing to the combine's strength."

"You can understand the appeal though." She replied rhetorically, it wasn't really a question so much as an affirmation of the accepted thinking. "There is no denying though that holding any planets will require infantry. So long as you can secure the planet, we can bring garrison troops in after."

He almost pointed out that the usual mistake... the mistake made basically universally to combined arms formations in the early years was underestimating the number of infantry you wanted to have with your armor. "Still can't tell me where we're going, what we're going after?"

"Not yet. That will be the Prince's surprise."

Don't guess. It was almost certainly a former hegemony world. Possibly even more than one, but surely somewhere in the Terran corridor. They'd embarrassed the Combine and with the way the duke of Robinson kept pressing the rumor must have been going over from was a Crucis March world. Then there was, "I'm going to need to hire whoever I can from Northwind."

"We've discussed this, that will work out. You'll have local support on Northwind to make what you need in terms of final preparations. You'll have months to prepare for the actual invasion, the immediate priority is insuring the Robinson battalion is ready. I'll need to leave before the end of the month. Lady Alexandria should be able to handle things in my absence."

"I need to ask, in your capacity as field marshal are you overall command of the operation."

"No, as Prince's champion I'm in charge of the operation." Yvonne corrected.

Ah, "I see." He wasn't sure what the distinction was, not in a practical sense, but alright that was fine too. Yvonne being Strategic level control was the bigger answer. "Lord Aaron wants this to succeed as much as anyone, any chance to further weaken the gravest threat to the Federated Suns is to be the highest priority. Let me be clear colonel Shepherd if we have the opportunity to move, if we can significantly damage the Combine's military strength, if we could repeat Elidere there would be in a position to consolidate gains at the Combine's expense."

--

Gene flipped the paper work, paused took another bite of the pasta.

"You're not drinking?" Alexandria Cunningham sat down, snagging one of the free seats at the 'faculty' table as he was thinking of it.

He'd been considering maybe having something after dinner, and reached for the water, "Not tonight." Gene took a sip, "What can I do for you Lady Lex?" She raised an eyebrow.

"I need to be involved in the drills tomorrow."

He mirrored her gesture, "Fair enough," Should have seen that coming, "How hands on is your liaison supposed to be for this,"

"If the Field Marshal is indisposed at the-"

"When we jump the line?"

She nodded, "I can remain on ship, just as if she were present."

"Unless something comes up, and you have to be in the field."

"That's correct." She agreed readily. A little too readily, especially since he'd had the conversation with Yvonne... and he was pretty sure she'd either just come from there, or near enough... Yvonne was no where to be seen despite having eaten with the battalion officers at dinner two days in a row. "Situations might arise where thats necessary."

Time to go fishing for information, "We're going to drop into a former Hegemony world." She blinked, but he kept going, "My best guess is Dieron or Altair. Maybe Nirasaki, but probably one of those." He'd been digging through the maps. It wasn't hard. Process of elimination. All three belonged to the former Terran Hegemony's lone star province. And really the problem was just not being told. "The Field Marshal said that ideally we cut the combine from the Entire Corridor, but that's four worlds."

"What are you suggesting?"

"I'm suggesting that we are probably going to run into soon or later significant resistance. You want to take a battlemech into the field tomorrow, fine." he pushed the plate to the side guessing he wasn't going to have any more to east tonight, at least not for a while,

She frowned, marring her features, "If you're dancing around the subject, I graduated from Sakhara academy. Does that surprise you?"

He shrugged, "I actually expected you to be an AMA grad, Kestrel being in the Crucis march."

She mirrored the gesture, "The family has attended the school since the first succession war. Shall we move on?"

"What are you hoping to learn?"

"We could trade pointers." She had barely gotten that out of her mouth, when the duke rolled his wheelchair into the mess hall.

"Colonel,"

"Your grace."

The old tanker slid up the table and applied the manual break to the wheel chair. "Keeping the war machine fed I see." Lord Aaron remarked leaning forward to glance at the paperwork. "I was actually hoping to discuss your Marauder?"

"Which one?" It wasn't intended as a boast, but he really did have to ask... and at least the Duke hadn't said 'your Mech'... cause hell that could included the Atlas that Bubbles was currently driving.

"The one you used at Elidere, the White. The autocannon is LosTech?"

"Yeah, The Hegemony was doing research, its whats called an LBX. They never made it past the prototyping stage. I do anything with it the computer reminds me to email Colonel Thompson if I have an problems. He probably ate a nuke on New Earth. What about it?"

"You can produce ammunition for it?"

"Yeah, well yes and no." He explained the LBX ammunition issue, they hadn't tried to make cluster ammunition, "Its based off the GM Whirldwind." It was half to a deflection, but it made sense that someone would have noticed the Autocannon had a range to throw lead comparable to his PPCs. He certainly didn't want anyone poking around his Marauders and figuring out they were ER PPCs.
--
"Anything?"

"I was making progress up until his grace arrived, then they delved into discussion about guns, which somehow turned into a topic of education, and the vagabond schools, which wrapped into techs, and Assistant techs."

Yvonne Davion tutted disapprovingly at the excuse, "Start from the beginning," Occasionally interrupting for clarification about one point or another. "I shouldn't need to tell you this, Sakkhara was founded by retired SLDF officers, Albion was an SLDF Military Academy. One of only three outside of the boundaries of the Terran Hegemony. I've made copies of the two month course work, and I've compared it to AMA's," The Field Marshal's alma mater, "I would guess the bulk of it is from the Hegemony originally." The reality was that there were more questions now than there had been. "Do you know the conversation we had, about mechwarriors?"

"No."

"I believe his exact quote was that 'its generally recognized that there is an accepted genetic component to mechwarrior aptitude, but like most skills probably entails epigenetic factors, as well as more conventional learning of the skill.'"

"What does that have to do with anything your grace?"

"I have a growing suspicion that Lord William, Doctor Abner as he prefers to go by, very likely stumbled upon a stasis pod. Maybe he dug into a lost hegemony facility, a castle brian on some dead terran world, but the Colonel and the Doctor cross paths repeatedly... and Dr Abner believes that he can provide a service to the First Prince. There is something on Bristol... something that may well have survived the Combine's nuclear strike in 2791."

The first succession war had been an utter disaster, but the truth was even before it had begun the Amaris coup had already created a financial crisis, the Federated Suns in the 2770s had gone from economic recession into a full blown depression with the disruptions to trade with the Hegemony... and then the Combine had invaded kicking them back into financial uncertainty as they had begun to recover. There was speculation of course that the Combine had probably been planning even in the 2770s, and certainly by the 80s to go to a war time economy and that had given them temporary advantages, but by the time Kentares had occurred they'd been hitting the limits of their logistical bottleneck.

That was the least glamorous part of the First Succession wars. The DCMS as a military was outsized to the national GDP that supported it. The Combine had always had a significant population, but had lagged behind on industry. It always had... and that was why they had an opportunity, because south of Avalon city proper in the suburbs built on the sacrifice, and gains made on on Halstead station in 3012, from the ruins of a library of the Star League Era the New Avalon Institute of Science.

It had been completed just the previous year.... but that was a long term investment. More than anything, it created for Yvonne a time table. A clock counting down to end or at least severely curtail Hasek influence... and Elidere had created a way to severely curb Combine power, potentially reducing the military importance of the capellan march as other resources could be spread around.

She gave a heavy sigh, "I suspect that there are details we don't know regarding the Combine in the lead up to the first succession war, something that provides a reason to take sides." But ultimately that was just what her gut told her based on the fragmentary evidence she was still piecing together.

Imperator Pax · Apr 24, 2022

I Davion Part 8

Another day, another hanger, a garage and trucks loaded with ammunition. He could remember having issues getting ammunition being like pulling teeth from Luxen's civilian authorities... but he supposed it was different with an actual military institution. "how are we doing, chief?"

"We're on schedule. Another hour perhaps."

"Did we get a final tally?" He asked referring to the major logistical bottleneck. An outgrowth of early procurement habits, the Star League had codified a general series of requirements that divided a wide range of individual weapon systems... in this case autocannons... into grades or classes 2, 5, 10, 20. Greatest Range to shortest, least to most damage performance. It was far less logical than the LRM system... and significantly more prone to graft. He doubted that even with the end of the Star League all the graft had gone away, but with a much reduced tax base he suspected it had at least suffered along with everyone else.

"We need 10 cm, 100mm" two different cartridges both in the came caliber, "185 ChemJet, 200mm it goes on... I don't like it." That didn't even touch any of the other classes of Autocannons. BlackJack JagerMech, Rifleman the list went on each mech carrying different models of autocannon. "... only good news is that 120mm will work across Whirlwinds in the caliber."

"Assuming it doesn't jam."

"True."

Gene shrugged, "I'm mounting up." He left the chief to his business. The senior enlisted would neither appreciate nor want command lurking around while there was work to be done. The Seventy Five tonner was crouched hull down legs bent underneath and alongside the main hull. The Marauder shared a lineage with the Orion next to it, but those were largely internal chassis points and the final mechs in each were significantly different even though they ran off the same VLAR 300 power plant. No small part of that were the program requirements for the Orion in the 25th century asking for a multi role combat platform.

The Orion's Valiant Lamellar had long been replaced more commonly available StarGuard offering off of New Avalon lines. The Marauder"s original design of Valiant lamellar had represented an intention to replace the then current iteration... but it had then itself been subsumed by most Terran contract and later (of the Star League era) marauders being armored around Ferro Fibrous as that proliferated. Of course that limitation, the supply bottleneck to the original Marauder's Lamellar armor had then run into Ferro Fibrous, compounded by the effective extinction of that armor manufacturing within a quarter of a century of Kerensky running for the boonies. There simply hadn't been enough diffusion of manufacturing of Ferro Fibrous at the time of the New Vandenburg rebellion to diffuse it far enough into the Inner Sphere, and thus the first succession war meant it was basically extinct...

"You going to put a neurohelmet on?" Someone cracked as it started up to the cockpit.

He side eyed the other mechwarrior in the tank top and Rhodesian short shorts. Then rather than say anything tapped the silver composite material circlet initiating the standby start sequence on the seventy five tonner.

"First time seeing the hat trick." Septim remarked. He wasn't suited up. Not today, ther Merlin needed a testing and evaluation program to make sure it worked fine in its new Cavalry mech configuration with the VLAR 300... and then they could test out the weapons. The Lyran would be in the Daimyo with operations staff for the day.

He mounted the black machine's cockpit, and settled into the seat. "We should be getting started in about an hour."

Septim nodded. "Hang up with the ammo?"

"Distributing AC ammo is on schedule," At least. The screen in front of him threw up a flash of light the updated OS and a master checklist diagnostic ranging from the motive, and myomer bundles in the feet up through the legs and gyro and through the rest of the mech's systems.

Most mechs came with a standard common id number. MAD 3R designation was for example the common mass production Marauder that was ubiquitous when one thought of the Marauder It was visually recognizable for its top 120 mm autocannon, and the somewhat elongated appearance of its limbs from standard armor. The Marauder had been intended as a direct engagement mech. The command role it had found popularity with had not been an original design requirement, because the Star League had not been looking to replace the Black Knight when the Marauder had first debuted meaning that for the SLDF the Black Knight had remained a company command mech, and battalion and regimental commanders had taken the Marauder in recognition of its more sniper oriented loadout.

The Marauder's standard load out had also proved it an exemplary candidate as a Mech for graduates of the Advanced Combat and Maneuvering Skills Project. ACMS had later publically and officially ... for basically marketing and bragging rights rebranded itself as Gunslinger ... but by that point customization of mechs had already been underway during the 2720s with the clear writing on the wall of new and developing Hegemony 'royal' tech. The MAD 2R as its short hand readout was in league warbooks was the debut of the next Royal units and had replaced the 1R in those prestigious commands by 2760... and yet as his White Marauder demonstrated the Hegemony R&D had known not to be complacent. That was really an iterative improvement though from the 2R still maintaining the Sniper Role.

Septim cleared his throat and then less discretely threw his head in the direction outward across towards the main hangar doors. It took Yvonne Davion, and Alexandria Cunningham and the other hangers on a few minutes to get through the area.

"This is the other one." The Field Marshal remarked all business.

"This is the other one."

"You didn't have the missiles installed when you fought on Luxen or during either engagement on Detroit."

"They're Targa 7 driven Short Range missiles, feeding from a single," Half and half dual feed system of Incendiary and HEDP. "Ton bin. Break through, and exploit the break through. The additional medium lasers are designed to maximize close range firepower," Especially since the replacement Magnas Tristan had put in were ER versions identical to his White. Its a brawler."

"Sounds like it'd turn into bloody sauna." One of the Fed officers muttered. That was without him understanding the greater waste heat ER model PPCs generated... and he wasn't about to point it out.
--
...and things had been starting to shape up.

Two hundred fifty meters ahead of his own BattleMech Castro stamped his Thunderbolt's feet, which was either intentional, or he was overtuned into his MMI link with the Battlemech through his neurohelmet.

"You really want to do this?" He asked cracking his neck side to side already resigned to the answer.

"Hell yeah." 'King Wolf' retorted.

Taking this to the simulators would have been more fair... and safer. Realistically even with their weapons safed and running only electronic training return signals there was always the chance of something going wrong.

The Thunderbolt was a fine heavy battlemech. It was also recent one to replace the machine... which might well have been a Thunderbolt as well he hadn't checked... that Castro had been forcefully ejected from on his first real sortie.

Gene considered the surrounding participants. As liaison Cunningham was a maybe, he doubted Bard could talk some sense into this, the field marshal and the duke of Robinson were both with ground command station for the training area... which was a big tower over looking the space. As if sensing it Lord Sandoval rather than calling it off decided to encourage his friend's son's ... whatever this was supposed to be. "You've taken precautions for the weapons." Which had been confirmed by the rangemasters inspecting both mechs and having comnet feeds to watch. "You may begin on my signal." He informed them.

Fuck... fuck fair. Gene pushed his palms forward relaxing his arms so that they rested against the side consoles rather than the fire control joysticks. There were three broad tactical choices Rio could make. Alpha strike from stationary, maneuver conservatively, or attack aggressively hoping to bring this in close.

Gene exhaled. The neurohelmet readout blinked as the MMI checked and tittered over the synchronization.

The clock changed to 12:00 and the Duke of Robison signaled them to begin.

"I've got you!" Followed by a far less cocky, "What the fuck!" From the Thunderbolt pilot as the Marauder vanished from his scopes before his Mark ten Istatrack could start feeding combat date into the weapons for ranging never mind lock on.

The jump jets flared underneath the Marauder hurtling it into a ballistic arc forward as the verniers did their job. They were not designed for flight, hence 'jump' jets, but they also didn't need to be. The arc ... the vectoring of the thrust had thrown him to the right of where he'd started and allowed him to bring all four medium lasers on target, and for the computers to register four streak SRMs 'launching' into the mech's left side after having cleared half the distance

This wasn't anything like the duels on the BattleRoms. He didn't intend it to be. This was the mine complex against the 3rd Battalion commander, or the company commander in the dragon, or Samsonov on the river bank... or that Catapult on Detroit. There was no take your turn and wait for return fire.

The Verniers flared again even as the Thunderbolt was pivoting... and then the Marauder was point blank, "And you're dead now." He grunted from press against the harness of his restraints, as the machine settled pushing the two Magna Hellstar X in plain view of the cockpit.

Thirteen tons of standard armor was good, but if some was point blank with those nearly touching your cockpit glass or 185mm ChemJet, class twenty autocannon, you were toast.

The two mechs stood there as the range masters called it, and after a pregnant pause Lord Sandoval confirmed it. 25 seconds Thirty seconds of moderating and officialdom

The clock ticked 1201.

It took longer to walk the mech back over the safety lines. Dismounting and handing off took several minutes. "Holy shit that was," Sutton was out of his Dervish, and was the first one over. "That was awesome."

He reframed from quipping that an Awesome was an eighty ton assault mech with three PPCs.
--
Notes: I've been basically most of the week sick as a dog; I'm not a hundred percent yet but getting there. So I am now officially behind... so we are on the last week of the month. Pipeline, Pathfinder, tomorrow, Out of the Dark, Tuesday hopefully its not ready yet, Jumpchain Wednesday should be easy, Essence will probably go up Thursday, thats what I'm planning for with its Fray fight scene, Revisions for Friday and Saturday need to be done.

Then a week from now will be the first.

Anyway. If you don't think

Yvonne needled this whole duel into happening...

and Gene Phantom MechWarrior Shenigans in the broad daylight even if it was a blink and you miss it for as short in the fight as it was factors in as well.

So in table top, as I've mentioned Streak SRM 2 were allowed to use special munitions back in the day... this was nineties (things were radical, extreme, yada yada) and thats obviously the case here also here half ton SRM used to be a thing in FASA canon the Orion is the usual example everyone calls out even though that quickly ran afoul of published mech build rules. Basically you can have half ton of Ammo for missiles, or mixed magazines of specialty ammo because well here its a dual feed electrical system. You have to feeds pulling ammo from the bin you use feed 1 to run Incendiary, or Feed 2 to shoot HEDP perfectly viable real world tech

Imperator Pax · May 1, 2022

Davion Part 8 (b)

Sutton's praise aside. "No that was me being an asshole. Castro has his problems, and he's lashing out at everybody who doesn't seem to be suffering. I shouldn't have rubbed his face in it." He splashed some water onto a towel and rubbed the sweat off his face, "Our priority needs to be preparing, for fighting the Combine in Round two," He ran his other hand through the front of his hair. "Alright we're gonna divide off if there aren't any more distractions, and then we'll take lunch." The Assault and Light Mechs could both run their maneuver course work and that would pair down enough mechs to make the numbers somewhat manageable, and then they could try and apply Terran Hussar doctrine into a vastly disparate motley crew of modern mechs and mostly young knights.

... and that was the distinction there were probably too many commissioned officers or people equivalent there of, or officer cadets here. The median age was 24 25 and he was pretty sure most of the RBA graduates brought back had all done so in the last decade. Lord Sandoval had come into the ducal Coronet in 2994 more than twenty years earlier so everyone present would have graduated during his patronage of the academy. That of course was likely to only apply to BattleMechs in the grand scheme of things, but the duke had not yet brought in armor or infantry to conduct combined arms training.

"Why's the Cicada moving?"

It was technically a medium mech, "Because as the name implies, its really just a large scout mech..." And when Schiffer had bought the farm on Luxen, "We rebuilt it as basically a larger protected Jenner, the -7D, not the A." This being the border with the combine there were a couple of 7Ds in with the light mechs alongside Valkyrie and Wasps. The A distinction was one he probably didnt need to make, because while they had As in Inventory Sutton was probably only familiar with the standard Draconis model. That was what people thought of when they thought Jenner. Medium lasers and SRM.

"Do you really think the Combine will attack?"

He didn't see how they 'politically' had a choice, but before he could find a way to phrase a simplified expression of geopolitics and the strategic clusterfuck he was interrupted, "Apologies, Commander."

"What is it Sadiq?"

"If you have a moment, Lebanon has opened dialogue with," the arabic translated to as a member of the community, so presumably an Azami merchant. "He brings news, and goods that may be of interest." It was clear the Azami lieutenant was if not very deftly dancing around what to say in front of Sutton.

"Good news I hope," Yvonne Davion hadn't entirely slipped her retinue but they'd managed to get to the dismount area here without being seen.

"Yes ma'am." The lieutenant replied perfunctorily. The boiler plate wasn't anything they hadn't already known. Elidere to Robinson was four jumps, and the combine had left the System well within hours of the FedSuns reinforcements jumping into system well before they had made planet fall but after the fighting on the ground had all but been decided. Even beyond that ComStar's class A HPG had transmitted the news at the very least to stations in Davion space in range, never mind the duke of Elidere's very expensive live stream.

"Its gotten out into the public then?" Yvonne shared a look with her lady in waiting, "I suppose ComStar will need to be included on the Christmas card list this year. There was no other way the BattleRoms could have started to circulate from Elidere in that time frame otherwise... but the question was why? ComStar was supposed to be neutral, and showing the 'Davions' utterly thrash a Combine Mech Regiment in trivid was almost sure to stir trouble up in the most blatant fashion.

"Well if the DCMS General Headquarters didn't know they have to know now,"

"And a reprisal is likely." Yvonne agreed, and idly Gene had to wonder how much in fees and services ComStar was making from what were almost assuredly the number of live calls the Davions and Kuritas had to be making, especially since that wasn't a service that they regularly advertised... "I'd very much like to sit down with your merchant captain, and find out whats the latest." That clearly wasn't what the lieutenant had been prepared for, but this was Davion Space and even if they'd been elsewhere you didn't just tell Hanse Davion's aunt, and more specifically the Prince's Champion no. "Well in the mean time lunch."

