Battletech: The Ghost Who Walks (Battletech Isekai)

II Luxen
Part 1​

As the MRB was so mournful to inform him by the time they got back... no the Mercenary Court had not returned a judgment just yet, we're sorry could you be a little more patient please. Apparently the Combine lawyers were throwing every conceivable bullshit attempt they could at the wall to get something to stick. That was fine he had other things to do.

Especially given the fat pay check from six months contract plus the extra time of work for IE. Paperwork, registration and moving from single mechwarrior with mech to small company commander had taken time to fill out. Luxen was much more calm now, despite a full half of the scratch company still being in the employ of the Magistracy, and more mercenaries seeming to have arrived since. Septim sat down across the table from him. "I hear you're hiring now."

"I am."

"The Magistracy has been paying us to drill the Luxen Volunteers, oh did you hear, the Marik civil war is over?" The what? "The news came in like right after you left. The Wolf Dragoons switched sides and cleaned house." The crowd of others passed, "Sorry, anyway, the Magistracy was pretty interested in that divide three lances into two fire groups concept you used. We have gamed that battle over and over again in the simulators and we should have all died, man."

"The Azami made contact, and then withdrew."

"Yeah, but they had our ticket punched. So yeah the six mech thing."

"We had twelve of the same model mech." He reminded him. "The Vindicator seems to be workable, I suppose even with different models with overlapping armaments you could have well your Merlin, and the Vindicators coordinate like that." Part of it had been intended to compensate for lack of training, and tactical initiative. He had hoped that six or twelve lrm launches simultaneously an 'LRM 30' or 'LRM 60' attack on a target would be effective at softening up or at least disorienting a hostile force. That would be easier with CVs in the unit of course.

"Who is your father man, Aleksander Kerensky?" Septim replied offhandedly, and loud, "So you're hiring? Cause if you tell the Magistracy that stuff you've got a job. There looking for more Mercenaries in general, but especially Heavy Mechs. Your Marauder, any marauders are at the top of what they want list."

"Have they brought any in?" He thought back to Markham who had shipped out for spinward prospects before he'd headed to North for the survey job.

"No, the Magistracy brought in some Shadow Hawks, back in August, more Jenners and Locusts. I know the MAF wants to purchase more Vindicators, but that involves negotiating with the Capellans..."

Apparently the civil war going on over the border with house Marik had deterred the Cappellans from authorizing any export sales... and they didn't have a whole lot of export capacity to begin with normally. The Vindicator was the work horse of the Capellan military so it was produced in greater numbers than most of their other mechs so it was possible... just not any time soon. "They didn't try and buy Merlins?"

"Its a new mech, yeah I did well enough to get a job, but I doubt its 'proven itself'." The topic drifted... He wasn't surprised to learn that 'Septim' was a MechWarrior from the Lyran commonwealth, and that he'd come from enough money that even as a second son he could just buy a brand new Battlemech to be an adventurer after his stint as a Lyran lieutenant. He was seriously concerned now that word was getting around about the training contract of getting pushed out this year in favor of a bigger company or someone with a bigger rep who was looking for an easier job. The pirate tide out of Tortuga wasn't even hitting in full force if the rumor mill was to be believed, but the early waves had been bad enough with everyone spinword hiring up who they could so Detroit was doing brisk business, as was hiring centers on Herotitus. He hadn't been surprised the Majesty Metals had already hired a unit to handle ur Cruine, but their rep had been worried about potential pirate problems.

"What about the salvage, did the government buy that up?"

Severus Alexander shook his head, "Luxen didn't have the C-Bills for the purchase. Lady Raventhir bought some, and she's 'loaning' them magnanimously to the planetary defense, but most of those mechs are still in the shop all the same. Most of the mechs were bought by other corporate interests... not that they really have pilots for them."

Panic buy but understandable he supposed. Septim clearly had some MechWarrior elitism about what constituted real pilots, "What about the Kuritans who showed up on Detroit, did they turn up?"

"Yeah they finally showed their faces back in September. Their little princess and her samurai weren't happy that they had missed everything. They got into a big shouting match with the local MRB over the fact that the MRB had already run the salvage auction, and distributed shares."

"Did they try and buy the salvage back?"

Septim snorted, "No, I don't think their pride allowed them to. I think they're still on some wild goose chase looking for the pirates, but they haven't shown up since. They might have gone back to Detroit since that mess is still being strung out in the courts."
--
Major Seghal or Force Major... which was the Canopian equivalent to little bird was a long faced woman with broad forehead and would have looked like a librarian, in Gene's opinion if you threw a pair of spectacles on her. She was defacto Adjuant General to the Luxen Volunteers as a whole now. Lady Raventhir might or might not have had a part in moving people around, the recommendations to get all the rest sorted.

Right now the major was looking at a typed up break down of force arrangement. It took the original twelve vindicators split into two six Mech groups, and expanded on it. Twelve mechs was ordinarily three lances, and his added a six mech 'Recon' unit on paper, and a six mech 'command' unit. The last was going to be the unit in theory the observation group, "But in the future," He remarked I'd recommend something like massed Shadow Hawks. Not necessarily six of them, but enough that they could mass LRM fire like the Vindicators can." It was the scout unit that was the problem. During the battle of Luxen such that it had been he'd been able to keep his marauder watching the two six groups. The Magistracy had its share of Light Mechs but the truth was domestic production or no he really didn't like the mish mash of stinger, locust, and wasps... all twenty tonners that were filling out the recon unit. None of those carried LRMs which was fine because at the top end the locust only had four tons of armor spread around. They weren't supposed to stand up and fight anyway, they were supposed to observe and fall back and let the medium units come in. "Which should allow the Vindicators to catch up and concentrate on hostile units."

It was still not an ideal solution to contending with Heavy Mechs barring all of them ganging up on one or two heavier enemies... or fighting a Charger, which was technically an Assault mech he supposed.

The Force Major pushed the paper to one side. "This will put you in command of the mercenaries who fought at Luxen," Though they had honestly been divided it up to cover sectors of the defense not really deployed together, "And you've brought in additional assets." She managed to make both statements sound accusatory. Promotion or no, or maybe it was the promotion she seemed to be getting pushed from somewhere up top.

"Is that a problem?"

"There are three regiments of Luxen Volunteers." The intention was that the parent brigade would allow the diminished magistracy military to protect against pirate attacks and supplement even more local militia units those explicitly at the planet level who weren't provincial capitals in times of crisis. The problem was that Luxen as a provincial capital hadn't been seriously threatened in a while, and it looked like 'pirate season' was going to be bad for the next couple of years.

He knew that much from Majesty Metals being worried about criminal activity on ur Cruinne, and knew those worries were translating up into the Canopian government to pirate nest on the doorstep potentially. What he hadn't known was that there were concerns from the other end. That was to say of threats coming anti-spinward.

He managed to avoid questioning the 'what' when the Marian Hegemony had been brought up. The fact that a pirate kingdom had managed to survive near a century and had three generations of one asshole family manage to keep the place running was mildly disturbing. The Magistracy Armed Forces weren't configured for offensive, expeditionary warfare. The idea that nine planets had been under the control of a single bandit kingdom doing roman cosplay was... was absurd.

Yet that was the situation on the anti-spinward border of the magistracy. Thraxa was the most obviously exposed to such a threat, but the reality of JumpShips meant raids further rimward were not outside of the realm of possibility.

Major Seghal shuffled some papers, "When can you start?"

