Battletech: The Ghost Who Walks (Battletech Isekai)

I Davion Part 6
(A)​

Castle Sandoval's great hall was draped with flags, and pennants and all range of battle honors, some of which Gene was sure predated the Federated Suns and certainly the Star League. That wasn't the issue though, they had managed to get through the parade to the castle, but the previous day's orientation, for lack of a better word, was having knock on effects.

Gene spared a look between the two Davion mech warriors as they bristled at each other. Not a great start. Jason Castro, call sign 'King Wolf'... which Gene was willing to bet money he'd selected himself, was the first born son of the Duke of Rio. His daddy was currently making small talk over hor d'oeuvres with his friend the Duke of Robinson... why exactly Jason had attended RBA and not a school... well somewhere like say Albion... it didn't matter... what did matter was that this didn't spill into brawl in the reception floor. "If either of you hope to see combat against the DCMS ever again you'll stow this away." He hissed.

Monday could not come fast enough. The parade had been ... the same as on Elidere, or Ander's moon... well lacking the SLDF Star League venerating religious bits, but that was something of a relief. The duke, of Robinson's, speech had been similar in tone and character to the one he had made when he'd first arrived, extolling to the public the need for champions to stand against the dragon's tyranny... and so, sharpening swords. The religious aspect had come from the local bishop invoking Saint George. The chief rabbi of armed forces of the Draconis March... who was in uniform... had delivered much less religiously loaded speech after.

"Are you not enjoying yourself?" a feminine voice cut in. The countess of Kestrel normally dressed up, but the deep purple silk accentuated the gold jewelry in the kind of state of wealth and opulence that would have made the Medici, Crassus and the like feel under dressed. Taken with most of the high society attire it was like the Victorian period drama on steroids, cranked to eleven. Of course the reality was that most dress uniforms of known space were largely modelled on the styles of the Great Powers of the late 19^th century... and if he were honest that wasn't the worst comparison.

Before he could answer Bard Cameron had taken a forward position on the stadium to speak. In something of a contrast to the previous Marcher Officers Cameron had been present at Elidere, fighting on both worlds. That didn't make his speech any less charged with rhetoric, but provided it with a somewhat different character from those of higher officers. When he was finished Gene wasn't sure whether Bard's speech had gotten enough or received too much applause from a room dominated principally by nobles used to hobb nobbing at each just as they had done for centuries of warfare since the fall of the Star League. There could be no separation of money, and influence either, even if there was some difference between just being rich and being a noble.

He snagged a replacement drink from a passing red jacket. It was better than the champagne that they had started the evening with. "We've been here two day, Lady Alexandria. The Field Marshal wants us off world and enroute in September. It will take us a month and change to reach New Avalon." He had been told that Robinson was one of the less ring knocker institutions, not in those exact words, but that there was an emphasis on learning to fight against the combine here than other institutions that relied more on noble networking schools. He wasn't seeing it. "In order to get anything meaningful done we need to be out in the field... and the last thing I need is some," butter bar, "First lieutenant slugging it out with a cadet anywhere, but certainly not at one of these."
--
The display on his clock ticked from 1101, to 1102 local time.

He buttoned back up in his cockpit. There were ... besides the time constraints other limits to just copying and pasting the SLDF instruction program for MechWarriors. Cutting PT, runs, crunches, and push ups and so on didn't sit well with him. They didn't have a choice though. They didn't have the time for it, even if the RBA had a gym that was second to none.

Rio's Thunderbolt, and he refused to use the lieutenant's declared call sign of king wolf, was standing by on the firing line. Not everyone was adhering to that. There were almost sixty AFFS battlemechs across an area, innocuously designated Scrubland, the size of Salisbury plain in England on old Earth.

Gene reached over and pulled the harness over his shoulder, and then the other latching in, "Alright, as a reminder this a maneuver exercise you want to maintain a safe distance between your lance mates." As Jason Castro had already graduated the RBA and held an active commission in the AFFS he'd been given one of the Lances to command, but nothing higher than that. Given that he was a duke's son that might well prove a problem since there were three provisional units on the field. "this is a maneuver course and ability to navigate terrain both real and simulated. Your weapons are to remain safed except at designated fire zones. On the flare." He couldn't hear the mortar like noise the launcher made as it threw a red strobing beacon into the air but he could see it fine. Bard's handshake pinged. "Battalion Commander," He greeted.

"Should I be referring to you as Regimental Commander then?" The david bowie look alike replied with a brogue drawl.

The truth was it didn't matter, "That depends on whether or not the Field Marshal thinks you should, or not. Colonel is sufficient."

"How about Ghost, its not nearly as long as Phantom, not nearly as pretentious as White Death, and you can call me Bard, it'll be like on Elidere." The Ranger replied.

... yeah the prospect of being outnumbered by an entire mech Brigade sounded lovely, but that wasn't what Bard had meant, "What do you need Bard?"

"I haven't gotten through the entirety of the lesson plan, I admit that, but why three and not four."

"Are you asking why I'm organizing this whole unit as a single Battalion?"

"Well yeah. I guess I am. I mean not everyone will be going, we don't have the lift capacity."

Well, on that, "I expect that that latter could change." It wasn't in stone in any event. Scheduling would probably be the bigger issue, especially given the necessary trip to New Avalon, but DropShips could probably be found. "But the other reason is that the element that remains behind can be used as a continued training unit to reconstitute from. This is already a mix of current students, and graduates," Robinson did have a cadet cadre, but nothing to the insanity of combine's sun zhang's academy cadre. "We have more light and medium mechs than I expected," More Valkyrie and Black Jacks primarily, and fewer Assaults ... though there was an Atlas, an Awesome, a Stalker in addition to a Victor among the AFFS mech.

"That's another thing."

"It is," The JaegerMechs were probably going to be left behind, unless they had an abundance of mech carrier space that they just didn't right now. "I need to know how All of them do in overland navigation before we even consider putting them in the field with tanks."
--

Yvonne Davion had the luxury of observing from the command post. That meant observing without being physically present. "You should be there," She idly chided the countess.

