Battletech: The Ghost Who Walks (Battletech Isekai)

Son of Sam Era​

2nd Luxen Volunteers (MAF)
Regiment/Regular/Reliable

Primary Force Strength 2 Reinforced 'Mech Battalions
Additional Force Notes: organic DropShips, organic armor battalion, attached Infantry Battalion

[Total 4 Battalions Organic to the Regiment.]

The two BattleMech battalions of the recently reestablished 2nd Luxen Volunteers [The original Luxen Dragoons were dissolved due to lack of materiel in the early succession wars] are established under a 48 Mech model designed to deploy from Leopards and Union DropShips built by the Magistracy of Canopus. These Battalions utilize so called 'platoons' of BattleMechs, over strength Lances, of Six Mechs usually consisting of six identical Mechs. A company consists of 4 Platoons, two of these companies are then supported with a regimental organic armor attachment of two armor companies. [This report's attached documents detail the organic, and attached other combat arms. See ROM attachment A #s 1-3]. The core of this shape takes the form of a pair of battle or line platoon usually structured as Twelve BattleMechs of the same make, supported by a Scout Platoon, typically Light or Medium 'mechs, and a Reinforcement Platoon often serving as the Company Command section.


'the Luxen Dragoons'
1st Btn / 2nd Luxen
Easy Company
2 plt (Vindicators)
1 Scout Platoon

1. 2 Phoenix Hawks,
2. 4 Locusts

1 Reinforcement Platoon

1. 4 Shadow Hawks
2. 2 Ostroc

Weight of Force: Light: 4 Locusts [20], Medium: 12 Vindicator [45], 2 Phoenix Hawk[45], 4 ShadowHawk [55], Heavy: 2 Ostroc [60]

It is strongly believed that the Ostrocs are rebuilt machines from the 3016 Battle of Luxen captured from forces fighting under the banner of Black Jack McGirk and are therefore originally SLDF Machines. All other Machines comprising Easy Company are BattleMechs either produced by the Magistracy of Canopus or as the case of the Vindicators acquired from the Capellan Confederation during the past several decades. Easy Company is notable for being the original test bed of the BattleMech Platoon model of organization.

* Addendum: It has been suggested that the Locusts and Phoenix Hawks, given the suspected origins of the Dervish BattleMechs of 1st Company, present may actually originally be former DCMS Machines captured or taken as salvage during the Battle of Luxen (3015, that is the year before the acquisition of the the Ostrocs)

1st Company

2 Line Platoons [Charger]
1 Scout Platoon [Cicada]
1 Reinforcement Platoon [Dervish]

Weight of Force: 6 Cicada [40], 6 Medium Dervish [55], Assault: 12 Charger [80]

It is believed that the six Dervish BattleMechs of 1st Company's Reinforcement Platoon are rebuilt salvage from the 3015 Battle of Luxen against suspected Arkab Legion deserters from the DCMS, though this has not been adequately substantiated. Further 2nd Battalion of the 2nd Luxen's arrangement of forces is commented on below with regards to its differentiation from 1st. The Cicada, and Chargers present in 1st Company will be addressed there as well.

2nd Btn / 2nd Luxen
2nd Company
2 Line Platoons [Charger]
1 Scout Platoon [Cicada]
1 Reinforcement Platoon [Merlin]

3rd Company
2 Line Platoons [Charger]
1 Scout Platoon [Cicada]
1 Reinforcement Platoon [Merlin]

Weight of Force: Medium: 12 Cicada [40], Heavy: 12 Merlin [60], Assault: 24 Charger [80]

Unlike 1st Battalion which has mixed machine units (addendum at the Platoon level within Easy company) the 2nd Battalion features twelve Lyran Commonwealth built Merlins that were delivered sometime in late 3018 or early 3019. The Merlin is to be recognized as the first newly designed mech of the modern era, and this appears to be the first significant foreign export of the machine. These Merlins are known to be the 1A Model, not the 'Merlin Cavalry' Model reported to have entered production. Regardless of exact delivery date the Merlin's providence is established.

The origins of the 36 Chargers are unknown at this time, however it is suspected this is only part of the total inventory of machines. The origins of the Cicada are similarly opaque the current working theory is that they, and potentially the Locusts, may all originally have been part of SLDF ranks and recovered from some depot within the Magistracy dating to the SLDF Occupation (Addendum that is following the New Vandenburg Uprising, this theory has not been substantively proven nor has it been adequately disproven). It is the most probable explanation to the number of machines in MAF service and potentially supported by the reported date of manufacture of certain machines.

MAF Chargers in use by the Luxen Dragoons demonstrate the following characteristics, first and foremost these machines have been re-engine-d, apparently using Pitban 320 of the Cicadas (see following section). This appears to have been a standard procedure of downscaling the engine in both models. Chargers received 320s and Cicadas were downscaled to use the commercially available VOX 280. The MAF appears to have experimented with a number of small batch refits using domestically built particle projector cannons to dramatically increase the firepower of the Charger over its original configuration with close range support being provided with either 4 or 6 tube SRM launchers.

The MAF Cicada models found in 1st-3rd Companies Scout Platoons comprise eighteen re-engine-d (with the Vox 280) Cicadas aptly described as larger Jenner / bug mechs. These machines appear to be part of a variant design that traces its origins to the 3015 Battle of Luxen and subsequent iterations. The 'standard' Luxen Volunteers Cicada caries 4 6cm Martell Medium Lasers built by Majesty Metals on Canopus IV, supporting a Holly 4 tube SRM launcher. The initial Holly 4 launchers are believed to have been imported from ST Ives in the Capellan Confederation though appear to have entered domestic production on Luxen.

