Essence Wielding Social General [Battletech]

June 3015

Centaur Castle was its SLDF designation, and even now Construction mechs were laboring overhead to establish Odin's Hall on the surface of the pole. The construction mechs and more conventional work equipment were doing their best to replace and rebuild the original surface fortifications that had been left ruined for centuries... most of it was going to have to be replaced the goal was to turn the entire surface into a great obvious demonstration of power.... and of course attract away from ASF launch sites, or concealed lifts to deploy forces away from the main hall.

Odin knew it was foolish to simply hope he was never attacked. Centaur Castle had never been constructed with a true port facility, and while there were any such facility's to restore it would only help sell any distraction. There other effort were cataloging and restoring the regimental garrison facilities one by one.

Riken minor though was so much more now that the damage was being undone. It had only been deemed habitable by the Hegemony, and had deliberately flung tthe moon's cities had still suffered during the Amaris conflict. It was appalling that more hadn't been done to encourage Lyran culture, and sensibilities, which was a problem on Kentarus as well.

Well that was fine... Odin Lowe looked at the projection, his newly augmented inventory. Gleaming ranks of SLDF royal units, battlemechs, tanks and so forth the sort of thing finding would have meant the big score. No one would notice if he replaced all the equipment with fully equipped troops after he claimed the castle officially with the Commonwealth.

He had time though before he had to do that... for centuries people had believed the ruins were just simple military outposts that the surface outposts appeared to be. Once he was sure his moon base was up and running, well since he couldn't have Clinton this would work fine.

--
Odin smiled and offered his last handshake for at least the next few hours, and stepped before the podium, to begin his speech. He had other speeches to give of course, but he wasn't going to go straight to the exclamation of how the Commonwealth was better than the Star League and thus deserved a better military he wasn't some rabble rousing populist after all. Including the smatterings of polite, and occasionally legitimately enthusiastic, applause for investment and cleaning up the planet it took about forty five minutes to give the speech.

After that it was yielding the podium to the next speaker, and to sit and look pretty. Rigil had never been a particularly populous planet and the truth was terraformers would drive land prices in the short term down by restoring livable conditions to the landscape, but in the long term he expected that what would happen would be a return to the Hegemony trend of lots of vacation homes.... then again JumpShip capacity wasn't anything what it had been during the Hegemony. That didn't eliminate planets from being famous vacation spots, but it likely wouldn't be a quick development, and that would give him time to buy up land, and invest.

"One more to give," Schmitt replied as a fourth speaker finished, and closing comments were given. In ordinary Lyran society it was impossible to distinguish business from the military, from the nobility... but that wasn't ... well it was more of a venn diagram, the more overlap often meant the more powerful... at the center were people like the Archon. The second speech he had to give for this evening was more oriented towards the military. "There is nothing that is inevitable, or predestined. While every person is made for the struggle, what really must be achieved is the will to act. You men have expressed that will, by putting on the uniform of our shared Lyran Commonwealth. Through success and failure alike that will be heated and tempered into being a steel that protects and defends the place we call home. We can only go forward into the future." Much as the earlier speech there were limits to exactly how far he could go, and deliberately calling or being perceived to be agitating against the FWL or Combine for past actions would have been unseemly, and a little Gauche. Saying that war conducted by a party that lacked in chivalry caused them to commit massacres... well... not ideal for a peace time speech in the Commonwealth... and while such a comment could have meant Kentares, or the recent Marik Civil War and especially its aftermath... it didn't matter if it was true or not, you just shouldn't say such things in these situations. He rested his hands on the second podium, "In a few short days this battalion will depart for New Earth for service there, you are the first to take this rotation. Two months, and then you'll be replaced by the next battalion in rotation," Which struck him as inefficient but it made more sense having the entire regiment there for two months out of the year. "You should look at this as a learning opportunity, to openly and honestly evaluate ones strength and weaknesses," That any mistake that could be learned from should be. That wasn't an excuse to make mistakes but that he wanted them to learn what they could.

After that it was more wine drinking and mingling with the officers of the Regiment, and the Lyran Regulars. Tomorrow would be another parade, and a march carried from on from the garrison to the spaceport, and then a very showy lift off the day after. He was hoping that the emphasis on the expensive dropships would keep the focus on them... and not the recycled ones.

"Most of the officers, and all of the MechWarriors being assigned to us come from," Schmitt paused, as if she couldn't decide how she wanted to phrase the matter.

"The Archon's largesse, perhaps. From graduates of academies or programs by merit rather than possessing a family battlemech or the political connections of being an established military."

"Yes, sir."

He nodded, "We'll settle for the generosity of the Archon." He declared, "My father left me with a regiment of each major combat arms equipment, I trust you'll be able to make clear to the men that my concern is for their well being than the material. The war machines can be replaced," Not that he was going to get up at the podium to belt that out, "As my liaison on New Earth make sure its clear that your in charge of our troops."

He actually disliked sending Schmitt off world this soon, but he wanted a good commander , and the best he had was the head of his personal guard.


--
Odin navigated his Black Knight across the old transcontinental railhead. Another sorely in need of maintenance. He pushed the mech up the cliff looking out over the harbor, and to the seafaring freighters filling it. Fishing trawlers sailed in and out. He panned the mech to look across the bay, and then eased back. His musings on seaside and the planet were ended as his escort, a second Black Knight, opened communications.

"Sir," Alexandra Hazen remarked as her holographic image stabilized, "Systems Traffic Control has received a beacon from an LCAF JumpShip at Nadir. The ensign had something of a long face dominated by a wide forehead and high cheekbones, a contrast in features to Schmitt's more rounded, and less harsh... of course the latter might very well have been Hazen's resting expression that might charitably be considered as frigid... which was only part of the reason he'd seen Schmitt as liaison... Schmitt was less likely to challenge someone to a duel.

He raised an eyebrow, "Anyone we know?"

"A General, His Serene Highness the Duke Roysten of House Bisset." Odin nodded at the sour pronouncement, and then asked for clarification the man's specific rank... lieutenant General. It seemed very unlikely that this wasn't related to the upcoming service to New Earth of a third of his house troops.

--
Notes: Some revisions are ongoing with the next chapter as I will be expediting certain things to get into the action particularly the movement of Alesandro Steiner esque offensive actions against Marik planets

 

The Battlefield Awaits​

At one point in time the moniker social general had been an actual title, but that still didn't mean that the Lyran commonwealth was going to send a green, freshly raised unit into action. Odin wasn't quite certain as the conversation dredged on if that would have held if these men of high birth knew about the two brigades of Star League BattleMechs under his 'house'.

Lord Roysten was a brash loud man. Probably not the worst social general in he history of the commonwealth, but the fact he associated with Wilhelm von Mouttheim was hardly a good sign. The presence though of an entirely new regiment on the books, and he supposed also the lift capacity to move it must have been enough to convince someone in LCAF that now was the time. That something could be done... somewhere. Not that that had been a precise quote, but the fact there were a dozen generals present, and yet seemed to be no pre agreed plan to work from... was frankly somewhat terrifying.

...Someone had literally referred to a Zeus as a 'lighter' mech for heaven's sake.

There was a clearing of a throat, and he made room, "Matthias."

"Odin, so glad you could come to New Earth," The aging duke replied. "Especially on such short notice. Some people are so very inconsiderate." he was looking dead ahead while he said it, which might well have meant either Roysten or Mouttheim ... or possibly both men.

"Were those transports for the Winfield guards?"

"Yes," Matthias von Shonberger replied. Anything further was cut off as an argument erupted down in the 'bullpen' far below the ampitheatre seating. Alessandro Steiner had not been Archon since 07, he had retired some eight years earlier 'allowing' his niece, the present archon, Katrina to ascend.

It had been a veritable coup d'etat supported by the current archon's successes in the face of Alessandro's failures... and the man who had just entered the bullpen had all the physical characteristics of a member of the ruling house. Steel gray eyes and blonde hair, Frederick 'the hammer' Steiner was roughly Odin's own height but the older man, now in his early forties was probably forty pounds heavier.