Gene wasn't really sure about the brightly colored pavilions that were the field dining facility, they were a mix of FedSuns, Draconis March and RBA school colors ... sprawled out in a sunburst pattern on the grounds, but that was how they did it. They did sort of need the space even with the Light and Assault Mechs moving off there was still a battalion worth of MechWarriors that needed to be fed alongside support instructors and observing persons.

He spared a glance to the table up front where he had a seat waiting, "Is that going to be a problem Sadiq?"

"I will speak to Captain Pasha, but it should not be a problem." The man exited the tent, and gene walked over to sit down.

"So how does that work?"

"How does what work?" He replied.

"The missiles? You're machine carries paired SRM 2 launchers?" Yvonne was asking the question but the surrounding table was paying attention.

"Its twenty four standards, and twenty four inferno." Basically a half ton of each in the hoppers dual electric feed system. It was a simple flip of a switch to change... and if the launchers had to cycle more than twelve throws... well that was on him. "Sadiq says their merchant friend pulled a 1vb out out of landslide. The Locust's internal frame was scrap, but they salvaged what they could." He wasn't sure if it had actually been pulled out of a landslide but that was what Sadiq had told him, and that he presumably had been told... but his conversation with Tristan in the Fortress came to mind about the JumpShip now called Cairo.

"And you'll see what else they have for sale as well?"

"It wouldn't hurt," Which just lead to Yvonne volunteering Alexandria to tag along, but then they dug into the chicken, and changed subjects. "Its true the Enforcers carry a Large Laser, which somewhat obviates their ammunition dependency, but loosing the autocannon in a fight is pretty much unavoidable. " Never mind the issue of having to stock its ammo, but that was how it was.

"You think we should commit to a time consuming refit program?"

"If there is time, yes, but if there isn't. And really its the Jager Mech I'd focus on refit them to – Alpha configuration LRMs and more armor than...." Well whatever -D was supposed to be. Consolidating all the Class 2s to Whirlwind 40mm would have been great, but he wasn't going to push the point. "It would consolidate the number of ammunition types we have to carry. As long as you can supply the ammo, well only a fraction of the brigade is carry autocannons." Jokes about Davion proclivities aside the number of mechs in the roster presently carrying autocannons was not so overwhelming that trying to standardize was elevated to a major priority. It would just be a nice logistical boon.

Yvonne smiled and nodded. "Of course we asked for your advice on this, and there is the possibility of this becoming a protracted conflict with the Draconis Combine." She sighed, "If the word is beginning to circulate in public, " another pause, "I need you to make revisions to the training contract, specifically for urban warfare colonel. I also think dueling will probably need to be a priority, a body of picked men at the least." The older woman paused, "Don't misunderstand I'm not saying abandon plans for a conventional engagement, I will make all appropriate arrangements to supply armor and infantry for the operation, but the Combine cannot be allowed to mount a successful counter attack. If an attack is detected you and the Eridani are to both sortie to relieve it."

They had talked about this, or something similar at least, and it was likely any incursion by the DCMS would be in the Draconis March. Most routes to the border were four and five jumps from Robinson, which significantly limited the efficacy of any potential response, "How quickly can you find me pilots, other than that it'll be expediting personnel hiring."

"Hire whoever you need to, as for pilots, realistically that will take me several weeks, and thats being optimistic. The only faster alternative would be to pull AFFS from their existing planes, which may end up being what we need to do, but that would be exigent circumstances." Yvonne glanced sideways to Alexandria, "Work with Alexandria for whatever you need, and you should plan to still travel to New Avalon," Even though that was five jumps.
--
Notes this is the second half of last week's update, sans one scene. Obviously ComStar has its own internal factions, but some of the proliferation of BattleRom footage is being put out specifically to encourage the Successor states to fight it out. To a lesser extent its also to make the Combine look bad, because the Combine and Comstar have had a history in recent memory of beefing with one another

Next chapter will introduce the Merlin Cavalry model, Septim's rebuilt machine, and the emphasis on tanks and hovercraft in combination with medium and heavy mechs if I can get the scene how I want it. We have some other news from Combine space, and the Azami coming into this and we work towards August of 3017.

Imperator Pax · May 22, 2022

I Davion Part 9

When they had said 'large dropship' he'd expected something in the ten thousand ton range. A mule would have been his first guess for a merchant vessel. Not a design five times his original threshold for 'large'. The Mammoth lived up to its name and painted a bright fluorescent green that was painful on the eyes. He'd already been warned to expect lavish and garish from Pasha, and with the paint job he was a little leery exactly why both words had to be used with the emphasis the JumpShip commander had employed.

He glanced to the space port, where the San Saba was being worked, "This could be good though." Pasha remarked. "He may goods that will help us." They'd actually been looking at a number of potential purchases, besides potentially the Union they had had known was available. It and a reconditioned Leopard had somewhat fallen by the wayside in the face of the prospect of staffing and deploying the Overlord.

He made a vaguely agreeable acknowledgement, and told Pasha he could just bring the receipts in after he went through the other Azami's inventory. Grounds crews began moving to the docked eyesore as they continued to wait.

They weren't alone in the terminal, and there were things that the merchant might not advertise to Davion personnel without knowing them better. "That is probably for the best," Pasha remarked, "It is true San Saba requires work, but there are overhauls on Hidalgo and Baffins we could do while we are here... more than that," He shrugged, "We could start circulating for recruitment,"

Well it wasn't as if they weren't already on the combine's shit list.. "That sounds good to me. We'll need to vet them though, after Elidere." They already had the occasional Davion question popping up about other personnel, they assumed Tristain had to be a person but they were deflecting.

"I am aware that such only draws further attention. It was unlikely that parties within the Combine would forget Detroit, never mind the humiliation of having lost such a large formation." The supporting units, callous as it might have been largely didn't matter... oh the DropShips lost were a pricy line item, but the truth was the BattleMechs would be what really stuck in their craw.

"What do you expect him to have?

"Besides holding on to well special requests like yours, most likely fusion engines, ammunition, gyros, various mech parts and myomer bundles. If we are lucky he might have a few mechs we can convince him to part with, but given San Saba what I am hoping for are more tanks, Saracaen, Harrasser, perhaps again with favor a Tokugawa or two. Certainly spare parts for them."

Another perfunctory nod. They had been lucky so far and the Azami's fusion powered tanks really were a useful force multiplier. He stretched and stuffed his hands in his pockets. They were still supposed to be pretending that they weren't preparing to launch an invasion of the Combine in retaliation for Elidere... and retaliation really meant escalation... and anything they could get beforehand to increase their odds the better. Part of that was going to be for Yvonne Davion to work on, New Valencia was two jumps from Robinson, but they'd received a cryptic message from, possibly relayed from, Doctor Abner saying the Bristol Site looked 'promising' whatever that meant.

A not quite obese, but still huge man in a dashiki emerged from a luxurious fusion powered Bentley. Boisterous and unthreatening was a good masquerade given the merchant prince probably had a build more accurtaely described as a sumo wrestler rather than anything else. "Friends, and of course my countrymen," He beamed at Pasha, who was probably a good two or three decades his senior, and moved to hug him. "I am so pleased to once again be able to visit such a beautiful planet, yes." He continued to talk, before offhandedly mentioning Cairo's absence at the system's jump point.

Gene would have preferred that that hadn't been made, the comment drew the davion's attention further, and forced Pasha to admit having turned over the patrimony to his son, in favor of ship he now captained... which given the value of JumpShips in the present era was... eye catching to say the least. Still they made introductions, small talk and the big man announced he had the requested replacements, along with 'a host of other goods one in your honorable trade might require or simply desire to possess.'

--
Reactor start up looked good. The nineteen ton VLAR 300 was reading all green. "Any issues with the gyro?"

"Not this time, it looks like putting in two LRM 5s," instead of the one LRM10, had fixed whatever was the hang up. "Fixed it."

The boss sighed, "Thats good," The holographic image shifted as the a conversation probably carried on with one of hte techs, "Its possible that its probably the combination of how heavy the right side was to begin with." A large laser was still a several ton weapon system even though it was still lighter than a PPC. "Nizar is right it would have been nice to add a hand actuator to the left arm."

"What about the jump jets?"

"If you're comfortable with how it handles walking we can test them on the course." The computer was saying that replacement Pitban Lifter 50 series were green to go... but they had no idea how they'd respond up for real until they were actually lit up. Still this was better than the previous time he had been concerned about how long it was taking to put his mech back into service. "Just keep an eye on the Gyro indicator when you bring the mech up to speed." The Pitban 240 had allowed a maximum speed of 65 kph, the VLAR in a sixty tonner should let him accelerate up to 86.

Septim nodded, even though he wasn't sure the Colonel was actually watching the hologram, he held down the mike's talk button, "So what's the plan? I mean you said that well with the Canopians we did the six thing, and you said it was,"

"I borrowed some of that program from the Light Horse independent regiments, but truthfully trying to apply regimental doctrine to a company element does not work."

"But do we have enough here?"

"In theory yes, in practice even though we can organize something approaching a core Hussar group we're still contending with an array of non standard lances, and customized BattleMechs."

Septim marveled at the comment.

"We're dealing with very little uniformity." He continued unimpeded. "But we will work with what we have."

The Merlin's master diagnostic finished, "Looking good to go, I'm going to take her out." Septim declared standing the mech up.

Inside of his Marauder Gene nodded, and glanced around. He appreciated that, he recognized the fact that a jack of all trade mechs like the vindicator or the factory merlin was not going to be the ideal solution. There were advantages to, among other things having dedicated missile boats.. but he still would have wished a bit more conformity.

He navigated between two very different Shadow Hawks. Lieutenant O'Ree's Ray was an all energy boat with two chest mounted medium lasers, and two Magna Mk III large lasers that could eject from their arm mounts. Sergeant Kenneth 'Breakthrough' King's also had a MK III in a similar mount on its left arm and two torso mounted MK II Mediums, but alongside the toros mounted lasers were Harpoon 6 launchers. Both mechs were painted up in Draconis March 'Robinson Ranger' colors... which might have been something if the next four mechs in the hangar weren't all painted in different colors. The patchy trend of clusters of different paint jobs carried on through the roughly thirty odd medium and heavy mechs present... and for the remaining reserve where they'd segregated off the jaegar mechs and a few others.

Kneeling beside an ammunition carrier was another non standard Shadowhawk this one painted bright scarlet and had replaced the 80mm with a larger New Avalon AC/10. It was true that these were AFFS personnel but they weren't, by and large, using Mechs owned by or issued by the Federated Suns. If there were any mechs he was disappointed not to find among the units it was the lack of the medium, fifty tonner, Crab. This was not the SLDF of 2660. Most of the mechwarriors called together by teh duke of Robinson had brought their own mechs in answer to that call.

And of course he supposed on that end, their mechs, the company mechs didn't stand out because of it. He maneuvered the 75 ton 'black horse' as someone had called it to distinguish it from his white one, and into the flat top muster area as the smaller Merlin's VLAR 300 spun up and directed power to its limbs and it slowly eased out of its own bay.

They were lucky that they'd been able to repair it, and that Septim hadn't ended up dead. It mad him uncomfortable thus being told to split trianing time to play the Combine's preferred rules for fighting... but that was the job they were being told to do.

A hail pinged his Dalban comms suite. "Field Marshal," He greeted, "Captain Lefler." Then amended as the hologram resolved into one of the Robinson armor officers on the Duke's staff.

"Sorry, Colonel," The balding man replied, "her grace had to step away, are you ready to begin?"

"Everything looks good on my end." He replied, "What happened?"

If Lefler minded he didn't show it, "Oh its nothing, she and that caravan master are looking at that Hammerhands he picked up on a dig on Royal some years back been trying to get all the parts to bring it back to 'spec."

That was a little odd. It was true the Hammerhands had been an indigenous Fed Suns design and popular during the Star League era, but he hadn't seen any since he'd gotten here. It was slower than a war hammer, or for that matter his Marauder, given the design was running off a 225 rating engine. "What's missing from it?"

"I, some sort of auto cannon, he is missing one, or something."

And that conversation was enough to warrant stepping out from the drill she had insisted on, that was suspicious.... but whatever, "Alright, can you connect me to Lord Aaron?"

"Yes, right away."

The image of the wheelchair bound duke appeared. "Colonel Shepherd, the brigade is yours,"

He acknowledged, and opened to address the medium-heavy Mech complement and attached armor assets. "The following exercise will conduct with live ammunition in the prospect of maneuvering across a forty kilometer gap, followed by the engagement inside of a contested urban zone with the goal of reaching the occupied area prior to sunset." Which was in six hours.

--
The three companies of Mechs were deployed roughly in a wedge rendered on the display forming the main thrust of the Gold force as it moved to liberate Blue City. The operation movements relayed from the complex computers with Lady Alexandria's mech. The twenty year old countess was playing her role of being Yvonne's eyes and ears in the operation area.

Besides the Mech Battalion were planetary militia armor ranging from Bulldogs and von Luckners to lighter hovercraft, and heavier tanks like the Partisan from more specialized armor units. A heavy breath beside her, "Oh my," The Azami merchant prince dabbed at his mouth

She paused, "I thought you said you'd seen the BattleRoms."

"Oh I have, but it is one thing to know a thing has happened, wholly another to watch the thing happen even if just in exercise. This is just training, but you can see the care of the organization. It is like when the Galedonians were fought."

The armor coordination wasn't as clean as it they and mechs moved to hit targets taht presented themselves. "You said that ComStar have been showing the footage."

"it makes it very difficult to refute. The best that the voice of the dragon can claim is to blame the Avalon Hussars, and even that falls somewhat flat with the MRB showing other battle roms on the news networks."

"Its unusual behavior."

"Its unusual for a DCMS officer to try and take a precentor hostage," The merchant picked up another bon bon, "Which of course the Dragon has disavowed." He plopped it into his mouth and shrugged, "What can you do?"

Yvonne wondered how much the wealthy Azami knew... he'd mentioned another JumpShip. Cairo. A Star Lord JumpShip as she'd found out later... a JumpShip that had not been seen in more than two years... and had an equally mysterious appearance in the Inner Sphere' s shipping records.

More blips appeared as another simulated exchange started this time on the other side vehicles harassed letting a lance of identical mechs then strafe at one flank.

So that bore the question, how much did he know, and how much did he suspect. And there was another ancillary question. She doubted the monstrous fifty two thousand ton dropship was the only cargo vessel attached to the trade fleet carrying weapons, and it was clear the caravan had its own security detachment. Not surprising. No, the real question was what was Captain Pasha, and the gentleman next to her's relationship with either Azami Liberation Front, or another similar organization. That was the sort of thing she had a responsibility to her nephew the prince to vet for, rather than just allowing Hanse to rush to meet the commander of a unit that had destroyed a combine battlemech regiment in detail.

He chuckled as a simulated exchange in the exercise grounds started, "Asking Combine Mech Warriors to engage in this would be offensive to the dignity of the dragon's loyal samurai. Very few see value in collaborating with one another never mind lesser warriors."

"Yes the 19th all but sacrificed their attached armor," If admittedly to grab the defending AFFS units attention. "On one of their previous raids."

"Admittedly I doubt that would have helped."

"No probably not."

"Its a pity all of Elidere's defenders are not here. You can tell that the main tank battalion, this St George fellow you hear on the radio must be on something very important to not come with them."

Most likely they were guarding Doctor Abner. The Lyran lord had been highly reluctant to cede any kind of command rights to Elidere's duke, and even though he'd eventually acceded to coming to the aid of the beleaguered planetary capital he had insisted Colonel Shepherd retain operational direction... "Certainly it would have been nice to have them."

They stopped as the radio crackled open. "You don't sound happy?" Alexandria remarked over it, prodding.

"No, we're actually doing pretty well for what we're working with." Shepherd replied his Marauder sending orders through the tactical net to Shadow Hawks to advance to screen for missile boats that included Cadet Sutton's Dervish, what the Azami identified as 6Md. "We're under par time but that's to be expected, I programmed in a Light Horse derived opposition to model for a competent Combine response,"

"We're fighting the Eridani? They're our allies."

The colonel's hologram shifted as he visually stumbled over the statement, "No, we're fighting a Star League Light Horse Independent Regiment, or the rough approximation of one. Its why most of the targets we're engaging are whole lances comprised of, Ost scout or Locust A."

"Ah I had wondered why there was such uniformity in the enemy ranks."

She almost shushed the merchant as the Marauder's pilot continued. "If I had the combine make the same mistakes at Elidere no one would learn anything. Here we're actually contacting resistance that is fighting along an organized defensive front."

--
Notably I cut a few things, we will do the shopping scene later, or possibly just have the dump truck just drop it all at the depot in front of the Overlord or the Triumph, but among other things is that after several weeks Septim has his mech fixed and operational, we get some other things named dropped, Yvonne does responsible her actual job type shit.

I need to dig up some of my old books for getting a hold of Hanse Davion, but that runs into the problem of Hanse would only be about 35 at this point so think I can afford to fudge somewhat if I have to. On that note, I described Yvonne here as Hanse's aunt, that is not canon, and I am using aunt in the generic older female relation. We don't know much about Yvonne's Davion branch, other than she's a duchess, her mother was a duchess, her mother was in command of the davion guards brigade for twenty years... which uh is odd.

Speaking of brigade I am using that as a unit comprised of multiple sub units acting in an independent or quick reaction function... or basically we gathered up the units we had and they're not part of the same parent so they're a brigade. Just in case anyone is confused by that usage.

Imperator Pax · May 29, 2022

I Davion Part 10

August 3017

The simulated explosions weren't the most accurate thing... the giant blue colored clouds were designed to be noticeable after all.

"Easy there Lady Lex," He replied as her mech reflexively took a step back.

"You said we were fighting a Light Horse. I'm reading Atlas, and Orions."

"We are, a Star League independent regiment was intended to be augmented by specialist company sized assets, which is what just showed up. Its also why its a mixed mech unit instead of the previous uniformity. Is it accurate to what the Combine would throw at us, no. Realistically I should have included a Dragon, an Orion, maybe Ostol. There should be a greater variation, but this is what Abel Company has to fight, and we want to see how they perform dealing with something unexpected." Blue City was unfortunately not something that could be easily reset, and you couldn't really change it in-between runs easily, so they were mostly going to be changing how the enemy deployed... and he wanted to schedule two more runs like this before they ... before he had to leave for New Avalon.

He leaned back in his harness. The truth was he hadn't planned this though this was all on the duke of Robinson since Yvonne wasn't here to play the card. Hopefully whatever she was doing was useful.

Beau's face appeared ... well his helmeted head appeared, "Hey there, I'm taking easy company in to suppress the enemy attack."

"Understood." He replied, "relaying now." And the Dervish pilot was somewhat breaking chain of command he should have been advising up, and talking to Bard if he was going in, but that was fine. Initiative was useful he wasn't going to criticize executing a counterattack. To that end he'd have almost preferred Bo launch a hasty counterattack to stop or slow an attempted breakthrough while apprising, rather than just asking for permission, but this wasn't the time and place for that conversation.

Across the mock financial district of fake high rises made from plywood and plastic tarps concealing various bits of machinery and electronics a Wolverine stood. "God fucking damnit." This whole exercise had been a slog of pushing a boulder up hill, but having an entire company of heavy and Assault mechs, including a fucking Atlas slam into them took the cake.

Bard had to wonder if this point of the test wasn't actually to make them fight an impossible to win battle... but that seemed ridiculous... by any metric of the battle academy's classes no one, no one should have been able to do what had been done on Elidere. They'd tried in the travel down time, he'd been grilled by the Prince's Champion.

To explain how a hundred and fifteen enemy mechwarrios had been defeated. One Hundred and Fifteen Combine BattleMechs had landed and had never returned to the DCA dropships they had arrived on, because they'd been taken out.

--
Within the separate command and observation port Yvonne Davion watched things continued to change. She tapped her fingers just below the command console's keys, "I was meaning to ask, as a learned man, have you ever heard of an Atlas II? It would have been a late Star League era model Atlas."

The Sheik stroked his chin, He paused, and contemplated the question. "Yes, but only in passing. I have never seen one in person. The Hammerhands I show you, it would have carried the same LBX class ten autocannon as that has."

They'd discussed the autocannon, and its ability to fire specialty ammunition, a kind of buckshot cluster load in addition to traditional slug. "The Colonel's White Horse has a class 5."

