Davion I
Part 7
Eight hours of work, and he still had Haqim's detailed scrub down of the Hidalgo to get through The Star League V450 was earmarked for a second look, but the Hidalgo's significant find were it still had its Star League era Mech simulators. That was, and wasn't a surprise. As a star league, and they were talking about the peak of the Star Leauge, dedicated mech transport carrying 36 BattleMech it would have been standard practice at the time of Hidalgo's construction.
What the Overlord-class was not, as an assault dropship. Though relatively well armed, pound for pound an argument could be substantiated that the Union was better protected in terms of making planetfall in contested or hostile territory. It was true however that it was better armed than the Triumph. Most likely though any Davion first wave would conducted by Union-class dropships, potentially screened by Assault Dropships to break defending air coverage, or suppress enemy air defense... and if not they'd just drop and go overland from outside local ADZs which from orbital insertion much easier than with conventional air breathing transports.
"But that's approximately the sum of what I can draw up without a specific target, much less without a detailed intelligence packet to work from,"
Yvonne Davion nodded.
The third floor room had the usual faces, and company level officers he simply hadn't had time to really aquaint with. That would change over the next few weeks, but this meeting was really the first to include attached battalion level armor assets from the March.
"No, that's quite sufficient." It had been a mistake to mention the intel issue. They didn't have that at this time. "Beside the intelligence information, is there anything else."
The armor was here, but not infantry, and not ASF, "Realistically holding any kind of ground will require infantry, and contesting hostile airspace integrated ASF level control, being able to run six to twelve asf supporting a company would ideal. Failing that squadron level support at the company level, even if not as air lance configuration would provide some degree of protection."
"You have a number of Rapier Heavy Aerospace Fighters in inventory."
"Yes, I don't have pilots for them."
"We can provide you pilots." The Field Marshall replied. She glanced to the Duke of Robinson, "Lord Aaron believes he can contribute assuming that the Hellcats can be brought back on line." Though they had been considered a second line garrison fighter by the time Amaris, succeeded by increasing proliferation of more advanced aircraft the Hellcat was nearly ideal to the needs of the modern era's logistics situation. "The Combine's preference for duels between leadership is well known, deployment to the surface of a planet is only half the battle. Once on world there are two broad outcomes," Either a conventional battle along combined arms lines, or a battle more like the offer they had made counterattacking on Ander's moon.
That was when Yvonne triggered a playback of the 'arbitration' of the Detroit dispute. It shouldn't have surprised him. In all honesty it probably made sense that that kind of thing would end up in the MRB file... he wondered if the subsequent arbitration was in there. The Combine ... or technically Arisaka he supposed.. paying out in C-Bills for the salvage... getting bled for it.
That... made more sense why the company commanders, and the XOs, were all here though. "The neurohelmet is a piece of technology called mind machine interface, MMI is the bland acronym. Your brain interfaced to a digital system, a computer. You can pilot a mech without it, but a neurohelmet can allow you reaction times by feeding full spectrum data analysis... and even though it sounds like mysticism and hocus pocus there are ways to improve synchronization." He didn't think of anything when it came to be asked for examples, "The combine... well their highest scoring ace was Kerra McAlister, an alias suspected to be one of Urizen Kurita's illegitmate daughters. She's estimated to have killed 12 Gusnlinger graduates, and almost fifty other royal division pilots during the Davion Succession crisis from a Marauder 2R." ... and her mother had probably been either ISF or O5P, but that wasn't relevant to the conversation, "She'd been practicing Kyudo, traditional longbow archery since she was five. I can give you pointers," But just putting a packet together wasn't going to be a cheat sheet...
... and that conversation was how he ended up watching a pick up game on the school grounds. He leaned back against the ball court seats, personally he found cricket to be boring... but then he also gave no shits about baseball either.
"I prefer football." She meant soccer, "You said sports help."
"I don't think this would help." Supposedly boxing did... well for Mechs like the... well a south paw in an awesome was supposedly even more scary than a regular Awesome. "Regardless of what Wellington was alleged to have said about Waterloo, and Eton."