... and Freddy opened the floor with the intention of the attack by capitalizing on the Marik's distraction and internal house cleaning. Odin perked. Not because he was explicitly interested in yet more 'deep penetration' strategies that were unlikely to really yield real gains for the commonwealth... but because of what they might be able to conceal. The truth was he'd been fully prepared to leave Helm well enough alone. Let things play out how they were ... but if Frederick Steiner was serious about beating the Marik's like a drum... then getting into the cache and stealing the whole thing... that might actually be possible... after all he would need to get on planet deploy his forces in a raid... and well no one would need to be aware of him slipping away with a body of picked men. There would be no one to watch any material he recycled other equipment... and a memory core would be much easier to abscond with than countless battlemechs.

The argument between Steiner, and Mouttheim reached a crescendo. Rather than decide on a single target, they decided to split the assemble forces to attack both. At the same time. Matthias stood up placing a hand on his stomach and navigating back out of the row with lion headed cane, "Gentlemen since we seem to have confirmed a motion, might I make a suggestion. That the liberation of these two worlds be synchronized, that it would be best to have our forces muster at Denebola, and have them then jump to their respective destinations."

Denebola was a single jump from New Earth. Zosma, and Alula Australis could both be jumped directly to from Denebola.

It was such a simple thing that suggesting it... shouldn't have even been necessary.... except that you could jump from New Earth to one planet, but not both. Alula Australis could be reached from New Earth... or for that matter to be honest Rigil Kentaurus... but you couldn't make that jump from Zosma. Trying to coordinate Jumps from two different systems would have been needless complication especially when they would be attacking allegedly synchronized on two separate systems.

Von Shonberger was trying to streamline matters.
--
He had retired to one of his overlord dropships for the evening to contemplate the upcoming ... probable disaster with increasing dread. He had the Winfield Guards file, and a glass of mulled wine to keep him company. The product of the now deposed archon the Guards, the brigade now, had been intended to be a Lyran House Unit answer to the SLDF based Eridani Light Horse. He was not sure that the unit was ready to deploy, but if there was one thing hte various generals could agree on it was that they weren't interested in real unit readiness, just an affirmative answer.

He pushed the mulled wine to one side as Broden entered with Schmitt, and the door closed behind them. "Specials, eh?" He asked looking at the last document. Well, to tell the truth Odin could have thought of worse names. "At least they didn't call use something like fire brigade, or emergency reserve, or something similar." Then after the clearly uncomfortable Lyran regular was gone, he glanced up to Schmitt, and steepled his fingers, "Well thank heavens at least we're not under Mouttheim's command." They were going to hit Alula Australis, and now on his third glass of mulled wine he could see how ridiculous his brief daydream that they might be able to use this gentlemen's club as cover for something... he picked up the class, and sighed, "We're still going to have to survive this," He remarked, but if there was any upside ...

... well Mouttheim struck him as the sort of genius who would want to mount a brigade scale infantry attack over a mile of open ground .... which he was a mech commander machine guns were a lot less lethal to Mechs. Not, not lethal, but less dangerous than other weapons. Mouttheim definitely was about as subtle as Frederick Steiner in terms of front assaults, but ... Frederick probably wouldn't lead them into a headlong suicidal replay of the Somme in the 31st century.... and the steiner scion was likely to want a frontal attack if they had an advantage in 'Mech weight.

Alula Australis was the closer of the two worlds, and apparently so far as he could wade through the irredenta their goal the reason for the attack was to correct the failure to liberate the planet in oh nine when the 19^th Lyran Guards had raided the planet.

Schmitt was puzzling over the planet, "We'll be attacking across heavily mountainous terrain, that will diminish our speed, and slow our advance." It would make whoever held the best defensive ground hard to dislodge as well. "Then there are these areas where centuries of mining have undermined stability and created sinkholes."

Lovely, was the silent sarcastic quip that passed through his mind as he watched the hologram spring into life. These maps were out of date, possibly as much as ten years, mining continued, and accidents weren't uncommon particularly with the spring rains, but extractive efforts in the depths tended to cause sagging, and the possibility of a tremor underground could dislodge thousands of tones of loose soil... and the chance of what artillery or missiles might do was ... had the potential be even more unpredictable. "We have until the DropShips are charged, lady." Yes, in theory they would have the time until the Jump from Denebola...

"a concentrated assault by ASF and DropShips should allow us to clear space enough to offload unmolested." Schmitt had already reached for the Regiment of aerospace fighters, "If not necessarily for the entire brigade landing force," She hedged in the face that this all seemed perilously close to just winging it and no word had been spoken about any prospective FWL ASF presence.

 

The Battlefield Awaits
Part 2​

Money, and industrial resources more so than land were the defining feature of Lyran nobility. It was why in the Lyran system the courts tended to favor the interests and needs of the corporation doing the work, than the feudal landholder in most disputes... when there was actually a difference between the two. It was why the very model of a Lyran Social General often had the space lift capability to move his personal command at least, because nothing quite said wealth like DropShips, and certainly nothing one upped that like having your own personal JumpShips even if they never so much as left the provincial borders. If on strict averages the Commonwealth were weighted more towards assault weight mechs, with perhaps fifteen percent of the Mechs in service being eighty or more tons, and thirty five percent being heavy mechs the assembled forces here were even more heavily tilted in that direction. The general consensus of Marik forces were less than eight percent, the least of any successor state, of the Marik Mech stable were Assaults, though some argued they made up for it by fielding the third largest stable of Heavy 'mechs after the Combine... but few of those people were Lyran and none of them were in the command staff of this gathering. After all conventional wisdom had always been beating a battlemech required another battlemech preferably a bigger more heavily armored one slugging it out.

At least it was only going to be one jump.

This was about money and prestige... and given the prescence of a Steiner general leading one prong of it... Odin suspected something beyond the usual faire. The prescence of so many officers and nobility who had been in the favor of the previous archon at best suggested that they were lobbying for the ruling Archon's attention, or at worst were hoping to embarrass her into action.

There was nothing that could be done about it. Not at this stage. The orders were all legally cut, and verified through the appropriate channels... and it was probably no small coincidence that they were going on this with a number of high ranking officers of the LCAF.

The only thing they could do was to win honor and glory for the Commonwealth. Regardless of whatever those other political motivations, and whatever other games were afoot, they needed to win glory and prestige for themselves, and the commonwealth... which really meant that they really needed to make sure they didn't lose.

When you got down to it, Steiner, and Mouttheim was that they could afford to be defeated. It would be embarrassing but they had the capital and connections to survive such mostly unscathed. Odin recognized that that wasn't likely to be the case in his own position. "I think perhaps our best option would be a decisive commitment of our heaviest air assets, to secure our landing forces," Once they were offloaded and read he was relatively confident that they would be able to concentrate , but they had to be able to get on solid ground... but navigated around compromised terrain from centuries of mining would likely prevent a direct assault on the planetary capital. "Can anyone see a better option?"

The Titan class DropShips command staff briefing room housed the assembled officers of his personal guard, and the staff officers of the MechWarriors, ASF, and Armor force officers of battalion rank or higher... which was perhaps somewhat awkward. It created the dynamic where on paper the lyran officers in charge, outranked persons in the Guard but were still subordinate to Hazen or Schmitt ... but that was simply the reality. They were command units constituted from his house, nascent as it was, equipment. It was why the recently attached full bird colonel might be commanding the regiment of Mechs but still had to answer to him.

It was his equipment, and more importantly in the realities of the succession war it was equipment he had inherited. That was no secret. The 20 Heavy ASF were an excellent example of this. The pride of the wing were the so called flying Awesomes, the 85 ton Rapiers, which of course had the added advantage of being Lyran in corporate origin. Any significant losses in Federal Service would be replaced. The Lyran Commonwealth was on the hook for combat assets destroyed ... but that didn't mean they had to replace them quickly, or with the exact same model. Everyone knew this, that was how the game was.