"Yes, it was my first time even hearing of such a thing. It makes sense of course, Mostly I only ever come across the Blankenburg class tens, I once had the good fortune to be shown a Luballin Ballistics 10." He regaled her with a long winding story of that particular example and its own a very wealthy friend in the Lyran commonwealth. They, the two autocannons, fired different rounds but approximated the same performance. "The Colonel's class five is clearly General Motor's project entry based on their 120mm Whirlwind." He didn't explicitly mention that the Whirlwind's history of jamming hadn't been entirely fixed given the weapon seemed to have jammed on Ander's moon.

"And you can provide him with this cluster ammunition?"

"Yes, I have an excellent munitions man who makes the ammunition for Hammerhands, and he should be able to work the load up for the 120mm."

The realities of the succession war had always been that some worlds ended up turning out specialty boutique rounds to suit their needs. Special Ammunition types for autocannons were common across davion space where the venerable mech grade slug thrower remained the dominant, or at least preferred choice of weapon. There was a world in the Outback region that regularly paid its taxes in Flak autocannon shells that came with the sworn affidavit that they'd been anointed with sacred unguents... and were usually liberally marked with Cameron starbursts or other Star League symbols.

The conversation paused as simulated artillery fire went out, and ASF strikes were called in to the operations officer officiating the exercise. "Very close."

Danger close.

"Yes, I'm surprised they were willing to use artillery that close to the city."

The effectiveness couldn't be disputed though. The enemy vehicles trying to advance to contact stalled. Autocannon armed vehicles and mechs were filing into the perimeter along the city as more of it's representation on the display shifted colors to Davion Gold. She could see where they were declaring 'digging in' infantry fighting positions to the judges of the exercise. The question was whether they could not hold out, and defend the city for the rest of the exercise.

"It is a pity we don't have real time scoring."

"Very much so." The merchant agreed, "But really now they must hold what they have? Can they do that?"

"I think so, I would guess there aren't enough reserves to actually dislodge them from the city, not with the perimeter relaying line of sight to their LRMs." and there was a significant volume of units ensconced protected by infantry nearby. One of the highways allowed them to move quickly from one end of the city to another if they needed to.

He nodded, "It occurs to me, and perhaps I am simply taken by a temporary melancholy, but the shame of defeat might sting the dragon's servants to seek easier prey. They might very well attack the Commonwealth, or attack a far distant world on the border."

She considered the comment, and it was possible she decided. But there were problems with that as well. Especially given ComStar's circulating of the Roms without anyway for the Combine to stop that information from flowing outwards.
--
The exercise came to its conclusion on schedule. Prohibitive but not catastrophic casualties. Infantry units had been dug in with short range missile launchers with teams overlapping inferno and HEDP to deter any serious attempt to force the perimeter, ground vehicles and mechs like the blackjack and jager deployed to fire at extreme rangers and spot for LRM carriers.

It was by the standards of the succession wars what would have been a victorious triumph... or in the first or second very likely the short of victory spoiled by the enemy souring the field with a nuclear weapon.

"I understand you have plans in the morning with regards to Ahmed's people and delivery, but there was something else that came up in conversation." There was a slight tink as the glassware abutted the plate. Yvonne watched for a further response. Sir John had somewhat embellished the Colonel's eye color as molten gold but not by much, they were light an almost orange brown. "Do you believe that they might try that, launch an offensive against the Lyran Commonwealth to assuage the general feeling?"

"IN the short term, its possible. Politically the combine even mounting an attack against a distant frontier world will only temporarily assuage the situation, failing to commit to a retaliatory offensive would likely attract accusations of rank cowardice, rather than being considered prudent. There is only so much face they can save by claiming to have been defeated by a more prestigious, or elite unit, being unable to repudiate the defeat in the field creates an irrevocably dangerous narrative problem."

"Especially at this scale."

"Yes, and historically, any victory the combine wins, or political reapproachment will simply encourage furth hostilities as the combine rallies on jingoistic rhetoric."

He stopped himself, but she waved a hand, "No by all means colonel. There can be no steps backwards at this stage. We're at the stage where I need a time frame on executing an attack next year?"

She hadn't moved the time table up... but she hadn't delayed it either. There was probably no time to delay it regardless of how much he might have preferred having more time to drill, "Realistically an attack ready to step off to coincide with the Combine invasion of Elidere."

The problem was, that when you really got to the basics... the root of all of this predated the star league. The Combine's behavior had been no great secret. He hadn't need to review Tristan's archive of Hegemony files to find reports by analysts warning that the combine was creating tensions that could not continue in the long run. It was not some CID secret either. The University of Volgadon's political science department had had its share of papers and critiques that insisted that Lyran policies of diplomatic reapproachment and deflection amounted to appeasement that only encouraged the Combine's behavior. In short... the war of Davion Sucession should have, but hadn't, provoked the Hegemony to do something more proactive... and of course once the amaris crisis had played out to its full extent the Combine had used it as an excuse to try and seize the whole prize.

He tapped his fingers on the napkin. "To answer the question it would depend on when we could rendezvous with the Eirdani Light Horse and transfer the forces to wherever we're jumping off from, so between March, and May of next year."

"Will you be able to recruit enough people for that next year, the Highland Faire is in January."

"I'm aware." And all too aware that transit times from Robinson to New Avalon, would be 37 days, plus whatever needed to be done on New Avalon, followed then by the roughly three months it would take to jump from New Avalon to Northwind. Any hires from Northwind, or even picking up any Azami volunteers Pasha was sure they could source through 'the community' would have precious little time to fold into the unit... which left them a handful of options. "The dropships can if it comes to it deploy with Davion regulars, we've discussed using our airframes with davion pilots, obviously going in with more troops is preferable than less, but at the end of the day the resources aren't likely to be there to have the San saba fully staffed."

"And?"

"We'll be refitting it to carry some mech bays even though we'll be looking for staff to recruit to operate any of the vehicles from New Valencia, or other vehicles that can be procured in the time frame before leaving for Northwind, or that can be hired on Northwind." He paused, "In short if the Combine attacks we can respond to it, if the decision is made to attack we can deploy at present force strength."

"But more is better."

Pretty much.

That was just where they sat at the moment. "And the next month's training?"

"The largest single advantage? Lord Robinson," The Duke, "Is a former tanker he's prepared to supply armor assets and other personnel. If we're attacking or defending either of those could make the difference to holding a planet in a sustained fight."

"Much along the lines of what I wanted to hear." Yvonne Davion knew she had to depart soon. "I will see you on New Avalon, where you'll be briefed on the planned operation. I can't guarantee I'll be able to provide you with the Blackwell industries hardware at that time, but you will have the promised equipment by the time the unit reaches Northwind, but I cannot promise you two months of gearing up in the new year. If the Combine does not launch its offensive we must be ready to launch ours."

"Realistically that gives me a month before I ship to New Avalon, if not less if you want to review, and have copies of the program course work before you leave."

"How many more times to plan to run the Blue City Urban Exercise Area?"

"Hopefully twice before I leave." Of course it'd be possible that, the jump route plotted from Robinson to Northwind was 257 Lightyears, over ten weeks of travel. "I'm drafting study packets for when I'm gone, but that will probably," Most likely end up, "be company scale drills, and practicing the existing material."

"And the dueling program."

He exhaled, "Saturday, we'll start simulated volunteer duels, and anyone with sufficient maneuvering scores in their weight class can move on to advance combat. Realistically Bahar should be able to take over the basics of that when I ship to New Avalon..." He just needed to tell her that that was the plan if the Field Marshal agreed. "that is the major hang up, realistically even with optimal candidates I'd want thirteen weeks minimum to run a dueling course, just focusing on that."

She nodded. "You're right in assuming we don't have time for that. Very well. Make the preparations you need, I would like copies of all the course work before I depart for New Valencia. If anything further develops between now and my departure I will inform you."
--
Gene thumped into the chair within the officer's longue aboard the Sam Houston, and before he had gotten comfortable Septim was already asking the question, "Any ideas what it means? I mean promising? What does that even mean, especially after you know."

Pasha spared the Lyran a look, and then shrugged. "Weapons I would assume, perhaps a mech depot? Equipment of war surely. Promising does not necessarily imply that but what else could it be... and the Davions certainly believe that whatever it is the Doctor is pursuing must be of great value."

... and of course in the back of his mind there was the fact that Ford had skipped off early, disembarking at Hoff. They had found something in the records, either something that directly told them or corroborated some kind of lost pieces of historical lore that warranted it. "even if they find something, we don't have the manpower right now, and lets be upfront with that. That needs to be corrected."

"I can secure warriors for any just cause." Pasha remarked reaching for his coffee.

"Septim when I leave you can hire at your discretion to fill out the Baffins, if Bahar and Pasha consent any further hirings can fill out the Hidalgo if we aren't expected to berth Davion Mech Warriors, but I ideally would like space for hiring on Northwind, so temporary retainer contracts to handle expansion and bringing them alone. We have the money."

115 Mechs. Several Dropships too, but mostly the princely bounty for the regiment's destruction, the DCA losses were just on top of that that. They did need to be mindful of how many DropShip collars they had, but they had time.

"The battle of Elidere took roughly a month." Pasha remarked, "Might it not be wise to plan for a contingency force?"

Jump in launch the invasion, that perhaps he should have briefed the staff on, and then jump out to bring in a reinforcing, or even occupation force. "I think that would be really more a matter to discuss with the davions, they're bringing the Light horse in, in full, so depending on what other Davion Units are involved I have no idea how large of a force we may even be dealing with." That was one of the matter Yvonne had not been ready to clarify at this stage. A full force break down didn't yet exist... and there was a good chance he wouldn't know until New Avalon, when he'd probably meet whoever was in charge of the Eridani.

"So about the dueling thing?" Septim said moving the conversation along. "What are we going to do about, well lets face it some people are going to get slots for who their parents are."

"If you mean Castro, probably so." Which was not because he wasn't a good pilot, so much as other disciplinary issues, "I'd prefer to keep him separate from Sutton," The freshly admitted cadet from Elidere. What about the rest of the unit?"

"Bubbles is a maybe? I mean she's got the Atlas for this job. Beau already says he's fine with things like they are."

"Find out what Chang plans to do, and I'll see about filling in Beauregard on the doctrine, we may be planning to slot him in permanently to running Easy company as a dedicated LRM asset."
--
Notes: we approaching the last leg of the summer on Robinson, and thus far no additional hiring has been done particularly because whats going to happen is we're going to move into introducing other characters as well as bluntly because it can't be avoided basically have names on rosters outside of key officers

Effectively, Officers get major screen time, while Enlisted MechWarriors will regrettably largely be names during some points of the story.

Imperator Pax · Jun 5, 2022

Davion Part 11

August 3017
Robinson, Draconis March

His Marauder for all intents and purposes had the computer systems to check and send email, but there wasn't anything there. He wasn't surprised though.

Hiring local was proving painfully limited ... not with the Duke of Robinson having known about the situation on Elidere. As it was turning out pretty merc with a mech or an ASF had been hired probably as soon as the Duke of Elidere had made his first stupidly expensive phone call with plans to ship them out to other Davion planets in the Draconis March that might be in need. They were striking out on that front.

That still left them Pasha's proposed hiring route, but for right now there was also the roster. "Not surprised."

It could be, or maybe wasn't nepotism. Castro's snych rates with his machine were good. He demonstrated good mobility with the machine... the simple fact was attitude problem aside he was a competent, even a good mechwarrior...even if letting him into the duelist portion of the program would probably make that attitude problem worse, not better.

He watched Chang drive the Atlas and ease the big war machine back into the maintenance area. Not that it needed maintenance... and while they had talked about refitting it back to a standard Atlas Configuration, or something like that... so far that had all just been talk. They needed the hundred tonner to run and operate with the handful of AFFS assault mechs.

"There is the chance he could fail out."

"I doubt it," Gene replied ... oh it was true todays first rounds test and evals in tournament form would involve anyone who wanted to volunteer but Castro could probably make his Thunderbolt river dance if he wanted to. So short of him going up against Bard's Wolverine, him not making it was a dubious prospect. "Attitude problems aside he can actually pilot," Which when you got right down to it he supposed that wasn't a surprise either being able to pilot a mech was uncommon, and there was some sort of trait component that let one use a neurohelm and strength expression of the trait appeared to be hereditary. Mech Warrior skill was allegedly in some part hereditary ... and besides all of that 'kingwolf' had certainly been given the best tutors his family had access to.

Which from a historical perspective a bunch of Combine Ronin would have thought him to be an excellent mark to test their skills against... and Castro didn't have the live fire experience to go along with the practice.

He reached up to scroll through the roster his battalion management software was projecting, and flicked through, "I'll admit I'm surprised more of your detachment isn't in this," And by more the fact that all the Assault Drivers weren't on the list. "I really would have expected the Awesome to volunteer, but I can work with the Atlas, and the Victor isn't a bad mech."

"What about the Stalker?" She asked.

"In all honesty I'm going to probably attach that guy to Easy's HQ section It'll give Beauregard some additional weight, especially if anything decides to get close to them." Easy Company Draconis March wasn't intended to fill the same role as the MAF Easy company... similar but not the same... different resources being what they were. Easy something of the oddity in the attempt to organize the AFFS mechs that they were training with its core focus was on concentrating missile boats to rain LRM fire in support of units already engaged. That would make them something of a reserve option, either for breaking through or preventing a break through.

The problem would be keeping them supplied in actual fighting and coordinating them. He had a sneaking suspicion that the Davion's were overestimating his abilities, or were just hoping he'd be able to work miracles... maybe just be a good luck charm. Gene didn't like that. He wanted this to be successful, and it certainly seemed like the Davions were taking this seriously.

"Boss?"

Septim's radio in jarred him, and he shook his head, "Just wondering how effective joint operations will be. If they're serious about bringing a regular davion unit, and Eridani." He said glancing at the hologram that had popped up. His computer had brought 3rd RCTforce strength as it had existed at the last update of the system in 2782. He blew a breath out, and dismissed the data chart. "We need to get the basics done. I'm getting ahead of myself, go ahead and take the next batch of mechs out there and through the range."

"I'll make sure they know how to ride a horse." Septim replied as he brought his Marauder up to its cruising speed. At least they hadn't had any more gyro issues, and the heavier 300 series didn't seem to be creating any issues.

Two hours later, as the sun started to set, Gene wiped his face and glanced over the grounds from the cockpit of the machine. The realities of neurohelmet technology meant that getting on target inside of a kilometer, assuming that the weapon was effective against modern armor at that range, took less than ten seconds. A mech could acquire faster or slower but that depended on other factors... having the enemy in the open, well neurohelmet and close range meant it was simple... and after that it was basically a roll of the dice to see if you hit and it was a good hit.

He wasn't sure if that was where the decline in fighting technology had hit or not. Maybe it didn't really matter. AutoCannon technology had become mature centuries ago having replaced so called 'Rifles' whose ammunition simply couldn't effectively defeat modern composite armor effectively enough. The reality was that the advent of armor that remained current and still buildable even in the degraded technology of the succession wars Inner Sphere was good at keeping a machine alive and in the fight against potentially dozens of 120mm rounds. Defense had leapt ahead of offense in warmachines, and offense had not effectively caught up.

Gene really wondered if they were just brewing the armor up exactly according to the recipe or if they still understood the chemical and material sciences underneath. He was leaning the first.

He hit the comms line, "Go ahead and compile the scores, and get ready for tomorrow."
--
He looked at his watch, then at the first tractor trailer backing into the cargo bay of the San Saba, and then to the Azami. "DO I want to know what you talked about at lunch while we were at drill?" Pasha looked at the trailer, and then reached inside his jacket, and pulled out a fax readout. The translated copy, "I don't mean to judge Pasha, but are you still running SLDF ciphers?" He was making an educated guess, he hadn't actually asked Tristan to run the readouts but he'd been suspicious.

He nodded, "They work." Was the man's response as the lights on the truck dimmed.

He exhaled. "Right. Ok changing the subject," Tristan had had an SLCOMNET Uplink... he had had his own HPG prior to the mess ... which of course made him consider that the facility in the periphery, on Aquagea probably had an intact SLCOMNET connect... though if it had been satellite based it might have been destroyed too by natural occurrence. "The ISF started a purge?"

"Yes, it is very bad."

"Why?"

"We don't know, it may simply be paranoia," The JumpShip captain admitted, "it is also possible that they found a rasalhague cell and were already rolling on it by the time the news broke. There are a lot of possibilities."

That was probably an understatement, but it was also pretty likely that the situation on Elidere was contributing. "You said its bad?"

"The ISF is prone to heavy handed responses to any perceived betrayals, even if they are wholly imagined. They lash out any apparent moral lapse." Which just made Gene suspect that the egg on their face from Elidere was contributing to the Combine lashing out.

"Pasha, we're probably about to step off on a Combine Regiment," He paused and let that hang, "intentionally this time."

"I am aware." The old man replied. "Rasalhague needs experienced mechwarriors, and ties with house davion that might convince them to support their independence."

:"And?"

"The Azami Liberation Front has reached out."

"And, you want me to bring them along?"

The captain shook his head, "No, I would recommend caution with them they are prone to reckless abandon a meeting right now would be potentially unwise. They split from the Free Azami Army during the second succession war, and have created no end of arguments on policy within the community."

He nodded, "What else?"

"The Field Marshal has been searching for the Cairo."

"Is that gonna be a problem?"

"No, it is in the periphery that is no lie." He paused, "To return to the issue of recruitment they are prepared to fight, and we can include them with out impacting other recruitment. I have sent a message to abu bakr," He didn't immediately clarify which one of those people with that name he meant, until he noticed the look, "he built our Drosts and should be able to provide us some personnel."

He'd been about to ask when the back end up opened and the Sheik's senior technician got out of the back. They exchanged greetings and he was allowed to clamber up on the white Marauder. "I have never seen this model before, and I've seen most." He bragged sound giddy, "Do you know how many were made?"

"I couldn't say, at least a dozen." According to Tristan's logs, but that had applied only to his assigned area of operations, and unfortunately they'd been offworld or lost otherwise during the conflict. "The code says its unit 42, but there is not guarantee that's for the-"

"It says its a 3R."

"Yeah, I think the 29th century nomenclature of the more common 3R was a General Motors decision for simplicity's sake."

"Possibly," There was another hum, "that would make sense."

The Hegemony had originally designed the 1R and intended it for royal usage, and that model hadn't been entirely replaced until not long before the Amaris coup, but by that point both the 1R and even its successor the 2R had been appearing in the armies of member states and regular sldf units. The Hegemony probably would have been appalled that the magistracy and the taurians were both producing down teched marauders in the present... but there was no helping it.

The motor hummed and the breach opened letting the Azami tech stick a gauge inside the auto cannon's breach.

There were a couple other questions but mostly it was a matter of letting the man work he'd already seen the actual factory produced rounds that had been in storage on Elidere. The Sheik assured them he could work up mech scale handloads for the cluster rounds, especially since they knew their normal ammunition worked.

Speaking of LBXs, "I don't understand," Gene pulled himself up and looked at the pair of Krupp, "The Field Marshal said you were short one." He gestured to the two 'Combat rifle cannon' as he thought the German translated, pattern 78, as in 2678.

"Ah yes these they are Krupp 120mm cannons, I am afraid the one I am missing is unfortunately a different caliber and manufacturer." In the mean time the Sheik had something else to show them. "It was a pity that the mech was otherwise ruined." The large man declared resting a hand on the exterior casing of the weapon he had moved towards.

Gene looked around the other side, it was a large laser, but he wasn't sure the model but it looked like there was a plate up at the top of the five ton weapon, "What did you pull this out from?"

"I suppose it would have been a bit before your time." He paused, "Terran Hegemony Militia Mech, Helepolis 3H, a 75 Tonner."

He recognized the name of a mech that was really best employed in Star League doctrine of entire units of a single model mech, "Did you pull the artillery piece from it?"

"I did yes."

He moved up a shop step and glanced at the corner, where a tarnished plate was bolted in. "Lone Star State Militia, 2642."

"Not what you were expecting?"

"No, but it makes as much sense," He shrugged, "I was expecting it came out of a Kuritan 1K, they were built with DHS and one of these for the primary weapon," Well, "Extended Range Large laser anyway."

He snapped his fingers in recognition, "Two medium pulse lasers, one in each arm." Ahmed nodded. "As I recall your uncle Mehmet piloted one my friend."

"Indeed his grandson has it now." Pasha replied. "You said this came out of a militia mech."

"Yes, buried in a landslide," Gene didn't interrupt but that was getting to be Ahmed's excuse for where he found anything, "We dug it out of the ruins. The Hegemony Militia were fighting against the Usurper's troops. 2768 probably, thereabouts. We dug many rim world mechs out of the field as well."

