Battletech: The Ghost Who Walks (Battletech Isekai)

[Imperator Pax]

Interlude
Beauregard Alexander, captain of Easy Company groaned at the summons. It directed them to the HPG station... them being the triumvirate of officers that had been assembled to coordinate their operations for the defense of Luxen.

If the only thing he had to complain about was that the boss hadn't been thinking and the drunk monk had been doing his job when they had recorded the company name as Shepherd's company it would have been a good day... but he'd stopped having good days weeks ago. Months really. Luxen had an HPG, which meant it was a target, but that had been apparent before the boss had left.

He kicked slightly back from his desk and put the pen away knowing that the other two would be here soon.

His office was part of the star port complex it meant it was in a nice central location easy to navigate a problem. Anything that appeared at the jump points he knew about it. If anything came in through the planetary government or the HPG station simple phone call. It made coordinating things... in theory easy enough.

Kelly had been on the wrong side of the marik civil war, but so had a lot of people. Beau figured that he'd been luckier than most...the fact he was currently in command of the Regiment's Independent Fire Support BattleMech Company was plenty proof of that. Still, the boss wasn't here, and that left him back against the wall with the canopians, the azami liaison and comstar all wanting part of his time... never mind whoever else might want part of it today... and there was the fact he was himself ex FWLM.

The door way opened and let the two in.


Beau looked at both of them and started with his Canopian equivalent, since she was scrutinizing her note computer one handholding the stylus to the point her knuckles were white, "How bad is it Captain Short?"

"I don't know,"

It was an honest answer, but one that worried him more.

The Azami officer of the watch shifted. He wore SLDF khaki, the uniform of an SLDF regular which was normal. The tanker officer was however carrying a slung submachine gun despite them being in garrison and behind tanks and PBI from the Luxen Volunteers. Ordinarily he'd have been busy helping the Militia with their Marsden II tanks.

He shook his head mutely signally that this hadn't come through his chain of command... or if it had then the Azami elders hear on Luxen hadn't told him. That was a possibility that they hadn't told their own captain... Beau had gotten used to watching the elders just call the boss up directly... which wasn't much different than the normal way the canopians worked... or really any political system back home... it was about who you knew.

"Have we heard anything from ComStar?" he asked.

"Officially no," The Azami man answered. "I have heard however their complex is, buzzing." The robes were generally all about pretending the only thing they cared about was keeping the HPGs working and being neutral... but since the-, "It is possible there has been another atrocity." That there was some news fresh out of hyperspace still didn't mean it couldn't have been Canopian High Command, but they wouldn't know until they asked. "They have reduced traffic and increased security."

"Lets go see." Beau announced glancing between the two with a shrug and nonchalance that was mostly an act... "It could be good news after all."
Still gripping her stylus Short looked at him like he'd lost his mind, so he shrugged again. The Azami tanker glanced at his idle sketches of nesting arsenal ravens back home. The nesting birds building formidable redoubts against the snow. All stocked up with food and packed with material against the bitter cold. "I am preferential to Captain Chang's Clan Fox suggestion, myself." The tanker remarked.

"Yeah, a lot of people are," He wasn't opposed to Bubble's idea, certainly most the Azami seemed to hew towards her ideas of "I mean we engage in a lot of maneuver warfare, at least as much as we do for prepared defenses." It was a purely benign rivalry across the regiment, those involved in it mostly picked a mascot or talked about one strategy or the other in broad strokes... if anything "Its the guys outside the unit who take it more seriously."

"I've noticed that," Short remarked having eased her grip on the stylus as they walked down towards the ferrocrete blacktop of the spaceport, where aan open top jeep was waiting. "its reached popular media on Luxen with the company observers." There were still plenty of those even with the boss and most of the regiment off world.

"Yeah the Fed Suns, well Northwind talked about it." He remarked nodding to their driver, Beau catching the corporal's grin and buckling up as a precaution He was glad since just as soon as Short was aboard the driver gunned it and sped them past the Magistracy's contingent of Merlin Heavy BattleMechs towards where the Comstar HPG station was nestled.