"That seems reasonable." The Mech Colonel replied, whether because he generally believed it was the best solution or because he didn't want to be publicly overruled Odin couldn't be quite sure.


No one seemed prepared to contradict a Mechwarrior colonel, and with not forthcoming ideas they moved on to the issue of coordination with other groups of House Troops. Alula Australis's southern continental landmass housed the capital city of New Horizon. House Marik had never bothered to rebuild the battlemech factories when they had been destroyed nearly seventy years earlier, and that certainly diminished the industrial value of the planets, but it was still an inhabited world near terra and that alone made it valuable. Possibly even more so than the planet's mining, and petrochemical industries.
--

The successor states had always had something of a phobia of losing a direct jump route to Terra. The lose of prestige from failing to have a territorial corridor to Earth had little strategic basis in a universe where the Terran Hegemony no longer existed, but it remained an absolutely terrifying thought perhaps because it signaled the loss of territory that might demonstrate that one of the great houses simply had lost all hope of replacing the Hegemony. Being cut off from Terra meant they might have for good been stopped from realistically proclaiming their ruling dynasty the next Star Lord.

Not that taking both worlds would do that. Of the two only Aulula Australis was within one jump of Terra... but if this succeeded.... then attacks could be mounted against Graham and Procyon. Would it actually accomplish anything, Odin doubted it.

It would certainly embarrass House Marik, but more likely it would simply provoke them to launch their own offensive, or counter offensive. Not that there was any point in saying so. The sooner von Mouttheim stopped banging on the podium from the other end the satellite feed the sooner they could make final preparations to get underway. The sooner they could make the jump, the sooner they could detach from the JumpShips, burn to the planet and make planetfall.

Odin idly drummed his fingers on the arm of his chair, and glanced to his second in command. If not for the presence of attached regulars to serve as liaisons and officers to the regiment while in federal service he'd probably made small talk while the general carried on.

... this was probably some small political concession by Frederick Steiner to Mouttheim to let him given the line of departure speech to the force. Half an hour later Mouttheim finally finished, and Odin stood up, "Give me detachment wide," The forces under his command, using his equipment. "Soldiers," He began once directed that the line was open, and he was in theory addressing all the troops, "The battlefield awaits. For our Lyran Commonwealth."

JumpShips from both invasion forces were already beginning to wink out of existence as their Kearny-Fuchida drives spun up and bubbled with pulses of distorted light forming spheres as they jumped. A two pronged assault had begun.

The officer at the helm of the DropShip notified them at the Frederick Steiner's contingent of JumpShips had made their jumps

Odin nodded. The Jump sensation was like being dunked in the ocean... well without being physically wet. Then it was gone in spectre of lights, and shape, and the jump was over. 13.94 Light years in what had been a moment. He self consciously exhaled, "Start a clock," He ordered, "Is everyone accounted for?" Making sure all of their numbers were accounted for was probably the most important thing, and then the rest of the Lyran Brigade, but during the attack in 3009 the Mariks had demonstrated a previously to then unknown ASF unit the later identified 405^th Fighter Wing. It had included LosTech units. Things like LAMs, Land Air Mechs which were capable of transformation from ASF to BattleMech in order to fight.
--
Notes: Okay so according to House Marik, and again this runs into Jump Points and associated issues Alula Australis is a month out from its Jump Point... I'm ignoring that. Or more correctly the jump point above the star or below it supposed to be four weeks... which we're ignoring. This can be something something lagrangian points something something, or just it might be true thats where, but at the same time there are instances in canon where the safe jump point is also in the oort cloud range as well, and well for travelling to the 8^th planet in the system thats faster or insert other explanation.

This is a necessary chapter because it gets us through the warnings for things to come on the Lyran side.

So whats going to happen is when the next chapter opens Part 1 will go up sometime in the next two weeks, it will probably not be next week we will start the first significant multi part/post chapter on the surface of Alula Australis either from a DropShip command post or inside the Black Knight. This will not be a 'standard' Length Ghost chapter, it will be a couple thousand probably 5-6k in the outline as we begin devling into a time of war, and mech piloting here and the Lions Guard, during or after which we will probably get a brief insight into Freddy Steiner's point of view in the present.

 

Fray
Part 1​

Originally colonized during the first exodus from Terra Alula Australis had been close enough to Earth to be on the Terran side of the demarcation line. The change of hands the planet had done over the years had meant that the Free Worlds League had in organizing their 'Border Protectorate' had established a Brigade.

The so called Protectorate Guard consisted of two known Mech regiments, and presumably attached independent assets ... and presumably that had been the reason why Mouttheim, and all had commented such a large number of house troops to this expedition. They still weren't sure if Stroud was on planet, but they had confirmed the Iron Guard presence.

From with the blue and white ferrofibrous armor of his Black Knight, Odin waited for the his opportunity to strike. The Free Worlds League clearly intended to defend the planet, and so he needed to see what the other players on the field intended to do, and respond accordingly... and that meant watching foremost what Frederick Steiner would do.

... there was a flicker around the hillside part of the begrudging step down from the mountains to their backs, as it gradually opened into the continental grasslands fed by the river system that had attracted the attention of the first colonists from Terran centuries before.

The tell tale white puffs of signified someone was shooting, but not at them the magnification from his 'Search Eye' sensors showed the rocket motors of the LRMs flying west. At this distance he couldn't be sure if the launch was aimed at Lyran troops or had been fired at by a Lyran unit that had come pushing through the foothills this far afield.

It was a very real possibility. There was painfully little coordination going on. They had little idea what exactly the other major Lyran units were doing, but at the same time there were good odds that the missile launches were from FWL combat vehicles not from battle Mechs. Which was its own problem... it was true that of all the great powers the Capellans took the Lorix Creed... in no small part as the 26^th century major had been a cappy... seriously in its espousing of the BattleMech as the utmost pinnacle warfare, and the supreme importance of the Mechwarrior on the battlefield, the Free Worlds League emphasized the knight errant aspect of that creed more than the others. The possibility of a lance or two of enemy mechs ahead of the main force was plausible.

... if only because the Combine were playing samurai in space and wanted to duel one on one.... but that was another matter entirely.

"Contact, Contact." The voice buzzed over the tactical net.

Though it was hardly properly Lyran there were an over strength, square, batallion of Light hover vehicles serving as screen and observation vehicles. The precocious little fusion powered twenty ton vehicles weren't intended as stand up fighters, just to zoom around and run away if they actually saw the enemy, and where possible also throw missiles at them from where they wouldn't be threatened.

Even before they had been offloaded from the DropShips the carbuncles had been briefed strictly that in the face of any kind of serious resistance they were to get out of dodge, and pull back to the main line of deployment. Spread across that line were the BattleMechs, and in those were the disproportionate number of Command BattleMechs. Atlas, Black Knight, Marauder, Orion, Wolverine, and so forth. The only really missing Mechs of that 'class' were things like King Crabs, or BattleMasters, which were in inventory but remained behind at Centaur Castle.

"It would appear that the League has decided not to risk fighting near the city." Hazen remarked.

That was good news. It spared either side from the risks and fallout from trying to conduct an urban battle. Given the briefings on the sort of White Terror the Iron Guard were known to engage in against the civilian populace he hadn't been sure that the Mariks wouldn't chose to make them come in the city.

That had been the paradox hanging over him. He knew where his troops were, but he didn't know what the rest of the Lyran force really had in mind... hence hoping to see some maneuver from Frederick Steiner to signal the Lyran course of action. He had been told two potentially conflicting details about the Mariks as a whole, versus the local Marik forces which created issues in predict how they might respond.