"Where was this," He asked, before speculating, without waiting for an answer, "a landslide catching that many doesn't sound accidental. Pumping artillery into the snow pack would be the best way to get that result."

The last part of the statement prompted a look, "That is a thing?" Pasha questioned with some alarm at the prospect of intentionally dropping an avalanche.

"Yeah,"

"I am glad then I am in the navy." Pasha's reply was probably doubly true since people didn't nuke JumpShips anymore.

"Hmm, it was not something," The large man scratched his chin in thought, "I did not consider it was any more than an accident, of course it was so long ago, we were just following a map that said there should have been a city there. So we dug it up, and look, fortunate us."

Any further conversation was interrupted by a ring into the bay's phone line, and having to get a move on.
--

He'd settled for watching a couple of the matches of the recent graduates from the battle academy, but if he were being honest he'd have preferred watching the work on the San Saba. They had settled on ripping out and refitting enough space to carry twelve mechs for the time being. The only reason they hadn't gone for more was Abner had sent a message in saying they'd need the vehicle space, and that he had something 'Big'.

The old doctor had not elaborated. It was of course also likely his message today had been sent hastily after the previous one because he'd been reminded that they were working on the Triumph class Dropship. According to Pasha there was a lot of Fax machine traffic coming now... well relative to what passed for normal... but Gene also supposed that in the Inner Sphere that there were enough planets close enough together that maybe there were enough ships secretly carrying them that you'd get a message every couple days when something big was going on.

... and from the Draconis side of the border it sounded like there was some butchery going on. But they were also getting rebroadcasts of some of the same messages.... which he figured as only happening because they were in the Inner Sphere.

He'd diagramed out on his Marauder a couple of distinct sources. There were at least two distinct Azami broadcasts, there was another that seemed to be the Rasalhagues, and then someone who wasn't Abner on the Davion's side of the border, somewhere on the interior. That was standing out.

The Azami had said that they'd gotten the Black Box tech from the Rasalhague rebels. He wasn't sure how they were making them other than... it took a lot less germanium to make one than an HPG... but the procedure he wasn't sure about.

Bahar's machine handshaked his marauder. The Mongoose linking to an SLDF comm line. She sounded tired, which was unusual. "Did they really run you ragged?"

"It wasn't that bad." She protested.

"You didn't have to fight a mech that's more than twice the mass of yours," He pointed... even though he had in hindsight regretted not watching her kick the shit out of the seventy tonner in person. "You did good, that was excellent use of terrain." Especially for a mech that didn't have jump jets.

"The head shot score was luck."

"You still landed it." He replied. Septim had at least stuck to mechs in his weight class, and Bubbles hadn't had to face anything as heavy as the Atlas she was in. An Atlas was pretty hard to kill, and if Gene were honest Samsonov had added more cooling than probably strictly necessary, but anything dumb enough to get close deserved the Assault class autocannon.... And when you got right down to it... he was pretty sure the Kuritan general had devised the mech specifically as a dueling platform for long range engagements between him and kicking the shit out of whatever Combine subordinate or rival in his face. ... or that was his best guess. "Bard is in the second string tomorrow I guess we will see how he does."

"And Lieutenant Castro?"

If Castro didn't actually know he had already been approved for the class... well he was doing a good job with the enthusiasm for his match come Monday. "I've talked about it with the field marshal..." Though was talked was an exaggeration. It was, when you got down to it, one of those yes ma'am situations. He glanced at the clock. "We're supposed to let him play through the rungs."

"What is she aiming for?"

Yvonne had called in having been watching the proceedings,, and had told them to whittle it down. That had been while they'd been at the San Sab. "A company sized class." Twelve... ten AFFS mechwarriors really Bard and 'Kingwolf' were already pretty much a given. "Can you handle that?"

"It shouldn't be a problem."

"I'll put together as much of a reference guide as I can by tonight."

"Tonight?"

"The Field Marshal wants copies of everything before she ships off." And the truth was he had gotten distracted with Azami matters, merchant shenanigans, the secrets of FtL shadowy chatter, and the possibility of hiring... and the failure of the latter.
--
Notes: We're dividing this in half, we will deal with a little mech fighting next go round, before starting part 12, and then go to the interlude on Bristol with Doctor Abner. The Krupp LBX come off of a Dragoon.

I don't know what KgK in canon is supposed so I made something up for what eighties pseudo german probably made it meant. Even thats a stretch since in canon its a lower case 'g' meaning its something abbrevieted 'Kg' Kannone and if I find out later I 'll change it. 120 is obviously caliber L66 is barrel length. The assumption made being the 78 designation is 2678 is based on the machine first saw action in 2771 so it can't be 2778 there so most likely Krupp developed them in 2678 (LBX 10s first show up in the Hegemony in 2590).

I do wish there was a more comprehensive list of all the different autocannons, or just manufactuers and models in general, but autocannons in particular for the different calibers. Anyway I've been using lootbox rolling for the Azami shop. Interestingly despite Kerensky trying to expunge the Dragoon from existence it apparently was still a thing by the time he left of the exodus, which suggests a lot were made. It went extinct "The few remaining Dragoons in service elsewhere would become extinct before the 3rd Succession War" which seems contradictory, either there are a few of them in which case why isn't it 'went extinct during the 1st', but I digress. That's why a Dragoon isn't specifically showing up yet.

Some sharky boys down the road though when we get back to the periphery.... because from the davion book

" As a citizen of the Outworlds Alliance and a descendant of the Rim Worlders, I had hoped that in the course of our research on this volume I might find some mitigating factor to modify history's judgment of my most famous countryman. I regret to say that I have found none. As far as Amaris is concerned, the ancient slogan applies: ... "What you see is what you get,"... Amaris may have been worse than even past historians have claimed. " — Anastasia Marcus, Historical Director, Davion Research Project, ComStar Research Archives, Terra, 3028

That admittedly wouldn't be written yet it being 3017 and all but ... Marian Hegemony shenanigans and Stefan Amaris VII showing up early or another Amaris, I'm not entirely decided other than the dragoons will probably become involved someway or another in that mess. Especially since, well as has been shown by the Azami... Amaris is basically satan...

Imperator Pax · Jun 12, 2022

I Davion Part 11
(B)

August 3017

They had allowed the mechs to be fitted with what were paint guns for all intents and purposes. The techs were very confident that it was safe... what it wasn't was clean. The landscape had been painted where AC and Paint missiles had been used... and it probably hadn't been the best idea.

Apparently this made more sense with armor... supposedly. They were supposed to be testing indirect fire accuracy... they were really just making a mess of the exercise area.

"Are we going to do that?" Sutton's question the we in it stemmed from his relatively early, unfortunate elimination on Saturday from the brackets.

"No." He replied. "Your company," Gene paused, "and Dog Company are going to assemble tomorrow and start drills for dealing with enemy air assets." Simulated ASF shoots not dropships, but they were on paper planning to work up to that. They wanted to cover all of their bases. He glanced to the 6Md that Sutton owned. "Your mech carries two LRM 15s, its an intermediate step between the mass production post Age of War 'modern' dervish and the Terran Hegemony trial version. The Federated Suns probably would have still updated the Md to improved heat sinks later, but thats an XL engine in there, and your LRMs are protected by cellular armor storage, but your srms aren't." Never mind that Sutton's dervish had no business being in a situation where it needed to use the armed mounted dual tube SRM launchers, "And bluntly two tons of SRM is a lot of missiles especially for something like your mech." especially with its armor.

Sutton's SLDF mech was now los tech. It had been built for the SLDF forces and had integrated technology that was now lost to the Inner Sphere. CASE and the XL engine couldn't be replaced. Gene had half a mind to make the advice that Sutton might be better of seeing if the FedSuns wouldn't trade him a heavier missile boat that'd be easier to maintain in order to study the lostech. Gene didn't actually consider the Dervish a poor man's archer, but if the XL engine failed or suffered damage then the whole mech would need to be overhauled and other parts replaced.

Replacing an engine by hand... and had been demonstrated when they had needed weeks to get Merlin's old one out, and to put the new one in, and that was discounting insuring the VLAR 300 would work... and while lighter XL's were more massive.

Sutton looked as if he were going to ask more questions, but trailed off as his baby fat cheeks heated up and turned red. Gene tossed a sideways glance over one shoulder to Cunningham dismounting from her own mech. Charitably speaking Sutton was in what could have passed for swim trunks and a life preserver, and that was about normal. Alexandria's gold and blue suit might as well have been a one piece bathing suit, and it wasn't even particularly risque.

There was no denying that even in conservative dresses and with her hair pinned up the countess of Kestrel was an attractive woman, a skintight bathing suit was a way for her to show off. Hot was the operative word. Any further ogling of the countess's long legs had to be shelved as Bard finished dismounting from his Wolverine and came trotting up in kilt and heat vest looking like David Bowie posing for a highlands set bodice ripper novel cover.

"The lads look like they're having fun." The Robinson Rangers officer remarked congenially, "What do you reckon?"

"ON being able to suppress any enemy formation?" At least infantry would keep their heads down, but realistically the BattleMech's chief advantage was being able to accurately engage close range targets. "Fire and maneuver are the principles of tactical engagement, if they can hold them still then someone else can hit them." Which would be a problem if they ended up in a situation where they were badly outnumbered.

"What do you mean?" Sutton stammered, "I mean aren't they doing well?"

He glanced out at the paint, "What I mean is," He glanced to Bard, "What is the scoring metric right now about, thirty forty percent?"

"About that yeah." The scotsman paused "They're actually managing about one in every three shots."

"That's bad." Sutton admitted, and looked at the RBA instructor.

"I'm about seventy five percent," Bard replied. "I'm pitching about fourth shot right."

The cadet turned to Gene, who shrugged. "Ninety." Then paused, "Part of this is its not entirely accurate, they try and match the ballistics, but there is a drift. Even the lasers aren't perfect." The practice rounds were close but not identical, and he doubted the targeting systems had been coordinated for them anyway. The conversation was somewhat superfluous though as Sutton and Cameron departed , and the countess found a seat at one of the patios near the hangar. "The Field Marshal is leaving shortly."

"Yes." The brusque affirmative coincided with her making something of a show of running her fingers through her hair and shaking it out around her shoulders. Alexandria gave a deep breath, "Would you like to have lunch, before they start the second string?" She asked.

"Sure." He agreed, half expecting her to want to grab a shower and change clothes, but instead just had lunch delivered to one of the 'arena's private viewing boxes. Rice, lamb, flat bread were delivered about twenty minutes after they settled in.

"Don't you get hot in that thing?"

He glanced at the wrist of his suit, and then back to her, noticing that despite being at least two years older than he was they were about the same height. He had had to go a size up in suit at Elidere to accommodate, "this is insulated and thermal regulating. Even with the helmet breathes pretty well." The helmet comment threw her, "I mean for non permissive environments, vacuum, toxic atmosphere. The suit is rated for well below freezing, as well as high temperature." radiation protection was included but only to the extent of short jaunts, designed mainly for insure a downed pilot might survive if picked up quickly... and that had been a design requirement from the age of war when the Taurians had been throwing nukes left and right. He wasn't going to comment it was rated against light small arms either, you never knew, or that it basically doubled as a dive suit for the water if you needed it to... though swimming in boots was always a pain in the ass.

Bard's match started more or less about how he expected it to. His wolverine and the Shadow Hawk it was facing both took opening shots that the judges registered as misses before they started the dancing around the arena with their jump jets. The match was only half watched. "If we succeed it could change the Inner Sphere." She sounded as if she'd been coached on the line by the field Marshal, "The duke of robinson is prepared to offer a full time teaching position for the entire company, but the Crucis March is willing to match, or even exceed that offer."

"I'll keep that in mind, but until we're through here its a distraction."
--
Yvonne Davion looked at the two young adults and flipped through the papers. It occurred to her the only thing missing in format was a Star League letter head, or a Cameron starburst. She'd seen the academic format in historical documents, citation standards, spacing, it even had a cover page. "Is this feasible to improve accuracy?"

"Training is material to accuracy, live fire exercises will be the best way to do that." He replied.

She tapped her fountain pen remembering the news that had come in more than a decade ago now... when Ian had still been first prince. Even then she'd already been comfortably ensconced at the DMI managing analysis. Her nephew, the then present first prince had been concerned that the sudden arrival over Delos was a combine trick, but that had always, especially in hindsight seemed silly.

It was true that the DCMS uniforms had in their own way looked similar to Wolfs, but they were both clearly inspired by the uniforms of the SLDF regular army. The presence Star Lord JumpShips and Overlord DropShips and the use and black and red were another factor, but all of that was happenstance. She'd always thought Colonel Wolf had been young to be in his position... commanding five regiments of BattleMechs. She had a file with all of the original telemetry from over Delos, particularly the presence of Lion-class Dropships.

She had a report from linguistics on wolf. Not just him, the Dragoons original personnel all seemed to habitually avoid using contractions, and occasionally dipped to using vernacular terms that didn't exist in the Inner Sphere lexicon's common english. It didn't mean or even prove anything, but it suggested that their planet, or home planets, had gone through some kind linguistic shift. One that had clearly attempted to purge english of various words, and intentionally revive archaic uses. That wasn't unusual plenty of colonies in the first exodus from various cultures had attempted cultural purification to separate themselves from the Old Earth.

It still raised questions, questions that the Dragoons had always been unwilling to answer. It was a different problem... different questions than the other colonel. Shepherd's jacket, his file, suggested a star league era baccalaureate education, or more, he spoke was some stripe of Hegemony English, in addition to an archaic dialect of Japanese that her linguistics panel suggested only continued to exist in academic circles, principally in the Lyran Commonwealth.

There were other contrasts between the two mercenary commanders, but it was their ages and their ranks which were contradictions. "You have your candidates now?"

"We've narrowed it down to a company of pilots as you requested." He replied confirming what she already knew.

She recalled the thirteen week course comment. That was the sort of number that stood out. It suggested that there was some sort of program, or had been somewhere that used that to train, and that he didn't want to abridge it. "And you're prepared to hand off much of the course work?"

"And when I ship off world I'll pass the duelists off to Bahar."

"Doctor Abner expects to join you on New Avalon I understand."

"So I understand." He replied non committal.

Yvonne considered asking what was on Bristol again, but she doubted she'd receive an explanation. It was possible he legitimately didn't know. The truth was that Interstellar Expeditions seemed to have no end of secrets, and more mysteries that they wanted to track down. Whatever it was was enough to hold it out to the office of the first prince.

The field marshal made the decision to let the matter rest, and flipped through the drill itinerary. "Simulated field operations?"

"Rearm and refit of mechs in the field under simulated combat conditions. Units will practice covering another unit as it resupplies in combat... unfortunately given the number of ICE vehicles that means practicing delivery of fuel to units near the front." There was a note of distinction in the paperwork for repair and resupplying units, and simulating the evacuation of casualties from the line of engagement. "We can't afford to neglect combined arms on the offensive like the Galedon Regulars did, and its probable that the Combine will be predominantly light and heavy mechs and I'd like degredation of the enemy force at range before we commit to any attempted break through."

She nodded, "Can you simulate the Eridani as an allied unit in exercises?"

He raised an eyebrow, "I can simulate them as they were as a SLDF unit, if you can get me their current force strength I can plug that in instead, and have the exercise using SLDF light horse doctrine."

"I can provide that." The tell had been incidental, rather accidental. The admission that he knew what the SLDF Eridani had been could easily be played off as their historical configuration, surely of which there was a record... but if you had that, why wouldn't you also have some idea of their modern configuration. She pushed on, "There is one other thing, "For the last field exercise, I have an OpFor in mind. I want it to model the 2nd Sword of Light as it existed in the Star League era."

"Understood." He paused glancing sideways to Alexandria, "Should I expect to fight the unit responsible for the death of the previous first prince?"

"Its not apart of our operation's objective. We don't expect them to be anywhere near the target."

"I should still point out that 2nd SoL was at the time of the Amaris coup a Medium BattleMech Regiment built roughly along the lines of an Army Battle Regiment."

The old woman smiled and nodded, "That will do quite nicely for a course exam."
--
This was something of an extravagance, but Precentor Vandal of New Avalon didn't seem to object... though why would he given the cost entailed by live communications through three other stations in order to reach the Capital of the Federated Suns. "I think you will like him." She remarked.

The reigning first prince was not yet thirty five. Hanse was actually younger than Colonel Jaime Wolf of the much vaunted Dragoons. Hanse hadn't even been thirty when he'd ascended the throne of the Federated Suns to become First Prince after Ian's death in October of 3013.

"I'm looking forward to meeting him. They've been playing those battleroms of elidere to death here,"

Huthrin Vandal smiled the picture of cherubic innocence as he agreed, "Yes they are perhaps the most watched footage across civilized space this year.
--
Notes: It totally slipped my mind last week, the thread is a year old now.

Imperator Pax · Jun 19, 2022

I Davion Part 12

The field marshal had been gone for about a week now. She'd taken with her copies of all the academic material he'd generated for the course by that point as well as all the test results... and she had remained cryptic over things insisting that that would be for New Avalon. Gene had a mounted worry that if what Pasha was telling him was accurate they were looking into doing more than just taking an opportunity. One out of a projected Mech Regiment strength of 66 was gone... and he guessed that she wanted to whittle that down further.

There had been an offhand comment that the Lyrans and Mariks had a rough strength of Mech Regiments in the mid fifties... parity with one another roughly speaking. Neither number included mercenaries.

So here he was doing paperwork... office work in the white Marauder's cockpit. Septim had finished up taking his Merlin for a hard ride to see how well it handled. He had taken a handful, not quite a company, of cadets with him as they put the machine through its paces. The nominal, on paper, reason was to examine cavalry potential.

So far so good. The techs had been somewhat relieved that they hadn't tried to replace the Large Laser installed with the extended range version they had purchased from Ahmed's caravan. The prodigiously proportioned Azami had also moved on, probably carrying messages to other communities along the way.

Which was another problem. Ahmed had a Black Box... fine, he'd known that the Rassalhague resistance had apparently dug some out, and figured out how to make their own copies, and passed that to the Azami. Which was compounded by the print out message he was looking at. They all followed the same format.

... Message Received...

A Time Stamp. Logged.

ETC ETC an automated response kicked back by a machine in the network that didn't make sense.... except that the ciphers the Azami were using were Star League Army Regular codes. He'd checked there was even a matching cipher code book to translate and confirm... and Yusuf had been expecting it had been a joke.

So they had waited, and sent out a test code message using the protocols for that communications test laid out in a dusty manual that no one had read in... more than a century. It had been received and relayed instantly back to them.

So he had spent hours going through his machine's logs for an answer, and he was pretty sure he had had it. They had been exercising during the sulfur flats on the far end of 'Blue land' with the tanks, what back during the Star League era had been an important mineral reserves area and a center of industrial excavation during Robinson's boom years.

He'd pulled maps up from the database, maps that had been downloaded from Tristan's database only because the AI had known that they were going to Robinson next. There were a handful of other davion worlds, but the thing he was interested in was trying to identify the ping call. Handshake would provide an identification to what exactly was trying to communicate with his mech, and that would give him some idea where they were broadcasting.

He flipped the motive start transferring power to the machine's forward drive and easing the machine out of the hangar while the Dalban initiated a clean boot and entered 'patrol' configuration to receive and catalog transmissions. Obvious Blue 2-4 was beyond range, and the Dalban was currently categorizing signal transmissions but with only one mech's signals it was going to be a wild goose chase, and he could be out here all night. He watched first interrogative go out over the comms capable of controlling an entire regiment in processing.

--
He cracked the pale ale open. "The boss doesn't look happy." Septim remarked dropping into the chair... and then a little more conspiratorially, "I've seen him pecking away putting the new drill orders together." The Lyran remarked

"I didn't think we did that bad." Chang started to protest pushing her glasses up and reaching for the test scores from today.

It was at that point the door banged open, which wasn't unusual, it was late in the afternoon, already getting dark despite the late summer daylight, and much as remarked upon Bahar would admit the Gunslinger looked visibly annoyed, but also energized. "Get everyone up," They looked at him, "Get everyone up, now." He punctuated. "I want the entire unit mobilized, and ready to roll out."

"They just went to lights out." Septim started as he swallowed down his first mouthful of beer. "Oh this is one of those snap drills you told," The field marshal, and he coughed slightly as he trailed off, "on it, come on Beau I need to borrow your baritone."

The two men left, and he stopped Bahar, and handed her a computer chit, "Plug this into your Mongoose, and run the search query through your comms log, see if anything turns up."

The dark eyed woman took the device, and looked at him, "Is there something wrong?"

