Battletech: The Ghost Who Walks (Battletech Isekai)

[Imperator Pax]

Post Dieron 1.4​

There was nothing for him to do while the navy men worked this was their trade. The stand down from the stations of making the jump and making sure they hadn't taken damage to internal systems or that the transition had caused them to potentially be in the way of anything.


The Hegemony had never done much in terms of half measures, and especially when it came to infrastructure projects... and they had over centuries become extraordinary good about coopting natural features for their ridiculous mindboggling mega engineering and that applied in space as it did on planetary surfaces. In this case the small planetoid at the system oort cloud had been belted by pebble sized asteroids as it continued its slow rotation around Lockdale's primary star, and it kept rotating spinning fast enough to provide a near earth gravity.


That could have still been all natural.


... except for the computer pattern recognition demonstrating that the planetoid didn't have atmosphere so even after those couple of centuries you could still make out a hundred meter wide Cameron star showing where one wanted to be. It established they were in the right place, and that the nearest accessible building was not a port facility but an access section, that looked like a good place to start.


It was no surprise that the fusion reactor continued to provide power, but so they had kept their space gear on as a precaution, but the truly impressive shift was the way the Hegemony's DOME had opened up one of the planetoid's lava tubes, and rebuilding the structuring with ferrocrete emplacements to allow literal mile wide openings, and then also to construct a network of tunnels that were miles deep into the crust.


This was fairly typical of MegaStructure engineering of planetoids as used by the SLDF and Terran Hegemony's navy. The alternative of course had been the construction of wholly artificial satellites culminating in super massive shipyards like Titan, Mars, or at Luna.


Those shipyards... much like Stellar Trek's yards no longer existed. Or in the case of the shipyards in Sol, probably were so reduced in capacity they produced at most a handful of ships every eighteen months.


"Star Lord-class, and spheroid DropShip docked." Bahar observed from one side.


Gene nodded as the small crafts touched down. The JumpShip was berthed, which might have potentially indicated that it had been maneuvered in here for drive work... and then just left. The fact that there was a Confederate-class DropShip, it was too small to be a union, still docked on one collar was interesting, but they would send a party to investigate after they got into the control center.


Mega engineering or not the facility tapered as it moved further in with the emphasis on smaller craft DropShips and such. Lockdale wasn't intended to be a frontline facility. It wasn't intended to be a major center for system defense. If the material here had been left beyond it was probably because the whole facility had been forgotten about by the regular navy. "Lets fan out and find the main control." There should have been an access into the habitable decks and that would lead to central command and the nerve center for the facility.


The tram way worked, and as expected carried them over the internal dockyards capable of servicing millions of tons worth of hulls, and deeper still. He checked the displays, and looked at the two more large spheroid dropships tucked further back, and then nearer to the DropShip berthing main elevator the long aerodyne form of a Titan Aerospace carrier.


"Well they clearly didn't abandon the facility," He muttered mostly to himself, even though what he really meant was they hadn't stripped it for parts.


His radio crackled, "Commander, these are very large pressurized yard spaces." Pasha observed, no doubt receiving a feed to the JumpShip, "In any event I have a beacon response from the automated control, and the Cargo carriers are in flight. Auto pilot estimates put them at seven minutes for wherever they are supposed to be going."


There were no holographic guide paths lit. If that was still a working feature it must not have triggered because they weren't in registered shipping. It didn't matter. They couldn't take this place with them, and while he'd have them go through everything as long as this place was safe it was very likely they could just lock everything back up and come back later.


Pasha's signal couldn't make it any further into the facility as they took the lift deeper in. They would have to find some way to pipe communications into the internal relays in order to maintain contact and that would take time.


"We should get on that." He remarked, stopped to check the outside air temperature. There was atmosphere, as Pasha had observed from the small craft telemetry the yards were pressurized, which made some degree of sense, but would have been a nightmare to engineer given the size of the airlock.


Bahar agreed, but through a look backwards down the hall as they continued walking, "Do you believe that the JumpShip here is from Dr Abner's lost tribe?"


"That was a Confederate on the Hull." Not a union though it did resemble the larger dropship, "So its possible from what we know of the Tribe, alternatively given its in Terran Naval Colors its been here for two and a half centuries." Which was possible as well. "Given that Titan we passed, "I'd say yeah we probably are looking at left behind systems." The confederate could have had engine problems... or given its size just been left behind if they were having Jump Drive problems with the star lord.


Leaving the Titan though... well that was different.


"And the other two?"


"Those looked like Pentagon class DropShips." They had clearly been the same class of DropShips, but they had been recessed up into the 'ceiling' so to speak so it had been hard to get a truly good look given the machinery.


The radio crackled, "commander the main shaft is up ahead, but there is a communications lock out, it also looks like there is some kind of lock on medical."


"Team three do you have anything?"


"There are definitely drone fighters in the bays, commander, but they're securely shut down. As long we don't trip any security protocols they shouldn't pose a danger to the ship."


They had been worried about there just being free ranging drone fighters that might attack any approaches to the 'asteroid' or even just anything in system... but everything had been quiet coming in, even after signaling they were approaching the first landing zone, and then getting the door open.
--
MacIntyre scowled gruffly as the sassenach tried his patience. While he did not presume that the Church of St Cameron was all there they seemed at times close enough, that was not say he believed his ancestors had been saints, but there were advantages on the field to having Shepherd scything down the snakes.


... but there in lay the problem that while the real men worked there were still lowland dandies who believed they should benefit solely on account of their noble birth. The man had been stymied of late but that wasn't something he was used to.


That was too bad for him, MacIntyre knew that the elders intended a Highland rising against house Kurita with regiments bearing the arms and banners of old highland regiments. It was true that the Duke of Errai's mistrust of the Azami wasn't completely unreasonable given their long and stalwart support of House Kurita, but given all that was not going to win him over.


"I note Colonel Shepherd's absence has been taken note of." The Duchess of Victoria remarked, "I suppose that does leave you as the ranking officer of the unit, unless one wants to speak to a JumpShip captain." Which would have therefore been one of the Azami... but that in itself was an observation that the older captain had departed as well.


"I suppose it has ma'am. Can't be helped." He replied. Macintyre was aware of the highland eyes watching him as well now. "Is there anything ma'am?"


There was. Yvonne had scrutinized the research, the compilation of what the analysts of DMI2 had put together for her from the digitalized database from Dieron. They had established with relative certainty that the ace of House Kurita Shepherd had mentioned on Elidere was actually Urizen's granddaughter... which might have well been the problem. Born to Takiro Kurita and raised in the household of the cloistered coordinator after his abdication her possession of a 2R demonstrated no expense had been spared in preparing her for a military career.


She had questions, but the Colonel was absent.


Her participation in the Davion Succession Crisis had put her against the SLDF interference, which had in turn put her training to the test. That was the problem. MacAlister was conclusively the link between the combine authorities or faction that had passed information warning the SLDF that the Combine was leaking SLDF positions to Amaris's forces. That meant the sister to the then ruling coordinator had protested the policy. Apparently that had begun as soon as it had started, but it had ultimately culminated in the post Amaris-crisis commissionof ritual suicide in protest.


All of that had to have occurred after Shepherd had been put in the stasis tube within which he had slept away the centuries, and the intervening succession wars. There was no way to know what the Terran Hegemony had known but it was easy to see where some of their conclusions had been drawn from what the ISF recorded and left in the records in Dieron as historically importance. Even in the modern Combine the ISF was politically active so this institutional record likely was important to them for still yet other reasons.


What was not so far as they could tell from the Dieron archive was, whatever it was that the Azami knew that was so damning... and much as she loathed to just come out and ask they needed to weigh doing that... and physically asking was hard to do when he was off presumably doing some other favor for the Azami before they departed for the deep periphery.


Before she could ask for a time frame, "All I've been told ma'am is that its not expected to be long, that whatever it is it can't be more than a Jump away and that they're coming back in about a week, that's all that I know."


The prevailing theory was negotiations maybe attempting to sway someone ... there were any number of Arkab legion commanders, majors and colonels who might be looking to desert the combine now but were afraid recrimination if they showed up in Davion space. The Azami Liberation Front hadn't exactly shied from instances of piracy in the last century either. The Rasalhague rebels were yet another possibility as were yet other fragments of the Azami resistance.

It had by no means evaded Davion analysts that they had first come to Northwind, but the analysts were divided on that. The only combine world in range of Northwind but not Dieron was Deneb Algedi, which did fit criteria but it was also equally possible... if unlikely he could be jumping to a meeting in a Davion system. Errai would have been darkly amusing, but more likely given the jump to Northwind first he might well have been meeting Azami who had already jumped the border of the Federated Suns and jumped then to Episilon Indi, or Eridani or another world just over the border with house Liao.

 

[Imperator Pax]

Post Dieron 1.5​

He watched the holographic footage. He didn't say anything, because he didn't like what he was seeing. The gantry arms finished moving, and the image stilled fixed on one of the DropShip docking collars as the aerodyne lifted off.


"That is a warship." Pasha remarked stroking his beard.


"Narukami-class... Hegemony colors," Little odd, he would admit, but not an extreme strange, "Block II 670 thousand tons, half a kiloton of Ferrocarbide armor," He scrolled through the display, "A dozen ASF, three dropships... including that Titan we saw." Which they had left, but the Narukami had also departed with its cargo bays full of stuff from here... but that wasn't included. What was included, he clucked his tongue, were a handful of data logs and fragmentary IFF data histories, "She apparently was in contact with the SLS Bismark, but there isn't enough in these logs to really say."


"Bismark is also a warship?"


"She would have been," This was dated the mid 29th​ century after all, "Texas-class." There wasn't much here. The automated query system was designed to reduce manpower requirements for naval reserve stations like anchorages and had asked questions that in normal situations were intended to just check boxes and file paperwork... the Narukami's last SLS vessel contact was or should have been just a line item, not looked twice at, "She left without the titan, and given when she left she could have easily pretended to be a Combine raider and weaved through Davion space."


"Warships were believe to have been destroyed in total in the following decade." Pasha observed.


"I have no clue how that happened," Gene found himself responding, "The Narukami hull originated in the 24th​ century, I don't understand how they wouldn't have been able to have just been forgotten they predate BattleMechs."


That merely turned the conversation into an issue over strategic level force projection, and Pasha was right that he was glad that they didn't have to contend with the Combine's Naval Service fielding Narukamis or any warships.


... but it also didn't change the fact that the Successor States didn't have warships, and rather obviously the clans did. "We know at least Clan Wolverine managed to slip the rest of Kerensky's people with two warships by the time the Davions took Northwind, thats more that we didn't know. Alright, I'm going to the AI annex," Which was behind a bunch of automated defensive guns, and the medical bay was still locked to them... also behind defensive guns that were active.


They had yet to try any of the other facilities either, but if everything wasn't in tact... then it could at least pass for being operational. What did or didn't work work beyond eye level inspection would take engineers months to dig down... maybe longer given the technological backslide but it still raised questions.


Lockdale's anchorage was big... but Lockdale the planet Lockdale was a dead world... even if there were survivors on the world it was obviously a pale shadow of the provincial capital it had been in the 2760s before the coup.


He doubted there was anything more than tombs for them on the planet's surface, and even if there wasn't they didn't have the resources to check. New Dallas given its uplink condition according to transmission records to Dieron suggested it would be a much better given their codes, and ability to ride to where the castle outpost was.


Lockdale was a temporary stop over though until they could finish exploring.
--
He placed the chit in the reader and felt the prick of the blood test and watched as the lights filled green. "Commander Shepherd we're getting movement all over the fortress, I have drone aircraft launching, and i'm reading active sensors at the jump point."


There wasn't anything to do. He acknowledged the radio transmission as the doors opened and he stepped inside. The remnants of the provincial capital's space defense system reminded him a lot of what he had seen at Northwind once they had gotten the systems to talk to one another... and a reminder of what it had cost the SLDF to break through the compromised SDS system because Kerensky had not mounted an immediate attack into the Hegemony, and because he hadn't had the override codes that might have saved millions of lives or more.


Gene paused at the computer terminal inside and immediately in front of the massive holographic globe representing the whole solar system, within which were the wisps of the oort cloud, and asteroid belts and planetary and other solar bodies. The black watch command chip went into a recepticle, "Shadow Command Override, Priority Order Dispatch." He half mumbled, cognizant that the override to the AI restrictions also contained the HPG data recording that had started them on this road way back in the periphery... and it also included the proof that Tripitz had managed to run the Republican blockade of Terra and somehow ended up in the rimward periphery.


The AI threw up a status bar as it started to process through the data.


"Colonel Shepherd, I am Lockdale Anchorage." The AI remarked, "Admiral Clancy expected that other officers of the Central Intelligence Directorate would have survived, but I have been out of contact with the Admiral for some time. Officiating your credentials, and the reports from Fortress Dieron and Castle Northwind... please hold."


It was a long couple of minutes.


"Your data package on Kerensky's personnel is duly noted, standby."


More waiting followed.


"I am releasing the locks on the personnel storage bay,"


"You mean the medical bay?" He asked.


"The majority of my original crew died responding to the initial rim world incursion, when Terra fell General MacArthur attempted to order the enacting of the Wildfire protocol, but that was subsequently overridden and the system locked itself out. Admiral Clancy believes that sabotage of the system occurred on terra, and allowed orders from SLDF regular personnel to further countermand the scuttling orders on the grounds it would have impeded General Kerensky who was supposed to be ordered to initiate an offensive against the Rim World."


He wondered how those orders had been phrased... but from the sound of it... most likely the Commanding General probably hadn't had a clear picture of what was even going on in the heart of civilization even as the Hegemony burned.


"What about the med bay?"


"As a precaution, recognizing the dangers that had developed following the collapse of the league an agreement was reached between Admiral Clancy and remnants of the 331st​ Division of the Terran Hegemony / sic SLDF in Exile to leave a small detachment here predominantly of their white shield personnel."


Lockdale played a video of footage of a nuke going off on some world that Gene didn't know, the name on the tag meant nothing to him. The date was 2823. The nuke detonated inside the city proper with no sign of an airborne delivery system first.


"The Exodus of SLDF personnel that departed under Kerensky underwent at least two civil wars, and at least as many attempted mutinies given Kerensky's track, and limited log data from the period we believe that his objective was a series of worlds that Hegemony long range surveillance astrology had detected but that had not been followed up on. The habitable zone was expected to be viable but not necessarily worth the Hegemony's time given mission parameters. They were left on a list as potentially suitable for Star League exploration at a later date. Accurate Astrological data was limited ..."


Kerensky had been running to a set of habitable worlds he obviously had reason to believe could support life, but not one he might have ended up finding a Terran bolt hold... where there might be a competing set of authority, especially if the notes on the mutiny and 'Operation Klondike' were anything approaching accurate.


... and he almost asked the AI what were the odds that the clans were going to eventually come looking at the Inner Sphere, but Lockdale Anchorage beat him to it by bringing up the Wolf Dragoons appearance in 3005 that was also included in the package.


"Affirmative, I would recommend that you extend contact to all units operating within the Admiral's operational network," A list of various ex SLDF units populated, like the blue stars and the 32nd​ Recon Group that had ties to House Davion, "Aprising them of the potential threat of the Dragoons exists but so to should continued offensive actions, and the reasoning for actions against the Draconis Combine. Northwind is correct, rearmament and liberation of former Hegemony worlds from the Combine should be operational and strategic objective for any proceeding conflict."


"And the periphery?"


"I was not prepared, or briefed on the Communications Network layout in the Rimward Periphery, and was not communicated with by the Tripitz or by elements in contact with the Black Watch command structure. Admiral Clancy during his last check in did not mention such either, he and 331st​ survivors appear to have not received such information."


Which just reiterated that no one had known Tripitz had gotten by.

--
Notes: and next week while we continue this, we do pivot back to Northwind, in preparation for the Arano arc, because yay travel time skips.

 

[Imperator Pax]

Post Dieron 1.6​

The deckspace of the command center, or at least this side annex was quiet. The air filters blew air but there was little to no noise from the machine... so they waited largely in silence. "Whats he doing in there?"


Pasha harrumphed shushing the younger Azami, who had not been his first choice. "It is a neurohelmet..."


"I am a MechWarrior, I am aware of what it is." The younger man protested defensively. "What do you think will happen?" He asked.


"Be quiet Karasu." Pasha had been absent from much of the fighting on Elidere, but he understood if academically what had happened. He understood better than most what the weapons of the Star League, and the weapons of the Hegemony which had defended Terra were capable of. They were guests the mechanical jinn here could easily have killed them on the approach or at any time they were here and could still exercise the free will to destroy their feeble presence.


House Kurita had conspired with the Satan Amaris, who had betrayed and murdered House Cameron and House Kurita had then not simply refused to provide the SLDF passage, but had passed the knowledge of the SLDF and fed the soldiers of the Star League into the monster's waiting den. What was worse was that the combine had clearly known this, and that then House Kurita had thought to attempt to usurp the throne once fighting Amaris had ended.

The speakers came to life.


"THS Hedwig is online, and detaching from the gantries, all personnel be advised Hedwig is capable of hitting a maximum acceleration of 11gs. The intention in the 28th​ century was to produce these to defend eventually all systems of the Terran Hegemony." Never mind what would have been deployed aboard ships of the Hegemony fleet in complement to existing Pentagons. "All flights should remained grounded while she stretches her wings." There was a pause, "The THS Braunfelds, same class, same acceleration profile, will follow suit after Hedwig returns to the bay. After which we will make an in-depth survey of the Titan-class ship that was left here, as well as an examination of the Star Lord JumpShip. I would recommend all naval personnel begin reviewing the necessary documents and planning for those efforts during our down time."


Gene leaned back behind the ferro aluminum view port of the the chamber. In theory the idea had been simple... but it had taken time. The idea had taken time to refine, there had been newer technologies, there had been demands in the program, and from the ministry for still yet other considerations... ultimately leading to the building of full scale drone warships.


The real failure though had been in leadership.


The crisis with davion succession, the assassination of one star lord, an absentee regent, the death of the ruling house... the chaos of the war and the limits of communication across known space. The Hegemony hadn't had infinite money, but really the leadership failings had been the death knell of really all governments that fell. People, even kings, were fallible.


That was how things were... Lockdale had limitations on what it could accomplish. There was no longer a planetary center to speak of. They couldn't dig into the earth, but eventually... eventually what was here, at least what hadn't already gone off with Clancy and his Wolverine friends. The place looked pretty intact, so he had to go through what had been checked out... most likely the admiral hadn't had the resources
.... or there was something in that list, but he wasn't sure. He hadn't had time... but the stuff here was a treasure trove... and Clan Wolverine had left with a warship from here. They had a warship, the clans had a warship... the wolfs had they brought warships to the inner sphere... ComStar had Terra closed off to the majority of traffic and even then outside of ridiculously curated visits...


--
Even assuming it had been a simple rendezvous the reality was the JumpDrive would have been charging while whatever meeting was going on. Shepherd's indicated time table strongly supported the idea that he was only making the single jump, thus it was unlikely there were further movements planned before coming back.


She stared hard at the black and white check pattern applied to the shoulders of the Highlander Assault weight Mechs visible from her window office of the castle. "Ma'am," The Guards officer leaned over, "This is a priority." He put the folder down and stepped back.


Yvonne Davion paused and started pulling the sheets from the envelope. They were marked the DMI letterhead and time steps, and the write ups were for multiple sections. Groups monitoring different groups. In this case, her immediate expectation was the merchants were too often the eyes of foreign intelligence agencies of the other nations. This was internal.


Blackwell, and the Northwind government were both chattering about the same topic.


The Wolfs Dragoons.


The Eridani probably knew what ever it was that Shepherd had told the Highlanders here. Information which Shepherd to disclose to them, "Thank you, if you would give us the room please." He nodded sharply, and she had the room with her lady in waiting. "We need to make a change of tactics, if Shepherd isn't going to tell us its because he has a reason not to tell us, we need to provide him with a reason in order to bring us into the circle. The Eridani have reached out to a number of former SLDF units in Davion service, descendants of SLDF personnel." She admittedly wasn't entirely sure that wasn't General Kerston acting on his initiative, but the Eridani hadn't sent a message to the Blue Star Irregulars by courier as soon as Dieron had been secured. They had used a commercial carrier boarding for Altair. They didn't know the contents of the message. "I had mentioned previously your family origins." She had said that back on Dieron.


"With all due respect ma'am its quite well know what my family origins are." That the ruling house of kestrel, and almost all of noble houses of Kestrel down to the lowliest barons, and a significant number of the knightly houses were descendants of the Star League after two and a half centuries. "If he was going to tell me at this point wouldn't he have done it? And beyond that the message communicated to the Blue Stars could well have been the transmission of what we learned from the Combine's archives."


"I had considered that already. The timing doesn't line up. Kerston did not that Coordinator leaked the 19th​ Regiment's movements. He suspected but he had no proof. There must have still been some lingering benefit of the doubt, but Kerston had flown into apoplexy in his speech to the Light Horse gathered on Dieron." That was itself another issue.


Kerston had been commanding general of the Eridani Light Horse for an extended period of command... there was talk of him retiring. Not immediately but that there was talk meant a change in leadership was likely within the next few years.


Then of course there was the Federated Sun's diplomatic relations with the Lyran Commonwealth. They had already planned to share access to the archive, but the information had set in about what this would mean for relations with the lyrans, and what the lyran response would be.


... and there was going to be the reaction from the combine. The combine had responded with the Hesperus campaign, but it had been Marik orders that gone through.


... what Yvonne couldn't know was that by this point, the ISF had already been told about the intelligence windfall and the pieces coming together. A relatively young but highly rated ambitious member of the Dieron HPG station had made copies of a copy and passed it back to the ISF, and that information was already being couriered back to the Coordinator's Court.


They had no way of knowing that. That Takashi Kurita was a little over a week from finding out about a piecing together, a fresh set of eyes as it were had put it together. No Davion involvement necessary for the information the Combine Intelligence service passed the material up the chain, and the intuitions that be acted along there usual habits; nature taking its course.


For Yvonne the more pressing information was the Reimi ring... which was another red flag in its own right because that implied that it had been known, Shepherd had brought it up and cross referenced the archive by name. That was more reason to increase the priority.
--
Shepherd closed the data file on the warships. Lockdale was capable of refurbishing the drives, up to and including both capital scale maneuvering drives and compact K-F of spaceships, and particularly warships... but those were gone now... or at least out of sight. Lockdale was something to sit on for the time being.


The New Avalon Institute of Science was still nascent, still learning to walk... he was going to have to make a trip to Aquagea when they made their periphery run anyway, bringing them Volgadon would do more for the Federated Suns as a state than this... for right now.


"Where are we?" He asked.


"ah, uhm speaking," The tech shuffled, "None of this even looks like what it should. We referred to the manuals. I haven't gone into the nose yet, but just looking at the capacitors, those are gauss rifles not the assault cannons we were expecting."


"There is some model of assault autocannon to the rear," Another man reported. "But I'm not familiar with it." He remarked.


"The 331st​ upgraded this Hegemony Titan with the technology they had available," Lockdale stated over the speakers, "Some of the systems were damaged, unfortunately I was overruled from my initial direction to refit it akin to," He rattled off a program designation, "To replace the onboard fighter spaces with Mk39 series drones, or even BlackWasps."


"Is that feasible?" He regretted asking as the command deck hologram illuminated the suggested 'refit' that would have taken several months. "Ah, I have to echo Admiral Clancy, given the dropship is currently serviceable that is not a practical option at this stage." Gene had no idea how in-depth such refits to accommodate drone fighters were but the Titan had the command and control suites he hadn't even realized he wanted in the case... the refitting time table also discouraged him from trying to bring San Saba or the Bexar here ... they needed to start the long trek out to the periphery. "Wait, are you suggesting that Hegemony Titans were being refit to carry ARTS wings?"


"Affirmative, approved in 2764 Naval Appropriation black budget a Nightwing class ship was approved to be rebuilt," 'Rebuilt' in this case had apparently meant ripping out the KF drive and extending the ship's hull to add another 35K thousand tons, "As a testbed for the program aboard an actual warship."


Even without the coup that had occured it sounded like an expensive boondoggle to Gene, but it sounded also exactly like something the Hegemony would have done... especially the plans to then try and mount the systems in Kimagure class Pursuit Cruisers which doubtlessly never been anything other than prospective plan drawings... but it did suggest where the Hegemony's lords of the admiralty had been thinking. "Why not just start with the Kimagure, they already carried a dozen fighters?"


"There were concerns that the program might cause additional stress to the hull and the initial planned test bed was unavailable."


Gene just nodded, and decided to drop the entire subject... no doubt the Anchorage AI had probably wanted to do more for the Block II Narukami but there hadn't been time for everything. "Hedgwig and Braunfelds, anything in particular?"


"No their systems were built for robustness the tranche V series were intended for escorting Hegemony warships operating far beyond the Hegemony's borders as well as protecting the worlds of the Hegemony."


"You've completed offloading of the supplies from Dieron?"


"I have, they're being separated from their pallets and sorted now." The AI replied. "I assume you need the dropships themselves?"


"Yes." A transit manifest for delivering to Northwind Castle appeared.

 

[Imperator Pax]

Post Dieron​

"KF Drive Signatures, Two Large Jump Ships at Nadir."


A second tech watched the console in front of him as the mass blips on the hologram remained indistinct while .

"Northwind Control is reading them as Friendly, we have IFF receipts for Colorado they're confirmed. Tally one additional, resolving... Star Lord, signals going out,"


A few days later Shepherd was climbing up into his Marauder and then coming back down with a computer data core. He held it out by the carry handle.


"What's this then?"

"Its a back up copy of the medical university of Volgadon from Lone Star." He held it out by the handle a little more forcefully.


"Its what?" The field marshal questioned.


Gene frowned, and the explanation itself probably lead to more misunderstandings not less but he didn't have a use for the thing, and given the New Avalon Institute of Science if he went ahead and provided them a copy of the medical school's information when he got back there were likely to be less questions with the rest of the back up from the periphery.


... but if ended up doing some good at New Avalon then that was fine, he had other things to do... especially given the number of Highlander mechs on the deck. So that was what he went and did; taking the highlanders on an exercise.


"Take this Jeffries, get it checked out." She ordered to the Guards officer as the Orion departed the hangar.


She had no reason to doubt it was what it was purported to be, but she already felt the migraine coming on. Her priority had been.. well a new JumpShip and three assault dropships didn't just materialize out of the aether. She had also had questions about the landing of the two large cargo dropships at the port complex uncovered over which the highlanders had been somewhat reticent to speak of... but what had followed the following morning had been the landing of Azami DropShips, before which federal officials had been allowed entry to the port and who were able to supervise, 'supervise' as material was transferred to the larger DropShips in an effort to consolidate...


They had already been briefed on that of course. The plan for the larger DropShips had been a planned reduction in the number of collars used. That had made sense even accepting the size of the exodus fleet massed over Northwind. A portion of Shepherd's Company were currently on leave, either here on Northwind in which case those cadets were really more correctly on light or half duty or off world.