Thus far the Luxen Dragoons have demonstrated a reasonable degree of effectiveness as a house military unit, serving admirably against first Black Jack McGirk, and thus far against the purported 'Neo Rim World Republic' / 'New Amaris Empire' of the alleged Stefan Amaris within the rimward periphery The Moniker Dragoons is a historical appellative though can be considered accurate to an extent due to the 36 Assault BattleMechs, and 14 Heavy BattleMechs [12 Merlin 1A, 2 Ostroc] present across the two battalions of mechs.

--
EDIT: Out of Universe: The refounding/reestablishment of the Luxen Dragoons is to comment basically an overcompensation to the both real threat and perceived threat against Luxen proper as well as the nominal /vestigial province. It is rated as Regular and Reliable during this period because it is a new ish unit, in comparison to say Raventhir's Curassiers or the Canopians Highlanders who are also engaged against Black Jack and then the would be Amaris Empire and its 'restoration'

 

Highland Faire 14
(B)​

As they walked through the rows, he mentally filed through an itinerary. Foremost among that list was that Field Marshal Davion had requested the report as soon as she had learned that there were Guillotines in the depot. She had known what one of those were, which admittedly had surprised Gene, but not what the early 27^th century, thus newer Terran, Shootist had been. They were both seventy ton mechs running off 280 rating fusion engines. He had made note of that in his report, particularly that both utilized the same Vox 280 engine. Still she wanted a report as soon as they were done here, that was the main thing.

It was a pity that Buda Imperial Vehicles was one in the Combine, and two that their engine shortages were so severe that they could not produce the the fusion reactor. He looked over the Demon PPC carrier which used a 220. The vehicle was not the original but rather the one procurement command had foisted onto Hegemony Militia Units because they had agreed to buy Leopard products but then ran into issues... well somewhere else in the procurement change.

He couldn't do anything with them. He liked the utility of having a tank capable of keeping pace when necessary with his main mech line, but the Fury did everything the Demon or even the Tokugawas did better and with more capability. The Alacorn was slightly slower but if those could come into play the enemy wasn't going to be there much longer on connection.

Besides that he was pretty sure that House Davion didn't exactly have an abundance of 220s and even if they did they'd most likely be marked for ASF production Still he had endorsed the Tokugawa as an effective tank even though very likely the only reason it would see use on Dieron was because of the Maguanac ranks being expanded as part of a deal to attack Dieron as mercenaries in the Federated Suns service.

He tapped an indicator on his noteputer display and moved on. The Corporate Sector was circling. Earthworks, in the FWL, apparently managed to build one thug a month.. which wasn't a horrible rate of production for a single factory on a singular world, but the question was could the remains of Maltex in the Federated Suns a tiny shadow of its existence that was mostly just the name on a building on the planet Errai really restart production? Not any time soon he imagined.

"Here." He handed the electronic data sheet over to the countess. "This is a multi item recommendation for procurement. It makes two core recommendations but that can be reduced to one single critical one. The Federated Suns currently produces Warhammer, and Archer BattleMechs that both use 280 Vox engines. Diversification of production for that engine should be undertaken, and expansion produced. It recommends that either chassis can be modified to approximate the load outs and performance of the machines in the weight class. Grasshopper, the guillotine, even an approximation of the weapons load out of the Battle Axe."

"That's not what you would suggest we do?"

"I would recommend that new iterations of the Archer and Warhammer be built with as much parts commonality as possible. Given the situation? We're, the company is going to standardize as much as possible on Dalban combined TTS and Comms suites." though he would admit some personal bias on that choice... and as they were currently shopping around that meant probably procuring those electronics from Blackwell or GM.

"Lady Yvonne also had mentioned something about a royal machine."

He frowned. The truth was this wasn't a conversation he wanted to have, simply because ... well it was complicated by the fact that much of the machines were star league technology, and the Royal Dragoon Guards were Royal not just in actual name, but in status because they'd been Hegemony troops, it was complicated. "The Machine is a Shootist, its callsign was claymore. It carries a Magna Hellstar extended range PPC," Which was 'Royal' tech, "in place of the Assault Autocannon. The Northwind government wants it because it belonged tone of the Regimental staff officers. Outside of that PPC and its armor it is not unique for the period. It does have the Shootist standard medium pulse lasers, but the pilot did drop the extended range large laser in favor of carrying two standard large laser."

"What would be the rational for that?"

It was a practical question, and not the one he had expected as her first question over the machine, "The Hellstar offers a better threat envelope. It is a particle projector cannon so it does produce additional waste heat relative to a gamma laser, but not substantively so. The machine has sufficient sinks to fire the large lasers and the Magna at anything stupid enough to come at it head on." It was true that they were less heat efficient and three weapons on target not only was a trickier but if it could be delivered then the result was more than a ton and a half of standard armor gone, and at ranges more akin to a class 10.

Alexandria denied that the Federated Suns wanted to take possession of the relic of a distant era, "They wanted Cosara to look at it. We had questions, I will pass this along." She slid the noteputer into her bag, "They're planning a parade with it... or a funeral march I suppose is more accurate, once the faire is concluded."

He wasn't surprised. The truth was the unlocking of all of this provided hi definition recordings of all the atrocities recorded by footage of the Hegemony's planetary security network. The last stand of highland regiments, and the resistance fighters and the loss of cities to orbital fires called by rimworld naval officers.

What the clan elders had not told their population ... not yet was that their sudden support for attacks on the combine stemmed from the knowledge that Minoru Kurita had provided SLDF positions to Amaris. That was without even considering the possibility of Cameron survivors in the deep periphery.