"What would you suggest then?"
"If you're serious about this, we can organize duels." It wasn't the worst idea, "Simulators will give us some degree of benchmark, "I need to be upfront, Mech weight gives some degree of padding," for lack of a better term, "But some of it is instinct. Mechwarriors used to be more scarce than machines to pilot, there is a certain degree of skill, Field Marshal. A combined arms action is more likely to pay off than playing to the combine's strength."
"You can understand the appeal though." She replied rhetorically, it wasn't really a question so much as an affirmation of the accepted thinking. "There is no denying though that holding any planets will require infantry. So long as you can secure the planet, we can bring garrison troops in after."
He almost pointed out that the usual mistake... the mistake made basically universally to combined arms formations in the early years was underestimating the number of infantry you wanted to have with your armor. "Still can't tell me where we're going, what we're going after?"
"Not yet. That will be the Prince's surprise."
Don't guess. It was almost certainly a former hegemony world. Possibly even more than one, but surely somewhere in the Terran corridor. They'd embarrassed the Combine and with the way the duke of Robinson kept pressing the rumor must have been going over from was a Crucis March world. Then there was, "I'm going to need to hire whoever I can from Northwind."
"We've discussed this, that will work out. You'll have local support on Northwind to make what you need in terms of final preparations. You'll have months to prepare for the actual invasion, the immediate priority is insuring the Robinson battalion is ready. I'll need to leave before the end of the month. Lady Alexandria should be able to handle things in my absence."
"I need to ask, in your capacity as field marshal are you overall command of the operation."
"No, as Prince's champion I'm in charge of the operation." Yvonne corrected.
Ah, "I see." He wasn't sure what the distinction was, not in a practical sense, but alright that was fine too. Yvonne being Strategic level control was the bigger answer. "Lord Aaron wants this to succeed as much as anyone, any chance to further weaken the gravest threat to the Federated Suns is to be the highest priority. Let me be clear colonel Shepherd if we have the opportunity to move, if we can significantly damage the Combine's military strength, if we could repeat Elidere there would be in a position to consolidate gains at the Combine's expense."
--
Gene flipped the paper work, paused took another bite of the pasta.
"You're not drinking?" Alexandria Cunningham sat down, snagging one of the free seats at the 'faculty' table as he was thinking of it.
He'd been considering maybe having something after dinner, and reached for the water, "Not tonight." Gene took a sip, "What can I do for you Lady Lex?" She raised an eyebrow.
"I need to be involved in the drills tomorrow."
He mirrored her gesture, "Fair enough," Should have seen that coming, "How hands on is your liaison supposed to be for this,"
"If the Field Marshal is indisposed at the-"
"When we jump the line?"
She nodded, "I can remain on ship, just as if she were present."
"Unless something comes up, and you have to be in the field."
"That's correct." She agreed readily. A little too readily, especially since he'd had the conversation with Yvonne... and he was pretty sure she'd either just come from there, or near enough... Yvonne was no where to be seen despite having eaten with the battalion officers at dinner two days in a row. "Situations might arise where thats necessary."
Time to go fishing for information, "We're going to drop into a former Hegemony world." She blinked, but he kept going, "My best guess is Dieron or Altair. Maybe Nirasaki, but probably one of those." He'd been digging through the maps. It wasn't hard. Process of elimination. All three belonged to the former Terran Hegemony's lone star province. And really the problem was just not being told. "The Field Marshal said that ideally we cut the combine from the Entire Corridor, but that's four worlds."
"What are you suggesting?"
"I'm suggesting that we are probably going to run into soon or later significant resistance. You want to take a battlemech into the field tomorrow, fine." he pushed the plate to the side guessing he wasn't going to have any more to east tonight, at least not for a while,
She frowned, marring her features, "If you're dancing around the subject, I graduated from Sakhara academy. Does that surprise you?"
He shrugged, "I actually expected you to be an AMA grad, Kestrel being in the Crucis march."
She mirrored the gesture, "The family has attended the school since the first succession war. Shall we move on?"
