Blood on the Horizon (Battletech SI)

MarkWarrior · May 14, 2022

Chapter 1: A Spacious Place
Sometimes, you know that you are asleep even though you can hear and understand everything that is going on around you. You know what someone is saying, you even are able to process and understand, but you are asleep and until you wake up you are unable to do anything. I understood this on an entirely new level as I woke up to the sound of nothing but the echo of metal on metal.

Finally able to convince my aching and sore body to rouse from its lethargy. I groaned and looked around. Where in the world was I. I didn't recognize anything and strangely I was floating, floating in some sort of room with a strange looking laptop and wrapped in a hammock that appeared to be anchored to a metal wall. There was a door that looked similar to the pressure doors on an aircraft carrier or some other sort of ship but it had a couple of extra locking mechanisms that I didn't recognize. I still didn't know why I was floating, but I knew that I had to figure out where I was. Unfortunately, the first thing I knew about figuring things out was to sit down. And I was not able to do that at this moment.

Taking my time, I slowly wiggled myself free from the strange hammock and let myself drift towards the weird computer that was floating and bouncing around the room. Taking care to not move to quickly in the seemingly zero gravity environment I found myself in. Grabbing the laptop I opened it. "What the heck?" I muttered to myself as I gazed upon a strange user interface that lacked any sort of mouse. "Thank God for QWERTY." I said as I began to fiddle with this strange looking computer.

"Where is the power symbol?" I asked myself as I began to push any of the unfamiliar keys. The keyboard layout was mostly the same as the ones I had seen over my lifetime with the exception of a few keys that had Symbols I didn't recognize. "Ahh, there it is." I said as I found it on the left side of the computer built into the lower left hand corner of the screen.

While the unfamiliar style compute began to boot up I took stock of myself. Running my left arm up and down my torso and legs checking for any injuries. The last thing I remembered was being at work with my sidearm and all of the gear I normally have with me. "Legs good, no injuries there." I muttered my check out loud. "Hmm, Med bag and extra magazines are there." I thought to myself. "No handgun though? That's odd, who takes a weapon but leave the extra magazines?" I felt my torso. "The holster is there but no weapon?"

A loud slap resounded as I facepalmed while watching my Canik float out of the hammock. Hurriedly, not wanting to be unarmed in a strange place, I grabbed my sidearm and holstered it. "Crap!" I said as I flipped around before stopping against a wall. "Slow down Mark." I said to myself as I braced myself in the corner. I finished my inventory and realized that I had everything I normally have with my while at work barring my backpack and laptop.

Upon thinking about my laptop, I realized that I had ignored the one that was floating in the middle of the room for long enough that it had booted up and was seemingly waiting on some sort of BIOS screen.

"IT experience don't fail me now." I sad as I crossed my fingers and began to work a little bit of computer magic to get the 80s looking machine to boot into whatever native operating system it had. After a couple of seconds, an IBM logo appeared in the middle along with a loading screen. Then there was a starting prompt that appeared. Thankfully there were no passwords to enter seeing as I had nothing to guess at anyway aside from the standard "Password" that some idiots used. Upon startup, the computer opened a program that showed the current battery life and the programs that had been active before shutdown. Slowly acclimating myself to the different options and figuring out the different commands and prompts I slowly delved into the knowledge on this strange device.

"Frack!" I exclaimed when I discovered what was on what I now knew to be a Noteputer. I had seemingly discovered both what universe I had landed myself in somehow and a ballpark estimate of when I was. At least relatively speaking. The date on the Noteputer said that it was January 1st 3000 and listed several things that ensured that I knew I was truly and totally screwed.

"Okay, nothing on this matters if I don't know where I am and if I don't manage to do anything in the first place." I said to myself as I closed the Noteputer. Looking at the hammock and the Noteputer in my hand I pulled out my pocketknife and fashioned a sort of carry satchel/ backpack to put the treasure trove I had just found in. I then pushed off of the corner in order to get myself close to the only doorway in the room.

Reaching the door, I opened the pressure seal with baited breath, hoping that the other side was pressurized so that I wouldn't die 15 minutes into my new found adventure. Thankfully, it opened into a corridor that was pressurized. Drawing my Canik, I eased myself in the Zero G out in to the corridor and nearly opened fire with my weapon when I saw what looked like a person in a modernized spacesuit around 15 feet away. After holding it at gunpoint for a moment, I maneuvered myself to inspect it. Having no clue if there was anyone in the suit or not. When had finally reached it I spun it around to face me and gagged and nearly threw up when I saw what appeared to be a mostly decomposed corpse. The faceplate was missing from the helmet and some dogtags were hanging out in front of the corpses face.

Grabbing the dog tags, I ripped them off and took a good look at them. "SLDF Robert Kingsley Lieutenant Junior Grade" I read out loud as I put the dog tags into my pocket. Surveying the rest of the corridor, I saw that there were arrows on the floor that gave directions to the various shipboard areas. Seeing the direction that the bridge was, I made my way towards it.

After an hour of navigating my way around the ship I had found myself on, I reached the bridge. It was several ladders up and was almost at the very top of the ship. Luckily, all but one of the pressure doors between the room I had woken up in and the bridge were open. The bridge was just as deserted as the rest of the ship, and also like the rest of it was only lit by emergency lighting aside from the weapon mounted light I had aside from the one workstation that was lit. Closing the door to the bridge behind me, I made my way over to the workstation and with my recently gained experience with this style of OS I began to learn what my current situation was.

"Captains Log, March 16th 2785, SLDF Captain James Cromwell. We made what repairs we could to the Manassas' K-F drive. We are planning on Jumping and trying to rendezvous with the rest of the SLDF as we head towards deep space. We have logged the planned course and hope to meet Kerensky at some point in the near future. On a side note, I find the nature of some of our upgrades to be unsettling. I understand the need for better longevity on what could be a journey years in the making, but having our weapons systems automated enough to be controlled from the bridge? Why, I saw thousands killed by these so called "perfect" systems! At least with a gunnery crew there is no danger of the computer going insane! But nontheless, I do see the need for some of these upgrades. And I made sure that there is a shut off for those systems while we were in dry dock. " I read the last log that was displayed out loud.

After reading the rest of the log including the detailed repairs to the K-F drive I made my way to the rest of What I now knew to be the Warship Manassas' bridge stations in order to figure out what the situation was as far as Oxygen and power were concerned. It turned out that while there seemed to be plenty of rations, the ship was on emergency power and there were only three of the four Confederate dropships still attached to the collars.

Well, while I wasn't an engineer and I wasn't good with numbers I knew that if I didn't fix both of those problems than I wasn't going to be long for this world.

MarkWarrior · May 14, 2022

Chapter 2 I Hated Having to Work on My Car… Much Less this.

It felt like I had been reading for weeks. Even though I mentally knew that it had only been a couple of days I still felt drained. The air scrubbers still worked enough that I had a couple of weeks of oxygen but I knew that if I didn't get the Manassas power plant back online and fix the K-F drive that I would be dead before long. Luckily, the Manassas had a full library of engineering and science books that were both on the theory and engineering of both the K-F drive and the Fusion plant. The chief Engineer and his staff had also kept ludicrously detailed notes on all of the quirks and repairs that they had made over the 6 months after the first misjump.

And that all led to this, this moment in the engine room where I had refueled the Fusion reactor and was about to do or die. I was by no means an expert, but I had hopefully learned enough to not die in this process. After holding my breath and exhaling after a ten count I flipped the switch to restart or explode the beast that I was dealing with. I blinked away stars for a couple of minutes after all of the lights switched on and the dull red of the emergency lights switched off. Tears flowed from my eyes as I realized I had staved off death for a little while longer.

Grabbing the pen and pad that I had filched from someone's locker I checked my notes against all of the readings on the terminal and made sure that I wasn't going to explode anytime soon. After I triple checked everything I made my way to the galley for a celebratory meal. While eating the MRE that I had found, I began to read over the inventory that the Noteputer that I had found had detailed on it. It seems that I awoke in the Quartermaster's main quarters and that he had kept very detailed logistical notes on everything that was both on the Manassas and the four Confederate dropships that were attached to the Warship. Of particular interest to me was the fact that apparently there were several field manufacturing cores kept on the Manassas. While they didn't detail any of the hard basics like a full field library had, they did have the details of how to manufacture double heat sinks and other assorted things that would be considered Lostech in this day and age. And while there was no first principles on any of those memory cores, there were a lot of science and engineering textbooks that were kept on hand by the engineering staff. This is what had allowed me to refurbish the Fusion reactor, and would hopefully help me to finish fixing the K-F drive like they had started to do.

After I had finished eating the most tasteless thing I had ever experienced, I floated over to the nearest crew quarters I could find and strapped myself into a hammock to sleep for the first time in over 24 hours.

After waking up from my long needed nap, I made my way to the bridge where I had moved all of the learning material that I had collected to. When I reached the Engineering chiefs chair, I strapped myself in and began to read and take notes. I had already been doing this for about 2 weeks before I had felt comfortable reactivating the Fusion drive and now I was about to do a deep dive into Science that I had never even wanted to understand.

Now, the basic principles of a K-F drive are actually quite similar to a SlipSpace drive from the Halo Universe on the surface, but the underlying physics are so beyond different that I had no knowledge base to work off of. And I was hoping that not having any knowledge of this science would allow me to finish the repairs that the Manassas' crew had begun and look at things with a fresh viewpoint.

A month and a half later…

"Dammit! Why is it always the left arm?" A voice echoed throughout the Warship's empty corridors as I swore angrily at having banged my arm into something while arms deep in the K-F drive. While working on the K-F drive I had programmed the Warship's autopilot to take me in a circular pattern at 1G so that I wouldn't continue to lose muscle mass in space. With that in mind, I had also frequented the ships gym in between studying and working on the mess that was the K-F drive. While I barely understood some of the math, the mechanical part while frustrating was surprisingly easy as long as you didn't hurt yourself on something accidentally.

"Alright Mark, time for a break." I said as I drank some water and headed out of the Engine room towards the training rooms. "Let's just set the sims to easy and blow some stuff up before we get down to the books again. How does that sound?"

Once I reached the training room I flipped on the lights and made my way to the sound system that was set up and hit play. At this point having spent so long in the Ship I no longer cared what the music was as long as I could hear another human's voice.

Thankfully, The weight room was located right next to the simulator and training room so I could get a solid workout in before hitting the sims. Now, before my arrival, I had been starting to put on weight in a way that I didn't like and now that I had nothing enjoyable to eat and nothing to do but eat, sleep, study, train, and attempt to fix the K-F Drive I had instead turned into a much better looking version of myself physically.

Three weeks later…

"Alright Mark, I think we have finished what was laid out in the Engineers notes." I said as I finished one last turn of the bolt holding the access panel on. "Let's finish up here and see if we can try and jump somewhere close to known space shall we."

After I got to the bridge I made my way to the Navigation workstation and put in a course for the Nadir point at the current 1G of speed it would take one more week before I could plot a jump out of here. I would be keeping my fingers crossed and praying that everything went according to plan.

MarkWarrior · May 14, 2022

Chapter 3: Fourth Floor... Tools, Guns, Keys to the telephone network.

1 week later…

"Well, there's only one dropship left." I said to myself as I wrote down the last of the items that I had physically inspected and crossed referenced with the listed manifest and quartermaster's noteputer. There seemed to be more spare parts then had been originally listed in this drop ship. The final Confederate didn't have a listed inventory. The previous two had been filled with lanes of 'Mechs, aerospaace fighters, and enough spare parts to fight an entire campaign. There were even a couple of interesting ones that I didn't think existed anymore. So I had a mixed weight company of 'Mechs as of my last count. I also had four Aerospace fighters in this Dropship to add to the total amount of hardware I had found.

One of the odd things I had discovered while exploring was that the Manassas had been outfitted with a lot of top tier equipment for long distance travel. This included some manufacturing capacity. I could create and use automated systems to both repair and refit any of the hardware that I had in the dropships.

I sagged a little bit as I waited for the last Confederate dropship to finish opening it's transfer doors. I was exhausted. Non stop work for several months on end would do that to you. In order to get the K-F drive operational I had disconnected the experimental module and made repairs to the actual drive. I had left the experimental one disconnected though because I figured that it may have been the reason for the original Misjump. When I reached the cargo area of the last dropship, I began to go over the manifest that was located on the main terminal.

"I'm so dead." I said when I navigated my way through to all of the tech on board. There was a small 12 ton Mobile HPG on board to go with the one on the Warship. "Comstar was already going to kill me for the Warship alone. But this… I'm going to be the most wanted man in all of the Inner sphere if this gets out."

Before entering the correct command codes to delete the Mobile HPG from the cargo manifest I powered on my Iphone and entered in a series of notes as well as the correct numbers for where the parts and HPG were. I also memorized those numbers because I knew that this would change the balance of power for the entirety of the Sphere if I did this properly.

"Well, it seems like I have a decision to make." I said to myself as I entered the bridge. Which one did I go to? Did I take my newly found wealth with me to the Davions? Did I turn everything over to the Lyran's in the hope that I would be made a noble. I shot to my feet and headed for the Noteputer I had left over by the engineering console. "What was the year again?" I asked myself as I navigated to the calendar application that was on it. "March 30, 3000. If I make moves over to the periphery, I can meet Katrina and see about befriending the power trio." Moving over to the Navigation console, I plotted a course that would take me through stars used by the SLDF Navy and outside of the usual routes that one would go through in Combine space.

The journey to the Periphery would take a period of a year and a half. And I knew that I would be alone for a long time. With that in mind, I began to collect a series of reading material that included the military doctrine in use by the SLDF at the time of the Exodus and a lot of science and material engineering. I would be spending a lot of time on self improvement and seeing as I was alone I might as well enjoy geeking out over the giant stompy robots.

5 minutes before first jump…

"I hope I don't have TDS." I said out loud as I strapped myself into the navigation chair. "I really hope this works." I began to prep the Warship for the Jump. "Jumping to the next system on my mark." I commanded out loud. I might as well get my fun in. Especially if this doesn't work. "Three, two, one, Mark." I pushed the button and crossed my fingers while praying. There was a small flash. Was that eyeballs? Myself in a Warhammer dueling another Warhammer with a spider painted on it. Then everything stopped. "It worked!" I shouted as I cheered on. The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step after all. And I had begun my journey.

MarkWarrior · May 14, 2022

Chapter Four Blood, Sweat, and Tears.

"That's the last one." I said to myself as I removed the dog tags of Captain Cromwell's body. Adding his to the rest of the tags I had collected. The captain's body was the one I had been saving for last. Gently picking it up, I carried it to the cargo bay where the rest of his crew members had been relocated to. All of the bodies were basically just bone at this point, but that didn't mean I wasn't going to treat the dead with respect. After I reached the cargo bay, I placed his body in the body bag I had placed for him and draped a SLDF flag over his body as I had the rest of them.

I looked over the hundreds of bodies I had collected and clenched the dog tags in my hand. I stood there silently for several reverent moments. Then I made my way to the exit and switched off the lights. I had looked into the crew manifest to see where the individual crew members had come from and made a note of it. I vowed to myself that I would see to it that the dead would have a proper burial.

After the somber moment, I made my way to the Bridge. I was working on trying to slave all of the controls for the CIC to one console. I would have to multitask like never before but I was only one man trying to control a Warship that was intended for over one hundred and eighty people to man at a time. I had been working on it off and on since the first successful jump and now that I was a couple of months in to my year long journey I was trying to refine everything that I knew. When I wasn't working on the programming language of the SLDF or working out; I was in the simulators. I knew that I needed to be able to pilot a 'Mech or one of the ASF's in the bays.

After being on the ship for half a year now, it was second nature to navigate wherever I was headed. Currently, this was to the engine room to do routine maintenance on the Fusion and K-F drives. While I was still not an expert on either system, I could do what was necessary for the Manassas to remain functional. I had even gotten to test fire some of the energy weapons, that had been fun though I didn't want to use anything that used ammunition that I wasn't sure I could replenish.

After working non stop for months, it was time for a break. I had been on my journey for long enough that I was ready to have a break and sit down to watch something. Thankfully, there was a very nice entertainment system on board pre-loaded with a lot of Tri-Vid shows and movies. I may have spent a couple of days vegging out on the nice leather seats and watching trashy rom-coms and other assorted media. The ship also had a firing range which I had made religious use of in order to maintain accuracy with my handgun and the other firearms that I had taken to try out from the armory.

The armory was a gun nut's wet dream. Lines of Carbines, Assault rifles, and anything else you might need for a boarding party or landing an infantry squad to support the rest of the force that you dropped onto a planet. And the real dream that was in there was in a hidden back panel. I only knew about it because I had found the Intelligence officer and used his codes to access everything that he had access to. This included the two BlackWatch officers that had been placed among the crew. These two officers had access to the armory because there was one Nighthawk suit in there along with spare parts for it.

Of course, the inner Spartan in me made me want to try it on immediately, but the common sense and paranoia that I had developed made me check it for any booby traps before I locked myself into the tin can. Part of my reading assignment before climbing into the suit of Power armor was to read the manual on it from front to back. I spent weeks memorizing all of the command prompts and everything that could possibly go wrong while I was in there.

"Nighthawk piloting test one." I said facing the camera I had found. I then climbed in and sealed it around me. "Let's start with a simple walk." I said before closing the face plate on it. I proceeded to take one step forward. "Alright!" I chuckled a little bit. "That's one small step… Ahh dammit turn the jump jets off! Turn them off!" I screamed as I pinwheeled around the armory, ramming into everything before finally coming to a stop when it ran out of fuel.

"Nighthawk piloting test two." I said from within the suit a couple of days later. "I read over the problem and I think I figured out what I did wrong. Let's start this over again with a single step." I took a step like I had in the first test, and when the jump jets didn't trigger I breathed a sigh of relief. "Proceeding with a slow walk forward." I said and upon taking my second step I promptly face-planted. "Houston… I've fallen and can't get up" I groaned.

"Nighthawk Piloting test twenty-five. I seem to finally have the hang of this and am now able to move at a slow jog before screwing myself over in some way." I said as I did a small wave to the camera. "In a few weeks I should be able to move onto using weapons and trying moving and shooting."

"Nighthawk piloting testing complete." I said to the camera as I took off the suit. "I've accomplished everything I wanted to in the suit for now and I now have some newfound appreciation for what the Master Chief went through every time he locked himself into Mjolnir." I placed the suit back on the rack it came from and flicked it off as I walked away. "Ease of use… My ass." I muttered while walking away quoting how the manual made the suit seem easy to use.

Maybe it was my newness to neurohelmets but I had a lot of trouble with both the sims and the Nighthawk in the beginning with them interpreting the signals the right way. Thankfully, now that I had had a lot of time to practice that had gone away for the most part. With only a few months left of the first leg of my trip I had a lot of prep work to do if I wanted the plan to work right.

MarkWarrior · May 15, 2022

Chapter Five: Hostis Humani Generis

After a long journey, I was finally close to the end. There were quite a few SLDF outposts and hidden bases that were put in place and listed in the navigation data-banks of the Manassas. While I planned on hitting some of those for Lostech and other assorted ideas with Katrina Steiner if I could manage to catch her at some point for now I was leaving them be. Instead, I was about to set quite a few rumors of my own.

Now, there had always been strange rumors in and around the periphery, some of them had singing Texas battleships and there were always rumors of Amaris supporters doing strange things. My plan was to jump into a known source of Pirate activity and raze it to the ground while taking as many of the Jumpships hostage in the process. Tortuga was about to be wiped off of the inner sphere map.

My long year of travel and work had paid off. I had been planning for this moment for about three months of jumps now. The plan was to hit the Zenith point and destroy or force to surrender every Jumpship that was there. After I hit their ability to leave the system I was going to make my way down and use Ortillery and my long range communications systems to give them a series of ultimatums.

With everything prepped, I took a minute to breath. This was the moment in which I made my first mark on the Inner Sphere and seized my own future with both hands. Reaching down, I flipped the switch I had programmed to switch off all non essential systems. I had also suited up in the Nighthawk suit and made sure that it was set to move to it's own internal oxygen supply if the bridge was breached. I was taking no chances. "Nothing ventured, Nothing gained." I said as I pushed the button that would initiate my jump.

" Boss you've got to wake the frack up!" A voice shouted from outside of the opulently decorated room. "There's a Warship in the system and it's just taken out all of the Jumpships at the Zenith point" Lord Kalvin Bar-Dyness jolted out of bed wearing nothing but a dressing robe and hurried out of his chambers. Dumping the two whores he had been sleeping with on the ground.

"What the hell did you say?!" Kalvin roared at the lieutenant who had woken him up. "Sir, there's a Warship making it's way to Tortuga Prime now." It's taken out the Jumpships at the jump point and stayed in position for over twenty four hours. Then it started on it's way towards us taking out the other pirate bands dropships along the way. It'll be in orbit in three days."

"All of the other bands know that it's coming?" Kalvin asked as he slowly began to cam down.

"Yes sir, but we have no means of really stopping it." The older balding lieutenant replied. "Our aerospace fighters are all in need of repair due to the last raids. And a good portion of our birds were on Dropships headed towards the Jumpships to go raid. Those Dropships and birds were destroyed on it's way into the system."

"Dammit!" Kalvin roared, his anger once again rising to the peak. "Do we have any assets left that can Take something that heavy out?"

Well, if we manage to get some of our bigger dropships into the skies we might stand a chance. But we also will cripple our lifting capacity if this goes wrong. We would be trapped here on world until someone else shows up." The Lieutenant replied.