"They're knitting a mech sized shroud for it." She continued.

"As I said the Dragoons were at Christmas mass when the Rimworld attacked. The pilot of the mech was one of those killed when the nuke went off."

"Why his mech specifically?"

"From what we recovered he was the unit historian," Officially titled, "chronicler. His ward room aboard the Presidio has among other things the royal warrant of 1751 creating them 2^nd Dragoons." Which would no doubt be the subject of great fanfare come this July, but Gene doubted they would be on Northwind to see the exhibit debut. The Highlanders had long assumed such relics had long been lost to the war if not intentionally destroyed by baathist savagery during the occupation.

Not that he'd personally found the objects. They'd been in the port in safe storage for these past two centuries and he hadn't been minding every effort in the port complex. Abner had actually been the one to piece together the significance historical of the Presidio's contents because it wasn't the sort of thing that was listed in official orders.

He did wonder what had happened to the Unit's Eagle. It had presumably been on Terra though... so the spoils of victory over the French 45^th had likely been stolen or destroyed by Amaris's forces as many of the relics of the historic unit had been presumed to be. In fact he had little doubt that Baathist units had probably quickly appropriated the eagle only for it to then be lost as kerensky's forces had finally made planetfall on the cradle of humanity the following decade... but the truth was the eagle was the least of his concerns. He had the flight plan from Northwind that would have marked the Dragoons towards the Taurian front.
--
In a way this was probably how things were going to be for the rest of the week. The third round was ongoing but as the mechs were increasingly heavier models, though the bracket today was still firmly medium and heavy mechs, the fights lasted longer. The pilots today were slower more methodical, pacing their machines

There had been a couple of cases yesterday where maybe there had been teams, or at least pairs, but today there was no question This batch of pilots was the one to really watch. They had come in in pairs, and outright lances. In fact he was reasonably sure that was going to make them unique compared to tomorrow... where most likely all of the really individual high skill show boats were going to debut. Dante had shown him the records for some of the candidates and the top scorers of the graduating class were all slated to go at it tomorrow, with a lot of chatter already circulating over who was going to go after who.

Then they would recess for the weekend. Give time to circulate. Then it would start the second brackets. Individual duels between survivors of the mad scrambles this week, culminating in the champion bout Friday. Today was already proving different as emphasized by a pair of medium mechs opened fire from a small 'fake', it was concrete with sod layered on top if he wasn't mistaken, hill to relieve pressure on the other half of their lance.

The attrition today was faster. A lance or even a wingman piling fire on a medium mech could quickly knock it out. They had started with thirty mechs, and most of the combatants had closed to medium laser ranges almost half had been eliminated as such bracketed fire. The other half of the lance blasted through their distracted attack's remaining armor splattering the machine with blue paint as the faire marshals called a headshot even before the last gel rounds landed.

"I want the data for this class in particular." Gene said. Truthfully he was talking both to Dante, and to his staff officers. The AI was multitasking the same as the rest of them. Dante had big ambitious projections . An independent Rasalhague, and Azami state, even the if the Azami were committed to that, could break off combine attention in multiple directions. It would potentially mean freeing AFFS troops on the periphery side as well...

It was all too political for where they were now. There were battles to fight, and battles required individual soldiers. Tomorrows matches would be more show boat, in comparison the Games Commission had barely given time to this group, and he expected that Bubbles wasn't wrong the four bracket was going to be the ones that hiring agents tried the hardest to sign for... and they were probably good pilots.

"What about the important thing?" Beau asked.

He glanced down to the noteputer in front of him as Dante piped the spider drone's feed in, of an otherwise dark cavernous, "Lets just say we're going to be a very large amount of metal." As if they hadn't showed up to the exercise grounds this morning with four lances of pristine mechs. The advantage of the Archer was that Beau would be able to fold them into his missile boat familiarization course work because the basic commands and actions would be the same. He still needed to fill Bubbles and Beau on ... some important details that they still hadn't been told. He'd been putting it off.

--
Notes: The following will either be section A of 15 or will be C of 14, and will read Chang and Beau (for what its worth the Capellan and Free Worlds League natives of the company in) into some things, but we will deal with that next time.

 

Extras: Preview:
Son of Sam Aftermath​

Gene leaned back against the chair looking at the holographic data feed. Dante was right. The numbers still didn't add up. They still didn't make sense even after years of McGirk running around. Someone had to have gone out of their way or someones to put all of this in motion. There was no way that this had all come from a single cache. They had figured that out ... literally years ago, once Black Jack McGirk had started showing off Royal Machines with a completely different serial number range to the ones he had originally fielded. The SLDF 'mechs captured on Luxen in 3016 couldn't possibly have been in the cache of the mechs from battles in 3019.

His door chimed. Bahar entered and he sat up to take the report, "We have already gone ahead and sent out a courier ship with the details that we have on Amaris's forces, and affiliated pirates."

It was a long list. There were still remnants of Black Jack McGirk's people who had joined in the rampaging marauders of Tortuga and other pirate holds, and then there were supposed Amaris forces, which their machines didn't add up. He went down the list asking about one known band or another, "Do we have any idea where they went?"

"The Jumpship of Kelly's Kommandoes destroyed the HPG station on Jansen's hold two months ago, we believe they were withdrawing either to hit targets in the Federated Suns, or returning to the Tortuga dominion."