"If I show up in a BattleMech it'll be little more than a distraction." She replied, "And if I wasn't in a battlemech at this stage I would just be in the way."

The duchess clucked her tongue, and bit down a comment that she was glad Rebecca Hasek was already married, "In an ideal situation it will be the Guards who liberate any worlds we take from the Combine, but the damage to them has been done."

Her lady in waiting gave perfectly polite, if perfunctory acknowledgement of the obvious.


"It would be against our interests, or at least not ideal to have the command move along like the Wolfs dragoons did, this isn't the first cadre contract either, there is a unit out in Canopian space which has been giving our periphery observers fits. Given who his friends are its not unlikely his next stop will be the Lyrans, no that's why this is an excellent opportunity to capitalize."

And of course any major victories against the Combine would serve as a political check against House Hasek, and potentially diminish their power in the long run. There was a significant advantage to this campaign, for Hanse's vendetta to avenge the death of both his brother, as well as the losses at Halstead Station by breaking the most belligerent of successor states as a military threat. "We have an opportunity to humiliate the Draconis Combine, and cut them off from the Terran corridor... and the only thing we should truly lament about all of this is that it didn't present itself when we still had the Wolfs Dragoons under contract."

Entire regiments appearing just like that, more than a decade earlier, Whatever their origins the Dragoons had sense proven their bona fides in the field as mercenaries though... and more importantly they were not on the opposing side.


The old woman sighed wistfully, and lamented that it couldn't be helped. "You see Alexandria our young colonel appeared quite out of no where. He shows up in the periphery as a Mercenary with a pristine battlemech, not unlike the dragoons, even apparently at a comparable skill level. No background, no house affiliation, a willingness to make an unsupported orbital insertion against a hostile force of battle proven Combine veterans. That the Magistracy let him slip away from them twice is just absurd." She reached a long bony hand towards the files, "In 2766 as a part of the purge of the Hegemony, and Star League facilities, Stefan Amaris ordered a general purge, to be carried out by any means necessary, of all SLDF and Hegemony military institutions of higher learning. These ranged from very thorough, nuclear attacks on Venus, and mars to nerve gas, along with the somewhat more mundane though still brutal massacres associated with the Gestapo. Faculty students, and caught in the crossfire were the documents and manuals as well. That's why even today even reprints of SLDF manuals continue to fetch premium prices."

That wasn't because they were completely lost. You could still get reprints made, but they were copies often of even basic star league field manuals still three hundred years later being reproduced by major universities, or military academies. There Eridani Light Horse still used those manuals.
--
Notes: This has also been divided in half, as part of the restructuring two parts before the opening of this segment were removed one focusing on Cunningham the day before the gala, and the second an introduction of Jason 'Kingwolf' Castro, the duke of Rio's son. The content of latter is being adopted to be reused in Part B as I restructure the second half of the first Davion chapter. I Davion will most likely resolve itself in the meeting with Hanse Davion on New Avalon now under the revised outline.

Discounting the various interludes that are assigned to this the ~ roughly twelve thousand words will largely confine itself to Robinson's various major factions and those acting on the planet as Part B will largely pick up with the resumption of Bard's conversation as the Marcher Battalion goes through its paces.

 

NON CANON: Whoops
Part 2​

Gene kept pacing. The combat boots clicking against the linoleum tiles of the New Kyoto office building. It had been several days now, so the transmission itself wasn't the problem. It was the consequences of the message's content. It had been long enough that Rasalhague separatists on Skye had sent a message by Fax machine relaying a general call to arms against the Combine now while the Dragon was distracted. A rebellion that very likely would be echoed by the Azami in response to the transmission if as reported it had been transmitted everywhere with an HPG.

That had been a star le... a Hegemony data control override, it probably wasn't accurate to call it a virus so much as a backdoor, and maybe some aggressive malware, but that was irrelevant. That didn't answer the question of who was responsible. "You are going to wear a hole in the floor."

He glanced at the doorway with the JumpShip captain, "I give it good odds that Kurita, or a subordinate commander with launch authority goes nuclear sooner rather than later. The Sword of Light potentially has launch authorization," Or at least they had during the Star League era, but then there had been warships back then... and well there weren't now. "The Otomo almost certainly does, the ISF might, the Five Pillars command well, see the matter with the Otomo probably having that... you back a dog into a corner with no way out it tends to bite."

Pasha nodded, "Yes, I concede that we will see desperation from the Dragon's servants. The victories at Elidere, and at Dieron... and that is why, I must advise you to return to the Federated Suns and allow us to fight with them against the Dragon." He paused, "Unless you have come to some arrangement with the Commonwealth."

"No, I haven't spoken with the Lyran authorities, getting a meeting with the Daimyo has been a pain." Part of that was ... comstar being cagey about the status of the HPG. The one here might or might not have been fine, but the computer script running at the screen, a recording of which he'd been going over almost daily... had shown it had gotten dangerous overclocked and hot. The core might or might not have burned out... but given the network numbers a large chunk of the network had probably burned out under the strain of an inner sphere wide broadcast. "I was going to go to the MRB today," and try and sus out if they'd admit anything about the HPG network's status "I was under the impression that the plan was to help your people migrate to the periphery, to avoid any retaliation."

"I would like to see my sons again, but I feel this is the path god has put us on. Two JumpShips will not meaningfully impact the exodus, and assisting the suns is something they will repay."

"I'll convene the staff, make sure we have everything needed for leaving... and I'll need you to send a message with the second wave for the Magistracy."

"The canopians?"

"I need them to find a job for out two marooned guys out there, unless Majesty Metals wants to permanently stick them on that dust ball." It wasn't really levity, not given the situation. "I have no idea how the periphery is going to react to this assuming that they got this broadcast,"

"There is little chance that it would change day to day life. The biggest threat is likely to remain pirate activity, if anything the periphery may be safer with the successor states given a clear reason to focus on the Draconis Combine."