"If we don't at least try we are probably going to lose it anyway." Kalvin said as he sighed and went back into his chambers to get dressed.

72 hours later…

"Boss, we're receiving a transmission from the one overlord Dropship that was on hand." A female tech called out from he spot in the hastily cobbled together command center.

"Put it through." Kalvin said as he stood behind the people monitoring everything.

"This Captain Martinez of the Red Skulls pirate band. We are moving to engage the Warship with the rest of the Dropships." The captain of the Overlord said over the comms with a slight delay. "We're gonna drag this bastard down to hell with us!" He started with what was supposed to be an inspiring speech before the comm channel cut out.

"Boss, the Overlord is gone." The same tech that had relayed the transmission earlier now relayed the increasingly bad news to the rest of the CIC. Then she her tanned skin paled significantly "Warship is on a course that puts it directly over the palace complex. It'll be in orbital bombardment range in half an hour."

Everyone in the command center began to panic at this point. All of the senior council members were there and so were most of the pirate lieutenants. No one had a backup plan. Then the people there started to realize that their Lord Dyness had disappeared. After speaking up to put the transmissions through, he had made his exit. Already knowing how this would end he had planned to be long gone in his 'Mech while he had the chance.

After speeding through powering his Thunderbolt up, he through on his cooling vest and pushed his Thunderbolt up just above it's recommended speed in order to be out of the palace in time. He had scarcely made it fifteen Kilometers before he heard an echo and a loud crack as several Naval Autocannon rounds destroyed his seat of power. Thankfully, he still had his 'Mech and many of his rivals were now dead.

"Chaos is a ladder after all." Kalvin muttered to himself as began to pilot his 'Mech away from the ruins of the palace complex at a sedate pace. "I'll just have to climb to the top of it."

MarkWarrior · May 15, 2022

Chapter Six: Let the Flames Begin (Oh Glory)

I took them by surprise when I jumped into the Tortuga system. Most of the Jumpships that were present were in the middle of charging their K-F drives and no one expected a Warship to come in and start firing. After all, there hadn't been a Warship used in combat in Centuries. While the weapons systems were automated, everything else had to still be done by a hand. So while I manned the navigation console by myself, I let the automated systems do the heavy lifting as far as taking anything out that was present when I jumped in.

Shock and awe worked a lot better than I had expected. None of the Dropships that were attached to the docking collars of some the Jumpships had time to detach or launch any Aerospace assets and were destroyed with the Jumpships.

After I thought that I had destroyed all of the opposition at the Jump point, I scanned and noticed that one of the Jumpships, a Merchant seemed to have only suffered superficial damage. In fact, it was powering up and before the ship could re target it had jumped away. "Well, there goes that plan." I swore angrily under my breath at the one Jumpship that got away. After triple checking the scans, I stopped and began to go over the ship with a fine toothed comb. I didn't want any boarders or anything possible damage to render me combat incapable before I began the rest of my sweep of the system.

Twelve hours… It had taken me twelve long hours of going over every system to make sure that none of the potential safeties had been broken on the automated systems and that there were no boarders. I was exhausted. So after eating more of the MRE's that were surprisingly still within their expiration date (Even if they tasted awful and made you shit what felt like literal bricks) I shut everything off and went up to the bridge for a little bit of sleep before making my way through the rest of the system.

After sleeping for six or so hours, I woke up from my nap and went to do a manual reload of the ships guns. It turns out, that while the automated systems could fire and track relatively well (As long as the opponent had an IFF beacon active) it couldn't reload the internal magazines from the stores automatically. Which, while a stupid design flaw, ensured that the crew still had plenty of work to during a battle. So, I began running too and fro reloading internal magazines and using mechanized trolleys to shift tons of Naval Autocannon rounds and missiles to the internal magazines. This process took another six hours seeing as while I had used firearms many a time before, reloading an internal magazine was not as simple as it was shown in the tank movies.

"Why are there so many parts?" I asked myself as I loaded the last Naval Autocannon round into the internal magazine. "They had way too much time on their hands." I shrugged after dusting my hands off. "Then again, the SLDF R&D budget was really ridiculous. Not to mention the standard thought process of. Build hidden outpost. Fill hidden outpost with 'Mechs and vehicles. Forget about hidden outpost." I had to keep up a string of conversation with myself or I was going to go insane after spending so much time alone.

Finally finished with all of the preparations and double checking my work to make sure that everything was loaded properly. (I'd hate to have something explode from being loaded in facing the wrong way.) I went back to the bridge and strapped myself in for the rest of the flight down to the main world of Tortuga III.

While I was strapped in, I began tracking all of the Dropships that had been headed towards the jump point when I had decimated the Jumpships there. The traffic that there was, had begun the process of flipping their Dropships around and were trying to counteract their momentum before I could catch up to them. Once I had a good trajectory and course plotted I began my journey into the system. Based on current rate of speed and acceleration, I was going to catch most of the Dropships before they had finished changing their momentum so as to head back towards the planet. If they managed to burn much faster than they were, they would black out to G forces long before I got there and that would be just as fatal to them as any of my Shipboard armament were. Well, I had quite a while before I would be anywhere near the pirates and so I started reading one of the stellar navigation logs that had been kept by the ships navigator. While dry reading, it contained a lot of the math used in calculating the proper jump points and had information as far as thrust vectors and maximum "Safe" speeds before the reactor red-lined and began to cause issues.

The ships crew had kept extremely detailed logs of everything they did and documented anything that they thought was necessary. And included a lot of the things that they didn't think were necessary but they cared about anyway. In fact, from what I understood of the SLDF the crew seemed to go contrary compared to all of the hidden bases and other things that had been hidden by the SLDF over the years. And having detailed notes were one of the things that had allowed me the chance and ability to fix both the K-F drive and be able to do the things that I had so far.

"Alright Mark, enough woolgathering." I said to myself as I authorized the targeting of the Dropships I was catching up to. There were a small number of aerospace assets with this group, and they had launched and begun to maneuver to attack in what they thought were blind spots as I got close. Fortunately for me, none of the fighters were armed with Nukes and they seemed to be ill trained. Or just not prepared for the missiles that the Manassas carried that were designed to deal with these kinds of scenarios. Only two of the Aerospace jockeys managed to evade the White Shark missiles and were still evading them as I shot past them while hitting the Dropships with a barrage of fire that caused secondary detonation as I flew past at one and a half G's. The two fighters left were barely able to catch the Manasses and fell prey to the rear NL45's.

Seeing as that was the last of the threats on my sensors apart from what might be on Planet, I slowed the drive down to stop accelerating and used some of the station keeping thrusters to slow my Warship down to a more traditional pace. That left me with a few days of transit time in which to make sure everything was reloaded for the final space combat of the system.

Now that I had actually done the reloading process and was familiar with it, it only took me a measly four hours instead of the six that it had taken previously. Leaving me with still way too much time on my hands. "Man… Why'd I have to get dropped off here? Why not Somewhere that space travel is faster?" I complained as I reached for the books to start studying again. The learning in this era never ceased after all.

After a year of nothing but studying the ship and working on things like maintaining both the Fusion reactor and the K-F drive I had developed a new appreciation for Math that I hadn't possess before being stranded here alone. What I had learned on this ship would totally blow away the physics researchers of the twenty-first century. I mean, not just the physics, and don't get me started on material science. The casing of the laptop was tougher than the sidearm I had showed up with, even if I did hate the limited OS that was on it and longed for a basic Microsoft or Apple system.

The stack of books that I had set aside to read on my journey dwindled as I got closer to the planet. And I may have actually cheered a bit when I started being able to intercept Comm signals. Even if they were enemies of humanity, just hearing human voices again that weren't from an Tri-Vid or song nearly made me cry. That still didn't save them when they launched the remainder of the Dropships in system at me but it was nice to here a voice again. After dealing with the Overlord that was the biggest threat to me at the moment, I pushed the ship to a geosynchronous orbit over the area that seemed to be the CIC of the planet. It was a Palace complex according to my sensors and virtually all of the communications traffic funneled in and out of it. Seeing as there was no HPG on planet at this time, I knew that if I wanted the pirates to crumble for a while that I would have to begin bombardment from orbit.

Saying a prayer underneath my breath for whatever innocents may end up in the crossfire, I made my way to one of the gunnery stations on my own. None of the automated systems could target a planet. It was written into their safeguards and so I had to do this all on my own. Reaching one of the forward NAC/35's I began to rain hellfire from above down onto the palace complex using sensors to detect when the entire place turned to rubble. I kept firing until the internal magazine of this station had run dry, And then I watched until the dust settled. After I was finished, I made my way back to the bridge and began my trip back out of the system.

MarkWarrior · May 15, 2022

Chapter Seven: Making Plans for the Future

"Man, the SLDF really had way too much time on their hands." I muttered to myself as I signaled to the automatic docking systems of this hidden SLN depot to begin the docking procedures." According to the data stored in the navigation systems the Star League had left dark navy listening posts and hidden repair depots all over the Periphery to help maintain control after the Reunification wars. The main problem was, that no single ship had all of the locations. I had a list of half a dozen different depots that I was going to see if there were any supplies left in.

This particular repair station was partially a hollowed out asteroid and it also had a Potemkin that had what appeared to be thruster damage. It also had only twelve of the potential twenty-five hard points filled with Dropships and the majority of those those looked damaged as well.

The real prize was the Invader Jumpship that was further in. While according to scans, it looked a little bit damaged if the K-F drive were intact it would be the basis for a way to get around the periphery without setting off tons of alarm bells for the various intelligence agencies that were around. I could use it and if I any of the Unions attached to the Potemkin were both space and atmosphere worthy I could start a Mercenary company and begin the process of meeting some trustworthy people that could function as a crew.

I would have to leave most of the Lostech equipment behind though. While one Lostech 'Mech would raise questions, it wouldn't be extraordinary. A whole company filled with Lostech 'Mechs and armaments would mean a target on my back. From Comstar and any other House Lords that would want the things that I had access to.

After the docking procedures were completed, I made my way to the airlock while triple checking the pressure seals on my Nighthawk were intact and that there were no issues as far as air recycling went. I would have to pressurize the repair depot in order to start any repairs or modifications that would be needed to maintain a cover as a periphery mercenary for the period of several years I would have.

When I reached the airlock I waited through the depressurization process and when the outer doors opened, I used the Nighthawks Jump jets to boost my speed in the low gravity, while being careful not to accidentally blast myself out into space. "Yeehaw!" I shouted and cheered as I flew around for a little bit. And then as if in slow motion, let myself fall down onto the docking bay floor in what is colloquially termed a "superhero" landing. "Nailed it!" I laughed to myself as I began to explore the area around me.

There were no signs of fighting, no scoring from laser weapons or anything else so I had to assume that this place was abandoned either during the Amaris Civil War or when Kerensky was gathering people up for the Exodus. And, I had to get the bay doors closed so that I didn't have to work under hard time limits. After around thirty minutes of searching for a console or something that would have some semblance of power to it I found a laminated book attached to the wall via a long piece of wire.

The book had all of the emergency procedures written down on it and even had precise instructions on how to activated the emergency generators in the event of an attack or anything else that might be termed as an emergency. Turns out the generators were built into the interior walls and that you had to remove a small panel in order to turn them on. Apparently if the console's interior battery still worked I could have activated them there but none of the consoles had any sort of power after centuries of non use.

"Beep, beep, beep." Echoed through the helmet as the warning I had set into the systems let me know that I needed to return to the Manassas in order to replenish my oxygen supplies. Heading over to that area, I cycled back through the airlock and allowed my reserves to replenish.

Knowing that I had time before the Nighthawk's interior reserves were replenished, I made my way to the Manassas Fighter/Small craft bay and grabbed several containers of oxygen reserves and stored them into a SLDF rucksack. I wanted to extend the amount of time I could work out there as much as possible. I also stopped by the cargo bay and grabbed a roll of Duck Tape. Using the duck tape and the rucksack I taped the extra oxygen containers down into places where they wouldn't interfere with my range of motion and I could easily reach the hoses to tie them into my existing system as I needed to.

By the time I had cycled out of the airlock into the depot I had tied all of the extra oxygen containers into the Nighthawks own oxygen supply. And I was grateful that I had as it too several hours to get the generators online. After the generators had purred to life the consoles began to power on one by one with the console that controlled the bay doors being the last to power on. And while it seemed to take forever to boot up, once the OS had completed it's boot up cycle, I followed the prompts and watched as the giant bay doors closed.

MarkWarrior · May 15, 2022

Chapter 8: Age of Discovery

Personal Journal June 7th, 3001. After I got the reactor up and running on the supply depot I ran a rough check on the Potemkin and Invader that were also docked here. The Potemkin classed Warship Age of Discovery is really messed up. From what I can piece together from various logs it was directly hit by a nuke in the Ameris civil war and was limped back to here in the hopes of making repairs at some point. When they arrived here, there was another Warship that had been freshly repaired and they just transferred over all of the personnel while leaving this Warship behind. It was right before the invasion of Terra and they needed all hands on deck so they just adjusted chain of command and left. As for the dropships attached to the Age of Discovery, they were mostly emptied out. Eleven of the twelve unions were left behind because they didn't have the space for them on the other ship. They did transfer almost all of the cargo though and only left behind things like stores of armor. There is one union that still has cargo and material, and it's just filled with things like extra uniforms, a little bit of Ferro Fibrous, and a full company of bugmechs that were left behind.

"Ahh." I sighed as I set the cup of coffee that I was drinking down along with the pen I had been using. It turns out that recording your thoughts and what you had done for the day helps prevent you from going insane after long periods of time alone. I had just spent the week combing over the Age of Discovery and was taking a day to have a break before getting to the Invader. Luckily, the hydroponics bays were intact on this station even if they were a little overgrown so I had access to fresh food for the first time in a while. Also, this Depot had coffee that didn't taste like it came out of a Maxwell coffee can and so I was drinking good coffee and writing down everything that I had done over the past year and a half. And on top of that, all of the water reclamation worked really well so I had had an incredibly long and hot shower for the first time in almost a year.

One of the things about this universe that you always read about and appreciated on paper was just how Ragnarok proofed everything was. And the SLDF and the civil engineers really outdid themselves in every way in that regard. But it also made it harder to maintain if you had no clue how things worked at first. This had led to months and months of study as I had worked my way through the Inner Sphere. I had an innate desire to know how things worked and my favorite thing to do back on Earth in the twenty-first century had been self study on things I felt interesting. So I had put everything that I had learned in self study and research into developing more skills at remembering the things that I read.

I had never had an photographic memory, and I certainly had never possessed an Eidetic memory. But my memory had always been good at retaining information that was written down. While I couldn't remember everything perfectly, I could remember most if not all of what I read. My information retention was good. This is what had enabled me to get the systems back up and running on the Manassas. And the notes that I had taken on that process had helped me to get this depots generators up and running. I had also gone through the manifest that was listed in the Depot and had found several Voidseeker AI cores that were in the cargo area shutdown. There was a listed Caspar in the bay as well, but when I had gone to check the bay, I found that it had been disassembled and the parts placed into storage until they could be repurposed.

The depot had enough repair equipment and refined raw materials that it could repair part but not all of the Age of Discovery. If I went through the Manassas stores and moved all of the refined material into the Depot I might be able to fully repair the Age of Discovery there was also some material in the Potemkin but it would be minuscule compared to the amount I would need to repair the entire thing. But I would have no guarantees. There were a couple of other depots listed in the Manassas navigation computer and if I could possibly find more on the Age of Discover I could potentially find more useful Lostech and potentially enough refined material to repair the Potemkin. But, it would take me several days to work through the computer systems and I was going to go through the Invader and it's dropships first.

Making my way to the quarters I had claimed for my own, I grabbed the Blackwatch officers ID tag and the copy of the codes he had on him before making my way to enter the Invader to do a check on what would hopefully be my ticket to civilization.

Authors note: So, seeing as people were wondering why I chose the Manassas instead of another Warship and what had happened in order for me to end up with it in the state it was in when I appeared. Now, I assume everyone here knows the story of what had happened to the Manassas in the original story of how it vanished. Well, in this fic instead of getting frozen in time until 3058, there was a malfunction when they jumped the second time and all of the crew ended up dying while they were suspended in Hyperspace until I appeared. The accident that led to me coming to Battletech also ended up killing the crew. I'm kinda taking a bit of liberty with Hyperspace in order to make this work. Also, I used the Manassas because I was reading up on Warships and the plot bunny hit me when I read the Manassas entry. I know that a lot of people are more educated in Battletech than me. And I'm open to some criticism as well as advice. I won't use everything that I'm given because I've already got a plan in mind. I've incorporated and will be using more things that people have posted in multiple chapters already. The Tortuga Prime thing I'm literally going to hand-wave and go Word of God on it and say that the SLDF discovered the location as the Amaris Civil war was going on and that they just had more pressing problems than dealing with pirates.

Also, Sunday is my day off from writing. I'm a little ahead of my word count anyway.

MarkWarrior · May 15, 2022

Chapter Nine: Ah, man, I just had this thing washed.

Personal Journal June 15th, 3001. The Invader was interesting. It was owned and maintained by the SLIC (Star League Intelligence Corps) but it was registered to the Federated suns under the ship name King Henry V. In the actual Jumpship was a list of places and planets that it had often been to on it's trade route. The Blackwatch Lieutenants codes had given me access to the systems and had let me start the process of getting the Invader back up and running. The Invader had been moved here to repair a couple of Seals that had burst because someone forgot their routine maintenance according to the logs. They had finished the repairs just as the Age of Discovery limped in and had joined in with the crew that was going to take Terra back in the Amaris Civil war.

"Man, I've got to figure out where to find this coffee blend when I get to civilization again." I said as I enjoyed another freshly brewed cup of coffee while writing down the adventures of the past couple of days. "If nothing else, I'm adding it to my personal stores to take with me wherever I go because this stuff is good." I took another sip as I stood up from the table in the mess hall of the repair depot.

It was time to check out the dropships attached to the King Henry, there were three aerodyne's that were attached and it was time to figure out what class of Dropship that they were and more importantly, the kind of cargo that they had been carrying when they were left here. Making my way through the various hallways, I donned a hardsuit and got ready for another day of long work at a computer and cataloging just like I had done many times over the past year and a half.

"Alright, lets get you refueled and then see what we have here." I said to myself as I began the refueling process on the first of the aerodyne's. When I was done, I started the reactor back up and began to head to the cockpit. Thankfully, aerodyne's were one of the things available in the simulators back on the Manassas so when I was finished here, I would train in the simulators in between sessions of trying to automate the King Henry V.

Once in the cockpit, I began to go over the ships computers and access systems that will give me the ships names and potentially what the purpose for this dropship was. It turns out, that this was a Buccaneer class Dropship named The Vagabond. It looked to be owned by the SLIC as well and was apparently used as part of the cover story for the King Henry V. I would check the cargo bay once I had gotten the other two Dropships up and running. After I went through and triple checked to make sure that there were no damages, I made my way to the next dropship.

The next Dropship was another Buccaneer called the Troy. Which I found a little ironic given that it was part of an intelligence scheme by the SLIC. Aside from the odd name, this Buccaneer had minor damage to one of the cargo bay doors that would need to be fixed if I wanted to be able to offload cargo from that part of the ship.

The last aerodyne was interesting. While getting the reactor up and running wasn't any more difficult that any other. (I had tons of practice at getting Fusion Generators fueled up and running lately after all.) I was stonewalled in the cockpit. I couldn't get access to any of the ships systems and even using the Blackwatch Lieutenant's codes had gotten me nowhere.

After hours and hours of trying to get access to the ships main computer I decided that it was time for a break. If none of the things I knew about computers worked for now, I would have to go and figure out how to get into the computers the old fashioned way.

Leaving the last aerodyne, I made my way back to the mess hall in order to get some sort of sustenance and another cup of coffee. I would need it in order to finish figuring out how to get into the last Dropship. The mess hall had an attached kitchen and while most of the meat products weren't good anymore, there was fresh vegetables and fruits that I had gotten from the Hydroponics area an placed into the refrigerated storage there. Grabbing a couple of bananas and making a kind of fruit salad with what I had on hand. I went and stood by the coffee pot to wait for it to brew. When the coffee was done, I poured it into my now empty thermos and sat down to enjoy my meal. After almost a year of MRE's, eating something that was fresh was like taking a long hot shower after getting soaked in icy rain. It was delicious and allowed me to wash away my worries with the food and my coffee.

My meal finished, I closed up my thermos and brought it with me in order to do some breaking into computer systems the old fashioned way. By going through all of the crew quarters and the trash and seeing if I could find anything there that might give me access to systems. Despite it being over a thousand years, I knew that people are mostly the same. After working IT for years, I knew that people always leave usernames and passwords written down somewhere. Even if they were information security specialists. People always make mistakes somewhere. And so, I donned some gloves and went onto the last of the Aerodynes in order to go through the trash.

Authors note: I'll add a map in a little bit, I'm gonna need some time to figure out the general location of where I am at in reference to the Inner Sphere map. That being said, General area of between Pirates haven and the Davion/Taurian border. The Manassas has a Lithium Fusion battery and this allowed me to move a little faster in that direction than might otherwise be thought.

MarkWarrior · May 15, 2022

Chapter Ten: Second Verse Same as the First

Well, after six hours of going over the last Aerodyne I found what I was looking for. I had also discovered an HPG in one of the side areas along with what looked like a dedicated computer center. The codes and ID needed to access the ship were located in the Captains quarters and after I had access to his personal log I discovered why.