That meant Shepherd would be largely on Northwind, staying on Northwind she hoped until that period of rest finished... but they had yet more questions than they had achieved answers for... then of course there was Lord Aaron to contend with...
--
Gene ordered the recently graduated highland cadets into line. He had swapped to a stock Marauder II for this outing, and Hanzo and Bahar were both running Highlanders. The maneuver course was based on SLDF programs though it had needed to be adopted for the Marauder II machine.


As a result the Orion was somewhat conspicuous, especially since Alexandria wasn't saying anything. She'd been ... well maybe not stand offish since he'd landed. The deciding factor to handing over the data core the medical documents had been the ice box, the medical bay on Lockdale Anchorage.


... the ice cubes were a handful of personnel, and deicing them had been a mixed bag. They knew enough about Kerensky's exodus, and he wasn't surprised that the Iron Wombs had been put into use for Nicholas Kerensky's delusional ambitions... and that from the sound of it Clan Wolverine had planned to implement a similar population growth plan in order to build a stable population some where in the periphery.


The problem though was now what to do with the few dozen time displaced people. McEvedy had planned to run the long way to the Magistracy of Canopus... but if she had succeeded then there was no evidence. There had been apparently splinters in part to evade any potential pursuit. Still it made a certain amount of sense to make of the magistracy in theory just fo being on the opposite side of the sphere.


Gene flipped the command software display to check the gunnery scores, silently glad that Abner was in the Commonwealth. It had been one thing just knowing that some surviving Terran Naval Officer had made contact with the Minnesota tribe and getting the details regarding Kerensky's walking dumpster fire of a society that there were living people from that era ... from the era of the Minnesota tribe appearing in the Inner Sphere.


He was going to feel bad, he already did feel bad, holding it back... but the ice cubes wanted to find their fellow wolverines if possible, and that meant them hitching a ride into the periphery for their own search. That was understandable no one had come to get them after roughly a century and a half... he did want to know what had happened... though mostly because they had been taking warships into the rimward periphery.


Where had they gone?


He trusted them so far as he didn't think they were lying, and he trusted them enough that what they had told them about the Clans in the 29th​ century were accurate, and that he wouldn't as a result tell Abner immediately if they didn't want him to. Abner probably wouldn't like that but at this point ... if there were Wolverine survivors out there well the descendants of he wanted to know what he was dealing with first before Interstellar started swarming them with questions or what not.




The numbers coalesced on his screen.


"They're not there yet." Dante remarked tapped in from one of the Fury tanks.


The AI wasn't wrong, "We'll have time during the ride out to the periphery to handle training aboard the JumpShips."


"I would be remiss in my duties Commander Shepherd but the pirates active are clearly not ordinary pirates. McGirk's access to Royal Equipment is highly anomalous and his destruction of the HPG network will degrade warnings and news beyond the already poor state of the periphery."


"I know." He replied to the AI. They had landed the Eisenhower at the Northwind port with the intention of transferring the mobile AI core to the command deck of the Titan-class DropShip, and that was work was ongoing. He keyed the mike, and channel to the cadets, "Alright go around and pack it in, Bahar tell the armor and the crunchies they're up once we're down." The Marauder II mechs ran off of mostly Marauder parts, with the exception of the control systems.


He ignored Dante's repeated commentary that maintain the Dalban paired systems would have been the better option... the more important thing was that machines were working. As they parked them in the hangars.


"Hey they did pretty good out there." Chang remarked having probably come directly from the Daimyo, given that the Atlas was in the hanger with them, and she was coming into the bay. "We could be faster, but they've only got one fight under their belt, its not like they're title contenders."


"She's right," Beau agreed, "We got to give the kids time, especially with brand new mechs."


"Commander I need a word, in private." Alexandria cut in quickly. Pricate wasn't really private, they were in the Port complex connecting to Castle Northwind, Dante probably dozens of anti personnel drones in the area, never mind ever mic recording. What there weren't was anyone obviously watching. The deployment space in the entry way might have been crawling with AFFS and highland troopers from planetary militia units but the facility itself was so automated that most people gave the machines a wide berth.


Thereby what should have been a waiting area for potential hundreds of hegemony personnel waiting to board a dropship or who had offloaded was empty as a tomb. He therefore had complete access to the digital systems, and the projection equipment that were standard to the facility. "I woke up in a facility not unlike this one," From the logs from Aquagea it seemed that the Hegemony presence in the periphery border , and the staging to watch the Capellan border had been reinforced ... but most likely the units of Hegemony, and Regular SLDF had been ground up and attrited if not in the stages of the war against the Taurians then, then in the delayed offensive against Amaris to liberate the hegemony proper... and by that point Kurita had been leaking SLDF positions to Amaris, "You want to know the principle reason that both the Azami, the Eridani, and the clans of Northwind are willing to consider Kurita the worst sort of traitors and blackguards," He pulled the cord to the chit on his neck and placed it into a slot, "Because there is very little more damning to the sitting coordinator than the recorded proof of his ancestor's betrayal. The ISF ferried documents and material to Amaris, Dieron documents that. The coordinator who inaugarated the succession wars knowingly, and personally passed SLDF positions to Amaris... and Kerensky and his Communications guys had recorded proof of it."


The HPG recording played without him needed to prompt a visual cue.


Dieron by itself was bad, but there was a difference between documentation, and the raw visceral damnation of the recorded proof of conversations between Kurita, and Amaris.


"And the computer core?"


He shrugged, "I have a list of a dozen doctors, of which I'm not, more nurses, and Physician Assistants who would sign on, I have enough people to staff Bexar and the smaller medical facilities, the Azami are retreating," from the Inner Sphere, "into the periphery because they can't fight House Kurita, and they don't want to split the faith into an open civil war, if Rasalhague gets independence thats wonderful, but there is a difference between a fledgling independent state and what the Federated Suns can do with what i'm told is knowledge lost to history."


His conversations with Dante, particularly of the AI's eavesdropping on conversations carried out within the supposed security of Northwind were such that it seemed the best option to play off, and emphasize that the core was not militarily critical, and to use it to continue to keep the Davions off balance, and yet still in their good graces. The university had been a civilian institution but given the losses of the Terran Hegemony's technological and industrial base... the combined rest of the university of Volgadon well that had obvious military and political ramifications... but he didn't have the full database with him, and nor did he intend to suggest that data existed.

 

[Imperator Pax]

Post Dieron​

Alexandria sat in the chair, and stewed. Expecting the lecture, the chastisement for allowing herself to be caught off guard. She'd expected to just ask for the answers and it would all be clinical, clean... just another briefing. Her hands shook as she sat in the chair within the governor's office of Castle Northwind.


Yvonne Davion, the Prince's Champion was pacing the study, and then stopped, her expression creasing in thought, or perhaps vexation. "Did he give you a copy of it?"


She swallowed, it was the recording, and "No, no ma'am he did not." she hadn't thought to ask in the moment for a copy.


"He shows you an HPG recording, a recording of a live transmission of Minoru Kurita in conference with Stefan Amaris, the reigning coordinator of the Draconis Combine during the crisis and is providing Amaris with the positions of SLDF directly, not through an intermediary, and you didn't get a copy?"


In truth she had been a bit taken aback in the moment. It was like being sucker punched at the time, and Shepherd who must have watched the video countless times previous had been stone faced in regards to it all. She should have asked for a copy, she recognized that. The recording was damning to House Kurita there was no refuting that ... it was no wonder that the clans of Northwind were taking the steps they were.


The duchess of Victoria turned fully in her direction, "Where is he now?"


"Somewhere here, in Castle Northwind."


"So he's with the highlanders? The clan elders I presume."


"That is my understanding."


Yvonne Davion forced herself to sit down finally. Jeffries had been busy.. but the preliminary report was positive, that it was by all indications what it was purported to be. Shepherd had never asked how New Avalon's Institute of Science had been founded he had simply... more or less looked at the college and shrugged... he hadn't asked them how they had managed to establish the institution.


He had no idea about Halstead Station, and of Ian's too early demise, of Hanse's ascent to the throne. Of course the Star League era University which had contributed to, was the foundation of the NAIS. How Hanse, and the force on Mallory's world had been physical moving books and other things into bags, and scraping them up with the hands of BattleMechs.


Real books, not a nice portable computer core. "He comes from era that I doubt anything he does would elicit a second look, on New Avalon a member of the Medical Service," A doctor in the AFFS, "Looked over the Colonel physically he's probably healthier than you or I, but he's also from a different time, among other things there are moments though where General Kerensky is treated as a living person..." She shook her head, "now, to be blunt for the Azami Amaris is the literal incarnation of Satan in human flesh." She snapped and then paused in her lecturing, the Azami were "Hardly the only ones, Amaris is the reason for the schism in the catholic church, and that video footage establishes that Kurita knowing colluded with that monster, and then had the gall the bloody temerity to claim after that it was his natural right to be Star Lord and that House Kurita should succeed House Cameron. I can scarcely imagine what would have happened if the 2nd​ Battalion of the Sword of Light had been on Dieron, can you?"


She paused and shook her head... this was all going to be a nightmare to make sense of, never mind explaining it to the First Prince.


"You can't imagine? The coordinator's only son, the heir to the Draconis Combine on Dieron, the living legacy of some two centuries of murder and mayhem perpetuated by the Combine," Her voice cracked as she gripped the arms of the plush lounge chair. Then paused, reaching to the side and unlocking the biometric lock on the case, "Your family joined the Federated Suns after Kerensky departed, many in the SLDF did and among them was a Naval Officer of the Terran Hegemony. He had a database that he left behind, left to us. " She pulled up a picture of a pair of HAF officers. "That is Major Shepherd in 2765," There was a resemblance between the two officers. "I would assume following shortly upon his completion of the Gunslinger program, and before he shipped for the periphery..." Shepherd's face was less stern, less glacial with just the ghost of a smile on the Major's face as he stood beside the admiral. In a year his whole world would be gone... "Do you know how many DCMS mechwarriors have seen Shepherd in combat, and kept breathing, because I am relatively certain that the answer is not one has exchanged fire with him on the battlefield and made it home in anything other than a bag."

The destruction of first and third battalions of the Sword of Light Regiment stationed on Dieron had varied. They had been hit from all sides, including from strikes from cruise missiles across a map grid area, but also baited into a head long charge against a Star League era Assault Mech that might as well have been wholly unique, been the only one of its type in the whole Galaxy, and so focused on charging it, that they had walked into the enfilading fire of numerous other assault 'Mechs of Star League vintage.

--
The holographic display showed Northwind's capital asleep, it pushing one in the morning, positive returns from a pair of high flying Rapier ASF keeping watch. They were alert, and if something went wrong, the drones they had brought from the anchorage were slotted into launch bays to give anyone looking to start something an unpleasant surprise.

He felt the beginnings of a headache coming on, and ticked the pen against the corner of the paper making sure it would write. The Marauder II exercises were going good, but he wasn't really surprised that the real questions coming out of the Davion break down of Dieron as a battle had been centered on his other hundred tonner.

Gene checked over the Devastator's read outs. He was beginning, he had suspected, to guess from the lack of electronics ... well he could guess why the Nightstar had eclipsed this as the preferred design at least Commanding Officers as a replacement for the 75 ton Marauder. Dante agreed with his assessment. The Devastator was excellent for a Gunslinger but maybe not for a Company commander or his second, and certainly not for higher command.


That wasn't to say either machine didn't have respective strengths and weaknesses. He tapped the screen on the device to one side and looked at the data, "The Phoenix Hawk uses the same engine as the Highlander."


The kilted man paused, from his own glass of scotch "Pardon."


"The General Motors 270, there isn't anything in the Highlander, well the Cellular ammunition storage," and the railguns, "but my understanding is that Gauss rifles should be hopefully able to be brought back into production... hopefully in a few years." He leaned back and swirled the scotch, "Dante is right, I understand that production of the King Crab is a lot to ask, but sustaining any kind of position requires spare parts, what's buried here isn't going to last forever," And it only took one asshole deciding to open a can of sunshine to make everything a mess... more of a mess. "Dieron either, but it needs to be held, but that isn't the only thing."


He heard Campbell's boot hit the bar underneath the table, "What do you need then?"


"Besides..." The economic organization that, the capital accumulation to support privately funded reinvestment into industry, which he recognized as necessary, but could hardly say it was his area, and it didn't seem to be anyone's area... he didn't say any of that, but he was thinking it, "I need Northwind's government to invite and start the process of vetting all of the surviving SLDF commands operating with Davion space, and under the AFFS banner. At some point sooner rather than later publication of if not the recording than the archive at Dieron will go out to the Lyrans and at that point there will be no hiding it in the long run."


"Why would we not tell them now of House Kurita's treachery?"


Dante chuffed over the microphone, giving presence to the AI that was always there, "Being that we need time to organize, Captain. We need time to prepare, piece meal attacks will distract the Combine, we must make good on the resources we have and we must also know who can be trusted."


The highlander pilot nodded, eyeing his own glass of scotch for a moment, and then pointed out what was obvious, "You said that Kerston was told on Dieron, well that he told what was in the archives there, should we be assuming he has told the whole Light Horse about what happened?"


It was a safe enough bet, "We know the Blue Stars do know," Gene replied putting the glass down, again "What will come of them knowing we don't know. Whatever does happen there needs to be some way to coordinate."


"There is the other issue."


"Kerensky left the Inner Sphere with Hegemony automated factories including the equipment to build warships, there is no reason he will have lost warships, and given what we know they certainly were able to maintain their warships in the 29th​ century. If Kerensky's exodus learns of House Kurita's actions I can reasonably intuit how they'll respond," He held up a hand, "I doubt General Keresnky published the data,"


The highlander paused, "The black watch had ones who left with him," He was dancing around the subject, "We can't avoid, can't go on not talking to the dragoons forever, if we had known when they had arrived who they were we'd have asked then what became of them, but if we are certain," Campbell continued, "We must tell them they cannot side with the Combine, if they do not listen then to hell them, but they should be told."


"My concern is that Kerensky's people will respond by deploying warships, and that the response to that will be nuclear weapons. That is the impediment to telling them." That it would result in the genocide of countless worlds.


"All of the great houses have nuclear weapons, we cannot allow the threat of them to allow them to get away with their crimes."


A part of Gene lamented agreeing to the Wolverines... understandable wish to contain what their records were, "They're not going anywhere, if they follow their habits thus far, they'll stick with Marik, move on to the Lyrans next... I expect to be back from the periphery by that point. I will be coming back to meet with Abner and coordinate resources for an exploration in the Rimward... but as a compromise if the Dragoons look like they're going to break protocol and sign with House Kurita for some reason, give them the data chip before they can cross into Combine space."


... but if that did happen... well what he expected was really, and what Dante agreed was that most likely the Wolfs would go on a suicidal death ride against the Combine Capital.... which Dante didn't think was the worst possible solution.... which was of course Jaime Wolf went screaming back to the clans and prompted a murderous holy war and let the genie out of the bottle.


--
Notes: This was a long time coming as Gene has less resources to magik industry up using spell points, in the next section we do skip forward in time to the Lyran commonwealth, unfortunately one of my preferred interactive maps is not working correctly for some reason, but yeah Lyrans next chapter and the beginning of the reaction to stuff and things. If there are any issues, here point them out, because we are setting up for stuff in the long term is going to have effects on the inner sphere at large.

 

[Imperator Pax]

Post Dieron​

They had jumped from Dieron directly over the Commonwealth border to New Earth, and avoided the Capellan border while heading to New Kyoto. It was the first time back in the commonwealth in years. The news was a surreal change from the Federated Suns coverage, instead of talking about the snakes getting their asses handed to them the Lyran media was talking about the Dragoons jumping over the border for House Marik.


Septim couldn't help but grumble about it. It was probably nothing more than a case of the marketing people wanting a focus on stories that would hold the attention of the broadest lyran audience. Surely there had to be some specialist news media covering the snakes getting their teeth kicked in.


Not that he had a lot of time to grumble about it. He knew when to shut up when they'd been only partly through the plate of arme ritter, the pan fried apple cakes which were a staple of the hotel, when their other party arrived. They were, all of them, in dark blue jackets and great coats, and riding trousers. It would have been ridiculous to wear anywhere other than on parade... and if Septim wasn't wrong, everyone of these high born bastards probably had an Assault Mech to their name that barely saw outside the stable.


The chests full of medals were for station keeping, very few of them had wound badges to match their times in service to the Commonwealth... but they did have seniority. Abner smiled waddling slightly away from his brandy to hug one of them, "Bertie you look so well," He hugged a forty something year old graf, grabbing his sleeves, "You have grown a mustache, your mother, my sister should be so proud to see her little Bertie grown up, yes. Here come sit, eat, my sister would never allow me to hear the end of it, if you didn't eat."


The count tried to protest but Abner was having none of it and physically forced the younger man to face the table and the plate of pancakes, and then gestured to the rest of the men. Finally one of them spoke up, he must have been the leader because despite being in maybe fifties he had the most egregious number of medals. "So what exactly did you find?"


Abner leaned on his walking stick and sat back down. "That General, is complicated, but so far as Urd needs to be concerned, is that we have evidence not simply of the Combine treachery, of which I will address in a moment, is that SAFE was able to subvert LIC activities, and instigate a certain series of battles. We have in our holds copies of the ISF archive from Dieron."


"We had been informed that Dieron had fallen, House Davion simply allowed you unrestricted access?" The 'general' sounded skeptical


"Its a very long story herr General." The professor reached inside his breast pocket and placed an ancient terran hegemony device on the table that sprang up into a blue tinged hologram, but it came with a sound quality that was haunting in its clarity... as Kurita passed information to Amaris, "As I said, Rupert, its a very long story. Bertie is your friend there quite alright, he appears a bit green."


The lieutenant colonel next to the count looked more than a little green to Septim, but he kept his mouth shut. He was wondering where his father was, this had been their agreed upon meeting place, given the need to be available to ship back in time to meet up with the others.


Abner had already turned away. "You are you are aware of Dieron's fall. I assure you its quite worse for the Combine than whatever you may have been told." He pressed a button on his stick and started a Battle Rom footage, ignoring the protests that they had of course seen the reports that the MRB had made available, which Septim knew pretty was a pretty reduced account of the whole fight... no body looking to hire a merc unit with their time wanted to watch hours, days of slog and maneuver never mind all the prep work.


Anyone who watched the MRB highlights would get to see the highlight real of one giant war machine shooting another one, but how long could those clips from Dieron be? Three minute clips if that? The Review people probably clipped up various pilots from the Company and maybe some view of the tankers in action maybe. It just wouldn't be all of it.


But completely obfuscated by the sheer mass of... all the things, was that no one touched on where Gene was from. All eyes were on the Thugs, Highlanders, the fancy star league assault mechs. LosTech cache, being a major find, and to a lesser extent to the new Davion Assault 'Mech, and on that front that House Davion would probably be opening up the Marauder II to the market.


... and if Abner wasn't going to tell them the boss wasn't 'a knight from the Earth that was', or whatever a holo drama would have called him... Septim resolved it wasn't going to come from his mouth.


"One must understand," Abner was pacing around the table, now, as if the private gilded marble dining hall of the hotel was a college lecture he was getting, "Our Lyran Commonwealth enjoys a standard of living that is appreciably higher than the other nations. It can be said on that account we have fallen the least from the era of golden light that was the Star League. Our ancestors were men of logic, and reason, of science."
--
Septim had left the Guards with nothing to show for his stint. He at least had a mech to his name, but that was really what let him get by in the Periphery. Elidere had been all emotion... and the knock to the head also had twisted his perception of it.


... and the destruction of the Sun Zhang cadre still counted for something as well, even if it was in the shadow of eating most of a regiment from the infamous sword of light.


So sitting down and spending a couple of days 'relaxing', it had been anything but, rewatching the sum of the footage made him antsy. The combine had lost a regiment in the battle at Elidere... and then basically two mech regiments on Dieron. Call it four percent of their 'mech force in a year not counting any other losses sustained ... which explained why the LIC was involved.


He wasn't stupid, the statement that the Combine would have to pull forces from the Lyran frontier went without saying. Never mind... if everyone talking about the revolts ended up being right and the Azami and Rasalhague did rebel, what would that do the DCMS. The Commonwealth could only gain if the Combine atomized ... well not in that way, but if its political foundation broke down and it had to fight an internal conflict.


"So what happens now Doctor?"


"Oh, not much. House Davion wants the goodwill of the Archon and the Commonwealth, the two nations have been talking to each other for years." He replied. "I am sure that given time there will be more questions but sharing the ISF archive from Dieron even if its old and hypothetically no longer relevant data is a boon."


"But it is relevant. There ... was the Reimei thing, and the Coordinator dying," And who knew what else was in there. "And what about the Minnesota tribe?"


"Well on the latter, the combine knows painfully little about the tribe, other than they were afraid it was Kerensky's exodus returning to the sphere." Abner replied, "But we know that's not an accurate description, or at least not wholly accurate... but it was true to say that the Combine had no leads. The ISF had just been afraid that Kerensky's people were just going to come back and then the game would be up for them, yes?"


... and the thought struck him, "What about the Dragoons?"


Abner tapped his chin, "I suspect the Combine's fears of Kerensky may well have diminished, and possibly to their detriment, look at what the Dragoons arrived with, and their ability to restore themselves to strength. Ten months after the Davion's New Aragon the Dragoons returned fully refit ... and indeed I think now looking at it they refit themselves to 'blend in' better. They've done it since, and given what is ongoing now I suspect they'll do it again soon."


It stopped him a bit cold... certainly the prospect of the Dragoons... five whole regiments of battlemechs was one thing... but that gave way to the bigger problem. The Media in the Commonwealth wasn't talking about it yet, if the Commonwealth was going to be told about all the Combine's dirty laundry then everyone would know soon enough.


"Is something the matter?"


He'd had a dream of wolves running, inconclusive for sure, but that they were running in the wilderness ... only to end up fighting ... sharks? "No, its nothing Doctor." Septim replied.
--
Notes: Obviously among other things this continues to set up for an earlier Rasalhague, which is something that I've hinted at, and indeed deals with moving forward in the timeline.

Combine losses for the past year are pretty well unsustainable, and this should be a reminder of it, though I am considering doing a Mori's message reaches the coordinator + Takashi's other reactions, but like combine propaganda portrays or will portray Gene in fairly supernatural terms complete with bleeding copy of the dictum honorium for added effect. Bakemono, Monster doesn't cut it by the time it sets in what has happened over the last year.

(and that doesn't even touch, the eridani wanting to scream that every formation that claims descent from the SLDF blacklist House Kurita or take up arms against the Combine)

 

[Imperator Pax]

Post Dieron​

The court had been standing on the tatami floor for hours on end. There had to be a response.... but the truth was there were so many things which needed to be addressed over the past year.


It had been a calamitous year. There were always some worlds which had the misfortune of droughts or floods which damaged the harvest, that was not what a calamitous event was. It was beneath the coordinator's contempt to sully his attention with the issues of mere money, and the arrears of un diligent worlds... but failures on the battlefield were more worthy of the Coordinator's attention, and the so the court stood at attention.


There had been some bluster from the warlord of Galedon, who had since been invited to use the garden, since after while it was true his subordinate general Samsonov had failed he had at least had the honor to die as a samurai on the field. He had paid for his mistakes with his life.


Takashi's childhood friend and head of the ISF had apologized for the mistakes his officers, but even that the coordinator had dismissed Elidere as a twist of bad luck, at least so far as not being aware of the forces present. There were fewer excuses for the ISF officer's shameful display ... that was to say failing ... at the ComStar compound on Elidere, failing so badly as to prevent word from getting out sooner, and loosing a valuable piece of LosTech in the process that was probably the more damning issue of the man's death


... but officially ComStar's priests could prove nothing. Given the tensions of Rasalhague Military District, the unrest would have been misfortune enough. Fortune had insured that the Coordinator's heir had been off world with the 2nd​ Battalion of his Regiment when the Federated Suns had struck Dieron. Florimel Kurita had deemed it a small gift from heaven going further than most of the Coordinator's court would have dared... Dieron had fallen with appalling rapidity.... and worse with shockingly little Davion blood. That Altair had also been lost was a compounding one to their dishonor at the hands of Davions... but the Blue Star Irregulars had fought with a surprising degree of tenacity on Altair savaging thoroughly the 18th​ Dieron regulars.


Still at least some of the 18th​ had managed to survive, it was shameful to withdraw but the DCMS could hardly have afforded to lose another unit of size. The 18th​ would be stood down in name to erase the shame and redeployed in packets to shore up other critical junctures... but Altair was a compounding factor to the eruption of chaos on Dieron.


That Dieron was normally a three month journey to Luthien was in part why the court had taken so long to assemble and present their findings, and conclusions to the Coordinator... but it was more complicated than that. It was likely that the Davion menace viewed ComStar's media crusade against the dragon only in view of the events of Elidere's HPG station, but it could not be overlooked by the ISF that it was equally possible that the most brazen blackmail attempt to extract concessions from the Coordinator .... and the failure after they had seized the incriminating materials, even if they had then lost the recording, had to be taken into consideration.


Though he ordinarily smiled, the bespectacled man merely, grimly observed that this information wouldn't have reached them so quickly if Dieron had not fallen so swiftly. The Combine could not abide, the Dragon could not tolerate ComStar's impertinence, and had long pursued avenues means to subvert and subordinate the clergy into the proper order of the galaxy. Until then, the Combine was surrounded by foes.


"Is it true?"


"Hai, tono." The bespectacled man answered bowing, "I was skeptical at first but the information can be verified through other channels. It seems that your honored predcessor was the victim of treachery but the plot itself was master minded by other foreigners." The question that hung unasked what the Davions would do with such information, it seemed unlikely that the merchants even if they were told could really act... the Lyrans already had long standing grudges against House Marik... this was merely another in a long list of grievances in their vendetta.


The reveal of the reimei aerospace ring was unfortunate... and there was no telling what other things might have as "We must avenge ourselves against such deceit, Subhash," Takashi hissed still bordering on on an uncontrollable apoplectic fury, the ISF chief continued to bow his head. "House Davion's trespasses cannot be allowed to stand but I will not forgive those wretched birds this transgression, they must be punished."


"It is as you say, my lord." Subhash slowly stood back to his standing posture, "The broader matters first perhaps," Takashi allowed it, letting the conversation turn away from it.


What the Combine had never advertised, what itself had nearly forgotten, even in this very room, was the fact that once upon a time the language of the court had other fluent speakers. The modern combine the House, looked on the Necess Kurita affair as a great dishonor. Florimel knew it could have been worse, she smoothed her skirts idly, grateful that the demon that spoke their language had the golden eyes he did and not ones of particle projector blue.


What was called the First Edition of the Dictum Honorium was a run of books of preciously limited number. Each had been penned by hand by Kurita Omi in the time before the BattleMech had emerged on the galactic stage... and indeed she had provided some of the first copies to those outside the realm... and it had been in the generation following her death in Rasalhague ... amongst other troubles in Rasalhague that it had been revised.