That was certainly true. "Just so we're clear, I can't promise being able to talk the Federated Suns into trying to liberate Markab," or that they wouldn't want to install their own rulers or administration on it in place of the Kuritan authorities, but it was just a single jump from Galatia. "And we'll need a jump route to Davion space."
--
He put the receiver down having gotten off the phone finally with one of Abner's colleagues at the Kyoto College.

Septim had looked like he had a rough night, which was a potential issue. The ruling noble of new Kyoto utilized the title Daimyo... in strictly speaking a somewhat more sensible use of the word than the Combine did.... which was ironic given the Commonwealths Scotts-irish German smorgasbord. "We're going back to fight the snakes?"

He raised an eyebrow. "We're going back to Davion space, how did you find out?"

"I-"

"Those dreams again? Do you have a Cameron in the family tree," He muttered, and shook his head pushing on, "What'd you see?"

"I don't know, just" The Lyran shook his head, "I saw wolves and horses fighting snakes," Septim paused... some times his dreams didn't happen. Sometimes there were cases where he was seeing totems of belligerents who wouldn't fight for years... or maybe not even at all.

"Right, grab a shower, and some coffee I need to give something to the duke of the planet before we leave."

"Thought you said they kept pushing you back."

"They're going to squeeze us in, but I need you to get ready." Septim left, and Gene got up from behind the desk. Wolves and Horses... the latter was obviously the Eridani. Septim had seen their totem mustang before, the black horse at different intervals. The wolves... the dragoons... that they'd recontract with the Davions wasn't outlandish. He walked around and grabbed the computer core case Septim had completely ignored when he'd walked in. Another copy of the Volgadon Medical school, like he'd given Alamut's Azami colonists. What the Duke and Kyoto college did with it would be on them but they'd be off world soon.

They took a convoy ride into the city, a standard precaution since the broadcast the previous week and the resulting panic and limited civil unrest that had struck New Kyoto's capital of Hirihito. Capital security was being provided by a Merc Unit in long term Lyran employ, which provided the BattleMech component. They were being backed up by Lyran Armor and Infantry, the latter of which were on display throughout Hirihito's streets. A far cry to the planet just two weeks earlier when the streets had been filled with pedestrians shopping and sight seeing and what not.

"So what are we doing boss?"

"IN theory, we're trying to make friends we can fall back on," He replied as the armored vehicle slowed to a halt, and prepared to let them disembark. "In practice, we're trying to undo a little bit of the damage the succession wars caused, and make life a little better."

Endo Musashi, Daimyo (Duke) Kyoto had allocated them twenty minutes, which was really about fifteen minutes given the formalized introduction. He hadn't really expecting much, and really only agreed on the advice of one of his retainers who sat on the board of Kyoto College. To say he hadn't really expected much to come out of the meeting with a mercenary had been an understatement.

Doctor Yamanaka on the other hand, "Do you know what you're handing over?"

"Yeah," Gene shook his head, "I know you're in a better position to use it than I am, and I'm shipping off world. " The consequences of that Spring day in 3018 wouldn't manifest, statistically for several years. The Lyran Commonwealth had all through the succession wars maintained a high standard of living disproportionately greater than the rest of the successor states. It had still suffered, but it its quality of life had not lost the basics of a social welfare that provided for the very lowest and frail of society even as it encouraged them to do ascribe to a bismarkian notion of greatness and aspiration to do better for themselves and their family.

It would take time for Kyoto College to digest and promulgate a new class of doctors on lost star league medical techniques, even longer for pharmacologic, amd machinery in the field to become available... and from New Kyoto it began to disperse out through the Lyran medical system. This did consequently effect the wealthiest and most influential first.

Within a decade on a routine physical utilizing Star League medicine an anomaly was detected in Archon Katrina Steiner, the early stages of cancer. If it hadn't been caught that early with techniques lost centuries earlier it would have certainly continued to lay undetected until it would have been terminal. In the nascent FedCom union between the great states the return of previous medicines and later other additions would play... other life saving, and life improving measures.

--
Notes: Tentatively, Essence will update in a week, Luxen II will update the 21^st. This is apart of the non canon 'Whoops' set which is why we don't get more of Endo Yamanaka other than a brief blurb here. If this were canon this would probably be a longer segment, because we would have to contend with the fallout of handing a Lyran duke that sort of thing.

Spoiler: Other consequences

Septim's very disappointed father "You did what, and didn't think about how it might benefit the family."

"Papa, I wasn't exactly told what we were doing before we went and did it."

 

I Davion Part 6 (B)​

July 3017
Robinson, Draconis March, Federated Suns
Three over strength companies to play with. It was a heady feeling, he had to admit. The prospective battle that awaited, well being on the offensive would be a relief. It almost made up for the hangover this morning had started with, but it was always a thrill to be in the cockpit.

He brought his fifty five tonner around the bend. The fighting on Elidere had been entirely too recent for the school's construction battalion to build mock ups from ply wood and fiberglass of the townships effected by the fighting, but for all practical purposes there was little difference in a frontier town in terms of how civilian buildings effected operations. You either avoided them, or you went through them.

... the Combine had demonstrated at Elidere that it was willing to go through them. It was true that that violated the spirit of the Ares convention, but the Ares Convention had legally been defunct for centuries... and while its spirit had reentered as something of a gentleman's agreement between the great houses after the third succession war had started, it was not legally binding. There were few real penalties for violating most of its strictures.

That was what the potemkin village reminded him of.

The wolverine slowed to a halt, and he pivoted the torso surveying the fake surroundings. Green foliage swayed in the wind, and then from the hills a seventy five ton mech emerged. The Marauder's black box like frame lacked the typical torso mounted Whirlwind, and the gray white paint job of the machine used on Elidere. He'd seen some of the trivid holographic combat footage of the machine in action though, specced out as it was for close quarters brawling.

There were rumors that it had been stripped down and been fighting at reduced capacity until recently, but he didn't know how accurate those were. Certainly the footage from Detroit didn't speak of a mech that had been fighting at a handicap. Whatever the case, there really should have been no way for the Heavy BattleMech to get this close... and yet there it was.

Two more mechs followed with a missile boat bringing up the rear.

"How'd you do that?"