"What are you hoping to learn?"
"We could trade pointers." She had barely gotten that out of her mouth, when the duke rolled his wheelchair into the mess hall.
"Colonel,"
"Your grace."
The old tanker slid up the table and applied the manual break to the wheel chair. "Keeping the war machine fed I see." Lord Aaron remarked leaning forward to glance at the paperwork. "I was actually hoping to discuss your Marauder?"
"Which one?" It wasn't intended as a boast, but he really did have to ask... and at least the Duke hadn't said 'your Mech'... cause hell that could included the Atlas that Bubbles was currently driving.
"The one you used at Elidere, the White. The autocannon is LosTech?"
"Yeah, The Hegemony was doing research, its whats called an LBX. They never made it past the prototyping stage. I do anything with it the computer reminds me to email Colonel Thompson if I have an problems. He probably ate a nuke on New Earth. What about it?"
"You can produce ammunition for it?"
"Yeah, well yes and no." He explained the LBX ammunition issue, they hadn't tried to make cluster ammunition, "Its based off the GM Whirldwind." It was half to a deflection, but it made sense that someone would have noticed the Autocannon had a range to throw lead comparable to his PPCs. He certainly didn't want anyone poking around his Marauders and figuring out they were ER PPCs.
--
"Anything?"
"I was making progress up until his grace arrived, then they delved into discussion about guns, which somehow turned into a topic of education, and the vagabond schools, which wrapped into techs, and Assistant techs."
Yvonne Davion tutted disapprovingly at the excuse, "Start from the beginning," Occasionally interrupting for clarification about one point or another. "I shouldn't need to tell you this, Sakkhara was founded by retired SLDF officers, Albion was an SLDF Military Academy. One of only three outside of the boundaries of the Terran Hegemony. I've made copies of the two month course work, and I've compared it to AMA's," The Field Marshal's alma mater, "I would guess the bulk of it is from the Hegemony originally." The reality was that there were more questions now than there had been. "Do you know the conversation we had, about mechwarriors?"
"No."
"I believe his exact quote was that 'its generally recognized that there is an accepted genetic component to mechwarrior aptitude, but like most skills probably entails epigenetic factors, as well as more conventional learning of the skill.'"
"What does that have to do with anything your grace?"
"I have a growing suspicion that Lord William, Doctor Abner as he prefers to go by, very likely stumbled upon a stasis pod. Maybe he dug into a lost hegemony facility, a castle brian on some dead terran world, but the Colonel and the Doctor cross paths repeatedly... and Dr Abner believes that he can provide a service to the First Prince. There is something on Bristol... something that may well have survived the Combine's nuclear strike in 2791."
The first succession war had been an utter disaster, but the truth was even before it had begun the Amaris coup had already created a financial crisis, the Federated Suns in the 2770s had gone from economic recession into a full blown depression with the disruptions to trade with the Hegemony... and then the Combine had invaded kicking them back into financial uncertainty as they had begun to recover. There was speculation of course that the Combine had probably been planning even in the 2770s, and certainly by the 80s to go to a war time economy and that had given them temporary advantages, but by the time Kentares had occurred they'd been hitting the limits of their logistical bottleneck.
That was the least glamorous part of the First Succession wars. The DCMS as a military was outsized to the national GDP that supported it. The Combine had always had a significant population, but had lagged behind on industry. It always had... and that was why they had an opportunity, because south of Avalon city proper in the suburbs built on the sacrifice, and gains made on on Halstead station in 3012, from the ruins of a library of the Star League Era the New Avalon Institute of Science.
It had been completed just the previous year.... but that was a long term investment. More than anything, it created for Yvonne a time table. A clock counting down to end or at least severely curtail Hasek influence... and Elidere had created a way to severely curb Combine power, potentially reducing the military importance of the capellan march as other resources could be spread around.
She gave a heavy sigh, "I suspect that there are details we don't know regarding the Combine in the lead up to the first succession war, something that provides a reason to take sides." But ultimately that was just what her gut told her based on the fragmentary evidence she was still piecing together.
