I Luxen Part 4
Imperator Pax
Talon Master
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First Luxen Part 4
Outnumbered as significantly as they were Gene had really been hoping to see other Marauders among the defenders, but that wasn't to be. He wasn't even sure if there was a single Heavy weight BattleMech among the Magistracy defense units.Hell right this second he wasn't even sure if they had any legitimate combat vehicles over sixty tons. He could have been wrong, but from what he was seeing there wasn't much of a defense here that couldn't have been broken with a concerted assault backed up by lots of LRMs.
He shook his head, "No seriously what are those?" The newest mechs in any numbers the canopians had were three lances of basically new in box Vindicators purchased before the third succession war had kicked off for the planetary militia and which... might as well have been in greased factory storage. They were at least Medium Mechs, but he had honestly been hoping for more Shadowhawks or maybe some Hunchbacks or something.
Military spending on Luxen though had never been particularly important. The planetary militia didn't even get the lions share of defense spending, that went to the medcom for training programs for the broader canopian armed forces. The Luxen Volunteers were using mainly using domestic Locusts and Jenners bought from abroad. The Luxen Volunteers did have their share of personal mechs added into the fray, but none of them were outside of the Medium weight range.
It made sense why the Magistracy was scrambling for such an expensive solution to band aid over this threat though. It suggested the regular MAF weren't in any position to redeploy that fast to patch over the vulnerability even if they felt like risking stripping a planet of its defenders on a gamble. Or who knew what the situation was, other than presumably the obvious, bad. He hoped the MAF knew that already, or would have enough sense to to figure that out after going through his Marauder's battle data records
Shaking his head again, he looked back out the window overlooking the ferrocrete covered staging ground. There was no shortage at least of Astechs, and technicians at least... in theory getting those machines up and in the fight shouldn't be a problem. He picked up the noteputer, and flipped through the Capellan mech's specs. He was already thinking of it as a capellan mech, but it didn't look that bad... or wouldn't if they had skilled pilots.
The DropShip, which had carried them to Luxen, had finished offloading at last report, but he was the only one who had gotten to this sector of the defensive line. Their liaison was still in the planetary capital, at the actual center of government. "That is three lances of Mechs."
"Yeah, its that. On paper, and if you send them out as three lances, they'll be nothing more than target practice for the Muj." He muttered reflexively. "I'd keep them either all together, or split them into six mech teams. Mass their LRMs to harass an attacking enemy." Not that he expected trying to have a bunch of greenies play the Azami's own game on them was likely to be perfect, they'd get eaten alive that way. "Its not particularly fast so its not going to be running them down, but if you're already committed having them on an enemy flank should help." Use the LRMs first to avoid any unfortunate ammo cook offs, and... and then basically outlined that they should act like an infantry fire and maneuver element to make up for individual mechwarrior weakness.
It wasn't a great solution, but he was getting paid for this kind of professional advice... 'advising' to 'shore up the defenses'. Not that he could make it happen. He was getting paid for opinions not to actually assume command. They were desperate, not that desperate. In truth it might well be a recipe for disaster if any other other Mercs in the scratch company gave conflicting advice.
There was a riotous explosion some where in the distance, probably several miles, signaling that the enemy were in fact still out there and making themselves known, but the Azami were up to something. Gene just couldn't be sure what. Were they here to steal medical equipment? If so why? But was that why they hadn't just plastered the shit out of everyone with LRMs? Did they think they'd break something they were here to steal, this was a fucking mess. "I need to liaise with the MRB, and update them." They needed a copy of his combat footage... not that he was necessarily going to get any salvage from his kills. The Azami had presumably recovered their dead but he'd slagged plenty of vehicles and a couple mechs so that was money. Even if they hadn't he didn't have a salvage crew, and there was that fuss... no really it was more for the C-Bills.
The MRB liaison wasn't hard to find. He was was paunchy friar Tuck looking man of about middle age in ComStar Robes who would have looked more in place getting drunk at the local bar. He had copies of the entire company's files via the HPG network, took a copy of the combat footage, filed and notarized everything, but couldn't really elucidate on anything else. He had no reason for why the Azami were here, why they might acting the way they did, but admitted they were probably here to try and steal star league era, irreplaceable, medical technology and that that might indeed explain the restraint even though they were here in force.