The captain of the SLIC Pueblo class dropship The Messenger was a minor noble named Phillip Williams, who while capable enough, was not very good with electronics or computers and often had to get his devices looked at due to him going to "questionable" sources for his personal entertainment. This had led to him hiding the fact he couldn't memorize his passwords by taping a laminated card with his credentials on it to the bottom of his bed frame to look at every day before having to access said systems.

"Never attribute to Malice what can be instead be done by ignorance or stupidity." I muttered as I access The Messenger's systems. And began to finish setting everything up. Now that I had access I could begin to go over ships logs and the star systems and potential secrets that had been kept in the logs and computer systems. Some of those would probably be kept in known locations just because of the fact that this ship had primarily plied the Davion/Marik trade routes via Terra. The Captain, while idiotic insofar as computers were concerned was actually quite good at maintaining the image of a minor Noble who doubled as a merchant. His notes detailed every trade and account that the King Henry V had kept on every world they visited. Williams was also the one in charge of the whole intelligence operation.

Williams had account numbers, savings funds, companies, everything that they had invested in as part of their cover had also been used to fund the ship and continue the operation. And he was apparently really good at making investments. They had more than tripled the funds given to them in the first two years of operations and if the savings accounts and other things had interest accumulated I would be a very wealthy man when I made it to Davion or Marik space.

I had also taken breaks and gone through the cargo manifests of the Buccaneer class dropships and found that they had been transporting a massive load of IndustrialMechs. And on top of that, all of the Industrial mechs were Fusion powered and would be worth their weight in Gold when I made it to the Sphere. If I went to the Taurian Concordat, I would be able to sell these for a fantastic deal and probably recruit a crew. Or alternatively, I could make my way to the Federated Suns and try and access those accounts as well as sell off the Mechs. It would take some thought though.

Now that I had inventoried and gotten my cover story up and running, I moved to get things prepared and ready to move into the Inner Sphere and try and build a Mercenary company. If I did it right, I could remove some of the IndustrialMechs and replace them with a lance or two of the Mechs onboard the Confederates. I could then sell the two Buccaneer class ships and buy a Leopard or something to start with and after building trust, bring a crew back to the locations that I now had stored in my Iphone under a six digit code for safekeeping.

Personal Log June 30th 3001. Man, Kerensky wasn't playing around when he ordered all of the blueprints on the Caspar and SDS systems destroyed. There were no logs at all on the Manassas aside from what was done to automate for longevity purposes. Luckily, the Depot and Age of Discovery were abandoned before that was put into practice and while the Potemkin only had partial records, the Repair depot had extremely detailed reports and documents on the computer systems. They were dryer than British comedy ever dreamed it could be, but the team that had been taking apart the lone Caspar was actually experimenting with it to see if they could get around or get rid of the insane AI problem entirely by setting it up so that you could operate it with one person. Their notes actually showed that they had gotten past the point of testing before they had to leave and head to Terra. Then, they had left detailed notes of what went wrong and potential fixes. I had been hard at work after looking through those notes getting the Manassas fully automated (This included the internal magazines) and the King Henry V to the point of being able to be taken out and jumped to the Inner Sphere by myself. It had Taken me two weeks of setting up computers, and programming and in the end looked like something out of the Matrix but I had a Jumpship, Three dropships loaded with cargo, (I transferred almost all of the uniforms over to one of the less full cargo bays. I left some out for personal use and some in the repair bay as well for any Mechwarriors I recruited.) And a lance of 'Mechs loaded into The Messenger. I even practiced my cover story over the past few weeks and had made things look like they had happened the way that I said it had. I kept parts of the Caspar and moved them into the King Henry V's storage bay so that it would look like a salvage run that partially failed due to greed.

"Well, if this doesn't work I won't know about it." I said as I climbed into the navigation chair on the King Henry V. I maneuvered out of the depot and set a course for the Zenith point, and once I had reached it; I opened the Solar Sail in order to begin charging the K-F drive.

Authors note: Thanks to Vianca for input and additional ideas. I appreciate the help. I don't always use them, but I do like having people point out some options. Now, I'm probably going to head over to Davion Space in order to get those accounts settled and to try and get set up on the beginnings of a crew that I can trust. Then I might hang around the Periphery doing small time contracts until Katrina shows up. Or I might hit the Argo. I'm honestly not that impressed by the Argo but I understand that there's an appeal to the Lostech that it possesses. I'm also going to put a map up in a couple of days charting the general course of the Manassas and where this storage depot is generally speaking. It's literally just a set of coordinates in most House navigation charts. I think the SLDF operated a bunch of off the books stuff around the periphery and the main Houses as well. The problem is, there's no set list of Lostech Caches. There's the few that everyone knows about, but the SLDF had a problem with Hoarding so who knows what is all out there.

MarkWarrior · May 16, 2022

Chapter Eleven: All in a Days/Months/Years Work

"This is the King Henry V we suffered a misjump and are in need of help making some repairs. Let us know when a slot opens up." Echoed through the Communications relay of the Recharge station Janus. "This is the Recharge station Janus, we read King Henry V and have you on our scopes. We're gonna run a quick check on your credentials and put you in the cue for recharging and we'll work on getting a line on those repairs." The Officer at communications Ensign Robert Hall replied before turning to his supervisor Lieutenant Erica Lamb. "Ma'am, We have old records that indicate that the last time that anyone saw or heard from the King Henry V was before the Succession Wars."

"Alright Ensign, I'll push it up the chain, they may be pirates who stole the Jumpships years ago and just now managed to get it back into running shape." Lieutenant Lamb responded. "That being said, we do still have to make sure that everything is authentic and if it is, we have no reason to deny them access for now, but we can stall until we get the all clear. Better safe than sorry if it is a pirate raid."

"Understood Ma'am, I'll run everything through and make em wait a bit until I get some confirmation from the higher ups." Ensign Hall responded. "Have a good night LT."

Twenty-Four hours later….

"This is the Jumpship King Henry V. Is there any chance that a spot has opened up?" I asked while sitting in the navigation chair. I had set everything for station keeping and gone and taken a nap and gotten some food while waiting for a response from the Janus. I was willing to wait, but I really needed to have some contact with another human being before I went truly insane. I was in the middle of stuffing my face with a bunch of MRE candy that I had saved out of the ones I had eaten over the past year and half when I finally got a response.

"King Henry V you are cleared to proceed to docking bay 4 we are sending over a course and handshake signal for your autopilot to follow. Do not I repeat do not deviate from the course we send you."

Choking down the handful of Skittles that I had been munching on, I responded and opened up my comms in order to receive the autopilot signal and begin the docking procedures. "Janus we copy and are accepting the Handshake signal now. Laying in course to begin docking now." I drank a swig of water to wash down the mass of Sugar that was stuck in my throat and got ready to meet and greet with the locals.

Lieutenant Erika Lamb hated being the supervisor on shift at times. While everything had come back clean on the King Henry V there remained some suspicion and so they made sure that there was a security team armed and on standby. When the airlock opened to reveal one guy in an ancient space suit, they all breathed a little bit easier. Erika stepped up to greet him and noticed that his eyes got really wide when he first took in the fact that he had a welcoming party of one. Stepping up to introduce herself and holding out her hand, she was taken by surprise and almost yelled for security when the man hugged her and swung her around for a second whispering to himself. "You're real."

Once I had recovered from my embarrassing loss of self control I set the woman who was there to greet me down and blushed furiously while apologizing in a flurry of words I'm surprised she understood. After my flood had subsided for me to take a break she inserted herself into the conversation and introduced herself.
"I'm Lieutenant Erika Lamb, one of the supervisors of this station." She said after smoothing her uniform out and composing herself for a second. "You must be one of the crewman of the King Henry V I suppose." She stated while he caught his breath.

"I..."I paused for a second to compose myself. "I suppose you could call me that." I said as I stammer for a second while attempting to reign my emotions at seeing another human being back in. "I had bartered passage on the King Henry V in exchange for learning some of the engineering. Then we Misjumped right into a hidden SDS depot or something. The crews on the Dropships got greedy and went onboard in order to salvage something because it looked damaged. Then the rest of the crew on the Jumpship went with them because they wanted help. I got left behind because I wasn't part of the crew and they didn't want me to get any of the salvage." I paused for breath for a minute after spilling a whole bunch of BS partly to make it seem like I was still recovering from the events, and partly to finish getting my story set in my mind. "I think they accidentally screwed with the IFF or the system or something because the depot vented atmosphere and everyone that was there died. The King Henry V took some damage when everything was vented, and It took me weeks just to get everything patched enough to limp back to the Sphere."

One of the things about an effective lie, is that not only are the easiest lies to tell intermixed with truth, if you deliver a lie that should make you emotional at a time when you are high on emotions it helps sell the message. The fact that I was actually overcome with emotion just from interacting with another Human being again helped sell my story to both Lieutenant Lamb and the rest of the recharge station. And the way that I reacted when they told me that it was 3001 instead of the 2770s was part of the reason that everything worked out in my favor in the Pierce system.

Personal Journal November 15th 3001. I managed to pay the recharge stations crew with some of the SLDF uniforms that I "found in the depot". They accepted that as collateral of other payments until I settled accounts and managed to find a crew. Lieutenant Lamb's contract is actually up in December and has been receptive of offers to poach her from her current job when it is up. Using the Comms systems built into the King Henry V and the Janus, I made contact with the Local HPG (Which was a pain due to delayed transmissions let me tell you.) And apparently the Ministry of Communications had left records of financial transactions and other things that Comstar was able to pull up. It took several weeks to compile all of the funds, but I was left with just over a billion in accumulated assets (Thanks t the SLIC captain. With about one hundred million in liquid assets that could be transferred to a local Pierce branch as soon as I could make Landfall. My plan in this case was to see if I could land and lease out most of the IndustrialMechs while selling off the SLDF uniforms and recruiting both crew and some Mechwarriors while planetside. There will always be people who want a second chance at life and if I could find those people, I would have the core of a team. I offered the crew and owners of the Janus extra cash if they would allow the King Henry to remain docked while I tried to find crew to fill out the rosters on the Dropships and Jumpship. They agreed on the condition that they were added to any potential trade routes that the King Henry might ply.

MarkWarrior · May 16, 2022

Chapter Twelve: Red Skies at Night

"Permission to board?" Lieutenant Lamb asked me while holding a ready bag slung over her shoulder. Waiting just outside of the Dropships loading bay.

"Welcome aboard The Messenger Lieutenant, I'll get you stowed away after I finish loading up the rest of the uniforms in here." I replied while getting the equipment stowed away. After I had moved the uniforms crates and strapped them down, I moved over to Lieutenant Lamb and directed her to her quarters until we were planet side. "This will be the cabin you stay in for the next five days." I said as I opened the door to one of the crew bunk's I had cleared out. "Use the intercom to let me know when you're ready and I can show you the rest of the ship."

"Thanks, I worked a double so that I would have a larger paycheck come Christmas and I need some rest." Lieutenant Lamb responded while dropping her ready bag next to the bed she claimed as her own. "I'll definitely take you up on the tour later." She yawned mid sentence and waved me away.

"Alright then, sleep well Lieutenant." I responded by shutting the door and making my way up to the cockpit. The cool thing about using the Pueblo, is that there were security features in certain places. The SLIC had set it up so that you could monitor anyone who stayed in the "Passenger" areas and made sure that all of the SIGINT equipment could be hidden behind several false walls. And the doors and hallways were monitored and could give soft alarms as to when a door was opened.

There were multiple reasons that I had decided on taking the Messenger down to Pierce instead of one of the Buccaneers. The ability to control perception was a good thing. Another thing that influenced my decision on taking the Messenger was the ability to use SLIC back door channels into the HPG to monitor any Comstar ROM communiques.

Once we had disconnected from the Janus, I set a course for the planet and began the four to five day burn. After I had laid in the course, I got up and made a cup of coffee and set an alarm to let me know to go wake up Lieutenant Lamb in about four hours or so for lunch. I made my way down into the cargo bay where I had moved the SDS drone parts that I had salvaged to use as part of my cover story. I had a meeting lined up with the local Comstar officials when I reached planetside anyway. This would allow me to solidify my story even more if everything went as planned.

Precentor Reginald Winfrey, known to most as Precentor Pierce, was extremely excited. The staff at this Class B station had never seen the normally grounded individual so giddy. You see, Precentor Winfrey had risen to his rank via the Omega branch, with a specialization in advanced physics. Long had time travel been theorized and now there was proof before his very eyes. When he had learned of what happened to the King Henry V he was actually excited to interview the lone individual and try and prove some of his thesis and potentially push the limits of the understanding of physics. And today, he finally got to meet the individual in question.

"Precentor, the captain of the King Henry V is here to see you." Winfrey's secretary spoke over his phone. "Yes, yes, send him right on in." The balding scientist responded while standing up from his chair. "Yes my man, do come in, I'm Precentor Reginald Winfrey, the head of this Comstar station and you are?" Winfrey began to shake the mans hand scarcely allowing him to get a word in.

After introductions were finished, he began a barrage of questions that he had assembled about the Misjump which the Time Traveler! Answered in as much detail as he could give. "Yes, yes, I can see that it's less time travel and more of a timed stasis of some sort. Almost like a time capsule but in Hyperspace." Then Winfrey got lost in his own thoughts and turned to write on the whiteboard behind him he kept for calculations.

"Precentor," The title barely registered to me trying to communicate with him. After attempting several more times to speak with the man feverishly writing on the white board behind his desk, I slowly stepped towards the door and greeted his secretary. "Does he get like this all the time?" I asked while gesturing at the man lost to math.

"Every so often," The secretary shrugged. "He's very good at delegating and choosing the right people for their jobs so we just leave him be whenever he gets like this."

"Ahh," I nodded in response; "I see. I did work some things out with y'all beforehand. You said you wanted to purchase the SDS salvage from me for study?" I asked while trying to get a feel for the younger man in front of me.

"Ummm yeah, Precentor Winfrey actually had the Legal division write up a standard purchasing contract to look over when you got here but I guess he got lost in the numbers." The young man pulled out a small stack of papers for me to look over and sign if I found everything to be aboveboard. I had actually taken the time before I visited the HPG station to look at salvage contracts and everything. Comstar wanting all of the pieces of the drone systems I "Claimed" to have made sense in regard to their "Mission" as it were. And the fact that I made it seem like I was extremely eager to be rid of the thing that had contributed to my friends supposed deaths helped sell everything.

While I received a decent amount for the salvage, the real meat and potatoes were the contracts that I negotiated with local firms for my IndustrialMechs. I had three Aerodyne dropships filled with Jabberwocky's and all of the refit kits that had been sold as aftermarket kits. I arranged a lease deal with a local mining and salvage firm to lease most of them; and they helped put me in contact with their parent company on New Syrtis to lease or sell the rest of the "Mech's including the four extinct or nearly extinct Daedalus GTX2A industrialMechs that had been a part of the Dropships cargo. The local Militia, seeing as they needed some extra cargo capacity offered to lease or outright purchase one of the Buccaneer dropships from me. I worked out a three year contract with extensions and that each side could file for assuming the other party didn't need the dropship for anything.

I had intended to spend Christmas alone mourning the fact that none of my family was with me, but Lieutenant Lamb, who I had become fast friends with during the long wait on the Janus actually came to my hotel room and dragged me out to have fun and partake of some of the festivities. And by January first 3002, I had assembled most of a crew, filed the paperwork to begin a Mercenary company, and finalized registering the four 'Mechs I had brought with me.

Personal Journal December 15th, 3001
I have approached Ms. Lamb about being hired on with my company and she has accepted on the condition that she finish out her current contract. Seeing as she has been extremely helpful in pointing me towards several locations that would assist me in finding both crew and Mechwarriors for my up and coming mercenary company I agreed. And I struck gold last week insofar as hiring is concerned. There are two dispossesed Mechwarriors who were also medically discharged from the AFFS. I offered to pay for the medical treatments to get them back into fighting shape and to let them get back in the saddle with contracts that stated that they could keep the 'Mech's they piloted if they managed to bring in salvage equivalent to it in weight. The two of them were nearly in tears when they accepted and joined the rest of the people I had recruited. Many of them followed the same thread as these two with being down on their luck with debts, or just not being able to find jobs in the civilian market. Despite Davion and Federated Suns push towards the soldier being a profession of choice, the skills learned in the AFFS didn't always transfer over and still made it hard to find jobs. The drophsip crews were pretty easy to find, there were plenty of laid off hands and other assorted people who were scrambling for jobs. (I managed to completely lock down the SIGINT systems on the Messenger so that they couldn'tbe accessed before I allowed them onboard though) I even lucked out and picked up a handful of Retired NCO's and a couple of people who wanted in to the Mercenary game no matter where they were placed. After January first, we would burn for the King Henry V and jump towards New Syrtis to get the rest of these IndustrialMechs out of the cargo bays and to purchase a Leopard or some other military Aerodyne.

Authors note: I'm going to be taking a break for this weekend. My wife and I are going to be going on a date tomorrow and Easter is a big deal for my family. So, I may get another chapter up today, but no promises.

MarkWarrior · May 16, 2022

"Originally an Aegis-class heavy cruiser that was modified into a one-of-a-kind vessel, the Manassasis recognized as a distinct ship class unto its own[1]even though only one single such ship ever existed."

"Although the hull was described as "old",[5] the Manassas had been upgraded with top-of-the-line facilities with the latest technologies (as of 2784), including the recreation areas and the jump drive; it is noted to be designed for long, isolated flights."

MarkWarrior · May 16, 2022

List of Equipment on the Manassas
Four confederate Dropships, each with a lance of 'Mechs and two Aerospace Fighters on board

Found on Confederate Droship Last of Us were four Warhammers, two WHM-6Rb's, one WHM-7A, and one Gunslinger modified WHM-6Rk. The 6Rk has been upteched to ER on all weapons and still maintains both Armor and speed. Also on the Last of Us were literal tons of replacement arms and armor as well as a single 'Mech repair gantry. There were two Stingray Medium Aerospace fighters in the Aerospace bays.

Found on Confederate Dropship Dying Light were two Marauders, one MAD-2R and one MAD-2T, two Thunderbolts one TDR-5SD and one TDR-5Sb. Two Corsair CSR-V12b. Along with other assorted spare parts and two Manufactering data Cores.

Found on Confederate Dropship A Curse from Beyond were two Griffins, both GRF-1N variants,two Crabs; both CRB-27 variants. The two Aerospace fighters were Ironsides IRN-SD1s and there were a stockpile of DHS located in the cargo bay.

Found on the Confederate Dropship Takes Two to Tango were two Royal Stingers both STG-3Gb variants, there were also two Mongoose's/Mongeese? One was a MON-66b variant and one MON-66
Also found on the Takes Two to Tango was ground based Mobile 12 ton HPG and the spare parts to go with it. In the cargo bay were two mostly deconstructed Stuka STU-K5b's. Considering that was what was also in the aerospace bay they should be considered spare parts.

Found in the Manassas cargo bay.
A mini library filled with both science and engineering texts, along with hand written detailed notes by the sailors who worked on the Manassas upgrades and repairs.
The equipment to start a colony and build the beginnings of a Star League era city.
This includes but is not limited to, Satellites for mapping, water filtration systems, communication systems, the beginnings of a Space station for the manufacture of both Endo-Steel and Ferro-Fibrous.
A small disassembled Industrial 'Mech factory, spare parts for everything in the Confederate dropships, along with stores of seeds, food, and assorted beverages both Alcoholic and non-alcoholic.
In the fighter bays were eight various VoidSeeker variants both interceptors as well as strikers. The rest of the Aerospace fighters were a solid mix of lights to Assault.
BlackWatch Codes and one Nighthawk located in a hidden area in the armory.

MarkWarrior · May 16, 2022

Chapter Thirteen: Loading…

"What in the hell did you do to this bridge?!" Kaylee Rye, the jumpship captain I had recruited asked me. "If you had done any of this even the slightest bit differently you would have been dead before you ever jumped out of your first system." She sighed while shaking her head at me and gesturing at some of the power conduits I had to reroute in order to get everything functional.

"This! You see this!" Miss Rye plucked a fuse out of the Navigation computer. "This is nearly fried, I'll have to replace it before we can do anything." Then looking at the ship started petting the navigation computer. "It's okay King Henry V we'll have you back up and in good shape in no time." Then looked at me. "But, in all seriousness; it'll take a couple of weeks to fix what you had to do to get here. I understand that it was life or death and so I'll just mess with you until you live down what you did to this thing."

I had been cringing through Kaylee's entire spiel. I knew that what I had done barely worked, but I had to do it anyway in order to get to where I needed to in order to start getting settled in the Inner Sphere. Kaylee had been poached from another Jumpship that had jumped into the system while I was present. Her and enough assorted other people to fill out a skeleton crew for the King Henry V She had been the chief engineer on her previous Jumpship but hadn't had any room for upward mobility, Her ambition was to captain a Jumpship and to one day be the owner and operator of her own Jumpship.

Luckily, I only had to finish signing a few contracts and some paperwork for the leasing of the Troy and about half of the Jabberwocky's that I had in stock. Five year contracts with extension clauses that would net me about twenty to forty million pounds per year until the end of the contract. The Troy alone was netting me a large part of the profit and was going to be replaced if it ended up destroyed while in use by the local militia. I had made sure that was going to be ironclad in the contract so that I wouldn't lose a third of my lift capacity if something happened to the local militia while I was gone.

