Battletech: The Ghost Who Walks (Battletech Isekai)

I Davion
Part 4​

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Interdiction?"

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

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

"It was, an encrypted report."

He frowned, "What did it say?"

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

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

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

It was enough money to make him queasy.

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

"What are they offering?" She asked

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

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

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

"Yes, of course."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Huh, what?"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

Part 4
(B)​

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"There is one other matter."

"Yes?"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"You have the updated list?" Gene asked.

"I do."

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

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

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

"Commander?"

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

The clip played, "This is most unusual."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

.... The Terran Corridor.

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

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

"No,"

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

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

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

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

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

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

"JumpShip and DropShip cargo manifests?"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

Extra Content: Note NON CANON.
[Also this is a rough draft, but that's another matter, for kioras ]

Whoops don't mind the HPG network.​

3018 Lyran Commonwealth, New Kyoto​

Gene looked up from his plate as the news broadcast suddenly cut off, digital noise squealing through the speakers of the eatery. He bit down an expletive.... the most likely explanation was that the Civil Defense sirens were about to start wailing, and the planet was about to be invaded. The possibility seemed to have occured to other people as well. Men, and women were starting to get up from their tables, and through the transparent aluminum windows he could see people frozen in the street like deer in headlights.

Then all the screens changed, a crest appeared and a line of digital code, and then the authentication certificates that meant nothing to probably anyone but ComStar in the modern era. Jerome Blake. Alexander Kerensky. The HPG recording he must have seen a dozen or more times by now started to play... and he doubted it was just New Kyoto. It had been months since he had talked to a Star League AI... and both Dante, and Tristan had had their HPG uplinks destroyed and so hadn't been able to pipe in... so it couldn't have been them.

The Azami maybe. Maybe one of them had grabbed an override stick, and gotten into a class A, and used to it jack into the emergency broadcast system from the SLCOMNET. New Kyoto had a class A station, but he doubted it... not given the data telemetry and feeds in the bottom of the HPG footage that wasn't normally there. This was being broadcast through the entire network with presumably some kind of override into all local media... that meant some kind of malicious code.... but then given how few people had bothered to actually remove the JumpShip, and DropShip network systems override from their computers that didn't surprise him. The Star League override were in probably easily ninety percent of all JumpShips that were plying the routes ... as he had found out inspecting the nav computers on one of the Combine JumpShips that had since been ransomed back to the DCA after Dieron had fallen to the Fed Suns.

The problem here though was that those overrides only shut the system down until it could rebooted or a Star League override was provided on the lock. There was no direct harm. The numbers in the bottom stream were things like heat monitors on a cpu... and not good numbers. IF Gene were to guess from the Network Connections numbers this was the first time in possibly centuries that ComStar had had the whole network connected in one stream... and their modern network simply wasn't built for that.

If Gene were going to guess those dropping connections were probably Cat B stations out in the periphery who's stations were used to... the other possibility was it was the spoke stations connecting out to multiple stations beyond the middle rim... but the problem....

"Does that say this is broadcasting from Terra?" Chang asked.

"I, yeah I think so." Septim replied. "I thought maybe that was for where Amaris was broadcasting from,"

... but no the lag made sense for it be originating from Terra... and it would make sense that whatever upload and proliferation into the comms net would broadcast from Terra and radiate outward along the modern network. The numbers along the bottom were changing quicker now, which was probably a good thing... because the HPG recording was finishing up.

ComStar's modern A stations connected in normal operation sequentially to each B station in range every day, or some every twelve hours. That would have been ridiculous in the Ministry of Communication's day which would have had near constant uplink to critical Hegemony worlds most of the time, and links to the great houses', the capitals of the member states available too. In the Star League 12 hour connection was the norm for B stations to transmit... in the modern the norm was for every few days.

The HPG recording froze as it finished showing Stefan Amaris's unmistakable visage staring at the then Coordinator of the Combine, in the latter's obvious finery. Then it cut to black and a diagnostic started running. Whole swathes of the HPG network had burned out all to show a video that wasn't even twenty minutes long, of Minoru acquiescing to Stefan Amaris's demands for SLDF deployment locations, and force strengths.
--
Primus Julian Tiepolo almost stumbled back into his chair within the heart of the blessed order. His left arm felt numb, shriveled, his mouth dry, any hope that this was someone's poorly thought out attempt at a jest ... a prank... had vanished what seemed like hours ago. "The damage?" He managed."

"The," Germanium "core burned itself out, primus." Someone had betrayed the order. It was the only logical explanation. Julian knew he had been a compromise candidate after Russtein's tenure as head of the order. He was terrified of the prospect. "That was the last of the HPGs on Terra, we're still investigating the secondary broadcast that started but it infected all of our stations and as a result burned out the cores." The robed man's report was growing increasingly shaky as he started to repeating himself.

The primus waved for him to shut up. Starting to panic wasn't going to help. The loss of Terra's HPG was bad, but not utterly catastrophic. "Were we able to confirm the diagnostic?"

"It appears to be a valid diagnostic of the network." Never mind it had been of a kind that the Primus, nor anyone else here had seen... it wasn't mentioned at all in the Blessed Blake's recordings on HPG functions. The Entire network transmitting at once... apparently that wasn't supposed to happen for good reason. "The damage doesn't seem to have been intentional, a byproduct of running so many connections at once... we can reasonably speculate that the transmission involved both distribution of the media, as well as playing it through the uplink across connected networks. The diagnostic suggests that a disproportionate number of HPG stations that ceased to return 'ping' function of the test were in the Draconis Combine."


--
Luthien was in chaos. There could be no other description. The harmony of the palace was shattered... and even with the order to invoke martial law it would take time to restore it. Kurita Takashi was livid behind his stone cold mask of court... he had had to act quickly as they had figured out what was taking place.

The DCMS had taken too long to bring artillery up, forcing him to rely on the even less elegant solution of leaving matters to the DCA... but the HPG station of Luthien was now destroyed. His Otomo, and other units of the ISF were even now roving through the capital, and soon across the planet looking for any more traitors. The Admiralty had orders to impound all jumpships and execute any member of ComStar summarily.

He had seen the footage before of course, the former Primus of ComStar had lied claiming it was the only copy... why it had taken the treacherous vermin this long to act escaped him... but it was now out there. The Combine would need every JumpShip, ever dropship and every BattleMech and every loyal samurai to do their duty the war against the dragon was so much greater than any previous conflict.
--
Note: This was not a planned update, this is a case of I'm bored, I'm going to post a scrap of something that I know I'm not going to use its just extra content. Sunday there will be a normal update.