The image of Christopher Kelly stood there with an image of his customized Warhammer, and its flamers, and a handful of his forces. The image was dated late last year when he'd been rampaging through the inner Concordat area... there was no explanation for what Kelly had been looking to do. "I doubt he's going to punch inward towards the sphere." And he wasn't sure why this was one of the pirates ComStar cared about... there was no denying that Kelly was an accomplished mechwarrior, and a vicious son of bitch to be sure. He'd ingratiated himself with Black Jack and then had apparently been involved in introducing Stefan Amaris to the king of the pirates, and when black jack had died Kelly had been right there to help pull things together... but his status on the most wanted board had gone up when they had still been fighting on Elidere apparently.

That 'red notice' going out didn't have the usual details. Dangerous pirate was kind of a redundant statement. Murderous brigand, so what. Maybe Christopher had already been engaged in arson and targetting ComSTar facilities and it just hadn't reached the level of taking a flamer equipped heavy battlemech through an HPG station.

There was of course the possibility that given where the noticed had been issued maybe Christopher had simply been a a minor pirate in Black Jack's original band and he had been cut off from his patron and then he had risen to command his own pirate band and then decided to go rejoin the much more sucessful pirate. It was a plausible theory, but they had no evidence to support. Only that Black Jack's original pirate stomping ground had been on the lyran and combine border... and at some point he had gotten his hands on a lot of star league metal.

By the time Kelly's Kommandoes had shown up in the rimward periphery Kelly had also had Star League era mechs, and had been targetting ComStar facilities. Though not as it seemed from the facts with the same single mindeded destructiveness as when Black Jack was personally present.

That he had litterally burned a couple of station chiefs at the stake apparently in public didn't make that particularly odd... maybe they just hadn't grovelled enough for the pirate's liking. Still while Kelly's bounty was in the millions of C-Bills... litterally buy a mech money he wasn't their priority. If he ran back to Tortuga then he wasn't their problem.

The truth was while he was interested to hear what the latest word was, what the current situation, the current mess that was the rimward periphery was... they had other priorities. "Tell the Captains," That was the Captains of the JumpShips, so Naval Captains in this case, "That we're going to rotate back to Luxen." They would make plans there, about what they were going to do, about sending ... what were in effect envoys to worlds like Alamut in the Pharos system, to Coromodir in the Aurigan Expanse, to various independent worlds like Detroit's planetary government to Aquagea which held one of their landholds, or the religious conclave on Kimi.

The wreckage, the destruction left behind by black jack and now Amaris had probably had killed millions... and what was worse were the accusations not just by Periphery states now but by House Liao, House Marik, and indeed House Davion that such political rivals had sought to take advantage of such tragedies. It was political posturing of course. Whether or not the ambassadors or local government leaders who readily proclaimed such nationalist rhetoric actually believed it mattered less than whether on or not the citizens believed it.

... and if they believed it was it sufficent that they started a lynch mob, or enough to then feeback into political discourse demand their government 'do something' about it.

From Luxen they would decide eventually to transition to Detroit and on to Cormodir with the intention of informing Lord Tamati in person that in theory the greatest crisis of his life time was over.
--
He'd directed their other medical personnel to do what they could. The Bexar was currently at the limit of what the medical staff could cope for, and he was already mulling requests to keep them on station for humanitarian reasons. It was a request that he was currently weighing, but he had not made a decision at this stage.

They weren't going to be lifting off planet's surface any time soon. He needed to determine where they were going. Returning to Davion Space, the Inner Sphere was a significant travel time, and with that in mind he was astonished that hte Dragoons had been willing to send Kerensky this far out from the Inner Sphere.

The fight was over for now, and he had little idea of what to expect from their prescence. "To the best of our knowledge Stefan Amaris III was a younger cousin, maybe a nephew of the usurper active in the former Rim World as basically a pirate in the late first succession war," The Lyrans had basically annexed a sizable majority of the most prosperous parts of the Amaris patrimony before Kerensky had left the sphere, and gobbled up much of the territory "He seems to have disappeared presumably killed in perhaps 2828, a Stefan Amaris the fourth, an individual claiming to be the grandson of the usurper appears and runs amok on the fringes of the free worlds league, and Lyran commonwealth during the second succession war."

These pretenders though had never wielded anything the likes of which they had had to face. Even though that didn't make sense and indeed given the shortages of material and the distance in time from the Rim World republic logic dictated it should have been the opposite. He didn't interupt as they tried to trace through all of the pretenders to the usurper's lineage.

Someone there existed some apparatus that had helped keep the notion of the Amaris empire alive. The great monstrous ideology the collective demon in the Inner Sphere' conciousness was still being supported by some faction out there. It didn't sit well with Gene, but he did not broach the topic. They had defeated the latest incarnation of the Amaris threat, and if all this was true maybe they had a generation or two before the next inheirtor of the black legacy of Amaris rose to try and make a play.

"We confirmed the tests three times."

"Yes." The doctor replied, "The results are conclusive. Direct patrilineal descent from the satan amaris." The Azami colonel reiterated spreading his hands before him, "I have little explanation for how this came to be, but the test data is quite sure on its results."

The confirmation of the results were something they would pass on to the Magistracy, but it hat was mostly for completeness sake. It was not the same as with, "We'll need make back for Northwind." The Highlander Colonel remarked heavily to his commanding officer as the doctor finished.

Natasha still considered the Colonel an old man, but not nearly as old as the physician, but older than most gathered here. His Highlander had been one of those carrying a massive short ranged autocannon in place of the gauss rifle, and his armor had been scratched and dinted from where the warrior had repeatedly taken his machine into close quarters against the unnamable vermin in their machines.