"Immediately." He replied standing up.

After that it was a trip to Friar Tuck, the MRB liaison was about as happy to be pulled away from his drinking as could be expected but filed everything needed for the cadre contract to be filed and then shoed Seghal, and him along so that he could go back to his beer. Ordinarily though cadre, and garrison work on a world like Luxen would have rated much lower in risk than the MRB currently considered it... even with the Azami 'driven off' and no sighting of that particular unit since the threat by both the MRB and the Canopians warranted a higher threat assessment.

That was without accounting for the other security concerns. The Magistracy were willing to fork over the C-Bills for security. It was going to be completely different than the sort of work he had been doing for IE though.
--
Commentary: Minor revisions might continue through tonight, but just so we're clear 'Severus Alexander' is an assumed name its a nom du guerre, but its also the source of his call sign Severus Septim. I'm going to do another Index Extras post shortly now that the Merc company is on the books.

 

II Luxen
Part 2​

He had had... well less than a weekend from accepting the change over on the contract from Septim's command. There had been certain points that had needed to renegotiated that friar tuck over that MRB hadn't been real happy about doing. Septim's contract and ad hoc group of mechwarriors had been subject to fending off poaching attempts at what was perceived as easy pay by late comer mechwarriors with better ratings with the MRB. Nothing company size, singles and pairs of freelancers who had heard about in th last couple of months. It was opportunism from people who had been in the business long enough to try and capitalize, but who for whatever reason weren't apart of a larger unit.

That had been why Septim had been trying to be surreptitious in the cafe. Luxen was an option for R&R of course, but also medical treatment and what not before the incursion. This was the periphery one or two mechwarriors could get jobs out here without being a part of company. Mechs were fairly scarce, and Septim had had what sounded like legitimate concerns about getting driven off by a higher rated longer serving mercenary as a result... or having Raventhir say someone new should be in charge.

It was about a quarter to ten in the morning. They were finishing the last check ups for the hand over or at least the meeting with the canopian unit. He knew he shouldn't have been surprised but there was no commonality with the Azami ground vehicles with what little vehicles that the Planetary Militia had. Hassan's volunteers were all Azami who had no history with the Arkab Legion, or who had otherwise honorably separated out of the DCMS it should have in theory given him cover to employ them. They hadn't raised any obvious or immediate issues with either the MRB or the Canopians, and IE, Doctor Abner and Ford, had written letters of recommendation on good conduct. ETC ETC.

He checked his watch again, and then glanced out the window. It hadn't been hard to get space at the university of Luxen, and from this vantage point he could see the outline of the College of History's west side. Raventhir had allocated twenty young canopian mechwarriors to this, probably what she had wheedled from the local government, probably partly money, and probably in part wanting to be sure that there was enough hands on training with a small instructor student ratio.

"You could have scheduled this earlier,"

"I could have." He agreed as the clock up above them mounted on the wall continued to tick. Three minutes till he turned on his heel and scuffed his way out of the hallway and into the class room to double check that the projector was going to work.

"This course will encompass two levels of revised curriculum from what you've been doing with Septim." He declared to the twenty Canopian MechWarriors, and the assembled mercenaries. The number of attending MAF pilots was representative of the simple reality that the program couldn't be attended by all the MechWarriors in the understrength and largely green 1^st Luxen Volunteers. Seghal had been convinced to let them try the six strength units out, and potentially if Mechs came available to run 2-1-1 formation with integrated Mercenary pilots filling recon and HQ units. "The first will be Mech Operations, the second will be combined arms operations." He clicked the remote brining the hologram to life, "While I have discussed it with Major Seghal," who had said she would bring it up with Lady Raventhir, "we will not be covering ASF operations under that heading. Combined operations will entail maneuver and joint role missions with infantry and ground vehicles."

The image of the crossed out Eagle ASF changed, and was replaced by the itenerary that he had compiled as soon as he had started the program. They had twelve vindicators from 1^st Luxen Volunteers... and then a mix of mechs filling the rest out. They had two Shadow Hawks out of that number.

Two six Vindicator Groups appeared, followed by the six light mechs. The stingers would be in the headquarters unit... by choice they wouldn't have even been using it at all, but it was what they had. Not that the Wasp was much better. "The Locust is a scout mech." He went on to explain that 'Yes, if we had other varieties of them we could do other things,' But they didn't have those other varieties, "As a result the curriculum will focus on observation in the Mech component, or in the support of combined arms to suppress hostile infantry." The 1V was not designed to engage enemy tanks or other Mechs... and carrying an entire literal ton of machine ammo was dangerous... to the MechWarrior inside.

The two vindicator sections would be the principle article of battle in the Company. Recon would identify the target the Vindicators would cover the others advance and engage, and be supported by the command section which would provide flank security and if necessary supplemental fire.

Part of that was literally that there would be mercs in both units observing and providing guidance, he turned the topic of that placement. With the original twelve mechs during the Azami incursion he'd been ancillary to the formation 'baby sitting' as some one else had put it. A ride along, and that would be what most of the mercs would be doing. Bahar would be slotting into the Light mech unit and covering navigation as a priority over gunnery, though they'd get to that. Septim and Bubbles would remain with the command unit. Other members of the scratch company would be involved in running opfor and also filling in as part of larger maneuver exercises.

That was realistically going to be a couple of weeks out though according to Seghal. That was a simple facet of the MAF being tiny, and Luxen just previously not having been considered an at risk world. Forty something planets being covered by something like ten regiments was well over the border of insane, even accounting for planetary militia to supplement the Magistracy's equivalent 'Federal Army'. The less said about the Magistracy's lack of an air force...or ASF rather the better. Still that was part of the reason he was getting paid to try and shape Easy Company into an effective fighting force.

Given most of these MechWarriors were young reservists serving their compulsory bit with the Home Guard or whatever this ... was going to have to entail a bit more class room lecture than Septim had probably been banking on. "I think my brain is melting out of my ears." Bubbles complained rubbing her eyes some ninety minutes later as the Lyran MechWarrior nodded in agreement.

Which merely underscored part of the problem... the truth was a lot of this was distilled from SLDF era manuals with his own spin on such things. He couldn't just copy from the manuals from the Aquagea Castle Outpost, and even if he had been it didn't change the fact that these were largely 16 to 18 year olds who might not be sticking around in the service, or just the fact that Star League and its logistical chain was long gone.

He supposed that he should have been grateful that both the Shadowhawk and Stinger both had SRM 2 launchers. Not that it really would have mattered per se. He wasn't responsible for the Magistracy's logistics chain, and most everything had energy weapons. LRM 5 and machine gun ammo excepting, and of course also the Shadow Hawks' AC 5.

There were other things to do though. The truth was even with basically half a company of MechWarriors now signed on... the realities of Luxen as a campaign contract had meant the Magistracy had paid for drop everything come to our aid now thing. Not that he hadn't already needed to hire support personnel, but the Sam Houston wasn't going to be able to carry everyone so he was going to need another DropShip if everyone stayed on, but that would mean even in more crew. That wouldn't be a problem for a couple of months though. "What are the chances," He asked since he hadn't been here as the situation had developed, "That the Magistracy will want us to go to ur Cruine and deal with the pirate nest proactively?"

"Its possible," Septim replied, "Its not ur Cruine though, even if Majesty Metals would like that to be priority number one." That made sense of course, but they were in no shape for that kind of maneuver, and transporting Easy Company, the actual MAF unit of 1^st Luxen Volunteers would require several DropShips.