He didn't have anything about that either, and Gene was regretting not being able to find anything more out about the Kuritan response showing up. The Kuritans had come out of the Aurigan reach, presumably so to had the Azami after a point, but he didn't know that for sure. Details about the new arrivals on Detroit had been fuzy, names like Arisaka had been thrown around, but that didn't mean anything to him. Much of the probably supposed to be impressive verbiage just were things he missed entirely... and of course he'd also been shuffled off to go fight this war in the pocket as soon as he had signed on the dotted line.
"What about the Infantry fight?"
"Pardon?" The adept he had nicknamed Friar Tuck replied.
"I was briefed that there had been several instances of probable Azami getting into gunfights before and during the initial attack here in the city, where were those?"
"oh, that," The adept frowned, picking at a tuft of white hair in one ear, "I'm not entirely sure. It wasn't on the university grounds proper, but it was close enough that I would guess that was what it was about. I can look into it if you think its relevant mechwarrior." He didn't really sound thrilled at the notion though.
"If it gives us an idea of where they might try and break through and go after it might be worth it, just give me the address and a copy of the incident. If its nothing well then it doesn't waste your time." Presumably Friar Tuck went off to drink after that, which was fine by Gene.
This was probably a pretty nice place when it wasn't under a civil defense curfew, and he got a couple of strange looks even accounting for the MAF attache driving him around. "What are we looking for?" She asked as they stopped in front of a tall marble facade building that screamed academia.
"Answers." He replied swinging out of the chair. "I want to know why the Azami are acting like this, Sun Tzu once said it was all important to understand both yourself and your enemy. Lieutenant Short I would like to know why they haven't executed a breakthrough, because they could have concentrated enough forces to do that before I got here." He looked at the placards listing the residences of the building. "What's interstellar expeditions?"
"Some kind of historical research group, anthropologists," She gestured to one of the buildings across the lane, "That's the History faculty building." Lieutenant Short was apparently a native.
"Excuse me can I help you?" The old man had the look of a cliche academic. The way the wrinkles were on his face, and the body language suggested more someone who would have been gesturing to an ossified skull in a class room to astonished freshman sort.
"I'm Gene Shepherd," He extended his hand to shake, "I'm investigating the Azami attack a few days ago, and how it might relate to their actions outside." He probably should have lead with that he was a mercenary or anything else but he wanted an answer to the question.
"Oh I'm doctor Abner." He was from the Lyran Commonwealth, and apparently didn't like 'armchair anthropology', which actually turned out to be a problem since even stripped of markings he recognized Gene's gray uniform as being a 'wonderfully accurate recreation' of the Terran Hegemony Armed Forces from the end of the Star League. Still after explaining, and a lot of talking about what it was Interstellar Expeditions was engaged in Abner finally directed them to a star map, "I believe we have a calling to investigate all the lost places, lost since the fall of the Star League, and these brutish succession wars."
Gene was already keenly aware that Luxen had once been the center of the province that bore its name, and that there were plenty of rimward planets and systems that the Magistracy had been forced to leave to wither on the vine as resources became increasingly scarce. Nothing however that Interstellar Expeditions had turned up, or at least nothing Abner was lecturing about as having been turned up struck him as being worth all of this hassle.. but all the same an idea struck him. "What if they're trying to steal supplies to make a viable colony in the deep periphery."
"We have found worlds capable of sustaining human life, but most of the populations we've encountered have largely back slid since being abandoned by the greater human sphere." Abner replied, "Certainly it might be possible, but," He stopped, "Mister Ford, Mister Ford," He waved hastily to a strip of a man as he walked past the door, "Yes yes, this is one of my graduate students he'll be a fine archaeologist one day." Abner beamed, "He had a discussion with one of our visitors at length before this unpleasantness."
After a round of hand shakes, and other small talk Ford recounted that one of the Azami had let it slip that they had heard from a traveler of a world in the deep periphery that while relatively primitive was ruled by the faithful. That had apparently been more than he had been supposed to reveal, but they believed that they could find Alexandria and escape the Dragon's betrayal, which was an interesting description.
Even beyond the cloud cukoo lander archaeologist calling the fighting outside 'unpleasantness'.
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Commentary: other stuff schedule... in theory? 'Not A Hero' hopefully will get updated before Friday... currently I'm not holding my breath. White Wolf Rebellion, much like this fic, has the advantage of having forty plus pages of story content going forward so updating that regularly is no problem. I really need to get around to the HPGENFIC jumpchain update that should have gone up Wednesday or I will be very quickly two updates behind. I'm behind a stargate jump update, but admittedly that's an SG1 Interlude scene. There a number of other stories I'd like to update, and just haven't found the time to sit down and get to, or they're on other computers.
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