The Terran Hegemony of the 24th​ Century had held the largest number of copies outside of the worlds under the rule of House Kurita... and as perhaps only Florimel knew it had been the Hegemony's elite who had commanded a fluency in the language of the court. As Ronin had faced Gunslingers, it had been the latter who had spoken the language of the coordinator's court. A challenge issued to the 2nd​ Battalion 19th​ Galedon Regulars... after an unknown Mercenary Outfit had shattered the swords of 1st​ and 3rd​ of the same regiment She was less concerned with the deaths of Samsonov or his immediate command as individual facts... it was all of the details forming together that carried the danger.


There were diaries of a woman of House Kurita that talked about travelling to the Periphery, deep into the rimward expanse, for the tombs which held sleeping a monster not unlike what they had seen on Elidere and Dieron. Had the Azami delved deep into the rimward periphery and successfully opened the resting place of some long sleeping Terran?


Because that was her suspicious, the time was so close to the Azami fleeing into the periphery... and coupled with the fluency, the combat ability, and book. There had only ever been so many copies of the first edition, and precious few had survived the tumultuous infighting within House Kurita itself that chronicled so many revisions of the text, the first revision taking place in 2397 sixty odd years after the original release.


It had not helped that one of the surviving copies of the original had been present at the time when the sister of Minoru Kurita had committed seppuku in protest to the coordinator's actions; in beginning the succession wars. For Florimel it would remind others of the past... but it did not change Takashi's demand for a copy of the book for him to study, ostensibly for whatever insights in martial vigor it provided a mechwarrior that may have been lost in later revisions.


Florimel expected that... the family discussion would ultimately touch on the suicide of Urizen Kurita's favorite grandchild, and the opening of the endless waltz that was the succession wars. Such a conversation would not be for those outside of the closest confidence, and perhaps not to involve even the ISF ... after all while Takashi was willing to excuse his friend, they had failed to protect their own archives or deny them to the enemy, even if they had apparently died to a man against a highland assault that had caught them by surprise.


Subhash and Takashi put forward the beginning of steps. The ISF would need to strike against the Rasalhague rebels... the Arkab legions needed to be moved to where they couldn't act either, but the three regiments of the legion could not be carelessly disposed of. Florimel consoled herself that Subhash had some experience dealing with the western rebels, within the Rasalhague district... but the ISF had been fighting a proxy war with the rebels already how much more could be done was in question.


There would have to be reshufflings of Dieron, and Galedon as well... but could they really afford to attack? She supposed it didn't matter if they could or not, they had no choice but to fight, and show steel.
--
Notes: anyway when Aurigan updates next we will have more look at Kamea and Victoria given how central they are in an obviously very aurigan centric story as that, but updating Eminence in Shadow takes precedence over that and for that matter EWSG even though there is a good chance that the MAC is due to show up there.


I also clearly need to go back and do some editing but that will need to wait. I need to get back to a standardized schedule of updates, I had wanted to have book one of my litrpg thing finished by this point, but haha that didn't happen.


Anyway, as for this, Gene only really knows that Altair fell, he hasn't otherwise been told what went on there so in terms of calculating combine losses he's looking at just 19th​ Galedon, the Sun Zhang Cadre, and the damage inflicted on Sword of Light. That is not counting anything anyone else has done to make the Combine have a bad day, whether that is other Davion efforts or rebellions in Rasalhague or the split in the Azami or such. In any event we will pick up with the Combine's

 

[Imperator Pax]

Post Dieron​

Subhash knew there would be push back, it was inevitable. Takashi correctly understood what needed to be done in Rasalhague, and they needed to redirect the Arkab legion at a sufficiently acceptable target... that didn't leave them a great many options... and if the legions had been truly 'normal' members of the DCMS Subhash expected he would get push back from trying to give them orders....


... that was 'fair', he supposed it had been the ISF who had acted hastily in deploying the legion to recover the incriminating video, and then attempted to insure that word could not escape. Haste, made waste. Still there was an opportunity here.


The coordinator's orders were to retaliate. He would obey.... but he also had a responsibility to provide him with the best advice possible.


Subhash removed his glasses and rubbed his eyes. Retaliating against the Federates Suns would mean striking Robinson. He paused, thinking the idea over... possibly Sakhara as well, to repay them for the destruction of the Sun Zhang cadre; their losses. That was something that they could do, Sakhara would likely be easier to strike, but he supposed an attack against Northwind was possible... but again that would mean contending with an independently minded DCMS who would potentially brook any statement he made. They wouldn't be able to attack until the Coordinator named a new Warlord of Galedon, and there were precious few candidates suited to the position.


It was almost worth suggesting naming Theodore, Takashi's son... but no, as heir Theodore needed polishing but he also needed to be protected. They had been lucky Theodore had been off world... Subhash had been reviewing the rom data that was available... the ISF forces stationed at San Martin had chosen to fight to the death, going to answer the attack behind their lines without first activating their scuttling charges ... they would need to make sure to replace all the cipher codes.


There would be complaints but Subash was not a fool, if the Coordinator's enemies had taken the archive they may well have taken the code books for their communications it was better to change everything than be caught by surprise... especially given recent losses. Even if they hadn't, he didn't believe for a moment that their codes were 'unbreakable' and given their misfortune of late it was better to take additional precautions. They had simply lost too many good warriors of late... they needed breathing space, but they also needed to insure the stability of the realm.


Part of the problem would still be the nature of the DCMS and its willful insistence emphasis on fighting as individual company elements preferring striking as small elite formations made sense in low intensity warfare and especially in attacking and raiding... but it suffered clear disadvantages when an enemy was prepared to fight as a larger more cohesive force.


They enjoyed a tactical advantage when they could chose to attack but that advantage was best maximized when they were wise enough to also know the enemy as well. A man needed to know both, know himself and know his enemy.


The Combine could not afford to fight external enemies while there were internal ones... but he knew the Rasalhague's commitment to rebellion. They would rebel and the Combine couldn't afford that, he had to stop it for Takashi's sake. He needed to lance the boil, and staunch the bleeding before the infection sapped their strength elsewhere.


--
Florimel Kurita pulled the profile up. It hadn't been difficult to acquire data regarding the wolf dragoons elite... not when they had been in the Inner Sphere for more than decade... actual blood samples had taken more effort but that just required being persuasive.


The Orion she had given Teddy upon his graduation had been Aleksandr Kerensky's. The data core had included Kerensky's data profile, and that had included medical information... and while there was a gap in time, blood did not lie.


Natasha Kerensky was a child of House Kerensky as her name implied.


Florimel was privy to the recording... not that it mattered. She had her distant aunt records, Minoru Kurita had made it very clear her considerations that any discussions with House Amaris were stains on the honor of the combine. That not slaughtering the Usurper's forces set a dangerous precedent for their house in addition to being a black mark upon their honor... to the point she had eventually questioned Minoru's own masculinity in failing to take action against Amaris. Not publicly of course, that just wasn't done... but Minoru had protested to the very end he had a filial duty to attempt to safeguard the lives of their cousins on Earth.


The damning nature of the recording was that it was more than words upon paper, it was more than ink penned in the courtly characters... but even that would have been embarrassing. The recording was simple and for all the universe to see if it managed to get out... and at this point she had a growing gnawing situation that the ISF's haste had allowed it to reach those who would insure it was spread far and wide.


As keeper of the family honor she did what the women in her position were expected to, she needed to prepare for the very worst of it. That meant they needed to discredit their enemies. Weaken them, and keep them divided. They would need to discredit ComStar, not just in the eyes of Combine citizens, but in the eyes of everyone in the Inner Sphere... this was no longer a matter of house prerogatives, as the Necess Kurita affair had been it was about redirecting the enemy's strengths away from the Combine and towards other paths.


--
Kurita Takashi, Coordinator of the Draconis Combine had experienced challenges to his rule since the beginning. There had been many who had tried to raise their hand against him, just as there had been resistance to his father's rule.


It had been an otomo sergeant who had finally ended Hohiro's life... and Takashi had shot him in the face upon arriving at the palace bringing an end to the whole sordid affair without any further unnecessary drama... in that way he thought he best honored his father's views... Hohiro was on his way to the afterlife by that point, shouldn't they move on?


His ruminations turned to the incomplete reports from the DCMS. The limits imposed by the vast gulf between stars meant he could not be sure how bloodied his army truly was. He knew that this was as concrete of a collection of numbers as he could hope to have.


What was more complete were the reviews of his predecessors records. That the Snowfire embarrassment was more than had been thought pushed him to review everything that they thought they knew about the third succession war. It was much harder to rage at ink upon parchment. He had had the embarrseement of that shameful event thrust into his face, he could not simply ignore it though... and nore would he be able to readily move to address it because House Marik had played them for fools.

The other great houses would laugh at the Combine's shame, twice over. Three times even since the combine had lost Dieron and it had been in failing to protect their own intelligence archives that House Davion was able to establish that embarrassment concretely, denying it would be possible, but lying about being duped would likely only be revealed later, and they would like more foolish.

No that couldn't be, they had to strike and avenge the insult. That that was precisely what the Combine had been doing since the era of the star league even, or before, acting against perceived slights real ones and imagined ones had become so engrained there was little question it was the correct policy.


--
Notes: these are short, but again this focuses on Florimel, Subhar and Takashi, we don't get Teddy yet but the Combine does begin the process of unpacking the shit that has happened... and drawing their own not entirely accurate conclusions about what information and vantage points they have. As I said with the previous update, part one of the combine response this does abridge some of Takashi's affairs, and really by the combine start to move Gene is already en route to the Periphery.

 

[Imperator Pax]

Post Dieron Conclusion.​

With the end of leave fast approaching, and the last of supplies arriving Gene was preparing for the Company to depart, but there were some the little things still left. That included some things which he personally considered fairly ridiculous.


There were still some things with the MRB, for the Highlanders and for Bardiche, but they'd be leaving soon, and there were a few other things that he was still on the hook for in terms of favors,


"I like clan fox as an idea," Bubbles protested.


"We should be called clan Raven something, Arsenal Raven" Beau protested, and then suggested with a snap of his fingers, "On my homeworld the ravens that were brought from Earth during colonization adopted to the climate by stockpiling food, and building nests that are like god damn bunkers."


Gene cleared his throat, grimacing at the conversation, and it was bad that the Free Worlder was now on board with this nonsense... but he also hadn't ... hadn't told them about 'the clans of Kerensky' either, "As annoying as Bard's rendition of Black Fox is," and despite the silly idea having been used to pester him at nearly every turn while they'd been on leave, and in particular when the Eridani weren't around. "I'm not prepared to declare Clan Fox to be a thing," It had been a long twelve months and he ignored the protest from one of the younger kilted men that Clan Fox sounded like a quite proper idea as he fished out the dossier in printed paper and handed it over to the Sandoval Duke. Gene sat back in his chair and waited.

There were the rufflings of the thick paper as Aaron Sandoval, Duke of Robinson and Field Marshal of the Draconis March smiled. He had browsed the papers and flipped them over as he read, "The order of the golden kite," He declared with pride. "I think this would be just the sort of thing Lord Nicholas," Some chancellor, or minister in the Fed Suns that Gene had had all of five minutes to talk with, "would be looking for, sure to tweak the combine's nose."

The historical abstract he had included for the briefing had been designed to maximize that. He had done what the duke had asked and provided an organization name, but also the historical backdrop included the specification that the historical golden kite had been a degree higher, and military only, to the order of merit that Takeo Kurita a distant Kurita ancestor had held. The cultural ties, the use of specific language, history, and so on were somewhat modified by the new proposed device. The golden bird would be holding a daisho in its claws underneath a Torri gate, but would be fixed on a european style shield.

The proposed designed raised a quirk of the eye from the legless duke, "Would have expected, if on were to be honest, Colonel, the Cameron Starburst. I think that would be better."

They had asked for his opinion, for his input. Gene had consciously been trying to avoid Star League iconography in the the device, or the in the proposed documentation to accompany awards. He'd made a point of neither mentioning the Star League. That was part of the whole couching of the packet.


They'd been in Fed Space, and Federated Suns employ a while by his standards at least.

After Elidere... hell technically after the Kuritans had routed on Elidere IV they had been under contract with the Davions for operations since Ander's Moon, but that didn't mean the Kuritans were going to be shy about how they felt. That would have been a problem without doubling down on it by signing on with the FedSuns for their romp through Near Terran Space over the last year... the AFFS had dropped the Hussars and Blue Star Iregulars on Altair which had to have seriously strained the Combine's forces in the near Terran area. It had all started with Elidere though.

The 19th Galedon Regulars, that was to say an entire Combine BattleMech, Regiment along with most of the supporting DCA assets had been destroyed in detail for what amounted to no cost to the Armed Forces of the Federated Suns. They hadn't been able to achieve a repeat of that degree of peerless lopsided victory, but that was less important to the fact that the AFFS in combination with other mercenaries had been able to not just take other worlds, but savage other Combine Mech Regiments.

This was the Draconis Combine March's opportunity to rub salt in the wound so to speak. Not that they really needed to... but it wasn't going to stop them from doing it... and given the enmity that existed he didn't expect them not to use the opportunity to do.

He didn't want to stick around, even though the AFFS was hoping to turn the mercenary units involved in whatever the next campaign would be, not just them but in particular the Eridani Light Horse, into what amounted to House Troops.



"Seriously what's wrong with Clan Fox?" The hunchback driver had thought it had been a good idea she'd always liked it though, and was loathe to drop the matter.

... well there were actually a number of reasons... and even discounting the sheer degree of political brown nosing it might have been interpreted as he had other reasons. He sipped at his drink and glanced at the command staff who were looking from Chang to him waiting for an answer, "It conveys the wrong sort of distinction. Evoking an order, a military honor like this may not be a formal structure but it allows a delineation in rewards that a lodge wouldn't be as good as formally conveying. This isn't a knightly order, or a warrior house the Draconis March wants to be able to provide recognition for command ability, leadership, and bravery in the field. The duke wanted a proposal he could put to New Avalon," And apparently the head of MIIO, "I expect that it will be sent off and either they'll reject it or rework it as necessary as either a Federal award or that Lord Aaron will issue as a Draconis March specific award."

... but it would have been a bigger tweak if Hanse Davion, as First Prince was the issuing party awarding people golden birds with heavy shinto symbolism and references to the Nihon Shoki. It was probably the sort of slap in the face to the combine's claims, historical and present, regarding manifest destiny that the First Prince might like to present to the Inner Sphere.

"So we are finally read to go back to the periphery?" Septim's question had been accompanied by a look being thrown in Bahar's direction. The fighting over the last year had been concentrated in near earth space.


"What is the word Bahar?" He asked.


"Markab is mostly stable from reports." An originally Azami world, "There are rumors the Federated Suns will move on Galatia, but it may just be rumors. Indeed it may force the Combine to reinforce the world and allow House Davion to attack elsewhere."

The fighting was an excuse... or additional justification to ferry another load of colonists far into the periphery to settle on Alamut in the Lighthouse worlds. Something he didn't put into words as he glanced to the senior JumpShip commander... well the company jumpships.


Pasha shook his head, reached up and toyed with his long grey mustache, "Admittedly it is not so glamorous but it will be down time that is sorely needed. Returning to the periphery will not be so bad will it?"

They were pulling off the front for a number of reasons not the least of which was that they'd be going to a Magistracy garrison and training contract for Raventhir... or rather that was what Raventhir was to claim. Something about Ur Cruine and the pirates was causing enough of a stir that the money was now there to see to some kind of expansion, such that Detroit was willing to spend money.

Black Jack McGirk was still running around reaving from apparently the Tortuga Dominions all the way round to the Magistracy border. That meant he was hitting the Davions, the Taurians, the Aurigans and the Canopians... as well as all the free holding worlds in between at times. The simple truth was no one had expected a pirate with... what some reports went so far as to claim was a division worth of Star League Defense Force equipment. Whether that was an exaggeration or not didn't matter, McGirk had a mountain of hardware and he was willing to rampage wherever he liked, and trash whoevers stuff he liked, and pay his men with the booty. That meant he had no shortage of bastards willing to fight for him.

"I want to talk about the conversion work being done on San Saba," To carry BattleMechs, "I've been assured that Blackwell has our order completed and we should be taking delivery on that last order soon." Things that they had paid for out Pounds paid from Elidere, and before they had cracked open the Brian Cache... but yeah, "We'll be in transit for a while and my understanding is we're taking a different route?"


"Yes, the elders have granted you overall command, our destination is the Aurigan Reach, it is a post Star League principality, founded after the succession wars began."


--
Notes: Cultural Face Slapping.

And thus we time skip through the space travel, 'are we there yet' and finally move on to the continuation of the pirate wars, which leads into the Amaris debacle, and then from there back to the Inner Sphere in early 3022, but it is currently roughly summer of 3018


I am going to attempt to have the Combine attack of 3019 on Robinson, which among other things entails Sandoval's LosTech tanks being in prepared defensive positions, Fury and Alacorns supported by regular Succession Wars fare to the combine's unpleasant surprise but if it doesn't go up as its own post it will be remarked upon in the news once we cycle back to the Inner Sphere. We might also see content from the Combine perspective, and theoretically Freddy Hammer show up. Highlander Interludes are pretty likely at some point as are of course more of the perspective of various FedSuns personnel.


Anyway we head into the pirate wars and from 3019 and the periphery conflicts last until roughly the end of 3021, and unlike Aurigan which derails HBS pretty quickly this story was intended to be something of a novelization pseudo canon for the game.

 

[Imperator Pax]

The Pirate Wars​

The trip out from the Federated Suns had been one thing, they were taking a different route out than they had done coming in... which he hadn't expected to be an issue. Moving away from the Terran corridor meant a drop off, and then a pretty substantive shift in tone in News coverage. He hadn't made anything of it at first... but a month out from the periphery border well that had changed, but even that had been a gross understatement.


The near earth traffic barely covered the periphery. He could understand that. The MRB data package as they got closer though painted a very different picture... but the news remained painfully curated... and then they had gotten to the border and they'd started getting chatter from the other side. By the point they had gotten that close the Precentor New Avalon had bought up a mess of air time, in terms of both advertising, and pressuring the notionally independent but comstar supported MRB to encourage mercenaries to please kindly kill that pirate bastard.


The Precentor for New Avalon had already approached them in his capacity as being the senior tech priest for the entirety of the Fed Suns, and for good reason Black Jack, presumably sortieing from somewhere out of the Tortuga domains had jumped the border with the Fed Suns last year and carried on with the burning and maiming and reaving of usual pirates, but also had burned down one of the HPG stations that was the prerogative of Vandal's position. They had already known that... it was just that from the sound of the last few months, what the periphery side news were calling the 'Pirate Wars' he'd been getting worse. That was to be the situation they had to enter the scene stage right.


Gene looked at the simulator reports from across the fleet. Seventeen jumps then over they were over the border... and they'd jumped over the border in Taurian space... jumping to Vandeburg. They'd stayed at the Nadir Jump point to charge their drives, and that was really when things had ended up going off. The traffic closer to the periphery had been one thing... watching it happen was another.


"I don't see what we could have done different," He remarked finally to the combined air staff, "am I missing something?"


There was a pause a dozen ASF pilots started scrambling to get a word in edge wise.


Pasha cleared his throat. "No commander, we had no indication that we needed to have pilots on alert status especially after the journey. It would have made the Taurians more uncomfortable than they were."


He nodded. The truth was it had caught him by surprise. He'd been anxious to get away from New Vandenburg too... and they hadn't been on alert. A mistake. He'd been going stir crazy from the sixteen previous jumps, simulator time and pull ups on the grav deck's gym didn't scratch the itch, and we'd barely been able to stir the week they'd been in Taurian space... so he'd been glad when they'd cleared for jump, and made it to what was Aurigan space...


... and then it had turned.


They had made the jump from New Vandenburg to the Aurigan world of Aea, the bull's claims not withstanding. The jump over the border into Aurigan space should have been uneventful except that the tiny little world of Aea had been savaged by Black Jack's pirates earlier in the month... and one thing had lead to another. It wasn't Black Jack's first raid into the reach, the Aurgians had been having pirate problems the same as everyone else the last couple of years but relative to overall population the Aea's damage was extreme... and had involved hordes of captives apparently being crammed into cargo holds at gunpoint by Black Jack's pirates.


That had been about when they had showed up, after most of the cutting was done. The pirates had been at a non standard point, and it had taken entirely too long to get the air wing up and active there were just too many birds needing to be launched.


"Alright what do we do we do better next time?" He asked.


"It would be feasible to have pilots on alert, but it does not change that launching them safely would require the detaching of the DropShips, and it would be unsafe to have the fighters in the launch." He paused, 'ah yes, the other safety risk in munitions we would want energy weapons only for the first launch, that limits our options." No one disagreed with the senior most JumpShip captain, and pasha flipped through to another sheet. "Our Altair," The Azami Eagle variant, "The Rapiers carrying only the particle projector cannons, but not many other options I am afraid."


"How many jumps do we have?" There was nothing they could do here after all. Black Jack's people had made a mess of things, and then gotten the hell out of dodge before the birds could launch but what a mess it was.


"Four," Pasha replied, "We will finish charging the drives, we will jump to Katinka, on to Gangtok then Guldra and finally we will reach the capital of the Aurigan reach," The coalition had not existed during the Star League. "You will like Cormodir VI it is a nice world."
--
"All hands General Quarters, General Quarters this is not a drill, all hands battle stations." Those were the words echoing through the speakers of the DropShip, and presumably through the mass of other ships... the majority of which were carrying civilian refugees


Gene pushed onto the CIC, "Get us detached, launch Eisenhower, Hedwig and Braunfelds as well, we need air cover. Do we have a picture yet?"


"Not presently, they have limited air cover, but they're not moving to intercept us."


Septim pushed up the ladder and landed on the deck zipping up and SLDF pattern jumpsuit, "We'll have time boss."


"Yeah, the fighter jocks are raring to get at 'em."


But as they had identified they needed to prep. "Give me battle line."


It took a minute for the network connect. The holographic display activated as the mobile ai core housing the Northwind native AI parsed connections, "Connection stabilized,"


"This is Colonel Gene Shepherd, we have entered the system during an ongoing pirate raid the aerospace assets are to deploy as previously planned, we're unclear on the situation you should expect electronic intelligence packages to identify priority targets but our immediate objective is for the 588th​ to defend the civilian fleet. Task Force 1 will move to secure a landing on the planet's surface," Coromodir VI the planet currently being attacked and the site of the system's HPG uplink that was under attack.


He handed off to Dante, a separate channel connected him to Pasha, and then also to the ground leadership staff... which meant Bardiche, and Claymore's officers, and the armor and infantry forces... and given what Aea had looked like when Black Jack was done the medical staff. They needed to secure a ground position to bring in the field hospital about the Triumph that had been left under Northwind.

 

[Imperator Pax]

The Pirate Wars Part 2​

Coromdir VI was just shy two billion inhabitants, a good sized population for a periphery planet, especially given a system with more than one habitable worlds... Coromidr V in this case. Coromodir V though didn't have an HPG station, so it seemed like the pirates weren't interested in it right now. That was atypical of pirates, but what it meant for them was they, the pirates, weren't splitting their forces between two worlds.


Thus they weren't splitting their forces... well they were after a fact... but not necessarily in the way that would be assumed. "How long?"


"We can't be sure," Pasha's image flickered. Mathematical computations illuminated the holographic globe. The fusion engines powering the ships were moving them into was what effectively a noose. Coromdir was too busy astrologically to turn this into a conflict where wither side had a feasible chance for tactical mobility. They'd get there when they did. "The pirate ships may have their drives charged by this point."


The pirates were at the opposite jump point, they hadn't jumped in to a pirate point do to the moons. It was why Dante's recommendation was to just go down there and pump those DropShips full of Gauss slugs and call it a day. They weren't armed, and in the era of the Star League they would have been expendable .


The Azami wanted to execute a naval boarding action, which Dante was willing to concur with since he had other questions that electronic intercepts weren't going to provide. "How long have the pirates been ground side?"


"Long enough that they have offloaded tanks."


Footage showed Bulldogs, which was one thing, but also Demons, which was a whole other potential problem. "Any Alacorns?"


"No, we have not observed any from the traffic at least." Whether planetary media was accurate was was debatable but if the news choppers were capable of showing footage from sixty plus ton tanks it was doubtful they'd have missed alacorns, "But we have, other problems," Pasha remarked there was the echoing sound of key strokes, and a Spartan N2 appeared. It was correct in terms of equipment, but even more so than the machine making little sense in being here were the black and red paint streaks across its torso as the field, "This is not the only machine to bear the mark of the Rim World Republic."


The screaming shark maw was isolated in the feed. Some of the machines were still in standard SLDF paint, some weren't... but, "How long have they been on planet? Best guess?" He asked


"Less than seventy two hours."


"So they touched down more than a day, before we jumped in?"


"To my best estimates, yes that is correct."


But much more than that it seemed, "Those fortifications how intact are they?" He asked.


Dante rapidly punched up long range telemetry, "The original surface to orbit guns were destroyed by SLDF forces fighting against Amaris's forces, they were not reconstructed. There appear to be turrets active on the surface, protecting parts of the original fortification, the inhabitants appear to have modified and reconstructed a network of other guard posts." A highlighted route ran the length of the main highway. "They are slowing the hostiles down," The highland ai drawled before highlighting a second route along the river bed. "The local defense forces are maintaining some limited air cover and have their mechanized infantry in these foothills here. I estimate that the locals might be able to force the enemy into close quarters, but that a sustained attack is being massed within the next four to seven days."


"The HPG station?"


"Given their forces that appears to be their aim." Dante pushed up a variety of forces that were in the fight. The locals didn't have much per se, they were lucky they had what they did but this was their capital, "The Mercenary forces are centered around Markham's Marauders but they've suffered at least ten percent attrition of their forces, since hostilities began."


--
There were limits to what they could do. The planet's control network was intact, and even if it hadn't been there were enough digital signals and other telemetry to guide them in, but the hard burn in, flip and deceleration was a skill set, and fuel intensive.


They were going to burn a lot of fuel doing this. Not just the dropships, and the aircraft. That had the potential to be expensive in upkeep terms, but if these were as they appeared to from Black Jack's they were going to be looking at a potentially hefty payout in bounty from the office of the New Avalon.


Even without that, given the situation he'd have authorized the attack. The other ice cube sat down. "They could be going after something here."


"I had considered that, yes." He replied, flipping through a series of large BattleMech designs they had identified, "They have Star League Defense forces machines, that guillotine fits an extended range PPC," ... and, "We may see a repeat of what they did on Aea attempts to seize the station and take the personnel there." Dante was ambivalent to ComStar... Gene wasn't sure where the Woleverine popsicles fell on them... it hadn't been discussed... he was regretting that oversight given what was going on now, "Our priority is rescuing civilians."


"Understood."


He didn't brook the issue... which was probably a good thing, "Any issues using the Marauder II?"


"There will be no issues, orbital insertion?"


