Highland Faire 14
(A)
The fireplace had been stoked to fight the chill from the rain, and the fog. In the place of that it left the large office contrastingly warm, shockingly so compared to coming in from the outside.
Field Marshal Yvonne Davion dismissed the extended portion of her staff gave Jeffries his marching orders and then dismissed the Davion Guards officer as well and turned to her lady in waiting. "Its never simple is it?" It was a rhetoric question. "I wonder if it was a speech. Surely he didn't just come out and declare he was the sword of the Camerons returned or some of this idiocy." She glowered at the proposed scripts from the media people. "Regardless there is a starport?"
"There is my lady, I have seen it."
"And an Overlord? I understand there has been interest in it."
"THS Presidio according to the Ship Registry." Which had been just two years old at the time of the crisis erupting, it was an immaculate tomb like ship from what she'd seen of the interior, Alexandria paused, and then moved on, "Along with a THS Bexar, she was apparently configured as a mobile field hospital and transport for armor."
The Field Marshal nodded. Bexar was apparently another Triumph. Then she scoffed, "and of course we'd look very silly if we complained about what they're handing us," never mind that they had even involved Alexandria. If the Countess of Kestrel had noticed the increased anti Combine chatter going on since the colonel's original disappearance with General Kerston she had not mentioned it. That had reached a fever's pitch this afternoon as she'd received offers to volunteer for off world duty from the planetary militia if it was against the combine. She had to wonder what it was the local aristocracy had been told. She wasn't going to engage in rumor mongering. The prince's champion spared another withering look at the media proposals, at least the duke of sandoval was being reasonable about all of this. "Shepherd has clearly stirred the Highlanders up," Clancy had also been agitating the Federated Suns ... not that he had needed to, not during the time before the admiral had gone in the stasis pod, "It raises questions of course, but more as a device on our existing ones." She flipped through the courier delivered packet that contained the colonel's medical records, and the blood sample, which reassuringly informed her with significant certainty that the Colonel was not some scion of House Davion... or at least not an immediate relation to the ruling family of the Federated Suns. Doctor Banzai doubted that even testing against samples from a century ago would yield anything. There were some additional notes about the blood sample but nothing she was particularly savvy to making an issue of. She leaned forward, "Alexandria, what I want is for you to find out what materiel the colonel is looking for. Especially anything he hasn't been able to find."
"I'm not sure I understand what you mean Ma'am. He's going to stand up highland companies on SLDF line."
"Not SLDF Terran Hegemony lines." She tutted, the Archer was a classic machine... but the Dragoons seemed to favor them as well... it might have been just institutional inertia, Yvonne was weighing if it was just that. "So far as the Highlanders are concerned, seem to be concerned Colonel Shepherd may as well have been chipped off some rock face on ancient terra. He's selected those archers for a reason, but I want to know if there is something he's looking for." and of course the reason why... "It may not even be machines."
"There was apparently a large DropShip," She paused, "The Argo, behemoth sized," The countess paused, "It was constructed at the Galax Shipyards it stopped over Northwind before departing for the Rimward periphery."
That could very well be a coincidence she admitted, but the Colonel seemed to be following both ends of the thread back. "There is a growing anticipation for action. We're beyond just contending with the usual Draconis March's push for greater action."
And success her could meaningfully swing positions at court. This was beyond the Draconis March, this was even beyond avenging her nephew the previous first prince success here represented more than just beginning the process to cut the Combine from the Terran corridor. Taking Altair and Dieron could meaningfully set the stage for real change in the Inner Sphere when taken with everything else that was taking shape.
"Should we do something?"
Yvonne scoffed. "The genie is out of the bottle." They had known ahead of time that the public support for a counter attack against the combine had been reaching a fever pitch even before word of the destruction in detail of the Galedon regulars. Lord Sandoval's curated speeches had been aimed at stoking a nearly religious and in some cases crusader fervor. They were approaching the margins on what they could direct in terms of pacing. "We have laid out to the assembled nobility, and elite that we are prepared to act against the combine." They would be able to jump and hit Altair and Dieron and ideally conquer both worlds... and if then if the Azami and Rasalhague wanted to revolt well that was fine... but she'd certainly prefer it look like they were the instigating factor and the rebellions a broadly speaking product of combine weakness.
The combine needed to be looking inward, and preferably stabbing one another over perceived 'moral failure' or what have you.
--
The mech threw a haymaker. Sloppy it skidded off chest armor, but the mud was washing out from under both mechs feet. It was day two, and the second of the scrimmaging was coming to its conclusion. Gene didn't know how the Accademy training battalion assigned mechs. As it was he could make out Rio animatedly, and probably with a lot of profanity thrown in, screaming presumably about the thunderbolt pilot getting punched was doing wrong.
Everyone was having a good time, and so he expected the faire marshals to give it another minute. It was still a little impractical to have mechs punch each other for reasons other than opportunity or desperation... but it certainly was winding the crowd up.
Frankly one of the other competitors should have taken the opportunity to take both of them off the board... but at least two of the remaining participants seemed to have stopped to gawk and the rest were understandably busy shooting at one another to be bothered.
... and the thing about a mech scale fist fight was it was the sort of thing Dante hadn't predicted as happening. Septim nad the Machine Spirit had a bracket going all the same going into wagering on the results... he hadn't forbid them from gambling. It was legal after all.
There was a heavy sigh as the Thunderbolt was called as out of the fight, right before its opponent took a mock large laser to the back side.
"Speaking of cadets how are ours doing?"