January 1st, 3002 Pierce, Capellan March Federated Suns

It was time to leave Pierce. I had done everything I needed to do here and then some, as of today, the Mercenary Company Marksman consisted of one Lance of Mechwarriors, two platoons of infantry, three dropships (we had a leopard waiting in New Syrtis for us) and one Jumpship. I had also begun negotiations with the Concordat for a year long anti-piracy contract via HPG.

The crew of the Messenger worked pretty decently for a crew that had only been put together in the past couple of weeks. We lifted off, and in conjunction with the Vagabond began the trip to the Jump point. Once we reached it, it would take us about a month to get to New Syrtis.

After the time to remain strapped in was finished and we had a consistent burn towards the Jump point, I unstrapped myself and made my rounds through the ship. When I made it to the cargo bay, I saw the crew struggling with a crate and a strap that had come loose during our burn off of Pierce. I went over and helped them wrestle the crate down and then had them teach me the better way to strap things down. "You see, the knot needs to go this way after you ratchet it down because you never know if the ratchet will hold during exit or reentry." The Cargo bay lead told me as he demonstrated how to ensure a tightly strapped down crate or 'Mech.

"Thanks, I'll be sure to drop by every now and then to make sure you don't need anything." I replied shaking the lead's hand and then heading towards the mess hall. In the mess hall, you had all of the ex military people I had hired watching a poker game at the main table. It was a strange variation of five card draw.

"Mind if I play a few rounds?" I said making my presence known. "I'll need to be shown the ropes, but I'll add a couple hundred Pounds to the pot regardless of whether I win or not."

"Only if you don't mind losing." Jonathon "Jack" Sheppard replied. "I've been winning all day." Jack was one of the medically discharged Mechwarriors who I was going to be helping out with medical treatments.

"Winning?" Asked one of the NCO's named Malcom Samuels. "You wish, I've been handing your ass to you all day. And when we reach solid ground again us ground pounders will teach you a thing or two."

"Easy fella's settle down." I said as I took a seat. "Deal me in and lets get started."

Personal Journal February 15th, 3002
Well, we'll be on New Syrtis for another month or two as our two injured Mechwarriors finish getting their ailments fixed and they get put through the Sims and everything else again. The Leopard dropship Bittersweet that we picked up was used and needed some minor repairs but after we finish with those in another week or so we'll be in good shape. Myself and the hand picked officers here sat down and agreed on a ranking and rating structure that we think will go really well insofar as getting combined arms forces going when we finally have tanks and the like. Lieutenant's Sheppard and Peterson will be the XO of the 'Mech Lance and the Ground forces respectively. While we wait for Jack Sheppard and Alice Jenkins to heal we're going to be putting everyone else through a small boot camp and academy in order to get the beginnings of cross training. The ultimate goal is for every PBI to be able to pilot a 'Mech if we capture or salvage one in a fight. We also want to be able to have a Mechwarrior fill a hole in a platoon, fireteam, or squad if his 'Mech is in the shop. We don't have enough boots as of yet to get total cross training. But we will have the bare minimum that I think is necessary. While we head to the Concordat in a couple of months we'll begin boarding and Black Navy Boarding actions until we get to begin our anti-piracy contract.

Authors note: Sort've a filler chapter to bridge the gap and explain what happens. Especially considering the next one jumps right into some action. Also, some people have brought up trustworthiness of the new hires and trust me I know exactly what they're talking about. The overall plan is to pay them extremely well and bond them to me/ the Marksman company by doing things like covering their medical bills and treatment in order for them to fight again etc. Things like that are important and will matter a great deal to an individual and their family. I've stuck around for jobs I hated because I was loyal to a person in the company who helped me out when I was in a bind or something like that. So, loyalty is fostered in two ways at Marksman. LIfe or death situations where we're fighting for our lives, and by being well paid. That is all. See y'all tomorrow.

MarkWarrior · May 16, 2022

Chapter Fourteen: "War, War Never Changes…"

"Sheppard! I need you and the rest of the lance to flank the tanks now!" I ordered over my comms as I sniped at the Cicada charging me with one of my PPC's. "Those LRM boats are going to shred me if they can share targeting data with the two 'Mechs over here." I nailed the second 'Mech a Blackjack with a PPC close to the cockpit and made it back off for a minute.

"Understood sir." Lieutenant Sheppard responded, "We're closing in on them now ETA two mikes."

Lieutenant Sheppard piloted the Mongoose and was in charge of the rest of the lance while I was running distraction. Being in a Warhammer and the heaviest 'Mech on this planet made me the target that the two pirates here were trying to hit and so I was running distraction while my infantry tried to make for and capture the union that the pirates had landed in.

Crouching to avoid a couple of AC/2 shots that were aimed at me, I turned and laid into the Cicada that had finally gotten into close range with my SRM's and lasers. Shredding the legs to pieces, I watched as the pilot of the Cicada ejected rather than stay and fight. Which left me with the Blackjack still sniping at me. Armor pocketed from tangling with this half lance all day, I moved up to my max running speed to try and close the distance with the Medium 'Mech.

"Rifle actual, This is Sniper actual come in come in." I heard over my comms while Running after the Blackjack that was attempting to get away.

"This is Rifle lead go ahead Sniper." I responded while alternating PPC fire at the stupid Blackjack.

"We have seized enemy Assets and have POW's and salvage. Please advise." I stopped moving to duck behind a hill to avoid the Blackjack's sniping and popped back up just in time to nail the cockpit with both of my PPC's. "Sniper actual, you have command, I'll trust your decision." I responded as I moved forward to make sure that the Blackjack was down for the count.

"This is Captain Mark of the Marksman Mercenary company to all pirates," I broadcast on all frequencies. "Lay down your arms and surrender, we have seized your dropship and taken out your armor and 'Mech assets. You will be treated according to the Ares Conventions. Refuse and we will give no mercy."

Unfortunately, the pirates refused to surrender and the LRM boats that I had wanted to take as salvage ended up being blown to smithereens by the remaining three 'Mechs of my lance. "Sheppard, Peterson Sitrep?" I commed over as I marked the downed Cicada and Blackjack 'Mechs on my computer for salvage to come and collect. "This is Peterson, we seized the enemy dropship and all of the equipment on board. We captured most of the crew and have taken minimal casualties." Lieutenant Peterson responded. "This is Sheppard, all armored forces have surrendered or been destroyed, we are escorting the armor that surrendered to Lieutenant Peterson's forces now."

"Roger that, I've marked down the Blackjack and Cicada's for salvage operations." I broadcast in reply. "On my way to the Rendevous point now."

Shifting my Warhammer back up to a jog, I made my way to the captured dropship.

"It's simple Cornet, I'll trade you the Union and the 'Mechs for a Leopard CV and a squadron of Aerospace fighters to go with it." I said to the Liaison we had been assigned by the Concordat.

The Cornet argued with me for a bit until I pulled up the contract that I had with the Concordat. The contract stated that we had full salvage rights on anything that we fought. As long as no Concordat forces were a part of any action, we were able to lay claim to anything that we had fought on the battlefield.

"Let me talk to my CO and I'll see what I can do." The Cornet finally sighed and went to go make a phone call. I would like to keep the Union, but for now I needed Aerospace assets and I needed them ASAP.

"Alright, my CO is on the way and will handle negotiations with you directly." The Cornet responded as he packed up his briefcase. "Regardless of our difference, thanks for dealing with that scum." He shook my hand firmly. "You did really good work out there."

While waiting on the Colonel that was in charge of the Armored/Infantry I pulled up the intel that we had pulled from the dropships computers. We had a rough location of the pirates, some sort of unnamed moon in an out of the way system. These pirates had hit Burton for the electronics because they had intelligence that the regular 'Mech forces would be rotating out for training purposes.

Then, a young officer walked in. I stood to shake his hand. "I'm Colonel Thomas Calderon, and I hear you're a stickler in regards to negotiations." He said as an introduction and smiled to indicate that he was joking a little bit. "Now what's this I hear about you wanting to trade the Union for something?" he asked while taking a seat across the table from me."

Personal Journal July 5th 3002:
I managed to talk Colonel Calderon into a good trade for the Union and the 'Mechs. And we discovered that the Marksman actually worked really well together. Turns out my cross training idea had worked, and now I had air assets to throw into the mix and would be hunting down the pirate band that sent this Union after Burton's electronics stores. My techs had pulled the location of an as of yet unnamed moon out of the Union and the name and IFF of the Tramp Jumpship that the pirates had been using. If we managed to catch them by surprise I had small craft and Marines ready for boarding operations. The New contract that I had negotiated meant that we would have to take a Taurian Liaison with us and we would have to waive any bounties in exchange for keeping all of the Salvage. While my officers were confused about this at first, they would soon understand why I preferred more Salvage over a bigger paycheck. Also, because we didn't have any Aerospace pilots yet, I had to run a quick search. There had recently been a Mercenary Aerospace Squadron that hadn't been able to afford their upkeep and had disbanded. After calling their CO I managed to hire him and his old Squadron on short term contracts just for this hunting trip.

MarkWarrior · May 16, 2022

One MON-66
One WHM-6Rb
One GRF-1N
One CRB-27
All with SLDF 'Mech suits/uniforms

Assorted small arms and ammunition bought on Pierce on the direction of both the MechWarriors and NCO's
Enough weapons to outfit two platoons of infantry and for the crew to have weapons available as well.

MarkWarrior · May 16, 2022

Chapter Fifteen: A Shift in Perspective

"Alright, we have our orders, the Captain is going to run distraction with the rest of Rifle Lance while we make our way stealthily to the Union that they dropped with and if all goes well, will seize it and any and all assets that may be on board. Any question?" Peterson asked his platoon.

"Yeah LT, how does the Captain expect us to take a Dropship with just a platoon of Infantry." Corporal Dunham asked.

"Well Corporal, the Captain trusts me to decide if we can actually take the ship or not. We just have to get in position and if we can't take it we radio in and let Rifle Lance come in and pin down the dropship in the hopes that it surrenders." Lieutenant Peterson responded.

"You heard the man Ladies, now move like you got a purpose!" Staff Sergeant Packer screamed at the platoon to board the Armored trucks that they had purchased for this reason.

Lieutenant Sheppard was grateful to be in the cockpit of a 'Mech again. It had been a couple of years since he had been able to pilot one and the fact that he was in a Mongoose in pristine condition made him feel a bit giddy. Corporal Lamb was in the Crab and Private McKay was in the Griffin. The Captain had drawn out the two medium 'Mechs the pirates had dropped with while leaving the armored assets for them to deal with.

The Pirate union had put out a trio of LRM boats a Manticore, a pair of Harassers, and a lance of Condors according to his sensors. "Mckay and Lamb, focus fire on the Manticore while I deal with any of the small fry that try and flank us." He told them over laser comms while making sure his primary arm switch was on.

"This is Lamb, drawing fire from the heavy, Mckay, see if you can snipe at it while I get in close." Corporal Erika Lamb said as she dodged PPC fire while maneuvering into range of her Large Lasers.

"Careful, those PPC's will punch a hole in your 'Mech if you're not careful." Mckay warned as she locked on with her LRM's and threw some man made Lightning along with her missiles at the Heavy tank.

"Roger that," Lamb responded as she fired both large lasers at the maximum range available. "It's taking damage, I'm working my way in to Medium Laser range."

While the two Mediums focused on taking out the larger threat to them, Sheppard killed a Harraser with his brace of Medium lasers and turned to flurry his small laser at a Condor while his mediums recharged. Pouring his Mediums back into the point where he landed his small Laser, he dropped the Condor, watching it spin out as he dodged SRM fire from the remaining Harraser. He just had to keep the rest of these vehicles busy until his lancemates were done with the Manticore. "I need that Heavy down ASAP," He commanded while nearly throwing his Gyro out of balance with a rapid turn at 120 KPH. Skidding to a stop, he turned and finished the remaining Harasser before accelerating rapidly on one of the Condors.

"Manticore is down Sheppard, on our way." Lamb responded as the Manticore stopped firing and moving. Turning her Crab, she moved to assist Sheppard.

"Sheppard! I need you and the rest of the lance to flank the tanks now!" The Captain ordered over encrypted comms. "Those LRM boats are going to shred me if they can share targeting data with the two 'Mechs over here."

With the two mediums with him they made short work of the remaining Condors and moved to flank the LRM boats. "Understood Sir, we're closing in on them now, ETA two mikes." Sheppard responded as he slowed down to the average speed of his lancemates. After a couple of minutes, they were in the maximum range of the Griffins engagement zone. "Mckay, if you have a shot; take it." Sheppard Commanded while moving up to over 100KPH. "I'm moving inside of their minimum range."

Both Lamb and Mckay's 'Mechs had more range than Sheppard's Mongoose, that just meant that they were able to take out the LRM carriers before they could tear into the Captain. "Target destroyed." Both Mckay and Lamb said in unison as they mission killed two separate LRM boats. "Moving to engage the other two."

"They're oblivious," Staff Sergeant Packer said to LT Peterson while they observed the valley that the Union had landed in with a set of binoculars. "I know that pirates aren't typically this stupid. But we may as well take advantage while we can."

Lieutenant Peterson nodded and gestured to the platoon to move through the valley as quietly as possible. Carefully using the trees as concealment from the mark I eyeball, they made their way through the lax perimeter that had been set by the pirates. When they got within around five hundred meters or so they affixed suppressors to their weapons and took out the snipers and sentries. As soon as they fired, they began a dead sprint into the opened cargo bay of the Union.

"Close the docking bay." Peterson called while holding a cargo worker at gunpoint. "Yes sir." One of the platoon members moved to the controls. "Fireteam's one and two, clear the rest of the dropship and take the bridge. Move quickly." Paterson commanded. "Packer, take Fireteam three and make sure that the pirate infantry outside can't get in through any of the common entryways."

"Roger that LT." Packer replied. "Jenkins, Mendez, Move your asses, we've got pirates to kill." Fireteam Three moved to another bay and cleared out all resistance in their path while Lieutenant Paterson made his way to the bridge.

When he reached the bridge, Peterson saw that Fireteam one had the bridge crew under gunpoint and zip tied in the corner. "Rifle actual, this is Sniper actual come in." Peterson used his encryption key to access the Comms they were using via the Unions Communications array. "This is Rifle Lead go ahead Sniper." The Captain replied.

"We have seize enemy assets and have POW's and salvage. Please advise." Peterson comm'd the Captain. "Sniper Actual," The Captain responded. "You have command, I'll trust your decision."

After the broadcast was finished, Peterson turned and looked at the Bridge. "Rook! Get in here and access these systems!" Peterson called their main tech to the bridge. "I want everything that they had to be stored on a separate drive so we don't lose any data."

"Roger that LT." PFC Nathan Rook replied. "Accessing system now and retrieving logs. I'll get what I can and give it to command."

Blaze looked at his Squadron. "We have a contract and some Birds," He held up his hand to head off Chopper. "It's only a temporary contract and we don't have the funds to salvage our birds after paying off the debts that we owed." Blaze sighed. "I'm thinking after we complete this contract and see if we can get hired on permanently. It'll let us stay together and if I'm reading his character right he'll pay us pretty damn well."

"Well, the pay will always be better than the Outworlds Alliance paid us." Chopper replied with his typical sarcasm.

"What birds does he have?" Edge asked, her concern showing. "If he only has Lucifers, we're not accepting."

"Agreed." Swordsman said while nodding at Archer who was thumbing through the contract. "How does the temporary contract look?"

"Well, it looks like your standard contract with a couple of additions." Archer replied. "It's got a pay markup because of the short notice so it'll pay a little better than we first expected, and it also lists the birds they've got. Looks like two Thunderbird TRB-D36's two Lightning LTN-G15's and two Chipewa CHP-W5's. So a decent Squadron along with us needing to provide the crew for the Leopard CV that they've got."

"So, we in agreement to take the short term contract for now with the hopes of making it a long term contract?" Blaze asked his officers. With the assent of his command staff, he went to go make a few phone calls.

Authors note: I just realized that I forgot to update my Rate/Rank structure with the Aerospace wing. I'll fix and replace the current rate/rank structure with that when I get it typed up. Until then, See if you can figure out where I pulled the Aerospace pilots from. Also, just figured out how to insert horizontal lines! I'll be going back and editing to show perspective shifts later today! Also, let me know if y'all want me to get rid of the different POV's. I like them but if y'all don't want the perspective shifts then just tell me and I'll play it straight.

MarkWarrior · May 16, 2022

Chapter Sixteen: "Dogs of War, Soldier of Fortune"

"Alright, we're about to jump into the system that we think the Pirates are in. Marines, do your jobs and I'll make sure there's a bonus for everyone." I said over the small craft comms as we prepared to jump into the system that we had pulled from the Unions computers showed. "Second Lieutenant Felicia Paige, It's your show from here on out. I'm along for the ride." I nodded at the Commander of the Marine Platoon.

"Alright ladies, you know the music, time to dance." Lieutenant Paige said through the comms of the vacuum rated combat suit. "Our goal is to take any Jumpships in the vicinity of our point, given recharging times, we may only have a few minutes to launch and take whatever is at the Jump point." We are launching in two separate boarding shuttles escorted by our new hires Wardog Squadron. If there are two Jumpships we'll split up and take both. Do your jobs, follow instructions and lets live to spend that combat bonus."

"You heard the Lady." Staff Sergeant Jones repeated. "Now strap yourselves in and get set for a Combat Launch."

"Yes Staff Sergeant!" The two Shuttles roared.

As we sat down and strapped ourselves in we made sure our magazines were loaded with Frangible rounds and that and our weapons were charged. "This is Captain Frye, jumping into the unknown in three, two, one." I saw someone bleeding out underneath me as a fighter roared above and then we were in real space once again.

"Shuttles, you have permission to launch, we have two jumpships on sensors." Captain Frye repeated over the comms. "Transmitting Coordinates now. good hunting Marines Godspeed."

The pilots boosted out of the shuttle bay and all of us in the troop bay triple checked both ours and our neighbors seals to make sure that we wouldn't die due to vacuum exposure. "This is your pilot speaking, we have two minutes until we reach Jumpship target one. Shuttle two has already begun deceleration to target two. Initiating deceleration burn in three, two, one." The shuttle turned back towards the way we came in order to change our momentum in order to hit one of the Docking clamps directly. Upon impact, we locked into the airlock and waited for our tech to override the Airlock doors.

When the tech specialist finished, we stacked up and on his signal went through the now cycling airlock. "Captain, you're on rear guard, Mathis; you're on point. Watch your corners and lets do this." Paige ordered.

"Yes Ma'am." we responded and moved to our positions. I stayed focused on making sure we didn't get sneaked up on while she commanded the Marine Fireteam with grace and precision. "Hold!" She commanded as we stopped and cleared the next room. Popping the door open, Mathis tossed a Flashbang in and then followed it up by racing to clear the right hand corner of the room. Lieutenant Paige was second and followed up by clearing the left corner. I was on read and heard two shots with calls of "Tango down."

"Alright, this room is clear let's move up." We began to clear the hallways systematically and anyone that surrendered we plasticuffed and moved on. When we reached the bridge, We stacked up and cleared it to realize that there was a hostage being held by a pirate at gunpoint.

"I will Shoot him!" Screamed the Pirate. Not realizing that we had no idea who his hostage was. "You need him alive right? In order to keep the systems running." At this point, the pirate was just rambling on and on. Meanwhile, Lieutenant Paige signaled to Mathis and I to get in position to take a head shot if we were able to do it without injuring the hostage. Because we were wearing helmets with Encrypted comms channels, we were able to discuss what we planned to do. We had captured enough pirates that we didn't necessarily want this one alive and so Paige told Mathis to take the shot.

One shot range out from Mathis' rifle as the pirate dropped with the top and back of his head missing. The hand holding the hostage released in death and the hostage began to weep. When we were finally able to get him coherent, he told us that he had been one of the original Jumpship crew when it was first taken by pirates twenty years ago. He said that he and a few others were made slaves and had to maintain the Jumpship or that they would be killed.

We took all of this with a grain of salt and warned him before cuffing him and putting him with the rest of the prisoners that we had collected in the cargo hold. We had just doubled our interstellar carrying capacity with one move and zero casualties. Not bad for the beginning of our pirate hunting adventure.

The Tramp wasn't in great shape but had been maintained fairly well, and we would be keeping it while we would be trading the Merchant that fireteam two had taken for some extra lift capacity in the form of dropships. After clearing both of our new acquisitions of all resistance and checking for booby traps I shuttled back over to the King Henry V.

Once I was aboard the King Henry V again, I got aboard the Bittersweet and we began our burn to the moon we were detecting signals from. We had gotten lucky, the Tramp and Merchant were almost at the end of their recharge cycle and they hadn't had any Dropships either on their way, or attached when we boarded them.

Three days later…

"This is Blaze, you are go for drop Bittersweet Wardog has you covered." Sounded over the comms of my Warhammer. "Listen up boys and girls, we have no idea what is on this moon so make sure your seals are tight and make sure every shot counts." I said as we stepped out of the 'Mech bay of the Bittersweet.

"Wardog, anything you can tell us as far as recon goes?" I asked over our comms as I jogged the Warhammer in the direction of the base the pirates were using. "Yes Captain, we have what appears to be a massive ship crashed into this moon to the north and the Pirates are trying to tear it apart for fortifications."