Friar Tuck, their liaison on Luxen, was waiting with cold beer. The man was drinking already, but that wasn't anything unusual. The other robe to him had coffee, and spare hot coffee for Short and the treadhead. Tuck took a long pull from his beer, "The Precentor is still trying to find our boy, but well, we'll give them another couple of minutes, and see ourselves in."

"They don't know where the boss is?"

"Its nothing to worry about," Beau wasn't worried, "Just somewhere on the periphery without a station. I'm not worried."The MRB liaison stated before taking another drink... and a few minutes later they were lead in to a room with an active star chart of the rimward periphery.
.
"We couldn't locate Colonel Shepherd. He hasn't reachedanother station since the news came in..." The Precentor looked at Tuck, and then to Beauregard, "We've contacted Colonel Hammer, and Major MacKay with the latest."

"What about Soren and Septim," Bardiche was a whole Battalion of Mechs after all... whatever this was about... and Tuck glanced at him. "What?"

"Bardiche, under Colonel Holmgren is currently engaged in action. They're fighting as we speak on Farandir," The company liaison stated, "The fighting is heavy."

There was a cough from the precentor, "As for the other Light Horse Regiment," He choked slightly, "Force Major King reported receipt, but that Colonel Bey wanted orders from Colonel Shepherd directly." And that was the indication that this was worse than just Bardiche had had things drop into the pot.

Beau felt his mouth dry, "What are we looking at?"

The other precentor in the room, the man who had been silent up until this point looked him dead in the face and then looked at the floor. Then in a quiet voice, "Leviathan's mass driver is operational." He remarked before looking up to the Precentor Luxen, but Beau caught the Azami officer's expression change in his periphery, "It was used against one of our sister stations they were able to broadcast the message to us as the beast made orbit and fired." When the Precentor Luxen didn't take the hint, "We haven't informed the planetary government yet." He took a breath, "Show them the footage Precentor Luxen."

 

[Bofors40mm]

Well I figure every last aerospace focused merc unit is about to get a VERY big check to go and work together to go and kill that warship with comstar supplying the nukes to do so

Or at least getting someone to do so.

 

[Imperator Pax]

Davion Interlude
The past weeks had been exhausting. The galaxy, the Inner Sphere never stopped moving. The ComStar enclave on New Avalon demonstrated that just by existing... with it all out in the open.

Displays flashed. They showed BattleMechs. They showed news clips. Headlines and battles across the Inner Sphere, and from the Periphery. The Precentor New Avalon had invited her to the ComStar station at her best possible time. The ComStar adept who'd delivered it had been on the verge of panic despite Vandal's choice of phrase. He'd picked words to avoid precisely the sort of panic the functionary's body language gave away. Even if he hadn't, Yvonne would have gone as soon as possible.

In the past few years Comstar had made live transmissions, conference calls, more available. That meant being able to have information straight away... and it also meant people knew things. Yvonne had felt, therefore, it necessary to bring Alexandria along since it had seemed likely this Involve Shepherd... and most of Alexandria's time had been cataloging the changes and expansion of the Company its rearmament from SLDF caches in particular were of importance.

Not that they could talk about it while they waited.

Vandal who was currently talking with his own coterie of subordinates didn't seem to have a problem with her presence but he was clearly swamped. He moved abruptly and nodded to the countess of Kestrel, "I wish this was something of a more social nature," He remarked, "As a courtesy the order is waiting to release the footage until; after we've informed all of the member states." The Precentor gestured to hallway, which lead to an amphitheatre with holoprojector set up, where they waited for another few minutes in silence.

The footage... when it was shared... was more awful all the more awful for the lack of sound. The precentor of the station had relayed the Rim world Wwarship reaching orbit, recording all emission data and details that he could in hopes it might convey some advantage. That was all they could do... they had no hope of stopping the warship.

The PNA's face was set in a resolved grave expression. "The first circuit is returning to Terra," Meaning he would be leaving New Avalon, "we already needed to face selection of new members for the Combine," He paused, "And I don't want to speculate how they're handling this news but the MRB is being furnished funds to do everything they can to try and stop this threat... this monster Bauman has turned loose."