Chang turned around, "Well they're doing okay. There are some distractions from being here, I took them over to NMA this morning to coordinate between ... well our armor. With the duke of Robinson." She shrugged she meant both DMM attached armor and the highland armor cadets, "So what's this about... They have to ride somewhere but we're really growing."
"I'll explain soon." He hedged, "Its complicated." Beau cracked a joke whether or not he was getting married, "Its probably that degree of serious," He replied and the big free worlder nodded, "Its complicated but my priority is on missile boat pilots, or aptitude for." He was talking but a couple of looks had been thrown over to Lex's apparent change in body language or expression. Whatever the case the Countess of Kestrel must have tensed up, so he coughed and pointedly changed the subject, there were other things that needed to be done, and the faire was mercenary shot show, and that meant significant industrial presence, "GM and Blackwell are not the only industrial reps on planet," And while the succession wars had wrecked a vast .... incalculable volume of interstellar trade there were still subsidiaries to the massive corporations that had dominated the arms trade of the star league, "We can't duck them forever."
Septim grimaced into his beer, "Ah, yeah while you've been gone I got ambushed by GM about this ... Orion thing? I thought the guy was here about the Marauder II but then he blitzed me on it."
Gene nodded, it made sense. Septim was the easiest company command level officer to approach... even if GM knew about Claymore in the process of standing up, which was certainly possible since the paperwork had started they wouldn't have approached MacKay or the other NMA instructors tapped to lead the new Highlander Battalion. He admitted the fault was his, "I should have considered that they'd approached you we'll go over the Blackwell and GM packets, as well as potential other ones."
The crowd cheered as another mech went down and the marshals prepared to call the scrimmage to advance the remainder.
--
Harlaw's Terran Militia units included things ranging from reunification war pattern Pillagers to Shootists and more besides. The Harlaw facility was older, and not nearly as sleek as the aerodynamic flyboy lines and posters of the port. The difference in who had been running the facilities, but it had still been a a depot for the Hegemony.
There were no Grasshoppers in inventory. Those had only entered production after this facility had been sealed up. More than that the Grasshopper had been built for warfare beyond the border and frankly in the periphery in the hands of the regular army. The Terran Hegemony had experimented with many seventy ton machines, just as they had experimented with significant numbers of seventy five tonners like the Orion, Marauder, and Black Knight.
Endo Steel manufacturing had been developed in the late 25
th century, but had gone extinct in the face of the massive volume of orbital and space based infrastructure lost during the succession wars, but it had been nearly ubiquitous to the Terran Hegemony of the early 28
th century. In the 31
st century where that had completely disappeared that technology was LosTech which would have been unthinkable in the golden age of the Star League as the Hegeomony had been increasingly looking at not just Combine Units but also Federated Suns machines beginning to field EndoSteel, and DHS.
The Shootist was a seventy ton VOX 280 machine intended at the time of its debut in the early 27
th century had been intended to provide a commander of close quarters units a hard hitting gunfighter. It hadn't exactly worked out that way. The shootist was a good urban warfighter it paled in comparison at long range to the effectiveness of the older Black Knight or the newer Marauder especially in terms of command and control responsibilities.
So the shootist had already been considered obsolescent by the Hegemony in the 28
th century being pushed to Militia units and the regular SLDF in a more line combatant role where its avionics suite wouldn't be considered a hindrance.
The King Crabs had like the Atlas been late to enter the Terran Hegemony service... and because Kerensky had developed them or at least their specific requirements those machines had similarly ended up not just in Hegemony hands but also in the hands of the member states... like the Combine. Kerensky had had friends at court to cover for his political failures, and the break of such things, and there had been other problems despite the still in recent memory second hidden war.
The ER PPC had only arrived to units in 2751 after all. The Marauder 2R had only started making full production in 2760 after what in hindsight would be unconscionable delays given the Thunderbolts had started receiving their extended range upgrade two years after proving viable for production, and the Griffin had managed its upgrade in '51 proper.
"Thank you Dante." He said ending the history lesson on procurement before the scottish brogue of the AI could continue to drone on in an info dump of technical specifications... especially the lobbying. "How long will materiel transfer take?"
"Each tram will require approximately sixteen hours due to the combination of damage to the system, and need to reroute," The zig zagging course way and transfer through the city sized underground maze of tunnels, "In short I estimate materiel distribution to the port would not be completed until march." It was therefore more practical to open the Harlaw facility and disburse some of the equipment to the planetary units directly, but that had been planned anyway.
He turned to the others. "This material was stored up to be used in the event of a war. We have a war to fight. To that end Claymore is going to be built on keeping units in the field and operational... we need missile boats to sustain an advance. The archer fulfills that role, and can maneuver." That it was probably the most common heavy mech in Terran Hegemony service, if not potentially even the most common BattleMech, "Each of the Cadet companies will be allocated a lance of Archers from this depot I need you to get them delivered to NMA tomorrow. Chang I need you to take a lance of Pillagers and do the same with your evaluation group. Bahar will meet you in the morning with the Marauder IIs. I've already spoken with the Maguanacs there is a good chance Blackwell will be sitting in watching our testing of the Bandits, and Badgers. They've been doing that for a couple of days now, and moving the Marauders will probably attract their attention, and that of GM." He looked over the hard ferrocrete deck, and the massive reinforced struts creating hte protective archways above the walkways over their heads.
--
Notes: There is a You are the Davion Heir CYOA where that is the main shtick I'm obliquely referencing that but of course the Davion propaganda people had already tried to do the long lost heir story suggestion.