"Terrain masking. There are enough fusion signatures active, and enough debris through the exercise field. This whole plain is a riddled with hematite and other metals. We adjusted for the changes in height and avoided generating any additional heat." The young colonel replied as the Marauder stepped forward. "That and most of your mechs were looking in the wrong direction, any time my Dalban told me you were looking at us, we stopped moving."

It made a certain amount of sense. "God in heaven, you maneuvered an entire armor battalion like that..." Which really was the defining aspect of Elidere as a tactical set piece battle. It was true the mechs had done most of the actual killing, but the Combine had kept getting shot from behind, and by flank seemingly left and right.

... and Bard could remember asking in Jasos city whether they could have carried the day without the planetary militia... and in hindsight... that answer probably was yes. Obviously they had contributed... but two entire snake battalions had died on Elidere's surface... and artillery had smashed most of the Combine's dropships. Hell he'd watched from a safe distance as four hundred LRMs had pummeled a Union as it had attempted to fly.... and he'd only seen the missiles not whatever carriers had been unloading.

The hologram rippled and the colonel's face scrunched, "Stand by,"

Bard resisted the urge toy with his own neurohelmet as they stood at the waypoint. "What's the plan... I mean, there" He drawled, dragging the word out, and clipping the next, "sixty mechs here... and that's not counting, any late comers."

"Or Septim's Merlin being repaired, or the rest of the unit being here." He added with a shrug showing the full length black sleeves.

"Aye, or that. But yeah, we've got more mechs than I expected," Bard shook his head and used his terminal to highlight one of the over strength companies, "His grace is watching... for that matter the Prince's Champion is here. So why run all of these at once?"

"Because most of these people have never tried to maneuver three whole companies of Mechs together, and we can evaluate how they handle that new experience, but more importantly we can acclimate them to being around this many other MechWarriors." Gene leaned back in his harness... "Engendering an espirt de corps doesn't happen over night, and I don't expect it to just appear, but I want the unit to be able to able to work together, and integrate not just as Mechwarriors, but also integrate with our armor and also aviation assets." Aviation assets that were new, truthfully Sam Houston and Baffins had conducted fire missions largely as stationary assets. "I also realize that we're going to be undertaking a lot of training, and that entails a logistical foot print."

"But we could do it," Bard replied as a group of mechs approached from the south east, "Most of these are green pilots."

"Good training creates good habits, and corrects bad ones. So yes, if put in a place where we have to fight the combine forces along the lines of what we saw on Elidere, if we have to fight another Regiment, we'd be in a better position. More importantly if this can be pulled off, whatever happens next year, the graduates of this course will hopefully have a better appreciation of the logistics and combined arms application at a tactical and operational level."
--
"What will you do about him?"

Bard was off with the Duke, and Gene wasn't sure what that meant. That wasn't who Field Marshal Davion was talking about though, "A certain amount of show boating is to be expected," He replied resisting the urge to thumb through Castro's file again... the clock on the wall read seven... a brass ornate thing that would have looked at home in Victorian england. "What do you make of it?" He asked turning the conversation around.

"Lord Jason has bluntly a chip on his shoulder. He's been brought up with no expense spared, told he would be the best... and then on his first real taste of action his entire lance is shot out from under them one by one in a duel, its a wonder he survived the ejection and didn't drown. That didn't help I don't imagine... and then to make things even worse, well." She waved a hand.

"Elidere happens." He replied reaching for the tea cup. The combine had not actually planned to conquer elidere, they had double downed in response to stiffer than expected resistance. The original had originally just been a raid in force.. and if they had impounded the DCA JumpShips they probably would have found the cargo bays stuff with loot from other worlds... "Or ander's," moon, "which I suppose is the root of his problem with Sutton," Who hadn't even been attending the RBA, just accepted, at the time of his duels. "Realistically," Since Rio was basically assured a spot in the line as a lance commander, "I'm going to keep them in separate companies... come Monday morning we're going to start dividing people into skill level courses based on time. We'll integrate AFFS, and Cadets in with mercenaries, but the truth was I needed to see them actually physically walk a mech from place to place, run a course of fire, and maneuver to rendezvous. All of them."

"No one failed." Yvonne noted.

"No one was supposed to." He sipped the tea, "Castro survived contact with the enemy," And clear survivor's guilt aside he hadn't eaten his sidearm, and showed no suicidal tendencies... but his attitude was going to be a problem. "I'm going to be honest, he isn't ready to lead a lance but if you say that's how it has to be I'll work around it."
--
It was almost nine o'clock, and in a way this reminded him of their stint on Luxen. They'd been allocated space at the academy and that included their own hall, dorm space, and the Mechwarrior component were all piled into the a dining facility meant to accommodate more like three hundred people...

Jason Castro still hadn't gotten on message. "So what was the point?"

"The point Mr Castro?" He replied, "IS you're a mechwarrior, being able to fight one on one is all well and good but you're a part of the premier combat arm, not the sole combat arm." Castro was taller than Sutton was, but that might not have meant much. Sutton still had traces of 'baby fat' in his face and Castro lacked some of the meat of his pater familias despite sharing the same high aristocratic cheeks though that expression was somewhat marred by the broken nose on the eighteen year old's face. "And you're not the only mechwarrior, your lance is intended to operate in conjunction with the others of the Company, and Battalion elements, and above that with the broader regiment. Inter operability is essential on the battlefield. Today's exercise was intended to evaluate how well you can maneuver and complete a course of fire under test conditions. You're performance was good... and then you basically screwed that by failing to maintain communications discipline during the last transit exercise moving to the rendezvous"

It would have been one thing if he'd been using the laser comm, those were mostly secure... barring well SLDF tech, and even then that only applied to detection. Castro had decided to carry on a conversation not just within his own unit but with other participants over radio and with encryption.

It was the reason that he'd gotten the call to meet Yvonne Davion once the exercise had concluded with the training battalion assembled at the rendezvous point.

Castro's face was as red as a tomato.

