Battletech: The Ghost Who Walks (Battletech Isekai)

Non Canon
Scrap Timestamp 3018 / Davion 1​

Spoiler: NON CANON Snippet

Gene grimaced at the question, "As annoying as Bard's rendition of Black Fox is," and despite the silly idea having been used to pester him at nearly every turn while they'd been on leave, and in particular after the Eridani had shipped offworld, "I'm not prepared to declare Clan Fox to be a thing," It had been a long twelve months and he ignored the protest from one of the kilted men that Clan Fox sounded like a quite proper idea as he fished out the dossier in printed paper and handed it over to the Sandoval Duke. Gene sat back in his chair and waited.

There were the rufflings of the thick paper as Aaron Sandoval, Duke of Robinson and Field Marshal of the Draconis March smiled. He had browsed the papers and flipped them over as he read, "The order of the golden kite," He declared. "I think this would be just the sort of thing Lord Nicholas would be looking for, sure to tweak the combine's nose."

The historical abstract he had included for the briefing had been designed to maximize that. He had done what the duke had asked and provided an organization name, but also the historical backdrop included the specification that the historical golden kite had been a degree higher, and military only, to the order of merit that Takeo Kurita a distant Kurita ancestor had held. The cultural ties, the use of specific language, history, and so on were somewhat modified by the new proposed device. The golden bird would be holding a daisho in its claws underneath a Torri gate, but would be fixed on a european style shield.

The proposed designed raised a quirk of the eye from the legless duke, "Would have expected, if on were to be honest, Colonel, the Cameron Starburst. I think that would be better."

Gene had consciously been trying to avoid Star League iconography in the the device, or the in the proposed documentation to accompany awards. He'd made a point of neither mentioning the Star League, nor House Kurita. That was part of the whole couching of the packet.

After Elidere... hell technically after the Kuritans had routed on Elidere IV they had been under contract with the Davions for operations since Ander's Moon, but that didn't mean the Kuritans were going to be shy about how they felt. That would have been a problem without doubling down on it by signing on with the FedSuns for their romp through Near Terran Space over the last year.

The 19^th Galedon Regulars, that was to say an entire Combine BattleMech, Regiment along with most of the supporting DCA assets had been destroyed in detail for what amounted to no cost to the Armed Forces of the Federated Suns. They hadn't been able to achieve a repeat of that peerless victory, but that was less important to the fact that the AFFS in combination with other mercenaries had been able to not just take other worlds, but savage other Combine Mech Regiments.

This was the Draconis Combine March's opportunity to rub salt in the wound so to speak. Not that they really needed to... but it wasn't going to stop them from doing it... and given the enmity that existed he didn't expect them not to use the opportunity to do.

He didn't want to stick around, even though the AFFS was hoping to turn the mercenary units involved in the campaign, not just them but in particular the Eridani Light Horse, into what amounted to House Troops.
--
"What's wrong with Clan Fox?" The hunchback driver had thought it had been a good idea.

... well there were actually a number of reasons... and even discounting the sheer degree of political brown nosing it might have been interpreted as he had other reasons. He sipped at his drink and glanced at the command staff who were looking from Chang to him waiting for an answer, "It conveys the wrong sort of distinction. Evoking an order, a military honor like this may not be a formal structure but it allows a delineation in rewards that a lodge wouldn't be as good as formally conveying. This isn't a knightly order, or a warrior house the Draconis March wants to be able to provide recognition for command ability, leadership, and bravery in the field. The duke wanted a proposal he could put to New Avalon," And apparently the head of MIIO, "I expect that it will be sent off and either they'll reject it or rework it as necessary as either a Federal award or that Lord Aaron will issue as a Draconis March specific award."

... but it would have been a bigger tweak if Hanse Davion, as First Prince was the issuing party awarding people golden birds with heavy shinto symbolism and references to the Nihon Shoki. It was probably the sort of slap in the face to the combine's claims, historical and present, regarding manifest destiny that the First Prince might like to present to the Inner Sphere.

"So we're going back to the periphery?" Septim's question had been accompanied by a look being thrown in Bahar's direction. The fighting over the last year had been concentrated in near earth space. While original Azami settlement worlds like Markab had not been conquered, nearer worlds like Galatia had fallen to the Davions, Dieron's regulars had suffered losses, and the result, subsequently had been a wave of Azami migration that would be heading to the periphery.