A hot drop, "Its the only option." That meant that a number of the mechs in free fall would be Azami pilots. He saw Bahar rap on the glass. "I'm honestly hoping that they send whatever they have for air cover up to get mulched by the rapiers."


This whole thing was suspicious, the situation on Aea had been a mess. The planet hadn't made a lot of sense anyway... but it definitely highlighted that ComStar was being targeted specifically.


Bahar stuck her head in, "If those dropships manage to take off there is a chance they will have slaves onboard. The images, also, of the sharks... and totenkopf are making their way around."


"Priority is to land and establish a beach head letting the marines try and board those JumpShips is about all we can do on that front." He replied. The Azami had brought a lot of potential air power with them. Hence its temporary reformulation into the 588th​ on paper... but that wasn't strictly the only reason.


Black jack's pirates didn't act normal. Were they looking for something more on Coromdir.... no there were a couple of mules but nothing that suggested work crews. They were going to have to drop down in between, preferably near the city, but they couldn't use the space port.


The last thing they wanted was to be shot at by the defenders after all. That was the messy part. They knew Markham... but that had been now a couple years. They'd been in the Inner Sphere for a while when you got down to it, they had made it through the critical years as a mercenary company, but they couldn't rely on those empheemeral contacts.


The same reason they had wanted air cover even though there was only a limited possibility that they might run into a challenge... but of course any threat to civilian dropships was something they couldn't permit...


"We're going to hot drop onto the planet," He reiterated, "We're going to land clear a site for a beach head bring in what we can over the proceeding several days. We want to keep them away from their dropships."


"Uh,"


"What?"


Beau shifted his bulk slightly, "Boss, we aren't dealing with the Davions here. These are pirates with Star League gear, and really nice stuff too... it isn't like with the Canopians either."


"He's saying we're going to have a problem with the locals boss." The other Alexander remarked.


Gene bit down a groan of frustration. "We will deal with that after we're on the planet on force." When they had been with the Canopians the unit had been too small, and there had been too little cargo space to readily get into conttest over gear... and given Alamut even if they didn't have the personnel the Azami colonists would probably want the machines for their own defense.
--
Notes: This is going up as is, I had planned to expand further on the first arc of the pirate wars, which will still be going on, since the Coromdir engagement as originally detailed in the Arano introduction was abridged for the sake of being a teaser. There will be expansion of that of course, including the ... teaser 'for amaris's sake' that I never got around to actually posting where in the assumption is that the relief force is in ComStar employ.

 

[Imperator Pax]

The Pirate Wars 3​

--
The traffic, either quality or content, from the ground wasn't great. One wing of the pirate's invasion force had launched an aggressive, if largely unsupported attack into ... 'the merchant quarter' apparently they didn't have a complete picture but either it was a premature attack with other forces holding in reserve or that they were letting him draw the enemy in... it could be internal pirate politics... but it was only part of the picture they could see...


Gene blinked softly in his helmet, the night vision preserving interior lighting active within his cockpit. The Aurigans were having the same pirate problems as everyone else... they hadn't arrived soon enough to interdict Aea... and the carrying off of the populace as they'd been herded into cargo bays at gun point by the pirates.


"It is not good," The old JumpShip Captain remarked unnecessarily. Pasha's image flickered as the connection relayed through the Eisenhower's command deck modulated, and Gene blinked.


"I'm sorry could one of you repeat that."


"The ambassador from the Magistracy of Canopus has just accused her Taurian counterpart of providing aid to the attacking pirates."


He did kind of want to know if there was any validity to that or if this was just a case of two interstellar powers throwing shade at one another... but if it were true... well he didn't exactly want to risk any plans managing to reach the pirate, unlikely as that was given the present situation.


The conversation fell short as feeds updated from further out. Within the lethal war machine under the red night vision preserving lights his computer screens were filled with incoming regimental wide data. The assault DropShips Hedwig and Braunfelds were presently clearing high orbit airspace ahead of the landing formation's advance. They'd be landing in nominally speaking three waves. The airwaves were overwhelmed with distress calls from anyone with a transmitter it seemed as the pirates went blasting through civilian areas to try and get around defensive hard points thrown up by the locals. The Aurigans were doing their best, but besides their government, and merchants, and and civilians ComStar and the local MRB office was screaming for help.

They meant to oblige. He reached to the side panel and swapped channels to 2nd​ Battalion, "Bardiche, comms check?" At confirmation that the Battalion aboard the overlord Presidio were prepared for hitting the atmosphere in several minutes, he switched channels to ring the Highlanders 'Mech battalion aboard Hidalgo and confirmed their readiness. The two large Dropships would be following down with San Saba. He switched channels again. The DroSTs and the Baffins would beat the two of them down, with Baffins lighting a secure guide beacon to guide the larger ships down... but they would be feet first into hell. Nominal 1st​ showed a flurry of identifying markers from various BattleMechs including their signal for readiness to drop.

The final checks came with the tingling of an adrenaline spike the likes of which he hadn't felt in what seemed like a life time. Then the gantries shuffled the pod to the door and it was out.

The Azami Exodus fleet comprised enough of an air wing that there was a combined CAP patrol, including their own, of over a hundred ASF... if the Aurigans hadn't already been under attack the wave of the nominally identified '588th Air Regiment' probably have been heart attack inducing by itself as the 85 ton Star League era Rapier comprising the core of one of the reigment's wings started making contact with the remaining drop ships and pirate asf still floating around after the gun pass from the two M3's gauss rifles.

The drop pod showed an augmented feed, a cluster of stars nearby as small maneuvering thrusters pushed the pods into formation preparing for the edge of the atmosphere as a display counted down. He was grateful for the air cover even if it was a largely temporary volume of air power, the Azami had one whole wing guarding the fleet of Jumpships and there was a good chance their small craft were going to drive off or capture via marines the remaining pirate JumpShips at the Nadir Jump Point.

Laser Comms fluttered. He might have expected Bahar or one of the other pilots in the detachment but Hedgwig started uploading inbound data transits. The movements, and communications of units that she had observed from where the assault DropShip was and what would be relevant in a Hegemony Orbital Insertion drop looking to achieve a foothold.

He acknowledged the machine spirit's data and rested his hands against the yoke as the first planetary forces of gravity and air resistance began to be felt. Hedwig wasn't happy about the enemy having SLDF mechs...

... he could agree with 'her'... but he had to watch the temperature and other gauges indicated condition, and they were starting to pick up. In a couple of seconds he'd lose most of his external communications entering a communications blackout while he navigated the atmosphere. About fifteen minutes where the descending mechs would be crossing the upper atmosphere until they deployed their shoots, or fired jump jets to slow and land on terra firma.

... and of course in that same time period the first portion of their own air wing would be following down with them. It was a less of a just in case thing, and more to clear any remaining enemy air assets or failing that keeping them disorganized enough that when the rest of the wing descended from orbit they'd have air superiority.

For Cormodir this was probably the first orbital drop the planet had seen since Cordia City had been retaken from Amaris's 'secret army' two and a half centuries earlier. It looked like things had been rebuilt significantly sometime in the 29th century, but Gene paid little mind to that anomaly as the interference picked up and the gee forces acting on the pod descending picked up.
--
Down below on the planet's surface, and with the pirates with their Star League era, and built machines they too were taking stock of their changing situation... if only because the warning systems weren't letting them ignore it.

The klaxons were deafening, "For Amaris's Sake shut that fucking thing off!" it took the better part of a minute to get the air raid warnings to clear, and the last of the alarms on the comm's channel to finally stop deafening the lot of them. His Battlemaster didn't appreciate clearing the alert, but all of the sudden there were other problems as the battle computer started throwing up data returns. "Oh fuck."


"What the fuck is this shit?" The Spartan Pilot grumbled over the channel.


It wasn't a serious question. "Its ComStar, its got to be those robed back stabbing fuckers." Another man agreed.


"No way," A higher pitched voice from rat faced man snapped. "I know you bastards weren't there when we trashed those sons of bitches but they were green as grass. These sons of bitches are mercenaries. I don't give a shit what the stupid computer says they are or what they're doing. The boss said to kill those two timing traitors so stop bitching." The line went quiet, as Schneider's face disappeared from the feed and his battlemech crashed through a building and into the road on the other side.


His Battlemaster mutedly noted the machine was opening fire, but was still not putting it up to the fore of the display like it had been doing. This had already not started off as as easy as some of the other errands they'd run, they were having to attack up country, and there were lots of fighting positions aimed down out at them.


He rubbed the sweat trying to avoid getting grease in his eyes and went back to hen pecking the keys, the feed from space was bad. Really bad. Maybe, maybe ComStar had hired some mercs... it wasn't like they could just walk into the MRB and ask all normal like for access to the hiring database anymore. The aircraft looked white, those were what the bastards had used back on Trish', but that didn't mean shit... and these had marks on the wings... but his fucking computer was saying these Hegemony troops in action, and the crazy bastards were definitely about to drop from orbit even without the computers screaming about some Royal Division coming to pound their assholes without lube he could have figured that out just looking at the radar.


The problem was that the bastards weren't looking like green recruits, Schneider might have been an ugly curr but he probably wasn't wrong... and there was a lot of air up there more than what Avellar's government could, or would, throw up for most worlds back home... if these assholes weren't the robes... then they were probably getting paid for by them... and it was a wonder it had taken the inner bastards this long...

--
Notes: This was supposed to go up twelve hours ago, and I just never hit post despite thinking I did.

 

[Imperator Pax]

The Pirate Wars 4​

Red streaks with dark cores exploded in the sky too high up still for ground observers to visibly confirm that they were battlemechs without mechanic or electronic assistance but it was undeniable that that was what they were. They were the only thing that they could be. Cormordir VI was a temperate world and as the capital of the Aurigan Coalition had largely been sheltered from the strife of the periphery frontier. It was a display of military force that its residents weren't used to seeing... but they weren't used to seeing pirates up close and personal.

He eased the controls of his yoke, squinting at his displays.


The JumpJets started a series of pulses to adjust trim and altitude to bring him down along the river bank with the rest of the lance, and thus the broader company. He adjusted the Dalban's handling and brought up the Lance director to relay orders. "Sasha cut the MSR and hold that line south," That way when the DroSTs touched down they could start offload Magunac combined arms units to just roll straight forward. The Union behind them would take longer but once Baffins was on the ground they could secure for San Saba's mixed Mechs and Vehicles.

He started ticking down, counting off and watching the signals. They needed air superiority, in order to run strike missions to prevent any further pirate DropShips trying to break for orbit. He wasn't sure if slaving was Black Jack's new side hustle but after seeing the damage and footage of Aea keeping the pirates ground side was preferable. A couple of pirates had already made a break for it, and there had been one or two JumpShips that had either had charged drives or had jumped risky to leave early.

It didn't matter they had at least some of the names from breaching the pirates comms... if they showed up they could chase them later, or pass the word along to the appropriate authorities.

The problem was that while not a proper military force, a lack of discipline they were fielding League 'Mechs. Instead of cludged together franken mechs or a mix of light and mediums Black Jack's people were based around a core of medium and heavy weight mechs backed up by star league era tanks like manticores and hovercraft... and those were commanded by heavier machines under the leadership.

It certainly lent credence to the story Black Jack had lucked out finding a cache... and he might have believed that claim if he hadn't already made out some of the other Star League machines that filled out the pirates ranks... he adjusted his breathing, this could have been worse, Black Jack could have been from the clans... that would have been bad.

Gene pushed his sticks forward Jump jets making the final corrections and a moment later he was on the ground with the rest of the two dozen mechs operating a single large company. As soon as the last mechs were on the ground, a pair of Marauder IIs lumbered forward their PPCs replaced with Assault Auto Cannons to provide close element security.

Not that there was anything for them to shoot at, but it never hurt to be careful. The muddy red banks of the river's shore churned as a thousand tons of armor and guns cranked up the banks and into centuries old roadways to begin diverging with the intention of securing a beachhead for the arriving forces. Harry Callahan's lead assault mech parked on the on ramp of the MSR and stood there as they moved past. The Marauder II design, and its variants were the only machines in this element that were not explicitly Star League based machines. They had brought Catapults in place of archers specifically because the former carried jump jets as an added mobility feature. The Archers would roll off of the DroSTs to reinforce LRM carriers and and provide their long range missiles to the second wave of arrivals.

They were getting their first ground side look at what was going on on the surface of the planet. The local nobility were scrambling with their mechs to defend against the vastly larger attacking force. The local great houses, and their vassals scrambling to sally forth from manor homes with their mechs supported by locally produced combat vehicles and infantry in support.

There were a range of vehicles of indigenous designs, but the mechs were predominantly league mediums and heavy. Blackjacks, which might have brought a chuckle in any other situation, Kintaro, Catapult, Rifleman, and Marauders returned pings on long range magnameters sensors looking at their fusions engines and substantiated by their transmitted IFFs. Of course it wasn't just the local elite, and their personal guards there were other mercenaries trying to hold out, which cluttered up signal returns even more.

Gene turned his machine north up the highway as the two Highlander Assault Mechs joined him, and rearguard provided in the form of missile support from an Azami pilot in a Catapult. The Lance peeled north separating out as the company moved into the outer sprawl of Cordia city's market and residential zones.


This would have ordinarily been as scenic as Luxen's environs were... somewhere not used to the threat of pirates, and who ordinarily their civilian or at least ruling authorities had things in good order, but today they didn't. Today it was just another battlefield in the succession wars.


His instrument panel was processing data from the regimental software. He'd become familiar on the way out... with what had happened or at least some of it. The Ice Cubes couldn't explain what had informed the decision to attack Richmond but it didn't change the fact that they had wanted to drop IFFs off... which was stupid, not the least of which was even assuming the unit had the coordination to operate for short periods of time there were too many other variables. "Bahar, how are things looking?"


"Not well, this is a great deal of star league equipment."


Yeah he had known that. It was kind of stating the obvious, but it had been an almost clinical detail when they had been up in space. Now it was different. Now they were ground side, even if they weren't actually in contact... yet. "Be careful then," He replied... but just because they had Star League weapons didn't mean they were the SLDF or the Rim World Armies. There was little rhyme or reason to some of the groups .. and given the way the pirates had disgorged out of their DropShips he suspected they had probably stolen the DropShips, and that there was some secret or internal otherwise informal chain of command. These men were fighting for a cause, but they were also fighting for plunder, just they weren't fighting for a nation state. "We're going to see a lot of vertical traverse the fortress here looks like they cut the top of the mountain off before they started building." He observed. The Aurigans were they were fighting to defend their homes against the bandits at their door step. "I am going to see if we cant open communications again, Hanzo take point."


He received a quick affirmative before the other Highlander's jump jets flared.. Given the propensity of civilian housing... of close in urban fighting, they had to forgo inferno missiles, couldn't risk the potential civilian casualties to errant fires.


"This is Colonel Gene Shepherd, my Regimental Combat Team has made planet fall-" The radio squealed as a Hegemony built machine paired in and cut him off.


"FUCK YOU YOU INNER BASTARD! You wanna go? Come on then!" The pilot on the other end didn't have a face... which suggested either it was intentional or something was broke or not working correctly, but the asshole sounded drunk.


Gene rolled his eyes, and swapped channels to the command ship in orbit, something that shouldn't be interceptable "Dante, I need you to get in contact, and establish a link with the local planetary authorities, preferably without the pirates shouting profanity over the comms. If you can't get a hold of them reliably see if you can get a stead uplink to Commander Markham," but ... well there was no telling what the condition of Markham's Marauder's avionics package was like... so that was the second best option.


"Failing that do you wish to try and establish contact with the HPG station?"


"Yes, failing that ring them and ask if they have any secure lines of communication with local defending forces."

"I understand." The AI replied from the command deck of the Eisenhower. A command packet unfurled showing the offload points for the rest of the units, where they would need to deploy their chain of command and control units to get around existing electronic countermeasures, and natural terrain features and so forth... and and routes to assault into Coromodir city and... the time table that the AI expected they needed to adhere to.

 

[Imperator Pax]

Pirate Wars Part 5​

He pushed the accelerator down bringing his machine forward of the four mechs. They were keeping the catapult in the back. It was there for them to paint targets, and throw missiles if it came to it. Mostly so that Hanzo, and Bahar could focus on their Gauss Rifles, but if it came to it the Highlanders could slather on additional missiles as they advanced.


"Alright good news is San Saba is in the atmosphere now." That meant Alacorns and Furys rolling out of the Triumph-class ship as soon as she could open her doors. Those Nirasaki computers made coordinating between tank and BattleMech units ... well it made a world of difference. Presidio, and Overlord had had dropped their Mech Battalions with the second wave of insertion... which admittedly he had not been entirely sure that was the best use of Bardiche, but it was boots on the ground sooner...


The Hegemony had pioneered the mech scale parachute system to allow machines that didn't have JumpJets to make descent... but if they had had more time it would have been a preference to drop all jump jet capable mechs. "I have eyes on, no less than a dozen mechs with Rim World Icongraphy, Colonel." Major Sorbel announced from within his Highlander. "And I've got sharks on no shortage of these tanks that the cadets are hitting."


He refrained from correcting the lance commander that they weren't 'cadets' anymore. It wasn't the time, and Sorbel probably didn't intend to be condescending.... but it was a habit he was going to have to break. "Anything else?"


"I think the graffiti is recent."


"Excuse me?"


"The markings I think the markings are new, I had my computer run the footage from Aea, I didn't get near this many hits."


"You got hits from Aea?" That was news to him, "Hold, Dante, Sorbel says he matched Rim World markers from Aea, can you go through that footage, and compare it to what we're seeing here?"


"Affirmative."


Sorbel waited on the line, and then showed a mech on Aea with its flamers going, but on the shoulder was a chalice with dice in it. "Its not conclusive, but this from Amaris's house hold guards according to the warbook."


"Sorbel secure your sector, and keep me apprised if there is anything else." He clicked off. It could be coincidence, but they didn't have time to make a mountain out of it, but... this whole situation didn't add up... and maybe Sorbel was on to something. He swapped channels, transferring to orbital link, "Dante I need you to plug data into a map."


"I have already done that," The AI replied, "There is no evident reasoning for the actions we're observing. We likely lack key details if there is some over arching operational objective."


Black Jack had attacked ComStar stations in the coreward Periphery near the Lyran border a decade ago... but then he'd disappeared and trekked around the Combine and had made his way to the Tortuga domains... why couldn't this asshole have decided to just go run around on his murder spree in the Draconis Combine's periphery frontier, but he'd come a long way out to the Rimward Periphery, and was now their problem.
--
Dante traced the progress of the Highland Battalion as it crossed the table lands that surounded the Aurigan capital... most of the plateaus were large enough to allow a couple of mechs to get atop of but their large flat sides made getting up there difficult, and the places where ancient river flow had eroded the area had created a tactically hazardous area of limited visibility at sea level.


The AI was monitoring the other largely unsecured, or inadequately secured, transmissions. The Aurigans were defending their capital, and their infantry were largely mechanized, and dug in along defensive lines that had originally been built to resist many of the same designs the pirates were using... and the pirates were not SLDF armor and mech officers.


The Aurigans would he estimated be able to hold as the forces cleared the rough topographical disruption... but what he had yet been able to do was confirm that the Aurigans would cooperate ... there were too many machines using star league era equipment, broadcasting purporting to be SLDF machines.


Sorbel's data packet had been cataloged, and it wasn't impossible that this was merely adoption by opportunists... or there were lingering pro rim world sentiment and this was some revanchist reactionary sentiment. Whatever the case, whatever the machines were painted as it didn't matter in this instance. The Highland Battalion needed to secure a route west and around the Aurigan capital to be able to safely advance on the starport, that would allow them to roll forward hovercraft first, and then progressively heavier vehicles to relieve the facility... and to bring in medical relief aid to the civilian populace.


It was.... ironically everything the SLDF mission in the periphery was supposed to be... it was just the League was dead without the Hegemony, and without House Cameron.


--




Cormordir or at least the capital region was more topographically excited than Luxen but they had broad similarities... but then that was typical of most planets choosing to settle near the coast or in River valleys, or both.

He parsed through the incoming data of what they knew. They were already sure McGirk wasn't here in person but all the same it was a very brazen attack to launch on an actual periphery state, well one that could actually be called a state, but that hadn't stopped him with the Taurians either apparently. The Aurigans had emerged after the fall of the Star League and built themselves into a reasonably sized periphery power... and maybe that was the reason either McGirk or one of his lieutenants was thinking maybe it was time to follow the example of the Marian Hegemony...

... but whatever their motives there was no indication of the bandit king being here in person...

Even if Black Jack had been here... he wasn't sure that it would have solved the problem. It was clear this was only a fragment of the horde ravaging the frontier of human space, and if Black Jack died here there would be be less ... and if history was anything to go on.... guidance and the groups would splinter and in the short term there would be chaotic unpredictable spikes in violence. That wasn't to say they wouldn't have gone after him... just that cutting the head off the snake wasn't a sure shot to fixing the problem. It wouldn't magic away the danger that he posed or that his supporters posed to people living out here.

... and among those problems his Dalban was already flagging signatures forward. There was a running gun battle north of a cut, where the road pushed up into the hillside. He was glad that even though they had done painfully little to change any of the electronics signatures put out by their mechs, Black Jack's band of cutthroats had at least painted their stolen machines.

The MMI finished inputting the map's terrain data into the navigation system, and the jump jets fired taking him down off the embankment and into the roundabout below.

Even if they had still been painted in SLDF camouflage he doubted it would have stopped him from dropping down behind the sixty ton Champion and delivering his opening alpha strike into the machine, and also the BattleMaster beside it. His Dalban processed the other jump jet signatures of the others even as his Marauder stepped over the shattered cockpit of the LosTech warmachine.

Gauss rifles cycled hitting a nearby seventy ton pirate Guillotine, and an already mangled Sentinel exploded as it met incoming missiles from one of the Aurgian Catapults that wasn't above taking advantage of the situation. "Suppress those vehicles." He ordered finally keying his mike.

A Highlander wasn't exactly the fastest thing, the venerable and standard Hegemony design topped out at fifty four KPH, but when a ninety ton LosTech Command mech decides to floor it in the direction of your tanks and hovercraft... very few people responded with the poise and dignity that they might in training. One of the former SLDF Manticores managed to reverse before Hanzo brought the Highlander's foot up, which only served to cause him to kick the offending tread head rather than stomp on the tracked warmachine.

The added leverage pushed the already backpedalling sixty ton tank through a safety barrier onto the red muddy shoulder of the road and where it promptly peeled through and slid down the hundred foot embankment sending the several hundred year old tank to rest on its side at the bottom of the hill. There were a variety of reasons they were deploying the beachhead force without Inferno missiles loaded in the hoppers for their SRMs but the principle reason was the close contact nature of contesting Cordia City and thus the civilian population caught in the open by the pirates.

... otherwise Gene would have been perfectly happy cooking the slavers in their tin cans and calling it a day, but preventing pointless civilian death even accidental civilian casualties outweighed the tactical utility of incendiary weapons against some of the under cooled designs they were running into.

 

[Imperator Pax]

Pirate Wars 6​

The blue and black painted hover tank was trying to get back, to get away. It knew it was too close to try and open with its PPC, and maybe it was out of missiles already so the only option was to get further out.


Bahar brought her Highlander forward wasted little time as her short range missile launcher hissed expelling propellant fumes before the rocket motors caught and started moving the payload towards the enemy. HEDP riddled down below catching a lighter tank as it peeled backwards into the storefront of some building.

His Dalban had a holographic progress bar up as it unpacked the navigation. The Starport was under attack... obviously, the local salvage and 'mech works was defended but was facing less in the way of a challenge than he would have expected from normal pirates... but then Black Jack seemed anything but normal.

The other question that appeared wasn't so much why VI, it was the capital after all, but why not V which housed a significant chunk of the planet's industry? It did appear as if Black Jack was prioritizing the HPG station. In order to reach the old ministry of communications facility they would need to clear the blocking force out from the star port... the downside of course was Markam's Marauders probably couldn't stop them. Not if the Demons his Dalban was identifying as rolling down the coastal road were in fact armed with Gauss rifles.

Their furies and alacorns were en route but it was going to take time for them to roll off even with the speedy deployment capabilities of the DroSTs. A handful of digital count downs tracked the estimated time for the waves to get through the atmosphere and touch down... but that would only be estimations on how soon they could touch down. It was more likely to be a minimum threshold of long it was going to take, and certainly not the maximum.

A chime sounded an incoming Mech with a Lyran pilot at the helm. The IFF resolved as Aurigan, though the computer didn't exactly know what an Aurigan was. The Dalban quickly resolved the Lyran's mech as customized Centurion, probably rebuilt in the Periphery to be as close to factory spec as was practical. A second Aurigan mech, a Wolverine, following along the Cormorant road.

Those mechs were coming north, but wouldn't have gotten close enough to have made contact with Callahan or Sasha's screen lances along the MSR. They'd probably already been in the city, or in the urban outskirts of the planetary capital.

... and then the come chatter started, even as the sky was streaked with an increasing number of meteors descending from orbit that as they descended resolved into the aerodyne dropships, with spheroids of heavier mass becoming more apparent as they descended.

Apparently the Lyran was the head of the local Royal Guard, if he were going to guess from just the colors the mechs were painted given his Centurion matched the paint scheme of Kintaro, while the Wolverine matched the paint job of the Catapult the local noble houses were either directly related from a common ancestor or intermarried... or both.

Bahar's highlander initiated a Laser Comm connection separate from the radio channels. "The Wolverine, and Kintaro are both registering SLDF era codecs."

"I noticed the Kintaro." He admitted, but even if it meant something it wasn't a priority at the moment... this whole place raised too many questions as it was, but the first priority was dealing with the invaders. They could figure out why there were anomalous mech signatures when people weren't shooting at them. As it was his Dalban was cataloging a list of anomalies that was already proving to be a headache in itself... but they had more pressing issues "Incoming." He intoned flagging another inbound Champion its way tearing down one of the streets of the Market District.

He didn't respond to the Azami piloting the Catapult making the quip that Black Jack had the devils own luck when it came to cache finds. Now wasn't the time, but he wasn't wrong... and it certainly seemed like McGirk had no shortage of men he could throw into the fray.
--
The Triumph class Dropships were safely down. Their doors were open, and the first arriving forces of heavy vehicles were beginning to disgorge. Fury command tanks were starting to form the digital network the overlapping series of inputs that would guide forces arriving into position with the BattleMech forces already engaged against the enemy.


It also meant that there were plenty of warning as the speedy little J Edgar's rushed towards the landing sights and the handful of BattleMechs posted on the MSR. Whatever they had expected it probably had not included hundred ton Marauder II BattleMechs never mind the Gauss rifle equipped battle tanks.


Running off a 145 rating Fusion Engine the J. Edgar were relying on speed to close... the highway being what it was, that was to say a straight line of ferrocrete built up and off the ground meant the hover tanks were travelling right down on them.


Complex command and control software came online, and the first of several tartan badged Alacorns opened fire. At twenty five tons with mostly short range weapons it was a turkey shoot, the pirates light cavalry force had been peeled off to find out, which was what had happened when they had advanced towards the LZ.