"Not tomorrow, but Monday there will an apparently all too necessary briefing on Operational Security, and Communications Security." Tomorrow would be dominated by debriefing from this course, as everyone was supposed to have filled out after action reports based on how they thought they had done. "This course is going to be two months, and will likely be very different to the usual curriculum. The goal is to prepare the battalion for the Combine's inevitable response to the destruction of the 19^th Galedon Regulars at Elidere." Since of course telling them that there was a planned offensive was bad opsec.

--
Notes: You'll note I included the Date, including year, and location part of that is to cement that the Whoops snippet is non canon and its divergence from the main timeline is the following year. This takes place as a continuation of the previous segment.

Part 7 will open up the following monday afternoon with more mercenary administration stuff... also the realities of yeah tech in the Succession wars ain't great. The plan is still to run the usual Sunday updates, but yes First Davion will end in roughly six parts, with probably an interlude for Bristol, and then the New Avalong interlude. So really this should probably be called 'First Robinson' / 'First Draconis March'. Anyway...

Spoiler: You don't have to read this, its minor stuff.

AI various: so the Hegemony largely built its AI to reflect 'Hegemony Values, and we willl see this more in Whoops, which while a spin off non canon timeline shares certain factors. As already shown Tristan doesn't look fondly on Kerensky's Exodus, and this isn't unique to him as an AI, Dante similarly is very not happy... though Dante finding out there are still Amaris's alive, and people who support House Amaris and the Rim World cause would be a 'Commander we must break out the nukes.' on the opposite end of the spectrum you have Mother Bear for example who favors reapproachment and embodies the idealized better nature, protect civilization, help civilians rebuild administer good government the positive side of the Star League's work, and she's not the only one.

One minor thing, I have been told that and I'm not sure whether or not I'm going to go by current rules or not, but that you can longer (apparently this changed fucking ages ago) use specialty ammunition out of Streak SRMs. Thats dumb but that is currently the rules in PNP. I'm probably going to ignore that... even though apparently that shit was errated in twenty years ago. I can understand how I missed it though.

Spoiler: warning mildly ranting

The rule change came during the height of FedCom civil war dumbshit, and I played only a bit of tabletop during that period. (This the same time as MechWarrior 4 released, which I still occasionally boot and play) The subsequent dark age stupidity just kept me away from the setting longer.. and didn't come back into association with the Catalyst canon until like... Obama's second term. [Alright that was somewhat ranty]

 

Davion I
Part 7​

Eight hours of work, and he still had Haqim's detailed scrub down of the Hidalgo to get through The Star League V450 was earmarked for a second look, but the Hidalgo's significant find were it still had its Star League era Mech simulators. That was, and wasn't a surprise. As a star league, and they were talking about the peak of the Star Leauge, dedicated mech transport carrying 36 BattleMech it would have been standard practice at the time of Hidalgo's construction.

What the Overlord-class was not, as an assault dropship. Though relatively well armed, pound for pound an argument could be substantiated that the Union was better protected in terms of making planetfall in contested or hostile territory. It was true however that it was better armed than the Triumph. Most likely though any Davion first wave would conducted by Union-class dropships, potentially screened by Assault Dropships to break defending air coverage, or suppress enemy air defense... and if not they'd just drop and go overland from outside local ADZs which from orbital insertion much easier than with conventional air breathing transports.

"But that's approximately the sum of what I can draw up without a specific target, much less without a detailed intelligence packet to work from,"

Yvonne Davion nodded.

The third floor room had the usual faces, and company level officers he simply hadn't had time to really aquaint with. That would change over the next few weeks, but this meeting was really the first to include attached battalion level armor assets from the March.

"No, that's quite sufficient." It had been a mistake to mention the intel issue. They didn't have that at this time. "Beside the intelligence information, is there anything else."

The armor was here, but not infantry, and not ASF, "Realistically holding any kind of ground will require infantry, and contesting hostile airspace integrated ASF level control, being able to run six to twelve asf supporting a company would ideal. Failing that squadron level support at the company level, even if not as air lance configuration would provide some degree of protection."

"You have a number of Rapier Heavy Aerospace Fighters in inventory."

"Yes, I don't have pilots for them."

"We can provide you pilots." The Field Marshall replied. She glanced to the Duke of Robinson, "Lord Aaron believes he can contribute assuming that the Hellcats can be brought back on line." Though they had been considered a second line garrison fighter by the time Amaris, succeeded by increasing proliferation of more advanced aircraft the Hellcat was nearly ideal to the needs of the modern era's logistics situation. "The Combine's preference for duels between leadership is well known, deployment to the surface of a planet is only half the battle. Once on world there are two broad outcomes," Either a conventional battle along combined arms lines, or a battle more like the offer they had made counterattacking on Ander's moon.

That was when Yvonne triggered a playback of the 'arbitration' of the Detroit dispute. It shouldn't have surprised him. In all honesty it probably made sense that that kind of thing would end up in the MRB file... he wondered if the subsequent arbitration was in there. The Combine ... or technically Arisaka he supposed.. paying out in C-Bills for the salvage... getting bled for it.

That... made more sense why the company commanders, and the XOs, were all here though. "The neurohelmet is a piece of technology called mind machine interface, MMI is the bland acronym. Your brain interfaced to a digital system, a computer. You can pilot a mech without it, but a neurohelmet can allow you reaction times by feeding full spectrum data analysis... and even though it sounds like mysticism and hocus pocus there are ways to improve synchronization." He didn't think of anything when it came to be asked for examples, "The combine... well their highest scoring ace was Kerra McAlister, an alias suspected to be one of Urizen Kurita's illegitmate daughters. She's estimated to have killed 12 Gusnlinger graduates, and almost fifty other royal division pilots during the Davion Succession crisis from a Marauder 2R." ... and her mother had probably been either ISF or O5P, but that wasn't relevant to the conversation, "She'd been practicing Kyudo, traditional longbow archery since she was five. I can give you pointers," But just putting a packet together wasn't going to be a cheat sheet...


... and that conversation was how he ended up watching a pick up game on the school grounds. He leaned back against the ball court seats, personally he found cricket to be boring... but then he also gave no shits about baseball either.