The fighting was an excuse... or additional justification to ferry another load of colonists far into the periphery to settle on Alamut in the Lighthouse worlds. Pasha shook his head, reached up and toyed with his long grey mustache, "Admittedly it is not so glamorous but it will be down time that is sorely needed. Returning to the periphery will not be so bad will it?"

They were pulling off the front for a number of reasons not the least of which was that they'd be going to a Magistracy garrison and training contract for Raventhir... or rather that was what Raventhir was to claim. Something about Ur Cruine and the pirates was causing enough of a stir that the money was now there to see to some kind of expansion, such that Detroit was willing to spend money.

Black Jack McGirk was still running around reaving from apparently the Tortuga Dominions all the way round to the Magistracy border. That meant he was hitting the Davions, the Taurians, the Aurigans and the Canopians... as well as all the free holding worlds in between at times. The simple truth was no one had expected a pirate with... what some reports went so far as to claim was a division worth of Star League Defense Force equipment. Whether that was an exaggeration or not didn't matter, McGirk had a mountain of hardware and he was willing to rampage wherever he liked, and trash whoevers stuff he liked, and pay his men with the booty. That meant he had no shortage of bastards willing to fight for him.

"I want to talk about the conversion work being done on San Saba," To carry BattleMechs, "I've been assured that Blackwell has our order completed and we should be taking delivery on that soon."

--
Commentary: Again this is not necessarily going to be canon, its probably more likely to be close to or share a great deal with the final draft than the 3030 segment, but that's also because at the moment, well Elidere IV takes place in Spring of 3017 and this takes place the year following.

This obviously foreshadows the 3019 Pirate operations alongside the Aurigan Royal Guard under Montgomery Raju, among other things admittedly as this is Battletech and we are talking about hundred of light years some of that time will be skipped over due to it being travel times.

 

Part 11
Staff Interlude​

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

Highland Fair​

Spoiler: 5 January 3018

5 January 3018
Federated Suns
Northwind​

Gene didn't quite understand the cultural diaspora that had created the inner sphere. Part of it was probably simply a matter of money. He wondered how many worlds had been settled by people with enough money to get off Earth with the equipment to survive just because they had disagreed with some stupid talking point. Thousands of worlds had been settled.

It was odd how many were Irish, or Scots Irish. The Gaelic revival in the 21^st and 22^nd centuries and the great diaspora must have made the Irish Diaspora to America and the British colonies like Australia look like a joke.

The kilted man sat down, "Do you know what this is?" He put the thistle beside the gun resting on the table.

Sillybum. "The Milk Thistle. Nemo me impune lacessit."

"Boss." Septim protested to Hanzo's obvious annoyance.

He ignored the Lyran's complaint. "I'm not Black Watch," The men started from around the table at the comment. "You broadcasted an 191^st IFF to the Marauder, that pings back to a Hegemony handshake. The mech and its identification,"

Campbell bit his lip and tilted his head, "Aye, my highlander. You barely look twenty Lieutenant Colonel Shepherd." He produced a silver tin box with a reader on it. "Place your hand on it." He reached up and pulled the dog tags from his neck, and put it on the reader, and then rested his hand on the reader. Campbell swallowed as it flashed green. "My ancestor was given that box by Captain Hazel from Colonel Schmitt two hundred and fifty years ago. He was a fresh lieutenant in the regiment then."

"And you've been white shielded for those two and a half centuries." Campbell blinked, "Your parents passed down a Hegemony log key to enlist their children with their credentials... the dragooning process was common during the war with Amaris, its a program that predates the age of war. It was never intended to authorize for that long." Just so teenagers could fight long enough to receive official acknowledgement from Terra. You could make lieutenants out of it, but without an authentication for it, say an AI like Tristan to validate promotions, captain was probably the highest that had been approved in a very long time by a system that was now long dead.

"Come with me, colonel." Campbell stood up, the fifty something year old man collected the diary that had been in the locked box his ancestor had been entrusted. "Your friends will be fine... something else to show you. There is another door we cannot open." He lead him deep inside the Castle, modern construction gave way to Star League era reinforcings laid bare. Gene glanced at the blue circle on the floor, and the recessed laser cannons mounted in the ceilings... but he supposed the hallway was big enough for light vehicles... probably a tramway on the other side... might have linked to a Port complex if he had to guess. "Can ye open it?"

... assuming the reader wo-, the thought died as a synthetic voice powered up. "Authorized user detected." Unlike with Tristan, the turrets activated dropping down, or raising from their housing to cover the hallway's approach.