On the plus side they had the Liberty, and the Leviathan, which was one less level of headache, "I'll start drawing plans for that, I need you to start looking into DropShips. If only as a fact finding mission. I don't mean just push this off on Bubbles, I need the financial information, as well as who all we could potential hire if we need to."

He had other concerns about ur Cruine though if truth was told. He copies of the overlapping maps put together by Interstellar Expeditions, and while it really didn't tell him much more about planets in the Rimward periphery in terms of location... it gave context to some of those worlds. The bigger problem was ... no it was ludicrous to be worried about some secret Rim World Bolt hole colony wasn't it? Then again Amaris's secret army had been massive... ur Cruine had been a cold world though... the DOME had slated it for terraforming but they had never reportedly done more than basic surveys beyond the temperate habitable equator... so he had to wonder why CID had flagged it on the map.

There were plenty reasons that were possible, and he couldn't justify going back to Aquagea to trawl through the archive for answer. No he had been hired to do a job, and he was going to do it. If got asked to go to ur Cruine then he'd go. Interstellar Expedition had a regular office though on Luxen, it hadn't just been a temporary thing, despite his suspicion that IE had been planning to team up with the Azami for a while though.... he still wasn't clear what it was they'd been after. Some ancient canopian map was possible, or maybe it had just been about medical supplies... but it didn't matter now.
--
Commentary: So II Luxen will not likely end up back to the whole 3 Chapters in length. It will still be relatively long, there is for example material that I cut out of this and out I Luxen regarding both the canopians and the scratch company Mercs participating in 1st Luxen, as well as the would be scalpers. Still working on revisions, but the whole chapter together should probably be closer to twenty thousand words than the original original 3 arc 30k or previous revision that jumped it down to like half that.

I need to do another Index post both for the Merc Company and for the Canopian unit, or at least I feel I should.

 

II Luxen Part 3

​

They had rolled into March soon enough, and that meant two dozen Vindicators doing ninety meter jumps along a series of embankments about seventy miles from Luxen's capital. They would have done it closer to the city but apparently that would have disturbed the locals. It wasn't strictly some kind of peacenik thing, the Magistracy wasn't the Outworlds Alliance or whoever, but it did seem a little silly. Regardless that Magistracy was their employer, and thus they were doing their best to abide by noise pollution concerns for these things. Not that there weren't other perfectly reasonable reasons to not fire off any sort of missile in the vicinity of the capital besides just all the noise a rocket motor made.

The local military base, depot, whatever one wanted to call it had too much going on to realistically conduct the kind of maneuvers needed to run training, but Luxen had a planetary population of under a hundred million, which meant land was cheap. If they had had the air lift capacity, there was an old mine that had been played out from before the New Vandenburg revolt on the southern continent that would have made a pretty exercise field... but they didn't really have the infrastructure to fly in equipment or ammunition... and ammunition was already going to be expensive enough.

This was pretty much as far from the city they could get without really it becoming a pain in the ass to get supply and logistics. They were making do, their impromptu maneuver field was close, but still segregated off from the square mile gunnery range. Eventually they were probably going to move to combined fire and maneuver exercises, but the Canopian pilots, even the ones who had fought in first Luxen needed a better grounding on maneuver beyond just make big stompy robot walk forward.

Gene keyed his mike, and radio channel to hail the Daimyo HQ vehicle, "Alright bring them in," He ordered, and now to make sure they could follow nav points and get back to the rendezvous point from an alternate route. Was it repetitive? Yes. Was it boring? Probably after a while. Was there a point to the monotony though? Absolutely. This entire course was supposed to cover the very basic basics.

Out here was also useful because it kept them from having to compete for time at the facilities with other Companies in the Regiment. That had been part of Septim's problem is that he hadn't tried to get around the system, just getting the que for access to the range, or the simulators, or so on. The Vindicators were at least the easy part.

On paper well as combined command include the mercenaries they were a combined arms battalion on their own, sans air power of course. Twelve Canopians in Vindicators would have been one thing, but there eight other MechWarriors in the unit, and while while Raventhir hadn't been able to supply four more to fill out as Light and Headquarters that was what they were supposed to be in a six Mech formation. They weren't proper Demi-Companies though, which were apparently a thing as well, but the lights were recon and observation, and the effective HQ was a reserve element rather than a strictly rear echelon coordinator, because otherwise that could have been a 'demi lance' or what not.

He reached to swap channels, "Septim report."

"Uh, yeah boss we're not to the gunnery range yet." Came the Lyran's reply.

A thought directed through his neurohelmet directed the Mircronics to highlight the HQ unit headed up by Septim's Merlin. "Acknowledged, apprise me when you reach the way point." He clicked off mechanically. That left him considering whether or not to check with Bahar as she was supposed to be navigating the Recon unit in mock operations with their company's ground vehicle. He decided it against it, and settled back into the seat to let the micronics and hi Rez filter information to him through the neurohelment.
--
... and of course not everything was field exercises. Actually when he got down to it not quite two thirds of the measure were classroom, or at least outside of mech operations. The whole concept of MechWarriors as Knight Errants had its origins in the Star League era, but it had not been nearly as pronounced. The SLDF manuals, doctrine, historical records, and official literature of all other sorts that he had access to did not condone that sort of shennigans for regular SLDF troopers. Enlisted MechWarriors weren't supposed to go around doing some of the shit that made it into popular trivid holodramas.

He had other things to do. The Canopians had allocated him campus space to hold classroom time, and it created another layer of separation from competing units, but it wasn't the only thing going on. The office space he had settled into included the various drafting attempts for fitting heavy missile capacity, LRMs, onto a marauder of course, which Septim had seen previously, but also the tooling around with other projects.

Not that he expected any of it to go anywhere. "In theory it would let us the mech go up to an LRM 10," Which would to an extent defeat the point of cost saving measures from downgrading to a large laser, "It would still maintain multirole capability, and minors gain in close in combat without having to worry about the PPC's minimum range envelope, but it is just an idea."

The LRM 10 cost triple what an LRM 5 did. It was three tons heavier... but you were throwing more missiles. Six such Vindicators would be equivalent to an LRM Carrier... which he hadn't had any of those at the time. The benefit though would be in what all multiple Vindicators could do that a single vehicle couldn't operationally, which was all spelled out in the documents... "This is what you do in your spare time?"

... well it wasn't as if he was going to draw undue attention to his educational material. The SLDF manuals were helpful, they gave him an idea how a professional military thought things should have been done, "Its what I do in my spare time." He agreed. "Its not serious engineering work, more revisions to the design, most refits could be done by techs," Septim's scoff was a highlight to another matter. It was true that the Azami techs who had volunteered and who maintained his Mech now, Bahar's, and the vehicle company could do that kind of work if they had the parts and the machines but well they weren't your average periphery scroungers either. He was lucky like that. He shrugged, "You lose a little bit of distance, but you're less likely to cook an inexperienced pilot. Still obviously not useful to our current situation." He wasn't even sure how interested in 'battalion' scale combined arms manuever the Canopians were because Seghal had looked at him like he was out of his mind when he had laid out the plans to run the excercise so it was just going to be the Canopians he was responsible for and his own tanks though it would have been nice to have some local infantry to represent for the drills.