... and in that way though this was so typical of a social general lead military operation.... to the point if the local military dictator was planning for it. He didn't like that possibility. "Alexandra take command of local forces," He ordered reaching to adjust his own communications in order to reach out to Schmitt. In that lay the distinction, Schmitt commanded the guard in a full capacity, but his immediate personnel protection was Hazen's job here and now... and part of that was simply a question of temperament. So while Hazen asserted local command of the Batallion in the face of probably Marik heavy armor, though potentially Mechs he liaised back to the Regimental Headquarters.

The brief flash of a gold lion on a blue field appeared and shuffled through the machines' linkages. Preempting his need to ask a wave showed an operational overview of the map run through the Titan's command and control deck showing the disposition of Lyran forces. He could see it immediately. Either two separate commands had been issued orders and it had opened a gap in their line, or when the units had maneuvered into position no one had thought to redeploy or question the deployment that had created a gap. Whatever the case was the digital display showed where there was a whole in the line ... a hold probably two or three miles wide where an enemy force hd pushed through, creating an exploitation if not necessary a breakthrough... it wasna't as if they had had to shoot their way through.

"What am I looking at Tanya? And more importantly what can we do about it?" Odin inquired, even as his eyes tracked the peripheral movement of other signals on the readout, and around his machine's exterior.

No doubt from within her highlander she was doing the same thing. "it would appear that they've launched a frontal attack with their Mech forces, and that the armor is either a probe in force through the gap, or given its turn now moving to flank." There existed still a lack of clarity of who exactly had what. It was almost assured that the overall the Lyrans had the weight of BattleMechs, and a disproportionately greater number of heavier mechs. Indeed, Odin had expected that they were going to roll the planet with significantly larger numbers, but if the mix of fusion and ICE signatures he was looking was looking at were ... "I would hypothesize the conventional armor force comprises perhaps two perhaps over strength heavy armor regiments." Which meant if this wasn't the total of their armor the Mariks very well likely had them in weight of conventional tanks... and by them Odin was reckoning the sum of Lyran forces aiming to liberate Alula Australis from the Free Worlds League.

"Can you identify the enemy leadership?"

"We're working on that now, excellency." Another voice added this one from the DropShip's command deck, "We've seen little evidence of Enemy ASF assets since planet fall." Victoria Chan reminded him. Had this been the capellans the defenders probably would have launched a near on suicidal attempt that would either have succeeded or broken their 'sword' on them, but the truth was on realizing that there were Titan... or more likely the Vengeances coming into Orbit presumably militia piloted ASF had chosen not to contest the descent into the valley.
--
Notes: This is slightly shorter than originally planned, because while I am rereading some of the old novels, the fight scene that will probably go up in the next segment is sitting in the scrap folder is one I don't want to be too super robot.... though I have been watching too much gundam wing also...

 

Fray Part 2​

They had been left to their own devices. Truthfully 'the Hammer' was probably too busy from within his Zeus to direct the wider Lyran force. It certainly didn't seem like he was trying to order anyone around. That was a problem since Frederick Steiner was the only person who had the slight est of chances being listened to by all of the Lyrans.

"They're in bound."

As if that wasn't obvious.

There was no denying that the enemy knew they were somewhere in this direction. Odin had designed the carbuncle as something of an experiment, it had followed with heavier fusion powered craft using the same fusion engine. A fifty ton hover platform just so he could avoid dodging any questions about fielding omni vehicles just yet. He just needed them to serve as harassers. . The idea of course was to produce them locally their own desert scorpion of sorts. He certainly hadn't expected to be seeing them in action this soon... and a part of him was curious as to what the Marik's made of an unknown number of hover vehicles running off fusion engines this late in the succession war.

Those considerations had probably gone out the window facing the prospect of a heavy BattleMech company.... not that it was just the Heavy mechs. He had really, would have strongly considered, if it had been an option leaving units at home. The Commando was as quintessential a Lyran mech as a Light BattleMech could be and it dominated the light Mech roster.


Odin pushed back into his harness, stretching his feet out towards the floor. They still weren't sure where the enemy leadership was, and while it would likely diminish their capacity destroying local command elements weren't likely to be nearly as productive as destroying enemy 'Mech leadership... bluntly speaking because there was a not insubstantial chance that the League had sent the tanks in to see if it wasn't a trap first. He tracked the internal combustion engine returns, which while muted in comparison to proper fusion engines were still burning hot against the background landscape. The reality was that the interference generated by well frankly ubiquitous features found in Star League era, or even Age of War technology greatly reduced the range you could reasonably be expected to hit a target. Indirect fire by LRMs, or perhaps more practically, when it was available tube artillery provided the opportunity to hit detected targets from further out, but most Star League era armors had to be defeated within direct visual ranges, and part of that was insuring you actually hit what you were aiming at.

Even hitting didn't mean armor penetration, and even achieving a penetrating hit didn't assure a kill on a hostile vehicle or an enemy mech.
--
It would have been the sort of thing that required retaining the services of a law firm, not a lawyer, a whole damn firm. Now wasn't the time for that, but it would have been nice to be able to legitimately... or at least publicly resume production of the Black Knight, but the plan was what it was. Start with spare parts and work their way up from there.

The Black Knight pivoted the DDS Kingston ER PPC sending a ray of ball lightning through the compromised side armor into the turbine diesel engine of the demolisher. He had directed the company up a ridge line overlooking the eastern valley. While most of the heavy mechs lacked advanced technologies like ER PPC the number of Marauders, and other machines included standard PPCs that provided enough range to engage from elevation. "They're in the gulley." He stated keying the mike. Blips on his radar registered the readouts from their lines as Medium ASF that he knew to be Hellcats queuing into their strafing run. The goal of the attack was more to break up and disorient the enemy armor column, preferably even cut them in half separating one side attacking into their ranks while the other had to navigate around the debris. The attacks would then end up pushing into the valley to deal with mixed vehicles and srm equipped light mechs in relatively close quarters.

That was the advantage of Large Lasers in that unlike standard PPCs didn't have field coherency issues at close range, that, and LRMs could be fired indirect without direct visual contact. "What are their Mechs doing?"

"It doesn't appear that they've responded to the change in situation," Hazen replied from within her own Black Knight, "They could be aware of the development or not." At present they had no way to be sure one way or another, just that at the moment it seemed as if the tentatively identified 'Iron Guard' were more concerned with fighting the Lyran mechs they had attacked rather than distracting themselves with other threats further afield. There was a super sonic boom as the Hellcats made their strafing run into the valley before Hazen could continue. Another demonstration that there had been little to now demonstration of Marik airpower beyond the most tentative contacts to the north east towards the planetary capital. The attack should at least stymie the flow of enemy armor towards them. "We'll have to redeploy." She meant go down there, there were just too many tanks moving into the valley now.

If the escarpment of the ridgeline had been steeper they could have forced the enemy to go around, but its shallow incline meant in theory tracked vehicles would be able to come up. It wouldn't have been an effective strategy but given Marik numbers. "I'll contact Schmitt." He replied. This was precisely the sort of engagement that favored vehicles carrying several tons of LRM ammunition into the fray... or Mechs with pure energy weapon armaments. Given the topography you couldn't really bring heavier tracked tanks optimized for close range, like the Demolisher, in except across pre identified geologically stable enough routes, due to the sinkhole risk. Taking them out into the open like that made them easy pickings for LRM or energy weapon snipers ala the Marauder. "Tanya what's the status on offload and redeploy preparations, it would seem the enemy numbers are too numerous to hold the hilltop." He paused, as the blips of fusion signatures appeared, "Confirmation of Merkava and Gallant moving up." He wondered if the mix of fusion and ICE were separate units, or simply what was on hand. The Free Worlds League had a robust manufacturing base and thus had no shortage of different vehicles to manufacture domestically. It was entirely possible that the FWLM logisticians had sent whatever they had happened to have available, but the overall impression was that the majority of Ground Combat Vehicles were ICE driven units.

--
Notes: The combat section of this was omitted, its still sitting in the scrap folder, but whenever I get over this bout of food poisoning I'll probably throw it up. Been sick since tuesday hence the relatively short updates.