"I prefer football." She meant soccer, "You said sports help."

"I don't think this would help." Supposedly boxing did... well for Mechs like the... well a south paw in an awesome was supposedly even more scary than a regular Awesome. "Regardless of what Wellington was alleged to have said about Waterloo, and Eton."

"What would you suggest then?"

"If you're serious about this, we can organize duels." It wasn't the worst idea, "Simulators will give us some degree of benchmark, "I need to be upfront, Mech weight gives some degree of padding," for lack of a better term, "But some of it is instinct. Mechwarriors used to be more scarce than machines to pilot, there is a certain degree of skill, Field Marshal. A combined arms action is more likely to pay off than playing to the combine's strength."

"You can understand the appeal though." She replied rhetorically, it wasn't really a question so much as an affirmation of the accepted thinking. "There is no denying though that holding any planets will require infantry. So long as you can secure the planet, we can bring garrison troops in after."

He almost pointed out that the usual mistake... the mistake made basically universally to combined arms formations in the early years was underestimating the number of infantry you wanted to have with your armor. "Still can't tell me where we're going, what we're going after?"

"Not yet. That will be the Prince's surprise."

Don't guess. It was almost certainly a former hegemony world. Possibly even more than one, but surely somewhere in the Terran corridor. They'd embarrassed the Combine and with the way the duke of Robinson kept pressing the rumor must have been going over from was a Crucis March world. Then there was, "I'm going to need to hire whoever I can from Northwind."

"We've discussed this, that will work out. You'll have local support on Northwind to make what you need in terms of final preparations. You'll have months to prepare for the actual invasion, the immediate priority is insuring the Robinson battalion is ready. I'll need to leave before the end of the month. Lady Alexandria should be able to handle things in my absence."

"I need to ask, in your capacity as field marshal are you overall command of the operation."

"No, as Prince's champion I'm in charge of the operation." Yvonne corrected.

Ah, "I see." He wasn't sure what the distinction was, not in a practical sense, but alright that was fine too. Yvonne being Strategic level control was the bigger answer. "Lord Aaron wants this to succeed as much as anyone, any chance to further weaken the gravest threat to the Federated Suns is to be the highest priority. Let me be clear colonel Shepherd if we have the opportunity to move, if we can significantly damage the Combine's military strength, if we could repeat Elidere there would be in a position to consolidate gains at the Combine's expense."

--

Gene flipped the paper work, paused took another bite of the pasta.

"You're not drinking?" Alexandria Cunningham sat down, snagging one of the free seats at the 'faculty' table as he was thinking of it.

He'd been considering maybe having something after dinner, and reached for the water, "Not tonight." Gene took a sip, "What can I do for you Lady Lex?" She raised an eyebrow.

"I need to be involved in the drills tomorrow."

He mirrored her gesture, "Fair enough," Should have seen that coming, "How hands on is your liaison supposed to be for this,"

"If the Field Marshal is indisposed at the-"

"When we jump the line?"

She nodded, "I can remain on ship, just as if she were present."

"Unless something comes up, and you have to be in the field."

"That's correct." She agreed readily. A little too readily, especially since he'd had the conversation with Yvonne... and he was pretty sure she'd either just come from there, or near enough... Yvonne was no where to be seen despite having eaten with the battalion officers at dinner two days in a row. "Situations might arise where thats necessary."

Time to go fishing for information, "We're going to drop into a former Hegemony world." She blinked, but he kept going, "My best guess is Dieron or Altair. Maybe Nirasaki, but probably one of those." He'd been digging through the maps. It wasn't hard. Process of elimination. All three belonged to the former Terran Hegemony's lone star province. And really the problem was just not being told. "The Field Marshal said that ideally we cut the combine from the Entire Corridor, but that's four worlds."

"What are you suggesting?"

"I'm suggesting that we are probably going to run into soon or later significant resistance. You want to take a battlemech into the field tomorrow, fine." he pushed the plate to the side guessing he wasn't going to have any more to east tonight, at least not for a while,

She frowned, marring her features, "If you're dancing around the subject, I graduated from Sakhara academy. Does that surprise you?"

He shrugged, "I actually expected you to be an AMA grad, Kestrel being in the Crucis march."

She mirrored the gesture, "The family has attended the school since the first succession war. Shall we move on?"

"What are you hoping to learn?"

"We could trade pointers." She had barely gotten that out of her mouth, when the duke rolled his wheelchair into the mess hall.

"Colonel,"

"Your grace."

The old tanker slid up the table and applied the manual break to the wheel chair. "Keeping the war machine fed I see." Lord Aaron remarked leaning forward to glance at the paperwork. "I was actually hoping to discuss your Marauder?"

"Which one?" It wasn't intended as a boast, but he really did have to ask... and at least the Duke hadn't said 'your Mech'... cause hell that could included the Atlas that Bubbles was currently driving.

"The one you used at Elidere, the White. The autocannon is LosTech?"

"Yeah, The Hegemony was doing research, its whats called an LBX. They never made it past the prototyping stage. I do anything with it the computer reminds me to email Colonel Thompson if I have an problems. He probably ate a nuke on New Earth. What about it?"

"You can produce ammunition for it?"

"Yeah, well yes and no." He explained the LBX ammunition issue, they hadn't tried to make cluster ammunition, "Its based off the GM Whirldwind." It was half to a deflection, but it made sense that someone would have noticed the Autocannon had a range to throw lead comparable to his PPCs. He certainly didn't want anyone poking around his Marauders and figuring out they were ER PPCs.
--
"Anything?"

"I was making progress up until his grace arrived, then they delved into discussion about guns, which somehow turned into a topic of education, and the vagabond schools, which wrapped into techs, and Assistant techs."

Yvonne Davion tutted disapprovingly at the excuse, "Start from the beginning," Occasionally interrupting for clarification about one point or another. "I shouldn't need to tell you this, Sakkhara was founded by retired SLDF officers, Albion was an SLDF Military Academy. One of only three outside of the boundaries of the Terran Hegemony. I've made copies of the two month course work, and I've compared it to AMA's," The Field Marshal's alma mater, "I would guess the bulk of it is from the Hegemony originally." The reality was that there were more questions now than there had been. "Do you know the conversation we had, about mechwarriors?"

