Short Part 3
If it was at all possible she felt even more out of place than at the reception after the drill before Lady Raventhir had swept them up to go looking for LosTech on Pioche a few months earlier. It might as well have been a life time ago now. It hadn't really been that long, but the situation felt so totally surreal she had to wonder if she was dehydrated or someone had slipped her something as she skirted around the crowds.
Major Shepherd was dressed in a full body suit that should have been sweltering to wear in a battlemech's cockpit, but neither he nor Bahar, dressed in a similar tan suit, looked uncomfortable. Admittedly part of that was probably the lack of actual weapons being fired, and thus no excess heat build up, but they hadn't looked sweaty after the real fight against the pirates either.
Their suits set them apart from pretty everyone else here. Force Major Seghal was in the MAF dress uniform, and Lady Raventhir was in formal weapon complete with ermine cape. Scuttlebutt, and the fact that it wasn't a secret, meant she had known for a while now that the money just wasn't there to continue the contract. The Mercenary Review Board had already posted the bounties for confirmed pirate kills during the battle, a payout in C-Bills that made her lieutenant's salary look pale and certainly head and shoulders better than the pay a non commissioned mech warrior received.
The MRB had been happy. Precentor Labarbera had been on the holovids every night at nine o'clock talking about Blackjack's bandits and how he had reeved his way from the lyran commonwealth, Draconic Combine, Outworld Allaince, Fed Suns, and Taurian concordant to finally reach this region of the rimward peripery. The ComStar provided News Network had all the best Rom Clips of hte battle, citing the MRB as their source for the trivid footage plastering major gatherings in public squares. Across the churned ochre expanse of what had been green grasslands of the city PPCs flashed eternally memorializing battle. The pirates had never made it into the city proper though. Watching the videos wasn't the same as having lived it, the videos could have been anywhere, off on some distant world.
Casualties were glossed over in the ComStar reports in favor of the spectacle. Casualties that were part of the reason on top of just money that they couldn't continue the program.
A door opened bringing with it a gust of wind, and the pounding rain drops from outside slathered the inside of the door. The Lyran mechwarrior didn't notice it and strode on inwards homing in for the Mercenary Commander, his fellow captain, Major Seghal, and Lady Raventhir. "Last of them all tucked in boss, and no sooner either, the winds picking and the weather service is expecting to issue flash flood watches through tomorrow morning."
A look of supreme satisfaction appeared briefly on the major's face, but then it was gone, "Thank you Septim, at least everyone is out of that mess." The gunslinger stated, "Lieutenant Short," He beckoned for her to join them. There were plenty of MAF officers in the lounge like expanse, but few if any from non mechwarrior combat arms... part of that was the complete lack of ASF pilots. It didn't escape her that she was probably the lowest ranking officer here.
Unlike the enlisted mechwarriors Short had purchased, well her mother had put the money up, her commission into the MAF. The Magistracy's Armed Forces could reasonably expect her to remain in a battlemech combat role so long as she had a mech issued to her by the MAF even after she completed her mandatory term of service. The same would be true for the other officers but the enlisted on national service were free to finish up and muster out. Retaining them would have been a costly expense for the Luxen Planetary Government, and that would be unpopular. That meant out of the twenty MechWarriors who had started most of would have been separating out in about a year, never mind wounded or the three KIA.
In a way that seemed to be the topic of conversation. "I have a contract on Detroit for the scratch veterans on North. Anybody who doesn't have a part in the Mercenary Court proceedings will be there. The MRB doesn't have any idea how long that will be, but I expect it will be a couple of months." Major Shepherd remarked.
"I see," Lady Raventhir sipped the wine glass, pursed her lips, and contemplated for a minute. The others waited for the noble to speak. "I would like at some point to go back to Pioche." Doctor Abner on their way back had stated that with air recyclers or deployable solar mirrors... or frankly a long list of Star League era devices that were probably all equally hard to come by... could be used to speed up the planet's thawing process. "Of course it will take time to find the excavation equipment as well, or source them from Majesty Metals."
She wondered if there really was a Rim World Republic facility on Pioche... the batty old Lyran professor made a compelling argument about the catastrophic death of the colony having very likely not been some malign cosmic joke. They just hadn't been able to prove it hadn't been an accident. Unlike at the height of the Star League there was less need for Pioche the breadbasket world to export food to neighboring star systems, especially since there wasn't the transport capacity available like there had been before the first succession war.
The major shook his head, "No idea what the future will hold. Once Detroit is settled out, well the news makes it sound like its going to be raining pirates on the whole rimward periphery, and there is your Marion problem." He picked up his drink and downed it.
"We can discuss it once the Mercenary Court returns its findings, or if your contract with Majesty finishes."
"What's the most optimistic timeline for your heavy machinery?"