"I agree, we will have to leave forces here as a safe guard." The Marauder pilot remarked, "Hidalgo, and Presidio will come back. I'm sure given the situation that there is plenty of clean up to handle." They divided off potions of the unit into so called Task Forces carrying DropSHips and JumpSHips to position in the RimWard periphery against the vermin nominally on the behalf of the rulers of the former territorial state of Canopus.

Seeing as that the usurper's spawn was dead, and with no immediate other plans Natasha Kerensky, of the great lineage of the founder decided to accept plans to follow them at least as far as Luxen. She doubted that the 'Duchess' would be much interest to the Dragoons, but she had the gut feeling that there was more going on... and the more senior ranked Dragoon officers were sure to have more questions about why a unit of Highlanders was this far rimward, or what they were doing...
--
Notes: Per the current iteration of the outline Son of Sam is basically put into the end of '21 which if we go through from the original outline.

Spoiler

would mean that tamati dies in his jumpship accident shortly after the great threat had been resolved, and facing the continued intransigence to his proposed reforms inspite of there still being threats to the realm the Directorate is established. That is to say that you would get Espinosa seizing power at the expense of relations with the Canopians and other anti-spinward neighbors during this time frame just as efforts are ramping up to go hunting down the last remnants of the threat.

After which depending on things but most likely the core of the unit would return to the Inner Sphere and potentially go do things like go hit Helm and expand the remaining 'SLDF' light horse units in FedSuns space. It would also contend with other developments in the Inner Sphere like the FedCom discussions.

and yes that is Kerensky totally misreading MacKintyre's preference for an AC 20 through the lens of her own biases. 'Old Warrior clearly is on his death ride' or something.

Also more or less this is an explanation for why in canon Moray declares he is Stefan Amaris VII instead of what not... after all given the Amaris reputation its awfully convenient that they show up, almost as if Rom or the word of blake or whoever wanted a convenient evil dark lord figure to prop up so maybe comstar could save the day after the successor states failed or something zany like that. Anyway, this was not the extra that I had planned to put up today, but the subject of Thursday updates, I will probably switch to updating my ring of fire story in either late half of the month or in Thursday.

 

Highland faire 15
(a)​

The doors ahead of them resembled in many respects, in all practical function the ones that safeguarded the annex that had housed the space allocated to the CID annex and had also housed Dante core. Like those large blast doors these had also had been sealed for two and a half centuries. The facilities officers had to best guess died to a man. It was possible of course that some might have survived, and perhaps some of those had dependents who survived... but even Dante had not fully grasped the destruction that the Rim World bombardment had inflicted on the planet... because no one had come and retrieved the AI even upon planetary liberation. No one had delved deep into the planet, and if there was anything. If there was any silver linings to the mass of death, and murder wrought it was that the Hegemony had likely left thousands upon thousand of tons of armor and guns to a future fight.

It was the sort of facility that highlighted the Terran castle doctrine, the fortress earth and all other ideas of protected redoubts and knowledge and technological edge to win the fight. It was from this facility that the Terran General had planned once the civilians were safely withdrawn into their shelters to withdraw himself and the SOF personnel to wait for relief.

They had never made it that far.

"How deep are we?"

It was an astute question. The Trams had taken them down a disorienting pathway. "About eight hundred meters," The difference to how this facility differed from N001 was that this installation was not nearly to the same scale. The Castle Northwind was capable of easily sustaining the minimum required two brigades.

Gene didn't want to consider how much effort that the Department of Mega Engineering had to have put into that especially as Northwind was a very early Castle Brian... and perhaps that age, being a direct successor to the original Castle concept of defense in depth had meant there was a flaw somewhere that had allowed an already compromised defense in depth to be further penetrated.

He rested a hand on the console and looked at it. Some had gotten frustrated and tried to shoot this door open or at least the console, then they had tried using charges to breach the doors... but only to leave frankly anemic smudge marks.

"Shouldn't there have been automated defenses to prevent this kind of tampering?" He asked.

The intercom crackled, "Republican forces attempted to breach the complex by subterfuge and then by human shields. Anti-personnel drones were dispatched to deal with the intruders."

As if on cue a spider limbed machine dropped down from an alcove in the ceiling its mechanical limbs clicking against the ferrocrete shoulder of the doors. In 2765 with orders detailing increasing attacks on the periphery frontier outposts of colonies, of scientific missions, and other facilities the Terran Hegemony had increasingly dispatched more and more of its forces outward.

The Hegemony had doomed itself.

Septim leaned over to look at the panel, "So if this is thing is as broke as it looks, what then? There some kind of magic trick to open it?"


A spidery limb, whirred extending an omni tool head to fix into the metal box housing. The electrical motor still took time to remove and separate out the bolts and retaining pins, and disconnect enough wires that he had to wonder what all the terminal was supposed to talk with.

Beauregard decided to sit down and watch the robot work, giving him a better vantage point as the limbs deposited the burned and pierced board to one side. An hour later a new screen came to life, and began to show a progress bar and boot. "Special Class A security profile or better required to continue. System Administrator, Voice Input required."

He pushed the starburst identity chit into the new receptacle, and opened the dog eared manual, "HAF, Lieutenant Colonel Shepherd Gene. Protocol 94-8." He remarked reading from the installation and directive. Newer systems than this model would have required using neurohelmet technology to make sure that the installation of new hardware wasn't being done under duress but that had been a program that he doubted gotten particularly far certainly not in terms of updating old facilities in the deep heart of the hegemony

The new keypad back lit, and cycled from red to green. He tapped in a series of numbers, and confirmed that the keypad was working cognizant that the turrets inset into the wall were active and tracking as he worked.

"Authentication confirmed. System Boot Successful. Access granted."