 

Fray Part 3​

There was a crack and a yawning tear appeared in the side of the tank, as it flipped and rolled down the hill. There were very few things worse than something being kicked by a seventy five ton mech... excluding an Atlas or such.

It was a scarily effective tactic, and it was what they had been reduced to. Odin sighed as Hazen stomped a lighter vehicle into a smoldering piece of scrap. Other 'mechs particularly the much lighter commandoes opened fire with short range missiles into the column of vehicles.

It was all well and good to speak of the abstract and broad concepts of such engagements. That the BattleMech as the premiere unit of battle bestrode the field of war as king laying low all lesser elements and arms of war. It was wholly another to contend that they were attacking, or being counter attacked, or counter counter attacking a numerically superior conventional arms force of vehicles.

'Search Eye' diagnostics began throwing up warning signs as another wave of LRM began to come in from the purple signatures on the holographic battlemap. Odin jinked hard around the burning remains of a Merkava tank as his Kingston PPC came to bear again on another enemy vehicle. Ugly black smoke had begun to mar the landscape as vehicles burned, and in particular hydrocarbon fuels began to catch along with plastics and other flammables. They were already losing visibility anyway as the day wore on, and due to the breaks in terrain as height fluctuated through the sinkholes and depressions created by centuries of mining with heavy industrial equipment. His machine's seismographic sensors were already warning him of dangerous instabilities in places where a sinkhole could give way and cause a landslide of material thousands or more tons of rocks down the valley.

Tanya appeared over the communications line, but it didn't seem like the rest of the lyran force had decided to do anything productive. The original gap in the line was continuing to widen as both Lyran guards units continued to pull further apart. Frederick Steiner was too engaged in combat to either give the order, or was too engaged for that order to get through. Whatever the case the other two subordinate social generals were not closing the gap so much as moving in the opposite direction. "I'm bringing the rest of the brigade into action."

"Do we have a path for that?" He asked Schmitt. The geographic instability was probably more dangerous to both forces in the large scale than any one side simply shooting at the other At the prompting Schmitt's Highlander provided a narrow series of advances that would navigate them around the most dangerous portions of of old mine territory in the west valley.

The original plan had been to keep his troops in reserve in part because despite their equipment their green status, but Tanya was in a position where she could see the greater battlefield, and even without that vantage point allowing the Mariks to divide the attacking force in twain was undesirable for painfully self evident reasons from here. "Time for the Air Regiment to rearm?" Refuel was the more accurate term, Hellcats were all energy birds, as were Rapier 101s.
--
An hour and a half later... there were limitations to just how limited their own infantry were. In the grand scheme of things a regiment of infantry was not actually all that many men... not when it was supposed to be screening, and fording locations in and around regiments of Vees, and BattleMechs optimally theyre should have been two to three regiments even for each other arm given how broken up the western valley turned into... and that was without even counting providing ground security for the DropShips.

Odin knew that it couldn't have been helped... because they come into this attack on the basis of raw overwhelming numerical strength and the impression that that Mariks would probably just roll over... and that hadn't happened. They had to get through the conflict before they could learn from the mistakes that had obviously been made.

He exhaled adjusting the fine fire controls. Commandoes, and Hunchbacks filled out a close protection detail around the heavier long ranged fire mechs, but that wasn't his immediate concern. The problem confronting them wasn't the distance so much as advancing across the valley side, a handful of Scimitars were firing down with their Armstrong J11, which while not effective in terms of hitting them was slowing them considerably... and he was getting tired of it. Every minute they delayed, were delayed was more time for the Mariks to concentrate their own mech forces.

The Armstrongs were beyond the range of his Black Knight variant's clan built Er medium lasers, and even if they hadn't been the truth was that he didn't want to over emphasize their range capability. No. The DDS Kingston flashed across the intervening elevation. One of the thirty five turners vanished from his scopes as its turret blew skyward from the sudden lightning strike.

There was no point in celebrating even if he'd been inclined to after swatting the gnat. Hazen cleared her throat over the tac-net, "I'm getting mech returns a klick out, and possibly others further afield." That was regrettably to be expected. They needed to get a move on. They kept pushing forward, occasionally stopping to return fire as enemy hover assets took potshots at them from the bluffs.

They were alternating air sorties between the Hellcats and Rapiers strafing the enemy positions, which had the added advantage of feeding LRM carrying missile boats including their handful of stalkers and catapults advancing with the second prong through the valley. The river was slow moving enough, if broad, and shallow that the BattleMechs would have little issue fording even though they'd confirmed at least two of the bridges in the south end of the valley had been destroyed. Who had done the destroying, it was up in the air, no one on the Lyran side had called a fire mission and it seemed unlikely that the Mariks would have blown the bridges intentionally with their tanks over on the other side, but crossing wasn't an immediate concern.

A kilometer out contact could be closer or further depending on how much magnetic interference they were reading or other effects, but they could be talking plus or minus four hundred meters in an example of what made modern combat so terminally short ranged in terms of doing meaningful damage. Either way a kilometer was close that even with the hills closing to weapons range wouldn't take more than an hour of land navigation for anything but the slowest Mech, or the most cautious pilot.

A few keyboard strokes later his 'Search Eye' ran back as clear of a picture was they could put together from the combined Brigade level data net sourcing from orbital telemetry. A relay forwarded the overhead view to Hazen who started tasking the commandoes forward.

The Commando was not anything special. Short range short duration skirmisher. The Lion Guard Variant '-O' dropped the coventry 4-tube, and six shooter instead for mounting a Conventry 90mm six tube launcher in each arm feeding from a single ton of ammo, and relocating the standard B3M to the torso as a fall back weapon. Pairs of them were teamed with one or two Hunchbacks with the typical assault class autocannons in order to make anything stupid enough to close to close range very dead very fast, as the carcasses and ruined remains of vehicles demonstrated... but they were running out of ammunition. He didn't need Tanya reminding him of that, her Highlander wasn't precisely carrying a lot of Gauss Rifle ammunition either.

They could only plan to link the two prongs before they hit hard contact... and they almost made it to that. The heavily customized Black Knight rocketed skyward as 'Super Vernier' Advanced Jump jets sent the machine vertical alongside Hazen's own Other Black Knights with more common 'Vernier' standard model jump jets cleared the river as well unloading with their torso carried large lasers.

Rather than ejecting the PPC from its arm mount he moved to drive the anti armor sword into the unfortunate spider light battlemech in front of him The purple head of the mech splitting open as the myomer bundles of the larger seventy five tonner snapped the sword forward.
--
Frederick Steiner pressed the answer button on the console of his Zeus. His body was coated in sweat... part of that was the length of time he'd been in the cockpit but the blazer his mech carried didn't precisely help with heat build up. They had underestimated the puking chickens... to an extent.

Uncle Hermann would have chided him for not expecting more tanks.... and certainly for letting the puking chickens concentrate that much armor in any one location. Von Bulow ... well Joachim should have known to close the gap even if he couldn't get a hold of General Lee. They simply hadn't been able to communicate and so each command had attacked along their respective fronts... and the gap had developed, and then spread open.

"Its been taken care?" Frederick stared at the transmitted photos from a conventional air breather scout plane used for battlefield reconnaissance damage assessment and even occasionally for artillery spotting. "Is that an Awesome?" Or the decapitated remains of one.

He'd seen a couple of Solaris bouts where Mechs had used melee weapons, but had placed little stock that they'd be really effective in a battle... but apparently you just needed the right pilots. From the looks of it the Mariks had made the mistake of getting entirely too close... and not just for the melee weapons.

"It is sir, probably the Marik Company commander, but we can't be sure." The aide de camp replied, "The New Earth Brigade is rearming now, they've gone through most of their missile stocks."

He barked a laugh, "Well no surprise there." The family resemblance was uncanny he was surprised no one had commented on it... hell Elisa von Hohenheim was a near dead ringer for a young Nondi, or even her mother. Her brother and half brother could have easily blended in with any of his dozen cousins with no issue. "The brigade is intact?"