"Hammer Lead, to all units, lets roll out." The tanks would move forward, and then the infantry crammed into the Blackwell industry light vehicles would follow on even though they were faster.
--
A spider skidded out, the quadruped was the first of the new arrivals followed by its heavier friends with Hanzo pivoting to face an Ostroc and leaving him the apparent lance leader a seventy five ton Orion.


The first few shots went wide. The rounds pummeled a brownstone behind him, as the other command 'mech came forward. The pirates were starting to respond to their intervention. They realized that if they didn't facilitate a breakout... or otherwise reassert control of the situation they'd lose momentum... losing momentum in a fight meant being at risk to a coordinated counter offensive against superior numbers...


... and probably their own DropShips would likely try to leave without them, saving their own hide rather than risk being captured by arriving forces.


The new arrivals were in more Star League era mechs. He didn't recognize the exact model of Orion, the Machine's data code was scrambled... other than the asshole piloting it had added more SRMs at some point, and pulled the LRM launcher to compensate.... and apparently had the arm cannon reinforced so that he was comfortable throwing a punch with it.

The Enemy Machine waded over the corner its arm gun checking the shoulder of his own mech.


There was a stream of profanity over the channel as the Orion opened up... though he was nearly drowned out by the roar of fusion engines overhead.


The few dozen ASF had moved off, to turn and burn away from the Aurigan Reach's capital city of Cordia City. They were low enough that mech avionics could read the underside of their wings featuring either a symmetrical starburst roundel in gray and white or with an asymmetrical starburst with crossed sabers. The descending dropships, the final wave coming with medical relief and additional personnel, mirrored the divide with gray and green paint schemes.

The Marauder's Ferro fibrous was coated in a fine sheen of plaster dust, and ash, but outside of some minor SRM contacts his systems returned positive system checks. Gene wasn't particularly worried, but he had taken note that the Aurigans seemed to have a lot of Mechs and Vehicles for a minor Periphery kingdom... unless of course that was because they were all defending the capital... which might have explained the defenses.

He resisted the urge to simply mute the particularly swear happy pirate captain currently cursing up a storm to anyone who was listening to the open channel. And it was an open channel, it may as well have been planet wide even anyone with even the most basic receiver system could probably pick up the snarling bastard swearing... but the pirate was also backed into a corner.


The Orion's hoppers must have cycled as its dual srm launchers at this range connecting, and sending alarm notifications through his system, but on the other hand the other seventy five tonner was close enough to touch. The ER PPC in his right gauntlet bloomed severing power cables and feed systems for the torso pin feeding two missile launchers. It didn't cook the ammo bins off but the launchers abruptly clicked as the hoppers failed to cycle for the third time.


For the Orion's driver it didn't matter his right arm had already been coming across as a mech scale haymaker to punctuate his diatribe over the line.


His regimental data feed knew better than to distract him while his machine was in melee but he was still cognizant of the data update.


The Orion attempt to connect as his Marauder's close range weapons came on line clusters of medium lasers opening into vulnerabilities in the other machine's exposed torso armor. Tristian's overhaul of the Marauder he had woken up with on Aquagea, his black horse finished the job dumping its SRM2s into the opposing machine's VLAR 300.

There was an abrupt stall as time lapsed enough for the fusion engine to go into emergency shut down, and power failed to the motive system. One leg locked, and the machine tilted, and crashed down bathing the street in plaster, and concrete dust.


The damage to the Ferro Fibrous front glacis of his torso wouldn't just buff out... but they had replacement panels... it would just mean down time. He pivoted the machine around coming to swing his left PPC onto the downed Spider first, and then the Ostroc, he didn't end up needing to note the heat warning as a gauss slug from Bahar punched sideways through the mech's torso causing the formerly royal machine to topple sideways.

 

[Imperator Pax]

Pirate Wars 7​

He had just finished acknowledging the damage reports projected by the command battlemech's internal diagnostics, when a fresh round of alerts populated. Regimental comms flared another warning about Fusion signatures. This time a little more insistent this time as the notifications weren't being muted by combat.

At least one Union was trying to make a break for it, and there were rumblings from some of the other pirate drop ships that suggested they were about to try to rabbit with or without their ground personnel and with or without whatever booty they had come for. Some, was not all there were still pirates making attacks on the locals... and they were still too organized for his liking.

"Commander," Dante remarked from orbit, piping in a feed between two command mechs... one theirs one the pirates as the two mech jocks argued... well argued was... maybe not the correct term...

He took a breath, enshrined inside of his seventy five ton marauder as one of the other popsicles in the unit apparently had had enough and started over the line and was in a tirade with one of the pirates still coordinating the advance into Cordia city. They didn't need this.

He hit a switch on the upper console initiating a broadcast override. Regimental Command systems linked into the other command mechs on the ground, including also the offloaded Fury tanks. The holographic map began to change as data flowed into Star League era battle network systems ground side as well as in orbit.


The enemy mech's pilot kept cursing up a storm.

There was a supersonic boom, and then a second as wing of eighty plus ton Rapier in slate gray colors turned back into a supersonic attack run barreling down on the transmitting, enemy, mech's coordinates, and going for guns. Guided in by a live transmission and carefully measured trace by dozens of command units multiple assault auto cannon rounds and PPCs blasted the already damaged BattleMaster into little more than a smoking crater and scrap on a hillside overlooking the star port.

The FedSun natives banked high and wobbled their wings as the computer updated their ammo situation and they jetted off again. He looked at the data feed that pegged the destroyed BattleMaster as a -1C... just another question they didn't have answers to.

A brian cache shouldn't have had access to the kind of, the volume of specific machines that Black Jack had demonstrated... the only plausible explanation would have been he had found a castle brian that had been fully stocked...

It wasn't impossible that such existed, not even impossible in the periphery but if he had found one in the periphery why wouldn't he have just used it as his permanent lair, why had he come all the way around the reach of known space from Lyran, the Combine, Davion, the Concordant and here, why had he also sent a probe at Luxen? It didn't make sense.

A handshake signaled, and Yusuf's image appeared in a hologram, "Commander, I have informed the local ComStar adept that the Precentor New Avalon sends his regards, and also what we know of the situation on Aea. I have also begun the process of confirming our initial list of the pirates we suspect managed to successfully flee, however that is also why I'm calling."

An image appeared. A jumpship with a familiar icon... one he hadn't seen recently, but still one he was unlikely to forget. A blue shark breaching maw open. "We have identified with some certainty the number of pirates involved and can say with certainty that Black Jack must be collaborating with the Tortuga dominions either as member of the pirate kingdom or at least as an associate or ally."

Gene nodded slowly, wondering if the Tortugas had willingly decided to use Rim World iconography... but then remembered their current leader was some one who had declared herself 'Dame murderess extraordinaire' so maybe it was a style choice for fear points.

Yusuf threw in a couple of orbital telemetry pictures of House Arano's seat complete with enhanced images of the defunct surface to orbital emplacements that had been destroyed during the fallout of New Vandenburg... which was certainly a relief that such installations weren't around. "Is there anything else?"

"I am afraid not." Then it was time to meet the locals. "... I will have support personnel ready to render repairs as quickly as possible, should I prepare your other Marauder, or the Devastator as a precaution?"
--
Ninety minutes later he had changed machines, and advanced into the defensive cordon of the old fortress.

Even a dozen parked mechs the rotunda had plenty of space more as if they expected an entire battalion of mechs to watch the local theater put on Othello, or maybe something by Garibaldi. Then again... he supposed that even it hadn't been intended the surrounding adopted well to the pomp and ceremony of noble houses that depend far more on their battlemechs than the great houses of the Inner sphere.


The white Marauder crouched hull down in front of the massive edifice of an era long gone. It was fine but still had managed to be covered in the grime of war, but at least it was free of the orbital drop, of buildings burning and blown up around the machine, and the sandblasting from SRMs that had gotten close... the black was going to be in the shop for at least a week not counting other jobs as they ran the diagnostics to make sure nothing was messed up internally.


Gene watched the awkward mingling of personnel.


The most obvious standouts were the mechwarriors. The Aurigan tankers wore coveralls in the style of SLDF units assigned to the Periphery command c.2765 for a temperate climate as the coalition capital was. They were obvious modern manufacture markets, but any MRB shop carried close enough all one needed to do was add the appropriate local patches, and it was a match. The infantry wore temperate SLDF style uniforms of recent manufacture as well. The specific camo pattern was different than their own but didn't raise really any eyebrows.

The Mechwarriors though. It was emblematic of feudal trappings especially the ones not wearing neural helmets. There was a clear pronouncement of whose mechwarriors were whose. The local houses had their own colors, their own heraldry, and that heraldry was reflected in the Aurgian leadership present.


He looked at the deer and the sea horse, and moved on to other matters. "Bahar?"


"I'm sorry I didn't spend any amount of time in the reach last time." She paused to consider the matter, "Pasha visited House Karosas for trade, but Coromdir V and VI are ruled by Houses Espinosa, and Arano respectively."


The details fell into place, "I'm assuming that's the Ibex and Seahorses then." He remarked, a Highland jogged up, saluted and reported that the badgers and bandits and their dismounts were dug in to shelter out against any remaining hold overs. "The last thing we need to deal with is for the Navy to their bit." But the air wing was out in force, and the Azami had managed to sneak up on the pirates to deploy a Star League era security over ride to the jump ship computers before pumping not quite pajama clad ninjas into the ships to deal with the problem of the pirates aboard... "Any reason to think they might not appreciate us sticking around for a few weeks?" Or however long it took for the Azami to pick through the JumpShips they had boarded... which was something he needed to address, there were too many Azami elders to keep track of... not with as many families crammed into ships fleeing the combine.


There was a snarl from the airspace above them as cargo DropShips came down. "The engineers, and technical personnel." And the recovery vehicles, where they could start putting out fires, and clearing debris so that the Bexar's medical personnel could start expanding the field hospital apparatus.


The Azami had repainted some of their Jenner 7A and Locusts back into SLDF Regular temperate camo. A lance of the light mechs were coming from a sector patrol, and heavily outweighed by the Bardiche contingent moving in the opposite direction.


A man in his early fifties wearing a red pilot suit... House Arano's colors gene surmised, "Are you in charge here?" He called out.


"I'm Colonel Gene Shepherd, I'm commanding the RCT." A designation that been agreed on mostly to explain their inflated size with the number of Azami in the ranks and... the plethora of Star League mechs and tanks.


"Look a little heavy to be the Eridani Light Horse," and probably too young went without saying, but" I'm Raju Montgomery Captain Aurigan Royal Guard." Didn't voice the latter... after the '1st​ regiment' the core of the RCT was functionally a Dragoon Mech regiment in its current composition, especially in the standards of the modern day... though the Azami troops landing were more in line with lighter forces ala the Deneb or the 3rd​ RCT. "What brings you to our little slice of the periphery friend?"


"Security coverage for the exodite fleet at the jump point, and we have a standing offer from the Precentor New Avalon on hunting Black Jack McGirk's pirates where we find them." He replied.

 

[Imperator Pax]

Pirate Wars 8​

For Raju Montgomery was too much of this that didn't add up. He could have accepted that maybe the pirates had managed to piss off someone in Davion Space to get them to chase... given what Black Jack McGirk had gotten up to it wasn't that outlandish of a notion... and given the damage that the pirates were doing maybe it was past time ComStar had spent some money to hire mercenaries to address the problem.


Given the amount of heavy metal, Raju had to guess that the Mercenaries remaindered by the Precentor for New Avalon must have cost a some serious kroner to pull them out to the periphery The details otherwise just didn't line up... no one pulled a heavy BattleMech Regiment and its supports like that otherwise... and it wasn't that Raju considered himself a naturally suspicious person it was just he had a responsibility to Tamati and the Aurigans who had taken him in, and the situation seemed off.


He decided not to touch the discussion of this 'exodite fleet', but they could work out what was going on there later on. "High Lord Tamati of House Arano, and the Aurigan Reach would like to invite you into talks," He paused, "Once combat operations are concluded obviously."


"Of course," The young colonel replied


Raju frowned. It was one thing dealing with noble scions who had inherited a command and who had been groomed for it from birth... it was another to feel like you were talking to a man who despite his age was directing troops at this level with... too much experience.

"Colonel Shepherd." The sandy haired blonde man was taller than his superior officer... not really a surprise given the difference in age, the man's tactical flash were a pair of crossed pikes.


"Raju Montgomery, this is Lieutenant Colonel Soren Holmgren commanding Bardiche." It was almost too much to hope the man was Lyran, or that that might win him some special consideration. "Did you need something?"


"Not particularly, Waldemar's crusaders have the last of the enemy pinned down in a gulch about four klicks west of here. With the air support tied up or needing to rearm I figured it was a good time to make my report, I didn't realize we had company."


Raju frowned, the Swedenese man had an easy confidence. Maybe not unwarranted but it was the kind of dismissal that came from knowing something that Raju didn't. "So you said you were a regimental combat team?" Mastiff asked stirring the conversation probing for details.


"Yes that right. BattleMechs, tanks, hovercraft, mech INF," He stated emphasizing the abbreviated word, "Ground Aerospace Wing, fleet component."


The Lieutenant Colonel chuckled at his boss's deadpan statement... Raju wanted to gather as much information as he could.. but he also recognized that if he left Kamea and Victoria to their own devices much longer it was that much more likely they'd get impatient and make ... ill thought out overtures that would include introductions and revealing who they were... so long as the two remained buttoned up in their mechs they were just pilots in the Royal Guard.


--
Pasha's expression was one of contemplative concern as reports filtered in from the ground, and in the space around Coromdir VI.


He at least could hide some of his concern behind his beard, his hands told a different story. Pirates adopting the symbols of the Satan Amaris and his lackeys would have incensed even the least morally grounded Azami even in the most normal of times, the Arkab legions would have happily offered to hunt down such rogues for the dragon if it were feasible. IN a world, at a time, when once more the old wounds, and the damage done was set fresh, and torn open to carry the marks of the Rim World Republic... was an abominable affront to the pride and honor of fighting men.


That these worthless scum defaced machines of the Star League Defense Forces so was merely further salt in the psychic wound. To do so was unforgivable... that these were pirates and slavers on top of such... well his hands continued to knit under the table. This was not what he had expected when they had arrived first in the Aurigan coalition, even if he had expected that some engagement against pirates would be on the itinerary. Already he dreaded the conversations with the elders scattered amongst the fleet.


Heedless of such things or at least not commenting the mechanical djinn of the Terran world of Northwind the ai Dante continued to tally the ongoing battle on the surface of the planet. "We have full network coverage,"


"The fools actually thought they were getting away?" Yusef asked over the line. The younger Azami JumpShip master was the picture of glee, you would have thought him a good ten years younger.


The scottish brogue of the machine spirit peaked through a synthetic guffaw, "They were given the opportunity to surrender." The ... living might not have been the best description, but the assault dropships had turned and rolled to engage the DropShip which had broken orbit. Braunfelds and Hedwig named for ancient places on Terra as he understood had struck like lightning when the offer to surrender was rebuffed by the brigands.


"It does seem as if the pirates are not aware of our boarding actions."


"Yes, well, that is what electronic warfare is for." The AI observed, "Point to point laser coms would function but they can't do that to JumpShips without an orbital presence," At least not without a significant, dedicated ground based system... and you couldn't fit one of those on a battlemech... and even on a command vehicle such would have been surely LosTech... and even then with their enemy's holding the orbital high ground the pirates had little hope of being able to relay word to the Jump Point... or for the pirate jumpships to get word out of their predicament.


In a way of course he was relieved... the truth was since he had seen the sleeping leviathan in the anchorage at Lockdale, he himself had not slept well. Warships were the relics of the disastrous early succession wars ... the idea that Kerensky's exodus had retained their warship, such that ... their no doubt prolific descendants would have them to still wield worried him. The appearance of warships would almost certainly mean nuclear responses... the dragon had thus far not used nuclear weapons to attempt to fend off House Davion's blows... but the truth was he was alarmed at the possibility that Kerensky's people might reappear in the time they were making the inbound trip from Alamut and that they would be caught unawares.


It was something of a recurring nightmare... but on the other hand, he was relieved that the battle of Coromdir had no involved such colossal machines.
--
Gene adjusted his boots where it was starting to rub the back of his right heel. He'd get a new pair of boots soon, but these had gotten him through everything after Elidere. They had as far as shoes that he more or less wore every day had held up pretty well, but it was getting time to change them.
His radio came online. "Markham's still staked out at the star port apparently their contractor won't think of letting him leave." That was fair, the merchant wanted that 75 ton Marauder that Markham drove close enough to touch, "His XO should be here any minute boss." Septim remarked over the line, heedless that Gene was fiddling with his foot wear. Cuing his throat mike he grunted an acknowledgement to the information and looked over the situation.


A set of Highlander Assault Mechs drawn from the second company of cadets or recently graduated cadets were positioned on defensive over watch. Their machines were Star League era, they had Gauss Rifles and LRMs if anything entered long range, and they had clean sight lines. Backing them up were further Blackwell industry built tanks and clusters of infantry recruited on Northwind. The omni vehicles filled out an impressive sight, a reassuring sight he imagined to the collected natives.


... now if only there wasn't a large and and prominent Cameron starburst having been erected at garrison... he suspected that the Northwind recruits had probably stolen the idea from the way the 3rd​ RCT established their own CP while on Dieron. It was also just as likely that the Northwind natives were doing it directly in response to all the Amaris symbols in the pirates' ranks that was a little more apparent as they dug through tanks, and bits of graffiti covered trucks.


... and with the pirates in mind they were going to need to catalog the battle roms, report that and the combat that to the MRB. That was probably going to raise questions... he wasn't precisely sure how that jurisdiction ... what kind of jurisdictional friction was going to cause. He knew, or at least expected that there would be... but the Aurigan Coalition's government seemed shaky at best... he certainly didn't want to be the one to push it over the edge. The old fortress had had its city spring up around it, that probably compromised some of its defensive integrity, but then again it probably didn't matter all that much... this ... clusterfuck couldn't possibly have been something the locals reasonably would have prepared for.


They were lucky that Coromodir VI's MRB outpost was as large as it was... was it large enough to handle them? Were they even set up to do anything more than credit their account? Was the Precentor New Avalon capable of paying the bounty... probably, but it might end up in an escrow account that would require time and a trip back to Davion space rather than payout in money they could immediately access. He might have been overthinking things, or worrying too much, but it was a thought that had crossed his mind.

 

[Imperator Pax]

Pirate Wars 9​

"... and I mean on top of that, you're going to have the Magistracy ambassador asking all sorts of questions... I'm sure the bulls ambassador has questions too seeing as you just come from their end of space, but you've done work for Canopus before." Darius shrugged the picture of youthful boyish energy good nature and all the while still savvy business minded executive officer.


Raju Montgomery had left more or less ... well maybe he had decided to leave on the chance that going to talk to Markham might have yielded something, and Markham wasn't coming in person after Oliveira had shown up.


Darius however had danced around the size of the force, and the difference. This wasn't Luxen a few years ago... and it wasn't Detroit either the planetary government nominally was head of government kind of sort of... Detroit had been weird with its corporate oligarchy thing going on. That wasn't the case with the Aurigans regardless. House Arano ruled Coromdir VI it ruled the Aurigan Reach as High Land... thus was in charge of the Coaltion as head of state and government. "You've been around them for a while," enough that Darius should have at least had some idea what to expect, "What should I expect from the Magistracy," Since he'd singled out their ambassador, and he doubted it was 'just' because of a previous working relationship with their government.


Darius Oliveira tugged on his short jacket, and then shrugged, "Everyone has been under a lot of stress to tell it like it is." Oliveira didn't seem to begrudge them going into the Inner Sphere for a contract with a big house. That didn't necessarily mean it was true, but Oliveira probably wouldn't have let it show in this situation... besides they weren't here to push the Marauders out of a job.


He'd been warned about that kind of threat from larger more established groups back on Luxen when they'd gotten the first regular contract with the Magistracy as a Company. The company as a legal entity had really... well everything had changed, and he wasn't sure if this Centrella cadet member grasped that more than anyone else. "What was the pirates objectives then, it sounds like the ambassadors were getting acrimonious with each other?"


"I mean yeah, that's true they did go at it, I was in ear shot for that..." Darius paused, "Both of them are accusing the other of using the pirates to their advantage, they're governments of course they're going to use what's happening as an excuse to things they wanted to do anyway." Both the Taurians and the Magistracy were holding Black Jack up as an example of why their respective states should if not be in charge to other outlying independent worlds then at least as an example of why closer ties diplomatically, economically, and that military coordination... read basing rights should all be topics of discussion... but while those had been existing issues of tensions of state competition it had escalated with the other implication that both sides were doing more than just taking advantage of the attacks in other ways... which had blown up into straight out accusations of state sponsored or at least endorsed attacks by the pirates by the taurians.


"What brought that accusation on?" Gene asked, he was attempting not to turn this into what might be perceived as an interrogation but... on the other hand, "That's a strong accusation isn't it?" he said taking a softer tack but asking the same question."


"Oh for sure, and the Taurians probably aren't doing that.... at least not the actual bulls government, but there are pirates who are former taurian citizens, are taurian citizens and you know mechwarriors paint their 'mechs." Darius replied hastily.


... and even if they hadn't seen it it was just as possible that there were Canopian nationals in the pirates... and it was only a matter of time before some Taurian lost his temper and pointed out Kossandra Centrella had been a pirate back in ancient history before the Magistracy had even been a free hold. If that was all that was going there, it was a pretty water substance to level the accusation, but it might poll well with the masses in the wait of an attack... and sway public opinion for supporting a less Taurian friendly policy. "Anything else about the pirates?"


"Maybe not these pirates, unless Black Jack manages to bring them into line, but I had just inked a deal with Lord Tamati for a planned campaign to hit the pirate clans on Fjaldr," and Darius had confided that the whole Fjaldr campaign had been a mess for the Aurigans to get rolling... and that there was no way that the pirates there didn't know that it was coming, but the idea of a government debate calling up troops and apportioning funding for the campaign had been... a shit show in the Aurigan legislature.


That could have been coincidence or not... one of the pirates who had attacked with Black Jack was one Grim Sybil and had been one of the few to get away... but it was equally good that that was due to an authoritative or lack thereof chain of command with the pirates. It was either that or Black Jack had had a watcher posted, some one with orders to be ready to jump if things started going pear shaped... but maybe he was just being paranoid.
--
He had, or would have accepted the invitation the second time it had been made anyway, but he had wanted to confirm details of the pirate attack. Black Jack or his local commander had sent thrusts first and foremost at the comstar bureau and the star port. Since Black Jack had no qualms about , and seemed to emphasize even going after HPG stations to keep word from getting out that division of forces was typical but it had also probably helped keep the defenders in the fight.


Any one strong point thrust and given what the Aurigans had on call on short notice and the pirates could have forced their way through... and the less disciplined pirates had followed the main attack and they had went after more typical smash and grab targets ... which had caused chaos but by that point the mechanized infantry the aurigans liked to use were dug in and weren't really engaging in maneuver warfare. The geography both the natural terrain, and the human made modifications of centuries of inhabitations had then favored the defenders.


Septim gave a low whistle as moved to look at one of the pillars. The aurigans had provided light refreshment, and the Lyran had grabbed a pilsner to wile away the time, "This place reminds me of the Archon's palace on Tharkad."


Gene nodded. He had a seismographic map from his Marauder, and Dante's report from that data,
"Yes, they did a good job repairing it." He replied looking around and then pointing to the ceiling, "You can there where the DOME replaced a structural support," Where an industrial mech had spider walked across the floor and installed a structural support. The remodeling of the original Taurian architecture to cover up where... most likely SLDF war machines had breached the fortress and taken out Amaris's local leadership two hundred years earlier.

"Why didn't they fix the guns then?"

"Even discounting having the parts, most likely because the Taurians were in open revolt and fighting for Amaris." And with the situation in 2766 being as bad as it seemed why install replacement guns if you were afraid the rebels might turn those guns against you... still the Cordia city palace was an amazing blend of polished and transparent metals and ceramics built in an already picturesque countryside. It was a fairy tale castle, and in significantly better condition than the residences of the various dukes of the Elidere system... which made sense Elidere was too close to the Combine border... and of course they would have to go back to Elidere at some point... given the situation he probably owed it to Kerston to re authorize their access to the Fort if a campaign against the Combine was in the wings.


... but for now this periphery business was going to monopolize their attention... and of course waiting in the wings were the ambassadors from the taurian concodant and the magistracy of canopus... both of whom were clearly at a heighted state of animosity with one another.

"Why do I not like that look?" He asked Bahar as Septim took a pull from his beer.

"The Magistracy has already extended feelers out through the MRB." Gene glanced sideways to Bahar, even as he did the mental math regarding how far they were from the modern Canopian border with that in mind it was most likely the local ambassador... even so it risked creating problems. This whole mess was complicating their travel itinerary.

The Rasalhagian contingent knew that the Azami had managed to carve out 'colonies out there in the black' but they weren't up on the details. The original plan, back before Dieron, and the extent of ISF reprisals had been to leave directly from the Aurigan reach, but plans changed even before other things had come up.


"And?"


"We must also consider that while the letters issued by the Precentor New Avalon grant us... certain standings I wouldn't be surprised if the local MRB recognizes Aurigan interests on military salvage on the ground."


"That's fair." He replied. He hardly expected to just grab everything... but the truth was the real reason he wanted the techs to look over things were intelligence and data collections. He wanted to know where the hell Black Jack had gotten his gear... and more ideally what the fuck was going. "I expected there will be some wheeling and dealing on that regardless. How are things on Pasha's end?"


"As of the last check in... he'd like more medical personnel available, but we can draw those from the fleet without recalling our people on the ground."


Well, that was good at least. Small mercies, given the topic they were dancing around. He'd been on this planet for less than forty eight hours and he already had a headache coming on.

 

[Imperator Pax]

Pirate Wars 10​

The Magistracy of Canopus was not a great military power. There had always been political, as well as practical economic limitations to the military resources of the Magistracy, and only some of that short fall could be made up for with mercenaries. Therefor the threat posed by Black Jack McGirk was effectively an unheard, a black swan event in terms of overarching strategic planning, the kind of thing that threw everything into disarray.


Instead of the pirate forces either splintering or attritting themselves in raids across the periphery they had enough of a hardware edge, and enough of a coherent strategy to have increased in potency as they had moved into the rimward periphery. They never stayed anywhere long... Black Jack wasn't or had made no attempt to attempt to turn legitimate ... and it hadn't escaped the Canopian intelligence services that something was off about his behavior. ComStar, and thus to an extent the MRB, were being targeted. HPG centers which should have been sacrosanct in the combat of the Succession wars were being targeted. Part of that was that despite being active for decades Black Jack's pirates had never made an attempt to sell out or get hired on by a legitimate state. They'd actually doubled down on acts against civilization, the brutalization of civilian population centers had become more pronounced as they had worked around the periphery.


