Post Dieron
Alexandria sat in the chair, and stewed. Expecting the lecture, the chastisement for allowing herself to be caught off guard. She'd expected to just ask for the answers and it would all be clinical, clean... just another briefing. Her hands shook as she sat in the chair within the governor's office of Castle Northwind.
Yvonne Davion, the Prince's Champion was pacing the study, and then stopped, her expression creasing in thought, or perhaps vexation. "Did he give you a copy of it?"
She swallowed, it was the recording, and "No, no ma'am he did not." she hadn't thought to ask in the moment for a copy.
"He shows you an HPG recording, a recording of a live transmission of Minoru Kurita in conference with Stefan Amaris, the reigning coordinator of the Draconis Combine during the crisis and is providing Amaris with the positions of SLDF directly, not through an intermediary, and you didn't get a copy?"
In truth she had been a bit taken aback in the moment. It was like being sucker punched at the time, and Shepherd who must have watched the video countless times previous had been stone faced in regards to it all. She should have asked for a copy, she recognized that. The recording was damning to House Kurita there was no refuting that ... it was no wonder that the clans of Northwind were taking the steps they were.
The duchess of Victoria turned fully in her direction, "Where is he now?"
"Somewhere here, in Castle Northwind."
"So he's with the highlanders? The clan elders I presume."
"That is my understanding."
Yvonne Davion forced herself to sit down finally. Jeffries had been busy.. but the preliminary report was positive, that it was by all indications what it was purported to be. Shepherd had never asked how New Avalon's Institute of Science had been founded he had simply... more or less looked at the college and shrugged... he hadn't asked them how they had managed to establish the institution.
He had no idea about Halstead Station, and of Ian's too early demise, of Hanse's ascent to the throne. Of course the Star League era University which had contributed to, was the foundation of the NAIS. How Hanse, and the force on Mallory's world had been physical moving books and other things into bags, and scraping them up with the hands of BattleMechs.
Real books, not a nice portable computer core. "He comes from era that I doubt anything he does would elicit a second look, on New Avalon a member of the Medical Service," A doctor in the AFFS, "Looked over the Colonel physically he's probably healthier than you or I, but he's also from a different time, among other things there are moments though where General Kerensky is treated as a living person..." She shook her head, "now, to be blunt for the Azami Amaris is the literal incarnation of Satan in human flesh." She snapped and then paused in her lecturing, the Azami were "Hardly the only ones, Amaris is the reason for the schism in the catholic church, and that video footage establishes that Kurita knowing colluded with that monster, and then had the gall the bloody temerity to claim after that it was his natural right to be Star Lord and that House Kurita should succeed House Cameron. I can scarcely imagine what would have happened if the 2
nd Battalion of the Sword of Light had been on Dieron, can you?"
She paused and shook her head... this was all going to be a nightmare to make sense of, never mind explaining it to the First Prince.
"You can't imagine? The coordinator's only son, the heir to the Draconis Combine on Dieron, the living legacy of some two centuries of murder and mayhem perpetuated by the Combine," Her voice cracked as she gripped the arms of the plush lounge chair. Then paused, reaching to the side and unlocking the biometric lock on the case, "Your family joined the Federated Suns after Kerensky departed, many in the SLDF did and among them was a Naval Officer of the Terran Hegemony. He had a database that he left behind, left to us. " She pulled up a picture of a pair of HAF officers. "That is Major Shepherd in 2765," There was a resemblance between the two officers. "I would assume following shortly upon his completion of the Gunslinger program, and before he shipped for the periphery..." Shepherd's face was less stern, less glacial with just the ghost of a smile on the Major's face as he stood beside the admiral. In a year his whole world would be gone... "Do you know how many DCMS mechwarriors have seen Shepherd in combat, and kept breathing, because I am relatively certain that the answer is not one has exchanged fire with him on the battlefield and made it home in anything other than a bag."
The destruction of first and third battalions of the Sword of Light Regiment stationed on Dieron had varied. They had been hit from all sides, including from strikes from cruise missiles across a map grid area, but also baited into a head long charge against a Star League era Assault Mech that might as well have been wholly unique, been the only one of its type in the whole Galaxy, and so focused on charging it, that they had walked into the enfilading fire of numerous other assault 'Mechs of Star League vintage.
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The holographic display showed Northwind's capital asleep, it pushing one in the morning, positive returns from a pair of high flying Rapier ASF keeping watch. They were alert, and if something went wrong, the drones they had brought from the anchorage were slotted into launch bays to give anyone looking to start something an unpleasant surprise.