"Wrong? Might be the wrong word, but I'm getting an SLDF return ping on operations, where something keeps trying to handshake my Mech during operations, then hits my Operations clearance and aborts the connection because we're in the middle of exercises so it logs it and stows it away as a non priority. If you get something ping my Marauder on a priority channel, when you get to your mech, you'll receive a communications handling package anyway."

"Where are you going?"

"Get everyone else up."

"Everyone?"

"The duke of Robinson wanted to be included," Even though of course there was no way they'd be taking him off world in his condition, and his tone implied this was more than just an exercise, which was confirmed by the instruction that everyone would be running on live ammo as they moved into the Blue 7 exercise field, which did lead them through terrain that took them into a live fire range and was a traversable series of bad lands. It would be well and truly twilight by the time they could get everyone mobilized and on the way.

His watch chimed set into the wrist of his suit, and Gene glanced at the timer forty minutes later as his Dalban categorized the fusion signatures. He hailed the Azami command crew aboard the Sam Houston and asked for a sitrep on when they would be able to take off. Then repeated the process for the Hidalgo and San Saba. It was the latter two who most likely would be capable of pinging the communications, and help triangulate the signal to find what they were going to look for.

Blue Land, hell the entire, Robinson exercise zone was wired for video and sound, and that included as far as he could tail the field bunks and lodging, and work areas to monitor how cadets responded. Even now in the background his neurohelmet was filtering feeds of sergeants shouting orders rushing men to tanks, and officers directing pilots to their machines. Cadets were still being hustled out of bed and into piloting attire, told to get their neurohelmets and cooling jackets on. Then to be rushed through the halls into bays where they were to then wait before they could be moved to their machines as astechs checked over them.

His command package was already distributing orders to to ASF pilots to standby positions. They wouldn't actually be taking off, but their machines were being directed to stand ready, and a rung down the conventional fighters like Defenders of the planetary militia were on notice.

As machines started to power on the chatter from cadets then became chatter over comm lines between lancemates, and then companies. Gene sat in his Marauder and let the Dalban work its magic in conjunction with his neurohelmet.

A supersonic roar signaled the lift off as the Sam Houston became a shooting star hurtling upwards. The Triumph and Overlord followed within half an hour as the forward clock ticked continuing to keep count.

Bahar's face appeared in high definition holographic color, "I'm uploading now."

"So something attempted to handshake your machine?"

"Yes. I never received a notice for it, but I can transmit the tagged coordinates." She did so, and brought up that if this was an SLDF hardware matter then Sutton's dervish might be useful, but he shook his head.

Sutton's machine was SLDF but his iff broadcasted as AFFS based on his pilot credentials, not based on the hardware itself. "As for the rumors that the Combine is attacking, you can squash those." He added after another minute, "reign in comms discipline and keep the units in their formations, I'll be in touch."

He liaised directly order a handful of other company and battalion commanders into formation as they came on line in their vehicles and updated the map. It took longer for the countess of Kestrel to get to her mech, and for the duke of robinson to make it to a mobile HQ vehicle but by eleven o'clock they were on the move. Later than he wanted.

"This wasn't planned," The duke observed over a private channel.

"No sir it was not." He replied.

The Duke of Robinson nodded, "But you think this is necessary."

"Yes, yes I do." He replied.

That put an end to the conversation as they continued to move through the hills, and into landa that had been reduced to scrub grass and trailheads, and basically left to grow up since the succession wars had begun... he considered the animosity the Draconis March felt towards the Combine... and how that might effect how they viewed the video footage of Amaris getting the coordinator of the day to provide the information of the SLDF's movements and positions... force strength.

True combine loyalists would probably... like the sword of light choose to emphasize that filial piety Minoru Kurita had been exercising by honoring his father's wishes to protect the Kuritan hostages Amaris had been using as bargaining positions. That had after all be the Kuritan byline to explain the Combine's inaction and unwillingness to take action against Amaris... but for most even inside the combine... Amaris was too despised where even that might not be enough to make it palatable.

The Draconis March he doubted needed any help to hate the Combine. Even without knowing what Minoru Kurita had done it was an easy enough thing to blame the Combine for being responsible, to blame Minoru for the end of the Star League... the video just made it worse. As it showed him collaborating with Amaris, and it would be a short jaunt, a few years down the road from that footage to show or just play a clip of Minoru proclaiming his intent to declare himself, or having declared himself Star Lord.

It was impossible to escape from... and if backed into a corner with something that might legitimately unite enough people against them. Gene expected the combine would go back to the first succession war policy of nuke first and ask questions later. Even Tristan agreed on that, and it was for that reason, that calculus that if the Combine were backed into a corner too far too fast he hadn't agreed to any plans to dump the video out there. He wasn't willing to take that gamble.

The problem... was what Yusuf said was going on. The Combine seemed to think or showed signs of thinking a rebellion was in the works. Maybe they were just being paranoid, maybe they weren't. If the Combine lost the Terran Corridor though the question became what then. There wasn't enough information in his possession to even begin to guess who might do what.

... on the other hand, he eased back on the mech as it crested the hill, and checked his logs. The radio compass azimuth feeding in a course correction, which he logged and distributed the adjust navigation package over the battle network.

Another eight miles the Dalban pinged, and he executed the handshake, calling the unit to a halt while the processed authenticated. An SLDF package unfolded, decompressed, and provided him a navpacket to work by. Credentials for sender and receiver validated he adjusted his nav and pushed forward again. He overlaid the map and looked at the nearest town.

He brought the unit to a general halt as he finished the next hill, and looked at a nearby river cutting through a stretch of ugly stunted trees, and tall grass. The battle network started allocating units to move into deployment phases and escorting conventional armor, and mechanized infantry began to diverge and then deploy across the widest part of the hills. AFFS infantry spilled from personnel carriers and began digging in on the hill pointed towards one direction as they were commanded. Anti air partisan tanks moved to screen them against any theoretical exercise simulated attack, throwing up their air scouring radars as they did so. Heavier armor, conventional and fusion powered tanks, dug fighting positions.

To all intents and purposes they were defending a nearby insignificant town.

--
Note: This is not the update I had originally planned for today, and I am through half a bottle of Ahus at this point, but this is the update you're getting. So just FYI, I will edit, that is do a follow on spelling check tomorrow, when I'm sober.

Originally I was going to post the Abner and Ford poking around on Bristol, but for among other reasons am doing this, I was able to borrow the book with the fury lore in it, and I'm not sure I'm going to treat it but I'll deal with that next week, or the week after.

Imperator Pax · Jun 23, 2022

Bristol (Interstellar Expeditions)

September 3017

Abner looked as the new vehicles joined their workplace. He still found himself rather cross with his protégé as abominable as the Combine's behavior had been encouraging such a rash bout of military adventurism was... well it wasn't commendable... he would have preferred not to have to divide up their resources... but here they were on Bristol. Doing what needed to be done, he supposed. The older man cleared his throat, "Well, was your detour sucessful?" he asked.

Ford nodded and handed over a noteputer of Terran vintage.

He looked at the wire frame schematics that appeared, "what's that expression for what aren't you telling me Mister Ford?"

"It wasn't just the depot."

"What, what was that speak up?"

Ford's grin only grew. "I think when we get to New Avalon, the look we'll get will be, very very impressive." Then still in a low voice, "There were in," he enunciated, "tact prototypes, Professor. One complete even. An Assault Mech carrying two M9 Gauss rifles, painted as you'd expect in Royal colors."

Abner nodded, and looked back down to the noteputer of the one hundred tonner. With something that was half to a grumble he nodded again to acknowledge the younger man's enthusiasm. "Where is it now?"

"Stored up, in a big box." Ford replied stymying his own giddiness, "Didn't want to risk you poking around and figuring out what it was before I told you professor, the, it is one of the last SLDF command designs developed."

Ford's comment brought a nod, "Yes, I've been thinking about that." He paused for a relish, in dramatic effect, "Major, Colonel Shepherd said that the Dragoons were using a down tech version of the ANH-1."

"LBX, you mean."

"Yes, indeed the same model as found on my Atlas." The Atlas II was sitting aboard the JumpShip's hangar. Abner had painstakingly secured a copy of the machine's memory core, and its original owner's final sortie... and of course the final orders issued by the Hegemony officer to enact the wildfire protocol to deny the base to mutinying deserters. "Four of them." He added perhaps unnecessarily since the Dragoon's pronounced -1A variant carried four class ten autocannons.

"He thinks they're descendants of Kerensky's deserters."

"I don't think, think is the word the colonel would use." Abner replied thrusting his hands into his jacket as the wind picked up, which caused some resistance from the computer before he managed to get it in. He coughed slightly, "No, I think he's quite sure now. I don't know what that could mean though." He thought back to the question about Tripitz ... and he had made sure to search the name... and that had turned up the mystery of the Vandenburg White Wings.

A picture of a Black Lion in rimward periphery star system near the concordant. Had the Hegemony managed to get a flotilla out of the Inner Sphere after the coup... was there a hidden world, or worlds of Hegemony survivors or colonists some where deep rimward, the P-C Cloud Complex? They might never know. It had been two centuries now... but the prospect of that time reminded him that the Dragoons had only reappeared recently,, a dozen years earlier in 3005.

He cleared his throat. "Well we should get started on the door."

Bristol was a world hit hard by the combine's abominable behavior during the first of the succession wars. Reducing what had once been a gem of industrial hard work and labor to a pale shadow in terms of productivity. Even two centuries later their diggers had had to have excavated almost a million tons of rubble and debris beneath the layer of dirt and scrub grass that had grown up over the sight. No one had thought it worth the time to clean up... they had just left things after the Kuritans had finished their rampage, or been driven off.

It was such a waste. In 2791 the Combine had nuked the site they were excavating, and none had thought to clean up the mess.

"How big is it?"

"Large enough that it was supposed to have dropships land here." He replied thinking of the Triumph-class that Ford had worked to get flyable on Elidere at the lost star port. He wasn't sure that really qualified as salvage... and if making the dropship fly again after its long sleep wasn't than this certainly didn't count. Recovery operation perhaps? Well semantics, Abner mused contemplated the mountains of earth moved, and what passed for a city on this world in this era. As for what was buried below the surface... he considered. "The mechanisms described by Tristan state that the bunker was rated against capital weaponry." Attacks from concentrated warships in orbit, using both techniques pioneered by the DOME and also just mountains of earth as ablative material. "I don't know for sure if that means that the doors will even open after two hundred years."

"Or if the computers will work." Ford added.

Or if they'd recognize the authorization, and requisition order to secure material Tristan had compiled for them using SLDF cryptographic ciphers. They would have to see. Another bitter wind blew across, and he figured there was no point in dallying any further. The Jolassa Armored Vehicle site wasn't going to just open itself after two hundred plus years of sitting there.
--

The doors in fact did still work. The lights too. He expected that the computers and other systems were probably fine. It was the Star League's industry they were talking about.

It was at this Abner marveled at the lofty heights humanity had once stood at. There had only been a single DropShip in the port, a Confederate class, and that had left them plenty of room to bring in their own vehicles. The real wonder though was in the high speed rail system similar to what they'd found on Elidere built in the League era that if he wasn't wrong probably ran a line all the way to a terminal where Jolassa's modern successor had their factory built on top of the old foundation. That would bear exploring later, once they were fully settled.

As they had suspected the kuritan attack had caught the facility entirely off guard. The automated loading and machinery intended to pack up .;.. pretty much anything Kolassa manufactured was entered a safety shut down without worker supervision and remained in stasis for all intents and purposes waiting to be reactivated. A reactivation that was only coming more than two centuries later... and it might have been a slight exaggeration to say that there was pretty much everything Jolassa had built at the time of the fall of the Star League.

Including, as they had expected, completed or near complete Royal Fury tanks. Rows upon rows of the eighty ton vehicles, what he know knew were Fury after having seen one of the alternate versions on Elidere. It had been because of Elidere they had known that this should be here... and indeed here it was. They had been right to take the gamble.

... even if a part of him regretted that the next step would be handing over the armaments that would then be used to continue the senseless struggle of the states vying for supremacy. The Combine needed to be stopped though... that had become increasingly apparent. The Coordinator's, no the mad ambitions of the Coordinators' was what was responsible for all the horrors of the Succession wars in their mad bid to usurp the golden throne of Terra.

It was a realization that broke with the nominally expected neutrality of the organization. It wasn't a break per se. Interstellar Expeditions as an academic collective expected a certain amount of ethical detachment from politics, that they wouldn't take sides in a partisan manner that might imperil science and learning as a result.

They wound their way past another couple of large trucks, and looked at the office. He looked at the door, at how simple and plain this was, standard, cookie cutter as one of his fellow founding members of I.E had quipped back before Interstellar Expeditions had been put together, almost fifty years ago when they as MEN members had started searching for the lost Minnesota tribe.

The prospect of his age meant little... mortality from old age was a ridiculous thing to be worrying about. Maybe if he settled for going home and living on the estate that kind of thing might be possible... but he'd more likely die of boredom. Truthfully they didn't seem any closer to finding the Minnesota tribe, they had answered questions... and those answers seemed to have little do with the mysterious travelers... and they created other questions.

The lyran reached forward and tapped the panel, which obligingly glowed and starting up. Now to see if things worked as they were supposed to, if the computers which had last logged on probably in 2791 recognized SLDF draft orders for material when the league had been dissolved rather effectively by the council a decade earlier.

No one appeared to have told the computer as the door panel turned green reading his security chit's authorized user status and opened the door. The distribution office was plain. Professional, stainless appliances, sink, and other conveniences. A handful of Jolassa Armored branded mugs sat still waiting for their people to come drink. Ford idly inspected an animated tank with a bucktoothed grin and exaggerated bushy eyebrows.

It read 'High speed low drag'. The cartoon armor vehicle didn't appear to be a fury... probably another one of Jolassa Armored's other products that had also gone extinct as a result of the company languishing after the Combine's nuclear attack.

"I wouldn't open the refrigerator." Abner cautioned. Ford didn't chance it and the moved to the larger terminal and started it up, looking for the loading system inventory. Ford coughed at the inventory software booted. "Ah the Star League."

Jolassa Armored Vehicles had been a supplier to the SLDF and if this were accurate this facility was comparable in volume of storage to an actual Castle Brian. No doubt given the terran contracts that Jolassa had been fielding for the Royal Divisions as well as the regular SLDF this had been built by the 26th century DOME.
--
Notes: This is going up early because I am working on the other half still. That should go up as normal on Sunday.

So, the Fury... doesn't have an original SLDF date to the best of my knowledge, but the industrial storage space for Jolassa Armored Vehicles is specified to to "rivaling the size of the Breed Castle Brian", which leaving aside I don't know anything about the Castle Brian on Breed or the Breed Castle Brian if for some reason its somewhere else and named 'Breed' that's pretty big. Notably the Pitban 320 is also the same engine as used in the Thug. Bristol also has 'other Jolassa Weaponry' which suggests they make more than just the fury as well as armor and engines, endo steel and whatever other stuff.

Imperator Pax · Jun 25, 2022

I Davion Part 12

The bunker entryway that had taken them almost two hours to find was large enough to accommodate battlemechs walking in, and out, and the heavy reinforced ferrocrete arches looked like they had been built to take a direct nuclear strike or two. There weren't any of the tracks that he'd expected to see, after having seen Tristan's organization... a plate near the entry way had listed a number sequence and a date putting this as roughly after the unification wars, but the quartermaster's annex that they had followed the path to suggested this had been overhauled some time after that.

His official liaison with house davion was... not pouting but he might have mistaken the set of her jaw, either way it was clear she wasn't sure how to deal with the situation. "can you tell me what we're doing here?"

That was the question wasn't it.

"Clear." A ranger yelled from further down the hall his service rifle moving to a high ready pointed at the ceiling slightly forward as he stepped back to let some of the techs through. The DOME had designed for accessibility, but not necessarily wheel chair accessibility per se. The place was big though, so there was room for the Duke even if they were having to work with it.

"What is this place?"

That was probably a better question.

"Its a Brian Cache." He replied, "And that goes towards what we're doing here."

"A brian... cache... like a castle brian?"

"They're named for the same Cameron." He replied. Brian Cameron had been in the Quartermasters Corp of the SLDF during his requisite term... and among his many many ideas as then, as well as Star Lord was, well what if we need a stockpile of material in an emergency. "Castles serve a different purpose. Brian Cameron believed was was an inevitability and that because it took time for factories to spin up to war footing it made sense to stockpile large volumes of reserve material, hence creating caches of arms," He neglected to mentioned that it was also a great excuse for the government to spend lots of money because while that was true it was possible the benign explanation was to maintain a skill set for workers besides just busy work and kickbacks to a political district or what have you, Gene reflexively shook his head.

There was whirring from the terminal, and he groaned. An inch thick stack of paper finished printing.

"What's that?"

"The computer wants me to fill out the requisition, and paper work to actually take material out of the cache. Tell them not to touch anything. The cache has automated Laser Defense turrets." He looped his foot around a chair, and pulled it slightly to sit, before reaching for a pen in his breast pocket to fill out the sheet. He was aware that there was a silence behind him.

"There are what?"

He pointed to the ceiling. "Laser cannons." They looked like they were the standards not like some of Tristans because... well some of those had been more modern pulse lasers. Those had been in access points for the more secure annexes... to prevent people from accessing things like the radiological bunker, the fusion reactor, or the thankfully sort of empty chemical weapons locker of Tristan's outpost on Elidere.

"Boss maybe you should start from the beginning."

He shrugged and kept scratching away, before pulling out his noteputer to fill in the annoying little details that computer would just scan run against his chit's identity clearance, and would then authorize even if he'd still been 'ranked' major.

Apparently even that would have been enough to authorize bringing the computer controlled gantries online, and the inventory and stockpiling who the fuck knew volume of inventory.

"Bosss?"

"This is a brian cache," He repeated, and blinked, trying to pull the details from the memory, "Brian Cameron believed that conflict with the Kuritans was inevitable and so the Hegemony developed the Castle Brian, and Brian Caches. Castles were intended as defensive outposts to house a minimum of two brigades," To avoid keeping all ones eggs in one basket he supposed, or to justify 'well we have to' build more than one castle, "Castles were intended as support structures and garrisons. Caches were intended for being able to rapidly rearm and reequip Hegemony, and later SLDF regulars in campaigns either at the start of one, or in the face of one, where fresh resupply wasn't readily available."

"So its a star league cache?"

"Yes." He replied, and glanced to the chiming bank of monitors that occupied much of the wall recess, "It looks like this was restocked in the early 2720s with extra material in the event there needed to be a follow on to Operation SMOTHER." Gene hit the print key, and the rollers dutifully began to cycle paper. From the requisition files in the banks it looked like someone either Jocasta Cameron or one of her allies had authorized the material... but regardless someone in the Hegemony chain of command had authorized this material transferred and installed. "It looks like someone expected the need to take further actions against the combine... and," He pushed the filled sheets into a scanner tray, slid the computer chit back in to the reader, and pressed his hand against a third scanner, and waited for them all to turn green. "I guess three hundred years later," Or close enough, "they'll finally be used against the combine."

There was no AI in the facility. Caches were built, put in a roster... and all too frequently forgotten about. A ache like this had probably only been barely remembered by Terra and updating its contents suggested that someone in the Hegemony didn't want to authorize a new cache and sidestepped that by putting more material in here.

He swung the chair around and got up and glanced up gesturing for them to follow, and then back to the inventory he had printed out. The six of them, him, the duke and the duke's bodyguard, Septim, and the countess of Kestrel , plus an infantry officer to communicate with the rest of the Ranger's infantry detachment moved further into the subterranean bunker warehouses.

He doubted they'd stick around to inventory all of it. He had little reason to assume that the materiel list was inaccurate. Still it was something a walk to the elevator that took them four storeys beneath the surface, and probably in part underneath the nearby sleepy insignificant village that had lost most if not all of its industrial affiliations over the course of the succession wars. Caches were just warehouses. There was not accommodation for port facilities... in fact if anything this was intended to blend in with its surroundings. Dig whole hide lots of equipment filling in after you were done just leaving a couple hidden access points to access the cache if you remembered it existed by the time shit had hit the fan.

Someone had clearly forgotten about this... and probably of plenty of others.

"So could this be what the Dragoons found?"

His head snapped to the side to look at Alexandria, "No, Brian Caches were strictly Army units," The Navy had Anchorages, but those were rare mothball yards. "and the Annihilators were cutting edge at the time the League fell... there is no any way those, or those Imp things," Which he'd checked Tristan's datafiles and it conformed to no listed SLDF projects, "would have ended up in a Brian Cache. Even one inside the Hegemony's borders." he reached out to smack the button on the door and it opened to neat rows of tanks. "This is the right place, there should be a divisions allotment worth Valis and Chaparals stored here." He said moving around the sleeping form of Chevaliers.