"Outside of ammunition effecting readiness yes, they've been covering with airpower to keep the League off of them as they bridge the river."

An entire brigade of military equipment... there were questions of course, how the deceased count had been able to leave that much heavy metal to a base born son that by all inidcations he hadn't seen in more than a decade if not longer.

A muffled curse and couple of shouts came through his DropShip command center. "Problem?" He asked. Instead of getting an answer he watched a handful of blueish black gray aerodynes lift off and vector to, presumably hop across the river. "Can they land there, I thought the terrain was compromised?"

"Probably found somewhere stable enough, by all indications the Guards fleet commander is reckless."

"Its called daring, bob." Frederick replied. "When in doubt push forward, when confronted attack."

--
Commentary: One of the problems with this chapter, and part of the delay of it is how much of the combat i wanted to deal with, and details of. For example Patton and Rommels were going to show up, originally because I had included those in the heavy vehicle line up from the space heir CYOA but those haven't been invented yet by Defiance, which would have been my oversight except Essence allows them to be whipped up early, but they won't show up just yet and were cut from the armor engagement which was scaled back.

 

Fray​

Odin leaned against the balcony of the lattice tower's restaurant. Alula Australis should have been a comfortable planet. It was ideal in weather, volume of water, and temperature for human inhabitation, but they weren't getting to enjoy it much.

Even now Lyran Security Personnel, both federal law enforcement as well as army troops, combed the streets of the capital looking for baathist officers.... a process that would probably take months. They wouldn't be here for that process, being due to rotate home relatively quickly with a Lyran administrative and occupation garrison slated to replace them whenever the archon issued the command... and that would depend on how busy Tharkad actually was.

Thus unless the League was really on the ball the only likely combat that they would see hence forth were guerilla attacks from the deposed planetary government, and remnants of the iron guard, the ones who hadn't yielded. Frankly he doubted that was likely to happen. The reality was that the League probably didn't have the numbers right now, and their repressive bloodletting over the recent civil war would have tied down forces... there was the question of course whether or not that Mariks would mount an attempt to reconquer the other half of the border protectorate... but that would likely only be organized perhaps next year.

No, the important thing was that they had struck a blow against the League, won accolades and distinguished themselves for the glory of the Commonwealth. They only needed to wait for that recognition to come from Tharkad. He wondered whether or not von Mouttheim, and Lord Roysten had been successful, if they had succeeded in taking Zosma. Had they encountered as much resistance, had their been more armor than they had planned for there.

Now that the fighting was done, and they were sitting here just waiting for word to get around, to find out what had happened on Zosma, or word from Tharkad he felt himself eager to return to even just New Earth. Rigil Kentaurus though was one jump away, but the bureaucracy would require them to return to New Earth first to stand down and take stock of everything before they made the jump back to home... that was just how the bureaucracy worked. He hoped what wouldn't happen was that they would require everyone to assemble back at New Earth , but that would depend on vagaries within the high command.

There was little to do but wait and stew in their boredom now that the fighting was done. He supposed most people would put that down to being a bored young mechwarrior, and part of it probably was.

The light meal arrived with Tanya in tow, with what he had really expected, "The reports excellency."

He stepped back from the balcony, and spared a longing glance to the appetizer, and glass of red wine. "Of course place them there. "He would have liked if their debut in combat really had distinguished more of their personnel, but the truth was the brigade's success was more in weight of numbers than anything.

Not that the media would portray it as that. The truth was unglamorous, but it was still the truth. They had attacked before the unit was ready, before there was a proper espirit de corp to draw on. Too much of a mix and not enough time to integrate even just the MechWarriors, never mind all of the other assets. He reached to swirl the wine glass and give it some air, before taking a tentative sip, "We should be grateful that it was against the League, and not the Combine," He wasn't sure the Combine would have been as indecisive and then prone to surrender after the tide had turned... they had lucked out in that the Mariks had realized they had just accidentally run into a BattleMech regiment with significant support on top of the other Lyran brigades they had contacted

The jamming on both sides had probably dragged things out longer in preventing both commanders from coming to terms, now that he thought about it.

A dark look crossed Scmitt's face, as he brought it up, "Dieron, and Altair are a jump away," From Rigil Kentaurus, and that was true, and something he was all too aware of. They were lucky in that respect taht the previous archon's grievance had largely rested with fighting the Mariks, and the weakness provided by the League's recent civil war... but they couldn't count on that forever.
--
It wasn't really an issue that Tharkad was more than a dozen jumps, over three months away... the Hegemony's perhaps greatest contribution to the League had been the creation of the SLCOMNET that facilitated FTL communication across the Inner Sphere. There were more limits to what ComStar could do in the modern era but even with the degradation of the network, but they could have gotten word to Tharkad now that the planet was secure.

... and yet nothing. He wasn't quite nervous per se... and there really was no particular reason to expect some kind of response from Tharkad, but it certainly seemed like Skye new... which yes, admittedly the provincial capital was closer... and any long term garrison force to replace them would likely come from the Isle's troops.

So that was probably nothing. Maybe it was just the fact they were sitting here doing nothing that was the problem. He had time to stew without anything productive to actually work on. This wasn't being stuck on a DropShip with an idea of what they were going into... they were just stuck waiting in garrison. Actually that was arguably the worst part only the officers were really being allowed off garrison to deter fraternization between enlisted and the civilian population... and there was nothing he could do about it.

"Nothing?" He asked straightening his short tunic. Scmitt shook her head. The twenty year old baron's frown deepened. And tried to tell himself he was expecting too much too fast. So what if Skye knew of their success. Presumably if Tharkad hadn't been told it was only because they hadn't been told yet, and that word was still enroute to the capital of the commonwealth, hampered by the decline from the heyday of the star league. Still every day they were here without official word from the archon recognizing their actions was another day he expect Marik JumpShips to appear in system to contest their hold of the planet even though it was really likely the purple chickens could manage the numbers to dislodge the present force...

... unless they went nuclear, but he recognized that was unlikely. It wasn't the first or second succession wars, and the idea that the League would go nuclear was absurd.

"Have we heard anything from the Zosma liberation?"

Scmitt again answered in the negative, and then, "Its possible that they've sent word, and it simply hasn't been passed on, but by all indications no one has heard anything."

He had to wonder if that too was to be expected. "And there is nothing you can do to prepare the troops while we're stuck here?" He asked. "The simulator pods." There were only so many of them he knew that, but he was grasping at straws.

"Only in small patches, in theory we could network the Overlords."

"Something would be better than nothing," It would keep the enlisted Mechwarriors something to do, but it still didn't provide for the other troops, "Make the arrangements." The horrifying thought that something had gone wrong on Zosma had occurred to him. It was possible he supposed von Mouttheim had failed.... and he had to wonder if Frederick Steiner would want to take the forces from Alula Australis to launch a second attack on Zosma or not. A second heavy blow might dislodge any remaining Marik defenders and would secure their victory, but it might also be throwing good money after bad, and possibly even risk their present success here. "Drill the men as best you can Tanya, we need them to be ready, we came here too early," They hadn't been ready for this, even if they had succeeded in the objective. "We can only hope that our success here is such that it buys us the Archon's good graces, and that in turn gives us time to learn from our mistakes." He didn't explicitly voice his ... was confusion the best word, with Frederick Steiner's HPG conversation with the duke of Skye... it was true that a live HPG communique was expensive and perhaps he couldn't arrange one directly with Tharkad at the time, or perhaps contact Skye had other legitimate military reasons, but either way, "I will be looking forward to leaving the planet, and strengthening the unit."
--
Notes: I had planned to settle Thursday back with the Luxen overhaul but here we are. This is somewhat incomplete the conclusion chapter was going to have other point of views besides Odin coming off his first campaign victory, and then finding himself stuck in a city where he can't really do anything and another scene with Frederick may go up later.