"No."

"I believe his exact quote was that 'its generally recognized that there is an accepted genetic component to mechwarrior aptitude, but like most skills probably entails epigenetic factors, as well as more conventional learning of the skill.'"

"What does that have to do with anything your grace?"

"I have a growing suspicion that Lord William, Doctor Abner as he prefers to go by, very likely stumbled upon a stasis pod. Maybe he dug into a lost hegemony facility, a castle brian on some dead terran world, but the Colonel and the Doctor cross paths repeatedly... and Dr Abner believes that he can provide a service to the First Prince. There is something on Bristol... something that may well have survived the Combine's nuclear strike in 2791."

The first succession war had been an utter disaster, but the truth was even before it had begun the Amaris coup had already created a financial crisis, the Federated Suns in the 2770s had gone from economic recession into a full blown depression with the disruptions to trade with the Hegemony... and then the Combine had invaded kicking them back into financial uncertainty as they had begun to recover. There was speculation of course that the Combine had probably been planning even in the 2770s, and certainly by the 80s to go to a war time economy and that had given them temporary advantages, but by the time Kentares had occurred they'd been hitting the limits of their logistical bottleneck.

That was the least glamorous part of the First Succession wars. The DCMS as a military was outsized to the national GDP that supported it. The Combine had always had a significant population, but had lagged behind on industry. It always had... and that was why they had an opportunity, because south of Avalon city proper in the suburbs built on the sacrifice, and gains made on on Halstead station in 3012, from the ruins of a library of the Star League Era the New Avalon Institute of Science.

It had been completed just the previous year.... but that was a long term investment. More than anything, it created for Yvonne a time table. A clock counting down to end or at least severely curtail Hasek influence... and Elidere had created a way to severely curb Combine power, potentially reducing the military importance of the capellan march as other resources could be spread around.

She gave a heavy sigh, "I suspect that there are details we don't know regarding the Combine in the lead up to the first succession war, something that provides a reason to take sides." But ultimately that was just what her gut told her based on the fragmentary evidence she was still piecing together.

 

I Davion Part 8​

Another day, another hanger, a garage and trucks loaded with ammunition. He could remember having issues getting ammunition being like pulling teeth from Luxen's civilian authorities... but he supposed it was different with an actual military institution. "how are we doing, chief?"

"We're on schedule. Another hour perhaps."

"Did we get a final tally?" He asked referring to the major logistical bottleneck. An outgrowth of early procurement habits, the Star League had codified a general series of requirements that divided a wide range of individual weapon systems... in this case autocannons... into grades or classes 2, 5, 10, 20. Greatest Range to shortest, least to most damage performance. It was far less logical than the LRM system... and significantly more prone to graft. He doubted that even with the end of the Star League all the graft had gone away, but with a much reduced tax base he suspected it had at least suffered along with everyone else.

"We need 10 cm, 100mm" two different cartridges both in the came caliber, "185 ChemJet, 200mm it goes on... I don't like it." That didn't even touch any of the other classes of Autocannons. BlackJack JagerMech, Rifleman the list went on each mech carrying different models of autocannon. "... only good news is that 120mm will work across Whirlwinds in the caliber."

"Assuming it doesn't jam."

"True."

Gene shrugged, "I'm mounting up." He left the chief to his business. The senior enlisted would neither appreciate nor want command lurking around while there was work to be done. The Seventy Five tonner was crouched hull down legs bent underneath and alongside the main hull. The Marauder shared a lineage with the Orion next to it, but those were largely internal chassis points and the final mechs in each were significantly different even though they ran off the same VLAR 300 power plant. No small part of that were the program requirements for the Orion in the 25^th century asking for a multi role combat platform.

The Orion's Valiant Lamellar had long been replaced more commonly available StarGuard offering off of New Avalon lines. The Marauder"s original design of Valiant lamellar had represented an intention to replace the then current iteration... but it had then itself been subsumed by most Terran contract and later (of the Star League era) marauders being armored around Ferro Fibrous as that proliferated. Of course that limitation, the supply bottleneck to the original Marauder's Lamellar armor had then run into Ferro Fibrous, compounded by the effective extinction of that armor manufacturing within a quarter of a century of Kerensky running for the boonies. There simply hadn't been enough diffusion of manufacturing of Ferro Fibrous at the time of the New Vandenburg rebellion to diffuse it far enough into the Inner Sphere, and thus the first succession war meant it was basically extinct...

"You going to put a neurohelmet on?" Someone cracked as it started up to the cockpit.

He side eyed the other mechwarrior in the tank top and Rhodesian short shorts. Then rather than say anything tapped the silver composite material circlet initiating the standby start sequence on the seventy five tonner.

"First time seeing the hat trick." Septim remarked. He wasn't suited up. Not today, ther Merlin needed a testing and evaluation program to make sure it worked fine in its new Cavalry mech configuration with the VLAR 300... and then they could test out the weapons. The Lyran would be in the Daimyo with operations staff for the day.

He mounted the black machine's cockpit, and settled into the seat. "We should be getting started in about an hour."

Septim nodded. "Hang up with the ammo?"

"Distributing AC ammo is on schedule," At least. The screen in front of him threw up a flash of light the updated OS and a master checklist diagnostic ranging from the motive, and myomer bundles in the feet up through the legs and gyro and through the rest of the mech's systems.

Most mechs came with a standard common id number. MAD 3R designation was for example the common mass production Marauder that was ubiquitous when one thought of the Marauder It was visually recognizable for its top 120 mm autocannon, and the somewhat elongated appearance of its limbs from standard armor. The Marauder had been intended as a direct engagement mech. The command role it had found popularity with had not been an original design requirement, because the Star League had not been looking to replace the Black Knight when the Marauder had first debuted meaning that for the SLDF the Black Knight had remained a company command mech, and battalion and regimental commanders had taken the Marauder in recognition of its more sniper oriented loadout.