"Tell them to stay back." He grunted as the guns oriented, ignoring Campbell, and himself and pointing down the hall. Gene stepped up into the ring on the floor and placed his chit on the reader and hand on the scanner and felt the prick taking a blood sample.

"Standby." The artificial voice ordered in a brogue tone. "Authenticated. Welcome lieutenant colonel Shepherd, I am Dante. It has been 177 years since an officer of the Central Intelligence Directorate has accessed this facility."

He blanched as the massive doors opened and stepped out of the circle snagging his keys, "I understand, can you prepare a briefing of this facilities, actions and evaluations."

"Wait, Colonel Shepherd."

"A hundred and seventy seven years ago would have been fifty five years after Kerensky's Operation Exodus." He snapped striding through the door way. The turrets didn't move to track him.

"Yeah I can do math." Campbell was following. "But that was also the year the Davion's took the planet."

"Colonel." The AI inquired.

"I want a catalog report of any CID data transmissions, and accesses to any facilities in system, and any confirmed communiques coming in after the Liberation of Terra, most recent first." holograms snapped up in the air.

Shortly before the AFFS had launched their attack a Rear Admiral of the Hegemony, apparently promoted twice since the fall of the Star League by time in grade, had arrived with a retinue of picked men and accessed the castle.

Northwind was two jumps from Sol, they had been put here because Hanse Davion wanted to hit Dieron and make the Combine bleed, but... one of the files added in 2841 was...

"Colonel, you look white as a ghost-,"

"According to Admiral Clancy's log left here, Fortress Dieron is intact." He'd read about it in Tristan's files on SLDF facilities operated by the Hegemony within Combine base, but he'd assumed it had either been destroyed by Amaris or looted. That expectation had been supported by Pasha's report that Dieron had been brutally savaged by the Satan Amaris.

"That is correct colonel. The facility should be securely locked down, with access to sensitive sections prohibited to unauthorized personnel."

Shepherd pulled a data chit from his vest pocket and placed it into a holographic projector. "Verify, authenticate data and credentials."

"Authenticated."

"Play HPG recording."

Minoru Kurita, and Stefan Amaris appeared to give Dante, and Campbell the shock of their respective lives. While he stared at the specifications of Fortress Dieron as of its last reported status the world he and the Eridani Light Horse, along with some Davion regulars had been planning to invade with the intended goal of proving the combine to not be invincible... per the briefing from Hanse Davion's number two man.

Dante's sudden string of invectives startled him out of staring at the topographic display and the holographic onion map of Fortress Dieron's layers as it spread out in front of him. Dante no longer had an HPG uplink it had been destroyed in order to prevent it from falling into the hands of the Republic forces, but not before it had received and transferred other updates and a backlog of movements and orders.

Dante had probably been curating them, splitting his attention as he processed the HPG recording, because a series of orders signed by Kerensky appeared ... and being countermanded by local Terran militia forces, and CID personnel. Not just here, but on other worlds, including New Dallas.

--
Commentary: So this is currently non canon for a couple of reasons the trip to Northwind is still planned to take place but there are details about this which are still up in the air.

The AI Dante was referenced in the 3030 segment, but in particular as this continues... I had originally planned for the Dobrev to lead back to a Wolverine colony fleet in stasis though I'm less set in that particular direction right now. Thats not the only issue, but finding the Wolverines is looking more and more like an idea I think I'm going to use somewhere else. Part of the original outline had been putting the McEvedy up in either Magistracy or the Aurigan Coalition, post civil war, as a newly installed noble house.

Moving on, the end of I Davion in 3018 also runs into the problem of Dieron falling now, because Hanse's outlined plan is to drop the Davion Heavy Guards, Eridani and others onto the planet... and while Sun Zhang does graduate the most mechwarriors of any school Gene really needs to stop killing graduates of the school, they're going to develop a complex... before long he's going to get blamed for the deaths of the cadre on Elidere when the davion's took over Elidere IV at this rate.

Comments: I said we'd get the Ford Scene, I was wrong, so have this one instead. I'll see about posting the Ford scene next week.

 

Elidere
Part 12​

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

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

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

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

"Do you have him on scopes?"

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

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

"Indeed."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Let him go."

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

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

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

"I don't,"

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

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

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

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

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

"Precentor."

"Commander." The head of station nodded.

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

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

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