"So what isn't here that you were looking for?"

"Pollux air defense tanks." He replied to septim's question. "I suppose that they would have been too new for shadow ministry to sweep them here without someone noticing bleeding edge ADX," The pollux would have probably still been Experimental maybe, he wasn't sure, "were shipping into a black hole." There were no Marksman CVs, but there were the older Thor's which carried Thumper artillery pieces in place of 'Sniper' pieces. That was probably just as well too many of the Marksmen had had bad track tensioning systems and were prone to throwing them.

... and of course he shouldn't have been surprised but well the armor assets were all well and good but even though he was a tanker even the Duke of Robinson was more interested in provisioning his duchy, and the Draconis March Militia's Battlemech forces.
--
They had fallen back to the Triumph-class DropShip San Saba after having spent only an hour or two inside the monstrous labyrinth of mile long storage space with countless containers, and hundreds of year old war machines. It had enough space even attempt to take a stockpile of what was going to happen from here out. She doubted she was the only one but Alexandria Cunningham thought she was going to have a stroke at first. The manuals pulled from secured lockers were how to rearm and reactivate machines in storage. Complex diagrams of maintenance included, along with time tables of when the last maintenance and hours and mileage accompanied the other documents. Some of those others listed in a small corner the authorization and authentication, listing Shepherd as a Brevet Colonel, and his 'peace time rank' as Lieutenant Colonel

It was a tiny section in a voluminous series of paper work that would have been easy to miss. It was paired with some alpha numerical arcane designation whose acronyms she had no idea the meaning of. It was only part of the growing migraine

... and of course this had happened on her watch after the Prince's Champion had departed. The field marshal had left to see to other responsibilities and now Alexandria had found she was going to be the one having to explain that while their suspicions did appear to be born out, there was the greater matter that the Star League had apparently thought it was a good idea to bury who knew how many thousands of tons of war materiel just waiting to be dug up.

Those manuals? Robinson BA publishing were now in the process of painstaking copying SLDF TMs in preparation for reprinting them in who knew how many thousand copies for the current DMM leadership courses. Of course part of her responsibilities had been evaluation of any training material generated by the course and its implementation by the RBA to see if the AFFS could implement training that would provide the sort of performance in combat demonstrated at Elidere.

Taking notes about training methods, tactics and doctrine in the expectation that the AFFS's own academies could have aspiring mechwarriors put it in practice. As it was sitting now the ability to shape future curriculum and dispensation was going to be complicated by the RBA horse trading access to newly discovered Star League Manuals to other institutions.

That would be a problem. They were new, and the Field Marshal had wanted to shape future courses which would be harder with a new batch of reprints.

She froze and stopped at a break in the page, and the duke rolled over the entryway to the ward room's office space. The Duke hadn't asked how he'd known about the cache, and they had had to search around for the entrance... but that might have just meant they were looking for an intact entrance.

The object of her frustration and annoyance tossed into a chair, across from the wheel chair, "The lack of Crabs is a pain." He shook his head, "Not that I'm surprised the Crabs were just entering service by the tail end of the second hidden war. I'm not surprised there are Reunification war era Hoplites in that cache they've probably been in there since it was first built."

"There aren't any Marauders on this inventory." The loud lyran declared in surprise pushing through after them. "And its going to take forever to actually go through that place.

"No, there wouldn't have been. Some were allocated to castles, but Caches weren't intended to receive cutting edge hardware. No Marauders, no Crabs," He shrugged.

"I need a list." She state interjecting into their conversation, sounding more tired and more in need than she had wanted to. She took a breath and straightened, "You said that caches wouldn't carry certain mechs, and doubt the Wolfs Dragoons could have found one of these for their equipment." It wasn't something the Prince's Champion had requested she get, but the specific comment on the Annihilator, the Imp seemed to bear out... but the Dragoons had mechs like the Hoplite.

At the mention of the Dragoons, Lord Sandoval remarked with his own good point, "I met Colonel Wolf when Prince Ian was alive, when the Dragoons were under contract with the Federated Suns. He struck me as a very capable man, but I think we may be zeroing in on the use of correct terminology. If I understand Brian Cache is a proper term. Brian Castle is a proper term... but what if in the vernacular cache is being used to refer to a castle."

"Still wouldn't explain the JumpShips, or their DropShip fleet, also a Castle might have Marauders, but their Annihilators are almost surely recent manufacture, or they had their LBX's pulled for logistic reasons, but again, not the sort of thing I'd expect to end up in a castle... unless the Dragoon's ancestors buried them ... and the only source for that would be the troops who left with Kerensky."

--
Notes: I am not entirely happy with this, it is two segments, when it was originally going to be three. So canon is contradictory, in the use of lieutenant colonel, so I am ignoring the the Star League SLDF rank chart that says the SLDF doesn't have Lieutenant Colonel as a rank, as that's stupid and I'm going to ignore it. Jumping from Major to Colonel makes no damned sense to me.

That being said it might explain why Majors in the SLDF have stupid large maounts of authority., which brings us to the matter of Caches, and their naval counterparts. Because BT is about big stompy robots we don't see much mention of the naval equivalent, there is a couple mentions of them related to the SLDF and the Hegemony and for example we know the Helm Cache's equivalent naval storage got blown up by the Kuritans (never mind that Kurita was on the wrong side of Terra during this time period) whie Keeler was hiding the rest of his forces and of course the memory core, but there is also a couple of mentions related to ComStar about what they used for their hidden fleet and there have been a few other mentions, including references to facilities by the Rim World republic in their far flung outposts (So not uniquely a Terran, SLDF thing).

This of course goes into even just Star League mechs in the late 2500s had some advanced tech, I looked at more than a couple of canonical mechs that 'entered production in that period with fucking LBX 10 or Gauss rifles and yet the Amaris coup supposedly was enough that these weapons which by 2790 had been around for TWO HUNDRED years just disappear. and that gets into, why would the Dragoons assume that LBX at least wouldn't still be a thing. I can understand ER PPCs in current canon they were new Hegemony tech supposedly in 2751 (which is one of those date snafus someone made ignoring that there are a number of mechs which definitely came out before the supposed weapon was introduced. Which is what I originally assumed was the case with a bunch of the Gauss rifle mechs.)

I will probably follow this up with a shorter post sunday, we will see.

Imperator Pax · Jun 26, 2022

First Davion 12
(Extra)

She shut the door, even though it was more for show than anything. She doubted anyone would eavesdrop but the glass facade was hardly going to stop anyone from noticing them. 'Just' Elidere would have warranted elevation into the petty nobility of the Federated Suns. One of the first things to likely to happen on New Avalon was of course that the Prince would knight the Victor of Elidere, and Ander's moon.

Golden spurs and a laurel wreath were about the bare minimum of public recognition he could expect on arriving at the capital of the Federated Suns.

She reached down to smooth her skirts. "They're still working to inventory the cache."

"I didn't expect them to finish." He replied tossing the stack of paper, the colonel sighed, "That should address what we know the Dragoons had in inventory in 3005 and the approximate roll out dates, the Imp I have no idea on."

That wasn't what she wanted to here. It was an admission which created other issues. Lady Yvonne had wanted details and if Alexandria was going to guess they were about to be put in a situation where the dragoons raised even more questions than they had had.

She coughed slightly, "We," Alexandria declared in as serene a tone as she could manage, "need you to order the suspension of work on the San Saba."

"Excuse me?"

"I've spoken with Lord Aaron, and we have come to the conclusion that a portion of the cache needs to be shipped to New Avalon immediately. Since most of the Cache are lost tech vehicles." Being largely constructed from between 2660 and 2710 or so. "I also need you to depart for New Avalon using one of your unit's JumpShips carrying those supplies."

... and of course the problem she had was what to do. As unit liaison she should have been remaining with the unit that had been the planned itinerary after all. After all it would have looked base to accompany the colonel to New Avalon without having participated in Elidere... but now there was teh Cache near Purki.

She expected to be criticized for failing to press some advantage or another and that was why she had a migraine. The recovery of the lost depot of the 63rd Mechanized Infantry Division that had originally been posted to Elider had included things like spare ASF frames, but mostly had included equipment for mechanized infantry. Carriers, and small arms along with other infantry equipment. Impressive, but not nearly as impressive as the Victory won on Elidere.

"I was under the impression that the Duke intended to distribute mechs to his knights."

.... an apt quote. That was what it was. "Some will receive mechs... " She paused, "Some of the cache will go to the Training Battalion," For the Robinson Battle Academy. "However what I need you to take to New Avalon is for an academy there."

"Have you put together a list of what needs to go?" He asked.

... and that was the other problem. "They haven't finished the inventory," she remarked, returning the matter to what the conversation had opened with.

"And you haven't decided what should go and what should stay." He replied, "What's the objective, what are you trying to accomplish with the units you want shipped to New Avalon? Are these likely to be pushed to a training battalion, see military service with a frontline after. Or is this about having a collection for reference at the school?"

He had other questions, which only distracted from the issue.

He paused, "My suggestion is you go through what's listed in the inventory, and select either on the basis of what is the most available or the least. Unless there is something in particular you know New Avalon wants, but even as steerage there is only so much space in any individual dropship." Which wasn't to say Gene didn't implicitly understand the reason behind asking for the San Saba, "Do you have enough dropships to warrant Lebanon diverting from here, or Colorado?" He was a little loath to taking Pasha off seen, going deeper into the FedSuns would make it difficult for the Azami to do their black box comms... "Lebanon is a Liberty class, four collars, so three plus San Saba. If you mean to bring more than that, Colorado, but it is my advice that the Colorado would better remain on station if we have to respond to a combine incursion."

Admittedly that hinged having dropships to deploy the Robinson Rangers alongside any response to the Combine coming over the border.
--
His Grace the Duke of Robison, Minister and Field Marshal of the Draconis March could not have found himself in a better mood. There was a certain point in a man's life that one simply had to accept that you'd never know everything... most men just accepted that to mean understanding their wives, but there was a simple reality that there were more things than just that. At fifty five Aaron Sandoval understood his highest responsibilities were to the people of the Draconis March. A realization he had come to late in life, because of course he hadn't been the heir.

It was gratifying to hear that the Camerons of old had had concerns about the combine. It would have been better still to have the camerons act on these concerns, but he supposed if they had he'd never have found himself in the position he was in. If, on the domestic front, there was going to be anything troublesome about all of this it would be Elidere and Ander's Moon's in particular but the other venerators of the star league hoping to make pilgrimages to the Star league sites, and have a look around.

Still there was no getting around he was in a wonderful mood, and that there would need to be rewards for all involved... even if in real terms there was only one person responsible. The Colonel was leaving though. Colonel Shepherd was due to depart his domain for that of Lord Aaron's own liege lord, and the First Prince would have additional gifts awaiting him.

... and well he supposed it was entertaining that the Prince's champion hadn't predicted. If she had had any indication that there was ... this Brian Cache thing on his world she'd have never left. Colonel Shepherd had explained of course that the Caches had been casting interrogatives looking for the right sort of person. Someone who knew how to return the guide handshake, apparently the broadcast had been looking for a while now... maybe since the Combine had invaded Robinson back during the first succession war.

Purki's factories and the industrial sprawl that had once defined the region had been laid to waste by that invasion, and while the deep bunkers hundreds of meters beneath the surface were not effected it seemed reasonable to conclude other systems closer to the surface had been. It didn't matter. In two days of work, and really less than that, his domain was even better positioned to fight the snakes. The printers could work overtime, they were earning it. Reproducing star league manuals just for the prestige of being the one to have the originals was worth their salaries, but the real value would be in training his armor to use them.

"She has your nose to the grind then?" He asked applying the break to his wheel chair.

The young man looked up as Colonel Cameron moved to attention. The inventory was, when you got down to it a list of names and numbers. There was a certain point where you had an inventory and you were lucky if you knew what you were looking at.

Formal greetings out of the way lord Aaron did his best to look at the paperwork. "So the Archer?"

"It makes sense for it to be the most common heavy mech in the cache." Colonel Shepherd replied, "Its not a bad mech, and its no surprise being an age of war design that they'd be in Caches like this, what will you do with the Highlanders?"

"I was considering offering one to Colonel Cameron."

"Ah thank you your grace.

Lord Aaron nodded, "But really what I'm here for is to discuss the readiness of the Company. With you departing are there going to be nay issues with training them?"

"Nothing stands out. For better or worse everyone has experience in battlemech duels, given the ubiquitous nature of the Highlander in SLDF regiments and we have enough of them, I'd almost recommend moving half the company over." He suggested. "I know that most of your rangers are using personnel mechs and that might prompt objections. I have every confidence in Bahar's ability to instruct in advanced maneuver and engagement."

... and he had every right to be confident, "Of course, I wasn't questioning the Captain's ability. She demonstrated that taking down that warhammer during the trials."
==

--
Notes: Here, small Sunday update. So in July the planned schedule changing up some, now before we get to that I will be attempting to return to updating the expanded Luxen content it has its own thread. However we will have a series of interludes focusing on Bahar, Septim, and also Bubbles and Beau with their respective specialties. Also possibly Hanzo So basically the named staff thus far, as well as the Duelist Task Force over the course of the Robinson series of content that takes place while Gene is off doing New Avalon stuff.

Which brings us to the conclusion of this arc, and what it means. Now that we are here, I can actually post parts of the Last Gunslinger series of snippets for Hesperus without hopefully any confusion of where did the gauss rifles or Arrow IV come from in terms of that battle, or for that matter using those in the second battle of Dieron in the alternate timeline of there goes the HPG network.

Imperator Pax · Jul 3, 2022

New Avalon Travel Time Interlude
September 3017
Part I
--
Severus 'Septim' Alexander leaned back into his Merlin's cockpit, and tried the breathing exercises the boss had recommended. He didn't recall the dream he had .... actually all things considered he had slept pretty well. This was ... well not to be crass but the best paying and nicest gig he'd had ever.

The SLDF neurohelmet was a different model than the silver... not that he'd ever call it that to the Gunslinger's face, tiara but it was still almost insubstantial compared to the fishbowls most people had to use. The boss was gone, shipped off to New Avalon, and he supposed that meant the grizzled old navy man was in charge. Pasha though was content to let the Mechwarriors manage their own affairs, and so far there hadn't been any issues. Bahar was ironically busier than he was, Beau at least had the advantage of only needing to manage the missile boats of Easy Company.

It was a wild thing to contend with, and Septim was glad it wasn't his job. He wasn't really sure given how insane all of this was exactly what his job. The DropShips ranged from the combined arms carrier Sam Houston the boss had first shown back up on at Luxen carrying only a Lance... and even that was in name then ran all the way up to the newly refurnished Hidalgo that could carry an entire battalion... even if Bahar would be commanding mostly Sunny Boys if something happened.

It was such a perversely weird thing he mused. He'd be basing his own company sized force off of the Baffins and most of those would be Davion cadets that he was supposed to shepherd, no pun intended, through the crucible of a first battle. Septim was still kicking himself for not pushing to get the remaining assaults not tagged with him for deployment, but now the boss had left to New Avalon.

He stared out, seeing double and shook himself, "Ugh." The lyran shook his head and blinked as he went back to just using the good old mark 1 eyeball to view the Scrubland exercise area. As it was they were trying to fill out four more DMM Unions and as many tank carriers as they could get. That would have been easier if they had still been banking on using San Saba to transport DMM armor, but the second the boss had seen that armor in the cache... well it was clear that he had very unpleasant plans for any snakes they needed to skin.

... any dreams septim might have had about unicorns and percherons not withstanding. The boss shipping off world meant he'd been spared the Sun's version of the Catholic Church's bishop talking holy war... and it left him wondering how this was going to work.

Bahar was shouldering much of the work load because she was tangling with their official liaison and dealing with the duke, and handling the twelve most prestigious mech warriors their employers had put forward for the 'elite special training'...

... and honestly he was glad to have the cadets instead. This job was everything ... most everything good about the Luxen training contract, but with so much more employer support... on the other hand the Magistracy hadn't wanted to invade anyone, while the Federated Suns were spoiling for a chance to get even against the Combine. Totally different situations.

... and, looking at his heads up display, he could understand. People like Alessandro Steiner, the previous Archon, had talked about this sort of thing, about how they needed to stand up and take the fight to other successor states, but even his message was moderated by other factors leaving truly radical proposals to members of the nobility, the social generals especially. Advocating for this offensive or that offensive, and stirring up the middle classes for short bursts of motivated action, but never seeming to go far enough if they succeeded at all.

The difference he supposed was that they had a better spring board to work from. A better foundation in the form of the Snakes were already down a Regiment. The boss had said that accounted something like one and a half percent of the Combine's offensive BattleMech power, possibly as much as two percent depending on actual strength, but not likely to be less. That didn't sound like much... except thinking in terms of the modern value of a BattleMech... that was a hundred and fifteen mechs, and the Federated Suns were looking to compound those losses.

There was a ping and a handshake between his mech and Bards, and Septim strained against his harness as he sat up, "How was your run time?"

"We're making progress."

There had been talk about pulling all the Mechs out of the cache and constructing units out what they had found. That had gotten shot down because most people were already familiar with their specific chassis. There were people who were clamoring for Marauders after Elidere, but as the boss had predicted searches had confirmed none to be present. People though, much like how the Magistracy had looked at Luxen's Roms, watched the battle roms of Elidere and Ander's moon and watered over the prospect of the seventy five ton machines as the tip of the spear.

"That's good." He replied keying the mike. Progress was good. "I don't want to fall behind the schedule."

"Certainly not." The scottsman agreed, especially because there were now indisputable rumors that the Duke of Robinson was serious about standing back a third Robinson Rangers he certainly had the material for such a command. They didn't have the time for that. "I wouldn't want to be the one to have to pass that along."

That was the truth. This wasn't the periphery. This was the big leagues. This was a gig for one of the Successor Lords, for a Great House of the Inner Sphere. House Davion was going to make war on House Kurita in nominal response to the Draconis Combine's attack on Elidere.

If they pulled this off, they were basically set for life. This was the sort of chance most mercenaries never got... and more than that, they had the chance to not just to take the chance, but to actually potentially win the game.

-
Two hours later after the last round of drills in the Blue Zone he was cracking a beer with the guys... the veterans of what had been a scratch company of what the Magistracy could cobble together, "How far do you think the news has gone? About Elidere?" Chang asked as yet another replay filled the trivid.

"We've been told its all over both sides of the border." Federated Suns, and the Draconis Combine, "I don't see why it wouldn't have spread to the other successor states, but who knows if its hit the periphery yet." Beau replied extending his beer to click against his.

"They said its the biggest single battle loss in recent history."

Which might have been true, or the FedSuns talking head could have been fudging things for the sound bite. "I suppose its been pretty quiet over the last couple years." Septim replied. It really depended on what the fuck recent was supposed to mean. For the average person on the street the news was probably welcome, especially given the usual sentiments of the average joe in the Draconis March.

Chang put her strawberry daiquiri down, "So the boss is where?"

"By now, probably Kestrel." Then to head off the question before it could b e asked, Septim shook his head, "They're not going to visit." Leaving aside the way the boss was about space travel, they didn't have time. It was five jumps to New Avalon. It'd be another three weeks to get them to New Avalon, "Now, on the way back... I don't know."

"More likely they'll be on New Avalon waiting." Beau replied.

"You think?"

"The dukes of kestrel are immediate vassals to the first prince as lord of the Crucis March." The larger man shrugged. "Word about the cache's discovery has been," that they were "trying to keep mum." about it. And it was four months to the combine border even assuming that the snakes did find out and that assumed that they could launch immediate... and with the situation it seemed likely they'd have some kind of warning..

"That's going to be a hell of a shock. Did you see what the Maguanacs were doing with those Alacorn things the boss wanted?"

The Azami tankers had been scary enough in their sixty tonners, even before the boss had started wanting to give them LBX 10s from the travelling merchant... the assault tanks just, "Yeah I saw them." Especially in the dusk, when the streaks of dust they kicked up in the scrub land was especially noticeable. "Those tanks are like what four hundred years old?"

"Yeah the plate says they rolled off the factory on New Earth March 2616." There was a pause, and he gestured to the box of material on the floor, fresh from the book binders, "I'm not looking forward to grading these."

Chang snorted, "Don't look at me, We agreed to split the load, even Hanzo agreed to help grade."