The Marauder's standard load out had also proved it an exemplary candidate as a Mech for graduates of the Advanced Combat and Maneuvering Skills Project. ACMS had later publically and officially ... for basically marketing and bragging rights rebranded itself as Gunslinger ... but by that point customization of mechs had already been underway during the 2720s with the clear writing on the wall of new and developing Hegemony 'royal' tech. The MAD 2R as its short hand readout was in league warbooks was the debut of the next Royal units and had replaced the 1R in those prestigious commands by 2760... and yet as his White Marauder demonstrated the Hegemony R&D had known not to be complacent. That was really an iterative improvement though from the 2R still maintaining the Sniper Role.

Septim cleared his throat and then less discretely threw his head in the direction outward across towards the main hangar doors. It took Yvonne Davion, and Alexandria Cunningham and the other hangers on a few minutes to get through the area.

"This is the other one." The Field Marshal remarked all business.

"This is the other one."

"You didn't have the missiles installed when you fought on Luxen or during either engagement on Detroit."

"They're Targa 7 driven Short Range missiles, feeding from a single," Half and half dual feed system of Incendiary and HEDP. "Ton bin. Break through, and exploit the break through. The additional medium lasers are designed to maximize close range firepower," Especially since the replacement Magnas Tristan had put in were ER versions identical to his White. Its a brawler."

"Sounds like it'd turn into bloody sauna." One of the Fed officers muttered. That was without him understanding the greater waste heat ER model PPCs generated... and he wasn't about to point it out.
--
...and things had been starting to shape up.

Two hundred fifty meters ahead of his own BattleMech Castro stamped his Thunderbolt's feet, which was either intentional, or he was overtuned into his MMI link with the Battlemech through his neurohelmet.

"You really want to do this?" He asked cracking his neck side to side already resigned to the answer.

"Hell yeah." 'King Wolf' retorted.

Taking this to the simulators would have been more fair... and safer. Realistically even with their weapons safed and running only electronic training return signals there was always the chance of something going wrong.

The Thunderbolt was a fine heavy battlemech. It was also recent one to replace the machine... which might well have been a Thunderbolt as well he hadn't checked... that Castro had been forcefully ejected from on his first real sortie.

Gene considered the surrounding participants. As liaison Cunningham was a maybe, he doubted Bard could talk some sense into this, the field marshal and the duke of Robinson were both with ground command station for the training area... which was a big tower over looking the space. As if sensing it Lord Sandoval rather than calling it off decided to encourage his friend's son's ... whatever this was supposed to be. "You've taken precautions for the weapons." Which had been confirmed by the rangemasters inspecting both mechs and having comnet feeds to watch. "You may begin on my signal." He informed them.

Fuck... fuck fair. Gene pushed his palms forward relaxing his arms so that they rested against the side consoles rather than the fire control joysticks. There were three broad tactical choices Rio could make. Alpha strike from stationary, maneuver conservatively, or attack aggressively hoping to bring this in close.

Gene exhaled. The neurohelmet readout blinked as the MMI checked and tittered over the synchronization.

The clock changed to 12:00 and the Duke of Robison signaled them to begin.

"I've got you!" Followed by a far less cocky, "What the fuck!" From the Thunderbolt pilot as the Marauder vanished from his scopes before his Mark ten Istatrack could start feeding combat date into the weapons for ranging never mind lock on.

The jump jets flared underneath the Marauder hurtling it into a ballistic arc forward as the verniers did their job. They were not designed for flight, hence 'jump' jets, but they also didn't need to be. The arc ... the vectoring of the thrust had thrown him to the right of where he'd started and allowed him to bring all four medium lasers on target, and for the computers to register four streak SRMs 'launching' into the mech's left side after having cleared half the distance

This wasn't anything like the duels on the BattleRoms. He didn't intend it to be. This was the mine complex against the 3^rd Battalion commander, or the company commander in the dragon, or Samsonov on the river bank... or that Catapult on Detroit. There was no take your turn and wait for return fire.

The Verniers flared again even as the Thunderbolt was pivoting... and then the Marauder was point blank, "And you're dead now." He grunted from press against the harness of his restraints, as the machine settled pushing the two Magna Hellstar X in plain view of the cockpit.

Thirteen tons of standard armor was good, but if some was point blank with those nearly touching your cockpit glass or 185mm ChemJet, class twenty autocannon, you were toast.

The two mechs stood there as the range masters called it, and after a pregnant pause Lord Sandoval confirmed it. 25 seconds Thirty seconds of moderating and officialdom

The clock ticked 1201.

It took longer to walk the mech back over the safety lines. Dismounting and handing off took several minutes. "Holy shit that was," Sutton was out of his Dervish, and was the first one over. "That was awesome."

He reframed from quipping that an Awesome was an eighty ton assault mech with three PPCs.
--
Notes: I've been basically most of the week sick as a dog; I'm not a hundred percent yet but getting there. So I am now officially behind... so we are on the last week of the month. Pipeline, Pathfinder, tomorrow, Out of the Dark, Tuesday hopefully its not ready yet, Jumpchain Wednesday should be easy, Essence will probably go up Thursday, thats what I'm planning for with its Fray fight scene, Revisions for Friday and Saturday need to be done.

Then a week from now will be the first.

Anyway. If you don't think

Spoiler

Yvonne needled this whole duel into happening...

and Gene Phantom MechWarrior Shenigans in the broad daylight even if it was a blink and you miss it for as short in the fight as it was factors in as well.

So in table top, as I've mentioned Streak SRM 2 were allowed to use special munitions back in the day... this was nineties (things were radical, extreme, yada yada) and thats obviously the case here also here half ton SRM used to be a thing in FASA canon the Orion is the usual example everyone calls out even though that quickly ran afoul of published mech build rules. Basically you can have half ton of Ammo for missiles, or mixed magazines of specialty ammo because well here its a dual feed electrical system. You have to feeds pulling ammo from the bin you use feed 1 to run Incendiary, or Feed 2 to shoot HEDP perfectly viable real world tech