He certainly hadn't considered it all together that great of ask, hey lend me some infantry for drill operations in a few weeks? Had he gotten a response? No, it wasn't Seghal, but somewhere along the line someone had probably decided 'I'm not going to answer this email one way or the other', because a 'no' would have been an answer. They would make do without them, but it was the Canopians problem, he supposed if they did want to integrate the units into the rest later.

--

--
They weren't technically on a garrison contract. There were clauses and sub clauses about defense retainers, and this and that that MRB had grumblingly set up to cover the unfortunate, but probable outcomes of well what if scenarios involving pirates. That was more of a... well of a what if scenario where things did go wrong. They weren't however intended to be Luxen's primary line of defense, and that was why Septim had been worried about having some hot shot with a big name come in and talking his way into the job.

Gene wasn't worried about that problem there was a certain mystique that had involved not just First Luxen's BattleRoms hitting the news just as he was shipping off with IE, but then months later when the Detroit BattleRoms had arrived to be consumed by the public. In black or dark green his marauder's distinctive shape had cropped into a variety of art work, murals, and well graffiti. That and coming back with a dropship and a company of vehicles to support him and Bahar with her mech.

Septim had never said anything about getting called into the Planetary Defense Headquarters to be involved in regular briefings. Part of it was they weren't just dealing the remains of the Scratch Company, but it was still something akin to awkward. It made sense of course, the local planetary government didn't have a real air force... well one of the local nobles had some conventional air breathers but she was on the far western shore southern continent and those weren't necessarily going to be very quick to respond to defend anything this far north. No ASFs.

1^st Luxen should have been an entire regiment... but outside of the royal guard regiment Gene had his doubts whether any of the MAF were actually up to their on paper allocated strength. Even if they were the diminished size of the province of Luxen coupled with the lack of threats throughout most of the succession wars had resulted in it and its sister regiments being terribly understrength, and that had been before the Azami had swatted people's volunteers, militia, units aside during the recent battle of Luxen.

Well relatively recent, especially by planetary history standards.

He was the only person not wearing the blue uniforms of the MAF. He was the youngest person here... and he was having a hard time not cracking a social general joke. Seghal wasn't that bad, but some of the other staff officers none of whom he recognized from the battle, but again the 2^nd and for the most part 3^rd only really existed on paper.

That and... no one seemed to have invited the infantry, or armor. Nominally at least the only people here were people who owned Mechs and who had purchased their commission. He'd never seen Seghal's mech, or her in it, but she'd been in the Headquarters vehicle during the battle for Luxen... so there was that. Most of these other people though, well some of them had probably legitimately been off world, and there was nothing that they could have done. With the way talk about defending the city had opened the conference, or whatever you wanted to call the staff meeting he wasn't thrilled at the prospect, but the final item was really he supposed why he was here, "So Lady Raventhir has scheduled the drill?"

Seghal nodded, and filled him in on the details as the rain started rattling the windows of the room ... and they had two weeks, which was good, but they had two weeks because Lady Raventhir was coming in person, and it was going to take her that long to get her via her personnel JumpShip because she was coming to watch the show.

--
Commentary: So this is basically all content that was originally going to be cut, and what this and other segments that will follow will total out to, probably updwards of a dozen parts to the chapter, because originally these was going to be three chapters.

 

The Jolly Roger Affair​

Sarna's Canon article for reference: https://www.sarna.net/wiki/Jolly_Roger_Affair

So I'm going to start on a tangent. The fandom, or parts of the fandom, like to describe the combine as Feudal Japan in Space. This is 'wrong'. Air quotes are necessary, and I'll get to that. This is because the Combine is basically Imperial Japan in Space, through the lens of the eighties and as a result of being future eighties, and neo feudal future in many parts there is a distortion. In many ways the Combine is an improvement on Imperial Japan, for all the fucked up shit the Combine does it actually has some notable step ups from WW2 Japan, and also it does hew closer to a kind of Imperial Japan's romanticized view of feudal Japan than Imperial Japan actually managed, especially Imperial Japan of World War 2. However the DCMS is a more professional military than the IJA was, now what I mean by that is that the Combine doesn't suffer the same problem of you have junior enlisted officers going around starting shit in neighboring countries to advance what they think is the correct national policy. [Combine leadership doesn't really need help in that department any way] You don't have an Inanzo Nitobe in the Combine having to explain in the successions war (or ever that I can find) explaining stuff like the Manchuria incident in space, or what not. Yeah, and ontop of that is that the 1st and 2nd Succession wars meant there isn't a need for things like Washington Naval treaty (of which you could potentially argue there existed an equivalent of if not as high profile during hte STar League era). However this is the thing the combine is a much more centralized, arguably more effective Imperial Japan. Its an Imperial Japan with the Japanese Golden Year Keiretsus running business without any of the nuance of real life.

This is important I think before we talk about the Jolly Roger affair, because the way I see it, ComStar has many parallels to the problem of the Imperial Japanese Army, and what I mean by this is the following. The Jolly Roger affair basically occurs because the First Circuit feels that the third succession war is slowing down, can't have that. Now, this doesn't absolve Primus Russenstein anymore than it absolves any Japanese Prime Minister after *insert your preferred date here* and so the robes make the brilliant idea of giving Rom orders to '3001 to enact a plan to supply pirate forces in the Periphery with combat equipment as well as financial and logistical aid to set up pirate operations in various isolated parts of the Periphery to stir up and escalate military conflict in the general area.' Now this isn't explicitly Imperial Japan, though they did supply arms to competing warlords in China. They weren't the only imperial power to provide weapons to advance an agenda. The point though is not to draw parallels or attempt to draw parallels.

Anyway the goal is to get the Combine and the Lyrans back to fighting one another. Well 'In 3004 two of the Jolly Roger bandit kings, "Black" Jack McGirk and Darleen Dunson, became lovers and joined forces. Between them, they fielded almost a regiment of BattleMechs and support forces, constituting an unusually strong force by Periphery standards which they used to conduct a series of lightning-fast raids. Following their example, other pirates also joined forces to gear up on choice targets.' So earlier I remarked that here ComStar's experience with the Jolly Roger affair went worse for them in Canon. Now think back to tabletop lore the size of the Magistracy Armed Forces that I quoted earlier, this is what canon has to say: ' they fielded almost a regiment of BattleMechs and support forces'. This is just those two, you'll note it also says other pirates did the same. Again in canon in 3025 the MAF had 10 Regiments of Mech strength (10 Regiments, 2 battalions, including mercenaries). So ComStar made it so that these two pirates getting together were fielding almost a tenth the strength of the armed forces of a major periphery power, that's not 'unusually strong' that's what the fuck were you thinking?

So how did this end in canon for ComStar? 'McGirk's forces achieved a 2.3 to 1 kill ratio against the inexperienced ComStar Guards...' oh and this too 'Although he really had little personal responsibility for the affair, the failure was laid at the feet of Primus Rusenstein rather than on the actual sponsors of the plan, and severely damaged his position and authority. '

Spoiler alert I already stated that here it went worse. Here ComStar didn't even do that well, because I've talked about this with friends, and the general consensus that we have is that ComStar probably ambushed McGirk. Regardless of the other possible explanation of how it went in canon, (i.e. ComStar brought SLDF Royal equipment for example) here they lost.