Septim snorted at the prospect of the quiet man grading papers. Everyone had their own part, and it'd take the boss five weeks to get back from New Avalon, so really they'd be here until they shipped for Northwind. "Don't remind me, we've got so much to do, and thats not even counting getting to Northwind by Christmas."
--
Notes: So on the travel segments looking at the outline... or the several iterations of the outline, some fudging of the dates will need to be done to account for BT's slow FtL. Its roughly 3 months travel time from New Avalon to Northwind, which is somewhat complicated given Highland Faire's original 5 January 3018 date.

Anyway for this time period this is the first of Septim's segment as we explore our Lyran friend's perspective of all of this and he deals with his side of things, and we will also see the perspectives of the rest, but this is more or less a get the ball rolling. The Interlude series will probably be the usual ten segments. This is one is missing some of the commentary regarding the cache, the mention that yes Lord Sandoval would like to expand his house forces, but we haven't gotten to name droping Robinson standard battlemechs yet. Or dealing with the manuals to diagnose getting weapons to properly communicate talking to TTS computers, or stuff that has become lost due to the succession wars. Also we don't deal with some of the dynamics of feudal politics that we're going to deal with at some point... and not just for the FedSuns.

Imperator Pax · Jul 10, 2022

Travel Interlude Part 2

September 3017

He ejected the magazine from his stainless autopistol and reloaded before retracting his target. Hanzo was aware that there had been considerations of moving him to a more powerful mech. The recent discovery was such that there had been discussions to move several members to functionally identical mechs that were available.

One key reason to not simply move all of the company to the venerable Highlander was it would have certainly demonstrated that these were like the Marauders of the SLDF the command mechs and should be attacked first. The ninety ton mech was also too slow, at least by his preferences. They needed to move fast.

The Thugs were out because they had been constructed on Errai, which had of course been a target by the recently defeated General Samsonov and his regiment. There were talks that Hanzo had overheard simply by not speaking, and actually listening to people that the first prince might be willing to invest in Errai to get those machines to be produced by the Federated Suns. So those had been eliminated. The eighty ton machine had other limitations given its missile capabilities were strictly SRMs, but if it had been an option he'd have been happy with such an upgrade.

Hanzo inspected his target, deemed it satisfactory and left the range after cleaning up. There was going to be a lot of work to do. The boss was off world, and while he was dutifully focused on the training manuals and instructions he had his own responsibilities leading the light lance raiding and reconaisnce patrols. LRRP as it had been terms in one annex memorandum.

They were preparing for a glorious battle. Honor awaited them. Every day his skills grew sharper as he trained... and one day he would move to a heavier mech, once he was ready for that. Besides his cicada was fleet, and effective for the role he played. With a glance to the curtain of dusk falling he considered retiring to his room to read. There was no end to material to study. Hanzo had always viewed improving one self as important, but on the periphery combine arms tactics directing light mechs to scout for heavily armored tanks or self propelled artillery had been ... somewhat low on the priority.

Combing through the St George records he had viewed numerous instances of effective combined arms actions by BattleMech Brigades of the Hegemony. Especially given the tactical and operational emergency protocols directive that had been distributed to the others. Pursuant to ancient Hegemony tradition in the event of a position being lost or overrun by hostile forces and the defenders overwhelmed a directive existed to retask all available artillery and air assets to their aid.

Broken Arrow.

An amazing prospect. They had been drilling with artillery since arrival, and of course the Machine Spirit had guided precision 'fires' onto enemy forces in what Davion forces had called danger close time and time again. Of course they did not have the ancient Hegemony intelligence and its war machines with them, so accommodations had to be made.

... but it was an amazing prospect. As it happened the Azami still had a few working examples of target acquisition gear developed by the Hegemony in the late 26th century and with the acquisition of several chaparalls they had a sufficient number of Arrow IVs if it came to that.

Of course a Broken Arrow invocation was a final recourse. He had seen a Battle Rom of Hegemony officers only invoking it knowing that they were remaining behind to protect withdrawing comrades for the counterattack after the artillery. Other Roms, including the 'Wildfire' invokation of Tristan's last remaining Terran officer had been done to protect the Hegemony against treachery even knowing that it was a situation of 'mutually assured destruction' against the rebels.

The 'TOEP', the Dervish pilot insisted on pronouncing it the same as the color 'taupe', Memo had pointedly not included a Wildfire protocol... but he supposed that was reasonable. Such Hegemony fortresses as required such necessary measures.
--
Hanzo initiated the start up on his BattleMech. The Cicada's primary computer informing it was Monday morning, and the local weather forecast collecting the data through the Battalion tactical data network provided through the Daimyo HQ and the Atlas.

The rain of the previous Sunday evening had passed them in the night, and the forecast looked promising once hte morning fog cleared. Chang was already moving the Atlas through its start up motions. Unlike Septim's Merlin the repairs and rebuild hadn't had any particular hickups. There hadn't been any problems with the engine, gyro, or surprisingly enough the PPCs. That had proven something of a relief to the techs as PPCs had a reputation for being finicky to install.

The hundred tonner painted in a similar dark earth tone with lighter sand streaks of his own mech, as well as that of Bahar's mongoose. It was an SLDF Desert Warfare camo, or a variation of, he'd seen the Eridani use a similar though not identical version the scheme in the orientation roms they were going to be covering later in the week for joint operations.

What was missing from the exercise field was a Marauder... rather a specific marauder. The davions had a few, but the abscence was palpable. The division of labor spread their ranks somewhat thin, and most certainly weakened their staff learning component. Septim certainly was trying, but the Lyran was overwhelmed by the numbers in the unit, despite an admirable effort to integrate the Robinson tankers into formations with the medium and heavy battlemechs line of advance in simulator and field exercises.... but there were limits.

Then again he suspected the Davions had known that. The Battle Roms cataloging mech engagements following Elidere had far and away established the skill of individual pilots. Of course that had been an issue for the youngest participant at Elidere, and on Ander's Moon. Mr Sutton wasn't old enough to shave yet and had mech kills to his name, which made him stand out amongst the cadets.

He maneuvered his Cicada around the recently repainted Dervish. The '-Md' had been in the green and earth tones of a temperate clime paint scheme to match the forests and hills of Elidere. Now it followed the Robinson Ranger inspired training battalion colors. Cadet Sutton's ownership of his own mech did not necessarily distinguish him as much as it might have elsewhere. What distinguished him was his participation because he had already seen battle against his realms ancestral foe.

Sutton would have the distinction of definitively being part of the unit that would be going on the offense. The bottleneck there was one of space lift capacity. The sooner they had to attack the less time they would have to gather JumpShips. A month ago that had been manifest in the concerns that if the Combine attacked first they wouldn't be able to life the sixty plus mechs they had to the battlefield in time to meet the combine... but in a few months they should have sufficient DropShips to accommodate.

The Cicada's communications hardware notified him of the incoming handshake with a chime. Beauregard Alexander had the missile boats preparing for final start up checks, the last pilots would be moving to their machines, and then they could start the day. The different Mech Companies needed to be able to work in tandem with each other as well as other arms of battle, which was what this was designed to test.

He affirmed his receipt mechanically through his neurohelmet and continued to navigate his Cicada to the starting position. His mech wasn't the only medium mech in the formation two Pheonix Hawks had replaced lighter machines, but that merely emphasized the volume of Valkyrie as the Light Company's most common mech. It made the LRRP's objective of Find Fix and Finish easier.

The F3 Principle was less glorious than individual warriors dueling one on one but it played to the speed that was the strength of light mechs. They were to find the enemy, fix them in place for engagement by larger units, and if necessary then finish the fight while the enemy were engaged before they could withdraw, counter attack or attempt to otherwise regroup.
--
Note: Not much going on here, we don't actually get Rio and Hanzo tangling, though this does forewshadow the later mech upgrades of moving some people to different mechs as in Hanzo's case the Cicada is basically a somewhat better protected bug mech. (Basically a heavier Jenner)

And on the Jenner in addition to the SLDF having the A, somehow Kerensky kipped off with the later common model... which resulted in the Jenner IIC and Clan wolf having them. As opposed to taking the 7A SLDF version and developing I don't know some long range sniper duelist mech... zellbringen machine.. (I mean out of universe sure, but with all the il clan oh the clans totally have this and this and version whatever with the rec guides).

Imperator Pax · Jul 17, 2022

Interlude Part 3

There were limits to the stuff one could do on a JumpShip during transit. Working out in zero gee was kind of difficult at least in terms of variability... but it was true that the JumpShip itself had a grav deck... still it mostly left him using the same against his own body weight exercises... and studying. San Saba wasn't exactly ... Triumph's weren't exactly glamorous or configured for luxury, but the San Saba had been the in the process of modifications.... that they'd then had to stop, and were focused on cargo transport. It mostly cargo space rather than the machinery needed to actually deploy... so the hold was filled with palletized vehicles.

He had no idea how they were going to effectively offload the cache contents, or the portion rather that they were bringing, because well no one had told New Avalon they were coming. They were going to show up, land and then tell the First Prince major domo or head of household... or whoever in the feudal hierarchy and make it their problem.

Presumably that would make the Davion Life Guards responsible for the material until it could be sorted through, unless there was some additional feudal hoops that needed to be jumped through with regards to the bequest. Whatever the case, it was going to make getting to New Avalon a headache.

The contract hadn't exactly been written with the notion of 'cargo hauler', but he hadn't been prepared to fight, or quibble over the transport request, so he'd had them retask, even if this was a real mess. It took him out of his depth. For the first time really like a year, he was separate from the people he'd spent most of his time around, which only compounded the perceived isolation of space travel.

An isolation he hadn't really felt going out on the exploratory missions as a security consultant looking for a new Azami homeworld in the deep periphery, or coming back from that mission.

Gene pushed himself through the zero gee as they waited for the drive to finish charging... a part of it he supposed wasn't just in being alone more or less. He could have made small talk , or more small talk, with the JumpShip crew, it was the anticipation of the journey's end. They were almost there. They would reach New Avalon at the end of September, on schedule.

One more jump.

--
She was on a clock of her own she supposed... maybe she had been all along. His Grace, the duke of Robinson, had suggested that they explain the cache's discovery as a direct outgrowth of the locating the 63rd MID's depot. They wouldn't refer to the cache in official nomenclature, the term 'brian cache' wouldn't appear anywhere. They would simply call it a star league cache, and that it had been found because of locating elidere's missing garrison facility.

There was a soft knock on the office door and a Robinson Armsman on loan from the duke stuck his head in, "Captain Pasha is here, ma'am." The middle aged officer remarked.

She shuffled the paperwork, and nodded send him in. The aged Azami raised questions. Where was the JumpShip Cairo? Where had it come from? Besides that and others there was the matter of the cache... the cache was pretty convincing that the Star League had suspected something would need to be done about the Combine.... but the given explanation made sense. Jocasta Cameron had squirrelled away material because the Combine had attempted to interfere in the succession crisis of another member state. The Davion Succession Crisis... and hadn't that basically been House Kurita's argument to being First Lord, that they were supposedly, somehow next in line in Cameronian succession with all of the other Cameron's dead. It was the historical political 'legal' justification from the first succession war it seemed, but it fell even more flat than their attempts with Mary Davion's children.

"Lady Alexandria," The captain of the JumpShip bowed.

She decided not to beat around the bush, and get to the issue, "You're having problems hiring."

He sighed, "This is true."

It was no secret that Lord Aaron had expected to have to relieve Elidere, but the prospect to a further offensive by the Combine offensive in spite or even because of their losses was just as likely to materialize, and the Draconis March had been hiring not just here but elsewhere who it could. "You have some other solution to this problem besides relying on recruiting on Northwind?" Now came the problematic part. The part they lacked the whole picture for, and why she was dangling out to ask the question to avoid blow back to the Prince's Champion.

"It is true," He replied taking the seat across the table.

There had been rumors of an exodus of Azami, the disappearance of tens of thousands... was the Cairo with that merchant fleet that had disappeared from the lucrative, normal shipping lanes of the Inner Sphere to head into the Periphery in some mirror of the Age of Exploration. "We will be required to ship off world ourselves before too long." Thankfully Northwind was a world in the Federated Suns, and given its proximity to Errai their presence would be unlikely to raise too many questions... or at least hopefully until it was too late... but she doubted it. She expected the Combine to know something was coming. "What is your solution?"

It was her job to know. As liaison. "I have a dispensation to hire on from people in good standing among the community." There was a term that the Azami seemed to use equivalent to the Combine's broader term of 'Ronin', but it eluded her at the moment. She wondered if if the Azami might not have ended up more like the Highlanders if they had been absorbed into the combine later... or if that term was a direct response to the combine's use of Ronin. "I am expecting them to meet us on Northwind if they can make it to break bread with us." He replied. "You are correct that we will have to leave soon, I assume that this is concerning space lift capacity, in addition to the security concern?"

--
His first view of the capital of the Federated Suns was a far cry from the historical images of its time during the Star League. Even during the Star League's height the house capitals had always boasted impressive defensive warship fleets ... a reminder of the age of war, so the lack of them, which should have meant nothing given that Warships hadn't been a thing for decades? A century or more now? It wasn't just the sort of thing to just search for.

Regardless it wasn't just that. The databases from both Aquagea, and Tristan's stellar traffic suggested that as capital ... as a major trade world New Avalon should have been swarming with JumpShips. Up to possibly a thousand JumpShips in system in the process of carrying, charging, or refit at the height of the star league c. 2700... before... the second hidden war, and then the outbreak of the Succession wars towards the end of the century.

After having seen the images through his Marauder's computer database ... Gene had to admit to himself he was a little disappointed that New Avalon wasn't more impressive. Footage from ASF of Terra... of Sol in the archives equally suggested he'd be just as disappointed... it seemed as if Mars, and Venus, maybe Luna as well had never recovered from Amaris, and while Terra was neutral ground it was not the gem of the Hegemony... a blink and you miss it shared Lyran newscast, as they had gotten in, had referenced Korea as an independent nation on Earth not a unified planetary government... and he didn't know what to make of that.

Gene turned to the Azami ensign, "San Saba cleared to detach." She was of course, it was perfunctory, by the book following of procedure to ensure the DropShip was ready, that the flight path for final approach to Avalon City's starport was ready and that all the is and ts and been dotted nad crossed. "So they're waiting for us?"

"Yes, Colonel."

New Avalon, then.

Showing up to a planetary capital with a hold stuffed full. If they had had more time they could have carried more... if they had had more time though they wouldn't have needed to try and ad hoc San Saba into a bulk carrier, and could have found other cargo haulers secure enough for the mission... but the truth was they'd been on a time schedule since this contract had started. The prospect of a Combine attack seemed more and more likely, and so they had rushed to pack stuff into the hull's cargo bays.

Lebanon was signaled that they were making final approach, and would reestablish contact once they had docked. All the usual checklist things for descent from orbit out of the way, they had about seventy minutes of fly down, slow down, and then hopefully a short taxi and contact with the groundside davion officials.

He doubted the last would be short. It looked like a pretty big reception committee given the ongoing news footage. He wondered if the Triumph-class was disappointing to the news crews... would it be? The transport bus was probably not photogenic even with a fresh coat of paint... they might have expected him to arrive by something more visually impressive, an Overlord or the like. It didn't matter that relatively was not that much more mass. Its armament would have been more impressive, but why would that be a factor, dropship weapons weren't a noticeable factor in their appearance.

He looked at the cloud mass, and the continents. New Avalon was a temperate earth like world like Robinson. Earth like gravity, temperature, supported a wide span of terran crops with ease, and of course New Avalon and its surrounding cities were nestled in a well protected coastal expanse. The home of several billion people, and self sustaining, as befitted a capital world New Avalon was still a gem of of a find in terms of habitable planets.

Still it was hard to reconcile the images he'd viewed from within his Marauder to this. To the Modern reality of New Avalon, as it was in the succession wars, and in the year 3017.

--
Notes: Alexandria and Pasha's segment had a particular chunk of it deleted, as in a part of the conversation which is not canon, and another part of it will probably be reused somewhere else. Anyway just to be clear, I glitched the tiemline somewhere so we're going to handwave travel time a bit leading into Northwind. In the segment after this, we will hopefully introduce Hanse Davion on screen officially but part four will cover some Mech stuff of training with the 'duelist section'. Tentatively there is some material ,as I said the inbetween Robinson and Northwind is looking to be about ten segments, so material for Lord Sandoval and the staff, as well as Abner and Ford returning.

Imperator Pax · Jul 31, 2022

Interlude 4
Having been their first Assault Mech in company inventory, and of course being a war prize taken from a Combine General of all things, the offer to refit it to a more standard configuration for use had been pretty shocking to Bubbles. It made sense from a detached clinical academic sort of sense, but they really needed to be showing the thing off not trying to 'fix it'. The thing ran fine after the techs had gotten done with it.

Was it the same as her Hunchback? No. Two PPCs, and an Assault class autocannon was plenty of firepower, even if she was losing some speed compared to her own Mech. Anything that sprang up on her close enough that she couldn't use the two Lord's Lights PPCs was close enough that it would regret that mistake from the Autocannon... but she doubted they would.

"Alright boys and girls, the course is set and weapons are live." She informed the cadets. The Atlas's console had refreshed to present telemetry of the fake urban sprawl of blue town.

One of the cadets in a blackjack lifted off with his jump jets moving from A to B, and bringing his whirlwind autocannons on target.

Pop. Pop. Pop. The small guns chattered.

She flipped the designated evaluation sheet open, and watched the scoring trickle in. In a minute they had pushed her ability to keep track of the company past its limit as the rest of the company largely comprised of RBA cadets attempted to defend a city from what the boss's briefing packet for the exercise as a 'Line'.

That was apparently line company, or short for. It comprised ... much like the major test exams units that were surprisingly uniform in structure. As if they'd all been shipped from the same factory and issued out. Rector and Pixie, her Davion lance mates had made similar observations, but it did make sense given that the combat data was derived from organizational tables from the 28th century... predating even the outbreak of the first sucession war.

... they were also shooting cardboard, and plywood targets the moved on remote control tracks, and golf carts so it did lose some of its feel... a good simulator offered slightly better visual representation of the enemy but you still weren't in a real mech, and you weren't firing real weapons. So they were alternating between driving their mechs around.

'This is all basic stuff'. That was what they had been told.

All of this was an adaptation, based on local resources, of Mechwarrior Basic Course, Star League Army. A couple of the academic dissertations referenced General Manuals published originally on Mars, others on Venus, or Lone Star.

Everything was written out, argued, and advanced on the basis of concentrating firepower across combat arms to address the weakness of individual singular units. It was insane to think any mechwarrior would put pen to paper to write it, but it didn't refute the Mechwarrior. It refuted arrogance, act in concert with wingmen, lance mates as a whole, friendly lances, company mates, coordinate with, but adjust to realities to achieve the battalion objective.
--
"In recognition for services to the Federated Suns, and her people, against her alien enemies," The video clip of the award ceremony seemed to dominate every fucking news channel on New Avalon.

It was a little much. Really leaning into that 19th century British Empire ness... or the Hegemony he supposed. Or maybe the Hegemony had gotten it from New Avalon. Gene was glad whatever the case that he could put the golden spurs and laurel wreath away he had felt ridiculous. New Avalon was the birth place of the neo feudal movement of the 23rd century. Not that New Avalon had been unique in that.

"You look somewhat piqued." Doctor Abner remarked. The paunchy Lyran had ambled over to a seat within the Davion palace and sat down, the chair not even creaking.

"Combination of the gravity, and too much to drink." He replied. The reception had involved the sort of drinking the Winston Churchill would have considered jolly good. He didn't have the body mass for that. It wasn't that he hadn't expected to see Abner, but he was a little unsure as to why he was here. Gene was actually about to ask as the guards, who were hopefully intended as mostly ceremonial, snapped to attention... and so entered the man who had placed the victory wreath on his head a few hours earlier.

Hanse Davion looked like a rockstar.

Well a rockstar whose clothes looked like Queen Victoria's maids had picked them. Everything up until now had been carefully scheduled, styled, all elaborate performative art for public consumption as it was broadcast to the realm. While there were probably cameras here, the only davion subjects to be watching them were probably security and intelligence figures.

By this point in the long history of the succession wars all the great houses had programs to address any citizens who wanted to contribute lostech finds to the realm. Mostly those finds were small and insignificant, and even if they weren't the truth was most feudal subjects went to their actual direct lieges than try and turn them into the ruling house, or the central government.