Yvonne nodded... but a small voice noted that ComStar raised the smuggler's bounty to 50M C-bills before Shepherd's conference call that Bauman had located derelict warships. That detail wasn't germane at the moment. "But the Combine has been informed?"
Huthrin Vandal nodded, "I only know that the Primus ultimately decided to inform the coordinator personally, an HPG call from Hilton Head on Terra." In short that Coordinator had likely been invited to the HPG station... Takashi had probably been thrilled given everything going on. She wondered from there if Florimel Kurita had been present... and then there was the tone that almost suggested the Precentor New Avalon seemed almost to be wishing he'd been the one to deliver the news. "The Prime hopes the First Circuit can broker and agreement between the great houses... a negotiated peace to end the third succession war in light of this crisis."

Peace, She thought of the Archon's rather still recent peace proposal and its lack of reception ... but the Archon had made the outreach before this. "You spoke of the MRB?"
Huthrin blew out a breath, "Shepherd may still find a way out of this... I'm searching for any mercenary companies with an emphasis on airpower. Anything that could potentially give us even slim odds," But the 588th ASF regiment Shepherd had filed paper work for was divided and spread out across who knew how many light years and, then with optimism, "I'm hoping that if he can kill Kelly it'll weaken the pirate's resolve."


She understood that, Kelly was the voice for rallying the Amaris cause. The agitator for that insanity, "What aren't you telling me yet?" Yvonne pressed knowing that there had to be more.

Vandal sighed, "Black Jack McGirk has purportedly taken command of the RWS Queen Anne's Revenge which is the Pinto-class. We believe that he's making a pivot into the capellan confederation, but he could easily jump the border. The Order is doing what it can to help, but" A pause a shake of his head... and Yvonne was all too aware of the realities of how porous the borders of interstellar polities were, "We can't know for certain his intentions but," He let the words hang and the knowledge of what Black Jack's actions, his maneuvers of late implied enough, "We believe from the latest information he's concentrated his forces... gathered up his old stalwarts. He may be making a push."

That had the potential to be bad news even without the warship.

She wondered the source of the information... how Vandal had come by it, but maybe Kelly had paid Mcgirk split the prize with the warship. McGirk seemed unenthusiastic about this Neo Amaris Empire business his recent allies had taken to. Nothing that the DMI had been able to gather had ever suggested those kinds of sympathies...his grievances his vendetta had always been directed against ComStar. It had been Kelly who'd brought the Amaris pretender to the fore but too late for the Wolf dragoons to leave and go wherever in order to rearm. They, the dragoons had sent Kerensky... who had to bein the periphery already. The FWL, House Marik, had given their blessing to the knights of St Cameron. Shepherd had confirmed that the 05P had assets of their own in play in the periphery. "Shepherd at least thinks he has a lead on Kelly." Of course Huthrin knew that, as he'd been right there beside her during the conference.
There hungriness to the PNA at the prospect. He'd made that plain moments earlier, reiterated. There was more there than she knew...but it wasn't something they could confront now. Kelly had used Bauman's efforts to to revive the specter of the age of war and the devastation of the 1st​ succession war. She wondered whether the combine would try and make a bold move. It was unclear exactly what resources they really had available. The league and the Capellans had, she accepted, needed to be told but being far nearer she expected both to hope to swoop in at the prospect of LosTech and they couldn't ignore warships.


Even during the conference that had been obvious. Shepherd sharing a look with the crippled O5P operative had made clear if Kelly or Bauman dug anything else up that he'd be in touch, "He thinks there are other depots, possibly caches," of WMDs "like on Brinton... maybe warships as well." Yvonne's thoughts turned to Triptiz floating derelict. "Another Brinton would be a disaster."


An hour after they'd returned, long enough for an evening meal to be prepared Yvonne sat down. She was still drafting what she would recommend Hanse consider doing... but the first prince at least had the latest update. The problem was the suggestion that ComSTar would begin to push its own version of a peace proposal. That was a warning since it suggested that the Primus was likely to try and talk peace...
That was a problem. Yvonne already had had a tendency to think of the Capellan March as a weak area of Davion security. That the AFFS was already preparing for a protracted front against the Combine especially given the Combine sending the Arkab legion against the League had allowed them to open on the wider frontage.