They had not been expecting reinforcements, or rescue, either. If they were lucky they could have hidden until the pirates decided to leave... and important lesson for the members of the nobility, and reiterated for the diplomatic service was an understanding of who, typically a soldier of a foreign state, and particularly officers belonged. She had been made to memorize dozens of dress uniforms from various states of the Inner Sphere.


For the most part Shepherd's Company wore SLDF style uniforms. A cut of uniform and in patterns popular across the whole of human inhabited space... but Shepherd had always had, and his Highlander units wore the uniform of Terran Hegemony troopers. The Azami uniforms were a variation of the Draconis Combine SLDF service uniforms of the Star League era, but that only made the distinction all the clearer when she had been able to pull the latest that the MRB had available.


There were written indications from the campaign on Dieron, but no footage from the roms of the battle had been transmitted to the local MRB station... maybe by the time her message reached Canopus the MRB office there would have received those battle roms for the Magistracy's military and intelligence to review. She was hardly the only one delving into the local MRB station... not with how ComStar had emphasized the danger posed by Black Jack's pirates as they reaved their way across space, and with seemingly no one able to stop them.

Ana Marie Centrella didn't necessarily believe the pirates were unstoppable, but the average person whose experience was the news could have been excused for accepting that at face value. For all of ComStar's wealth they hadn't been able to do more than tar and feather the pirates in the public consciousness which did nothing to stop the actual physical rampages.


--
Airspace Command had updated his tally of just heavy transport dropships that had come in over the last few hours. Raju had a headache.. and it wasn't from coming down off the battle either. The RCT parked on their doorstep was the strangest thing he'd ever seen... which was saying something since the situation with Black Jack's pirates attacking had been the previous contender for that. The pirate king was using Star League era equipment... that at least was easy enough to rationalize...


A piper signaled, the blast on the bagpipes bringing the battalion of infantry into formation.


The Northwind infantry carried star league laser rifles that looked like they were fresh out of the box... they were carried in hover craft that Raju had never seen before... but he'd been to Kimi a time or two on the Aurigan Frontier where the new Salvationists worshipped the Star League. The Aurigans looked back fondly on the Star League but the Church of St Cameron wasn't that prominent in the reach... but Raju knew what Star League era symbols looked like. If it had just been that it would have been one thing... the periphery attracted all kinds after all, and plenty of mercenary outfits had no shortage of character.


What most mercenary outfits, at least in these parts, didn't have were the abundance of metal to go along with their weird behaviors. Still, they were more like the Eridani than they were say the Knights of St Cameron... Raju wasn't sure if that worried him more or less. Right now, Lord Tamati was addressing the other Council Lords of the Reach. Kamea, and Victoria were still outside of the fortress with their battlemechs... and the truth was the plan had been to be able to manage a fighting retreat underground, if Cordia city looked like it was going to fall, if they couldn't hold the capital against the pirates.


... And then just like that everything had changed again. There were no shortages of Catapults now, and more than a few Kintaros which was more unusual despite it being a lighter 'mech. The founding houses couldn't have missed that either.

Kamea's own Kintaro shifted, and that told him enough to turn the speaker back up. Lord Tamati had yielded the podium to his brother in law. Santiago had always been more of a firebrand in his rhetoric... not all of it was good cop bad cop. Tamati was better suited to the cat herding that defined council politics ... but council politics didn't ordinarily entail the current problems.


There was a ripple across his front screen, and the Centurion's holographic projector illuminated, "Captain Montgomery," Not Sir Raju, the Marauder pilot didn't have a fishbowl on either, in fact he didn't seem to have a neurohelmet on at all. "We've completed combat operations and secured landing zones for our humanitarian aide personnel I understand that there are still other details we need to discuss with local authorities, if now is good to open those talks I believe one of the sheiks is already acquainted with your Lord Karosas."


That was a surprise. Not necessarily an unwelcome one... but on the other hand. "That's good to hear I'll inform Lord Tamati of that. Humanitarian aid?"


"I have doctors, and engineers available and on call, one of my DropShips is a mobile field hospital we deployed it during the second wave of landings." The younger man replied flickering motes of light dancing in front of his image no doubt projected up from his Command BattleMech's LosTech computer systems.
--
The truth was the Reach Council had already been in the process of reviewing what they could piece together of the situation. Santiago had his hands clasped behind his back, and was making a point of having his back turned towards the hold outs on the council. His sister did not approve of course, which meant she shared her husband's disapproval... but the truth was he could not stand to look at Lord Decimus right now.


Realistically, logically it was perhaps petulant. Even if the hold outs on the council had not stymied the most recent proposed military reforms and the recommendations for a larger budget, and and an expanded military... the pirates still would have been attacking. The truth was there little that they could have done in the face of the immediate assault on Coromdir VI, and the capital. They would have fought of course, there could be no questioning the bravery of the Coalition Military as it resisted... but they were fighting and dying against Star League hardware.


Too much, the overwhelming majority of Aurigan Military equipment was modern equipment produced in the last seventy odd years or even newer. Very little of the equipment their ancestors had settled the reach after the fall of the Star League remained, and that put them at a disadvantage against the barbarians at the gate.


Tamati for his part understood this. The holographic globe which dominated the council table, swam with a twisting pattern of lights as the LosTech processed the data. Lord Tamati knew he was in a bind. There was no questioning his popularity as first among equals, but he needed to weigh the opinions of his fellow founding houses. The threat of pirate attacks was the sort of thing that made the Aurican Coalition Military ... most generally react by withdrawing to protect their respective noble lords and homes it made it difficult to root out the problem at its source...

... and there was the potential solution to that of using mercenaries. He had hoped that a combination of the Royal Guard and trustworthy Mercenaries, like those under Commander Markham's banner would be enough to cleanse the bandits from Fjaldr... but then Aea had happened, which had been horrifying news in itself.

... even though his brother in law had opined that it also settle for the time being any disputes over the world with the Taurians. No one would be pressing a claim over a ravaged basically abandoned world especially with the HPG network, one of the major items of value destroyed.

The coalition had been frantic over just normal pirate threats, that Black Jack McGirk had turned his attention here had been a surprise... and there had been nothing to do but stand and fight.....

Fight and die most likely.


If not for Commander Markham being present, if not for that extra battalion then they would have been in more dire straits. What they had not expected was the arrival of a terrifyingly large, especially by the standards of the succession wars and the periphery. There shouldn't have been any fleets that large in the periphery but news travelled slow in the Periphery and it just hadn't reached them. "Santiago?" His brother in law shifted at the inquiry. "We have the MRB data." Serena remarked, "If you would be so kind as to join us at the table."

 

[Imperator Pax]

Pirate Wars 11 (A)
​

The Aurigans had really rolled out the red carpet, and well, "Kind of reminds me of Elidere," Septim remarked as he surveyed their surroundings more closely after having been admitted into the center of Aurigan governance. There were actual government functionaries around, and some degree of hustle given the fallout of the attack, but that wasn't surprising.


On some level, well, Gene did find himself agreeing with that statement either Elidere or Ander's moon really. There were obvious similarities. They weren't exactly the same but it was clear that the Aurigans, or at least Coromdir's inhabitants looked back on the Star League as the lost golden age of mankind. He blew out a breath glancing up at Cordia Palace's ceiling... and the frescos filling ceiling in some kind of Neo Spanish baroque. Dante had put together the official draft statement regarding humanitarian aid and search and rescue efforts.


It was a boiler plate Star League statement was what it was. That wasn't a joke or exaggeration, Gene was almost certain that the template if not the actual words on the paper had come out of some foreign relations sub unit of the Hegemony. Those leaflets could have easily have been printed out by the Administrative offices of the Star League since they were aimed at the same end goal.


"So they said they were ready for us right?"


That was what Raju Montgomery had said, "Yeah," He replied to the antsy Lyran, "Do you want to go talk to the Ambassador from Canopus?" Septim's eyes bugged out slightly, cadet branch or not no one had missed the Ambassador's last name. "Its either that or she waits until after I've talked to the locals... and I'm going to be honest I expect this will take a while... you can go talk to the MRB officer," He was hoping that the letter from Vandal would clear things up, but it was still sounding like they probably were heading into some legal dispute over salvage rights... and that wasn't something he really wanted to waste a lot of time with. The truth was with as many civilians as they had, they needed to get the fleet to a point where they could get on the road to Alamut and out of, off of contemporary star charts. "Those Rim World markings may be nothing... but then again, they might not." ... and given the make up of the majority of the command the last thing he needed was a disturbance on a nothing. "I want to know if they have anything more on that, and the MRB should be able to tell us more about the pirates."


"Aren't we planning to swing out to Detroit, and the Magistracy after that?"


"Yeah, we'll be visiting Luxen," And Aquagea, which would be after Detroit, but before then, "But I don't want to cause any confusion about our travel schedule." They were probably going to get questions about that anyway.


"What about the Taurians?"


"I don't know, we haven't gotten anything from his office yet... so we're in a wait and see for the moment.
--
The council shifted. The MRB was an .. well offshoot wasn't the right word, but ComStar was the only real source of information that they could turn to in these situations. Dieron, and Elidere were worlds deep in the Inner Sphere especially relative to the rim ward periphery. Santiago remembered enough of his lessons to Victoria about the First of the Succession wars to know where Elidere was, and who ruled it... and who had claimed Dieron. Ownership had apparently changed recently, with this Dieron campaign by House Davion. Recent enough, that the Ambassador from the Concordat had known nothing... but if the First Prince was having success against the Combine the Taurians were likely to be nervous.


Shepherd's Company had just departed from Davion Service earlier in the year. The center most of the prominent trivid was a still holographic image of a young man, probably only a few years older than his daughter or his niece Kamea. The young man stood in dark black pilot suit not terribly unlike the one his grand father had worn that had been passed from the 28th​ century. The image though included the true bona fides of a mechwarrior, the listing of confirmed, by a reputable authority, kills.

His brother inlaw, Santiago Espinosa, had turned around and looked at the data, projected by the holographic globe, and schooled his features, but Tamati had seen the twitch. "You realize that is more mechs than in the whole army." His brother in law commented to the High Lady of the Aurigan Reach Serena Arano nee Espinosa. What Santiago was referring to was the list of confirmed 'Mech kills, and his brother in law had been fastidious in reviewing the available battle footage of the relief of their nation's capital as it came into the Aurigan war room. Even so the numbers were so... if not for the battle roms from somewhere called Elidere in the Federated Suns ... the MRB office did not have footage from the more recent battle of Dieron... he might have questioned their accuracy. Instead he watched as BattleMechs were sliced down with daring tenacity that stood out. "Leaving aside that and of course it much justifying a moniker as the walking death," Santiago clicked the chart.


Tamati had noticed the alias that the Combine had apparently dubbed the young man. His wife's attention was elsewhere though. She did have a point though.

The table of organization was obviously out of date. Then again, that seemed to be a trend, the previous update of the file from Shepherd's Company with the MAF on Luxen was of a much smaller contingent of soldiers.


There was certainly no ' 588th ASF Regiment' listed in the organization. There was a 'ground aerospace wing' a term he had only used perhaps once or twice in his lessons with Kamea when speaking of ancient history. A term that his father had only used in those same lessons without much use in the modern day. 'Bardiche' was listed as a Battalion of Regular experience and reliable. Claymore, appended with an also known as Shepherd's Highlanders, was also battalion strength but had warranted the notation of Veteran unit by the MRB showing significant tallies of hostile forces from the DCMS destroyed on Dieron. There were other tactical sub units... but he had seen those in action as they had finished destroying the pirates invading his home world.

"Lord Karosas." Serena addressed the old achaeo-technologist, "Do you have something you wish to add?"

"My colleagues vouch for their conduct," Not that there was any need for such vouching, duplicity would have been completely unnecessary given the weight of numbers. "I have no reason to doubt their story, what other explanation would there be?"

Tamati chuffed slightly louder than he meant to as he considered things. "I. If I recall correctly didn't you have a number of Azami make a visit a few years ago."

"They did." Lord Karosas replied. "I suspect that that venture was the beginning of whatever colony they've established... but they have not confirmed that."

Lord Tamati could easily gauge the turning in his brother in law's head. He had likely been weighing if the Coalition might not have benefitted from having such an exodus settle on their existing worlds and if it was worth any potential complications with other interstellar nations.

"It is an issue distinct." Santiago remarked with velvet care, as he began to count off, "We have the pirates, who must be killed." He glared across the table, at the holdouts against committing to military action, mood changing like ocean tides, "We have a powerful military force whose intentions we must be sure of but certainly their friendship would extraordinarily valuable to the Reach, and of course then we have the matter of their dependents whom if such is the case," He made a wide sweeping gesture towards a star map, "Are in fact to be our neighbors then it is imperative we remain on cordial terms."

He was correct, and one of the other founders quickly agreed suggesting they think of the added jumpship traffic they could potentially bring and the effect that that would have to trade in this part of the periphery.


"It should I think be obvious, the Company has an extensive Azami body to it." Tamati remarked turning to the still most immediate military matter... much as he would have liked to agree with the prime minister that trade was a very desirable prospect to contemplate.

--
Notes: Due to extenuating IRL circumstances this has been split into A and B.

 

[Imperator Pax]

Pirate Wars 11 (B)
--​

The architecture of the room more reflected the Victorian esque tones favored by the late Star League, it was free of the sprawling art work... which had admittedly probably given lots of local workmen, craftsmen, and artists work whenever the Aurigans had done those renovations. This room was older, and may have dated to the initial post League years built while mainstream star league era styles were still in vogue, and the technology here was los Tech.

Tamati Arano was a fairly large man, he was taller than Soren in any event. Not that Bardiche's CO was present, he was on second line watch with MacIntyre holding the field command of search and rescue operations in and around the Aurigan capital.


It was obvious also that the Aurigans were monitoring those ongoing S&R operations using the Star League era LosTech computers they had.... which frankly gene would have been surprised hadn't left them vulnerable to being back doored by Dante. Whether or not that included audio intercepts from within this chamber ... well it was probably likely, and even a conventional mercenary outfit could have probably leveraged that to their advantage.


The problem, Gene supposed was little of this situation was conventional. Black Jack's priority seemed to be the HPG network, was that part of some insane grand strategy, if he managed to burn down all the rimward periphery hpgs then what? Surely if he had pissed off the Magistracy and the Taurians and then settled down it would provoke some kind of retaliation they wouldn't just leave the pirate king alone... but the rimward periphery was a big place maybe Black Jack didn't have territorial ambitions and just expected.... maybe given past experience on the Lyran-Drac border... that he could just continue to raid. That tentatively could have explained stomping the HPGs, but it didn't fit with Aea.


Rather than a question of who benefitted, the opposite who suffered the largest financial loss was easy ComStar. The pirate king was targeting ComStar, but with no indication to whether there was some higher level goal. So this didn't seem to be about money... and while a conventional mercenary outfit would have put more priority on cash or other concessions... well Gene's expression was focused on the hologlobe of a BattleMaster being eaten up by air to ground fire from a flight of Rapiers, an image saved for posterity by coalition ground pounders.


Houses Espinosa and Arano both called the system home. The other 'founders' were from other systems but espinosa ruled V, and Arano ruled VI and had since the late 28th century had ruled the 'Aurigan space' independent in practice of any historical claims by the Taurain concordant. It hadn't escaped Gene either that the Concordat ambassador was absence... though he did have to wonder what the man made of all the SLDF and pro star league iconography even just the locals had all over their walls... never mind ... never mind the way the unit's mechs were painted.


One of the Azami elders seemed to be in a serious conversation that he and, a man later introduced as Lord Karosas from some other system, were attempting to keep confined to hushed tones. Even without being able to hear them he could guess that it entailed the other aspect of recovery efforts... Black Jack's pirates had landed in serious force by periphery standards, and given that they were talking about the periphery that material left on the battlefield would have been worth a lot of money normally... never mind the equipment the pirates had access to... and it was for that reason he was mulling over the console.


He sighed, "May I borrow this Lord Tamati," The big man paused, started at the question, and Gene clarified what he meant, that he wanted to 'borrow' to use the holographic console's terminal and pressed a series of media access keys, "I was on Luxen when Black Jack's pirates attacked in 3016," There the pirates had managed to jump into a transient jump point... a pirate point, and scramble from their jumpships with hardly any warning. ComStar's local presence had ponied up a bounty for that fight as well... nothing like what the Precentor New Avalon had offered but at the time well given the situation it had been gratis. "At the time we were told that Black Jack had a regiment worth of Heavy BattleMechs implied to have been drawn from the SLDF, and the JumpShips to move them."


That wasn't apparently news to some of the Aurigan Nobles, and a severe looking noble of Spanish extraction had to chastise his daughter... since she assumed he had gotten his hands for what amounted to grave robbing. " The graying statesman remarked, "But regardless they have very dangerous weapons." And you needed mechs to fight mechs, LosTech against LosTech certainly helped even things up.

Gene punched up a series of images from Luxen of a pair of identical machines, "The Ostroc was never a common BattleMech, best that we can tell these machines were built 2680s," And probably had been ready reserve machines for Hegemony forces... but if that were the case how had they ended up in the periphery? At the time he hadn't know that, and he hadn't made note of the standard SLDF style camoflage, a temperate not really reflective of Luxen, the two machines had been painted in... not when he'd been too focused on shooting them. It and the SLDF pattern Thunderbolt Beau had gotten tangled up with had been nasty surprises for the magistracy regulars. "the attack here includes Star League weapon examples, but also then there is this."


The image shifted to footage from yesterday, positive telemetry on a hovertank in a dark blue urban camo like its compatriots... and a breaching shark rampant.


"The Rim World Republic." Tamati murmured gravenly recognizing the symbols from history lessons.


"Has Black Jack expressed any sort of territorial ambitions," It seemed a bit much to assume this was an attempt at psychological warfare given the state of education, why use Rim World and Amaris regulars even... "Because now this is a case of using machines that did probably come from more than one SLDF cache, being," He saw the old Sheikh's expression twist up, "Defaced with the other side's markings... and that isn't normal." Then again none of this was normal, and they had been supremely lucky to make it here. "And what it suggests to me, is that we will see an escalation in violence."


Santiago Espinosa, who had of course been pushing for a mobilization of the coalition military beyond just the pre invasion operation plans for clearing out the bandits on Fjaldr nodded. "Which of course brings us to the issue of material recovery." It wasn't a question he was just broaching the topic everyone had been dancing around.


"I need access to their computer hardware. The DropShips that attempted to cut and run aren't going to be able to provide much." Anything that had managed to get off the ground, and burned hard for exo atmospheric, "Not so much because of navigation data but for ideas of where these people, and what they've done elsewhere. Where their machines came from, we are willing to reciprocate that in turn with star charts and other information secured from the JumpShips."


"You took prisoners?"


"Some." He replied keeping it short, with effort. "We will turn them over to your justice system once we're finished." He replied. "My more significant concern is the likelihood of escalation, on Luxen there was the suggestion from Intelligence that Black Jack had ties into the pirates of Tortuga."

"Given his association with other affiliated pirates," Tamati replied, "That does seem to be the case, I have spoken with our ambassador from the Magistracy regarding those who participated, and it seems as if Black Jack is able to exercise influence over pirates across the rimward periphery without being physically present." That was the thing... the pirate king and his orion hadn't been seen in months, but he had had new and very vocal lieutenants join his ranks, and who had been obviously rewarded for it. The PNA dossier on Kelly's Kommandos came to mind, and what Kristofur Kelly had been known to get up to... which was just another indicator towards escalating violence

 

[Imperator Pax]

Ghost Who Walks
Autumn 3019
Pirate Wars Interlude: The Inner Sphere Consequences​

It would take months for news in the periphery to make its way back into the Inner Sphere normally. Vice versa wasn't usually true. The course of development by which the Inner Sphere had industrialized in terms of human space the density of human colonies had fostered a certain chauvinism with regards to what was outside those rather arbitrary boundaries.


The opposite was not necessarily true for a simple reason that the dismissiveness of say the Great Houses could not be reciprocated. New Avalon would have been perfectly happy to be allowed to forget the Taurian Concordat even existed. The Draconis Combine ordinarily didn't care that the Magistracy of Canopus was even a real place it was just that far away. The Free Worlds League would have been content to ignore the Marians. However the periphery states could not simply ignore what happened in the Inner Sphere even with the degraded state of the HPG network, or the more limited numbers of JumpShips available for merchant duties.


JumpShips were a strategic level component though, all too frequently needed for military campaigns.


There were five successor states. House Kurita, and House Davion only represented two. Then there was also ComStar on Terra. Ordinarily Comstar's dominance over interstellar news services still entailed some degree of 'light speed lag', where in the HPG networks carried news from elsewhere in the galaxy, usually after it had been shipped coreward to Terra for review and distribution. Something that had been sidestepped in the Federated Suns, and to a lesser extent in the Draconis Combine as a result of the breach of the Elidere HPG compound's neutrality, even if officially the Combine disavowed responsibility for that incident.


Then of course both Dieron and Altair had fallen, and fallen much earlier and much sooner than even Davion planners had expected. Border changes in the 3rd​ Succession War were not unheard of but had been relatively uncommon. It was the sort of news that the other Successor states took note of House Liao, House Steiner, and House Marik who respectively ruled the Capellan Confederation, the Lyran Commonwealth, and the Free Worlds League.


... and again ComStar. The fall of Dieron had consequences. Precentor Yin Takami had overseen a reform of the First Circuit, among other actions during his tenure, and the reform had made Precentor Dieron responsible for all HPG stations in the Draconis Combine. This had been in part an internal selection by ComStar wagering that Dieron was less homogenized into the culture of the Combine and that that might be exploited, but also on the assumption that the borders nearest to Terra were some of the most stable. The responsibility for the Combine's HPGs could not fall to a world under Davion rule... similarly there was no easy solution of recalling Precentor Altair since that world had also fallen to the Davions.


The Precentor New Avalon had as nominal protector, and certainly by Yin Takami's reforms superior over the Precentor Elidere had undertaken a number of actions against the Combine which certainly skirted if not went over the issue of the Order's neutrality. That predominantly took the form of uncensored news broadcasts to worlds within range of Davion stations as well as near as possible to break new coverage across Davion coverage. The result was to inflame passions across the Federated Suns, and to undermine the Combine at home after Elidere. In part because, presumably on the assumption that any broadcasts coming must have been vetted or approved, were often simply passed on through the network with other news... which of course the Precentor New Avalon had banked on, and that had held true when he had sent trusted members of the New Avalon ComStar mission to Dieron, and Altair to oversee the handover of authority, had also entailed sanctioned news broadcasts to go out.


All of those were only part of the consequences of a raid that had just gone sour. Davion propaganda and its Combine equivalents were working over time since Elidere. For the rest of the Successor states, for the rest of the Inner Sphere it meant the news trickled into the other successor states. Elidere meant little to either the Capellans or the Free Worlds League, and even for the Lyrans the destruction of the 19th​ Galedon was less important than it was to the Draconis March of the Federated Suns. That was the important caveat of the news broadcasts, Elidere's cache material didn't make the broadcast news crossing the border, the cache on Robinson was popularly misunderstood by spy agencies to have been from the 100th​ BattleMech Division of the SLDF especially as House Sandoval happily used Castor Division symbols. This was the assumption that WolfNet passed on to the leadership of the Dragoons.


House Davion, and House Steiner had been in talks for almost a generation. Those talks had begun small, but had grown over Ian Davion's time as First Prince. The Archon of House Steiner had already begun drafting her peace proposal to the other great houses. This would not be released publicly to the other successor states until the following year, but Katrina Steiner and her closest advisors had already been in the process of writing the proposal in the spring campaigning season of 3019. The publication of the ISF archives on Dieron were important for bilateral talks to follow between Archon and First Prince, they were a stepping stone.


The losses the combine had taken were unsustainable especially given no corresponding Davion losses. The DMM had been emphasizing a Combined Arms, tanks and artillery, expansion for both fiscal reasons as well as experience since Aaron Sandoval had come to power and those had only begun to increase after 3015, never mind the victory at Elidere... and it was to be at Robinson that the next Combine thrust was to be aimed.


An attack that the DCMS leadership would not countenance being carried out by either the Arkab Legions or troops from the Rasalhague Military district troops who as a result of Dieron falling had been reshuffled. The Galedon Military district's losses were actually less than that of the Dieron Military district, but it would fall to soon to be former Dieron Military Distrct's soon to be rebranded regiments to attack Robinson in response. An attack that would come before the end of the year, and an attack that would not include the presence of the mercenaries who had been present for much of the developments of 3018-19.


Aaron Sandoval as Field Marshal of the Draconis March would command the defense of Robinson in 3019 using veterans from Dieron, but with a very different coordinated defense. A defense that would cement reputations in the public consciousness.
--
Notes: This is large in universe history blurb, it was supposed to be accompanied by a Davion PoV but that may have to wait until next week, but this is basically an end of arc summary of the Inner Sphere actions and the effects they have on the wider sphere with all the dominos that have been tipped. Thats part of the reason this interlude is shorter but the pirate wars in the periphery opens as the realization of a lot of factors are just starting to become apparent in the Inner Sphere proper and thats months after Gene and Co have trekked out to the periphery.

And of course this is largely broad strokes, it doesn't touch on the Highlanders, or the nobility of the successor houses and their responses to things, which is something we will see in the Davion PoV interlude.

 

[Imperator Pax]

Davion Interlude
3019​

Davion command would have ordinarily celebrated the victories at Altair and Dieron with parades and military medals and other awards. The decision to post the Eridani Light Horse and the Blue Star Irregulars on the worlds they had helped secure for the Federated Suns had been a calculated choice. A choice partially impacted by the resolve the mercenary commands had demonstrated in fighting the Combine, if not necessarily explained to AFFS leadership who did not know.


Those were secrets that House Davion was for the time being kept in reserve as need to know.


It wasn't intended as a long term deployment, but there was a necessary precaution to keep those worlds now that they'd been taken... in the event of a Combine immediate counter attack. The other reasoning was to rotate Davion regulars back to debrief and study what had worked at Altair and Dieron and compare and contrast. That the Combine would attack the capital of the Draconis March in retaliation fit with Combine patterns of behavior. It was a fight, that she personally gauged, House Sandoval would almost welcome for the opportunity to inflict damage on the enemy further. New Avalon, from the Capital of the Federated Suns, still looked to leverage the situation further still.


That was her job in all of this... the leverage.


Yvonne Davion looked out over the grounds of her Alma Mater. Albion remained as time immemorial an institution of Davion prestige and power. Her school was happy to welcome her home whenever she was on the capital, especially when she came bearing gifts of precious star league defense force manuals... and for that matter the latest in after action reports, summaries, and studies of recent combat. Her own staff within MI2 were working overtime, even months after Shepherd's departure.


They had so much material to cover. In July of 3017, more than two years ago now, they had envisioned the opening strokes of operations of cutting the Combine from the Terran corridor, to bleed the combine. The objective had been to make good on the victory at Elidere, and the destruction of the Galedon Regulars under Samsonov. On Elidere, after killing General Samsonov Shepherd had signaled an advance across the front by Highland March... something well established now in the popular recounting of the victory even as most underrepresented the coordination of different arms. It was from those victories, and the Star League manuals found in the caches on Elidere, Robinson, and Northwind that her alma mater and others as well as the many thousands of tons of materiel from the Star League which were impacting policy at Davion military institutions of higher learning.