He had to wonder how much equipment the Rim World had managed to loot from starports, and warehouses on the planet. How much material the partisans had carried off into the hills. The Hegemony had been shipping vast volumes of equipment and their best frontline troops to the periphery.

"Alright people welcome to a Hegemony Armed Forces storage bunker." Mechs in the Hegemony were cheap. Better your pilot that you had spent millions of Terran dollars training made it out so you could put him in another of the same machine or an upgraded version and send them back into the fight, than worry about the machine itself. The Hegemony wanted its pilots to rotate back home and pass on lessons. It wanted Hegemony pilots to input in next generation design.

It was why Kerensky's opinions on Mech Design had been considered so important. The King Crab and the Atlas were obviously a by product of Kerensky's education at Nagelring, but they worked, they accomplished the stated objective parameters of the program. The mechs in questions accomplished the program goals. They did what Kerensky wanted them to do.

"Do you have media control?"

"Affirmative." Dante answered as they moved into the facility.

"Play timeline of the coup by major events, and intercepts earmarks." He turned back to the others as they spread out, "The following is a history lesson on how the Star League died." CID had been earmarking movements by Rimworld jumpships for years, decades before the coup. Kerensky and the Star Lord both during his minority, and after had ignored these recommendations for action, or to really follow up on them in favor of other priorities. In hindsight it was obvious that the Rim World had been preparing for war... "Whether or not Simon Cameron who was assassinated in 2751 was killed by Rim World agents is debatable." It was certainly possible but the reason that it had not been pursued was because there was insufficient evidence to say for certain who was responsible... it had been murder but the perpetrator had not left evidence sufficient to say who had done it.

... and at the time CID leadership had been more inclined to blame the Combine than to assume one of the Territorial States in the Periphery might have been responsible. Due to the implication that it might have been the combine, Kerensky has squashed the discussion by declaring the first lord's death to be a tragic accident. "With only a handful of divisions remaining in the Hegemony Amaris launched his coup seizing power on Terra . The Royal Highlander Regiment, the Black Watch under the directive of Colonel Schmitt initiated emergency protocols."

Her final orders going out even as nukes were falling on other hegemony worlds. Worlds like Northwind... and at time when Hegemony troops had been fighting Rim World troops in the periphery for months, years by that point. Amaris's secret army had been operating for years by that point, decades of arms build up, and careful manipulation.


In short barring certain details which had been classified or simply had never passed into the public record due to the extent of destruction. All of this was the public recollection of the great crisis of the human race.

"And it is from there that things,"

"Got worse." Septim interjected.

"Yes," he agreed. The Star League had already been fraying by the time of the Second Hidden war... the War of Davion Succession should have been such a clear cut black and white scenario, and it shouldn't have been possible for the star lord to bungle it so badly. The successive lords hadn't made things any better. "Which brings us to our present contract with house Davion, and where all this material is coming from."

An all too familiar HPG recording played, and while it played he looked at the empty stasis pods.

Takiro Kurita had been the Coordinator during the war of Davion Sucession, his son Minoru had started the succession wars by proclaiming himself the 'natural successor to the camerons' by the most nebulous of blood ties, and Takiro's grandson was forever remembered for the Kentares massacre.

"I may or may not be the last Gunslinger." It was possible there were other stasis pods out there, with Hegemony officers who'd frozen away to wait the passage of time. The Star League had died with the Terran Hegemony... and whether or not there were survivors of House Cameron they needed to go look at least. "Tripitz ran the Republican blockade of Terra, where she went from there we don't know, but the Black Watch had issued orders for Kerensky to immediately counter attack, we assume he did not get those orders, and because he didn't given time Amaris was able to refortify and prepare for a longer war against the SLDF that ultimately set the conditions for the succession wars."

--
Gene was glad that the last of the matches would be tomorrow. The games commission was really going all out to ritz it up, they kept comparing tomorrow's match to Solaris in the Lyran Commonwealth.

"And the cicada is looking fine?" The tech nodded, they would be going up against a lot of light mechs on Dieron. The ALF had volunteered to drop with them, and while he was sure that there were reservations on the Davion side it seemed that there was enough ISF on Azami violence ongoing by this point, in addition within Rasalhague areas in the combine, enough repression that they'd been given the green light. Still he was a little worried about the machine, "Alright the course set?" He received another affirmative.

They looked over to the gathering crowd. "I think they're getting anxious." The tech remarked.

"I'd say so."

"You do not wish to tell me what you plan to do?" The forty something year old senior non com asked after a moment.

"I want to make sure something works before I try it in live combat."

It wasn't the answer the man was looking for.

He swung into the hundred ton mech's cockpit and started the boot checks. He flipped a thumbs up to a man in bright fluorescent jacket to signal he was read and the traffic director signaled he could close up and move to the range.

Gene glanced down to the displays and focused. Cooling and heat indicators flickered into holographic displays. The Blackwell communications suite showed him the feed from the control tower and the field.

There were two principal reasons he dind't ordinarily use this technique but he did want to make sure it worked if he ever had to use it. The first was that he liked retaining the use of his medium lasers for in close work, and the second was that this wasn't as effective even with DHS when combined with the much more heat intensive Extended Range Hellstars.

Abner cleared his throat over the radio, "How are things?"

"I still would prefer the original HiRez's datafeed." He replied to the tower.

Another voice came over the line, "With respect colonel," a middle aged somewhat... nerdy voice, perhaps was the best description, spoke up, "Our test pilots suggested that was too much data inflow and that it caused lapses in pilot judgment."

He did 'the math'. HiRez II had been selected for lighter mechs like the Hornet which had been intended as an urban fighter ... having holographic displays potentially cut line of sight was undesirable. "It was a statement of preference." He replied turning master arm to on, and watching the reads turn hot.