She decided to change subjects, put the pen down and glanced to her lady in waiting. "There is going to be a great deal to go over."

 

[Bofors40mm]

Honestly after he blew up an HPG station with a warship I'm suprised the bounty isn't north of a billion cbills

 

[Vhalidictes]

IIRC the Wolfs Dragoons have some Warships. I sure hope so, or this is going to be a bigger mess.

 

[Imperator Pax]

IIRC the Wolfs Dragoons have some Warships. I sure hope so, or this is going to be a bigger mess.

Click to shrink...

They do in fact have their warships, but Jaime has to go get them because he didn't bring them back with him from his most recent resupply. For Jaime its 'we have to go tell the clans and report to the khan how things are going...' which turned into before they left for that resupply 'it turns out there is an Amaris pretender'... and they get back from that report after sending Kerensky to the Periphery to 'oh the Rimworld has warships' after they've just gotten on with House Steiner

and the Rim World having warships is important in terms of telling the clans because it directly impacts clan preparations for the crusaders. And of course ComStar is now doubly hard looking at the dragoons as descendants of Kerensky's exodus and looking for the clans homeworlds with significantly more effort than they were previously

 

[frozone]

IIRC the Wolfs Dragoons have some Warships. I sure hope so, or this is going to be a bigger mess.

Click to shrink...

They mothballed those, so first they would have to travel to get them from one side of the sphere then travel back to the other

 

[Imperator Pax]

Son of Sam the Lost Ship
Ronin's last check in had been an hour earlier before the engineers had double checked everything, and signaled that they could move forward. The thrum of fusion engines was reassuring. The power systems needed to run Life Support systems were far less than the energy draw of other systems but it didn't change the fact he was looking at a bigger problem than he'd expected, "I don't know what he was thinking." Bahar remarked. "As limited as forces were meeting us out in the open was stupid." That really hadn't been Bauman's call.


It was true he hadn't been expecting the assault... then again the man had spent too long as the big fish in a little pond. He'd initially thrashed and raged but ultimately blubbered when the Azami commandos in their PA (L) Nighthawk armor had dragged him from ... gaudy to the say the least... office suit aboard the recovery ship. That had only been part of operations.


Gene was more concerned that Bauaman had recognized the Nighthawk power armor they had pulled from Mother Bear's groundside castle. The Dobrev was a hulk. The damage on the hull... the ones on the recordings didn't do it justice. It would never fly again.. and yet it had secure bulkheads. Ones that had needed SLDF credentials to open. "He never got this far but there are far more people inhere than necessary to crew the ship." Civilians an escape...a long march, exodus... whatever you wanted to call it.


His suit's radio crackled, "They tried to Restart the aerostar navigation program," Dante stated, "There was a hyperspace accident." The distress beacon and logs were garbled. No one had woken up the other crew in the rotation. Dante conspicuously didn't bring up the AI that would have been navigating, and Gene didn't bring it up, "The main computer core has a partition sealed by a division rank officer."


"We'd need mother bear to override it." He remarked...which was going to be troublesome... Dante Mother bear and his credentials could override. "Can we pull the main core safely?"


"The officer is in stasis." Dante informed him.


.... Gene found he had no immediate response to that. They were going to need to start waking people up and shipping them out. They couldn't hold this planet. Bauman had only had a company of 'Mechs with him and vees to support little in the way of air assets. He reached to the radio, and swapped to the tactical channel for Schiltron, "I need you over here ASAP." He glanced to Bahar, paused, "Our priority is evacuating these people that hasn't changed... but I need you to find out exactly how much material is here."


"This ship is massive."


That went without saying. It was a warship that had been converted into something else... but it was still something built with a compact K-F drive, and thus mass to spare. "We can't hold this planet from a counter attack and evacuate these people under fire. "Which meant being ready to blow the derelict in place. "If at all possible see if someone can find whatever Bauman might have gotten out of the cargo bay he was using."


"We know that the O5P is operating locally," Dante added. "The K-F Drive, and maneuver drive are wrecked," That had been obvious from overflights by their Rapiers on initial contact with Bauman's forces, "we should still place scuttling charges to be sure but it also appears that Bauman was trying to dismount weapons from the hull. Ammunition may be out in the open as a result."