"Copy that Wardog, thanks for the heads up." I replied. "Rifle Lance flank speed north. I want to try and catch these pirates with their Pants down."

"Yes sir." Sheppard responded, "Moving at flank speed to scout ahead." His Mongoose kicked up a decent wave of dust as he moved upwards of 120 KPH while flicking the switch on his Beagle Active Probe. "I read a couple of turret emplacements but that's it so far." He reported and slowed down to let the rest of the lance catch up.

As we sniped the turrets from long range, I got a strange feeling that something bad was about to happen just as Bitchin' Betty announced. "Mech powerup detected, 'Mech powerup detected." A Quickdraw leading a pair of Griffins and a Locust crested over the hill behind us. "Mckay, Lamb, focus fire on the one Griffin at a time, I want them down before we get sniped. I'll take the Quickdraw with Sheppard in support, we'll join you after we're done." I gave my orders and fired both PPC's at the ankles of the Quickdraw. "Sheppard, go flank Griffin designated target one." I ordered as I began to back up from the Quickdraw to lure it in.

Alternating fire from my PPC's I actually busted out in a full belly laugh as one of them snapped the Ankle joint of the Quickdraw and sent it smashing into the surface of the moon. I slowed down and waited to see if there would be a response. When the Quickdraw didn't move for thirty seconds, I moved to assist the rest of Rifle lance. They had already savaged one Griffin and taken the Locust out of the fight with a lucky shot to the cockpit, just leaving one last Griffin to go.

Finally settling into the Goldilocks zone of all of my weapons, I launched a savage Alpha strike on the final Griffin along with the rest of the Lance and watched as one of Mckay's LRM's landed a shot that hit the ammo compartment. Cooking off all of the LRM ammo and wrenching the Griffin to the ground where Sheppard stomped on the chest of the 'Mech and pointed his Medium lasers directly at the cockpit.

"Power down and surrender, or don't, that'll be more fun." Lamb Snarked over the channel as the Griffin actually powered down. "It's less fun when they actually give up." She remarked as we called and waited for the Infantry and salvage teams to reach our location.

MarkWarrior · May 16, 2022

Chapter Seventeen: Salvage and Recovery

"Well, the Captain really nailed this one." Staff Sergeant Packer said as they opened the rear hatch on the Quickdraw. "The whole thing practically buried itself, must've been moving at it's max speed when it lost it's foot."

"Damn!" PFC Mendoza said to Sergeant Packer and Private Jenkins who were peering in with him. "Someone forgot their maintenance, look at those straps." Where the five point harness was attached to the seat had frayed and snapped, causing the pilot to snap her neck against the roof when the Quickdraw's foot got taken out from under her.

"Alright, let's haul the body out and get to the Vagabond, we have some astechs who want to take a look at this thing and see if they can get it up and running again in a couple of weeks." Sergeant Packer told the duo with him. Waving at the Jabberwocky that they were using as a partial salvage 'mech. The three JabberWocky's with them each grabbed a 'Mech and began to drag it to the Vagabond where the techs and salvage people did their jobs. The last Griffin, the one that the pilot had surrendered in, was still able to move on it's own power and so Lieutenant Peterson was piloting it into the cargo bay now.

While most of the Infantry platoon helped out with the 'Mech salvage, the dropship engineers and the tech specialists that were a part of the Marksman were diving into the massive wreck to see if they could get it either up and running or what they could salvage if they couldn't.

"Try it now." Chief Petty Officer Victoria Jewel called out from the reactor room. The Spaceman apprentice assigned to her flipped the switch that she had connected this to. "Turn it off, and let me check one thing." She called from the other room. "I'm looking for one burnt out conduit and I've narrowed it down to two."

"Wait one," She called while fiddling with some equipment. "Alright, try it one more time." The power flickered. Come on you stupid piece of crap work!" She yelled and kicked the reactor. When she kicked it, everything came on and stayed that way. "Alright, now I'll check with Petty Officer Taylor and see if the engines are still operational. You go and see if the Captain need any assistance with the computer systems."

"Yes ma'am," the Spaceman apprentice called and headed towards the bridge where the captain was. Captain Mark Hull, the commander of the Mercenary company was a strange man. SA Bruce mused to himself. He had mandated cross training with everyone and himself had trained with everyone. He had never had to qualify with a rifle or heavy machinery before joining the Marksman. He did like that everyone knew what the different jobs entailed though. The infantry guys he hung out with could assist people like Chief Victoria just as well as he could and he could back them up in a firefight if necessary.

SA Bruce shook his head. That was enough woolgathering for now. He had work to do.

"Why is this stuff so heavy?" Asked Corporal Lamb as she helped Private Mckay pick up a crate of material that they had taken from the pirate's storage. "And where is Sheppard? Wasn't he supposed to help us with this?"

"I am," Sheppard said while picking up a crate the same size as the one they were struggling with by himself. "I'm doing all of the work here with Corporal Dunham and y'all are just struggling here."

Corporal Dunham was a beast of a man, 6 foot four and two hundred and seventy five pounds of pure muscle. But, he was also one of the few infantryman with a classical education. He was one of the people that took to the cross training the best. "At least we only have a few crates left," Dunham tried to broker a peace between the two parties. "What's even in these things?" he did ask, hoping that at least one of the 'Mech pilots would know.

"Small arms and SRM launchers." Sheppard replied, "The pirates had been stocking them for years before we got here." He placed the last crate on the pallet they were loading. "Alright ladies get the straps and lash this thing down. We want it to not move when they carry it over to the Vagabond."

"Yessir, the two female 'Mech pilots responded as they moved over to the ratchet strap and began to strap down the crates while Dunham climbed the ladder to the Jabberwocky they had been assigned and got everything ready to carry the crate over to the Vagabond.

Seeing as they had loaded everything else up, they got comfortable while waiting for Dunham to return.

"So… How'd you get hired?" Lamb asked, referring to the other two. "I got started by being on the Janus when he jumped in but how'd y'all sign up?"

"Well," Sheppard started. "Mckay and I served together in the AFFS together until we got injured in a Capellan raid, Captain showed up at the bar we were at and offered us a place." Mckay just kept quiet while Sheppard told their story.

"What Sheppard isn't saying, is that he almost refused until I tore him a new one for refusing to get his leg and back fixed." Mckay snorted and told the rest of the story not leaving out the bits that Sheppard did. "We both had to be medically discharged and hadn't been wise with our money so we couldn't afford the care we needed." She kept going. "The captain took one look at the injuries and offered to pay for them regardless of whether we signed up to join the Marksman or not and the same goes for a lot of the NCO's and infantry around here."

PFC Nathan Rook stared in awe as the Captain flawlessly navigated through Star League era systems without having to double check a manual. Even after his years and training in the AFFS, he couldn't get into systems that quickly. Hell, he didn't even know that that back door existed until the captain showed him. Reaching into his cargo pocket, he grabbed his small notebook and pen that he kept on him and started scribbling down notes. Pausing periodically to ask questions, he just observed and took in what he was seeing. Working with the Captain was really fun, he was down to earth and had stopped moving quickly in what he was doing several times to show Rook exactly what he was doing.

"Captain?" Rook finally decided to ask. "Where'd you learn how to do all of that?" Seeing as the Captain was done, he figured now would be the best time to ask.

"Would you believe me if I said a Warship?" Asked the Captain with a strange look in his eye, like it was an inside joke or something.

"C'mon Captain, tell me where you really learned it." Rook insisted, not finding the Captains joke all that funny.

"Well," The Captain paused. "Lots of practice, my dad did a lot of computer work on older and newer systems and I picked up a lot from him. And I took on the family business a lot back then you know?" The captains eyes grew a little sad at the mention of his family. "Well, I hope you managed to pick up a thing or two from this old man." Captain Hull said as he packed up his notebook and 'Noteputer. "Call me up if you need help with the rest of it." he called over his shoulder as he walked away.

"Well, this was a milk run." Chopper called out over the Aerospace only comms to the rest of Wardog Squadron. "We didn't even have to shoot at anything. If it stays like this; I might just stay on permanently." He joked with a hint of seriousness to his voice.

"Chopper, quiet on the comms." Blaze interjected. "We'll discuss possible options with the rest after we are off shift." Everything went quiet for a good fifteen minutes before Motormouth chopper opened his mouth again to break the peace.

"Cut out the chatter Wardog." Interjected Mother Goose, the pilot and acting intelligence officer of the Wardogs. "We're getting word from the Marksman that the massive dropship is space worthy and that it's about to lift off we are transmitting escort positions now."

"Copy that Mother Goose, we are on our way to transmitted Coordinates,." Blaze replied.

Both Blaze and Chopper stared in awe as the massive dropship eased itself off of the moon and begin to accelerate to a good orbit. The Dropship had some dents and dings, but overall aside from a few areas that the pirates had messed with, it was still in good shape. And clearly the internals still worked properly.

"Blaze! Look at the size of that thing!" Chopper chattered away.

"Size isn't everything." Blaze replied. "Take a closer look, it's unarmed and will need to be covered by fighters in order to get anywhere in a hostile enviroment."

"Wardog Squadron, we see you on our flanks, you may want to return to the Puma and get ready to make for the Zenith, we are leaving and heading back to Concordat Space for now." The big ship transmitted as it began to turn and then make for the waiting King Henry V and the other two Jump ships there.

MarkWarrior · May 16, 2022

Chapter Eighteen: "Ahh The Negotiator"

After jumping back to Taurian Concordat space, we took the Bittersweet, Puma, and Vagabond down to Burton. On our way down, we transmitted our AAR's to the MRB and our liaison sent his report to Colonel Calderon.

"Alright," I transmitted across the intercoms of the Vagabond and directly to the other two dropships. "All of you are required to take at least forty-eight hours of shore leave starting when we have landed. After you finish your duties, head over to the bar and have them put all of the drinks on my tab. I'll head over after I'm done talking to the locals."

A bunch of cheers resounded through all three dropships. "You sure you want to do that boss?" Sheppard asked me as I rounded the corner headed to the main sleeping quarters. "We'll drink you dry."

I just chuckled. "Y'all deserve it after what we just pulled off." I shrugged, "I'm going to go and sleep until I wake up now. Let Captain Daniels know that he's in charge until I wake up."

"Alright Captain, I'll pass on the message." Lieutenant Sheppard said. "Just so you know, that was a hell of a shot you pulled off on that Quickdraw, shooting like that had to come from somewhere, you'll have to tell me the story sometime."

"Would you believe me if I told you it came from being stuck on a Warship for a year?" I asked, smirking a little bit. Sheppard just looked at me confused. "I'll tell you someday. But for now I'll leave it to your imagination."

"Alright, keep your secrets!" Sheppard yelled after me. "I'll get to them someday."

I just walked away, chuckling all the while. Upon reaching the common sleeping quarters, I sat down on the bunk that I had picked out earlier and as soon as I wrapped myself in the blankets and strapped myself down I was asleep.

Senior Chief Samuels loved his job. Being the senior NCO on the Vagabond was a dream come true for a former career sailor. He was highly ranked enough to delegate and still low enough to actually get to work on things in person. Currently, everyone was supposed to be on shift and he was checking to make sure there weren't any slackers. When he saw that there was someone asleep in the main quarters he took it upon himself to wake them up and put them to work in typical NCO fashion.

"What the Hell are you doing!" Samuels Screamed at the top of his lungs. "Get up and get to work you lazy Shit!" the Senior chief hit the quick release on the straps and tipped the mattress over before stopping as he realized who he had just screamed at and woken up.

"Well, it's good to see that my NCO's haven't slacked on their training." I snarked as I tried to untangle myself from the covers. "I would have appreciated being woken up a bit more gently though."

"I'm so sorry sir." Samuels said apologizing furiously. "It won't happen again."

"No, no." I responded. "You were just doing your job and I get it. I would like to get back to sleep though if at all possible." I shook his hand and let him help me remake the bed as an apology before curling back up and going to sleep.

"Sheppard, make sure the bar is still standing when I get there." I said as I hopped into one of the company trucks. "I want a drink too." I then drove off, headed in the direction of the office that Colonel Calderon had given me the directions to.

"Captain Hull, thanks for coming on such short notice." The Colonel greeted me as I walked into the office. "You want anything to drink before we get down to brass tacks?" He asked as he walked over to a well stocked mini fridge. "I've got sweet tea, iced coffee, some juice."

"I'll take some sweet tea." I replied. Making my way over to the other side of the desk. Opening my rucksack and taking out both my 'Noteputer and my notepad and also retrieved my copy of the contract with the Taurian Concordat. I had both a physical copy in paper here and a digital one on my 'Noteputer.

"Let me tell you," Calderon opened up as he gestured for me to sit down. "You're company does really good work. Even if you do have a weird company structure." He then sighed. "Now for the grit. We want both of the Jumpships you captured. We don't want to invoke the clause we included but will if we have to."

"I want to keep one of the Jumpships. I need the lift capacity. As it is, I had to leave the Messenger here while we went pirate hunting." I responded. "I'm willing to give you the Merchant, it's the Jumpship that's in better shape and frankly, I need the collars."

"I'll be willing to lease the Tramp to you while we fix up the massive ship we salvaged." I responded with a shrug.

"That's not good enough." Calderon responded. "We have money to spare, but we don't have the capability to make our own Jumpships as is." He passed over a sheet of paper with a Lot of zeroes on it."We're even willing to offer you half of the brand new cost of both Jumpships and lend you the use of the Tramp until your contract with us is up and a little bit after."

"While that is a lot of zeroes," I responded. "It's no substitute for lift capacity." I sighed. "I'd like to keep one of them, but if it's that or the clause invoked I want a different deal."

"Alright then, let's hear your counter-offer." Calderon leaned back in his chair.

"You get both Jumpships on the condition that I can use them for sixth months after our contract is up and you cover the cost of repairing the Dropship that I picked up as well as the price listed here." I responded, tapping the paper with the price that they were willing to pay for the Jumpships on it. "I can only swing this though if I can manage to find another Jumpship soon after. So I want a guarantee that if we don't find another Jumpship within a year that we can continue to rent one of them until we've found our own."

Calderon thought for a good long while. "Let me talk to some people and get back to you tomorrow." He said standing up and shaking my hand. "Have a nice night Captain." He showed me the door.

I got in my truck and headed to the bar that the Wardogs and Marksman had taken over. I had a merger to discuss.

"Captain!" the fighter pilots of Wardog Squadron greeted me loudly. "Welcome to our corner of the bar."

I raised an eyebrow. "Are any of you sober enough to discuss terms?" I asked taking a seat across from Blaze.

"Blaze is!" Chopper chimed in. "He's always the Designated driver."

Blaze just shrugged and gestured to a table close by but slightly secluded. "Lets talk away from the motormouths over here."

I sat down and pulled out a sheet of paper detailing what I was willing to offer if they joined the Marksman and what duties I expected them to perform if they merged. Blaze took out a pen and paper and made a couple of notes. Humming to himself and circling a couple of things.

"Change these things a little bit and we'll have a deal. Most of us aren't good at the numbers and logistics. I'm the one who managed all of the books. If you can balance them out and pay off the debt you'll have us for as long as we've got birds and pay." He then shrugged. "Chopper and Hitman will stay as long as you keep them fed and pay for their bar tabs. All jokes aside, it was a pleasure working with you and your men and we'd love to stay on as long as we keep being treated like this."

I nodded. "I can make that work." I shook Blaze's hand and turned to the table they were at. "Welcome to the Marksman Wardog!" I called out while gesturing to the bartender to pour another round.

Authors note: So, no promises I'll maintain this kind of update schedule. If I manage to find a Beta I'll probably update even faster than this. So if someone wants to im still in the market for a proof reader or beta.

MarkWarrior · May 16, 2022

Chapter Nineteen: Repair and Refit
February 1st 3003...

"She's starting to look good." Captain Frye remarked as she steered the shuttle around the giant Dropship. "Just couple of panels fixed and some paint and you'll never know she crashed."

I nodded, content to just take in the view of the ship and of the space around it. Despite having been on a ship more than solid ground over the past two years, I still found myself in awe of outer space a lot of the time.

"You sure it was worth the money to refit it this way?" My ground XO Lieutenant Sheppard asked. "I mean, a dedicated hospital and repair and refit ship seems a bit excessive for our current forces."

"With the current amount of people at our disposal you would be right." I smirked. "I'm looking ahead, we're going to need advanced repair facilities and the ability to care for our wounded soldiers as we expand."

"And the reason you hired those people from the colleges?" Lieutenant Peterson asked. "They've taken over one of the cargo bays entirely." Peterson said exasperatedly, tired of having to move equipment in and out of the cargo bays.

"Well, some of that is to help with any of our people who might want to continue their education." I paused, "and the rest is to hopefully help us gain an edge on anyone we might face."

"Alright, settle down everyone." I said, as all the officers and NCO's, took a seat in the room of the Messenger. "I know all of you have had questions about how I developed my skills, where my money came from, and all of that." I paused. "I've heard all of the rumors. Now what I will tell you is exactly what you've been asking for, though none of it may leave this room. So, before we get started, does anyone want to get out?"

"Now, I'm going to ask you to hold all questions till the end so that I can get through this without having to stop every few minutes to answer questions." I took a sip of the water that I had laid out in front me when I entered the room. "To start with, all of you are currently sitting in the briefing room of the Star League Pueblo class intelligence ship Messenger. And it along with the King Henry V were a part of a long term intelligence gathering mission before the dissolution of the Star League and Terran Hegemony."

From there, I spun my tale, a wild story of having been the only survivor of a Warship misjump. Of being stranded alone, having to fix it up and make my way across a ton of the Inner Sphere, the only thing I left out was being from a different universe. I saw as eyebrows were raised, and the surprise that a good many of my trusted companions had. At the end, I stopped and waited. Hoping that I could still trust these people that I now knew as friends and comrades in arms.

The entire room was silent for a good minute. I could hear some breathing and some muttering and that was it before Lieutenant Sheppard stood up at attention and saluted. "Lieutenant Jonathon Sheppard reporting for Duty Sir." From there it was a strange wave as all of the Officers and NCO's followed suite. It quite literally brought me to tears for a minute. I returned their salute and gestured for them all to sit down again.

"Now it's time to discuss our options." I said, "I need all of your input in order to make the right decision here. Now, I'm about to pass out the information of what I found on the Argo's computers. We need to decide if we are going to purchase some more dropships. Either way, we're going to need to hire some Jumpships in order to carry whatever we find as well as start on some new hires."

I paused to let them weigh in and I took notes on what the suggestions were. The majority were in favor of doing a contract with the Magistracy of Canopus for a bit in order to pick up skilled doctors and surgeons as well as hiring some of the people who had submitted applications from the Taurian Concordat. All in all, we would go from a over strength lance with an attached company of Infantry/Marines to a slightly under-strength Combined arms battalion when we finished up with purchases and hiring. We would complete our current garrison and Anti-Piracy contract before moving on. When we had built up enough people that we could all trust, we would come back and hit the SLDF cache on Artru. Until then, we would be spending money like water in order to get everything done by the time our contract was up in May.

"I always knew there'd be one of you." I said shaking my head. "No, I'm not going to monologue about how I caught you. I don't even care about who you work for. I'm just going to execute you." I shrugged. "Any last words?" I asked while Corporal Dunham and led him to the airlock. I nodded for the two of them to remove the gag.

"Blake will see you dead!" they yelled and began to yell louder and struggle violently before I commanded the two NCO's to step out of the airlock. After they left them in the airlock, I closed the internal doors and began the process of remotely opening the outer door. "See you in hell." I said and watched as their body flew into the void.

"Thanks for the assist." I told the two NCO's with me. "He could have gotten us all killed if he had managed to report what I told y'all to his superiors."

"Who did he work for Sir?" Dunham asked. "They could try and sneak more people into our ranks if we're not careful."

"You wouldn't believe me if I told you Corporal." I said. "I'll tell you what I know later, when I've got a decent counterintelligence team put together."

At the sound of that Corporal Dunham actually perked up. "Counterintel you say?" He asked. "I actually got some training in that before I left the AFFS. Now it was mainly in making sure that Mask teams didn't sneak up on us but I can build off of that."

"I'll see what I can come up with and maybe make you head of that team in the future." I responded. "But don't get your hopes too high. We've got a long way to go before we get there."

Authors note: Thanks to pbthhhht for helping with some edits and making sure everything looked good and flowed well. Next chapter will either be a Marksman POV or jumping into the next contract.

MarkWarrior · May 16, 2022

Chapter Twenty: "Now its Istanbul not Constantinople."

"You ever wonder why we're here?" Staff Sergeant Packer asked, holding his rifle in a dirty Sul technique while relaxed against the wall behind him.

"No, I don't wonder why we're here." Lieutenant Peterson responded. "We're literally on a contract to guard this archaeological dig that Interstellar Expeditions hired us to."

"No, I mean why are we standing over here in the sun when we could be in the shade." Sergeant Packer unknowingly echoed a certain characters words from ages ago.

"Oh, well that makes sense." Peterson shrugged and moved over to the shaded area that Packer had indicated. "At least we didn't get stuck with training the greenies."

"Not this week." Packer nodded, "We're on rotation next month though. They have to learn how us groundpounders operate."

"Oorah!" Private Jenkins and PFC Mendoza replied to that phrase. Their shout echoing through the small box canyon they were in.

"Hey look, it's the Captain!" PFC Rook called out. And the Fireteam on patrol turned to wave at the captain (And the quirky Archaeologist with him)

"Captain," Peterson and Packer nodded. "Making the rounds?"