Albion, New Avalon, the RBA on Robinson, Northwind, and the dropship bound trade schools even were all in the papers which her office were looking at. New Avalon Institute of Science had thousands of tons of SLDF equipment that had been LosTech to crawl over... and also the computer core of the Medical University of Volgadon. Highlanders on Northwind clamored for a great rising as newly uncovered BattleMechs were uncovered from both Northwind as well as from recently conquered Dieron with talk of Highland Regiments forming and funds being gathered for buying elsewhere within the Davion economy. Northwind was in talks with Robinson with at least financial backing from the duke of Elidere.


Unlike with Elidere where the Duke had expended large amounts of money on, frankly alarmist updates of the situation which yielded only little tactical or strategic relevance the communications from the great bulwarks that settled Robinson's capital were much more useful.


Jefferies came in after a knock at the top of the hour with the latest report as expected with Alexandria's report on the fighting. Perhaps it was just that Lord Aaron was defending ancestral ground, or perhaps just as an armor non com he'd never been put in the position where his strategic command abilities had been able to shine, but the Combine were going into a meat grinder. It was wasteful, but the DCMS emphatically espoused the notion that martial vigor, and their notions of 'moral forthrightness' would allow an attacker to overcome any defense. DCMS line officers even questioned teaching defensive tactics as somehow inherently antithetical to proper Samurai thought, even though those officers were a minority they weren't censured for holding the position that should have been blatantly obviously foolhardy... mostly because they came from mechwarriors from the right families with the right clubs, and the individual talent as mechwarriors to defend themselves in honor duels. She thought it was stupid but Yvonne Davion recognized when to let your enemy make mistakes... and the Combine by launching a campaign against Robinson was sending manpower and material into a difficult to support action... and one prepared to be a costly action if it bogged them down.


A deep raid would have been one thing, but Robinson was playing host to the majority of DMM officers who were veterans of the 'Brigade' that had been in action on Elidere. She estimated that she about ninety minutes to review the reports transmitted on what the Combine were doing on Elidere and how that might effect the broader strategic picture. Ninety minutes, because then she'd have to start composing her own thoughts as Hanse would be expecting not just the latest report from the front but also what she made of it, and also what other powers would make of the fighting.


It wasn't a lot of time, and especially with the latter question there were other matters. ComStar or at least the Precentor New Avalon, who had since departed for Terra for some ecumenical council or other such bother were being cooperative... but there was no telling how long that would last. The borders of the great powers had shifted. Dieron, and Altair had fallen, and the Combine were lashing out, but potentially in a way that would be ultimately self harming to the Combine's own efforts later.
--
Reports covered the hard wood desk. That was normal. There were trunks brought in with the papers laying open, and still yet others he hadn't gotten to. He wouldn't have time to visit Buckaroo Banzai today. He probably wouldn't be able to visit the NAIS all week, but he recognized too that he needed to be patient.


Hanse Davion knew it would take time for an investment to pay off. The books from the university vault had been the start, but they had working examples of the technology to rely on, which would help. The Draconis March Militia and elite units of the Crucis March had been bolstered in anticipation of future offensives.


Future offensives that required him to weigh the question of reinforcing units now in contact.


Yvonne Davion, his aunt, and also his Champion, prepared to finish her report, "As things stand the Combine continues to rely on Takashi Kurita's reforms emphasizing the company as the normal unit of battle, even when larger units are being deployed. Alexandria reports the Combine is focusing on attacking the brigade, and that Field Marshal Sandoval has recognized this, and is supporting the three Companies with armor from prepared fighting positions to overmatch Kuritan attacks."


As much as he wanted to focus his attention on Robinson by all indications the Field Marshal of the Draconis March Aaron Sandoval had things well in hand, "We'll put this to one side for the time being, then." He informed his Champion with enough regal effort to make it clear that he was serious. "I need you to refocus your efforts with the Highlanders. The Dragoons have struck Hesperus II," The 13th​ Battle in the Long History of the Succession Wars... and one that in terms of materiel appeared to have been very costly, "The raid failed in a manner of speaking, and the dragoons appear to be breaking off from the League... presumably I think we can infer from previous behavior that they are moving to rearm."


"If we assume that, and follow the pattern that they mean to continue their clockwise pattern then its the Lyrans next." Yvonne replied.


"Yes, if they hold to the pattern... but I am not comfortable with that gamble." Hanse had come to the throne almost six years earlier at the age of 30, and only after losing his fiancé and his older brother. The Dragoons had first found employment in the Inner Sphere under Ian, they had first appeared in Davion space. The reigning First Prince folded his hands, "I want you to go to the Highlanders, and through them make contact with the Dragoons, under no circumstances can we have them find employment with House Kurita, so tell them... anything, all of it if you need to, but keep them out of Combine service... and if they do return from the periphery back at full strength, I want the government to make the best effort by which to swing them back to our camp. We will need them for the offensives to come."


"All of it?"


"They're descendants of the SLDF aren't they? If it will swing them to side with us, tell them the whole thing."


"Including that the Colonel is a living ghost of the Terran Hegemony?" She asked. "The Dragoons knowing would mean almost certainly it would get out, and it could cause us other issues."


"We need them Yvonne, we need all of them, and we must deny them to the Combine as well. If they join the Lyrans after this its one thing, but I would hope Jaime Wolf would at least hear me out in person before making a final decision." She wasn't sure that was enough, or viable, but Yvonne nodded sharply and acknowledged the command from her sovereign.
--
Notes: We will return to the Periphery next time, but touching on whats going on in the Inner Sphere is important for later, and that includes the Dragoons during this period, given what will happen in the latter half of the Pirate Wars.

 

[Imperator Pax]

Pirate Wars II​

Autumn 3019​

Part 1​

Pasha had been right Coromdir VI was a nice world. It would have been nicer if they hadn't just had a combat drop, and impromptu short action, but at least that gave the locals plenty of reason to be friendly. It didn't hurt that both sides were perfectly happy to emphasize the shared heritage of SLDF units, and a positive view of the Star League. Unfortunately Gene had had to contend with other operational concerns as a precaution he had had Dante evaluate the chances that the Aurigans were some fragment of the Minnesota tribe... but thankfully that didn't seem likely.


Officially the Coalition had been founded in 2910, early in the 30th​ Century. The preceding Aurigan Trade Partnership was only a few decades earlier, late in the 29th​ century, but on the other hand the Aurigans showed no indication of having reached prominence ... their local history was too established before the strangers from Clan space had made their way back through the Inner Sphere. If that had been a possibility after ... almost two hundred years it didn't seem to have effected the Aurigans in any meaningful way... but the 'Wolverines' didn't seem to have been involved, and that was in its own way a relief.


The truth was they already had enough problems to deal with... but it still left the unanswered question of why the Minnesota tribe had seemingly been making its way the long way to the rimward periphery. They didn't have answer for that... and he wanted an answer, but they had other questions in the Rimward that needed to be answered... and some were more pressing than others... Black Jack's pirates were a concern.


On the other hand given the history of the Aurigan reach, its constituent worlds, and its territorial claims the AI did want greater scrutiny paid to the Coalition even if they weren't exiles, or escapees from Kerensky's madhouse. That was something he was going to delegate to the Azami, they had hands down the most experience in the region as merchants and travelling caravans... and of course there was no Interstellar Expedition presence to rely on. Doctor Abner had gone back to the Lyran Commonwealth after Dieron... something that probably would have consequences good or bad it didn't matter, but something would happen once they got back to the Inner Sphere... and the plan was to go back... but for the time being the Periphery had so many suspicious urban legends going on he was feeling almost paranoid with what they had enough information to contend with... and it still didn't get him out of meetings with the local authorities either.


He moved out of the ready room, and headed down the hall, meeting Markham about half down. The grizzled middle aged mercenary commander, and Marauder pilot, was just chugging down ... probably his second or third cup of coffee. "How are things on your end?"


"House Espinosa is in the process of getting all of my guys back." The espinosa mech refit and reapir yard here on Coromdir VI was working around the clock so the mechwarriors could get back in the saddle, "My chief mechanic is glad to have the help." That was one thing that they hadn't done. Markham seemed to be in good with the Aurigans and his mercenary outfit had aurigan produced armored vehicles in its ranks.


The Azami had detached a pair of mules ... heavily rebuilt Mules whose real purpose Gene suspected was for the colony on Alamut, but the Industrial Mechs and salvage machines and technicians who had lumbered onto Cormodir VI's star port assembly area were handling patching and repairing much of the unit's, much of their own equipment. The Azami presence, often in the form of Phoenix Hawks and Mongoose, reiterated that as the cavalry presence were in a woodland camo also of SLDF vintage. "From my understanding the Magistracy knows where Grim Sybil's base is,"


"She probably hasn't given them enough trouble," And the truth was that was probably normal with the limits on force states had to call upon... apparently Fjaldr had been left to fester that even without Black Jack the Aurigans would have had to do something soon. "Are you heading that way?"


He nodded, "Well yeah," Gene replied, "But that's the thing, its your employers well Karsosas I think maybe more so than the Aranos, who started talking about."


"They haven't mentioned anything to me," Markham remarked draining the last of the coffee from the Styrofoam cup in his hand and tossing it in the trashcan they were coming up on, "But if you are heading that way it makes sense."


There was a lingering pause for a minute. Alamut, travelling to the Alexandrian Covenant worlds was almost directly rimward of Skyfog, but also a straight rimward route from the Magistracy of Canopus. The Azami were probably using the Coalition stopover to pick up supplies in a state that was large enough to have abundant trade but also wasn't the Magistracy, as well as to potentially obscure where their final destination was... but the pirate conflict was going to be more complicated... "My understanding is that given the pirates size there are concerns they will hit other Aurigan targets."


"Mhm, Fjaldr's clans have threatened to try and raid Mechdur, but Black Jack is a whole different kind of animal, so."


"Mechdur," Since there were so few HPG stations in the periphery to begin with, it hadn't been hard to get a list of the ones in the Aurigan Reach once things on Coromdir had started to calm down, "has an HPG station, Black Jack will probably make a move against them as well."


"Yeah, that hadn't gotten by me." The older man replied.


That ultimately twisted into the advantage the pirates had. They were the ones attacking. Mechdur and its industrial works, originally built by the Cappellans during the league era, had been too far from Sian to presumably be economically viable, but Coromdir was much closer... and that made the planet critical to the Reach's economy... and in the Aurigan war room, that they were walking into, it was one of several worlds highlighted on the three dimensional holographic star map projected.


The Aurigan Reach had been on the frontlines of both the Reunification War, and the New Vandenburg uprising. It showed the effects of the early succession wars as well. The Capellans, the Taurians had both had to withdraw and cede ground to movements with stronger local support. The devolution to local control left things limited.


Mechdur wasn't the only world with a ComStar presence... but in terms of human needs? In terms of people, the population? With less than a hundred million people, and limited infrastructure Panzyr wasn't an immediate concern... not because the ruling house was less important but because House Decimis, the Marquis of Panzyr accepted the logic of Mechdur being a more tempting target... no one contemplated the Mass Driver strike on Katinka or the ruins of warships and other vessels left behind by the wars that had ravaged the rimward periphery in history.


The Magistracy Ambassador was still angling for a move against Grim Sybil and of course that would put the Regiment, his command, in much closer proximity really right on the Canopian border, and they had planned to return to Luxen anyway. Gene stopped at the door, and Bubbles made her way over, "Wasn't just here," She remarked with the Coromodir's heirs in tow, "The Robes just got word that, well you know that pirate that Vandal told us about, apparently Kelly's Kommandos jumped the border and hit Ward," On the Capellan side of the fence, "a few weeks ago."

"Same MO?"

"If not for trying to destroy the HPG station, we think they failed, before falling back it looked like an otherwise typical pirate raid, but they were saying casualties were in the tens of thousands from the broadcast."

"What are the chances he jumped to Fjaldr, and is operating from there?"

"Its not impossible." She replied.

"The capellans probably won't offer you a bonus," Markham remarked.

"I don't care." Gene replied flatly... leaving that aside it wasn't really a matter of the Capellans, for whatever reason the Precentor of New Avalon wanted Kristofur Kelly dead, and rampant piracy was a good enough reason. "If he's using Fjaldr as a base that's going to be a problem."

 

[Imperator Pax]

Pirate Wars II
Part 2​

For the Star League had been the golden age of humanity. The highest pinnacle which had existed, and for the loss of which they were forever reduced. House Kurita had promised to in seeking to assume House Cameron's place maintain the Star League to extend the gold age of humanity, and for that had regardless of the costs incurred secured the loyalty of the Azami to maintain the oaths their forefather's had sworn... but that had been based on ignorance of House Kurita's treachery to the Star League.

As a young man he had merely accepted that House Kurita were for all their pretentions still only human, and subject to human failings ... not that they had conspired...well.

Collaboration with the Satan Amaris was an unforgivable crime. It was one thing to speak of the destruction perpetuated upon the Earth, and the Terran Hegemony's worlds... it was wholly another to have both Dante, and the corroborating images and transmissions from the mechanical Jin of the Fortress Dieron, and the Lockdale Anchorage ... including of course final transmissions of the officers and the offices of the Terran Hegemony Armed Forces who had been resisting the Rim World's massed armies.


Officially Pasha expected a policy of vacillation from the Interstellar Expeditions leadership... but eventually word would get out... they hadn't had time to actually distribute the information to the Azami communities back home. The trip to the anchorage, and returning to Northwind had been ahead of the exodus, and had only allowed the community to digest the historical record.


The Highland clans of Northwind however had the same information, and would almost certainly distribute it to the Wolf Dragoons when the time came. It was still a shock to the system to see anyone use willingly use the colors of Amaris's butchers. From a logical stand point it was probably fair, and he might agree that Commander Markham was correct that the Capellan Confederation would probably not offer a bonus to actions taken against the pirates... except perhaps as part of some sweetener in hopes of getting them to sign on more regularly but they were not looking to do that.


Dante had of course structured the statements the Company had issued publicly to the populace, and its leadership... but those lacked some of the raw blunt dismissal of one of old Earth's sons eschewing the prospect of material reward for doing what was virtuous, and morally upright in this situation. It was also probably better than having the elders issue a fatwa... which admittedly was probably going to be the Sunni community's response here in the Aurigan Reach. He did still expect such a statement that of course all apart of the community should resist the barbarity of those who would willing adopt Amaris's symbols and plunder and enslave their neighbors.... but this was likely to be better received.


Pasha academically understood of course that the Central Intelligence Directorate of the Hegemony was ... like the well perhaps most like House Davion's DMI, but Colonel Shepherd was a young warrior and he lacked some of the callous cynicism many displayed. This was surely a matter of pure honor, and duty for which the old captain was appreciative of. He hoped that the Aurigans would take such in the good nature it was intended and not be mistaken for naiveté. "If we might move along, I believe Lord Tamati is waiting," He remarked to the others. "There ... are other matters with which we should speak of with him." Including what moves they were prepared to commit to as well.


Tamati Arano was waiting, but patiently. He had been preparing for this meeting once it was clear that they had breathing room... and the comment regarding Fjaldr was something of a relief. He had been informed by his attaché of the attack on Ward almost as soon as it had been announced... and he understood the potential implications. The raid might ordinarily been sufficient leverage to convince the council and its holdouts that they had to commit to an expensive campaign.


His brother in law, and the more ... vociferous hawks in the council still didn't think it was enough and wanted further centralization efforts undertaken, but part of his reluctance to seriously consider those were the lack of JumpShips in the Coalition. More centralized administration would have required that Coromodir could facilitate communications with the member worlds far more regularly and it certainly wasn't as if ComStar would be constructing any more HPGs not with all of this going on. It didn't help things that Kamea had already heard from her cousin that... Santiago had agreed to allow Victoria a place with house Espinosa's military detachment for the Fjaldr operation.


In the realm of politics, it wasn't an unreasonable allowance.. neither Kamea nor her cousin were all that sheltered and they had both fought in defense of Coromodir against the pirates, but he wished Santiago hadn't agreed to allow Victoria to deploy. It would make it that much harder to refuse Kamea... and allowing the heir to the reach to go was politically risky... he had the potential to refuse the truth was he had been planning to go himself he would have Raju with him after all and that would allow him to insist Kamea remain here... but that had been before Coromdir had been attacked... and before the arrival of reinforcements. Now he was less sure, but he could not afford to look indecisive especially as the seats of his war room began to be filled as the air crackled with the holograms taking shape.


Serena made a final request that he consider prudence, but the other lords of the council were already here. "I thank everyone for coming," He said spreading his hands, and looking out over the numbers. In the archives... of the before, of before there was a coaltion, the early days of the Trade Pact and before that even there were images and recordings of the forbearers of aurigan nobility in trooper style suits and the early security forces in SLDF uniforms. That had changed over the years , the ruling houses had gradually adopted more ceremonial and more impressive attire but it was hard to miss the SLDF military uniforms filling the circular table.


It was one thing of course to see the flag flying at the Mercenary's base with its Starburst, but the physical presence was different... and from the look in her eye he wasn't the only one who recognized the uniforms the mercenaries wore. The Ambassador for the Magistracy of Canopus nodded slightly, "I thank you for the invitation to this meeting Lord Tamati, I say on behalf of my government that the Magistracy of Canopus appreciates the seriousness with which the Aurigan Coalition is taking the pirate threat." on the other hand it hadn't stopped her from probably hoping to talk whatever mercenaries she could to coming over the border to work for the canopians, but Tamati didn't begrudge her that, even though he was appreciative for Markham not taking the offer he was sure had gone through the Magistracy before a final agreement over Fjaldr had been reached.


There was a rumbling of seats as everyone sat back down. Everyone here had been introduced previously, some in this very room, but today's proceedings lacked some of the haste of that previous session. The pirates had been driven off coromdir, and they had breathing room, and had had time to think, and to feel out the other positions... and that included digesting the information they had recovered from the pirates who had been taken prisoner, and at least parts of what information they had recovered from computers.


Black Jack had a lot of materiel. If the pirates were to be believed far more than anyone had imagined, and he was looking for more so much to drown 'the enemies' in their own blood. How much of that would have been written off as bravado ordinarily was irrelevant. Black Jack had proven that he had an abundance of star league weaponry and apparently the pirate king had been expanding his ranks and promoting new members since he had arrived in the Tortuga domains, and that included men who happily and proudly claimed descent from the Rimworld or spoke favorably of ancestors participating in the New Vandenburg uprising.


What they couldn't or hadn't given up was where the pirate king was, but it was as good of a reason to move on Fjaldr sooner rather than later... and to ask who would commit to that.


"The RCT in full, no. While I am assured the Elders have authorized use of force the fleet is my priority," Shepherd replied to the question, "From available volunteers I'll stand up a task force to ship there, but the majority of the fleet will be remaining here for the time being. If, however the pirates make a second attack on Coromodir, Bardiche will be here with most of our heavy armor."


... and of course the ambassador from the Magistracy couldn't help but asking about Grim Sybil.


"I have to make a run to Detroit, its a jump to Alloway from there after Sybil is taken care of I'll split a task force to escort a trade and dialogue mission to Luxen, and discussion with the Magistracy authorities can be carried out there."


"You're not going personally?"


"With the mission no. I'll drop on Fjaldr, and against Sybil, but,"


The elderly Azami, JumpShip, captain placed a hand on his superior's forearm, "There are certain obligations we must see to," He regretfully spread his hands in a what can you do gesture, before nodding, "with Allah's good fortune and the number of JumpShips available to us, we will be able to implement a limited JumpShip circuit from Detroit, and thus we can reliably say that the command staff can return to Lady Raventhir's hospitality in the new year at some point. Once of course that the civilians have safely reached our brothers in the community we will be free to wage a just war against these outlaws."

It didn't escape Tamati that whatever officer had written the public statements that Shepherd's Company had released had not probably been the elderly captain, and while Shepherd himself did speak in similar language most likely he had delegated the actual drafting to some other senior officer.

 

[Imperator Pax]

Pirate Wars II
Part 3​

Kamea Arano ... maybe not as much as the scions of wealth and power in the Inner Sphere was still used to the braggadocios of her own social class, and status. As her mother had pointed from the MRB records their guests were experienced in such things. It was a dichotomy, a question of nature whether it was nobility or mercenary a question of philosophy that would define Kamea.


There was a certain... not quite blandness, but the statements which were posted couldn't be reconciled with those sorts of questions.


Her father hadn't agreed to let her go to Fjaldr, but she was at least being allowed to attend the preparatory work... and there was still the chance she'd be able to join her cousin.


"This is what we know of Kelly's Kommandos, and specifically their most reason attack on the planet of Ward in the Capellan Confederation." The young colonel declared activating the holographic projector. "Our best working guess is that Kristofur Kelly assumed command of a pirate group that was at least already speaking terms with Black Jack, and that Kelly lead them to go join Black Jack sometime in the last two to three years they both have some grudge against ComStar but substantiation of what that motivation derives from is up in the air." That didn't change the fact that Black Jack and Kelly were both infamous pirates, and while Black Jack wasn't know... and might have been in the Tortuga dominions or not... "We have reasonable indication that Kelly is making a play to bring Fjaldr into line, its in our best interest to stop that from happening."


The holographic display shifted.


The display read out identified the BattleMechs as MAD 4S Marauder II. They were hundred ton Assault Mechs. She had seen them already. There were alternate versions as well, but the standard Marauder II BattleMech was going to be the tip of the offensive.


"Now, becomes the problem... the larger problem of operational planning. Fjaldr is generally inhospitable, its one of those snowball rock worlds on the edge of the goldilocks zone that is cold but minerally rich warranting its colonization during the era of the Star League. This would be an impediment in campaigning normally, but the local pirate clan is apparently distinct from Black Jack's new arrivals, and Kelly's Kommandos, who we are considering a priority target are not the only band on Fjaldr." The image changed, "This star port was constructed during the Star League as a transit point into the Periphery, remember in the 27th​ century that the delineation of what constituted the Inner Sphere was much further rim ward and Fjaldr would have been considered in the Inner Sphere. Its a large enough open enough area to facilitate offloading, the Aurigan coalition military believes that it is also near enough to the former mines that the pirate clans use as their land holds, and we can expect vehicle based resistance in addition to battlemechs."


Which was of course the next topic, and one of note. Fjaldr's clans were by periphery standards very well armed pirates. That was why her father had always been worried what the campaign would cost the ACM, and why expanding the forces of the royal guard with reliable mercenaries had been an absolute necessity to even considering launching the campaign.


"Black Jack's presence on Fjaldr seems to be aimed at using it as a staging ground. Fjaldr does not have a modern ComStar presence, and though this is just speculation we have reason to believe that Black Jack has access to more comprehensive star charts than what is commercially available, and is most likely using planets who have fallen off the modern maps as a result of the succession war to stage forces. That makes data recovery a priority, we need as much information about the pirates broader strategic movements and where they've been."


That was a bullet point underscored underscored on the holographic projection, and Kamea noted that it was something several MechWarrior Officers wrote down in their notebooks.
--
Gene watched the assembled BattleMechs. Alamut deep in the Rimward periphery was too far away to expect the Azami there to be able to maintain a line of communication into the Fed Suns. Maldive and Kern had both fallen off the maps over the course of the succession war but it meant that in theory it was four jumps from the Aurigan border to the Fed Suns... but that was theoretically true for Black Jack as well, or anyone else with presumably Star League era Star Charts... which theoretically the Azami could have used, but hadn't... and part of that was how chaotic the succession wars had made things for interstellar travel.


A line of communication into the Federated Suns... was probably going to need to be opened, but it would have to be after they dropped on Fjaldr. That was at least something they had no shortage of volunteers for among the Azami... and Gene was glad he had asked for that. There was after all a reason he had described the formation as a Regimental Combat Team... the Azami were leaving the Combine in droves, and with more treasure than the Combine would have knowingly allowed them to possess if given the option. Alamut had the potential to be something more if the exodite fleet could make it there, and could survive... and he had an obligation to get them to the jump off point to where they could separate ... but on the other hand the whole pirate situation left him deeply uneasy even without Septim confiding in his dreams of sharks, wolves, and wolverines circling in desolated ruins.


If they were going to try and interpret that, then he assumed Sharks were representing Amaris... but the wolves seemed probable enough to be the dragoons, and well the Wolverines were most likely the members who had been in stasis at Lockdale... which worried him...


In the mean time the Azami had repainted their Catapult, and Pheonix Hawk force into uniform SLDF temperate green and brown semi digital pattern. The distinction were the Azami badging in place of Regular Army insignia... how well that would blend in on Fjaldr was debatable but the truth was it wasn't just the Azami who were chomping at the bit... and he was due for a conference with Dante soon as the AI was crunching numbers.


They had a long list of places to go, and as if to remind him of that his noteputer chimed to remind that the Ambassador of the Magistracy of Canopus wanted a formal meeting, presumably to lock down a commitment to visit either Luxen, or go directly to Canopus... where almost certainly there would be potential greater financial incentive and such to sign on. As Pasha had pointed out though the choice to pick Luxen was based on overlapping ties. They had worked for Raventhir before, she had found that Charger line... and never mind the pay probably being good born out of wedlock or not she was Abner's favorite child... and that relation did matter because it impacted their other relationships. So the consensus was Luxen, not Canopus... and some of that was stellar navigation, but there were plenty of other reasons impacting it. Reasons that it behooved him not to discuss openly with the ambassador from the Magistracy, but in interim his focus was on the Azami preparation for likely another Combat Drop, which had the focus of the techs.


"There you are," Chang called one of the few people who wasn't in some variation of an SLDF pattern uniform, but that made sense as she was off duty. It was who she had in tow which was the other matter.


"Bubbles." He returned before allowing the urban brawler pilot introduce, again, the systems heiresses.


The unified command had both Kintaros and Catapults in stock. Truthfully even without the Azami temporarily bolstering the Company's strength they were slanted more towards a Dragoon weight with so many assaults than they were the original Hussar displacement he'd been 'aiming' for as they had pulled equipment from depots.


The Azami complement favored something akin to the Light Horse regiments of the SLDF, which was good for training purposes.


"I was telling the princess," there was a frown, "Lady Arano, that the Federated Suns produces new production Kintaros. I also showed them that Catapult you rebuilt after Detroit." She bit down a snicker at the memory. Gene nodded, but didn't go so far as to remark he was glad they had been having fun. He suspected that Lady Arano probably was overly conscientious of attempts at coddling here, and didn't want to be treated that way. Especially since it seemed like the pair had actually ditched their royal guard chaperones.