McGirk and those other pirate kingdoms weren't destroyed in or around the year 3005. Here McGirk and his 'renegade pirates' basically murdered 1st ComsGuards in open battle and went off to keep doing pirate shit. He's not the only one and that is why pirates are a long running perceived threat in this story in the periphery or at least a contributing factor. ComStar cracked open their stockpile because some members of the first circuit talked the rest into this would be a good idea and gave out battlemechs, asf, dropships, and hard currency among other support to try and egg on the third succession war, and it didn't accomplish the objective they were looking for and blew up in their face. It doesn't result in a return to the level of Lyran Combine hostility that was the original goal, and I don't see how it was supposed to achieve that. ComStar gave a bunch of pirates in the periphery border between the two a bunch of equipment to agitate between the Lyrans (who wanted to throttle back), and the Combine who wanted to focus on the Fed Suns. If the goal had really been to increase tensions why not inflame the FedSuns and Combine against each other harder... anyway...

Then of course the Wolfs Dragoons show up.

 

The Wolf Dragoons​

Unlike with the Jolly Roger Affair this lot shouldn't need any introductions, but they are tied to it. 'Formed' in 3004 the Wolf Dragoons arrived in the Inner Sphere at the end of the Jolly Roger Affair, well "The Jolly Roger Affair, together with the unexpected appearance of the five regiments of pristine 'Mechs of Wolf's Dragoons seemingly out of nowhere, led to Primus Rusenstein's forced resignation from office a year later." They would enter into the service of the Federated Suns, and are at the present of the story in the employ of the Free Worlds League. As everyone should know the Dragoons were a clan recon mission to scope out the Inner Sphere staffed largely by free births, and brought with them a number of unique things to the Inner Sphere. People have already mentioned the Marauder II, an Assault Mech inspired by the venerable Marauder, and produced under exclusivity agreements with Blackwell Industries, and we'll get to that along with other things the Wolves would bring in.

'They were equipped with what the Clans erroneously believed to be an average lineup of outdated BattleMechs, supposed to make them appear wholly inconspicuous: Five regiments of 'Mechs, including designs that were either essentially extinct in the Inner Sphere (such as the Flea, Falcon, and Hoplite) or had never before been seen there (such as the Imp and the Annihilator), complemented with likewise extraordinary support units, DropShips, and JumpShips. The Dragoons also had Hephaestus Station, a (mobile) space station with a BattleMech assembly line for the Dragoons' exclusive ARC-2W subvariant of the Archer.'

Now this quote is important for a number of reasons. A lot of people like to zero in on Hephaestus for example as just a battlemech assembly line, but Hephaestus also permitted the dragoons to manufacture Endo-Steel which is much less cost prohibitive (for a given value of fasanomics) to manufacture in orbit rather than planet side. However arguably the more important factor is a fact it shows in the Early Clan history. See like the Atlas and King Crab were the result of design requests from Aleksander Kerensky the Imp was a product of his son Nicholas who is responsible for much of the clans idiocy. The Imp is in many respects in line with the role played by the Atlas. However the Imp is originally from 2793 well into the Exodus, while the Annhilator is actually an SLDF design its earliest known model dates from 2779 before Kerensky relieved of command of the SLDF and before the Exodus. Thus it wouldn't be impossible to think that the Inner Sphere might have had the later, but given Nicholas's importance to the clans and the mythology of the Exodus why would they think the Imp would be around?

This brings us to something that is not necessarily canon per se, though it does have some support, is that the clans during Nicky's reign, or more Nicky himself and his immediate supporters heavily censored recordings of history, and probably outright destroyed competing historical records with much caught in the crossfire. Clan historical records are simply inaccurate, or outright propagandist fabrications? Maybe. Whatever the case the Wolves showed up with a lot of things that wowed the Inner Sphere upon their arrival, and would do a lot of other things early on during their employment with House Davion.

This is where we will talk about Blackwell Industries, but first a minor side bar. The Merlin (the mech piloted by Septim)debuted in 3010 in the Lyran Commonwealth. 'The Merlin was hailed as a technological marvel at the time it was released, as it was the first completely new design to be developed in over 100 years.' The Marauder II debuted two years later, having only been in development since 3010. The Marauder II the hundred ton Marauder is not the only Blackwell product produced largely exclusively for the Dragoons even though it often overshadows the rest. The Dragoons (including Snords Irregulars here) would go on to furnish Blackwell with plans for a wide range of equipment including OmniVehicle Technology.

Omni Vehicle technology are largely overshadowed (looked down upon) by the clans but were developed by Clan Hell Horse. The wolves partnered with Blackwell in 3007 and in 3008 the Badger rolled off the production line for the first time. Now the explanation for why this didn't attract more attention is that one it was an infantry carrier, and two it was produced under the same sort of agreement that the Marauder II would be produced under. Omni Technology was not a Star League development. The road towards it did begin with the Mercury BattleMech, and we are told that Clan Wolverine would develop the Mercury II which would be the basis for the Clan Coyote Coyotl the first Omni Mech. Omni Vehicles though would only be developed in the late 2900s (though MUL claims 2884 for the Epona) by the clans meaning the Bandit if the 30th century is correct arrived in the Inner Sphere relatively quickly and in a much cheaper form. Because the other OmniVehicle Blackwell would produce the Bandit is supposedly directly inspired by the Hell Horse Epona. The Bandit also entered production in 3008.

The Merlin, these two Omni Vehicles, the Marauder II all emerged back to back, and while the Merlin was independent of the Wolf Dragoons or clan influence it does sort of undrecut the popular fanon that Comstar and its Holy Shroud shenigans were particularly effective. It is important to remember that in canon Holy Shroud 1 was occuring simultaneous with the great houses pursuing a similar campaign of assassination and bombing of vital enemy infrastructure. Holy Shroud II was deemed within ComStar itself a failure. It would certainly be very easy to handwave Blackwell Industries as plotshields, but then there is the Merlin, and other equipment including other Vehicles, and new versions of Mechs that begin to emerge in the early 31st Century completely indpendent of the Wolves.

It is very clear that ComStar was alarmed by the Wolf Dragoons, and attempted to discern their origins, it does not appear however in canon that Blackwell or the Merlin's creators were subject to reprisal by Comstar (until the World of Blake Jihad at least). Comstar simply didn't have the resources or frankly the experience to successfully carry out Holy Shroud II because by that point the Inner Sphere and its great houses had learned to take appropriate measures. Did ComStar still try? Yes but this was more limitted to technologies like JumpDrives, or attacks on efforts by the Lyrans, and then later FedSuns research efforts into the HPG. The Dragoons introduced a technology for Vehicles which should have quickly been noticed that if you can do this for Vehicles why not do it for Mechs...

and we'll get to that.

 

The Federated Suns​

Often oversimplified or derided as the Good Guys, the Federated Suns are one of the five Successor States, which of course everyone should know. As I've already mentioned in this series of extras they were also the first employers of the mysterious Wolfs Dragoons, and are also the home polity of Blackwell Industries. (As previously stated Blackwell Industries is on New Valencia which is part of the Federated Suns.) Well in any event we will get to that but first we should go ahead and discuss the situation. The Wolf Dragoons, who have as of 'current' in story time passed into the service of House Marik, were originally hired on by Ian Davion the then prince of the Fed Suns...

Unfortunately he died, leaving his younger brother Hanse to the throne, and Ian's death was part of an increasing trend of belligerence in the third succession war between the Draconis Combine and the Fed Suns, which had begun to show in the late 30th century. This is touched on as ComStar for whatever reason, or rather members of its First Circuit, were concerned by the Lyran lack of aggression on the Combine front and instituted what would become the Jolly Roger Affair which would canonically dovetail into the arrival of the Dragoons.