The Captain just gave them a brief rolling of the eyes, gesturing with his head at the scientist talking his ear off and shrugged while mouthing. "Save Me!"

Shaking their heads, the fireteam continued their patrol. Leaving the Captain to his fate.

This contract had been a godsend, Interstellar Expeditions had come along right as we were about to head to Canopian space and noticed that we were in need of a contract. They negotiated letting us use some of their Jumpships capacity in exchange for us helping with some of their explorations. This time, they were on the lookout for any potential civilizations that may have fled the reunification war. We had hit a couple of minor planets and I had taken advantage of the downtime we had in order to get a lot more training in with my troops.

We had shaped the new recruits that we had picked up from the Taurian Concordat into another couple of platoons of infantry and would be working on specializations when we shipped them back up to the Argo.

We were contracted for another couple of months and then we would continue on to Canopian space where we would look for our next contract.

The person in charge of the Expedition, a Dr. Gerald Ford, had been an interesting person to talk to, even if he did seem a little bit crazy at times. He had his Doctorate and had even helped straighten out some of the history curriculum we had put together for the Argo.

This dig was a bust though. There had once been civilization here, but most of the population lived like the Amish people of my day and so we left them alone. Lifting off in the Vagabond, we got ready to jump to the next system on their proposed map.

"So Dr. Ford," I began while sitting across from him at a table at the mess hall. "What are the chances we actually find anything out here?" I flipped through training reports while waiting for a response.

"Well, the chances are never great." Dr. Ford started "But we always hope for the chance to find something!" He started to get excited and I facepalmed. Realizing I never should have gotten him started. "Why, you never know what kind of society people might have developed away from the influence of the Inner Sphere."

One of Dr. Ford's aids just met my eyes and shook her head. Making sure that I knew that I had brought this on myself. After several minutes of rambling, I quietly excused myself and made a break for it. Leaving whomever was still in the mess hall to suffer for my mistakes.

I walked quickly to my office and closed the door. Deciding to take refuge in the quiet busy work of making sure all of the paperwork and files were documented properly. I had just gotten to filing the current trainee's paperwork when there was a knock on the door.

"Come in." I called, leaving one hand underneath my desk where I had a small laser pistol affixed. "Have a seat." I said as Corporal Dunham walked in.

"Sorry to disturb you Captain, but I had a few question about some things that've been bothering me for a little bit." He paused for a breath. "I want to know how you knew that Sergeant Jones was a traitor." He stated outright, meeting my eyes and waiting for a response.

"Well, first of all, Mathis told me that something was off after we got back from getting the Argo, and I made sure to listen." Dunham nodded at that. "The second thing was that I was intercepting all transmissions from the Messenger when we got into the system. Jones had attempted to record our meeting and when that didn't work, tried to send an electronic report to whoever she reported to. Thankfully, she didn't manage to get a transmission out. She acted on her own without any guidance from her people."

I then showed him the details that I had from her personal effects as well. She had a couple of very vicious poisons hidden in her belongings and had even written things down in a cipher. This included things like potentially kidnapping several of the officers and/or NCO's and backup plans that would have killed most or all of us.

Corporal Dunham paled with every piece of evidence I laid out in front of him. Seemingly shocked at the lengths some people would go to in order to get what they wanted. "Who was she working for?" He asked finally, regaining some of his composure.

"I honestly don't care." I stated. "She aimed to hurt me and mine and I don't much appreciate that." I stood up. "I take care of my people." I said firmly as I met the giant of a mans eyes.

Swallowing a little bit, Dunham stood up, and made his way out of my office. "Thanks for answering my questions Captain." He said as he opened the door.

"Hey Corporal!" I called. "Get me your list of personnel for the department by noon tomorrow."

"Roger that Captain." He repied as he left my office.

"All hands prepare for jump." Captain Frye's voice called out over the intercom's speakers. I strapped myself in, and waited for the go ahead.

We re-materialized and began the standard scanning of the system we were in. Dr. Ford's Jumpship had already sent over the reports of it's scans. There were two what appeared to be Leviathan Jumpships mothballed at a midway point between the Jump point and the planet in the Goldilocks zone.

"Dr. Ford, I'm sending the 'Mechs, the Vagabond and Wardog squadron to escort you down to the planet." I commed the IE Jumpship. "I'm taking the Argo and my other two Dropships to check out those Jumpships."

"We hear you Captain," Dr. Ford responded. " I'll send over one of my people to take a look and see if there's anything of interest to IE on board."

"Copy that." I said, getting ready to station a couple of our trusted people to keep an eye on whoever was going to be coming with us. "Give us your timetable and we'll get to work."

After taking some time to get things in order my dropships burned towards the planet ahead of the Interstellar Expedition's dropships. I trusted that Sheppard and Wardog had things well in hand while I supervised the potential salvage and recovery of potentially two Jumpships.

"Alright," Sheppard said as the Bittersweet neared what appeared to be an abandoned city. "We're here to draw out whatever locals might be here and pray that we look friendly." He paused as the bay doors opened. "Regardless of what happens out here, we are to keep the IE people safe. They're a lot squishier than we are."

"Copy that Sir." The other five 'Mech pilots responded. Corporal Dunham piloting the Captains Warhammer for the operation.
"Anything on sensors?" Corporal Lamb asked Sheppard seeing as he had the better sensor suite.

"That's a negative Lamb, keep your eyes and ears peeled though." Sheppard responded.

"This is the Vagabond, dropping off the Infantry now." The aerodyne landed on the highway next to them just long enough to let the Jeeps and trucks that the Infantry used to get around off before taking off again.

"Peterson, Paige," Sheppard called out over the comms. "I need you and the rest of the infantry to do a quick sweep of the buildings next to us. Everything seems abandoned but I want to make sure of that."

"Copy that Sheppard." Peterson responded and he and his platoon began to move towards the nearest buildings at a reasonable speed. "Will update when we're through."

There was no power, and Jenkins and Mendoza had to pry open the sliding doors before they could enter the building. "NVG's on." Staff Sergeant Packer ordered, seeing how dark the interior was. "We need to be able to see in the dark here." While the main lobby was decently lit, everything else was almost pitch black.

After about an hour of going through the building, they came out and requested a DeCon shower and to be Quarantined. "Nothing but dust and echoes Sheppard." Peterson reported. "But some of the notes we found indicate some sort of disease or something we're not really sure. Have Paige set up the decon and quarantine area just to be safe."

"Copy that Peterson." Sheppard replied. "You heard the man, make sure your hatches are sealed. Paige you copy on that last Comm?"

"I read you Sheppard, We're waiting on the Vagabond to drop off the equipment now." Lieutenant Paige responded. "Me and my Marines will take care of the grunts."

Two weeks later…

"Well doc, what's the verdict?" Packer asked one of the doctors that had been sent down from the Argo. "Am I gonna die?"
Dr. Walker just scoffed. "We can't find anything that could be harmful to any of you here." She paused. "Whatever it was, it's more than likely died out by now. We're clearing all of you from quarantine."

Both the Infantry and the Marines, sick of having been cooped up for two weeks got really excited at first before realizing that now they had to follow the IE archaeologists around.

"Cough cough, Doc, I'm dying." Jenkins made it dramatic. "Make me stay on bed rest for the next…" He trailed off looking at Mendoza for backup. "Two weeks?" He asked weakly, realizing that the Doctor had no sympathy after having to deal with them for the past two weeks.

The rest of the Marines and infantry jeered and then with some complaining and grumbling, got back into uniform and got their kit back on. "Alright, let's make sure these eggheads don't cause any trouble now." Now Staff Sergeant Mathis called out.

"What's the verdict?" Sheppard radioed Peterson and Paige after his computer systems notified him that they were back online. "You all a part of the walking dead?" He joked.

"Nah Sheppard, we're cleared to go back to work. Let the IE boys and girls know that their playground is open for business." Peterson responded.

"Roger that, letting the children out to play." Sheppard then called the IE dropships, letting them know it was safe to land and begin excavating to their hearts content. "Dr. Ford, try not to have too much fun down here." He reminded the easily excitable man.

In Space, same time as Sheppard lands on the planet…

"What's the verdict Chief?" I asked CPO Jewel.

"Frankly sir, this hardware is ancient. Pre Star League even." She responded. "We're lucky that the Dropship collars haven't changed over the years." She paused. "That being said, I think we can get this one back up and running if we cannibalize the other one for spare parts and borrow that IE guy to help."

"Why borrow the IE guy?" I asked genuinely curious as to why bring in outside help.

"Because the guy is a genius and knows a lot more about this tech than I do." She responded. "I can't give you an estimate without taking some more time to look at the internals. Get me that guy and I'll give you something by the end of the day."

"Understood Chief, I'll leave you to it." I left our Chief engineer to her tinkering. We were currently inside of one of the Leviathans and were conducting damage assessments and repair predictions on them. While they mostly appeared intact, one of the Jumpships had suffered from a larger meteorite impact and couldn't maintain an atmosphere. Strangely, they both appeared to have been mothballed properly and so we had to decide which one we were going to fix up.

Two weeks later…
"Spaceman Bruce, I need you to test that air filter!" CPO Jewel called out to her favorite errand boy. "If we did this right when we should be able to pressurize the ship again and I don't want carbon build up ruining our good air."
They had spent the last two weeks swapping parts between Jumpships to see what worked and what didn't as well as fabricating new ones on the Argo before sending them over to make sure everything fit properly.

"Aye ma'am." Seaman Bruce responded, pushing off of the wall of the hallway he was in. "Checking air filter now." He floated over to the main air scrubber for the Jumpship, making sure that it was intact and didn't have anything that would be a concern. "Scrubber looks good Ma'am, fire up the reactor when ready." He called out.

"Alright! Firing this thing up!" She called on the comms before powering the Fusion reactor on. "Bridge, anything on your end?" She called up to where Captain Hull had been working on computer systems and conduits with Captain Frye.

"All systems are green up here Chief." Frye responded. "Looks like we got ourselves an old lady."

"She may be old, but she's got it where it counts." Hull tagged himself into the Comm channel. "Looks like we are onboard the privately owned Leviathan class Jumpship Whirlwind."

"Everything checks out down here." CPO Jewel chimed in. "We're gonna need more crew."

"I know Chief," Captain Hull Responded. "I know."

January 15th, 3004.
It's been a pleasure working with you over this past year Captain. Interstellar Expeditions will mark you down as a favored hire in any future propositions." Dr. Ford said, shaking my hand.

"Thank you Doctor." I replied, smiling back at the man. "We'll keep IE in mind if we hear about any such contracts you're in the neighborhood for."

Personal Journal
We had quite a year working with Interstellar Expeditions. The addition of eight docking collars will be a big help in the future regardless of the Whirlwind being older than the Star League. IE found an Age of War computer core and let us copy most if not all of it down. While most of the stuff is outdated, there are some useful designs in there and we could use it to start the process of developing our own tech. We'll be taking a three month rotation of rest and leave before seeking a contract. I know that this year is the year that Katrina Steiner and the Kell brothers make their way out into the Periphery, and I hope to at least make a good impression out here before we begin to move towards Davion space.

Authors Note: Once again, thanks to my new proofreader pbthhhht. He did really good work on making sure this chapter read well.

MarkWarrior · May 16, 2022

Chapter Twenty-One: Expansion

"Thanks for giving us access to your supply lines." I told the Magisty Metals Liaison. "We needed to be able to buy some things for our expansion."

"So, all of our current full vehicle and 'Mech production is promised for" She responded. "With that being said, we are willing to sell you some of our older stuff, as well as some spare parts and weaponry."

"I may end up buying out all of your stores of spare parts." I shrugged. "As well as most of your stocks of SRM and LRM's."

We were prepping to buy some equipment that the Canopians were willing to sell us, mostly things that had fallen into disrepair. After some talking with the local militia commander and our Majesty Metals Liaison, we had managed to purchase some of the older platforms from them. We were filling out an armored company with two Pegasus Hovercraft, two Vedettes, four Maxim's, a Partisan, and two Ballista Self-Propelled artillery pieces. We had also acquired four Vector Assault VTOL's for rapid response and scouting.

Most of what we had purchased were in various states of disrepair or just outright damaged, and we would have to affect repairs of our own before we could put them into use for our company. Thankfully, I had good engineers and Astechs who had been getting bored with only having a few 'Mechs to work on.

I had bumped up my own rank up to Lieutenant Colonel seeing as we were now a short Battalion by most standards with all of the assets we had obtained over the past couple of years. With these last few purchases we had made, we were capable of stopping almost any pirate force in it's tracks. Now we just had to find another dropship or two in order to be able to take our forces anywhere.

"Why did I never try this before?! Sheppard asked the rest of the crew he was training with as he took the Pegasus up to it's maximum speed. "Woohoo!" He shouted, "I'm gonna have to put in for a transfer, this is fun."

Captain Sheppard drifted around one of the obstacles set in place for training purposes. "Sir!" The instructor yelled at him. "You have to slow down immediately." Sheppard, having had his fun, slowed down to the recommended speed for the course and completed it exactly the way he was instructed to from then on out.

"Man," Sheppard got out of the Pegasus hovercraft and stretched. "It's a good day to be alive." He grinned and refused to look behind him as the instructors and recruits that had been his "Crew" began throwing up or walking uneasily. "So, should I transfer to the armored company?" He asked cockily.

"Sir," Lieutenant Mathis replied. "I think you're doing just fine where you're at." He offered, hoping that Captain Sheppard was joking.

"Yeah," Sheppard agreed. "I really am happy with where I'm at." The grin dropped off of his face. "Still; in all seriousness, this cross training stuff really has been a big help."

Everyone else in the training area just nodded in agreement. Even if only a fraction of the population were neurohelmet compatible, everyone was taught how to aim and fire the weapons on every vehicle, dropship, and 'Mech that the company owned.

"So, whens the next live fire exercise again?" Mathis asked Sheppard.

"It's on the memo. Remember to check your box when we get back to base." He replied. "It's supposed to be in like two… maybe thee weeks from now?"

"You don't remember either do you?" Mathis asked.

"Nope." Sheppard responded. "Can I take the Pegasus for a spin again?"

"No sir." Mathis grinned holding the keys he had swiped from the captain. "You're driving privileges are revoked temporarily."

"Oh well," Sheppard shrugged. "Guess it's time to shrink the paperwork pile."

"You could just do it as it comes up." Mathis offered. "It keeps the paperwork manageable versus the massive pile up close to the deadline."

"Yeah, but that would cut into everything else I do…" Sheppard offered. "Like taking the Pegasus for joyrides!"

Sheppard snatched the keys from Mathis and dived back into the Pegasus before sealing the hatch and driving away. Cackling as he drove away and through the obstacle course again.

"Still haven't managed to find a mobile command center Colonel?" Lieutenant Dunham, the head of our counterintelligence department asked as he walked over to me. I was in the the cafeteria of the building we had taken over with a bunch of reports other unclassified paperwork with me.

"No, I'll probably have to make do with the Warhammer until we do." I said with a shrug. "It'll drop us down a front-line 'Mech but it'll enable me to manage our forces until I can."

"How's the vetting of the new Dropship crews going?" I asked making a face at my now lukewarm coffee. And gesturing for him to take a seat.

"It's good so far sir." He responded, taking a seat and stacking up some of my scattered papers for me. "Almost everything checks out." He stroked his beard for a second. "How concerned are you about hiring former smugglers?"

"Former?" I asked, raising my left eyebrow.

"There's no actual records of him having been a smuggler, but the Messenger managed to track down some files that state the possibility." Dunham shrugged. "I'm pretty sure that he's been on the straight for a while, and the rest of his crew checks out. I just think we'll have to keep an eye on him for a bit."

"Alright then Lieutenant." I nodded. "I'll trust your judgment on this."

Standing up, Dunham nodded and then pointed to one piece of paper. "You should buy both of these and the other one the command staff were talking about."

He then grabbed the cup of coffee he had come in the cafeteria for and left the way he came.

A heavy sigh left my lips. The purchase of two DroST IIB dropships a Mule, and one more Leopard CV would take around half of the bounty we had gotten for the Merchant class we had sold to the Taurian Concordat. This would leave us still solidly in the black, but with less of a cushion than I actually liked. Regardless, we needed the lift capacity and so I sent a message to okay the purchase of the Dropships.

The DroST might be a strange choice for today's environment, but we needed something that could deliver both Infantry and Combat vehicles without needing to be unloaded piecemeal via a spheroid dropship. Part of our combat Doctrine had us using our areodyne's to get on the ground quickly so we could seize ground and move before anyone on the ground was prepared for us.

I sighed again, we had another couple of months on this contract and then we would be taking a contract with the Magistracy to hit a Marian Hegemony world in order to get them to back off of the shipping lanes for a little while.

That left us with almost sixth months before many of our troops would see combat for the first time. While I wasn't as concerned with my veterans, the soldiers we had been training over the last year and a half were still considered green. I hoped to get most of them up to regular or veteran status before we went into the main area of the Inner Sphere for more lucrative contracts.

Standing up, I went to heat up my now cold coffee. Pinching the bridge of my nose to stave off the headache from staring at balance sheets and fine print for too long.

"Penny for your thoughts Colonel?" A trio of fresh boot camp graduates from the Lyran Commonwealth entered the cafeteria. Two men and a woman.

"Just plans for the future Privates." I replied, pulling my freshly reheated cup of caffeinated bliss out of the microwave and taking a long sip. "Lot of plans for the future." I met each of their eyes in turn before gathering up my documents and putting them all in their designated place.

"If you're not careful, I may put you on paperwork sorting duty." I called out as I left the cafeteria enjoying the way that they shuddered.

"Listen up people!" Colonel Hull called out over the battalion communications channel. "Wardog and Strider Squadrons are covering us and making sure we're clear in the skies. It's up to us to hit the spaceport and any military hardware they might have on planet."

"Alright ladies!" Captain Peterson yelled at his Company of Infantry. "Our job is to land and seize any and all Dropships that might be planetside." He paused to inhale. "We have targeting priority for our artillery so call it in if you think you need it."

He finished just as the DroST came to a stop, dropping it's ramp and letting off the Maxim's and the trucks the rest of the Infantry used before letting the Vector VTOL's take off for extra cover.

Moving at just below flank speed, the mechanized infantry company moved into the impromptu spaceport. Making sure that none of the armed Dropships powered up before they seized them. "Mendoza, Jenkins, take fireteams one and two and hit those two dropships." Lieutenant Packer, leader of first platoon ordered. "I'll take fireteam three and clear out the rest."

While most of the infantry and armor companies hit the spaceport, the 'Mechs and the remainder of the forces had hot dropped over the small military base that the Marians had put up on the outskirts of the city. I was coordinating our forces from my Warhammer until we managed to get a mobile HQ. In the meantime, I was monitoring reports and calling in artillery coordinates as needed. I knew that micro managing would get people killed so I let my people do their jobs. There had been some minor casualties so far, but it seemed that we were doing what our Contract specified.

Authors note: Hasn't been seen by my proofreader yet, so some of the things in here are subject to change.

MarkWarrior · May 16, 2022

Chapter Twenty Two: Break Through this Wall

"Alright Colonel Hull," The Magistracy representative said. "Looks like your request was approved."

I sat up a little bit straighter and raised an eyebrow. "It was?" I asked a little more animatedly than usual.

"Yes," She replied. "The details are being sent to your people now." She stood up. "Let me know if you're ever back in the area." She winked and then sauntered off with the Aura of Superiority™. "We might be able to have some fun." She threw over her shoulder and then did that weird thing women do with their hips.

I blinked for a moment there stunned and then shook my head in order to clear it. That was weird. I stood up and looked around the restaurant that I had met her in. Had I just been on a date? Nah, I shook my head; It couldn't be that. She was just being friendly. I got my stuff together and walked out the restaurant still mulling over what had just happened all of the way back to the building we were using.

"You are an idiot." Sheppard said in the mess hall we had set up. "A real fuckin' idiot." He kept going. "You had the chance to sleep with a Hot Canopian girl and you completely blew it."

"How did you not know she was hitting on you?" One of the female members of the command staff asked.

"I dunno." I shrugged, "I didn't always look this good." I gestured to the muscles I had developed over the last four years of dedicated training and work ethic. "Used to be girls never looked my way twice."

"Well Colonel," Captain Jewel said. "I'm afraid those days are long over." She smirked. "Get used to crazy women and men trying to sleep with you for both fun and for information." She then frowned and got serious. "We need to find some more intelligence people."

"I'm working on it." Lieutenant Dunham replied. "It's hard work training people up for this even with the SLIC manuals and documents that Hull gave us." He nodded at me when he said that.

"Frankly, I'm just glad we've got a decent core of veterans here." Sheppard chimed in. "The new guys did really well when we hit the Marians after all."

"By the way sir, what made you so happy when you got in yesterday?" Lieutenant Packer chimed in, having been relatively silent so far. "I mean, you were practically bouncing off of the walls with how excited you were and I'm pretty sure you didn't get laid." He laid into me at the end there.

The entire table broke out into laughter for a moment before I managed to get them to quiet down again. "Well, I managed to get a license to both purchase and manufacture Canopian advanced medical equipment and technology." I held up my hands to stop them from getting too loud. "I took a look at some of the schematics with the teams on the Argo yesterday, and we can produce some of them on our own but we'll be buying the rest and filling out the rest of our medical roster with some people we poached from the Magistracy Medical Corps by the time we leave, we'll have some of the best medical care in the Inner Sphere."