 

Pacification.​

There was something of a relief when the first infantry and armor dropships finally began to arrive even if they were in Skye Livery. Provincial troops were better than no troops, even if he would have preferred to be relieved by Lyran regulars. Still that they were getting relieved meant Tharkad hadn't put a stop to this, and hung them out to dry. He had started to get worried there for a moment that Katrina might have been using them as bait.

They'd won. That was good. They were going to use this as the building block to bring even greater glory to the Commonwealth, and that was what he wanted, what House Steiner needed. They needed to redeem Alesandro's failures and prove to the people that now was the time to strike. They had the opportunity and will to defeat the enemy in the field and that they could actually break the status quo.

Frederick 'the Hammer' Steiner looked at his fellow elites and nodded, but the one thing he couldn't promise were official accolades. He wasn't the Archon, and even though they'd liberated Two worlds for the Commonwealth holding them would be something that would depend on the Archon making decisions.

The Witch would need to provide some kind of kudos, they'd thrashed the FWLM. For Frederick Steiner and indeed those assembled established members of the Lyran nobility the factors that had made this possible were largely institutional. The exploit in the system so to speak to pull house troops for feudal service had some degree of oversight, but the degraded status of the HPG network, and the decline of centralization relative to the political organization of the Star league era along side that had meant suddenly having enough troops on hand to realistically execute the invasion had been a demonstration of spontaneity. No one had expected them to do anything like this.

Only that those troops had become available, and that wasn't something that had been planned for either by the Lyran High Command, or thus could be predicted by foreign intelligence services... and thus the course of history had changed, and that change would proceed further.
--
Odin sank into the water, crossing his arms, and breathed. Even if with the nicer amenities it was still a boring experience now that the fighting was over. Being relieved by Lyran troops was taking forever it seemed like... he had though that had had just been a teenage problem of never wanting to sit still and that he'd outgrown it... but the shooting was done, and they were still here.

... sitting in the metaphorical dark... waiting to be cleared for the return home, and it was the waiting that was killing the twenty year old baron. They had nothing to do here anymore know that the fighting was done, they couldn't even conduct real exercises, and they weren't supposed to fraternize with the locals so his men were stuck doing nothing as well.

The upper levels of command didn't even want them practicing ... or rather what Odin suspected was that there was social pressure not to be drilling because it made the other house troops look bad... so he really could have Tanya do all that much... he wanted off this rock, and to get back to his other work.

Speaking of his Guard troops commander Tanya entered the lodge with a noteputer configured for holographic theater, "Donegal Broadcasting are now reporting on the liberation of Zosma by Commonwealth troops." DBC had apparently scheduled a 'forthcoming' interview with the hero of liberation forces General Mouttheim... an interview that even if it had been included with the package he wouldn't have felt like watching.

No doubt Mouttheim was living up the prestige and bohemian fashion of being an established social general while his troops languished. Soaking up the fame, while the lower ranks sat there doing nothing on Zosma's surface. He half wondered if Mouttheim had even stuck around, if he had decided that he didn't need to return to New Earth with everyone else and might have decided to make a 'triumphant' return to Tharkad.

It wouldn't have surprised... especially since him leaving quickly meant he couldn't be blamed for not have fended off a League counter attack that might still come. Or if the Combine decided to scavenge the 'kill'.

The victory parade hadn't been much different than the one Frederich Steiner had organized but either Mouttheim had horrible taste in music, or in a pique of patriotic misjudgement Donegal Broadcasting had decided to overlay an awful electro polka-esque measure to the march, perhaps to appeal to its older viewers. Whatever the case it was one more thing to be annoyed at, as he sat there. "Tanya how do you feel about running drills in the DropShips regardless of what the neighbors think."

Schmitt merely nodded in agreement.

Frankly as Odin was concerned what he did on his own damned dropships was his business and if the layabouts didn't like it... well that was too bad, "Good, because I am bored of this enforced elegance and tranquility that lacks real meaning." There was so much he needed to do... thoughts of Aerospace fighters, and JumpShips flitted painfully beyond his present reach. He needed to secure Rigil Kentaurus first... because that was foremost what he had to hold.

He would need ASF for that. "Excellency?"

Odin lifted slightly up from where he'd moved to leaning against the pool's edge, "We need to get back, and begin manufacture of ground vehicles for the militia." Not just for the militia but he needed to expedite that, and quickly enough to begin producing material to cover explaining creating enough of an armor force to hold the planet if he was called away again. Really that wasn't a question of if so much as when. They wouldn't be able to build battlemechs... yet, but there were companies he knew wanted to discuss rights for bringing back los tech down the road... and more. "We need to defend both our holdings on the planet's surface as well as on the moon." Of course the moon had the advantage of being easier to defend in theory but advertising ownership of a castle Brian before he was confident in his militia troops was sure to invite a visit from the Combine or League, or the Capellans. He pulled himself up and out of the pool. "Is that footage making its rounds?"

"It hasn't been publicly broadcast yet." She replied.

He nodded and collected a towel from the chair, "I refuse to be put in a position the Mariks left this world in." Or presumably Zosma... he was tempted to ask if they knew what Zosma's actual defenses had looked like but he doubted anyone knew or would tell him. The news bureau's brief sound bite of Mouttheim had been purely for propaganda consumption.
--
Hazen stood a bit further behind him. They aboard the Titan class dropship which was admittedly something that stood out more than the Overlords. He wasn't overly concerned about the distinction the DropShip brought him.

The display image of the surrounding grounds showed their encampment ringed with flagpoles. The Lyran Commonwealth flag, and the golden lion rampant on a blue field, but it was what was beyond that which was the more telling factor. After more than three weeks Commonwealth recovery operations were concluded. In the sense that finally recovery vehicles had finished dragging the debris, and hulks out of the badlands. The Lyran engineers had been so kind as to even throw up a chain link fence around the bone yard.

This might have been considered remedial duty, or even a punishment by most, but he didn't mind at all. It gave the men something to do other than sit in the garrison unable to do anything. Besides, the Combat Roms meant that what had happened would circulate. They weren't allowed salvage, this was an offensive operation so salvage rights were strictly a mercenary matter, though that also meant repairs came out of the federal pocket book.

He watched as the large earth moving vehicles finished pushing another embankment of dirt into position. They'd probably be gone by the time the Supply Corp figured out what they were going to do with all of this... the mechs would likely end up in the hands of the quartermaster corp, or otherwise be taken into Lyran service, but he suspected that the vehicles would just be put to hoc, that was auctioned off.

... and of course the benefit of having guard duty away from any other house troops meant his troops at least could enjoy actual daylight and air without running afoul of the MPs... even if it did entail actual guard duty to go along with it. "Any activity thus far?"

"No,"

LIC claimed that they had swept up all of the SAFE goons, their marik equivalents, by this point but it didn't hurt to be wary, but the truth was there was a beginning to become pervasive grumbling of when they'd get off this rock. House troops simply weren't used to being cooped up and denied the usual liberties like weekend passes especially troops in ducal service who rarely left home at all, and the Hammer was surely aware that grumbling was mounting.

--
Notes: Short conclusion update to the first campaign, and we move back to Kentares wher eamong other things we will begin to deal with the play through of different factors and the impact of the Essence in the title

 

The Return Home​

... and so his first campaign, as an adult, was concluded as the last DropShip returned to the surface of Rigil Kentaurus. The video image stilled as onlookers came to welcome the last of the arriving troops home. The garrison, one could hardly call it an occupation in sound bites to the lyran public, of the two new Lyran worlds were Lyran Regulars... and there would be consequences. The regulars would have to hold the worlds of Zosma and Aula Australis as well, which was a whole other matter, but even now the Lyran news apparatus were chronically the 'border protectorate's' baathist regime and its 'desperate efforts' to keep the people in fief to the tyrant marik.

They really were laying it on a bit thick. Not that there hadn't been baathist atrocities confirmed to have occured, but frankly the people on the world had just seemed tired.