A clock started, and he started firing cycles as targets appeared. Two minutes of continuous firing of his energy weapons and his machine was still running cool even as he pushed the Vlar 300 trhough its paces. He was running at heat neutral... if he had needed to fire his LRMs then yes that would be the limit he'd start accumulating heat as he continued to move, but as it was, he adjusted the trim and touched down on the course path that would take him to the finish point, almost six minutes ahead of par.

He tapped the comms suite, "Haqim, I'm bringing her in, check the coolant lines that's what I want to make sure of."

"Understood."

Ten minutes later he had tossed a waterproof jacket over his flight suit and shoved his hands in the front pockets. "I don't understand. I was watching the heat, I mean," Beau moved further back inside the hangar away from the rain squalling outside, "You don't sweat, but those gauges barely moved."

"I went in and slaved heat sinks to specific systems." He replied as an explanation to the greater efficiency that his marauder II, the Storm Hunter first model demonstrated on the course. It was also why on a Star League era machine he wouldn't have been concerned, but this was probably brand new version of the marauder in a whole lot more weight so he did want to make sure he hadn't risked a coolant rupture if he was going to use the technique in the field, in real combat.

Ordinarily the course was designed to take upwards of ten minutes in an assault mech because you couldn't just flat run and gun and hit the targets accurately. There had been shots he had had to make follow ups on, but he hadn't been expecting perfect accuracy.

He shook hands with Blackwell's representative. "I take you want access to the mech?"

"Yes, colonel we would," He half glanced back to another, more so than the techs. "If you don't mind."

"Go ahead, Haqim will make sure you have everything on it." He glanced over, "Chang they're going to reset the course for your run, expect a lot of light mechs."

"right." The Marauder II with two Assault auto cannons waited... and he expected that there were going to be questions about preparing everyone for Dieron.

"Once does her run we're going to start cycling the Marauder II pilots from the DMM, make sure Septim is ready," Gene glanced to the countess, and brevet general and moved to join them.
--
Notes: This is of course a reference to I think its tactical operations, for heat management by pairing heat sinks specifically to certain systems, including if you've taken an engine hit.

Spoiler

When gene finally does run into some surviving hegemony personnel its very much a 'oh of course you guys would be the ones to survive'

 

Extras: Unknown World​

The facility dated to the end of the League... at least it had been abandoned by the time the Star League had fallen. There were questions. He couldn't be sure if this had originally been hegemony or if Amaris had simply been using an abundance of Terran equipment and the raid that had put its staff out of commission hadn't demoed the place.

He suspected based on limited evidence, since they hadn't started full SSE and tried booting any of the computers, that this had been some Terran mad science project... but he hadn't said as much. If that was the case then chances were good that the Rim World had found out about it tried to take the facility over and then lost it later.

The JumpShip abandoned seemingly intact wasn't a good sign either. They hadn't gone aboard it, but it showed no thermal signatures active. The fusion reactor was shut down... and he expected probably by a master override command... and a while ago... but they wouldn't know until they went aboard.

He swept around and looked through an office space. They'd start checking to see if there were papers soon, they didn't appear to be locked and would be less likely to be tied to the security systems. The fusion reactor worked and was running normally... something was drawing power. There was no sign, no branding, that this was a DOME project. No zodiac umbrella marking but the complex medical systems were definitely late star league medical equipment akin to what had been assigned to Sagittarius Umbrella, or Frobisher, but that didn't necessarily meant anything. It strongly suggested a correlation with the DOME's own research, but not DOME ownership. The Department of Mega Engineering would have been laid out differently... and wouldn't have looked less like a military hospital than a dedicated research facility.

That was the comparison he'd been trying to figure out. His radio chirped. "We have fusion reactor control, and diagnostics running now." The tech declared.

"Good." He swapped channels. "Eisenhower, standby to link Dante to the command control network if we find one." He hoped this was a terran facility, and that hadn't had its network wrecked by the Rimworld it would be so much faster to have an AI run through the mass of data that they didn't have the personnel to manually parse.

He more or less wandered around the facility. Coming to stop to look out over a hangar that in itself was a standard protected configuration facility, but its contents were unusual. He recognized the designs from the New Dallas data package, which suggested either one of two things. "They're shiny aren't they?" Septim asked.

They were that, either, "Probably prototypes, do we have a date on when this facility was stood up yet?"

"I think, ... I think I will let Dante tell you." Septim replied, earning him an annoyed look.

So he cued his radio, and looked up at the nearest security camera on the assumption that the mobile AI was capable of seeing them, "What is it about this facility is it that I'm not going to like?" He asked, and looked back to the silent white gray royal war machines. Prototypes most likely. Amaris wouldn't likely have shipped these off world... this was a hegemony facility that the Rim World had attempted to suborn.

"Facility data implies, that does not conclusively state this dates to a Gunslinger project annex," Here the AI were using the vernacular, mixed with official terminology for a support project. "I would estimate that the original facility was stood up no later than 2700, however it seems to have been repurposed and expanded in direct response to the Second Hidden War, probably under orders from General Fredrasa, but then continued under his successor. The program was further authorized after 2738 by Aleksandr Kerensky then General Commanding." Kerensky would not have been thirty eight by that point that he succeeded Fetladral. "However much of the system's annex and orders are partitioned. It would require two authorizations."

That was never a good sign. It was not necessarily a protection against AI. Two command level officers could mean ... well a Major, "Is that the branch of the facility where the primary command center is located?"

"No, Commander, I believe it is the main facility itself."