"How the hell did you manage that?!" Captain Peterson asked.

"Well, it turns out returning three dropships with hold full of goods stolen from their own people will net you some goodwill."" I shrugged. "And, I guess people just never asked. I mean, when I put the request in when we took the contract both the MRB broker and the Magistracy Rep looked stunned."

"I don't think we got all of their best stuff though." I said. "But I made sure that we got as much of the scanning tech as we could. I was serious when I promised you guys good medical care in your contracts."

"I'll make sure we load up all of the gear I bought in the morning." I stood up from the table. "We're heading back to get that other Leviathan after we're done loading up."

The goal was to get the second Leviathan up and running within a couple of weeks of dropping back into the system that the deserted planet was in. We would be jumping in and split our forces. The Messenger and Vagabond were going to head in and get to work on the other Leviathan Jumpship; with a large portion of the ship based engineers and astechs. The rest of the group would head to the planet to see if there was any salvage we might have missed the first time. Admittedly, the first time we had landed on planet, we had been more concerned with a possible contagion or being attacked and salvage was the last thing on our minds at the time. Besides that, IE had only been here for a month because they had gotten a lead on a possible Exodus route they wanted to explore closer to Davion space.

"Alright people, we've been here before but that doesn't mean we get to relax." Peterson briefed his company of Mechanized infantry. "Our mission however, has changed. Our job is to go through this place piece by piece until we have ensured that there is no salvage left to recover here." He stopped for a second. "Dibs rules are not I repeat not in effect. If you see something shiny, you call over one of the engineers or astechs before and they will clear you on whether you can keep it or not. Am I understood?" He asked.

"Yes sir!" his company roared in response.

"Alright Marksman!" Lieutenant Packer called. "Mount up." The entire company climbed into their designated Maxim hovercraft or escort vehicle and started up whatever engine they needed to.

"Alright Marksman!" The DroST pilot called. "Dropping in ten seconds." There was a countdown and on the last three seconds lights flashed before DroST's ramp lowered to allow the troops to disembark. The Company plus the VTOL's exited just as they had continuously practiced and began to make their way to the city while the Dropships went to park in empty fields nearby.

Two weeks later…

"Alright guys it's time to pack it up." First Sergeant Mendoza told the fireteam he was working with, they had just done a sweep through most of the industrial district and hadn't found anything of real value.

"Hold up Sarge." Corporal Jenkins called out. He had been getting training in both engineering and general maintenance aboard the Argo while Mendoza went through senior NCO school.

"We didn't check that building out, and something looks strange about it." He said, studying the smallest building in the district. "Every single other building here has it's own dedicated office space attached to it." He expanded on his theory. "And yet here, we have what's only an office building? Sarge, something doesn't add up."

"Alright Jenkins." Sergeant Mendoza sighed. "We'll check out your "strange" building, but if you're wrong about this, I'm putting you on babysitting duty for three rotations."

"Alright Sarge." Jenkins rolled his eyes at his best friend. "If I'm right though, you owe me some of that good liqueur you stashed away when you thought I wasn't looking." Jenkins held out his hand and Mendoza shook it, the deal had been made.

At first it appeared that Mendoza was right and there was nothing to be found in the building, the fireteam had set up portable generators and lights and had cleared the entire building. All of it was office space. Jenkins was actually about to give Mendoza the win when one of the privates called for them.

"Sarge! Corporal!" Private Frost yelled. "We found a basement door and you won't believe what's down there."

It had been all hands on deck as the entirety of the Battalion pitched in to load up what they had found. The Jackwagon had spread the contents of its cargo holds throughout the rest of the dropship fleet, with the Bittersweet and Honey Badger being converted into temporary cargo ships. It took an extra three weeks to pack everything up and we had even dumped spare AC and LRM ammo. When it was time to leave the system, every cargo hold was full including the Vagabond and Messenger's cargo bays.

Next stop, the Taurian Concordat.

Authors note: Once again, Proofreader didn't have time to look at this. Not his fault, I just put out quite a bit of content and he was busy today. Let me know if you see any glaring errors, and let me know what you think we found. Also, just reached 30k words. First novel length anything I've ever written and I'm super pumped.

MarkWarrior · May 16, 2022

Chapter Twenty-Three: The Comeback

New Vandenburg: March 1st, 3005
"I'm not letting you jump into the system with the rest of your forces." Colonel Calderon said. "You've expanded, and despite the fact that I may have liked you, I don't trust you." He gestured at the folder in front of him. "You might even be a Davion spy for all I know, you did originate there after all."

I wasn't sure what had changed in the couple of years since I worked for Colonel Thomas Calderon, but I didn't like it. And the more that he went on, the angrier I got. Finally, having had enough I stood up and walked out. "Tell the family I said hi." I snarked out as I left. There were other people who would be willing to hear me out.

Taurus: March 30th, 3005
"Thank you so much for being willing to meet with me Protector Calderon." I thanked the woman profusely.
"Well, a Mercenary commander calling my office every fifteen minutes until he got a meeting seemed at least worth a bit of my time." She said, humoring me.
"I know your time is important ma'am, and so I'll get to the point." I said, my face entirely serious in spite of her attempt at humor. "Protector, I have over just over two thousand Taurian Concordat Refugees from the Reunification War in stasis aboard my dropships and jumpships." I went on to describe how we found them and the other things hidden underneath that district.

Protector Calderon just sat there in silence for a bit. Slowly digesting everything that she had just heard. . "I'm going to need some sort of proof that what you say is real."

"Of course Protector." I nodded at her. "I'm willing to take you and your protection detail to my Dropship the Messenger in order to prove it to you."

"Postpone all of my appointments." She turned to one of her bodyguards. "Get me a car, we're going to be examining this "Proof" that Colonel Hull has to offer.

I was escorted to the limo with the Protector and several bodyguards. "You're certain that they're Taurian?" She asked once the limo was on it's way through traffic to the spaceport.

"Yes ma'am." I said, deathly serious. "Both my people and Interstellar Expeditions verified it multiple times."

It took us less than thirty minutes to arrive at the spaceport, the benefits of traveling with the Protector with me streamlining the entire process.

Upon reaching the Messenger, the entry doors were opened and I showed her to one of the cargo bays filled to the maximum with both Stasis pods and the tech to keep them operational. She slowly walked over, examining the pod that had definite Concordat markings on it. Before turning to speak to me.

"Thank you for returning our people back to us." She said. "I'll command the TDF to stand down and not impede your Jumpships." She paused for a minute. "I'll send over some people to offload these pods ASAP and you can have your Jumpship go get the rest of your people.

"Yes ma'am." I responded. "We'll get things prepped here, it takes quite a bit to get them ready to move."
"I can only imagine." Protector Calderon responded before being escorted off of the ship.
What followed was an extremely busy week as we transferred the stasis pods along with the support gear over to the Protector's trusted people. As soon as that was finished we were headed to go collect the rest of my people.

Taurus: May 25th, 3005

"Well, I think that's everyone." I said, wiping my hands on my grease stained work overalls. "Sheppard. Can you make sure that's the last one?" I asked. Groaning as I stretched and felt my back and neck crack a few times.
Sheppard sent a couple of NCO's to triple check everyone's work while I rested against a wall for a second. "That's the last one Colonel." He said.

"Good." I stood up straight. "All right people. Go get some showers and take some time off for the next couple of days. You've all earned it."

I was greeted with halfhearted fist pumps and cheers. We had all worked around the clock and I knew that my people were exhausted. Moving with the rest of the group I was working with, I grabbed a fresh uniform and went to the communal showers.

I still felt tired, but I didn't feel as gross after a quick shower and a change into a fresh uniform. "Alright Sheppard, I need you to hold down the fort while I go debrief the Protector." I called out to the man sprawled out on a crate in the cargo bay.

"You got it boss." He weakly gave a thumbs up and returned to his napping.

I just shook my head as I walked out of the Vagabond and towards our small motor pool. We had bought some local Armored trucks and SUV's to use while in town. Climbing into one of them, I began the drive to Calderon's office.

"Are you sure we can't interest you in citizenship and a Title?" Protector Zarantha Calderon Asked me.

"No ma'am." I responded. "Myself and the rest of the senior staff agreed that returning your people to you was just the right thing to do. The most we expect from you is paying for fuel we used."

"Done." She didn't even hesitate. "And as for the other thing you discussed. TTI will be breaking ground within a month." She looked me in the eye. "And I and the Calderon family will be investing personally in this venture."

"Thank you ma'am." I said. "We're going to need the spare parts and having our own supplier will help greatly."

"Are you sure we can't convince you to settle down here in the Concordat?" She tried one last time.

"Unfortunately not ma'am." I responded. "We've got people from all over right now, and we aim to leave a mark on the Sphere before we're through."

"Well, you've already made a mark here in the Concordat." Zarantha responded. " If y'all ever need a safe haven or need any help from the Calderon family and the Concordat as a whole just send us word."

"Thank you ma'am." I stood up and shook her hand. "We'll be heading out within the week. Have to get out there and get to work."

"It's been a pleasure Colonel Hull."

Artru: July 12th, 3005

"Moment of truth Colonel." Sheppard said over his comms, watching from his Mongoose as the door Colonel Hull was accessing began to slide open.

"Alright people." Sheppard called out. "We don't know if the Star league left any automated defenses behind or not so keep on your toes." The two full fireteams of 'Mechs and company of Armor moved to provide cover for the Colonel as he ran to one of the Maxim hovercraft.

" Rifle two, Move up and check things out." Sheppard commanded. Keeping an eye on his various systems and activating his Beagle Active Probe. "Your Crab has the most armor here."

"Moving up Rifle Lead." Rifle two replied, maneuvering through the doors cautiously, ready to bolt at first contact. "I've got nothing here lead."

"Copy that two." Sheppard said. "Sniper lead you listening?"

"This is Sniper Company, we copy. Moving up to investigate now." The three Maxim's moved at a decent pace to the interior of the SLDF outpost and prepped their targeting systems. Ready for a fight to get out if necessary.

Working with IE had changed the Marksman computer protocols. Whereas before, they just accessed everything all at once without care, now after having heard many a cautionary tale from the IE computer experts they only powered up one computer at a time before accessing the systems. Apparently, the SLIC tended to leave behind nasty surprises for those who didn't have authorized access.

"Well, this wasn't quite what I expected." Colonel Hull said, looking at the outposts computer systems with Corporal Rook. "Looks like it's mostly research on automation and a couple of experimental automated repair bays." the Colonel looked at the files. "Looks like they were trying to work the kinks out of some of the SDS systems and get these repair bays working properly."

"Hey Colonel." Rook called out glancing up from his computer screen. "There should be a lance of heavy 'Mechs and a mobile HQ in the far bay." He shrugged. "Aside from enough Ferro Fibrous to armor all of our 'Mechs and the bays there doesn't seem to be much else here."

"Understood, Corporal." the Colonel responded and then had everyone start stripping the Castle outpost of anything that might be the slightest bit useful. "I want us heading for the jump point in forty-eight hours." He began to delegate duties to the officers. "Sheppard, you're in charge of making sure they get those repair bays out. "Peterson, I want you and Paige to coordinate loading the Ferro Fibrous and that lance." he paused for a second. "Dunham, you're on intel retrieval. I want you to rip everything from the computer systems that might be useful whether it's coding or anything else. Just leave that one alone." He pointed at the one computer he had disconnected from the bases network with the assistance of Corporal Rook and the other technicians. "That one we're destroying."

Personal Journal
Well, the last few months have been full speed ahead. First, getting everything off of the planet that the troops have taken to calling Spectre and making sure that we got it to the Concordat. I had to rotate people on and off of the Argo for R&R for weeks before everyone was well rested again. Then we had to unload everything. My people earned the bonus that I gave them for their hard work over the last six months.

Authors note: Once again ahead of my Proofreader here. Expect some slight changes here and there.

MarkWarrior · May 16, 2022

Chapter Twenty Four: Kingdom

Valexa, Federated Suns; December 30th,

"You know," Sheppard said to the rest of the crew that had gone out drinking with him. "It's nice to be on a garrison contract again."

"Hear hear." Lieutenant Packer agreed, raising his mug of beer in his massive paw of a hand. "Good booze, great pay, the company though.… eh, could be better." He smirked at the guys he was with.

"At least we're not the Colonel right now." Mendoza offered. "Last I saw him out of the office was three days ago. And even then he was working on the paperwork."

"I've got Peterson on it." Sheppard chimed in. "He's forcing a break right about now." He glanced down at his watch. "Ever since those three he had sorting paperwork for him quit he's been up to his ears in trying to keep up with everything." He took a deep swig of his beer. "Luckily, Hull usually listens to reason."

"Yeah," Paige agreed. "The Colonel is pretty good about that.

"Enough about work already!" Mckay yelled, already plastered. "We're here to Partay!"

"I thought you were on babysitting duty." Sheppard glared at Lamb who pretended to ignore him.

"I'll drive her back to base." Jenkins volunteered, he was the one who usually stayed sober anyway. "Not like I got much else to do but study for this engineer test." he offered.

"Sounds good Jenkins." Packer thanked him with a nod. "I'll cover her tab tonight and I'll help you get that lab time you asked for."

Valexa, Federated Suns; January 15th, 3006

"Alright people, now that you've gotten all of the partying and fun out of your system it's that time of year again." Colonel Hull said to the assembled battalion. "That's right, it's time for live fire exercises again." I paused. "This year, I will be proctoring while Sheppard and Peterson split the battalion in half."

"Oh, and before I forget." I stopped them before they dispersed to get moving to the land plots we had leased and set up with mock buildings and objectives. "Strider and Wardog will not be accessible to either side for this engagement. Ground forces only."

Sheppard and Peterson groaned, but came up to the parade ground stage. Our war games forces were all picked via a lottery based system. First you drew what equipment you had,then the staff was sorted into lots based on skill levels and training, and finally, you drew whether you were defending or attacking. While this didn't make things fair, it enabled us to get a feel for different scenarios that may happen in real life due to bad intel or any number of other things. This year, I had removed my Warhammer from the lottery and also taken the Messenger and our aerospace squadrons out of play. I had plans for them…

"Dammit!" Peterson cussed, he had gotten most of the Battlemech company barring the Marauder and Crab and had managed to grab Paige's non mechanized infantry company in support along with the artillery pieces. To make matters worse, even though his forces would probably be used better on the offensive, he was stuck defending the "fort" that the engineers had put up over the last couple of weeks.

Pushing aside his anger, he climbed into the Mongoose and triple checked to make sure everything was set to training mode. There had only ever been one accident during their live fire exercises and after what the Colonel did to her, it had never happened again.

This years exercises were scheduled to take almost a month, and the Colonel always made them interesting by adding in little surprises that he had planned in advance. Last years exercises had been conducted in a hurry because of how busy they were and had only lasted two days before they had to pack up and leave. This year, being denied access to their normal Air cover would make things interesting indeed.

February 5th 3006

"Sheppard!" Peterson laughed. "I got you good this time." He slapped the shoulder of his friend. "Any idea why the Colonel called the exercises off early?"
"Nope" Sheppard responded shaking his head. " But I'm sure if you wait, he'll be briefing us shortly."
"Listen up!" Colonel Hull called when the battalion had settled in. We have Capellan raiders burning into the system as we speak. From what the Argo and Messenger have picked up it looks like we have two battalions headed here to raid and they are three days out."

February 15th, 3006
"Colonel, we need to fall back." Lieutenant Lamb, the commander of 'Mech fireteam Carbine radioed in.
"That's a negative Lieutenant" I replied, "I need you there so Sheppard can come in with the heavies."

"Sir, Mckay and Rogers just punched out." She said as she fired a large laser at an Enforcer. "I'm down to a Lance here. I need something with more firepower to hold this line."

The comms went silent for a second as I put Dunham in command of coordinating and keeping the various companies updated and climbed into my Warhammer. Rushing through the startup process, I pushed at my fastest speed to help bail out the fireteam.

"Dunham, see if our Spotters managed to range the Lancers' Dropships yet." I commanded as I rushed through the trees. "Rifle lead, we may need to spring our trap early."

"Roger that Marksman actual." Sheppard responded. "Rifle, trigger is pulled."
I rounded a hill to see Mckay's Griffin slumped over with it's fist embedded in the cockpit of an Enforcer and Roger's Shadow Hawk was leaning against a tree with it missing its left torso.

I snapped off both PPC's at an Enforcer, hitting it's shoulder and causing it's autocannon to miss it's intended target. Lamb and Maverick focused fire with me and we dropped the Enforcer before backing away. I fired both PPC's at an Archer this time. Nearly taking the pilot out and drawing most of the ire that this company had.

"Marksman actual and Carbine, Watch your fire." Sheppard called. Coming out of the woods on passive sensors with the rest of the battalion hot on his heels. The Lancer's were pinched between both of our forces. But they fought until there was only a lance left before surrendering.

After the aftermath of the battle, my Warhammer was missing a PPC, I was out of SRM's, and we were down both Pegasus hovercraft, one Vedette medium tank, and a full fireteam of 'mechs was out of commission. While we had been running distraction on the 'Mech forces in our area, Peterson and the infantry had gotten the dropsite of the Lancers ranged and sited with the Ballista Artillery we had. They had managed to get the drop on about half of their dropships and the rest had powered down and surrendered rather than get crippled from artillery at range.

March 10th, 3006
It was strange, losing so much and yet being grateful for it. We utterly dismantled the battalion of Blackwind Lancers that had dropped in to raid Valexa. But we had lost all of our Armor barring our Maxims and the Artillery. Most of our 'Mechs were in various states of disrepair and some of them might even be scrapped entirely. Mckay had punched out but would be laid up in the Argo on medical leave until spinal compression and a concussion went away. Rogers had to have his left leg and arm in a cast after his ejection seat threw him into a tree. I had over 50% casualties In the armored company alone.

The infantry companies had made it out with the least amount of casualties and would be handling most of the patrol duties. The infantry had made it out the most intact because we had mostly used them for scouting for the artillery and ensuring the POW's didn't try to escape.
Whereas the militia had been wiped out almost to a man fighting Marion's Highlanders and had only managed to take out a company before they lifted off with the spoils of war we had managed to take out and take prisoner a good portion of what the Lancers had landed with.

March 24th, 3006
"It was a good plan Mark." Sheppard said, the command staff all sitting down in the room we had claimed. "If we had thought it was bad then we would have told you." He shrugged "We did better than most regular units would have done in our place and that's something to be proud of."

"Their lives were spent sir." Captain Rose said with a sad smile on her face. "Not wasted." Her company had taken the majority of the losses over the past two months.

"We're going to have to pull some people from the training Cadre." Peterson advised. "And we need heavier machines. While what we had worked well with pirates, we're gonna need heavier machines and more of them if we're going to take on house units like this on the regular."

"I put together a wish list Colonel." Rose said. "I'll have it on your desk in a couple of days." She paused. "After the funerals that is."
I just nodded. Having been taking notes the entire time. "I'm gonna need a list of improvements from all of you the day after tomorrow." I said. "We're going to be stepping up our game in training, recruitment, and in materials."

"Are we heading to Avalon?" A couple of the staff asked and I shook my head. "We wouldn't be able to explain where the equipment came from." I sighed. "We're stuck doing it the old fashioned way for now."

"Alright then." Sheppard said. "I expect full debriefs on my desk before you turn your improvements and wish lists in to the Colonel." He looked at each of the assembled senior officers including me. "I expect all of you to get at least eight hours of sleep and eat a solid breakfast before the funerals in the morning." He said sternly, the usual humor gone from his face.

"Yes sir," The senior officers said and then they dispersed to head to their quarters and go to sleep.

Authors note: I'm pretty sure pbthhhht is asleep right now wherever he is. So once again, expect some minor changes as we go. Also, my laptop is about to head into the shop tomorrow and so I'll be stealing my wifes computer to write everything.

MarkWarrior · May 16, 2022

Chapter Twenty Five: Damage Assessment
Valexa, Federated Suns March 26th, 3006

"Colonel, you are one lucky son of a bitch." My lead astech Jerome MCallister said. "Somehow, without losing more than the one PPC, you managed to strip every single last ton of Armor off of your 'Mech without having to punch out." He shook his head incredulously. "It'd take me two weeks without the repair bays to get this thing fixed." He shrugged. "Give us five days and we'll have this thing back in the fight."

"Thanks Mcallister." I replied. "But focus on getting the rest of the 'Mechs up and running. I can run things from the mobile HQ for now."

"Alright then," The big black Irishman replied. "I'll let the crew know to work on everything else first."

"Hey Colonel!" Captain Rose greeted me with a sad smile as I walked through the parts of the JackWagon we had converted to using as repair bays temporarily. "Thanks for making sure my Vedette got put back together in time for the funeral."

The Marksman funeral had been held the day before. And we had used the Vedette in synch with our infantry to give our farewell salute to our fallen brothers and sisters.

"Captain, I saw your list, and I'll be making some calls after our Garrison contract is up to work on them." I said. Gesturing to the notepad in my hand filled with notes on it. "Let me know if I missed anything." I saw that she was barely holding in tears and brought her in for a hug. We might be a military unit, but I made sure that this felt like a family.

"We'll make it." I said, rubbing her back like I used to do to my sisters when they had a breakdown. The shoulder of my uniform was covered in snot and tears but that didn't matter right then and there. Right here and now, some of my people were hurting. And we would be striking back in return.

"I'm sorry Colonel." Rose said as she straightened up. Wiping the tears and snot from her eyes. "I'm good now."