Gene wondered if there had been any dropships carried by the Dobrev... but if they had survived intact Bauman had likely taken those away first thing. That might have been where the first bits of miraculous lostech had come from. Bauman had sold stuff off before Kelly had come and snatched him up. They'd taken Bauman alive, which they hadn't expected to do... the MRB had said dead or alive.
The kilted colonel rounded the bulkhead, "Colonel, another problem?"

"I'm thinking we send Bauman to Detroit," He stated voicing the thoughts racing through his head, working through how long until the first jumpship circuit was up and running, "But we get rid of him quickly and in a way that denies him access to anymore information."

"The Azami have him," in other words what did that have to do with pulling him from the Highlanders securing the perimeter. "The men are stretched thin right now, especially with you and the major here dismounted." the highlander pilot remarked underscoring the issue. "I know that he spewed some crazy shit whatever that was about Gabriel and what not, but there is a lot going on."

"I have a briefing with the marine commander when we get back to the wardroom, but it looks like there are surviving SLDF officers aboard... which means we may have information about what happened with Kerensky's exodus... and what became of the SLDF."

"Oh."

... he looked around the bulkhead, "Bahar go through whatever you can if your credentials can't open a door log it, we'll come back to it tomorrow."

The ride back to the DROST IIA nearest Dobrev's hulk took forty five minutes. The more senior of the two Azami officers had questions about leads on Kelly, but the hologramwarbled. "What did Bauman actually say the mad man was going todo?"
Gene hadn't had the time after combat operations concluded to go back to orbit attend the interrogation or to read the report just a summary from the fleet personnel. "Does Kelly have a lead on other warships?"

The Azami officer on the other end of the line's face was set in a grimace, "That is what Bauman seems to believe. He and Black Jack were arguing at their last meeting... and the influx of rabble and distributed rimworld hidden army supplies seems to have weakened McGirk's influence. He was unhappy." Black Jack's influence in the coalition of the damned as one news broadcaster had called the leadership as it was understood seemed to be waning. "He was sure that there was a Rim World Cache on Detroit as well... if there is anything left..." then it would be a prize to take.

That cache ... its existence had explained the Hidden Army's ability to destroy an SLDF Light Horse Regiment afield in the 28th​Century. Gene shook his head, deal with that later, "Tellmedical command to prepare for an influx we're going to start waking people up. To see if they couldn't get at lease some answers while they waited for the Lucre hulk and its sister ship to land.

"We should begin with the officers of rank." The marine on the other end of the line remarked.
"About that," Gene remarked, "Dante who is the officer of rank."
"That would be General McEvedy." He brought up her service jacket... and for some reason had added a copy of General Marlborough's orders from the Defense of Northwind, as well as projecting a copy of the final black watch dispatch, and appended information of the Tripitz running the Republican blockade of Terra with the twins... the last heirs of the Terran branch of house Cameron and the last legitimate link to the Hegemony and the star league... In so far as an unbound Terran AI were concerned.

Gene could already feel the headache... not the one from the post combat come down but hte one of trying to tell someone what a mess everything was, "We'll read her in. Is there anything else?"


"Bauman appears to have gotten into the NAVCOM." Navigation computer, "And Communications... which had been how he'd gone looking for mother bear, as well as started his search for that Hegemony Narukami class... that was another lead or another thread for them to chase as well, "He shipped the mobile HPG off as quickly as he could at Kelly's insistence." That was at least once less thing they needed to scuttle. "But from what we understand that ship," The Narukami, "Was making for Luxen, and the Magistracy more broadly. A stopover from what we understand but... Bauman might have relayed that to Kelly and an attack may have already been planned."

There were other questions... about whether any of the stasis tubes held people rescued from Richmond, and if the computers had offered up anything else of note... but they didn't have much so far. Gene got the feeling that there was the risk of trying to stay too long to salvage the broken warship. "It must be accounted for Colonel, that Bauman has already done significant work already."

"One thing at a time."

 

[Fragment of Serenity]

There are about to be SO many angry Wolverine noises.

Now the real question is can they intercept their targets before things get spicy again.