Another purse of Raventhir's lips. "I admit it could be months. We were hoping to be able to purchase more Vindicators from Ceres, a new order would allow us to purchase additional spare parts at a reduced rate." Lady Raventhir glanced to Short caused her to shift uncomfortably, but the Mercenary spoke up.
"Months?" Shepherd seemed skeptical
"You said optimistic."
"You're right." It sounded as if he hadn't meant optimistic. "Well we can revisit the issue at the first of the year." The major put his empty drink to the side, and clasped his hands behind his back, "If Abner is right though, if that was a Kinetic Impact from someone putting a fusion drive onto a rock I would expect that whatever is down there will have other defenses."
"Like a Castle Brian."
"Like a Castle," He agreed, though with a somewhat greater emphasis on 'Like'."and that probably means automated turrets, but if you do decide to go in, I'd do a hard check of the asteroid belt, and for that matter the system Oort cloud looking for rocks."
"I'll keep that in mind." Lady Raventhir excused herself, and she and Force Major Seghal moved to strike up a conversation with one of the Planetary Counselors.
Shepherd leaned over to the other Mercenary, "Remind me when we get to Detroit, we really are going to need ASF cover."
"Could always stick a Dropship up there too. I mean," Septim paused to swipe a stein of beer from a passing server, "Abner said there were weeks of warning, surely we'd have enough time right?" The Major shrugged and rattled off something acceleration and that that would probably be tue, but they were also talking about the polity responsible for slaughtering the Star League, and Hegemony's ruling house.
Bahar had tensed at the reply Short had noticed, and seemed to relax when the Major changed subject. "Its mostly an abundance of caution. Even if we get lucky and there is something there most of Amaris's army relied on large volumes of suicidal troops to attrit the regular army, or chemical or nuclear weapon attacks. I m not saying there couldn't be a Mech Line there, but Amaris didn't have the DoME, and it'd be more likely that its combat vehicles." He shrugged, and their conversation turned to the Union.
"Did she not bring that up?" Septim asked.
"The one in the exercise or the actual DropShip?" She piped up trying to participate.
"In this case the actual DropShip. The magistracy has enough manufacturers that Majesty can produce the Union hull and then assemble one from parts but the sucession wars being what they were means they're mostly just making spare parts. There are some parts on the DropShip that need to be replaced, but we'll have to wait till Detroit to see if we can get them."
Force Major Seghal apparently already had copies of the next nine weeks itinerary, in addition to the recommendations for refit and repairing of the Vindicators damaged in battle with the pirates, but that was more or less it. "So you think we should go to large lasers and LRM 10?"
"To be honest, from a skill perspective, with green pilots yes." The gunslinger responded, "Large laser loses you some range and overall damage, but they run cooler than PPCs. You'll tax the heat sinks less. The LRM 10 is an inefficient weapons system, and with more experienced mechwarriors you'd be better off having two LRM 5 launchers, but an LRM 10 throws more missiles when you're just firing one weapon. I personally prefer PPCs, but its less expensive to put in Large Lasers, and the depot has a bunch of salvage ones in usable condition." He shook his head, and stuck out his hand, "You'll do fine Lieutenant. I'll probably see you sometime next year."
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Commentary: So what is going to happen is that I am going to go spin Luxen II off as its own thread, I will add new content, and it will cover the three arcs it was supposed to cover in great depth, and I can hopefully address the issues that manifested. What I dont' want is for it to balloon into fifty K, but we'll see.
So yeah it will cover: Cadre and introductions, Raventhir's little treasure hunt side quest, and then hopefully by the time all that is covered I will be happier with the first BlackJack Pirates fight on Luxen as the conclusion.
That will probably be October, I have some other projects I want to work on, and Detroit II will go up in a couple days. I'm working on revising it some, but I think Part 3 of the chapter will be much better received.
As to LRM thing, yeah its kind of table top ish, Thus the reason to explain LRM 10 being so common when from a stat perspective is that presumably it is easier for a pilot to fire one weapon. Thats what I'm going with because even in fluff an LRM 10 is more expensive than two lrm 5 launchers. Putting an LRM 10 in costs you an extra ton, costs you on paper 40k c bills more, so the utility of having an LRM 10 has to be employment. I press button shoots ten missiles its a single system to keep track of versus keeping track of two (and thus should be more maintenance in down time, in addition to a pilot tracking the second system). If that makes sense.
EDIT: Regarding the downgrade from PPC to LL... as it turns out apparently the Magistracy produces or seems to produce plenty of PPCs, enough that their leopard DropShip variant pulls the large lasers out and goes all PPC. Why don't know, but presumably unlike someone I could name the Magistracy does not have a problem producing PPCs, so we'll say that this is a field expedient refit being proposed.