"Rose," I said, meeting her eyes. "The Marksman are a family we all have eachothers back."

"You did good work out there Rose." I smiled. "I'm proud of you and your team." I patted her back and began my trek to the place I had commandeered to do my paperwork for the day. "Make sure you get some rest." I called out over my shoulder.

"Yes sir." She replied. It seemed that at least some of the weight had lifted off of her shoulders.

March 30th, 3006

While I had a main office on the Messenger I rarely made use of it. Preferring to utilize areas closer to where my people were working so as to be more accessible. I had managed to line up a lot of heavier replacements for the combat vehicles we had lost. The Davions had taken two of the Unions and half of the Battlemechs we had salvaged in exchange for a Triumph class Dropship and the ability to purchase tanks and equipment directly from the Davion supply chains.

I had managed to wrangle two Manticores, one Vedette, two Tigers, two Thumpers, two Ballistas, Four LRM Carriers, and we had even managed to talk some people into selling their Puma assault vehicles when I added 500,000 C-Bills on top of their asking price.

On another note, I had received a message from the Pierce Militia. The lease on the Troy, the Buccaneer that I had leased out to them was up and they didn't want to renew it. So, I was sending the King Henry V along with Sheppard and a decent amount of crew to go collect it along with our new combat vehicle purchases and bring them back to Valexa while we were finishing out our Garrison contract. I would be sending Wardog Squadron, Sheppards new Marauder, and a fireteam of infantry with him as backup.

May 5th, 3006
"Alright Sheppard." I said, shaking his hand as he and the rest of the group with him made to depart. "I already negotiated all of the deals and got the lawyers involved in the purchase contracts. All you need to do is verify your identity and pick up our gear."

"Safe travels boys and girls." I stepped back and saluted our purchasing team. "We'll hold down the fort until you get back. Dimissed" The assembled team dispersed to say their goodbyes and put their stuff away before takeoff.

Lieutenant Dunham had gathered a decent group of Intel people to accompany them as they traveled the Federated Suns gathering up their gear. Their estimated time to get everything and return was around seven months and we would be training and recruiting until then.

Personal Journal: June 7th, 3006
I've spent the last month focused on making sure that we were training and repairing around the clock. We managed to restore all of our 'mechs back to fighting status and also put together another four Archers and two Enforcers in that amount of time. While quite a few of our pilots are still lightly injured, we've shifted some of the remaining armor company to pilot in their places for now. We were able to get both of the Pegasus hovercraft up and running again, but everything else was a bust aside from the one Vedette that had limped back in. So, currently we are stronger in 'Mechs than we were before; being able to field almost two Companies of 'Mechs at this present moment. Captain Rose has been recovering from the loss of most of her command at a decent pace. The therapist's and rotation through the Argo for R&R has kept morale high along with the bonus the Davions gave for outstanding work. It seems that while we kept the two battalions of the Highlander's and Lancers pinned down the rest of their formations had been hit and mostly destroyed by the Wolf's Dragoons. Also, I got word from R&D that they need a handful of volunteers (Read: Test subjects) for testing a couple of projects that they believed were nearing completion.

Authors note: Once again I'm ahead of my proof reader. Sorry pbthhhht! I do appreciate the help, I just tend to want to post it as soon as I'm done writing. I do go back and make the edits he shows me after I publish it though I promise!

MarkWarrior · May 16, 2022

Chapter Twenty-Six: Surprises

Valexa, Federated Suns: August 10th, 3006

"Mmm." I relaxed into my morning cup of coffee. "This is the life." I was taking a week long break after having been doing training exercises with the new recruits for the last six weeks. I hadn't even so much as looked at a stack of paperwork in three days.

Thankfully, most of the training didn't need direct oversight and we had nearly perfected our standard recruit and cross training regimen. Our Senior NCO's got to supervise and were able to develop the kind of things we looked for in officers, and the junior NCO's got to prove that they had the chops to move up to senior NCO's. Also, Dunham's team had gotten extremely good at weeding out the intelligence people that tried to join our battalion and we would find reasons to flunk them out of boot.

Currently, I was sitting on the front porch of the building I had rented for the week of my vacation and doing nothing more than reading, and relaxing. This was the first Vacation I had had in six years after all and I didn't want to get burnt out. Peterson was in command while I was on this getaway and he ran a pretty tight ship in conjunction with the rest of the senior staff.

I was still being sent reports that I was periodically browsing though and the latest report said that they would be field testing the finished project that R&D had been working on for the past two years.

The Argo had become the home to a bunch of extremely interesting people. Our R&D department was generally made up of people that were criticized and outcast for wanting to try new things instead of following in the Star Leagues footsteps, and our doctors, nurses, and therapists were all the best that we could afford from both the Taurian Concordat and Magistracy of Canopus.

I would still be on vacation when the field tests were conducted. However, Peterson and the rest of the current command staff were still supposed to file reviews and document everything that was going into this project. We were also working on a couple of projects that would probably spook the Wolf's Dragoons. Modular technology was something that I knew the Clans had near perfected, even if it took another five years, having modular weaponry to swap out on a dime in order to swap roles for combat would be worth both the money and time invested. For now, I had them working on building the framework for Modular Combat vehicles. We could scale up or down as necessary.

For now though, I wasn't thinking about work. I was making a concerted effort to relax. I hadn't originally planned this vacation. (But according to Sheppard and the rest of the command staff I had been working too hard.) But by God I would make the best of it. I did bring my Warhammer and a decent supply of small arms with me after all. There was no way I was being taken by any sort of intelligence agency without a fight. So, I sat on the front porch in a rocking chair, drinking my coffee while I was cleaning the carbine I usually kept in the Warhammer.

"I'll need to remember to send the Wolf's Dragoons a fruit basket or something." I reminded myself. "They did manage to get the rest of the Highlanders and Lancers taken out after all."

My comm device started chirping at me while I was finishing the last of my coffee.

"Colonel Hull." I answered, putting the device on speaker while I finished cleaning.

"Colonel, It's Peterson, you might want to get back to base ASAP." He said.

"Why?!" I stood up and grabbed my go bag, making for my Warhammer. "Is there a problem?"

"No sir, but Hanse Davion is here and wishes to speak with you." He replied.

"When did he get on planet?" I asked as I rushed up the ladder to the cockpit of my Warhammer. "I should have at least gotten a report of some kind."

"Colonel, no one knew he was here until he walked into the repair bay and started lending a hand with some repairs." Peterson said a little incredulously. "He was on site and assisting in coveralls for a solid hour or two before Sergeant Lamb walked through and recognized him."

"He didn't have bodyguards?" I asked as I powered up my Warhammer and ran through my ID protocols.

"He did, they were helping too, and with all of the new people we've recruited over the past couple of months he blended right in." Peterson said. "It's hard to keep track of all five to six hundred of us. Honestly, we need to give Dunham a promotion and more funding if this keeps up."

"On my way now." I said as I linked my Warhammers GPS to the small satellite we had put in orbit. "ETA two hours."

"We'll expect you then, Peterson out." The comm device shut off.

Two hours later…

I parked my Warhammer in the warehouse we had converted into a temporary 'Mech bay' and climbed out as soon as I had powered everything down. Rushed onto the catwalk and made my way down to ground level. I was seriously concerned that I would leave a bad impression on both Hanse and my new recruits by having not been here when he first arrived.

"Colonel." Peterson greeted me as soon as my feet touched the ground. " Colonel Davion of the Third Davion Guards is in the Mess hall. He's been waiting patiently for a while now."

"Alright." I replied. "I'm not even in uniform though."

"I don't think it'll make all that much of a difference at this point sir." Peterson observed.

"Let's just get going then." I said, running a quick glance over my jeans, scuffed gray boots, and flannel shirt.

"Colonel Davion." I shook the man's hand firmly. "I apologize for not being present when you arrived."

"It's quite alright Colonel Hull." Hanse Davion smirked. "I'd wait almost any length of time to meet a time traveler after all."

I facepalmed. "I guess you read Precentor Winfrey's treatise?" I asked after my embarrassment had eased a bit and the redness in my face had subsided.

"Why yes actually, it was quite an interesting read." Hanse replied, that insufferable grin still on his face. "Now tell me, what was it like living in the Star League before the Exodus and Dissolution of the Hegemony?"

I knew at this moment that how I answered this question would at least influence part of how Hanse and hopefully Ian Davion viewed the Star League.

"Do you want the truth?" I asked. "Or do you want me to lie to you?" I was extremely serious at this moment.

"Well, better an uncomfortable truth than a lie." He replied.

"The Star League was a failure in both the governance of its people, and a failure in terms of a nation." I stated outright. "And this is coming from someone who was born on Terra during the Amaris Civil War." I said, making sure he knew where I was coming from.

"History teaches us that if a nation has to constantly and consistently be looking for someone to conquer in order for the state to remain stable then that state will eventually fall. The Star League was an attempt by Ian Cameron to pit his enemies against eachother and weaken every nation but his own. The various non-periphery member states benefiting was simply a fortunate side effect of being closer to Terra. The Reunification war was a series of aggression and exploitation that simply sealed the Star League's fate. The Succession Wars are simply the breakdown of what was a failing system in the first place." I paused for Breath. "I'm sorry if I ramble a little bit, but history is one of the things that I've always taken an interest in and how civilizations rise and fall is one of the things I particularly enjoy reading about."

"No," Hanse sat there with an extremely intrigued look on his face. "Please continue

"Well," I began to start up again " what the Star League led to was essentially institutional reliance and slavery for the periphery nations and I would add the member nations as well. You see, the way that the First Lord kept the member states in line was by being the source of advanced technology both military and civilian in source. As we see throughout the Succession Wars, being bound to the technology and science path of the Star League has actually led to more issues than anything else. Rather than each Member state and Periphery nation building and researching things on their own and inventing new devices, there was an overreliance on parts made and overengineered by a nation that needed things to work in their favor." I paused to breathe again. "This is the way that I see it, coming from Terra directly and having seen both before the Succession Wars and in the midst of them now."

"Well," Hanse said after a moment. "That's going to be quite a lot to digest."

"I'm sorry if I offended you." I responded. "I am a firm believer that we wouldn't have been in the situation that we are in if not for an overreliance on both the Hegemony and Star League for research and Technology."

"The Succession Wars?" Hanse asked for clarification "Or the Lostech?"

"The Succession Wars were going to happen regardless of the Amaris War." I wave a hand. "They would have been just under another name. But the technology difference, I lay the blame for that squarely at the feet of the Camerons and Hegemony."

"Well, I came here to get the measure of our newest Mercenary hires and instead I got an interesting opinion to digest." He shook my hand. "It's a pleasure to meet you Colonel, I'd get your people trained up and repaired quickly if I were you." He winked. "We may have an offensive planned."

"Thank you for the heads up sir." I responded. "We'll be ready."

At that, Hanse got up and said his goodbyes. It seemed he had to get back to his Regiment.

August 12th, 3006

Alright, we have a green light." Peterson said, turning to the soldier about to run through the course we had designed for field testing. "Corporal Jenkins, you have a go. Proceed through the course as you see fit."

Jenkins started off with a brief jog, getting a feel for how everything handled before speeding up. He slid underneath the logs covered in Razor wire while shooting at targets that had been set. And used jump jets to get over the higher obstacles. Using the weapons placed in different areas to simulate different scenarios.

"Alright Jenkins," Peterson told him over comms. "Head towards the next area for live fire exercises and simulations." We were using the mockup we had made for the previous yearly exercise that had been interrupted for this trial and test run.

Jenkins took off at a solid sprint and made it over to the next testing area with plenty of time to spare. "All Green?" Peterson asked. Jenkins gave a thumbs up.

"Exercise is a go." We had our VTOL's in the air and our lone Vedette along with our Shadow Hawks for this exercise. If Jenkins could disable even a single VTOL and/or make it through without taking crippling damages then we would consider the trial a success and put it into production on the Argo.

The entire review team was watching the cameras we had set up and making notes. Trying to see if issues could be brought up. We had already done longevity testing as well as manufacturing feasibility and ease of repair and it had passed all of those tests with flying colors. This was more of a demonstration run for the Command staff just why I had funneled so much of our excess funds into R&D.

Jenkins made his way through the mock city fairly quickly, taking shelter in buildings and even using his jump jets to land on and place a "Det charge" onto a Shadow Hawks rear hatch. Rendering that Shadow Hawk as "Dead" to the rest of the Opfors sensors. He then used the "Dead" 'Mech as a distraction and made it to the LZ for a solid mission complete.

"So," I turned to the rest of the command staff. "What do you think?"

"Do they fit in armored vehicles?" Captain Rose was the first to ask a question. "Because if we can outfit everyone with a variant of this, we can cut casualties by a lot."

"We're currently working on scaling down for Cockpits and armored vehicles." I replied. "The R&D team has told me that they won't be quite as tough as the base models, and they probably won't have Jump jets but they'll be available after the Infantry are outfitted with their variant."

"Any other questions?" Peterson asked. He had been heading up this project since we left the Magistracy of Canopus.

When everyone had either said no or shaken their heads in the negative he continued on.

"The M10A-Mithril Powered armor is going to be the new face of infantry." He started. "It is impervious to Small arms fire, able to take anything less than a Medium Laser and survive, it is also completely sealed against any gasses or chemicals. It can achieve a maximum speed of fifteen Klicks an hour and has jump jets to boost mobility. The Mithril is powered by a fuel cell that will last a minimum of a month before needing to be swapped out. This ladies and gentleman, is where we make our mark on the Inner Sphere."

Authors note: I know that my viewpoint on the SLDF will spark some debate, I just want y'all to keep it civil if at all possible. I'll also be going back and cleaning up some of that word vomit to read better.

MarkWarrior · May 16, 2022

Chapter Twenty-Seven: Ramping up (Production)

Valexa, Federated Suns September 10th, 3006

We had been working around the clock on building Mithril suits, managing to boost our own production from one and a half suits a day to around two to three depending on whether we had people on rotation or not. After a month of production, we had been able to outfit just under half of our infantry over the last month. Given that we had a limited time frame, I wasn't sure we would be able to get the pilot/armored suits scaled down in time for any offensive. As it was, we would have to get our people working on the new combat vehicles ASAP when Sheppard got back around December.

Thankfully, our Triumph class Dropship Vanguard had finally arrived and the local Militia had taken the two Unions as payment. I had immediately set the various Dropship teams loose on the Triumph to check if there were any damages or improvements to be made and to get me a report ASAP.

"Alright Colonel," Captain Jewel handed me the reports from the various dropship techs and engineers I had set loose on the Vanguard. "Looks like most things check out, we'll need to do some small maintenance, but aside from that it looks good."

"Thanks for summarizing that Captain," I replied, smiling at the thought of not having to leaf through all of the reports that they would have filled out. "Anything else I should know while you're still here?" I asked.

"Well sir, the DroST people have come up with an idea…" She trailed off.

"What kind of idea?" I asked with my eyebrow raised, a bit concerned at the way she had phrased that.

"They want to convert the Drost to a dedicated support and/or Gunship platform now that we have a dedicated infantry and vehicle dropship." She replied.

"Did they give a solid workup?" I asked. "I like the idea, but I want solid numbers and how long it would take to refit."

"Yes actually." Captain Jewel paused, digging through her file folder. "They actually did all of the math and everything." She finally produced the file and workup that the DroST crews had submitted.

"If I take a look at it and find that it's feasible before we go on the offensive, I want you to head up the refits Jewel." I said, meeting her eyes. "I would consider keeping the infantry on the DroST's though." I said. "We could use them in conjunction with the Mithril to do combat drops over the top of enemy forces."
"I'll bring it to the crews, they know the DroST's best after all." Jewel replied. "I'll get on this and check on the people we're going to crew the Triumph with."

"Concerned about losing your chief engineer for a bit?" I asked, smirking.

"Yes." Captain Jewel replied, leaving it at that.

"Alright Captain, take a lunch break and then get to whatever you were doing before this." I said, taking my last sip of coffee. "Oh, can you have one of the cooks bring me another cup while you're passing by the Cafeteria?" I asked.

"How many cups have you had today?" She asked.

"I think that was number five or so…" I considered. "I lost count around noon."

"It's five in the evening Colonel." She deadpanned. "I think you should be done with the work for the day."

"But I'm almost done for the week." I replied, wanting to finish the last of the dreaded paperwork. "I even filed everything ahead of time so that I can spend the rest of the week helping out with the Mithril rollout."

"You're hopeless." Jewel replied, shaking her head. "I'm cutting you off for the day, no more coffee or paperwork. Instead, you're getting out of this office and getting some air."

"Fine," I agreed, knowing that I always lost this argument with the rest of the command staff. "I need a break anyway."

"See, that wasn't so hard was it?" Jewel asked, a smug smile on her face. "Now, I hear that the cooks are breaking out the Steaks tonight."

When I woke up the next morning, I felt physically exhausted, bruised all over, and a massive headache all at once. Stumbling around my quarters, I managed to get into a fresh uniform and tried to exit my room without falling over. When I stumbled out I was greeted by a widely grinning Captain Peterson.

"Why good morning Colonel." He started, "Or should I say afternoon."

"Captain." I greeted. "Did y'all let me sleep all day?" I asked. "And what happened last night? I feel like I got stomped on by an Atlas."

"Well sir, you decided that a great way to take a break last night was to get involved in a game of Rugby with all of us infantry." Peterson grinned. "Forgetting that Dunham is a bit on the small side for most of our infantry.

"I didn't." I facepalmed "Please tell me I at least played well?" I asked.

"You actually did play pretty well for a guy physically outclassed." Peterson responded, that insufferable grin still present. "You got knocked a little too hard on the head towards the end and we had to drag you off of the field with a mild concussion."

"That explains the headache and the bruises." I said, wincing at the thought of sitting in my office again. "I take it Doc told me I'm not allowed to work today?" I asked.

"You Colonel," Peterson paused. "Are not allowed to even think about paperwork for the rest of the week. The full list of things you can't do were messaged to all of the senior staff and NCO's. If you go against the doctor's orders, we will know."

"Dammit." I swore, holding my head as it rung like a bell from me being too loud. "I'm going back to bed." I said, "Wake me up when the concussion is over."

"Alright," Peterson started, the Senior Staff, both officers and NCOs were seated around the briefing room table. "The Colonel is on bed rest for a week." He nodded towards Dunham, the one that had laid the Colonel out in the rugby match. "Nice hit by the way, he never saw it coming." He complimented. "I want to see if we can get all of the paperwork done and see if we can at the very least get started on those DroST refits before the Colonel is allowed back to work." He stopped there. "Now I know that Sheppard typically sorts through the various paperwork and thins it out before it reaches the Colonel, but he's not here; and we need to pick up the slack.

Dunham stood up "We've been given a priority of training and repairing." He stated. "Now, we've gotten most of the repairs and refits done aside from the dropships." He consulted a file in front of him. "We need to get the new recruits some live fire training and begin the basic cross training. That's all we have on the agenda aside from Mithril before Sheppard gets back in December."

"Thanks Lieutenant." Peterson said. "We'll get to work on this and hopefully by the time the Colonel is back on his feet we'll be up and running at peak efficiency."

September 24th, 3006
"Alright Doc, what's the verdict?" I asked from the medical bed.

"You're cleared to go back to work as long as you don't play rugby again for another week or so." She replied. "Now get out of my office, I've got other people to see."

I left the medbay and met Dunham right outside. "Next time don't hit me so hard." I slugged him in the shoulder. "You know I hate going in there."

"I'll do my best," He shrugged. "No promises though."

We started walking towards the main area. "How is the Mithril production going?" I asked, eager to get back to work.

"We've outfitted all but a couple of platoons with the new armor." He replied. "We're continuing production and training to get them accustomed to how everything works."

"They're still getting used to being able to use the jump jets and everything else?" I asked. "I figured we'd have to go back through training again."

"Yessir, Jenkins is taking the lead on it considering he was the one who volunteered to pilot it and everything for the first time." He responded. "We've gotten around fifty percent of the unit used to the Mithril and have been training the 'Mech fireteams the way that you wanted."

"Good work." I said. "And the last thing I asked you to look into?"

"Sir, we had the legal team look through it, and there's really no way that Comstar or anyone else can touch you as far as nationality goes." He paused. "You're technically a noncitizen. Your nation ceased to exist as a whole. It could be argued that you're the last person who could reform the Terran Hegemony, but that would take more time and effort than they considered necessary. The current Hegemony worlds have been a part of one Successor state or another for over a hundred and fifty years in some cases. We just don't have the time and money to devote to that right now."

"Whew" I wiped some imaginary sweat off my brow. "That one actually did worry me for a bit."

"We've got your back Mark." Dunham smiled. "You can count on us."

Blood on the Horizon (Battletech SI)

Not too sore, are you?

Not too sore, are you?

Not too sore, are you?

Not too sore, are you?

Not too sore, are you?

Not too sore, are you?

Not too sore, are you?

Not too sore, are you?

Not too sore, are you?

Not too sore, are you?

Not too sore, are you?

Not too sore, are you?

Not too sore, are you?

Not too sore, are you?

Not too sore, are you?

Not too sore, are you?

Not too sore, are you?

Not too sore, are you?

Not too sore, are you?

Not too sore, are you?

Not too sore, are you?

Not too sore, are you?

Not too sore, are you?

Not too sore, are you?

Not too sore, are you?

Not too sore, are you?

Not too sore, are you?

Not too sore, are you?

Not too sore, are you?

Not too sore, are you?