Now as I have mentioned previous in 3017 there will be an engagement on Elidere IV. A Combine Raid on a Fed Suns world, specifically part of a string of raids by the Combine conducted by the 19th Galedon as part of a wider Combine cross border. This conflict in canon is not well documented, but it does have a canonical basis, and the offensive thrust seems to have been partially successful, however in the strategic sense in canon this year would also mark the loss of several near Terra (that is close to Earth) worlds that the Combine had held to the Federated Suns. In short the Combine would in 3017 be launching raids while the Fed Suns would begin a string of planetary conquests. Now canon is unclear but it does seem as if the Combine started these raids in 3016, but that is made on the assumption that the battle for Mallory's world that year was related to those raids, which is something I'm skeptical of as Mallory's world is much closer to Terra.

It is also possible that the Fed Suns conquest of near Terra worlds was in response to that incursion and Combine JumpShips being tied up in cross borders raids, which is based off FASA Numbers for JumpShips. There are other explanations, but we move on. Indeed 3017 presents a unique issue in that there, there is an inclination to try and be involved in too many canonical events in the Fed Suns. For example in July Candance Liao leads a raid on Spica which ends with her canonical future husband injuring her to the point she can't pilot a mech anymore. Now Spica is one Jump from St Ives.

So lets move on to discuss what contracts are currently outlined in 3017 related to the Fed Suns if we're already aware of the Elidere IV Battle if not the details. Part of this is an IE related contract, 'something something star league depot'. The other though is the Davion conquest of near terra worlds from the Combine,. It is Elidere and the surounding raids of the Galdeon Regulars that I assume take place early in the year and that is how the current draft is progressing.

Now from 'Bard's' quote, and the ballad I'm sure some have already guessed towards the outcome of the Combine Raid by the Regulars. Now as I've suggested Elidere is not just the Galedon Regulars being lead for a merry chase, and then finding out they've bitten off vastly more than they can chew and then getting run all the way back to the starport, but that is a good summation of it. Is that enough for House Davion to nudge Blackwell? Maybe.

An expansion on that might also be, 'well since your contract with IE is done, want to hire on and invade some combine worlds closer to Terra since youre going that way anyway, especially since you need to buy and hire more people?' /AFFS Merc Liaison

This is still a work in progress, but moving into 3017 we move into the waning years of the third succession war, and ever closer to Archon Steiner sending out her peace proposal to the other Great Houses.

 

II Luxen Part 4
​

He keyed his mike, and surveyed the spread of grasslands that was about six kilometers from where he originally dropped onto Luxen so many months ago. "Alright this is an evaluation of mobility. Power up your Mechs, and move to way point Alpha." He ordered, and then silently mused that they still didn't have infantry for this.

The Dalban of his Marauder registered the slow power up, and cataloged the different 'Mechs coming on line. The Micronics tasking them to their respective unit to keep track of at a unit as well as individual basis. He watched Short's Vindicator start moving the one eighty rated General Motors standard Fusion Engine pushing the forty five ton mech to thirty something KPH easily enough. The Vindicator was hardly a sports car of a Mech. It topped out at the same speed as his Marauder, Septim's Merlin, or Bubble's Hunchback, and that wasn't very fast, but nor was it really slow.

He flipped channels, "Beauregard?"

"Yes Commander?" The Free Worlds League native replied, fishbowl appearing on the holocom from close range.

"You have a green light," He replied, and the Dervish powered up. About thirty seconds later he detected Bo's wingman for the operation Schiffer's Cicada join him in moving to screen the recce unit. Bahar would be staying in final reserve element with his own Marauder. They had spent a week going over in depth the Battle of Luxen. He hadn't gone over everything that had gone wrong, but... he also had the advantage of having seen the Azami's own After Action Reports. Including that Schiffer was prone to recklessly pushing forward and engaging, when he really shouldn't have been. Aggression in a MechWarrior was a good thing by most standards, and it was certainly better than being perceived as timid, but there were limits and had contributed to Schiffer getting taken out early by the same trap that Septim had fallen for... i.e. He had eaten a batch of infernos when not expecting it leaving a big hole in the Luxen defenses for very mobile enemies to exploit.

The Cicada was basically a bigger Light Mech. Weighing in at forty tons Schiffer's mech could hit eighty miles an hour. The down side was like the Locust the factory cicada was poorly armored, and Schiffer was lucky he hadn't been killed charging the Azami last year.

He accepted the incoming line from Septim's Merlin, "What is it?"

"I'm getting chatter from the starport about an arriving JumpShip. I think the boss lady just got in."

He acknowledged the statement, but it would still take time for Raventhir if she had arrived, and they had been expecting her JumpShip today or tomorrow. Of course that still gave them the time it would take for her DropShip to make from the nadir jump point to Luxen dirt side. The drill would continue, but he decided to go ahead and check in with the Force Major and find out what she had to say.
--
The exercise field looked more like a sports day field than a military drill site, but that wasn't really what was bothering him.

Being told that no you can't participate in the scheduled drill was annoying. Having the entire drill changed, not once, but twice in as many days was arguably even more so. Lady Raventhir had shown up the day previous and decided to change things up. To be fair that was her prerogative. There had been instructions to change to a simulated pirate attack. Nothing odd there per se, never mind the Azami attack.

You still had pirates in the Inner Sphere it wasn't as if the great houses could garrison every world even important factory worlds were sometimes vulnerable to pirate attack. The difference was in the Inner Sphere proper you had more money to spend on defense, more resources, and in some cases at least for pirates some worlds had military academies where the cadet corp could do things like fight them off. Luxen's main problem was that its relative isolation had allowed it to avoid damage from the succession wars and hadn't really had to deal with pirates in a very long time.


That had changed this morning, which he hadn't appreciated. It had still been designed designed to model a pirate attack but in addition to prohibiting him from participating, she had went ahead and basically reduced 'their force' down to one 'demi company' of six mechs versus... an entire company of light mechs. That was certainly not what they had trained for.

The six vindicators were going up against all three light mechs that the Magistracy could domestically produce. Locust, Wasps, and Stingers. Raventhir brought another small batch of new light mechs to shore up the Luxen Volunteers.

Lieutenant Short was coated in sweat as she got out of her Vindicator her unit mates following along at various degrees of speed. "That went pretty well." Septim pointed out high fiving one of the canopian pilots.

Well not exactly an objective unit of measurement, 'well' was accurate enough. The 1^st Luxen Volunteers was on paper a regiment... but it was understrength and heavily slanted to what BattleMechs it did have to Light Mechs. Of the Magistracy's three light mechs in domestic production the Stinger was the only one capable meaningfully getting in close and doing damage. It couldn't sustain that, because that was mostly the SRMs... that hadn't stopped the older pilots from the other company from trying to mass SRM fire into the Vindicators.

They would do an after action report and break down of mistakes after... right now Lady Raventhir looked to be satisfied with six mediums managing to wipe out a company of mostly light mechs in simulated combat. Of course Raventhir was really the only reason this kind of test was possible, and to be entirely honest Mediums on light was hardly an even test despite the lights having the number advantage. It wouldn't have been unfair to say that exercises like this were just to impress the brass.