He felt the beginnings of a headache coming on, and ticked the pen against the corner of the paper making sure it would write. The Marauder II exercises were going good, but he wasn't really surprised that the real questions coming out of the Davion break down of Dieron as a battle had been centered on his other hundred tonner.
Gene checked over the Devastator's read outs. He was beginning, he had suspected, to guess from the lack of electronics ... well he could guess why the Nightstar had eclipsed this as the preferred design at least Commanding Officers as a replacement for the 75 ton Marauder. Dante agreed with his assessment. The Devastator was excellent for a Gunslinger but maybe not for a Company commander or his second, and certainly not for higher command.
That wasn't to say either machine didn't have respective strengths and weaknesses. He tapped the screen on the device to one side and looked at the data, "The Phoenix Hawk uses the same engine as the Highlander."
The kilted man paused, from his own glass of scotch "Pardon."
"The General Motors 270, there isn't anything in the Highlander, well the Cellular ammunition storage," and the railguns, "but my understanding is that Gauss rifles should be hopefully able to be brought back into production... hopefully in a few years." He leaned back and swirled the scotch, "Dante is right, I understand that production of the King Crab is a lot to ask, but sustaining any kind of position requires spare parts, what's buried here isn't going to last forever," And it only took one asshole deciding to open a can of sunshine to make everything a mess... more of a mess. "Dieron either, but it needs to be held, but that isn't the only thing."
He heard Campbell's boot hit the bar underneath the table, "What do you need then?"
"Besides..." The economic organization that, the capital accumulation to support privately funded reinvestment into industry, which he recognized as necessary, but could hardly say it was his area, and it didn't seem to be anyone's area... he didn't say any of that, but he was thinking it, "I need Northwind's government to invite and start the process of vetting all of the surviving SLDF commands operating with Davion space, and under the AFFS banner. At some point sooner rather than later publication of if not the recording than the archive at Dieron will go out to the Lyrans and at that point there will be no hiding it in the long run."
"Why would we not tell them now of House Kurita's treachery?"
Dante chuffed over the microphone, giving presence to the AI that was always there, "Being that we need time to organize, Captain. We need time to prepare, piece meal attacks will distract the Combine, we must make good on the resources we have and we must also know who can be trusted."
The highlander pilot nodded, eyeing his own glass of scotch for a moment, and then pointed out what was obvious, "You said that Kerston was told on Dieron, well that he told what was in the archives there, should we be assuming he has told the whole Light Horse about what happened?"
It was a safe enough bet, "We know the Blue Stars do know," Gene replied putting the glass down, again "What will come of them knowing we don't know. Whatever does happen there needs to be some way to coordinate."
"There is the other issue."
"Kerensky left the Inner Sphere with Hegemony automated factories including the equipment to build warships, there is no reason he will have lost warships, and given what we know they certainly were able to maintain their warships in the 29
th century. If Kerensky's exodus learns of House Kurita's actions I can reasonably intuit how they'll respond," He held up a hand, "I doubt General Keresnky published the data,"
The highlander paused, "The black watch had ones who left with him," He was dancing around the subject, "We can't avoid, can't go on not talking to the dragoons forever, if we had known when they had arrived who they were we'd have asked then what became of them, but if we are certain," Campbell continued, "We must tell them they cannot side with the Combine, if they do not listen then to hell them, but they should be told."
"My concern is that Kerensky's people will respond by deploying warships, and that the response to that will be nuclear weapons. That is the impediment to telling them." That it would result in the genocide of countless worlds.
"All of the great houses have nuclear weapons, we cannot allow the threat of them to allow them to get away with their crimes."
A part of Gene lamented agreeing to the Wolverines... understandable wish to contain what their records were, "They're not going anywhere, if they follow their habits thus far, they'll stick with Marik, move on to the Lyrans next... I expect to be back from the periphery by that point. I will be coming back to meet with Abner and coordinate resources for an exploration in the Rimward... but as a compromise if the Dragoons look like they're going to break protocol and sign with House Kurita for some reason, give them the data chip before they can cross into Combine space."
... but if that did happen... well what he expected was really, and what Dante agreed was that most likely the Wolfs would go on a suicidal death ride against the Combine Capital.... which Dante didn't think was the worst possible solution.... which was of course Jaime Wolf went screaming back to the clans and prompted a murderous holy war and let the genie out of the bottle.
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Notes: This was a long time coming as Gene has less resources to magik industry up using spell points, in the next section we do skip forward in time to the Lyran commonwealth, unfortunately one of my preferred interactive maps is not working correctly for some reason, but yeah Lyrans next chapter and the beginning of the reaction to stuff and things. If there are any issues, here point them out, because we are setting up for stuff in the long term is going to have effects on the inner sphere at large.