Apparently whatever had been on Bristol... never mind if Ford's little detour had turned up anything... wasn't your average prospector's collection of odds and ends. Any single development of the past year would have been noteworthy, the Elidere Campaign by itself had the potential to have inner sphere wide repercussions. "You must understand Gentlemen, when most people approach the Federated Suns it is largely trinkets. The succession wars have been ongoing for so long that weapons from a century ago... that most people treat technology as quasi magical." Hanse Davion waited for his groomsman to array the drinks, "I am aware that time precludes us from much time together, however I should like to make the most of that, for such esteemed gentlemen who have contributed so much to the future of the Federated Suns. "Another piece of ceremony to stand on but the toast was probably necessary. Abner certainly seemed to be taking it all in stride.

"Our forebearers were men of reason, and science your highness, we can only hope to live up to their example." The Lyran declared lowering his glass. His sip had been shallow, and for a moment Gene expected a speech about peace, and returning to the golden age, but he withheld as the First Prince loosened somewhat in his chair.

"This cache on Robinson, you have to understand that our realm and the combine had attempted to strip everything that had belonged to the 100th BattleMech Division, Lord Aaron's letter," And probably Lady Lex's if Gene were to guess, as the First Prince tapped the crisp vellum sheet, "Says this is something different."

"The Brian Cache seems to have been stocked either as a contingency for the hidden war escalating, or a future crisis being instigated by the Combine down the road."

"How pleasantly convenient for you colonel. You understand, from what my dear aunt tells me that we mean to strike the Combine harshly in retaliation. The good doctor's find on Bristol strengthens our position further still. I want to cut House Kurita off entirely from Terra, but my generals have assured that would imprudent. We don't have the reserves for that sort of offensive. The Combine propaganda ministry is quick to declaim their defeat as the Galedon regulars were destroyed in battle against the Avalon Hussars. I mean to use them as a feint while you participate in the conquest of Dieron."

... and there is was out in the open. Hanse Davion looked every part of his moniker in that moment, and laid out his plan to seize from the combine one of the provincial capital, but one of the Combine's few universities.

Plans within plans.

It was probably no coincidence that the University of Dieron had once been a Hegemony institution.

Plans within plans.

... and of course even if Doctor Abner hadn't shown up with... whatever it was he'd found on Bristol, and whatever Ford had found on top of that. Gene figured the Prince announcing the outing to Albion Military Academy for an official tour would have been on the agenda besides. A test to see what he could do in person.

Then of course was the matter of Yvonne's report, New Valencia's mech production... and the Marauder matter. Apparently it had come to General Motors attention that there was something called a Marauder II, which of course as overlord, and sovereign the First Prince was only too happy to intervene on for the good of the realm. It smelled of horse trading, and hordes of lawyers... and well not the sort of thing Gene would have preferred to sit in on... but Hanse Davion had a card to play.

General Motors, and Blackwell were producing machines that he had or would have in inventory, and in particular the possibility of additional Marauders in the company was useful. Quid pro quo, and all.
--
Notes Hanse gets less dialogue here, he's in the next couple of segments as we dive into unpacking Blackwell Industries, and General Motors. No don't ask me how copyright in BT works even in space eighties doesn't make sense for why GM thinks they have a case ... but hey you know what I can do to 'fanon' explain it. Hanse is a king, he can hash that out using royal prerogative in his realm, and both of them are in his realm so no need to get finicky there

Imperator Pax · Aug 5, 2022

Interlude 5
The Black Jack's targeting computer registered the 'overheated' Battlemaster in the concrete 'arena' that was the last leg of the course. He was supposed to get to get past it while it was out of commission, engage it or bypass the goal was ultimately to completely the course.

Gene technically supposed this would have counted as cheating as he overrode the firing control safeties. The Dalban AQ fire control system managing the 40mm Whirlwind Ls squawked protests at him, but he blinked through the objection, and blitzed the target with a spate of training ammunition. The 40mm didn't have nearly the performance he would have liked, in a real fight, even forcing the guns to fire at twice their usual rate was only enough to chew through half a ton of standard armor...

... but if this had been real life and not him dancing around the AMA battlemech course hitting even a BattleMaster, an assault mech, in the cockpit would have been a wake up call to the enemy, besides he was moving from cover to cover, and bounding to close the distance to bring up his medium lasers.

They might not have been magna mark IIs, and the AQ wasn't his HiRez but the general scheme was similar enough, and being able to put all four on a single target inside two hundred meters reliably would be sufficient to finish the fake battlemaster.

They had after all asked him to clear the course in the best possible time, which he was aiming to do.

In the observation deck, which was a spacious almost theater like reception area, as the clock closed just shy of six minutes the First Prince glanced to his assembled guests. The lords, ladies and gentlemen were largely distracted, which was good. The spectacle, the show was what they wanted for the speech he was going to give. "I thought you said that was a standard university BlackJack."

"It was your Highness. I have no idea how he managed those shots." The mustachioed armsmaster and supervisor for the Albion Military Academy replied bowing sligtly upon being addressed by his sovereign. The shots in question were plastered up on one of the aside holographic displays showing 40mm holes in the placard representing an overheated Capellan command mech.

Albion scored the course on objectives achieved within a set time frame. It was entirely possible to pass the course without actually completed it, even though it wasn't designed to be impossible. It was designed to evaluate seniors who would soon be commissioned. Some students chose to exercise caution and bypass the BattleMaster before it could reboot and become an active threat.

Someone, probably louder than they meant to in response to the matter commented that 'shooting its head off worked too'. There was no kill like overkill, Few to any pilot whose cockpit slammed by repeated class 2 autocannon shells even if the armor held, was likely to respond rationally even if his mech wasn't overheated. The coup de grace of medium lasers would have been enough to kill the assault mech if they had landed on the head, but it had taken the young colonel time to stride forward to close that distance.

A replay from another perspective showing the forty five ton black jack moving towards its target as the guests watched. The precision fire though.

It made sense. Medium lasers were standard on Marauders. He'd demonstrated doing it with the PPCs that were equally standard on Marauders. One of the old men, the professors of the school, paused in his diatribe as he noticed his Sovereign's eyes trail over the group of uniformed men. Yvonne had of course forwarded her own analysis, and that of her department, to her alma mater regarding Elidere. That had arrived months ago, and had been in no small measure a furor to the academic community of military science.

Yvonne had described it as the systematic murder of an entire enemy battalion, and then another, and then well Ander's Moon had itself been the anomaly of battles in the Elidere Campaign... and for a myriad of reasons, the Combine had attacked and pursued defending local forces, the combine had had accepted terms to fight on what were their preferred ground. That had lead to duels between mechwarriors, which had resolved itself steadily until the arrival of Draconis March reinforcements, and the final action had been a combined arms engagement where the remaining combine battalion's mechs were enveloped in a manner that was closest to the fighting on Elidere IV. Most of the fighting though had been done by that point, most of the fighting on Anders had been the individual duels between the mechwarriors where the Combine should have had a distinct advantage.

The entire Elidere campaign was an anomaly.

The Combine's blustering excuse was a weak, and shallow one. Based on little more than the Colonel's white painted Marauder, and its thus 'heavy' BattleMech classification, Combine propagandists had ascribed the battle, having had to confront it due to ComStar News Broadcasts circulating the ROMs, as one between the 19th Galedon regulars against the Avalon Hussars. A desperate attempt to save face at having had a hundred and fifteen mechs lost in a single campaign.

Something they were going to capitalize on. Never stop your enemy when they're making mistakes was one of the great truisms of the Succession wars. If the Avalon Hussars were who the Combine wished to make the devil of, then the 11th could keep their attention ... and with this new 'Brian Cache' find he'd been told about, then perhaps it was time to reconstitute the 1st as well.

The first prince waved his hand in the air to garner the attention, "My lords, ladies, and gentleman if I may have your attention please." he called sonorous to the assembled as his aide informed them the colonel had rejoined them. Hanse Davion scaled the short stairs to the lectern prepared for him, "We are at war with a vicious and menacing neighbor. I speak of course of the Draconis Combine, whose actions have cost the lives of many of my predecessors, and many, many dear friends. The perpetrators of the massacre of Kentares, well, we are going to strike back. There is an hour fast approaching where we will push them back." In this case back meant driving them from Hegemony worlds, but for the sake of public consumption meant pushing the combine from worlds that they had seized in the first succession war.

They couldn't over reach though. Hohiro Kurita had weakened his nation to keep the war going trying to compensate for a flagging economy by demanding more and more from a population. It was no wonder he'd been assassinated by the Otomo... and it seemed as if reports were accurate that another Rasalhague uprising was threatening to erupt. That had the potential to be useful.

... AND there was one other matter. MIIO had confirmed the defenders of Dieron to be Sword of Light. Not Yorinaga Kurita, but two battalions of the 5th as well as Sun Zhang academy cadre were garrisoning the world.
--
The First Prince's speech had been aimed more at 'psyching up' the Fed Suns. The invasion of Dieron would occur with, as Yvvonne had promised, support from the Davion Guards, but there was also plans to hit Altair. Asta though was out of the question at this stage. It was too far... sort of.

Gene cracked a glance as the door opened into the meeting room down the hall from the reception proper, admitting a man in a summer uniform similar to what Bahar, and most of the magunacs wore. Khaki. SLDF Regular Army 'warm weather'. A second followed in the same uniform, an aide or adjutant officer obviously, though wearing the pins of an SLDF colonel.

"What can the Star League do for you today, Lord Davion?" That was how the man who eventually introduced himself as Brevet General Kerston opened the conversation.

He'd been absent from the Albion course work, but then Albion Mech Course had been with a standard Blackjack in university colors, and not with the hundred tonner Ford and Abner had brought with them or with the hundred tonner Marauder II models that had accompanied then. That was probably the plan for tomorrow as Davion Guards personnel were divided going through both San Saba's cargo, and the IE Cargo King that had landed nearby, which was also largely carrying combat vehicles... barring a handful of special mechs.

If Hanse Davion, First Prince of the Fed Suns had an objection to Kerston's introductory question he didn't shown any signs of, "General Kerston, this is Colonel Shepherd," A broad white gloved hand gestured in his direction, "His regimental combat team," Presumably he was referring to what they had been calling a brigade including the Draconis March troops, which did include, or would hopefully include attached air, armor and infantry from the DMM. "Will be the other unit for the operation." The rock star turned with a broad smile, "Colonel Shepherd, General Kerston commands the 3rd Regimental Combat Team. The much acclaimed Eridani Light Horse."

--
Notes: Technical issues, including a six hour power failure means that I'm updating this tonight.

Imperator Pax · Aug 10, 2022

Interlude 6
The Eridani Light Horse ... or their command staff, as they had actually brought a staff had come to New Avalon independent of the command. Of course the Former Star League turned mercenary unit had the advantage of multiple full birds and was on good relations with the Davions so that was probably less of an issue given the Davions still had good reason to be worried about the combine jumping the border first.

Had this been a raid, even a raid in force, they wouldn't have needed this many troops. It wasn't though. They weren't trying to do what the Galedon Regulars had presumably been up to, this wasn't jumping over the border to bushwhack combine positions... this was out and out planetary conquest. The Prince intended to actually effect a change in the border, and gain territory by military force at the combine's expense.

Strategic level concerns. "What's this?" Abner inquired looking over the noteputer.

"Something I don't have the resources to pursue." He replied. Gene had noticed it on Robinson, but there had been no way to address it with so many other more pressing issues. There were problems of course. The Catapult he had taken as bounty on Detroit had been rebuilt, it hadn't been that damaged anyway, so repaired really might have been more accurate. The Magna 260 at its center was the main object. "We fit the Comms suit, and targetting system of my catapult," Doctor Abner merely nodded, "With a Dalban Series K," That the Maguanacs had found, "And a Dalban Hirez," Like what his Marauder used for the targeting system, "The Thunderbolt runs off the same engine, and I would prefer to find out if we can refit a Thunderbolt with the same C3 & TTS," and the same armor and ideally as much of the same weapons manufacturer as possible. "But given the way that lot is arguing," He indicated in the general direction of the lawyers from GM and the manufacturers of the Marauder II, "I'm not thrilled at approaching either of them with this." Especially not with the Devestator's plans having been slapped on the table as well.

"I will make some inquiries, but I would recommend you send this to Mr Pasha, he should be capable of finding you a Thunderbolt, and putting together a prototype, which I will tell you will greatly simplify any matters of sourcing industrial assistance."

"Understood." He remarked. General Kerston was still talking, with presumably his Davion Liaison and staff.

"Are you thinking about your conversation with Tristan?"

... he hadn't confirmed it... but ... given Kerston's rank, and his specificity to it... he had a sneaking suspicion that 3rd RCT's credentials were in fact still legitimate. Kerston was using Brevet General because he was authenticated to that rank as an emergency, which meant they had valid authorization codes... He couldn't be for sure without a handshake, but that would have gone both ways. It was possible everyone in the Eridani were being issued valid SLDF credentials.

But they had barely talked to the man, other than the brief introduction, that would probably change later in the day, or tomorrow, but for now the center stage mess was the argument between GM and the new valencia firm.

... he thought about the other ... other mech in his stable. The mongoose he'd taken at Luxen. Its pilot had had the authenticated credentials of a SLDF officer. Bahar had a lieutenants credentials when they had met. The Magunacs... the Azami or some branch must have had some way to generate new credential codes... but he hadn't asked, only recognized that they were SLDF regular codes in the periphery expedition...

"With all due respect professor, so far as I'm concerned the Star League has been gone for 250 years."

"Two hundred and fifty one years come Christmas, since the coup you mean."

"Yes." The conversation paused as Kerston and his staff shuffled across the room, "You understand that given the combine's behavior there is a chance they'll escalate to canned sunshine right?"

Abner remained silent for a telling moment, "I would like to think that it won't come to that, that, after the horrors of the first and second that we have moved beyond that."

Gene had pulled the Volgadon library's data on how the Terran Alliance had started.

How the soviet union had fell, and korea unified. What had happened between India and Pakistan. Nukes. There had been a lull of course, from 45 through most of the cold war. The soviets had ossified and eventually the soviet army had failed to either be able to keep its client states inline with conventional force, and had resorted to escalation to nuclear weapons against a Western Alliance experimenting with early fusion reactors while the Soviets had still been relying on an extractive economy. Without Soviet support to prop them up the koreas had found themselves in a continuation that had resulted in nuclear weapons used against the ultimately victorious south... and well India and Pakistan had thrown nukes for reasons really only understood by nationalists.

That had been a thousand years ago now.

History long forgotten by most of humanity.

"The Taurians rejected the Ares conventions, and the Capellans claimed that they didn't apply to non signatories." He remarked a heat mounting somewhere in his stomach, "And of course the Taurians always had a nuclear first strike doctrine." Which to be honest Gene might have assumed was based on the French... if France hadn't been subsumed into the greater cultural mélange of the anglo dominated Western Alliance by the end of the 21st century. "Those same conventions were repudiated by the successor states. I think if the Combine thinks they can get away with it, if they think escalating to deescalate will work they'll do it... and even if they don't use nuclear weapons, I'm still expecting a smorgasbord of atrocities given what I've heard is going on already over there..."
--
They had broken for lunch... though breaking for lunch was really they moved to another room in the palace in order to be fed by more men in victorian jackets and gloves. All it really did was shuffle around who all was sitting where, and force them to carefully measure their movements to avoid breaching etiquette. "So what do you know about the DVS 1"

"Boondoggle replacement, two ppcs, gauss rifles in the arms. Suite of meds supporting, DHS 300XL to make space for all of that. Another of Kerensky's having too much time for things other than his actual job." He muttered a little more harshly than he had intended.... "I saw the file for them dated 2765," None had actually been shipped to Tristan's snake eaters. "Leaving politics aside, it should have been an excellent long range combatant." But that XL engine meant it would have the same vulnerabilities to to side torso damage blowing through armor as Sutton's Dervish Md. "I assume there had to be some kind of hang up, because the Nightstar superseded it in production..." the truth was Gene had no idea how Gauss rifles had become lostech it made no sense given how venerable the Alacorn Mk VI design was.

"We found the completed plans for them you know. The original project material, and a couple of prototypes, included a completed on."

"Really?"

"Mr Ford neglected to inform me that the computer of that one is locked."

"You can't override it."

Abner shook his head. "It was on a flatbed for transport when my protégé found it and they moved into storage, and then it was only when we got here did we realize we couldn't use it... that's why we didn't show it off yesterday. Its here."

He nodded again, but he was hoping that Abner wasn't depending heavily on the machine as the lynchpin of their strategy... but he doubted it. Ford's detour had struck him as last minute, and that Abner hadn't been aware of it, and that he'd been banking on the Bristol find... those Furys as well as whatever else had been dug up there. The lyran professor had shown him the faciity documents, and castle Brian in size was not an exaggeration... the facility was cavernous in the extreme. It seemed as if that a combination of factors had resulted in only a fraction of that spacce being occupied... but fraction of that much real estate was still a lot.

It was a contribution of equipment that could be used to bolster Davion forces, and would require more spacelift capacity. House Davion would be moving a lot of league era equipment to major combatants and attacking to hit the Combine hard sometime in the spring of the new year, in combination with using 'major' mercenary commands to support them.

"So why does Field Marshal Davion look like the cat who caught the canary?"
--
Gene settled into the harness, and adjusted the retention. The Devastator was a conventional bipedal humanoid shape. It lacked the leg structure and ability to get as hull down as Marauder style frames, but that wasn't a big deal to him.

He started the pairing sequence with the neurohelmet, placing his id chit in the receptacle, and initiated reactor start up. The machine started to hum. Holographic projections appeared identifying the machine as a prototype DVS 01, and a list of participants as his handshake completed.

"Everything all right in there?"

"Yeah, you know General Motors was a contractor on this program?" He asked.

"Oh dear you don't say." Abner probably had known, given the way GM was acting... well for the moment they didn't know. "Hows it going?"

"I"m in safe boot, its authenticating." Indicator lights turned greened, "Engine is good, I have motive power. Standby." He clicked off and extended his consciousness tentatively through the mind machine interface as the machine's last posting appeared as an emblem.

No real surprise from that it had been posted to a Hegemony Command unit... and it wasn't a surprise that the assigned pilot was an ACMS Project course graduate. The computer core logged his credentials, and authenticated his user data letting him remove the chit.

"Anything?"

"To be honest I think its taking a mental engram," A common enough security measure, hell there were machines that were literally biometrically locked behind gene keys, but that had actually fallen out of preference in the Star League day even with Royal command, in favor of other security precautions. The screen changed, and he sighed. "Standby, bringing the reactor to active." With everything looking good, he looked at main display as the words formed, "For he on honey hath fed and drunk the milk of paradise." For the first time in centuries within the Inner Sphere a Devastator Assault Mech stood up, and took a step forward. "All systems read green."

Another step forward. He ran the mech's diagnostics, and checked fire control, weapons. There was a rear mounted medium laser. Program file designated it was an infantry deterrent... by why a medium, why not a small laser, or even a small pulse laser. SPLs had been in production since the early 27th century. "I read what Tristan had on the Titan."

"I did to, Kressly, on Eridani."

"Do you think, if this survived on Hoff it would be there?"

"I have no idea, doc." The access, mech scale, door opened. "Are we checking the Gauss rifles?"

"Yes, I'm indicating the weapons bay on your navigation." The Devastator accepted the navigation package from the control tower.

Sixteen rounds.

The thought illuminated the weapons in the holographic image and projected a chart. Relatively speaking the 300mm inert projectile were less powerful than saying 185mm ChemJet Assault Auto Cannon but velocity at the muzzle insured it remained accurate at significantly longer ranges than that class of weapon did... on the other hand the computer warned him that the that the capacitors were a potential vulnerability.

The assault mech moved forward, and Gene was aware of the observation deck's occupants following the machine. The AMA static range was functionally identical to Robinson with an area of known and unknown distance targets, with the place for a mech to stand on a thirty meter ferrocrete hex that was slightly built up relative to the main slab.

Another commline hand shook, "Alright colonel, you're weapons free." The mustachioed man on the other end remarked.

"Initiating, weapons test, medium lasers, left and right torso." He intoned. They worked, so did the inline center mount laser, and he turned the mech around to confirm the rear weapon from behind... even if that process prompted a quirk. The machine settled back on target, "Moving to second range targets, and PPCs." Gene clarified to the control tower, while he went about flipping arms switches on the dash. Left and Right torso mounted weapons, confirmed. Then, "Gauss Rifles, long range." Then as a precaution after he started the master weapons diagnostic. "Everything looks fine on my end doc. " All systems read nominal
--
Notes: So that schedule plan for the month is working... really well... not. Ok, it is possible that for this month, I really would prefer to keep GWW on Sunday but that the rest of the interludes could potentially end up as running during hte week.

Battletech: The Ghost Who Walks (Battletech Isekai)

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