He didn't like that aspect of it in particular since the 'correct outcome' of the test might not be what actually happened in real combat against non green troops.
--

In contrast to the dog and pony show outdoors the Canopians of Easy company weren't invited upstairs as the reception after began, which should have been a red flag to start with. The fact the mood had completely shifted from the public facade of the outdoor spectacle was another issue. Lady Raventhir didn't waste any time getting to the point, "Are they ready for combat?" Ideal response would have been no, but it wasn't really a question. "The pirate threat is real."

"Yes ma'am." Ur Cruinne? He wondered, but no, "Most pirates aren't ex DCMS professionals with significant armor support," which while true of the attack on Luxen as a whole...

"I've been in discussion with Interstellar Expeditions." Of course she had. "What do you know of the Rim Worlds Republic, and Amaris's secret army?"

Most of what followed was Lady Raventhir's aide de camp a modest looking blonde woman running down that the MAF units on paper ahead of the New Vandenburg Rebellion had been Amaris's secret army funded and equipped by the Rim Worlds Republic... which while not explicitly phrased to totally absolve the Magistracy of participation was certainly skirting the line of 'we didn't do anything wrong'. Thankfully they moved on from that and to their anti rimward neighbor the nearly century old pirate kingdom. "Sebastian O'Reilly was a los tech prospector." He had founded the hegemony after an apparently massive Germanium find rather than the los tech he'd been looking for... but that find had allowed him to found the pirate kingdom and expand. Now of course they had no proof that the Marians weren't doing anything other than what it appeared to be (that was raiding for slaves) but Lady Raventhir and Interstellar Expeditions was convinced that somewhere rimward were ruins from the rimward republic. Anti-Spinward was out going out of the question, or rather going too far 'galactic west' was out for this little adventure, but Lady Raventhir had a copy... partial copy... of what was sure to be an IE star map of space before the end of the Star League.

A map appeared. "We have reason to believe," Lady Raventhir picked up, "that the asteroid that struck Pioche was not a natural event at all. Doctor Abner who visited the world two years ago believes that someone had intentionally accelerated a rock from the system's asteroid belt up to speed to crash into the planet." With a pause she continued, "Potentially as a safety measure to conceal the existence of a Rim Worlds Republic facility on the planet in the event of its discovery."

... yeah that sounded like something Amaris would have done. Grandiose, and probably not very effective at destroying any underground or well hidden industry, but hey it sent a message. DOME had actually designed Castle structures to withstand some degree of orbital impact, up to and including nuclear attacks. It took a lot of effort to break open a castle from orbit, and it was easier to just liberally nuke the surface or bottle it up and force the defenders out by waiting than anything less extreme. Not that that had stopped Amaris from mounting literal human wave attacks against Castles or Taurian nuclear terrorism against the Star League... etc.

Gene leaned back. "This could be filed as an offworld training and security mission, something that a Mech Company could be expected to deploy on... if InterStellar is coming along that doesn't necessarily change that, but I'd like to know what we're reasonably likely to run into. The Marians, regular pirates, are fine, Rim World Automated Defenses fine. I would like all of the information up front from both you and IE, and we're going to need to talk about transport."

"I was understanding you had returned from the Periphery with two JumpShips."

Lebanon, and the Leviathan-class, which seemed to be doing well. The Azami were operating them as merchant tenders when he didn't need them, which meant they were plying back and forth between Luxen earning money... in all honesty they were putting more money in the company coffers than this merc contract, but he wasn't going to mention that. "That's not the problem, we're going to need a DropShip, or two," Or potentially even more, "to move Easy Company," and technically the rest of the company. He didn't even want to touch on well what if we find something in terms of salvage, realistically they'd need more than one, "Two unions, depending on what IE is bringing," Especially if they were supposed to be providing security for dig crews, he thought glancing to Septim. "to transport Easy Company. Its not preferable to transport BattleMechs as cargo. It can be done but best to avoid it if we're going into the unknown. I also need a time table on all of this."

"Of course. We will draw up the specifics, and make sure they're available in print."
--
If he didn't like the general idea of this, he ended up disliking filling out the paper work even more, and that was before they even got to the sub contracting work. Thankfully they weren't completely flat foot by that... but he'd been expecting something like making a run to ur Cruine and dealing with pirates in some canyon shit hole down there. This was a little more in-depth, and it wasn't like friar tuck was the most involved MRB liaison. He wasn't going to call the adept a sorry alchoholic but it was readily apparent the MRB man would have preferred not having to file paper work, but Gene was pretty adamant on retaining at least some ASF pilots, which a headache.

He probably would have had better luck there in terms of looking for them on Detroit, or somewhere, anywhere further coreward because there were slim pickings. He hadn't had much time to work with either, so they loaded up with Doctor Abner and his diggers and other personnel. Lady Raventhir was supplying some of the DropShips, I.E. Was supplying the rest... and apparently since he had two JumpShips it was on him to provide FtL transport, but he'd gotten that impression. The Magistracy was footing the bill for fuel costs and other supplies at least.

"Good morning Mr Shepherd." Professor Abner greeted putting his dig case down. The not quite elderly lyran academic shook his head, "Ah you will see one of the great tragedies of the succession wars. Pioche is a lovely world in the history books, and the damage to it could have easily been fixed by the Department of Mega Engineering if only the Star League were still around. A true shame of our modern era." Abner talked his ear off about the agricultural productiveness of the planet and how it had at one pointed supported a planetary population more than double of Luxen's present population, and it was a while later he absentmindedly lamented that Ford wasn't able to join them as he had some business regarding some 'academic eccentricity' in the Federated Suns.

Gene half suspected that might be true, but just as likely Ford might well be reporting to MIIO or whoever on the civilian side of the Fed Suns. That was his suspicion anyway, but he couldn't prove it nor did he care to. He was also sorely tempted to ask the doctor if this world might have been visited by the Minnesota tribe, but if the professor did think that he probably would have already brought it up.

--

Commentary: Yes, it is Saturday, and I'm not entirely happy with this update, but this begins the 'second arc' of the Second Luxen contract. It will probably undergo a few minor revisions throughout the day, but we will still have a regular update on Sunday like normal.

 

II Luxen Part 5​

He collapsed into the couch still sweaty from the workout, and unlocked the terminal to a slew of messages. Some of them were just confirmation, and he half glanced through as they reminded him of the other other problem.

That other, other issue was Lady Raventhir coming along. House Raventhir was a cadet branch of the ruling House Centrella of Canopus. What made them interesting was the fact the existed more or less as Gene was able to determine to keep the number of Centrella's down. They weren't the only cadet branch but due to the importance of the name they were the cadet branch people thought of... and if he had to guess Lady Raventhir was looking for something to distinguish her from the rest of the pack.

Martial distinction seemed to be what she was going for... wehther that was because it was what the Raventhir name was associated with doing or just because it was necessary he didn't know, but he didn't want to be involved in noble politics even if all this seemed mostly benign. The scratch company was something thrown together as an emergency response, and for all the glory and focus they'd gotten in local media it wasn't a professional unit. It had been recruited from individuals who were available to fill a need, and even now or during Septim's previous rotation had apparently largely kept to their own devices.

While not a 'tourist planet' or 'pleasure world' Luxen had plenty of dive bars, and pubs to get drunk at and have a good time. Its entertainment venues might have been tame by some canopian standards but that just meant that there weren't any official Mech Gladiator games like more coreward Canopian provincial capitals.