"Excuse me," He made a point of looking around, "This isn't the main facility?" BY itself this trip had already turned up enough lostech that any prospector could have retired to Tharkad and sent their grand kids to ring knocker school. No wonder the machine spirit had suggested he wasn't going to like it. "Hold off on touching those JumpShips. Dante should I assume there is another AI here?"

"Given the security precautions of the facility, that is likely the case." There was a pause, "I have already prepared a briefing packet if that is the case." He looked back to the Land Air Mech. It was one of the staples of specialist mech design of the late SLDF that he had never intended to reintroduce. The Combine, and Free Worlds League apparently still maintained a handful of LAM units spread across their respective realms but that was talking Lances at brigade level... unless the Cobmine was dramatically under reporting its LAM production.

"Get Bahar, and put everyone on alert."

There was an approximation of a cough, "The access door is mech scale, commander."

"I'll be in my Marauder," he replied without blinking.

Four hours later he dismounted from the white war machine, and looked up at a corridor junction, a street basically, that was labelled 1980. The facility was still coming alive, but the fact that there were two separate fusion reactors running the inner and outer systems was not that surprising. That was oversight that they should have considered looking for a second facility.
--
Gene should have known something had gone wrong. This whole situation had felt off besides, but the first warning that things had gone sideways after the call in that they'd found a naked guy wandering around should have been warning enough that he should have gone to his mech, or failing that doubled up trying to find the actual command and control center.

There had been a lot of medical equipment, a lot of stasis pods. He'd known what he'd been looking at without Harry telling him they were artificial wombs.

He backpedalled the mech felling the resistance as he stepped on a ferrocrete retainer in the backpedal. The other mech stepped and he slammed one armored gauntlet down on the other mechwarrior's machine. The 2R wobbled under the blow, but didn't fall.

That would have been too easy he supposed. He was getting the feeling that this was what most of his opposition felt like running into him. As it was the other Marauder had been trying to walk medium lasers on to him rather than waste ammo for the Whirlwind. That wasn't an option now... but it wasn't an option for either of them. He'd taken the risk banking on being close enough to try and bring his own weapons in point shots, not really expecting a flat out charge of medium lasers... that had largely went either wide or low as the machine closed in, but his own shots had gone left, scouring the wall behind the 2R... and that was what had brought them into fisticuffs.

He'd been a little surprised the other pilot had wanted to get in close enough to do that, he'd been banking the other pilot wanted to shoot it out, and Gene had been on the back foot, but his link through the neurohelmet was shifting his mechs weight. The 2R body shifted again as the armored gauntlet of the other arm came down on the leg join assembly and even though he couldn't read the damage he could run the calculations through his machine's own systems.

His 3R was only different in that he had Thompson's prototype LBX Whirlwind, but other than that they were basically the same ferro fibrous DHS, ER Hellstars. He stepped forward, know that he was risking a lot, if the other Marauder didn't fall there was a good chance that his would he was banking that the computer's calculations were right and he'd hit the actuator without actually using his sensors... but he need the weight to shift...

... and so the two 75 ton Heavy BattleMechs wrestled. The white machine kicked there was a screech of metal, and the other limb moved out of position... he floored the acceleration pushing the Marauder forward and physically driving, dragging the other machine back into a body of water that he hoped was deep enough to take the machines out of the fight.

It was the best plan he could foresee on short notice. He wasn't as if he planned to fight other phantom mechwarriors... maybe he should start planning for that.

--
The red head in the form fitting Hegemony pilot suit glared at them, which would have been a lot more threatening if she'd still been in the marauder.

Gene certainly wasn't going to apologize.

The suits were waterproof.

Even now a pair of recovery machines were winching out both Marauders. "How's callahan?" He asked turning away from the sulking teenager even as her narrowed PPC blue eyes continued to try and burn a hole in his chest.

"He's got a concussion from where he punched out," They were after all inside of a building, and he'd skidded the sled along a wall, "he's fine though." Septim replied, "Did she really?"

"Yeah," He replied

"Is she?" Then asked a little lower.

"A Gunslinger, maybe." Or a program candidate tossed into a pod. He suspected that the red head was probably the same age as he'd been when he'd come out of the pod on Aquagea, but her rank insignia was that of a Terran Lieutenant.... it was possible she was younger. It was equally possible that she a little older, but certainly mid teens. "I'm glad she knee capped most of the others." He was glad no one was dead... but he suspected that was because the AI of the facility had been feeding her targeting information.

Gene had no idea what the two AI were talking about. Dante had warned them about the drones coming online apparently he'd misjudged where the real command facility was, and that his failure to find the AI to talk to initially had prompted the Northwind Machine Spirit to order the smart systems into diagnostic mode... and well... things had gone from there.

"The naked guy says his name is Goshiro, he says he's an ASF pilot... or more correctly that he prefers to be an ASF pilot. His credentials say he's a 'mech pilot as well."

Leaving that information aside... "And he was naked why?"

"Stasis tube... doc says that he was disoriented coming out, and that he just happened to stumble into our guys before he could figure out what was going on, and put his clothes on." Gene nodded. There really wasn't much more to say then... he'd get a written report later... whether he wanted to or not. "What's a a CAAN?"

"Hmm, oh they're marines." He shrugged, "Designed for combined arms operation in naval enviroments on planet's surface." He paused, trying to remember what the acronym stand for. "Cavalry, armored, air and Naval, something to that effect. They were special operations, sof regiments..."
--
Notes: Some extra content for down the road this is not the entirety of events, there may be a follow on segment down the road for this, there is no time stamp on this because I'm still attempting to plot which details are going to be canon and which aren't.