"I understand you both have volunteered for Fjaldr," Victoria looked especially pleased with herself, at the prospect of fighting, while her cousin diffused into a probably well practiced argument about responsibility and the damage the pirates had managed to do to her home world. "Chang do you want to schedule them in for when Beau runs Bardiche through this afternoon's exercises?" He asked turning to her.... the truth was he'd been dancing around whether or not to bring up Ward to her or whether or not they needed to actually say something to the Capellan authorities after this was done. The latter was probably better to just let it drop, but as he understood it Chang had at least one younger sister active with the CCAF, and her father had 'retired to the civil service', whatever that meant, on her home world.

 

[Imperator Pax]

Pirate Wars II
Part 4​

There was a tiny projector presenting a star map that filled most of the space above the desk. It was a star map of the Aurigan Reach. Of the Reach at the time of the New Vandenberg uprising since there were plenty of worlds that had fallen off the usual star charts and ... there was an SLDF crest that he didn't recognize but carried the cameron starburst on it.

Tamati had made the decision to move soon over some of the council's objections... which was good in its own way because it meant they'd be hitting with such a large force this way.

The plan was to jump from Coromdir VI and move coreward from Itrom to Ryan's Fate, and then Fjaldr. As he understood the 'RCT's' plan a branch of JumpShips would then move out to Detroit to stage for the move against the moon of Ixlyus and attackin Grim Sybil like they had promised the Magistracy.


Raju Montgomery watched the younger officer go about his business. The large free worlds league officer, beside the colonel, had made some off hand comment about Ravens and Foxes which he didn't understand but that had in many ways become the norm for sitting in on conversations 'liaising'... "The Easy Company independent tasking did work well." Shepherd remarked after a moment, then he paused tapping through a display, "Captain Montgomery, if you'll excuse me, the question may be out of line the Aurigans field a lot of Dragons for anyone not House Kurita."


"You'd have to talk to House Karosas about that," He replied, not being petty, but it was something he had never really noticed, or if he had he had subseqnetly written it off as some quirk of the periphery. He paid little more attention to it than the Griffins.


The Colonel made a slight noise in his throat, but nodded as he returned his focus to the floating motes of light that swirled about. Shepherd's uniform was a contrast to the Khaki of the SLDF Regular Army worn by most. Victoria had already described how the back drop of those holographic displays like fire sparks in amber eyes. It stood out more though that besides the rank pins at his collar was the solitary cameron starburst on the uniform. It was the absence of other awards and decorations that should have been there.


As head of the royal guard not only had he seen first hand the advance executed by the Heavy BattleMech Regiment Shepherd commanded, but was privy to the review of the BattleRom footage. Lord Tamati, and his brother in law Lord Santiago had both quizzed him for his input about. Raju would have been lying if he hadn't said it was discomforting eerie, disconcerting whatever word one wanted to use for how little bragging the Marauder pilot did given his accolades. The kill count, and the commendations from House Davion were the measures of MechWarrior, and Mercenary, and a command for a man decades older.

He just didn't mention them in conversation, and when they did come up he was dismissive.

Outside that question about the Dragons, hitherto most questions had been directly related for hitting Fjaldr, where they would go after. He'd heard the comment to move to Detroit, then after that to Bellerophon rimward, and from there apparently a pivot to Ur Cruinne and presumably towards the Magistracy border... most likely to Balawat and then Duianshire.


That was the other thing, even though he was a mech jock, and a ground pounder with no business planning starship routes he could still read a map... and he doubly so could count. The JumpShips were numerous, and it still didn't add up. Shepherd, or the Azami intended Shepherd to move most of the fleet to the Magistracy border and presumably into the deep periphery from there... he assumed it had to have something to do with the campaign Shepherd's Company must have fought for the Davions before heading out this way, but that was information that Coromdir's MRB didn't have, the information hadn't reached this far out in the periphery other than the Combine had lost two worlds in rapid succession. That had to sting but it didn't explain a mass migration across the length and breadth of human space.
--
It would be two jumps... two jumps and then they would drop on the planet. The strategy was more or less similar to how they had fought when they had arrived here. If somewhat exaggerated the Azami pilots in their Altair, their version of the Eagle, would form a massive air dominance arrangement covering for small craft aimed at deploying boarding parties of marines to any JumpShips at the point and locking them down. Braunfelds would be attempting to broadcast a Star League Emergency Shut Down Order to the JumpShips at the other JumpPoint... whether that would take or not was ultimately less important so long as it disrupted the enemy's stellar mobility.


Once the Jump Points and the JumpShips were neutralized they'd move to secure orbital dominance before starting the planet fall. That was where things would grow more complicated since Markham's Marauders was under the direct Command of the Royal Guard and while Lord Tamati was coming aboard the Flagship of the Aurigan coalition he wouldn't be in the fight. His niece would be, but as it was the Azami were excited to rush into the fight. In a sustained campaign those lighter units were intended to find and fix the target in place per cavalry doctrine and then the heavier force would roll them as Alacorns deployed with Assault BattleMechs.


Still that would be two weeks of transit time, and he had other things on his mind. "You believe that the Azami have provided House Karosas with the ability to manufacture the Dragon?" The elder questioned staving off an amused chuckle as he did so.


"It had crossed my mind as a possibility." He replied.


The man bobbed his head, still amused, "I wish that were indeed the case. Were that we had such foresight my young friend."


Dante's holographic globe swirled casting shadow's across the command deck of the Eisenhower, "The Aurigans possess an automated mech production line... probably provided by the SLDF Quartermasters corp to test and sustain the numbers of the machine." That the SLDF had ultimately rejected the Dragon was irrelevant... someone in procurement had wanted to have enough parts on hand to do more than just make repairs ... now how of course that stuff had ended up with House Karosas a century or however long later that was up in the air. "It is probable that explains their numbers of Griffins as well... though of course given the age of the Griffin that could be more conventional machinery."


"The truth is that the Aurigan machinery is temperamental and the facility within is protected to the point of being hard to affect repairs. We have aided house Karosas in maintaining it but the work is slow and we are not the Star League." The elder replied. "I would of course welcome convivial relations with the Coalition as a whole, as equals of status between our community and theirs but Alamut must be safe guarded and we have much work to do in establishing our numbers so far from civilization." He remarked.


That wasn't news, "Is there going to be a problem with our deployment then? I know it rep-"


"No, were I younger man I would gladly join you in battle against any mongrel who would willing wear the colors of the Satan Amaris." The Elder spat, "To undertake action against them is a demonstration of forthrightness that should only be commended. I recognize it will represent a delay but not so much of one. The outlaws must be punished it is better that we strike them now while our forces are concentrated, and they are divided."
--
Notes: Part 5 will pick up with Ambassador Centrella, and the Magistracy perspective and then the Fall on Fjaldr and the beginning of hostilities with the introduction of Kristofur Kelly.

 

[Imperator Pax]

Pirate Wars II
Part 5​

'The Shepherds' were on an assembly march in preparation to ship off world. Their weapons were of the Star League, which meant they had technical parity against the pirate king's forces.


She couldn't hear the highland pipes of course, but she knew well enough what they sounded like. The Magistracy as all human states of note Inner Sphere or Periphery had Highland units. It was easy to know that the oldest troops of the Mercenary Company ... if it was in fact a mercenary company not simply pretending to be one... were the infantry and tankers. The contrast was in the uniforms as the Highlander contingent of the 'Regimental Combat Team' wore Hegemony Battle Dress of the late Terran Hegemony.


To the average eye of course it was a flourish. The trooper styles had somewhat reduced in popularity in the face of the downfall of the Star League but they were readily commercially available and SLDF rank insignia remained the norm, but usually all in Regular Army colors with the exception of units that expressly traced their lineage back to units, with distinct uniforms, from before the crisis.


Shepherd's MIM file included profile shots, and images taken during his stint working for both House Raventhir, and the emergency contract for the Defense of Luxen. Shepherd had maintained a Major's insignia through his tour, but his uniform had hardly changed. Yet it was not identical to what the Highlanders wore, even if theirs was still the closest... and the Highlanders wore more ornaments on their uniforms and most included a school rag.


One of the Straios working for the MIM had compiled a report from Shepherd's medical chart at Luxen, which had been revised... only after Shepherd had departed for Davion space. The Magistracy Armed Forces might have been smaller than what the country really needed but the MIM did its job well, even if it might not have seemed like it with the benefit of hindsight. The MIM had had no reason to through what was frankly ancient history.


HAF SOF Troops had landed on Canopus bringing the Magistracy's part in the New Vandenburg uprising to a close. Of course those troops had had to be stripped from the Hegemony proper, meaning that while they had been in the periphery Amaris's Rim World soldiers had been inside the Hegemony's borders for the coup which had mortally wounded the Star League. Shepherd didn't wear the uniform the SLDF regular army, he wore the uniform of a member state service, that of the Terran Hegemony.


The MIM conclusion, the conclusion of the report was fairly simple. The Highlanders wore the uniforms of their distant forbearers. Shepherd, and his Marauder were relics of the 28th​ Century lost to time and sleeping away those centuries in stasis tube. In hindsight they could say that sort of thing with confidence. It was a headache... it actually went, in her opinion, quite far in explaining Shepherd's tendencies, his behavior but it didn't change that he was commanding what was by the standards of the Periphery a large very well armed very unattached to existing governments mercenary force during a crisis period... or all of those Azami looking to establish apparently a new colony somewhere rimward of them.


The magistracy would welcome trade with any legitimate periphery state. It was part of the reason why she was out here dealing with the Aurigans. The Aurigans who had a much rosier view, and Inner Sphere esque view of the Star League. Trade with the Taurians was important but it would have to pass through Aurigan space, the aurigans were closer. The magistracy needed to be able to trade with its neighbors.


Such things fell into her usual, her normal areas of responsibility. Not dealing with a walking ghost, much less one the Magistracy had unknowingly invited to protect it from pirates more than once. The Magistracy was a nation of culture, and art, and usually a safe nation relative to most in the periphery. The Drama of Luxen had been the Canopian entry into the Pirate Wars, even if people would only think of it in those terms later, but it had happened and was enough to make the news... and the best that she could currently manage was to relay to the Magistracy was that Shepherd planned to return to Luxen, presumably without stopping over on Canopus first.


Even without the Azami that would have been something to concern the government. Shepherd coming back was a point of interest... that his personal command the regiment contained three BattleMech Battalions, a Battalion of Armor, and another of Mechanized Highland Infantry would have drawn attention. Shepherd wasn't returning to Luxen with a vastly expanded commanded there were the two Azami BattleMech formations, lighter yes, but still with 'Mechs and armor deferring to his command authority.


Any never mind all of it together were extremely good reasons for her government to pay attention.
--
The alarms at jump point were not what he initially expected. The Capellans were the sick man of the Inner Sphere but they might still have had the pride to retaliate after Ward. It was also possible that the Dragoons could have come.


Kelly wasn't stupid, the First Circuit might not have had the resolve to do what was necessary, not after the confidence shattering defeat against Black Jack before the dragoons had shown up... but he wouldn't have put it past any of the less pious to betray his location to the dragoons. That was part of the reason why he had thought he had overridden the computer override on his JumpShip so watching his JumpShip go into a safety over ride shocked him. "Move, get out of my way." He snapped rushing to the terminal in question to hurry up and authenticate his credentials... he had to do this quickly. At least ComStar hadn't sent warships that would have ruined everything.


"Boss, man we got a lot of fast movers, one of these dropships man its fast" He ignored the screaming radar operator... Paulie was a good man who knew his stuff but now wasn't the time, and he didn't have the time to yell at the fat man to shut the fuck up. It wouldn't have helped.


Kelly hit the return key and held his breath. The terminal flashed green, and the security override accepted his credentials issued by Terra as valid. He let the breath out, "Paulie what were you saying?" He started to ask looking at the track, and then regretted it... "Standby for emergency jump get us out of here." The former precentor ordered furiously. His JumpShip had been built before the Star League's fall and its electronic hardware was lostech after the devastation of the succession wars.


He grit his teeth and bore it, that presumably one of the successor states had decided to claim to be the Star League. There were too many rapiers, and the radar operator was right if they didn't leave right now they were going to die. Kelly didn't care about leaving the local pirates to die, they were just patsies with delusions of grandeur... and Kelly had a real mission. He needed to get back to Black Jack and Stefan too and talk about what they could in order build up their forces... they were going to have to involve the Taurians at some point, but without ComStar's resources Kelly knew he needed to be patient about trying , or expecting to just be able to rally another new vandenburg uprising like Stefan expected to be able to do.


The Taurians especially the current bull weren't going to be that easy, especially if Black Jack told them everything up front...


"Drive charge complete, we're ready."


"Jump." The first syllable hitched in his throat as he watched the feed as more dropships separate from the invasion fleet, and then the distortion of hyperspace. The JumpShip winked away, there would be a handful of others, but truthfully that had been expected by the attacking forces. In truth the Star League had been gone for so long if not for the sharp decline in JumpShip production it would have been more reasonable to expect that JumpShips wouldn't just be slavish copies of the Star League versions... but by and large the average JumpShip was between two and three centuries old.


No one wanted to break what worked in the succession wars, and that was even if they could and that had always proved one of the Blessed Order's Strengths.


Kristofur Kelly stared at the starburst on the ship, not ComStar, no those were SLDF were Royal Command codes... the Dragoons? Or he supposed someone else descended from Kerensky then, someone who wanted to pretend they were normal for the Inner Sphere when it should have been clear to everyone with eyes that they weren't... not that he'd tell Black Jack that... better Black Jack believed the Order was closing in and now was the time for decisive action. That shouldn't be too hard of a sell though.

--
Notes: The Magistracy segment of Anna Centrella's position in this whole clusterfuck occurs as the Company is moving to depart, and Kristofur Kelly's introduction occurs contemporaneously to the jump to Fjaldr and Kelly makes the decision to get the hell out of dodge. Kelly similarly assumes that Gene is a clanner (not that he knows that word, but assumes he's descended from Kerensky's exodus, which will come into play later).

 

[Imperator Pax]

Pirate Wars II
Part 6​

The blanket of stars changed as the physical reality of normal space became visible .The indiscernible otherness of hyperspace faded too slowly for a second before disappearing entirely, but the ship crews were already checking in across the fleet. That was important given the scales, and complexity of this operation. The local authorities, their mercenaries, and themselves gathered in union against a severe pirate threat.


"We're all accounted for sir."


Pasha nodded to the report activating the broadcast. "All hands to your action stations." The old man declared. His nightmares remained of warships, of nuclear fusillades... but there were none of those monstrosities here. Still reviewing the historical records had not helped him sleep. "Launch alert fighters." There were a lot of those, just in case any of the pirates decided to do anything inventive. The pirates would be desperate... after all if captured there was a good chance they'd get shoved out an air lock after a pro forma trial by most governments... most people weren't the Canopians. The old JumpShip captain wasn't quite sure what the Aurigan proscription would be in this situation, but he doubted there would be an abundance of mercy.


Lights flickered.


He watched the displays as the air wing's first line went out. They were the force's first line but a holographic display further out from his position on the command deck of his bridge showed the reporting progress of other heavier assets. If the broadcast signal worked the marines in their small craft would be able to strike quickly. It was not piracy if one were attacking criminals after all. They would need to register the JumpShips with Davion shipping authorities in all likelihood to be entirely confident in the Precentor New Avalon's warrants and bounty offers but they would be returning to Davion space in perhaps as little as a year.


Pasha recognized that consideration was itself potentially an anomaly. The concern for that legal framework because they would be using those JumpShips, and not just for opening regular traffic across the periphery. After all legally the seized vessels would belong to the company... no doubt the Precentor New Avalon taking precautions, or having the expectation that House Davion would then hire the Company for carrying capacity to support efforts against the Dragon. It certainly fit with his impression of Vandal despite their only brief time acquainted with one another.


It was something that he was going to have to warn his superior about. A quick check though of the communications channel though yielded the highlander brogue of the machine spirit lamenting the lack of orbital deployment capability for ground combat drones. Air deployment of vehicles was infrequent in the succession wars though hot drops into planets by 'mech forces did still take place. The AI, Dante lamented that they could not deploy unmanned ground combat vehicles in conjunction with the MechWarriors, but Pasha did not lament that.


Such LosTech would have been a boon but it was beyond the Azami's means, and even if it had been a weapon of the Earth that was Terra had lost much to the Usurper, and mankind was all the poorer for it. Today would be much as the landing on Coromodir would prove. They would fight against the pirates, and they would win.


--
Gene monitored the feedback through the command software. The pirates had been allowed to grow to numbers that of course made them out of hand for the locals. How much of that was the Coalition just having its resources stretched then already, and how much of it was Black Jack showing up to... sending people to ally support he supposed it didn't really matter.


His displays were filled with the masses of data for the combined task force. Ordinarily, for the Sucession Wars, JumpShips were inviolable pirates were the exception... and even without being involved in the flesh trade the threat to JumpShips they posed made them Hosti humanis generis for the threat they posed to eking out a living on the periphery. It was why the governments, and of course the feudal nobility so frequently accused their rivals of supporting tacitly or otherwise marauding bands to settle scores... and why those accusations weren't always just angry slander.


The Azami JumpShips carried system boats as they would have been called in the League Era. Small Craft designed as gunships and boarding vessels. There were a trio of Star Lords, including one he suspected of having a similar service history as the ship that bore the name Cairo now, tasked for recovery operation, and that was a demonstration of how significant a massing this force was.


That worried him. They'd been bottled up in the JumpShips for most the ride out. When he had issued the report post Coromodir on the findings, it had come with a request for volunteers for anti piracy operations against Black Jack. PNA had authorized a bounty it wasn't like he was asking they do it for free, and there was paper work on the Company's end... but it had sorely misjudged the degree of the Azami response given the situation.


It wasn't just the vehemence the Azami had responded to the information circulating about the deaths heads and sharks, and the Napoleonic icons among other Rim World Iconography that worried him. He had to put together reports, file at least preliminary packets with the other senior staff, and include battle ROM data. He had also had to field inquiries from the Aurigan government, but also questions from the Taurian, and Magistracy ambassadors as they asked the MRB questions... and the MRB locally were being weird. The local comstar presence was being weird. The local chief robe had been nearly a nervous wreck handing over data on ComStar positions, but he also seemed pretty convinced that the Company was here to protect them from Black Jack.


Then again apparently Kelly had burned more than a couple precentors at the stake... with mech scale flamers from his warhammer so maybe the guy had a reason to be shaky. There was more going on. ComStar was getting in the teeth even if there were more liquid assets the pirates could have been hitting on most targets. Ward should have been a pretty big score by itself. He needed answers to questions, and to do that he was going to need live prisoners.


That problem with that was the Azami had only begrudgingly handed over the prisoners their marines had taken at Coromodir once the fleet elders had processed what was the significance of the markings. The Northwind boys weren't much happier that the SLDF machines that formed the core of Black Jack's legion of forces were being disfigured with Rim World markings... and that was concerning. Black Jack had been running around since at least the turn of the century and hadn't demonstrated anything like this ... not his guys at Luxen. He was spiraling out of control, and becoming more violent was insane sounding on its surface.


"All fleet elements final comms check, we're releasing you to individual tasking." He said into the make glancing as the displays in his holographic augmented reality interfaced across the JumpShips to the DropShips and the assault craft loaded with black clad Azami marines and their vibro blades and combat shotguns.


He was going to have to ask ComStar if they knew anything more, he was going to have to ask if Black Jack was descended from Rim World Republic citizenry if this was turning into some kind of Jihad esque periphery revanchist murder hobo fest. The truth was he was afraid of the answer. He blew out a breath silent to the broader command within his helmet. His command couldn't afford for him to be afraid of the details. They needed to hit the targets by the numbers. That was the mission. Fjaldr... maybe they'd go to Ward check on the Capellans, maybe not but the pirates could not be allowed a foot hold.


His vision swam for a minute as the mind machine interface maybe picking up pieces of sub conscious queries populated, maybe it was just Dante piping early telemetry... maybe he had even forgotten that he had requested the data as soon as the telemetry populated forward. Fjaldr first, Fjaldr first especially if these guys thought they were RWA. "Dante," He said queuing his throat mike, comming the AI on a private channel, "I need a data comparison run, and I need it done quietly," He said. "I need to know if the pirates are just rabid murderers or if they're actually trying to run the Rim World playbook for burning out resistance." Did Black Jack have a bigger game, it seemed like there was more going on here... and he hated not knowing what he didn't know. He blinked, and outlined what he needed done... and he knew they didn't have enough information. Black Jack had come in from the Lyran-Combine border a decade ago now? He had bunked in Tortuga supposedly but they didn't really know much, not enough.


He was glad that they had a ways before he'd be needed in the cockpit of his Marauder for actual combat operations. The navy boys would get their part of the game, he had time for the headache to fade before they dropped. In the mean time he needed to check in with the Aurigan contingent, and call up Bardiche. Probably better to call Sorenson after he spoke with their official liaison... maybe the Royal Guard captain, but the High Lord was probably too busy making his own preparations.

 

[Imperator Pax]

Pirate Wars II
Part 7​

There was a whirr from a machine tool.


A series of voices trying to be heard over the din.


The work crews were scrambling to accommodate the movement of BattleMechs in preparation for planet fall. The work on this DropShip was no doubt mirrored across many others. She had heard, whether or not she was supposed to, that the Azami Light Horse Regiment were comprised of men who were to be settled on some planet far in the rimward periphery originally for its protection. They and their families were being escorted out that way, before things in the Coalition had turned bad.

Victoria Espinosa longed to be in her Catapult. She bit down an impatient groan... but the planet fall was still seemingly forever away. Battle was forever away while they were in space. When she wasn't on the ground, and under the sky. The fact that Kaga was a K2 meant her attachment to the force had been pushed down on the orders, which she also somewhat resented. If Kaga had had Jump Jets it would have been different, and if she had been piloting a standard C Catapult she would have had a place with the others of the model aboard Easy Company's roster of missile boats serving as on call 'mech based fire support.


That would have probably been the safest place among the 'mech forces according to her aunt, but Victoria wasn't exactly looking for safety in a mech cockpit. At least she was here, Kamea had been left behind on Coromodir.


From their grumbling there were 'mech warriors who hoped to continue the fight as opposed to being assigned long term garrison duty... to which Victoria could all too keenly empathize with. This was after all likely to be her only chance to see combat for a very long time unless things became that much worse, and they were going to be the ones on the offensive this time.


It was why she had been so insistent that she be allowed to take fire and steel to the enemies of the Coalition, to the enemies of Coromdir.


There was a sudden crackle from the intercom as the speakers came online, "All personnel be advised Braunfelds has arrived in from Zenith, assault Flights should stand by as we make approach to orbit."


An Assault Flight was a flight of Heavy ASF, two fighters, escorting a small craft gunship. Three of those were paired with Assault DropShips and aimed at security in orbit ahead of planet fall. She didn't fly so the only detail the twenty year old Victoria particularly cared about was that it meant they were beginning the maneuvering for final approach. That was confirmed as there was a break in the announcement, no doubt time to let the flyers get moving, as the following announcement informed all senior ground staff to prepare for the final assembly ahead of the drop of the first wave onto Fjaldr.

She wouldn't be a part of that first wave, but would instead be liaising as the off load of tanks and BattleMechs arrived via DropShips that had roll on roll off abilities.


--
Gene flipped through the system data filed in from the computer even as the machine around him reverberated from the gravity of the planet. He'd been alarmed at the number of 'mech warriors who didn't follow protocols and safety procedures during the down time with the Davions. It hadn't occurred to him that much of his original Luxen command had been doing the same. That the fact was most of the procedures he was going through were redundancies insisted on by Hegemony Commands aimed at preserving pilot life, and were also expectant of having the resources of Earth and her core worlds to support those efforts...


Material was short so in the Succession Wars people just made do. It wasn't just that of course, some of it was just the lack of institutional knowledge, but also some of it was that machines were no longer the standard mass produced weapons of war that BattleMechs had been in the early 28th​ century. Machines were now subject to frequent and generational modifications to keep them working. The machines which survived the succession wars and continued to fight were robust, and capable of taking that punishment but developed quirks along the way.


... and he'd also made the mistake of looking up the estimated rates of literacy. Say what one would but the with a French style of Compulsory Education at least the Taurians had managed to keep its percentage of people who could read and write up there despite the difficulties imposed by the end of the Star League and the eruption of the Succession Wars. Fjaldr was one such world that had largely slipped through the cracks as funding, and resources on the ground in the form of personnel had dried up over the succession wars.


Like Aquagea Fjaldr had once been apart of the Capellan state during the era of the Star League. As a hundred points of light comprising the first line of the dropping force began to be enveloped in the heating atmosphere, Gene mused that he could easily have woken up here on Fjaldr near Tibolt Refinery City as he could have on Aquagea.


It was a detail that forced him to change, that changed his operational calculus. Dante agreed. It was too much of a coincidence that Black Jack's forces had been trying to fold Fjaldr's clans into their ranks given the amount of metal that they could risk assuming that the pirates didn't know something was up... that something was down there buried in the earth from the war.


He blew out a breath as Dante piped in the transmission as Lord Tamati attempted to give the pirates one last chance to surrender before the real shooting started dirt side. He didn't expect it to have any result, but Tamati had a pretty big stick on display with the meteor shower. Dante was unimpressed as his addition to the command software tossed forward a handful of images. "More of them." He muttered against the open mike to the AI.


"Affirmative."


Gene bit down a curse. "Paint it."


"Already done." The Highland Machine Spirit replied as the map coordinates and targeting coloring was assigned to the shark marked machines.


"Is there something else?"


"I have read your after action report," It wasn't really, but it was a summary of what had happened just for his own internal reference, "Of what was on Pioche."


"You think those Chargers down there are the same?"


"It is possible, perhaps even probable."


He flipped through the images... Amaris should never have been allowed to buy as much machine tooling as he had... but should was a waste of time and breath to complain about. "Tell Hammer to move to have our pickets expecting fast movers," Gene wasn't stupid, he understood to some degree he was or could will himself invisible to sensors even if he didn't properly understand it, but a charger for its conventional load out flaws was a functionally effective rough and tumble melee machine if it could get close. "And go ahead and pass this along to Magi." They had been in talks of expanding Hammer's authority to a larger armor formation once they returned to Davion space, but had still made the controversial decision to leave most of their armor formation back on Coromdir.


The thing was there were enough Phoenix Hawks with the Azami that they could... and the Arkab legions did run whole companies of 'Hawks admittedly usually equipped with flame throwers or small lasers in place of machine guns. They had made the decision to leave Bardiche on Coromdir with the bulk of their armor as a precaution to if the pirates attempted a second run. He doubted they would, but doubt was not the same as being sure. I hadn't been a difficult call to make not with so many of the Azami machines being equipped with Jump Jets and having orbital free fall qualified pilots.

A digital return flashed across his screen as one of the volunteer Combined Arms Groups acknowledged the updated target package. So far as he understood the Azami were going to produce the DroST versions whenever Alamut became able to support those, produce other weapons... and probably hire themselves out as mercenaries in the periphery were possible so they could pay for what goods they couldn't produce.

"Hammer-Actual Command." The Friesland native called in disrupting the holographic battle table of the Azami, as the armor officer moved to query the most recent status update.