The unit more or less spent time working and when they got 'off' from regular hours went to their own hobbies and pastimes. He supposed that could have been a bad thing. A bigger unit of MechWarriors might well have ended up having to fish MechWarriors out of the local drunk tank, or worse... but so far he hadn't had that problem. They weren't a close unit though, and he was cognizant of that. Lady Raventhir had been surprised that he spent so much time on academic or classroom instruction.

He could have just commented that was because he was working with MechWarriors who really had no previous military experience and barely any training... which was true. Septim's instruction had been more hands on, more focused on gunnery and the kind of BattleMech fighting that was normal for Mercenary work, and the periphery. As a result Gene had been fully prepared to leave hands on tutoring to continue for individuals, and try and organize the command to run administratively. He had had other things to do after all. Should he have been spending more time socializing with the unit? Maybe.

He tapped the key and dropped down the roster of messages. The big change from coming back from the IE job hadn't been the money it had been coming back with defacto the assets for the company. Officially he had registered the Leviathan-class JumpShip as the Colorado. It was officially his name on the paperwork though the crew were Azami volunteers, and the ship itself had... probably originally been Taurian flagged five hundred years earlier. Regardless the Leviathan class was easy to maintain even if still technically obsolete, and was in the process of a ... renovation in terms of livability.

So since name was on the paperwork for Colorado, and the Leviathan he got the paperwork for the business side to look over. Thankfully none of the MechWarriors had any interest in this side of it... Septim might have had some idea, and Bahar probably did.. but. He scrolled through the receipts and blew out a breath. Even after all costs the JumpShips, even just the Lebanon made more money they they were. Somebody had told him that an Invader out here could clear upwards of three hundred thousand C Bills if they were doing well. That was a weekly possible take home for a JumpShip not terribly dissimilar to Lebanon's own Liberty class. Invaders had one less collar. There was no real market to buy JumpShips after all... so if the Azami could manage to get even half of the Alexandrian Colony fleet of JumpShips at mothball ... geez they would be rolling in money... and probably attract attention too.

He clicked the terminal icon acknowledged the receipt, and approved the transition of funds to the bank, and waited for ComStar to send him a receipt... that was one thing about Detroit he'd be glad to get back to. The MRB people on Detroit had been a lot more proactive and helpful than friar tuck was... he was just kind of annoying lackadaisical and didn't want to do anything. Maybe it wasn't the same thing, but ComStar Phi and the MRB on Detroit had been much quicker to talk to one another than their equivalents on Luxen.

It was annoying, but Tuck did tend to get around to it eventually. The shipboard clock chimed telling him he still needed to get a shower.

--

The lift opened and let him in. He wasn't the first person in, but he hadn't expected to be.

The first class passenger cabins were.. had not been a high priority. The Colorado, and Lebanon had been plying as Merchant JumpShips out of Luxen not exactly running as pleasure cruises, but even so it was an oversight that they hadn't gotten that finished before they needed the JumpShip for something.

Still the ninety meter grav deck provided an excellent location to hold briefings on the upcoming operation. Abner hadn't been understating the agrarian green beauty of the Pioche that had been, and Abner probably wasn't wrong. Pioche had during the Star League been too unimportant to warrant an HPG to be installed by the then Ministry of Communications, and a hundred plus light years rim ward of the modern Canopian border it certainly hadn't been important enough after Amaris had been put down. Nineteen years after Kerensky had fled into exile a rock had come down and hit the planet and the Inner Sphere forgot all about the world. Only the Canopians, who had provided the original colonists for it, and to whom it had officially belonged had paid attention to it and that was part of the reason Luxen's historic maps of the magistracy before the New Vandenburg Revolts showed it.

Gene suspected that someone from the Magistracy had most likely thought there was a Rim World Republic base there and once the Succession wars had started had gone nosing around, and tripped some Amaris esque booby trap.

That would explain how little notice the historical record reported had been available before the rock had hit the planet. Abner wasn't wrong though, the climate shock from the asteroid dust induced ice age would have been something the DOME could have fixed, but nature would eventually thaw the planet without human help, but that didn't stop Abner from going on about it as they waited. There were apparently a number of rimward periphery DOME facilities that had gone dark as a result of the New Vandenburg uprising and had then been lost to history that IE was now ready to investigate thanks to new maps.

Star charts, whatever.

The map of the planet was from orbit from Abner's last visit.

"Pioche is technically warming, but that doesn't mean its warm." The tropical regions, much like earth during its ice age were still warm enough to support cold blooded reptiles, but the meteor had done more short term environmental damage in terms of extinction. They would have transponders in their mechs... but on review of the schematics of the Vindicator he was really hoping no one had to punch out of one. That was going to need be incorporated into the unit safety briefing. For being apparently the workhorse of an Inner Sphere Military it was a little alarming how unreliable, unsafe, the ejection system was. "The Magistracy and IE have identified a site based on," He decided he was just going to come flat out and say it, "Some old maps they have of the planet circa 2750. If it looks good when we get there we're going to put down there and establish a base camp."

If not well they'd figure out based on what things looked like, but from there the plan was going to be to move on to general reconnoiter. I.E. Wanted to investigate the impact site of the asteroid as well but it wasn't like that was a priority until they had a base camp set up.

"What if there are people still on the planet?" Gladys 'Bubbles' Chang asked.

"Hmm," Doctor Abner looked up, "That would be quite an astonishing development indeed. I couldn't begin to fathom how jealous some of my colleagues in human anthropology would be about the process a society would have to undergo to survive such rigors." He seemed positively giddy about it, and Lady Raventhir had to gently coax the old man back on the subject of their mission parameters. "yes, yes of course my dear. We're not even equipped to handle a first contact expedition, but in the future, yes, imagine..." He idled off to his reading again, but if they hadn't been well underway... Gene suspected that most likely there would have been an attempt to add even more IE personnel to the roster. "We're going to set down if our first landing zone is viable, and we might have to clear some trees, but nothing serious."

Not their problem. "What should we expect in terms of a base camp. In terms of defenses,"

"I don't believe there were any overt Rim World presence on the surface." Abner replied. "There shouldn't be any defenses to speak of."

So in theory there shouldn't have been any automated defenses to trip over. In theory. "House Amaris before the Civil War enjoyed a lot of Terran support," Over the objections of the Star League Intelligence Service, and Generals of the SLDF he was half tempted to add, but didn't. "They had technology that they," Fuck it, "Shouldn't have had. That will potentially include turrets as well potentially drones." Maybe.

"Drones?"

"Unmanned combat platforms." He answered without turning from the doctor, and then. "Usually tanks." He added.

"I don't think we'll need to worry about that," Abner responded twiddling his thumb, "We will exercise more caution than last time." He glanced to Bahar and smiled apologetically, "What we want to do this trip is to investigate. To try and line up the old maps with how the planet looks now, do fly overs, and see if we can examine the areas around the impact site."

"What if there is another booby trap that tries to send another rock into the planet, Doctor?"

"The asteroid was detected two weeks before it impacted the planet."

Maybe they should have brought some of those old Taurian nukes. He didn't say that. 'Last time' had been enough to get him side eyed when it had been said...
--
Commentary: So again Arc 2 of II Luxen what could have potential been its own standalone chapter, but I didn't pursue that because it ran into the same problem as I ran into with IE, and in some respects the issue I had to a lesser extent with Elidere.

Elidere has an archaeology / lostech segment but it also has the Galedon Regulars show up to cause trouble because thats what they're doing at that point in time so there was a much more natural transition from we're exploring, to oh battle.