A military governor would be installed for both worlds, and it would take time before the committee to the estates general would even convene never mind start making suggestions about when either world would be ready for proper civil Lyran government. Of course part of that was making sure the commonwealth could hold the worlds. There would be very real grumbling if either world was lost, but it would largely be confined to the naturally bellicose, gentry or nobility alike, but it would be limited to grumbling. If the estates general admitted the worlds as Lyran and included them in the assembly at Tharkad... and then they were lost that would be significantly worse.

In the immediate short term though, there was little he could do in regards to either world. Once the new military governor was selected, and after she, or him, were settled in they might request a rotation from his troops but that would be next year at the earliest, if they did at all. There were reasons for both, pro and cons. As the youngest titleholder, not simply heir or spare but an actual landed property holder, there were social mores often conflicting norms about what to do. The military governor might well decide it wasn't in the interest to open the world for investment opportunities particularly soon, for reasons beyond just 'security'.

So for the time being it was time to return home. 'Alpha C' to use the painfully dated term of the ancient Terran Alliance had never been especially peopled, and of course the string of misfortunes the planet had befallen from the fall of the hegemony on had done it no favors. It was a lovely world though. Lowe's Landing had had to be chosen for implicitly military and economic reasons for its location, that was simply the way it had to be but with land prices as they were he'd found a piece of prime real estate over looking a massive lake where the erosion, and deposition of so called glacial flour poured into the water painting a fabulous blue. He'd never be able to put anything military into the body of water, but he had the sea for that. Now the lakehouse served a much more genteel function, a place to return to now that the fighting was over.

... and of course the fighting had given them time to construct the house as well...high in the kentauran alps he had an entire mountain to work into after all, and support the facilities necessary for his battlemechs, and ASF. Far closer to the Landing and its spaceports were the garrisons for the Vehicle battalion, as well as an air based for quick reaction sorties by more ASF... admittedly he'd had to strip his own forces to go on this varangian adventure against the League, but they were back now. A victory pennant flying for the public to see, an important symbol for public relations. The people needed to be immersed in the Lyran victory over the league.

There was a fine line, he had been told, between immersion and drowning them. Odin looked at the pennant with annoyance... stripping forces from the planet annoyed him. More so now that he was back, and had been able to contemplate, to decompress for a few days. He conjured the blocky gothic script and its inventory.

Technically speaking he had two estates in the system. That was a legal distinction separate from other property, including holding out right cities or factories both of which could considered fiefdoms or not depending on various minutiae. There were certain expectations though, and he had a driving need to live up those standards and more importantly to make Bauer would be interested when the time came to get a license to produce the Rapier.

He wanted the legal cover of having a license to produce the whole thing... not just spare parts... but he'd settle for getting the latter to start with. He was going to play off his existing wings of Rapiers as inheritance and finds... especially once the Castle Centaur was disclosed... and of course he'd be able to play off some of hte machinery and tooling as coming from the castle as well.

He looked at the block characters totaling both cash reserves in C-Bills, as well as a separate value of banked Battle Value mostly generated by deconstructing part of his inheritance in what had at the time b een something of a poorly thought out rush to do something.

The news feed finally changed away from the down town flying pennant view but decided to compound his headache by replaying, for the at least fourth time he'd had to hear his own voice promising to endeavor to continue to make the system safe for all Lyran citizens. Which of course on its surface meant continuing clean up operations and maximizing the work down by the terraformers as they worked to scrub the planet of any remaining contaminants. He had been assured that the sound bite was a good one... but Rigil had never been a particularly populated world even before the bombs had fallen, and he suspected his commitment to the community was something the PR advisor had suggested in order to appeal to a broader lyran constituency. Maybe they thought he wanted a shot at being elected to the estates general... even though he was a baron he was still eligible for a seat in the people's chamber.

The sound bite though was also cover to expand the militia he was entitled to, to provide for additional house troops... and also what better way to make the system safe but by building domestic factories to produce tanks for the militia to use. Not that they were there yet. He couldn't simply magic a factory out of thin air.... without raising questions.

SO of course the official explanation would be that the component factories on planet and moon had been constructed and were still being constructed over the time of the deployment. The ammunition works producing long range missiles well those would be easy to explain. Producing lasers would need more time.

Centaur Castle obviated the need to construct DropShip facilities for the frankly ridiculous fleet he had inherited, even diminished by recycling into his bank of BV, and C-Bills.
--
The advantage to Castle Centaur was its interior geometry... well that and the fac that all of its systems were still completely intact more broadly speaking. He had little concern about any one creating trouble by sneaking into the underground city sized fortification.

He had originally considered producing the eighty ton thug. The pitban 320 would have been useful for heavy vehicles as well... but then the idea had struck him as they had loaded up the guard's various Black Knights... and in a fervent, feverish burst of energy and enthusiasm he had gotten to work.

The 'Talgeese' were based off of the Black Knight's chassis, and most had been designed off of the general principle.. One thing had lead to another and resulted in down teched Leos. Those at least could be theoretically rolled out as a wholly unique new mech design.

While a tade warm a PPC four medium lasers and two large was nothing likely to attract much attention, or he didn't think it would given that all of those were common off the shelf components.

It would certainly attract less attention to the bulk of the hideous mottle gray hundred tonner and its armor plating that looked strange in comparison. The Bartlet's size looked normal compared to the Atlas next to it. They could probably concealed the fact it ran off an XL fusion engine, and maybe they could popularize the MML's that no one would really notice them later... but Extended range large lasers were also los Tech.

Ultimately though the hundred tonner was all what the Essence crafting considered Inner Sphere tech. The mech was not like the mixed tech cobbling together of the Clans... which were other can of worms.

"What do you think?"

His bodyguard looked at the missile boat. "I think I'd rather take one of the Talgeese out." He nodded. He had considered that already. The real difference, getting past external cosmetics in the body was that if they were pushed to deploy the Talgeese was that they were built largely on Clan Technology... including weapons that he'd been willing to expend BV to craft that weren't available yet.

Hazen's preferred Talgeese carried a truly monstrous hyper assault gauss weapon for its primary weapon. "I understand entirely." He replied looking down the bays, and passed a handful of dark navy blue machines... and machines were the operative word. Despite carrying large vibroblades, and gauss rifles they were advanced battlemech drones intended to engage under the direct supervision of the units.

They were something of a trump card to play in close quarters... and they were expensive each running over two thousand BV for a group of machines intended as guards... he could have probably come up with a more cost effective drone mech if he hadn't gotten distracted.

Odin looked back to the hundred tonner, "I want to introduce the MML sooner rather than later," Just for the flexibility of being able to field mechs that could carry specialty ammunition, and field either LRMs or SRMs. There were limits, flaws with the plan as he'd discussed with Scmitt over discussions of their '6O' Commando namely that MML-9 launchers that the Barlet carried weighed six tons. Or the weight of the 2 SRM 6 launchers on their commando "But for now this," He remarked walking around the gantry and looking the tubes, and large laser mounted in the right arm, "This is just an experiment."

An experiment he had probably gotten entirely too carried away with, but it was almost addicting making them. The Bartlett's light ferro fibrous glinting as he moved around to the back. The jump jets were in the feet of course. The machines heat sinks weren't sufficient to allow it to continuously alpha strike, but that was fine... even if they dropped down to standard range large lasers that would be true the DHS wouldn't quite be able to ablate an alpha strike's heat, and it would build up... but again it was just an experiment.

He blew out another breath and looked around the castle brian's interior. The priority needed to be Medium factory units which cost basically equivalent to his hundred ton idle fancy. Tomorrow would be another day. Another day, another investment into the beginning of a process.

"Schmitt has the troops."

He echoed her comment, and nodded, War changed people, inspired emotions... and maybe he was being paranoid about the prospect of a Marik attack, but he wanted to be ready if any of the neighbors jumped the border. He spared lingering glance at his creation, and nodded.